Chapter Text
Tomorrow is Gun’s eighteenth birthday, so it’s no surprise he’s being teased about it.
“Aren’t you excited to get a power tomorrow, dude?” Pat asks, flinging an arm around his shoulder.
“Holy shit, I almost forgot. I hope it gives you the voice of an angel. Then we’ll get a million views on our YouTube videos,” Win tells him as he uncovers his lunch and takes a bite.
It was an urban legend; getting magical powers if you turned eighteen without ever having been kissed. Something people would snicker about when they were four years off from said birthday in the locker rooms before sports days. It wasn’t anything serious, and Gun never treated it like it was.
It never even claimed to give people cool powers, either. Nobody ever woke up with the ability to fly or walk through walls or lift a car with one hand. That would just be too badass. And too convenient. Though the lack of anecdotal evidence could be attributed to shame as it could be to it simply being a tall tale; still, it wasn't a stretch to find the latter more likely.
His band also prays to a stuffed animal, though, so he's not really sure where to draw the line.
“First off, I already have the voice of an angel,” Gun starts, directing a finger to Win, before gliding it over to Pat, “And second, how do you even know I’m going to get powers? You don’t know that I haven’t kissed anyone.”
Pat squints. “Have you?”
Gun pauses, loosening his shoulders. “No,” he mutters, “But it’s not real anyway. Yo turned eighteen last month and zilch. He didn’t get any powers.”
“Well, that’s because I—" Yo pipes up before closing his mouth abruptly.
Everyone directs their attention towards him, a profound silent stare. “Because you…what?” Gun asks, breaking it.
“Nothing,” Yo answers quickly, shoving food into his mouth.
“You mean you—!” Por exclaims, grabbing his bicep in a grip that looks almost painful.
“Who the hell did you kiss?” Gun practically yells, earning side eyes from surrounding tables. He makes an apologetic gesture before turning back to his friends.
“No one!” Yo says back defensively, “It doesn’t matter! Forget I said anything. Gun’s right, the powers aren’t real!”
Gun is about to question further, but is interrupted.
“Seriously, it’s bullshit. I can’t believe people believe that.” Sound mutters, the first time he’d spoken in fifteen minutes.
“You just hate fun,” Win accuses, and Sound gives him a glare that could cut glass.
“Or I hate when people make things up,” Sound responds, “If it were true everyone who has ever turned eighteen and not had their first kiss would say something about it, but they don’t.”
“Maybe it’s just a lucky few who get it,” Por suggests lightly, “Like some sort of divinity!”
“Hardly sounds divine to be a loser who’s never kissed anyone,” Sound suggests resolutely as he takes a bite of his lunch, looking off in disinterest.
Gun sits up and sticks out his chest, slightly wounded, “Hey!”
“Yeah, and how many people have you kissed, asshole?” Win raises his voice to Sound, turning to him and trapping Por in between.
“None of your damn business!” Sound turns to him, sticking a finger up, and suddenly they’re trying to get at each other, a hand grabbing a collar, Por’s shoulders stuck on either side of their torsos.
“Hey!” Gun shouts, landing his hands on the table. “Knock it off, will you? Let’s change the topic.”
Win and Sound pause mid-almost-punch, Por hunched over with fear in his eyes. Slowly, they let go of each other and return to their seats, and Por sits up to adjust the ascot he’s wearing. “Scary,” Gun hears him mutter.
“No more bringing it up, especially not tomorrow,” Gun declares, “Agreed?”
Pat, Por, and Yo all nod in quick succession, leaving Win and Sound to join hesitantly after.
“Good,” Gun says, sitting back and eyeing the bag of seaweed snacks that Pat pops open. “Wait, can I have one?”
—
Gun doesn’t feel any different waking up and being eighteen.
He still wants to be a singer. He’s still not very good at chemistry. He can’t obliterate anything Hulk-style (and he does try, slamming a fist down into his pillow only to be met with its soft give and a hollow thump sound.) It’s just like any other day.
