Page 87 of Psync
Eli and Haruka were on their way back to their building at the end of the day when Haruka finally asked the question Eli had been dreading.
“Only a blind moron would be embarrassed by you.”
“Are you afraid of people thinking you’re gay?”
“No more than I’m afraid of people knowing I’m short and bipolar. Whatever this is, whatever we are? This is all part and parcel of being me, and I’m done with being ashamed of being myself.”
“Then what is it?”
Eli sighed. “I don’t like the attention.” He tugged hard on his hoodie strings. “You’re fucking beautiful, Haruka. If everyone knows I’m dating you, I’m going to get dirty looks and hate mail and who knows what else. And everyone is going to be watching us. If you don’t mind, I’d like to ease into it instead of jumping in with a massive splash.”
“People were paying attention to you before you met me.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I watched you.”
Eli nudged Haruka with his elbow. “Stalker.”
Haruka’s lips curved into a half smile. “Hn.”
“You’re lucky I seem to be into creepy guys.”
“Only this creepy guy.”
“One of you is more than enough.” Eli let his arm slip around Haruka’s waist and snuggled into his side. When Haruka dropped a kiss on top of his head, he didn’t protest—he was tired of fighting the desire to wrap himself around Haruka just because he was afraid someone would see.
It was dark. No one was watching. He could have this small moment.
Chapter Thirty
Eli
The staring thing turned out not to be a figment of Eli’s imagination.
“What am I looking at, Alice?” Eli stared at Alice’s phone in horror.
“It’s a forum for the campus, mostly for bored people who like to gossip, but they also post pictures, or in your case, pictures and videos.”
“I didn’t post these!”
“Neither did I, Eli. I swear. I only put one picture on the club Facebook page. I don’t know how someone got these shots of you.”
“I thought no one else saw Eli like this,” Haruka said to Alice with an edge to his voice.
“I didn’t think they had,” Eli also said to Alice, pointedly ignoring Haruka. “How many people are in this forum?”
“Um . . . let me check. It says 6,547.”
“That many people saw this video?”
“And the pictures, too. Possibly more if people shared it.”
“That’s almost a third of the student body!”
Eli hadn’t worried much about the looks he’d been getting until someone came up and asked him out while Haruka was walking him to class this morning.
It hadn’t gone well for anyone. The guy was upset because his shoes were ruined. Eli was mad at Haruka for throwing the guy in the pond, and it seemed like Haruka was mad at Eli for daring to exist in front of other people.
