Thoughts form before they are translated into words. Of course there might be discrepancies, and certainly lags. The latter is dependent on many factors, from circumstances to the character, but the former is just a false impression, because any change along the way can't come without a change in the original thought.
Whatever the case, even when I can't hear what Elijah is saying with his friend at the edge of the training area, their thoughts, focused on me, feel like they are being broadcasted.
I can feel both his gaze and his… slight infatuation. Too much information… much more mild discomfort, because emotions are even clearer in the mind than outside. If I could, I would have chosen to be a psychologist as a part-time job. I would just get people to lie down and talk to them. After all, I have mind reading, the wet dream of not just psychologists.
Sigh… What a pity!
'Alright, stop looking already, Elijah. I don't think you have any chance.'
Brown-haired, calm, apparently outgoing. That is the young man in the midst of talking and joking with Elijah, and right now, teasing him. Though he doesn't mind, and he smiles without taking his eyes off me.
'And what do you know?'
I slow down my assault on Emmie. Unable to focus on her, I decide to neutralize her threat and be done with it once and for all. I catch her hand and direct her arm to the side, making her body follow under the inertia that caught her off guard. Before she can react, she has gone from facing me to lying down on my chest, with her back to me. I lock her with my feet around her thighs, my left arm around her neck and my other hand holding her right one behind.
"You…"
Not only is Emmie shocked, Elijah and his friend raise their eyebrows.
'Not bad.'
'Right?'
My lips twitch at Elijah's… I can only call it pride. What does my ability and talent have to do with him to make him feel that?
'Indeed. I know that you are interested in her. Though younger than is, the blonde is different from other girls I have met, with an attractive presence. However, keeping your heart away from disappointment is the way to a long and happy life. Her disinterest in you, or anyone around for that matter, cannot be more obvious.'
I can feel Elijah's discomfort, though he tries to hide it.
'Pfft. What do you know?'
His friend smiles, apparently not fooled by his appearance. He does not point his true feelings out, but he continues to drive home his point.
'I may not know much, but at least I know that she does seem interested in you. If anything, just looking at her and the red head, I would say you have more chance with the latter.'
'Yeah, right. You seem to have been looking at her. Don't think I never noticed.'
'Who can resist such a figure?'
Far from being embarrassed, the brown head candidly acknowledges his interest. But unlike Elijah, his interest is more about lust than feelings. The heat in his eyes, restrained as it is, is no less unlikable than the gazes of the hormonal schoolmates of Emmie and I.
Elijah glances at him and laughs.
'It is my turn to break it down to you. You have no chance with her either.'
'Tch. Anyway, who knows. They might actually be a couple, those two.'
Elijah pauses, surprised.
'Like, lesbians?'
He looks at us and tries to spot clues while pushing down the bidding disappointment that flashed past his mind. As for his friend, he crosses his arms with the same displeasure of those whose egos have been bruised after being rejected by a girl.
'I wouldn't put that past them. Didn't you see how close they are? Lesbians, overly intimate friends, girlfriends. None of that seems impossible. Damn it! What a waste!'
Emmie taps my arm around her neck at that moment to pull my attention back. At some point, more gazes have fallen on us, especially as Emmie's collar has slid open during our scuffle and left her undershirt exposed.
*Clap* *Clap* *Clap*
"Alright, everyone, you have warmed up enough. Get ready to start."
Elijah, being the gentleman he is, claps to get the attention in the hall. I free Emmie and she immediately distances herself from me to glare at me and adjust her training garb.
I don't pay the troublemaker any mind. She was the one who started everything. I instead look at Elijah. If not for the circumstances, I don't doubt that I would have found him attractive. A part of me still does, but that part is unable to make me return to how everything was before the accident, my coma, and those memories. If anything, that part is battling with the mold discomfort accompanying it.
Catching my gaze, Elijah smiles at me, before turning his attention to the crowd he is standing before.
I adjust my garb too, and move to the novices' side with Emmie.
"We will start by reviewing the moves we practiced last time first. In position, everyone! One!"
If I had mind reading in the life whose memories came back to me as echoes of the past, I would have chosen a path other than management, and even as a manager, I would have thrived even more.
"Two!"
Thoughts, feelings, sensations, and so on. Everything can be found in the mind. It is both the start and the end point of everything, the command and control center of the body.
"Three!"
An impression, a feeling when the body is moved in one way or another, the sensation when a pose is struck, when muscles are pulled some way or another. Locking onto that makes it easy to mimic the moves, to remember them, just as learning in class has become easier.
"Four!"
Elijah moves among the lines we have formed, checking the execution and correcting those that must be. Passing by my side, he nods in satisfaction, before he glances at Emmie. He corrects the angle of her foot and the position of her arm, then glances at me again, with his smile a tad deeper, before moving on.
"Five!"
Though I lean toward learning more than to defend myself, the martial art I'm starting with along with Emmie is rather defensive, a bit like aikido, the Japanese arts in that other life. My ease in learning pretty much everything, while in part due to my own good brain, makes my mind wander.
If mind reading can propel me so high and turn me into more of a genius than I have ever been, what about the others out there like me? Even Tyne, as lowly as he is, does not lack academic success. So, what about the others? What about those behind the accident?
If they are a group, just how many elites will be inside? How fearsome it is, a gathering of minds like that? Maybe they can dominate the world!
"Hehe… Max, the assistant coach seems to be interested in you. He is quite handsome. Are you feeling moved? Proud? Will you ditch me or do you want to invite him for a threesome?"
I breathe in deeply to resist the impulse rising in me, and force myself to ignore Emmie's mischievous smile. Because of her, I just lost the thread I have been following in my mind.
I don't even need to read her mind to feel her deepening masochistic tendencies flaring up. I breathe again, but inside, I swear, I will satisfy her and make her libido fall down straight into the negatives next time.