He sighs, nods, and gets ready to go to school.
He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little disappointed, to not be awoken to find that he possesses the sudden ability to shoot lasers from his eyes. Maybe he reads too many comic books, but he thinks the decision to withhold that from him is a bit cruel.
Aside from that, though, he’s more preoccupied with the sturdy handful of things he’s usually preoccupied with. It’s a Tuesday, just like the one before it.
Once he’s done getting ready, he makes his way downstairs. He shouldn’t be surprised by what awaits him there, but he still jumps slightly when his mother appears from around the corner of the cafe stairs.
“Happy birthday to you,” his mom starts to sing from behind a bowl of porridge and fruits, topped off with a sparkler candle that’s shooting off glittering specks as it burns, tucked in between a 1 and an 8.
“Mom,” He tries to interject shyly, but she shakes her head and sings with more ferocity. He feels a smile tug at his mouth.
She finishes off her song and holds out the bowl to him. “Go on,” she urges.
Gun hums and shuts his eyes, thinking up something to wish for. A million hits for Chinzhilla. Abundant new customers for the cafe. Literally just passing chem. He hesitates only a moment before including something to be proud of. He blows out his candles.
“Happy birthday, troublemaker. I love you,” his mom says affectionately, lowering the plate between them to lean in and kiss his temple.
Pay the garbage today, flashes through his mind. It’s a thought that barely forms before it’s gone, and he’s looking at his mom smiling at him and holding up his special breakfast once more.
Weird. He didn’t know they had to pay the garbage man today, at least, he didn’t think he did. But he’d paid it when his mom was out on a few occasions, and subconsciously he might’ve remembered that it coincided with his birthday this month.
“Thanks, Mom. I love you,” He takes the bowl from her hands to go sit it at the table. “By the way, is the trash bill collector coming today?”
He watches as his mother frowns, glancing to the side in confusion, “Yes? How’d you know that?”
Gun shrugs, “You must’ve told me.”
“Really?” She looks a bit off-put by the suggestion, but in a moment the face settles away, “Well, don’t worry about it. I’ve got a handle on things. The last thing you need to think about on your birthday is boring adult stuff.” She says it with a stern finger but a wide grin.
“Right, I should be thinking about fun adult stuff,” Gun jokes as he pulls the candles from his porridge, “Since I’m one year closer and all…”
“Mmm,” His mom hums jokingly at him, “Why don’t you finish high school first, hot shot?” She comes over and wraps her arms around his shoulders from above, hugging him tight.
He’s growing up so fast. The thought intrudes on him and echoes in his head, and when his mom’s arms pull off of him, he feels like the thought gets yanked out of him with it.
“What’d you say?” Gun turns to ask, because she must’ve said it out loud on accident. Moms do that sometimes. Let the internal monologue slip.
“Huh?” His mom looks at him funny, “I said ‘why don’t you finish high school first’. Are you too busy thinking about your fun adult life to listen to your mom now?”
Gun feels his face fall, eyebrows pulling together. “Not that! The other thing.”
“What are you talking about?” His mom cries with a light chuckle, “That’s what I just said!”
“Nevermind,” he mumbles, “I must be hearing things.”
“Eat your breakfast, huh, birthday boy? You don’t want to be late for school,” she lays a hand on his shoulder and squeezes. Hope he’s feeling okay. He gets stressed on his birthday ever since—
And then nothing, static, the thought cut short as his mom’s hand falls away and she walks over to grab something from the other side of the café.
What is going on? He takes a spoonful of his porridge but the feeling in his chest makes it hard to swallow, even though it’s delicious, like everything his mom makes is. He felt like he was having thoughts that weren’t his own, like there was a gas leak getting into his head with words.
It wasn’t a stretch, the thing about his birthday stressing him out. After his dad passed away, he found the day a lot harder to celebrate. He tried not to show it, but every year was just a reminder that he didn’t get to see him grow up. Didn’t get to see him become the best version of himself (at least, he vehemently prayed, if that version was yet to come.)
