Page 14 of Psync
When he stood, Haruka stood too, towering over him, his face serious and not looking remotely like he bought Eli’s act.
He might need convincing to let Eli leave here alone—or perhaps not. Eli was nothing to Haruka. Just an annoying kid who’d slammed a shopping cart into him and irritated him during a class.
Eli considered the situation and what he knew of the man. He was smart enough to be put on stage during orientation, but self-absorbed enough to all but ignore the responsibility once he got up there. His expensive clothes and painfully good looks gave more evidence to Eli’s theory of Haruka being self-absorbed.
He should be fairly simple to shake. Especially if Eli got clingy.
He was revolted at the very idea. Even if there was some tiny part of him suggesting that not being alone right now would be an excellent idea. Even if there was another, louder part of him that kept remembering how warm Haruka had felt when they were so close earlier.
Chapter Six
Haruka
The beautiful moron was about to bolt. It was as obvious as the panic attack the poor idiot had been suffering through.
Only he wasn’t actually an idiot, was he?
The first time Haruka saw Eli, he’d been surrounded by a flock of geese. He’d watched in amazement as the boy sat eating a sandwich, surrounded by a swarm of birds that were clearly about to attack. When he’d finally looked up, Haruka was struck by enormous turquoise eyes that had gone from studious to alarmed between one breath and the next.
Any smart person would have thrown their food and made a run for it, but instead, the kid stuffed his sandwich in his mouth and started packing up his things. He appeared to be in a hurry, but not on the level ofabout to be torn apart by wild birds. It was more like he was trying to dodge a clingy girlfriend.
Haruka had been torn. Should he help the idiot out? Survival of the fittest was a thing for a reason and right now it looked like the only thing the boy had been blessed with was a lovely face. And he wasn’t going to get to keep it much longer if someone didn’t do something.
“Eliiiiiiiiiii!” A voice sounded in the distance.
The boy’s shoulders stiffened, and he abandoned trying to put his things away neatly. Instead, he grabbed everything in a big pile and ran, right through a narrow opening in the flock of hungry geese, right past Haruka, and in the opposite direction of the guy shouting his name, now running down the hill startling the flock into taking flight.
The guy got to the bottom of the hill and looked around, trying to find his prey. Haruka pointed in the opposite direction Eli had run.
“Thanks!” The guy said and ran off in that direction.
Something silver glinted in the grass, and Haruka went to investigate. It was a pen that had an engraving on one side. It read:Happy 18thBirthday, Eli!
Haruka slipped it into his pocket.
The boy had never even noticed he’d been moments from getting his ass kicked by a flock of birds.
The next time Haruka saw him, it had been at the store. A commotion had caught his attention, and he watched as a dark-haired boy plowed through an aisle of people, causing several to dive out of his way. The entire time, the boy never looked up from the cart he was rummaging through as he walked.
As he got closer, Haruka was certain it was the goose boy from earlier.
Haruka couldn’t help himself. He purposefully planted himself in the boy’s path, wondering if he would actually run him down, or if he would come back to reality in time to stop.
Either way, Haruka would get a chance to see those striking eyes again.
When the cart crashed into him, Haruka barely felt it. The boy was too small to do any real damage. But he did get to see those eyes again.
It had been worth it to watch them go from dreamy, to shocked, to angry as Haruka teased him. The boy’s eyes actually shifted color as his mood changed. They went from light turquoise to sky blue, until settling on a stormy ocean blue.
As Haruka drove back to campus, it occurred to him that he should have given the boy his pen back. It didn’t, however, occur to him to wonder why he was carrying it around everywhere he went.
Over the next few days, Haruka had watched as the boy stumbled, tripped, and generally half-assed his way through campus. It really was a wonder the boy was still alive. And it was even more of a wonder that Haruka thought about him at all.
Haruka wasn’t here to make friends. He was here to find something. And to get a stellar education. As long as he could ignore certain unwanted interruptions, he would be perfectly happy with his current situation and the small number of people who already hounded his day-to-day life.
But, for some reason, he couldn’t ignore the enigmatic eyes of the campus moron.
Then his friend Bryan had not-so-casually told him about the kid whose entrance exam scores had blown Haruka’s out of the water.
