Psync by Zile Elliven

 

Chapter One

Eli

Hot. It was hot and it was sweaty and it was godawful in the crowded auditorium. Eli’s modest stature wasn’t doing him any favors as he fought against the stream of students pouring into the stagnant, overfilled room. After an elbow to the face and thoroughly stomped on feet, it was increasingly clear returning to his dorm to retrieve his forgotten folder wasn’t happening.

He’d just have to make do.

With a sigh, he turned himself around to go back to his seat, which of course had already been filled with another, smarter freshman’s ass. One who hadn’t forgotten the information packet.

So instead of getting a seat up front where he could see what was going on, he was going to be stuck in the back—probably behind a ridiculously tall person whose sole job was to take up as much space as possible, so people of modest and very respectable heights were unable to see anything useful.

At this point he was ready to take any seat as long as it would get him out of the river of sweaty students he was currently trapped in.

Oof!

He’d reached the bottleneck where several rows met and was lifted right off his feet.

Hotcloseawfulhelp!Wrong!

Then hands were at his elbows pulling him out of the crowd and into an empty seat.

“Buddy, you okay?”

Eli looked up dizzily into a boyish set of friendly gray-green eyes and blinked. His attention was snatched away by a piece of paper folded into a fan flapping furiously in his face.

“Of course he isn’t okay, dork, he almost got trampled.” The fan wielder was a girl with her hair pulled back into a ponytail so tight it made Eli’s eyes water in sympathy. Her shirt had a blue, pink, and white flag emblazoned across the front.

The morning had started out so well. He’d left his room with plenty of time to spare and a song in his heart. He’d finally made it. The shadows in his mind were mere whispers in the face of this accomplishment.

Not only had he made it to college, but he’d made it to one with a good language program and on a scholarship to boot. Which meant every dime he had saved could go to living expenses. For once in his life, he could focus only on studying.

However, his wonderful mood of the morning was gossamer in the face of being manhandled by half the student body on campus. At the moment, he’d be proud if he could simply manage to catch his breath.

The fan waved faster in his face, and Eli used it as a focus to bring himself out of his head. It was dark in there, and sticking around was never useful.

“I’m Alice, by the way.” The girl’s voice was softer than when she was talking to her friend.

“And I’m Nate. Alice, get that thing out of his face.” The boy pushed Alice’s arm back.

Eli realized distantly that Nate was leaning back from him, giving him as much space as possible. On Eli’s other side there was a nice, safe wall. In front of him, instead of a row of seats, there was a set of railing. He found that there was air in the auditorium after all. “No, it’s okay. It’s giving me something to focus on.”

For a minute, he allowed himself the simple luxury of breathing. Once he was positive all the air in the room would stay where it was supposed to, he unfurled from the ball he’d curled himself into.

“Better?” Nate asked, the worried crease between his eyebrows fading.

“Yes, much. Thanks, I—” What little blood had made its way back to his face drained away again.

Holy crap. He’d just gone full-on nonfunctional in a group of complete strangers on his first day of college. Which was, of course, the one thing he’d been afraid of most. Score one for stress bingo.

Well, at least he’d gotten it out of the way.

“Sorry about that.” Eli managed weakly. Perhaps they would turn out to be nice people and allow him the option to pretend it never happened?

“Don’t worry about it.” Alice poked the fan toward him. “Take it, I can make another.”

Eli took it gingerly. Any second now, he was expecting them to give him the cold shoulder after his freak-out.

“Seriously, man, it’s okay. You don’t have anything on my mom. Once when I was ten, she had a panic attack at the grocery store. I had to wheel her back to the car in a grocery cart. My other mom was so freaked out she wouldn’t let her leave the house alone for a week.” Nate’s hand hovered over Eli’s shoulder like he wanted to pat it, but it never landed.

Ah. Looked like today was his lucky day after all. New school, new situation, new people? With his brain, panic was inevitable, and it was hilarious for him to have thought otherwise. No, the luck came from him losing it near the right people when it finally happened.

And with that thought, the rest of the attack drained away, leaving him shaky and giddy in its wake.

“Then thank you. Imagine the embarrassment of snuffing it like that on the first day.”

“Oh, I imagine there are worse ways to go,” Alice said, busily putting the finishing touches on her new fan.

“Like falling down the stairs during a fire drill because you were trying to put on pants?” Nate laughed and elbowed Alice, causing her to drop her fan.

“I didn’t fall down the stairs! And my pants were mostly on. And I didn’t die, thank you very much.” Alice scooped her fan off the floor and hit Nate’s shoulder.

“Sure, sure. And I’ll bet it happened to your friend, not you, right?” Nate snatched the fan out of Alice’s hands and began fanning himself.

“My sister told you that story, didn’t she? I swear . . .” Alice noticed Eli as he did his best to hold back mounting laughter. “I’m sorry, you don’t even know us, and here we are raving like lunatics.”

“Don’t worry about me, I like lunatics. My name’s Eli, by the way.” He nodded in lieu of reaching out a hand to shake, causing a lock of wavy black hair to fall into his face. It made a nice little curtain to put between him and the world, so he let it stay. “So, I take it you two know each other?”