But he wouldn’t have consciously thought that himself; he buried it good and tight anytime it materialized. It was present, somewhere, but he wouldn’t have just— it felt like his mom’s words. It felt like her thoughts.
But that’s impossible. It’s not like he can read her mind. He must be really tired. His brain’s all over the place and making him think he’s hearing things, or maybe he’s just really in tune with his inner psyche today. Maybe being eighteen did change him, and now he’s just more emotionally aware than ever. He’s not sure he likes the idea, but it shakily explains the strangeness nonetheless.
He shrugs it off. The porridge is too good to let it go to waste.
“Do you have any plans after school?” His mom asks from over by the counter.
“Well, I guess the band was supposed to practice some songs…” Gun tells her as he chomps a banana slice.
“But you aren’t?” She questions. “Taking a birthday break? That doesn’t seem like you.”
“No, I mean, I can’t think of anything I’d rather do with my day than play music,” Gun answers with a small smile. “It’s just, I have the chemistry test in a couple of weeks, and after last week I didn’t want to-”
“Hey,” she interjects gently, “I told you not to get discouraged over that. Grades aren’t your whole life.”
Gun slips his spoon in and out of the porridge without taking a bite as he responds, “I just want to feel like I can give the music my all with no distractions.” It’s only half-true, but he doesn’t need to tell her that on top of everything else, he also doesn’t want her to have to see another big red circled 10/25 on his paper. He changes the subject, “And the other thing I can’t imagine not doing on my birthday is eating your delicious food.” He beams at her around another mouthful.
“Kiss-ass,” she hums affectionately.
“Love you too,” he rings out, finishing the last of his food and standing, swinging his backpack over his shoulder. “I’ll see you later.”
—
He really thought things couldn’t get any weirder, but arriving at school and being ambushed by his friends was a lot like getting hit with a ten-ton truck.
“Gun!” He hears behind him at first, and right as he turns, it’s all five members of his band running up on him, chinchilla-style blankets on their heads and all.
“What the hell are you—" He starts, before the remaining blanket is yanked over his head, covering his eyes for a moment before he pulls his head down.
“Happy birthday, buddy!” Por cheers, and then Gun is at the center of a circle hug, everyone wrapping their arms around each other and, ultimately, around him.
So many voices start running around through his head it almost makes him nauseous.
He feels like he’s in the center of a small crowded room where everyone’s talking at once. It’s like catching strings of conversation, snippets of thought.
Who smells? Maybe it’s the blankets, they’ve been tucked away for a while. Fuck, Yo’s elbow is digging into my rib. Gun’s birthday! Woooo!!!! I really want BBQ pork. Maybe Gun will let us have some since it’s a special occasion. Music video. Song. Song. This is stupid. But also fun but stupid. Have to write an essay. BBQ pork. Gun seems surprised, the plan worked. Thank you Por. I’m a genius.
“Guys!” He cries out desperately, wiggling until he’s free, “Stop talking so damn much!”
His brain only quiets down when all of his friends have released him. Everyone is giving him a strange look when he finally comes back to Earth, steadying his breaths. Everything feels deafeningly quiet in comparison now.
“Huh?” Pat looks at him, eyebrows arching all the way above the rims of his glasses. “Gun, all we said was happy birthday.”
Gun is almost pissed off now. Were people just lying to him for fun? Maybe it was an elaborate scheme to mess with him on his birthday. Like a prank. “But you— one of you just said you wanted BBQ pork!”
Por frowns, his chinchilla-covered hands sagging. “Oh, I didn’t think I said that out loud.”
Everyone glances around, Sound’s eyes finally landing on Gun. “I didn’t hear him say that.”
“Me neither,” Win says, and now Gun’s really worried, because if Win is agreeing with Sound about something, then it must be true.
