Chapter #10Mutually Beneficial by: rugal b.   Despite the logic your brains keeps trying to employ your hormones are, at the moment, the strong force. You push away any thoughts of just letting her go and make the decision to try and introduce yourself. "Hey, I'll be back in a minute," you say to your friends as you stand up.
"Huh? What do you have to do that's so urgent," Caleb challenges.
"I just remembered something, okay," you reply as you head off in Jelena's direction.
Thankfully the cafeteria isn't as crowded as the place you were at last night so it's easy to get through. A part of you does muse, however, on the possibility that having to fight your way through a throng of people there has made you better at navigating a system like this. Despite whether or not there's any reality to that belief, you do manage to catch up to Jelena before she can get back to her friends. You call out to her and she takes a moment to acknowledge your presence.
"Hello yourself," she replies coolly and in a tone that makes it more of a question than a greeting. The way she looks at you only reinforces that.
"I, um, was at the show last night," you say nervously trying to break the ice. "I didn't know you were in a band or anything but I just wanted to tell you that you guys are pretty good."
This causes a slight drop in her guard. "Well thanks, I suppose," she replies. "So is that it?"
"Oh, uh, well I talked to one of your bandmates last night. K.C.," you tell her.
Jelena's expression becomes more inquisitive at that. "You talked to... oh," she says with realization. "She said Umeko was there with her cousin who's a guy who goes here."
"You know Umeko too," you ask before realizing that's a dumb question. "Well yeah, if she knows K.C. then she probably knows the rest of the band. But yeah, that's me. I'm Will."
"Yes I figured that; and you know my name already as well," she says. Her expression softens considerably though the inquisitiveness of it remains. "So I'm guessing you didn't just come to tell me you're a fan. No, you probably came..."
She trails off for a moment and the inquisitive expression changes to one reflecting amusement. "I get it," she finally says.
"Get what," you ask in confusion.
"I'll just tell my friends I have to step out for a little bit," she answers without really answering.
"What, what are you even talking about," you cry out though it falls on deaf ears as she's quickly off and back to her friends. You watch her talk with them for a minute or two before she comes back towards you and past you, grabbing your arm in one smooth motion. Not really sure what her train of thought is, you're able to do little more than follow behind her and out of the cafeteria.
* * * * *
Eventually you stop at an outside walkway near the cafeteria that isn't quite as traversed as the indoor hallways. "Alright so what even is going on," you ask once Jelena finally lets go of you.
"You want to know about K.C. don't you," she asks bluntly.
"I... what," you reply and then try poorly to play it off. "N-no! I just... I really only wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed the show! Honest!"
"You're very transparent, you know that," she asks.
You let out a defeated sigh. As usual you're making an ass of yourself. "So how'd you know my name," you ask.
"Bad short term memory I take it," she replies and that slightly mischievous smile returns. "I told you, K.C. told me about running into Umeko and her cousin, Will. It wasn't hard to figure out who you were from there. So, because your short term memory is so bad, let's start again. You want to know about K.C., right?"
You groan and slump back against a wall. You feel like both a tool and a dork. "She kissed me on the cheek! Twice," you suddenly blurt out managing to surprise yourself. "I've been feeling like crap because of issues with my... my ex-girlfriend so that made me feel... I don't know."
You push yourself up from the wall and begin pacing nervously. "Then I saw you guys playing and I don't know anything about any of that music or any music around here but I got sucked in all the same," you state almost breathlessly. "And the whole time I just kept, like, staring at her n-not trying to be a creep but just... she was so confident. I thought she was really cool."
"K.C. is pretty cool, yes," Jelena states.
"So why did she..." you find yourself pausing, "Umeko said she's flirty and that I shouldn't think anything of it."
"K.C. is also flirty," she says. "But it's up to you to decide what you want that to mean."
"What I want it to mean," you ask and then shake your head. "N-n-n-no! I-I don't mean like that! I'm just confused and all!"
Jelena chuckles lightly at that. "Will, it's fine. Do you think I'd be upset if someone had a crush on my sister," she asks. That's one mystery solved you suppose.
"But I don't..." you begin protesting.
Jelena, however, cuts you off. "You do. It's written all over you," she states.
You grumble at that. "But it doesn't make any sense," you reply. "That was literally the first time I'd even seen her."
"And," she asks, this time more rhetorically. "You've never seen or talked to someone and immediately been overcome by that feeling of butterflies flitting around in your stomach?"
You remain silent at that.
"Let me put you at ease and reveal something to you and you can decide to take it how you want," she says. "A month or so back we were playing a gig, one of the first since I'd officially joined the band, and afterwards this girl that my sister knew hung out with us for a bit. She was very petite but had a personality that made her seem larger than her stature. I sat in silence for most of the conversation because I was too smitten to say anything from the very moment I saw her."
"You could have just said love at first sight," you reply.
"But love is something else, something much deeper," she says in return. "A crush is something like a caterpillar. It may turn into love or its existence may end in any number of ways before that can ever occur."
"Do you get this deep with everyone?"
Another light chuckle. "It's just how I am," she answers.
"But I guess. what you say does make a certain amount of sense."
"Of course it does," she replies. "Again, you wanted to know about K.C. right? I don't think I can tell you. You only get to know someone by spending time with them."
"What are you saying," you ask.
"What I'm saying," comes the reply, "is to come to our gigs. Make yourself a known entity. If we offer you to hang out with us, take us up on it. That way you can work out who she is, how she might feel, how you feel."
"You... you don't even know me. You'd let me hang out with you?"
"We might, it's always good to have people around," she states. "Though I'm going to admit there would be a self-interest angle on my part. Someone I would very much like to see more of myself."
"Someone?"
"Give it some thought. It should be obvious," she replies. "I'll let you ponder that for now. See you around."
As Jelena walks back to the cafeteria you give it some thought and then it finally dawns on you: Umeko. She was talking about Umeko. Jelena Petrovic has a crush on your cousin.
* * * * *
A name floats atop the runes carved into the metal strip: William Martin Prescott.
As school let out, you had texted Caleb about wanting to check out the book so you met with him at the Clubhouse. There, you looked at the next spell and with some effort were able to translate it. The list of materials was definitely odd though, pooling your resources, it wasn't much hard to find or acquire. The pair of you set to work carving the needed runes and whatnot into the metal strip and, when done, pressed it to your head.
You awoke to what you now hold in your hand. You press it to the book and the page turns and you get the English explanation on the back of the page: a band that copies the mind of the person whose name appears on it. The next page is easier to translate and requires use of some of the leftover material to form a paste that you use to affix the strip to the inside of the mask. Neither you nor Caleb need to the English version to know exactly what that means.
That's when your struck by your conversation with Jelena at lunch. She has a crush on Umeko and has suggested you come around both so you can learn more about her sister and so she, in turn, can learn more about your cousin. But with what you now hold in your hand, even that wouldn't be necessary.
No, instead you can talk to Jelena and try to sell her on this crazy idea of magic being real. If you can do that you can then try to sell her on the even crazier idea: use these masks and the knowledge they would contain to, essentially, swap bodies. You become Jelena for a few days, she becomes you. It would make things much easier and you'd each be helping the other out big time.
But would she even buy it? Would she go with it? She might think you're crazy or a disgusting pervert. You also find the idea of being a girl, especially someone you've only just really met, a tad bit weird. As you go over it in your head you start to wonder if that actually is a good idea and if it's better to just do things the old fashioned way.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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