Chapter 4: Last Week

7:45 AM - Friday, Week 1 March, 2019

Arjun was beginning to think he didn’t actually have powers — that he’d just imagined the whole thing. Three days ago, he’d suddenly started seeing the world through someone else’s eyes — literally. Since then, he’d been trying everything to make it happen again, consciously and voluntarily. Nothing had worked.

He sat on the bus, straining every combination of muscles, and boring holes into the backs of each passenger’s head in turn. He’d taken a late bus, just so that it would be less noisy and crowded. He also didn’t want any of his classmates thinking he was a weirdo.

He was getting frustrated and angry. It was one thing to never get powers. It was another to get them — or to think you got them, at least — and then be unable to use them. Like everyone else, Arjun had dreamed of getting them. Now he imagined them dangling off a stick or a branch, just out of his reach, taunting him, having released a single, sweet drop of nectar onto his tongue so that it was all he’d ever think about.

_RINGRING

Meera: Babe, where are you?

Arjun: Sorry, left home late. See you in 4min.

Meera: MMmmmmmmmmm

Arjun: I promise

Meera: 😒whatever

Arjun: I love you_

For better or worse, Arjun’s angry girlfriend could make him stop thinking about superpowers — at least for a little while.

Meera was — as Arjun would often call her — a fun-sized ball of craziness. She wasn’t crazy in the psychotic-girlfriend-with-many-different-emotions way. No, she was the protective, happy, hyper, bubbly and sometimes overbearing type of crazy — the type Arjun liked. Meera was around five foot two inches; the two inches were important to her. She was proud of them. She always corrected people who got it wrong — well, at least if they suggested she was shorter.

Arjun and Meera always met up in the morning before class to ‘talk,’ which was code for making out. But from time to time Arjun would be late, and Meera didn’t like that one bit. She never held it against him, but her infamous pouty, angry face always made him worry.

Arjun pressed his head against the window of the bus looking outside, watching a peculiar blue bird flying with the bus. The bird was small — very small — and didn’t seem like a creature that would be willing to travel so close to a moving vehicle, much less a bee-line bus. Arjun swore it was looking him in the eye. Arjun would have found that merely strange, except that it was the second bird today that seemed to be spying on him. Earlier, it had been a red one.

He stared at the bird, which stared right back. Arjun thought the bird had been watching him, like a spy of sorts. However that thought didn’t linger for much longer, Arjun conceded to the odd bird. His thoughts wandered back to his feisty girlfriend.

I’m gonna die.

‘-’ ‘-’ ‘-’

“What the–”

Arjun’s power activated again. This time, he was seeing the side of the bus driver’s face from the perspective of a child.

What kind of stupid power is this? Is it ever going to let me have control?

Arjun tried to make his vision go away, shaking his head. It didn’t work.

“UGHHHH!!!”

His power stayed active for five more minutes before it ceased.

“There’s someone new among us,” a tall, brownish-blond-haired man said, lifting his face from his wife’s soft, lush, bountiful breasts.

“Yeah? Who?” the wife asked, straddling her husband’s lap.

“Don’t worry, you’ll see him soon enough,” replied the blond-haired man, curling his lips, bringing his face back into his wife’s breasts. He motorboated them, relishing how perfect they felt against his face.

“Meera,” Arjun called out, following closely behind his angry girlfriend. “Come on, you know I didn’t mean to be late.”

“Hmm.”

Arjun kept following the fiery Meera as she stomped her feet down the hallway, walking down the staircase. A smile slowly appeared on Arjun’s face. It was cute to see her angrily walking away. It also provided him with a great view of her curvy bubble butt. Arjun called out her pet name, Mimi, trying to get her to stop.

“Don’t you dare!” Meera stopped, turning around in the same motion, pointing her finger at Arjun. “I’m mad, and don’t try to sugar me up. You always do that. Stop it.” Her chubby cheeks pouted as she stared at him.

Arjun used Meera stopping as his opportunity to grab her, bringing her into a tight hug. Her hot forehead reached the bottom of his lips; he pecked it with kisses. She struggled in his grasp for only a moment or two before giving in.

She pretended to be annoyed by the act, though secretly she enjoyed the hug and the kisses. Arjun’s body was comfortingly warm, and the forehead kisses he gave were the cherry on top. It made being angry at him difficult. “I hate you,” she said lamely.

“I know.” Arjun planted another kiss on her forehead, a much longer one, making his girlfriend blush.

“Don’t freak out,” a feminine voice called out in Arjun’s head.

“HUH?!” Arjun jumped.

“What?!” Meera asked, raising her thick eyebrows, confused by Arjun’s sudden outburst and movement.

“Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Someone saying, ‘Don’t freak out.’”

“Are you doing drugs?” Meera asked, narrowing her eyes at Arjun.

“What?! No.”

“Uh huh,” Meera teased, bringing her head down to Arjun’s collar bone. “Keep hugging me, or I’m gonna stay mad.”

“Told you not to freak out,” the voice called out again. “Calm down, before you freak out again.”

“If you are calm, say ‘yes’ in your head.”

“Yes?” Arjun kept holding on to his hug with Meera.

“Good!” The voice said in a cheerful tone. _”I can’t talk for long, but, seeing as how you’re struggling to use your powers, I’ll give you a few tips. You can control the powers you have by focusing on that sharp feeling in the back of your head. You also need to make eye contact, or make a Link with the person you’re going to use it on.

“Think back to how your powers worked the first two times. There was a sharp feeling in your head — or a string-like feeling — where it kept getting stronger while you were peeping on your neighbours, until finally something felt like it snapped and the power got triggered.”_

“Wait, how did you know about that?!”

“I — we’ll tell you later. Goodbye for now.”

“What the fuck?”

“Aju!” Meera yelled, “Let go, I need to get to class.”

“Oh, sorry Meera,” Arjun said, snapping out of his thoughts and releasing his girlfriend.

“I’ll see you in math class.” Meera tippy toed to give Arjun a kiss on the lips. “Bye!”

Arjun said bye to Meera, giving her butt a firm slap before watching it flex and jiggle as she ran up the stairs.