He’s sure his face shows the absolute turmoil that’s going on inside him, because the mood shifts as Yo laughs and tries to cheer him up. “Hey, maybe you just want BBQ pork so much you thought about it yourself. When’s the last time we had it, huh?” The answer was last week, but that wasn’t important right now.
Yo’s fuzzy gray hand lands on his shoulder, and Gun thinks he’s about to collapse. Gun looks a little pale. He jerks his shoulder. “I’m fine! I’m good!” He says too abruptly, and Yo looks at him with wide eyes. “I just… need to use the bathroom. I’ll catch up with you guys later!”
He turns to go, but a hand tugs on his wrist, “Hey, wait!” Win starts, and as Gun turns, he feels we haven’t given you your gift in his head, but Win’s mouth doesn’t move.
He might actually puke if he stands here for one more minute. “Later!” He blurts, reclaiming his wrist, “Give it to me later!”
He turns and storms off, not before seeing five of the most stupefied faces he’d ever seen aimed in his direction.
—
With his Chinzhilla blanket shoved into a pile on an empty table, Gun sits against the wall and tries to breathe.
Something is definitely wrong. He can’t figure out what, precisely, but it’s making him feel insane.
Everyone is acting like nothing strange is going on, but he knows what he’s hearing.
Or not hearing. He can’t deny the way Win’s voice had shot through his mind earlier, and yet, his mouth had very plainly stayed shut.
It’s official. He’s broken and bonkers. Maybe he’s a musician cliche after all.
No, he thinks, sitting up and grabbing his Chinzhilla blanket in a mighty grip. There has to be an explanation for this.
The possibility thunders in his head, and regardless of how outlandish it may seem, he has to put it to the test.
He hauls his way over to the printing desk. A woman behind it sifts through folders with a bored expression, raising her head when he approaches. “I sent in a file, could I have it printed, please?”
“Sure,” she says, walking over to the computer, “Name?”
He tells her and she clicks a few buttons. The large printer behind her starts making its characteristic noises. The truth is that the file was the lab report he already had a copy of, but this was about potential supernatural phenomena, not trees.
“Anything else?” She asks as she slides the printed report out to him, contactless. He has to come up with something else. He notices the glint of a pretty charm bracelet on her wrist and grabs onto her hand.
“Um?” This is what she says verbally, but Gun hears it loud and clear in his own mind. What on earth is this guy doing? God, please don’t steal my bracelet, it was my grandma’s.
“Sorry,” he says, letting go quickly and making an apologetic gesture. “I like your bracelet.” He grabs the second copy of his report and makes a mad dash in the opposite direction.
Once he gets his bearings, sitting on a bench and glancing over the paper mindlessly (he still doesn’t get it, but that’s something he’ll have to deal with later), he comes to a logical conclusion.
He got his eighteenth birthday magic.
—
He decides the best course of action is to not tell another living soul about this.
His friends would’ve been the first people to know if he had gotten one of the aforementioned cool and fun powers. (Seriously, imagine him singing while invisible. That rocked. What kind of power is mind reading?) Telling them about this one would just put everyone around him on edge, afraid of being intruded on by the typically impenetrable barrier of their private thoughts. He felt bad enough knowing that he could even do it unintentionally.
So for now, no one but him has to know that he’s suddenly superhuman. Maybe it would go away on its own.
First kiss, he thinks miserably. That was the rule, wasn’t it? If it’s true that the magic comes like this, then it has to ring true for how to get rid of it. He’s shit out of luck, then. He’s got nobody to kiss.
He gives thought to asking one of the guys to just suck it up and give him a peck for the greater good, but then he wonders if in reality it’s something a little more princess-and-the-frog-like, and he’s doomed unless the kiss is one of true love or something. This is already so ridiculous, it wouldn’t surprise him if none of it was just that easy. He also doesn’t find the idea of kissing one of his Chinzhilla members on the mouth particularly enticing; he knows where they’ve been.
