silver sonder ⤖ ian x jaden

acclimatising

so, back to this frequency illusion. once you begin to notice the occurrence of this particular thing in your daily life, sometimes you begin to seek it out, subconsciously. of course, one could say that you'd been seeking it out subconsciously all along. but in this case, we can call it purposeful, yet... unintentional. anyway. my point is that when you seek out a person, there's a good chance that they'll notice you looking for them.

the next morning, i dragged myself to mr pondrake's office and told him i had made my decision. honestly, it wasn't like there was much of a decision to make. i only had one option. but watching from behind a tree? i guess that was my own choice. i was standing behind it and cautiously peering at the group of fellow teens in front of me - jaden and his friends, they were smoking on the benches. one of the boys was asleep behind the bench jaden was sat on. when jaden realised this, he kicked him, hard, on the rib, causing the other boy to yelp out in pain. the rest of them howled with laughter as i timidly stood there and observed, hoping they wouldn't see me. a few minutes went by and jaden said goodbye to his friends as they left; i doubted they were going to class, but whatever, i wasn't mentoring them. i was mentoring jaden.

speaking of him, the dark-haired boy propped his legs up on the bench and lit a new cigarette. he left it dangling loosely between his lips as he peered around the area. and then he stared directly at me. i felt my heart skip about ten beats. "you do know that i can see you watching me, right?" he said in a laid-back tone. his voice was deep and raspy, and i scolded myself for thinking it to be attractive.

"i'm sorry!" i blabbed, feeling hot red patches creep onto my cheeks as i spoke. "i didn't mean to-"

jaden laughed and took another drag of his cigar. "it's not a big deal." he took his legs down from the bench and positioned them so they were spread apart in front of him and gestured for me to sit down. "come over here, you can get a close-up."

i don't know what possessed me, but i walked over to him. like a fool under a spell, i should say, i walked over and sat on the bench beside him. the fumes of his cigar made me gag and splutter but he didn't seem to care. i buried my head into my shoulder to catch a break from the smell of smoke. "could you put that out, please?"

"you came over to me on your own accord, though," he chuckled. "but sure, anything for you, darling." i watched silently as he dropped the cigarette to the dew-wet ground, then killed it with the heel of his shoe. i didn't think he would actually oblige. aren't those things expensive? "uh, thank you."

he locked eyes with me. he had such a penetrating gaze. it was like he could see right into my head. like he could see right through me. "so, jaden walker..." i began, not quite knowing where to take the conversation from there.

"ian simpson."

i was taken aback that he knew what i was called, to say the least. "how do you know my name?!"

he laughed again. "how do you know mine?"

"i've been assigned to be your academic mentor."

jaden gazed off into the bushes for a moment, not paying any attention to me in the slightest, before looking into my eyes again and saying, "so they were serious about that mentor threat." he pressed his lips into a thin line. "well, lucky me that i get such a pretty boy assigned to mine."

i turned my head away and took a deep breath. was he just being all flirtatious so he could coax me into some sort of elaborate criminal scheme or drug deal? shit, maybe dom was right about him being a dealer. maybe-

"you can accept the compliment if you want, darling."

it's just a silly compliment, i thought. it doesn't mean anything. so why did i feel like my legs were going to give out from under me? in desperate attempts to move on, i whipped out the copy of jaden's schedule i'd been given from my bag and looked for his first period class. "aren't you meant to be in spanish right now?"