According to my Observations - 1. Story

According to My Observations

By Young Sage

The dude had anime hair.

I always hated that. Anime hair, I mean. It’s so physics-defying. They’re practically lethal weapons concealed by exposing them to the public. Two and a half bottles must go into maintaining their poses every day. Plus, what self-respecting dude would grow the amount of hair needed to pull off such a thing? It jets out a foot from their skulls, yet never goes down further than the neck. It’s unnatural.

Still, even with the hair, he wasn’t bad on the eye. On the field, he could run circles around the other dudes before kicking the ball into the net. You can’t be a couch potato and be able to do that at the same time. It wouldn’t hurt to just stab all the opponents with his hair to make things easier for him. Maybe that’s why he didn’t. He wanted the challenge. Or he saw it as free exercise. No point in joining the gym if you’re just going to run the equivalent of three miles in twenty minutes.

What I also noticed from my observations is that, even with his running ability, he still allowed the other dudes on his team to get in on the action. He didn’t try to steal all the glory from them at all. He probably could’ve taken both teams on at the same time and still beat them, but he instead let his teammates score goals and steal the ball away from the opposing team just as much as he would do by himself. He was a team player, and he didn’t let his ability or his pride get in the way of that. According to my observations.

He went to my school, was in some of the same classes as me, and talked to me occasionally. We knew each other by name. Have for quite a few years. The dude was nuts about his favorite sport. It’s practically all he ever talked about. Occasionally he’d catch himself, apologize for rambling on and on about something I was only politely nodding my head to, and ask how I was doing. That would put me on the spot. I’d blush, try to willfully suppress it, which would only make me blush harder, and try to push something out of my mouth. I’d notice afterwards that my hands would be sweaty after these kinds of encounters. Why he never caught on to the fact that I had a tremendous crush on him, I’ll never know. The clues seemed pretty obvious to me.

Sometimes I wonder if he ever saw me sitting there on one of the park benches, watching him play a match with the other dudes. I, of course, had long since memorized his schedule, and knew when he’d typically go out and play with the dudes. It was all due to my observations. He looked in my direction a couple of times, but I don’t know if he saw me for sure, or was just glancing around at random.

Sometimes, at night, when I’m in bed, I think about him. Intimately. I imagine that he is in bed with me. We are having a sleepover, or maybe he’s just part of the family by now. My parents accepted him just like they would accept me if I ever told them the truth. My bed can’t possible accommodate two people, but we don’t care. It just gives us an excuse to be as close as physically possible to each other. He wouldn’t mind about the Gundam 00 poster hanging on the wall, nor the fact that I’m as skinny as a rail. He wouldn’t be turned off by the fact that his thumb and middle finger could wrap around my forearm and touch each other easily. He wouldn’t care that my clothes are from Wal-Mart and several years old. Definitely not “in” anymore, not that they were ever “in.” No, he would just be glad that he got to spend the night with me again. We’d be dressed down to our boxers, huddled close underneath the blanket, giving soft kisses to each other while intermittently giggling like a couple of lovesick schoolgirls. It would be a pleasant fantasy to have before going to sleep.

I read online once a website catered to guys like me. I had already heard about the “one in ten” rule before. This site claimed that the percentage was actually a lot less. It claimed that the number could very well actually be more like “one in fifty.” It even backed itself up with some serious looking research articles, none of which I could make sense of. I felt a lot worse about my chances with him after that. Before, I thought the odds weren’t that bad. I knew a lot of guys in my school, so the odds were that a couple dozen of them were just like me, maybe in the same situation I was in. But after reading that site, only about four or five of them would possibly be like me, and the odds of him being one of those four or five are less than the odds of being hit by lightning.

I tried distancing myself from him after that, but found it to be more difficult than I had anticipated. We really didn’t see each other outside of class (except for his games, but he really didn’t see me during those times). I couldn’t stop seeing him in class due to assigned seating. I was already pretty unresponsive to him during the times he talked to me, so it wasn’t like I could be MORE unresponsive. And though I tried, I couldn’t get myself to stop going to his games. Remarkably, I still found myself sitting on the benches, watching him run circles around the opposing team, willing myself not to cheer and give myself away every time he scored a goal. I still analyzed all his movements, resisted smiling every time he smiled, kept my mouth shut to keep from calling out his name.

He’s done now with his game. His team is cheering, so that means they won. His spiky, anime hair is matted down some from all the sweat, making him look somewhat more normal. He is celebrating with his teammates, congratulating the opposing team for a good game. He looks my way and sees me. I quickly look down to my notes, pretending to read. When I look up again, I see that he is walking towards me. I have been found out. Finally, after all this time of hiding in plain sight, he sees me.

“Hey,” he says. “Fancy seeing you here.”

He smiles. He sees someone he talks to (but doesn’t talk back to him) at school, so why shouldn’t he?

“Hi,” I say back, barely above a whisper.

I refuse to make eye contact with him. I know that if I do, he’ll see everything. The wanting. The yearning. I look around him, past him, to the other dudes on the field, picking up their stuff as they head home.

“You come here often?” he asks.

“Not really,” I lie.

The feeling suddenly hits me. It surges through me. I can feel it originate in my stomach and travel up to my throat. I almost open my mouth to say something, but I react in time to keep it closed. But the feeling won’t stop, just like how the water doesn’t stop flowing from the tap even when you plug your finger up the faucet opening. I can feel the urge to lift my eyes, slowly going from the players on the field to his left arm. I try to stop it, but my sight just goes up to his sleeve. I notice the pit stain from all the work he’s put in to the game.

“Hey. Is something wrong?”

I see his neck, his Adam’s apple. It bobs up and down as he swallows. Vaguely, I can hear the sincerity in his voice as he speaks. Finally I can bear it no more and see him eye to eye. I take in his entire face. I lock in and am unable to break free. He has light brown eyes. I never knew that.

The odds are stacked against me. One in fifty. Well, another one in fifty since I already took up the first fifty. It should be impossible. It probably is. I’m stupid for even considering the glimmer of hope. I cannot take my eyes off him. The feelings…the fantasies…

“Hey,” he repeats.

Why? Why now? After all this time? Why do I feel so compelled? He sees it in me. I can tell. He sees something trying to get out. I’m trapped. I can’t get out of this. I can’t run away. He’ll hunt me down until I confess. I know. It’s from my observations.

…There’s no going back from this. I won’t be able to rewind the clock so that he doesn’t see me. I find fear and comfort in that glimmer.

I see his eyes widen ever so slightly, like he was surprised or startled.

“Are you…?”

© 2010 Young Sage

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