And it would also require him to explain himself beforehand, and he’s already decided this is best kept secret. He’d just have to try his hardest not to touch anyone, and then it would be all smooth sailing from there.
—
The problem is, Gun doesn’t realize until this very moment how much he actually touches people.
Suddenly, it becomes undeniable. A bump in the lunch line turns into a vision in Gun’s mind of a girl from physics class or indecisiveness about what to eat. A friend from class gives him a shoulder clap and he suddenly knows a little too much information about the way he most definitely just cheated on the exam he had this morning.
It’s funny, really. Deep down he thinks he was always a little preoccupied with what people thought of him; if they liked his music, if he was impressive, if his parents would be proud of him. But now that the truth could very well come to light, now that he could easily know what someone truly felt about him just by touching them, he thinks he would rather not know. Maybe ignorance is bliss, after all. He’s thinking what’s happening to him is more curse than magic.
Getting cursed for never having been kissed is also a bit discomposing, but he would just have to take that part with stride. It’s not his fault. He’s just never had anyone in front of him he’d felt the need to kiss (even that way of putting it felt off— not felt the need to, but had the desire to, but he’s just not quite there yet on understanding the difference.)
He’s only eighteen, anyway. He can worry about people to kiss when he isn’t focused on being the best possible frontman for Chinzhilla and barely passing a handful of classes. At least, that's what he would've thought.
Lost in thought, he’s brought back to life again when he’s ambushed for the second time today.
Two arms wrap around his shoulder, a waft of Hope he’s feeling better, he was acting totally out of it this morning, and Let’s go before they run out of the good stuff going through him as Por and Win pull up to his side, the rest of them not far behind.
“Gun! Finally. We thought you might’ve gone home or something earlier,” Win tells him, “Doing alright?”
“Never better,” he answers, and he can feel Win’s unconvinced aura all over him, but he’s at least kind enough not to say it to his face, shrugging and nodding as they shuffle him to the lunch tables.
“Good, it would suck to be sick on your birthday,” Por comments as he unhooks his arm, and Gun’s relief is short-lived as Yo takes his place.
“So, you’re sure that you don’t feel any different?” He wiggles his fingers. “Not…supernatural at all?” The voice in Yo’s mind, however, speaks keenly: Not that I would know whether the legends are true or not after what happened with Nook, but that’s–
Gun slides away, dodging the rest of it as he gapes at Yo, holding back the exclamation of what! that threatens to slide past his lips. Instead, he bites it down and says, “I thought we agreed not to talk about that.” That sneak.
Yo holds his hand up in surrender. “Okay, okay, guess that’s a no.”
As they sit down, Gun is finally released like a gust of air from the confines of hearing the little murmurings in the back of his friends’ heads as they take their own seats.
“You may have already guessed,” Pat says airily when they’re all settled, “But we got something for you.”
Sound unveils an envelope from his jacket sleeve, sliding it across the table until it’s in front of Gun. “Don’t let anyone here fool you, this was mostly my idea. They wanted to get you a magnet.”
Gun looks up, looking around among his members, “Like, what kind of magnet?”
“Open the damn envelope,” Sound tells him curtly.
Gun grins to himself as he goes to open it, practically manhandling the laminated paper inside as he unfolds it to reveal a poster.
The poster is an advertisement for an upcoming music showcase in the city, calling all rock-n-rollers who want the chance to be on a livestream to pitch their songs and perform them. It seems that the date to sign up has passed, though. He lowers it in his grasp to look at his bandmates. “What is this?”
“A music showcase that we may have sneakily signed up for two weeks ago so that we could surprise you with it on your birthday,” Por says with a menacing grin.
“I sent them one of our YouTube videos,” Sound supplies with an even tone, “And we got in. Happy birthday, you’re so welcome.”
Gun feels a gleeful smile spread across his face, jumping up to hug them, mind-reading be damned. He ignores it as best he can, catching only a few snippets of glad he likes it, thank heavens they actually accepted the audition, but we had the magnet just in case—
As he pulls away, he stays standing and looks down at the poster with a smile. The band knows how much he’s been wanting them to perform on an actual stage again. But he’d also been saying… shit. Slowly, his smile falls.
