Chapter 9Boy

School, both interesting and boring as always, plagued my senses relentlessly for most of my spare time. Homework, practical assignments and of course friends from school, distracted me quite thoroughly. It was a bit of a pity as it became more and more difficult to do my other studies. Something else interfered as well.

I kind of fancied a boy, more or less.

There weren't many guys that I found interesting, nor many girls to be honest. While I wasn't doing too bad in the making friends department, almost none of them was very important to me. Of course it was still fun to spend time with them, especially talking about complete nonsense, and hug them on occasion. But unlike many of my peers, I did not just kiss anyone when I got drunk or otherwise.

But one of the boys one year below me had a strange aura around him. It wasn't that he was dreamy or particularly bad-looking. Fading away into the background most of the time, but somehow... part of things. There were rumors about his background, that he was adopted by a rich family paying for his studies. He wasn't part of my class, but some asking around confirmed he was at least intelligent, if not very noteworthy.

Just a student?

Of course I kept my interests subtle. He was one year below me and I didn't want any more rumors about me to go around. The whole 'witch' thing kind of got out of hand, with people asking me the strangest things relentlessly, no matter how much I even stated I could do no such things. Most annoying was some of the strange fan-girls I got that Willow was really hot and they wanted in on it.

But I hardly practiced anymore. While I definitely kept on studying (in varying degrees depending on homework), it felt better not to do anything in public. It was tempting though, to have power and not use it. But the prices for power were high.

So this guy, this boy.

He was almost invisible to the other people. He didn't get bullied nor did teachers appear to ask him things in class (or so I was told). And yet... I had the impression that there was something important about him, almost as if he could make himself be unnoticed whenever he wanted to. He reminded me of someone, so I decided to talk to him.

"Hi."

He looked up. "Hi?"

"Matt, right?"

"I guess. What's up?" There was something odd about his voice, a timbre that I didn't understand.

"Want to hang out sometime?" It felt somewhat uncomfortable asking him, it wasn't like I liked him or anything.

"Why?"

I blinked, this wasn't supposed to happen. "Why not? It's fun."

"Sure, I guess." He just shrugged.

Again it took me a moment to adjust to his attitude. "Tomorrow, at seven, Clive's?"

"Yeah, sure." He just looked up at me, expecting me to take the next step.

"See you then!"

I tried to sound cheerful as I walked away, it all felt a blittle forced, the buzz of conversation not a blanket as my feet carried me through groups of students all about. There was still something weird about that boy, something I couldn't quite put my finger on. Even while talking, there was a feeling of dissonance of reality.

My mind was coming up with the strangest terms to explain it, moving from something terrible in his past to actual power he may not be aware of. Unless he was, but that would make him very dangerous to see. This made me make the mental note to at least use some spells of protection for the next day, to prevent bad things from happening.

Protection spells were actually one of the most 'harmless' spells to do. Their energy did not result from your input, but it was merely a change of base state. What fueled them was the things you tried to protect yourself from. For example, the magic of a curse would be turned against the curser if the subject was protected, costing no energy of the subject itself.

Balance, reflection.

I wondered what I was getting myself into.