Good. This was good. Instead of translating his favorite songs into Japanese to stay calm, he had actual people to talk to until the assembly started. Lucky day indeed.

“Yep!” Alice said merrily and threw an arm around Nate’s shoulder. “We’ve known each other since kindergarten. Fortunately for him, he got into the same school as me, or else he’d be crying alone in the corner.” She reached out to wipe an imaginary tear from Nate’s face, only for him to shove her hand away.

Eli spent the next few minutes learning about his rescuers. Like Eli, they’d both grown up in the eastern half of the state. They were next-door neighbors and as close as siblings.

Thankfully, neither of them asked him any probing questions like, what’s wrong with your brain, or why are you out without a keeper? Instead, they asked about his family. Talking about his mom and sister were easy topics, and it gave him a safe place to spend all of his leftover adrenalin.

“So, your mom raised both of you on your own and put herself through nursing school?” Alice whistled. “Congrats, Eli’s mom. Mine doesn’t do anything more strenuous than yell at the gardener through the window.”

Eli nodded. He was incredibly proud of his mom. “After my dad died in Afghanistan, she poured everything she had into making sure my sister and I had the life they’d planned for our family. I think it helped her deal with losing him.”

His phone buzzed in his pocket. The name on the screen read Berry. Speaking of his sister Juniper . . .

Berry: Hey jerk, you still alive?

He put it back in his pocket, but it buzzed again before it even made it all the way back in.

Berry: Don’t leave me on read, assface

Eli: I’m talking to someone rn, fuck off

An outsider would think he didn’t get along with his twin, but theirs was a special bond. A bond that involved copious amounts of swearing.

Berry: You made a friend??? I didn’t even have to pay someone!

Eli didn’t bother responding. Juniper had only texted him in the first place to make sure he was okay. Any response other than dear sweet god in heaven send help was a sign he was fine.

He was lucky she hadn’t texted him fifteen minutes earlier when he was decidedly not fine.

“Hey, I think it’s starting,” Alice said, bringing his attention to the stage.

Several people had filed onstage while the crowd waited, and now an older woman in a smart pantsuit moved up to the microphone. She began what Eli was sure was a rousing welcome speech, but before she gotten too far in, his attention was drawn to a young Asian man sitting in a chair on the far end of the stage.

His dark hair was pulled back in a short ponytail, and he was dressed in gray slacks and a white dress shirt that looked expensive even from this distance. But it wasn’t the clothes or the man’s strikingly handsome face that caught Eli’s eye, but rather the way he was looking around the auditorium.

Unlike everyone else on stage, he was slowly scanning the crowd with an intensity Eli couldn’t help but notice. What was he looking for?

“But don’t take my word for it, let’s hear what students from each department have to say.” The woman stepped away from the podium and motioned to a young woman to step forward.

Over the next hour, Eli did his best to focus on what each speaker had to say, but no matter how hard he tried, his attention kept going back to the man at the end of the stage gazing intently into the crowd. It looked as though he was going from face to face. When he reached the row Eli was on, his eyes seemed to linger for a moment before moving on.

Finally, it was the young man’s turn to speak, and he took his place at the podium. For a moment, he stood motionless, using his new vantage point to scan the crowd. Again, his eyes lingered on the area where Eli and his companions sat. A lock of hair had fallen artfully in front of his face. It was so perfect, Eli suspected the man had done it on purpose.

The lady in the pantsuit—who turned out to be the Dean—cleared her throat loudly in an attempt to get the young man to continue.

Rather than chagrin, his face showed mild irritation, but he ceased his search and spoke into the microphone in a deep, confident voice that made Eli’s skin tingle. “I’m Haruka from the Language department. If you’re one of ours, we’ll work you hard, but we’ll take good care of you.”

Huh. They were in the same department.

Eli waited for him to continue, expecting to hear about the heavy course load he’d read about in his information packet. It had sounded like a shit ton of work, but that was perfect for Eli. The more work the better. If his brain was occupied, it was less likely to make him its bitch. But instead, Haruka bowed sharply and went back to his seat.

The room was treated to the Dean looking flustered and rushing back to the podium to fill in the dead space in the program. She managed to hem and haw her way through the first few awkward moments, glaring in Haruka’s direction more than once, until she reached a point where she could close the assembly with a modicum of grace.

Eli’s new friends kindly waited for the auditorium to empty, making it seem like they had nothing better to do with their time than to sit and learn all about Eli.

“The guy from the language department was hot like fire. Eli, your job is going to be to help me achieve contact.”

“Um.”

“Just because you’re both in the same department doesn’t mean he’s your servant, Alice.” Nate grabbed his bag and stood up. “Are you two ready to go? I’m supposed to meet my advisor soon.”

The rush for the door had thinned to a trickle, which made now as good a time as any to leave.

Eli stood and shouldered his bag.

:I must be losing it.:

Eli jerked his head up. “What?”

“I said are you ready to go?”

:This is ridiculous.:

“Um . . . yes?” Eli said in response to both.

He turned to look behind him, but the seats were all empty.

In front, Nate and Alice were bickering pleasantly as they made their way down the stairs.

What the actual fuck, brain?