“What is it?” Win asks.
“It’s just–" Gun starts, fiddling with the corner of the poster, “Remember how I said I didn’t want to do anything that would require too much time commitment while my grade in chemistry was so low?”
His band members glance at each other, and hell, if he could find the excuse to touch them, he could figure out what they were all thinking—that he’s out of his damn mind, probably—but that wouldn’t be fair. “Right, but… how did you do on the last lab?” Pat asks.
Gun frowns, a flash of shame going through him. “Um. Not great.”
He knows his bandmates are surprised that he’s not dropping everything to throw them into getting ready for a music showcase, moreover that it’s one they signed them up for with him especially in mind. Typically, he really would. He didn’t give a damn about chemistry in the long run, he cared about music. In his heart, this is all he wants to do, but practically— it’s just, he’s worried about his mom, and he knows she’s worried about him, and it’s just a big mess of worry.
“Our next big test is in two weeks, right?” Pat pipes up, seemingly conjuring a plan.
“Yeah,” Gun murmurs, waiting to follow him.
“And the showcase is next month,” Sound supplies quietly.
“So, in theory,” Pat says, “If you pulled a really good grade on that test out of your ass, your average would go up, and we could spend the rest of the time preparing and still go to this showcase.”
“Right,” Gun says, getting his logic but not any of the supposed execution, “But like you said, I’d have to pull it out of my ass. How would I even do that?”
“Get a tutor,” Por answers with an expectant face.
“Yeah, but who would be willing to tutor me?” Gun asks, defeated, “You guys are doing better than me, but could you teach me how to do it?”
“I think I know someone who could help,” Por says, raising his hand slightly, “We could go ask him?”
“Right, it’s done then,” Win announces, “Let’s find Gun a tutor and get him to this showcase.”
Gun smiles, shaking his head at them, “So your actual birthday gift to me is making me study. This is a real winner, guys.”
—
“I am not just some genius with no hobbies or extracurricular obligations,” Tiwson explains with a mildly pompous air about him, “Who says I have room in my schedule to help all of the weary chemistry students?”
Gun rolls his eyes at the exaggerated face the student council member is wearing—clearly pretending to not consider it for fun.
“Tiw,” Por says in an almost sweet tone that, to Gun, is frankly a bit shocking to hear, “Please? If you can’t do it, do you know someone who can?”
Tiw chews on the inside of his cheek, squinting. Gun thinks if he touched him and tuned into his head right now, he’d hear nothing more than elevator music.
“I may know a guy for the job,” Tiw says mysteriously, “If your friend thinks he can handle him.”
Gun puffs his chest up, “Bring it on. Who?”
—
This is how the student council president ends up in front of him.
Well, not exactly. The actual entrance is a little more staggering and a lot more stressful (for Gun, at least.)
All six members of Chinzhilla wait in the student council office patiently as Tiw fishes around the back for the president in question. He can hear a back-and-forth high-strung murmuring, vastly loud despite the actual silence in the room. They’d been back there for almost seven minutes, and Gun’s starting to get annoyed.
He’d seen the school president most days last year, spoken to him enough times to count on one hand since then. He wasn’t sure what to make of him. He was quiet, for one, and he was the principal’s son, so that automatically made him more stuck up in Gun’s mind. Still, he never appeared to have a problem with anyone or get anyone into trouble. That, at least, seemed noble. And he was known to be a model student, in the sciences especially. So really, as much as it may have been taxing him to admit it, he could use the guy’s help.
“That’s it,” Gun says then with finality, “I’m going to see what the hell they’re doing back there.”
He marches over to the door of the back room of the office, just about to swing it open and say his piece, when instead he finds himself crashing face-first into a shoulder.
“Woah, where the hell-” He starts, before realizing that he hears something.
Shit shit shit they’re here, he’s here, standing right there, what do I do, what do I say—
It’s also around this time Gun notices that Tinn, the school president himself, had been the one he bumped into, and in a dash to stabilize him, had been grabbed by his forearm. Tinn’s thoughts are not only entering his head, but they’re strong ones. Loud, swirling, evoking soft colors. It’s intense. Gun raises his head, looking Tinn properly in the eyes for the first time.
Gun feels a thought flash in his mind that’s something akin to a cartoon arrow bursting through a heart-shaped bubble.
He’s even cuter than I remember.
Gun blinks.
Oh god, I need to say something, I’m making it weird. I’m touching his arm!
A sudden intensive focus on the sensation of the fingers wrapped around Gun’s arm, accompanied by angels singing.
I need to let go. I’ve been holding it for too long. Oh, but I don’t want to! He’s looking at me like I’m crazy now. I need to—
Tinn lets go of Gun’s arm, clearing his throat roughly. “Sorry,” he tells him in a calm, even voice, so vastly different from the one Gun just heard in his head that he could almost convince himself it was all made up, “I wasn’t looking. Are you okay?”
Asking Gun if he is okay right now is preposterous.
He couldn’t have gotten that right.
There’s no way Tinn was just— it can’t be. He's defective, no doubt. His magic is unreliable. All of this wasn’t even true. He’s partaking in mass hysteria.
“Um-” Tinn starts hesitantly, an uncomfortable expression on his face. Gun thinks he has some nerve.
“No, it’s-” Gun begins to say quickly, before recalibrating and trying again, “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“Good,” Tinn says, and there’s a monumental silence for a grand total of two seconds afterwards that is then filled by Tiw reentering.
“I believe we have some negotiations to make,” he says, ushering Tinn forward. He almost touches Gun again in the process and Gun flinches back, moving to make sure there’s enough space. He hopes it’s not noticeable, but it can’t be helped. He feels like he just severed several nerve endings. “Right this way.”
Gun walks back over to his band members with a boulder lodged in his stomach.
“My friend Tinn here has agreed to tutor Gun for the next chemistry test,” Tiw announces boldly, and while the rest of his friends erupt in happy cheers, Gun stays silent. He’s severely dumbstruck, and he can also hear the impending but.
“However!” See, he was close. “He’s only agreed to it on one condition.”
Gun’s friends quiet down slightly, looking around at each other. “What condition?” Win asks.
Gun watches as Tiw shoves a shoulder into Tinn’s arm, coughing comedically loud. Tinn makes a face of squinted-up discomfort, like he’s looking at something he can’t understand. That makes two of us.
“Well, it’s just–” Tinn stops as his eyes land on Gun, his speech catching. Gun swallows, trying with everything he can to forget what just happened in that doorway, “There’s that ballroom dancing test coming up. In phys ed. I don’t have a partner for the test, and I’m not good at dancing, so…”
The unsaid declaration hangs in the air until Tiwson claps a painful-sounding palm into Tinn’s shoulder. “Tinn’s trying to say that he’ll do the chemistry tutoring in exchange for Gun to be his ballroom dancing partner. That way, they can both pass.”
Gun swallows as he sees all of his friends turn to him in his periphery.
“Seems simple enough,” Pat observes.
“Fair exchange,” Yo declares.
Everyone seems to be on board, and Gun’s sinking on a lifeboat.
Ballroom dancing meant touching. For extended periods of time. It was an inherent feature of the activity, hands on hands and around waists. Ballroom dancing with Tinn meant—he feels like he’s going to pass out.
“I can’t do it,” Gun croaks out. Everyone’s faces go a little wide-eyed in surprise, including Tinn’s. He swallows again. “I mean, I can’t— I’m not even that good at dancing either.”
Tinn shakes his head lightly, “I’ve seen you practice in class. You know all of the steps.”
Gun turns to his friends for refuge, but they’re no help. They’re equally lost.
“Gun, just teach him to dance,” Sound says to him with a gritted murmur and a telling glance of I shouldn’t even have to tell you this.
“Right, if it means you pass chemistry in the end, then who cares? Everyone wins.” Pat reasons.
Gun clamps his jaw to keep himself from shouting, to keep himself from saying I actually have the power to read minds now and if I accurately read Tinn’s back there it could mean my entire world just flipped upside down.
“Come on,” his friends beg, “For the showcase!”
The last thing he needs is to disappoint his friends after they went through all the trouble to do this for him. He’s not ungrateful, but he’s certainly terrified.
He nods slowly, “Alright.”
His friends holler their approval. “That’s settled then,” Tiw claps, “Tinn and Gun will start their mutual tutoring tomorrow. Everyone’s happy. Shake on it.”
Alarm bells start going off in Gun’s head.
Tinn extends the hand and Gun stares at it. He knows he can’t avoid it, but the prospects are shaking him to his core enough to consider it.
Looking too much longer will be suspicious, so he rips the bandaid and grasps the awaiting hand.
I’m touching his hand! He hears in his mind, a voice of the butterflies-in-migration variety that is unrecognizable from the placid expression on the boy in front of him. Then, as though there’s a movie projector behind his eyelids, a scene: Tinn and Gun in the school gymnasium, but alone with no one watching, their hands clasped not unlike they are now as Gun mutters, Can I have this dance?
Gun yanks his hand away a little too fast. “Okay. That settles it. See you tomorrow.” He feels like something is stuck in his throat as he turns to gather his friends and get them out. He pauses just once on the exit stage left, feeling like he at least owes him a “thank you.” He mutters it and keeps it pushing.
He’s already partially out the door when he hears the school president call out to him, soon enough to hear it but too late for Gun to be able to respond. “Oh, Gun! Happy birthday!”
—
Of all the ways he might’ve imagined topping off the end of his birthday, this was probably the last scenario he would’ve pictured.
Lying on his back in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about the school president.
He knows Tinn, obviously, in a way. They’d been classmates, and they’d had to go to him for approval on a few music club technicalities, but he isn’t a particularly talkative person. And whenever Gun saw him, he seemed to carry himself like making eye contact with somebody would make him explode.
Or maybe it was just him. Maybe that's just how he was around him.
He runs his hands across his face at the thought. He has to be misinterpreting it, right? Tinn is astute, rigid; he must be just like his mom. The thoughts he’d heard in the student council office didn’t line up, unless– unless he really doesn’t know anything about Tinn at all. Or unless his magic is defunct.
He has half the mind to fully accept that option. Tinn couldn’t possibly see Gun like that, all heart-eyed fireworks display surprise at the simplest of touches. Gun hadn’t done anything for Tinn to deserve that kind of admiration. He doesn’t think he’s ever done anything for anyone to deserve that kind of admiration; otherwise, why would he be sitting here now, hexed for being kissless?
Part of being a musician is admiration; a huge part of it, actually. In Gun’s wildest dreams, he has a crowd in front of him, singing along to his songs, and there are faces in that crowd that he cares about more than anything and he’s really singing for them. He’s grateful for every single one of them but, somewhere, there are faces of people that love him and are proud of him in a way only they can truly understand. That kind of admiration was the one he craved, but it was one he had to earn. It was one his music had to earn. He can’t figure out how he could’ve earned it from Tinn.
It keeps replaying over and over in his mind. A heart-fluttering fixation on the fingers that touched him, a vision of a shared dance laced with veins of romance. Things he shouldn’t have seen, but did nonetheless. He doesn’t understand how or why, but somehow, sometime, he’d caught Tinn’s eye. (It’s not unwelcome. It’s just– it’s sudden. He doesn’t know– he isn’t sure.)
Now he has to see him every day for the next two weeks, with no way of stopping the intrusion into the other boy’s mind every time their hands touch to practice their dance.
He buries his head in his pillow. He’s not going to make it.