Mind Reader - α

Chapter 19 - Laying Low

Since this was the case, I didn't lose any time. I sent a message to Sapik.

["Hey Sapik. Do you want to hang out together tomorrow?"]

As usual, she answered within seconds.

["Sure."]

["Great. Let's meet up in front of the station at 10 am."]

["Alright."]

If I had to guess, these sober answers were her usual attempt at appearing calm and innocent on the surface. We shall see how long her facade lasts tomorrow. I spent the rest of the evening similarly to usual, reading and eating something quickly prepared. Since I was looking forward to it, I went to bed earlier than customary.

Saturday. I took a shower and put on some clean clothes. I wasn't sure what we would do exactly but I guessed there would be at least a part of sexual stuff somewhere along the line. The previous days' happening bought me a specific boon: my wallet was a lot heavier now.

First things first, I went to buy condoms.

'I should try to keep some on me at any time from now on.'

I arrived at the station around fifteen minutes later. I was ten minutes early but Sapik was already here waiting for me. She was also wearing nicer clothes than usual, looking fresh and ready for a day of hanging out together. Her light blue dress and white sandals were a good fit for the warm temperature of early autumn. The weather was great and we were up for a pleasant time.

"Hi, princess. I hope you didn't wait for too long."

("Again with the princess... It's not like I hate it but it's a bit weird. But wait. If I'm the princess, does that mean I'm the same as the princesses in my stories?")

"Hi, Kyr. No, I just got here too."

("Was coming half an hour before the meeting time too much?")

I couldn't help flinching inside at this. I will need to come earlier next time.

"Is there anything you want to do, today?"

"Not really. I'll leave it to you."

("Sex, sex, and sex.")

She was the same as usual but I wanted this to be closer to a normal date if possible. I wasn't excluding that things could happen but we should at least try normal activities. It wasn't so often I had the means to afford to go out. I didn't have much of a plan in mind, though.

'What do normal young people do together during the weekend? I've got no idea.'

I realized I had come here without preparing anything and racked my brain to come up with a decent idea.

'It's too early to have lunch. What else? A movie, perhaps? Isn't that better in the afternoon? Is there anything interesting in this town? Not really. Oh wait, isn't there an aquarium in the city?'

This was information I heard from someone's mind. Another disputable point of being a mind-reader. I accumulated a lot of useless knowledge. Sapik, being the kind girl that she was, has been waiting for me patiently. She knew I had no plans because she was the same. Her only plan was to have sex so she didn't rush me.

"What about going to the aquarium in the city?"

"Oh, that sounds great."

("I went there with my parents when I was six or seven. How nostalgic.")

I thought that would be fine since she hadn't visited the place for almost ten years. Now that our plan was set, we took the first train for the city. It was only a couple of stops from here and we were there soon enough.

I decided to pay for everything today. This would be a much better usage of the gangsters' money and so there was no need to be too conservative with it. Sapik protested a little when I announced this but she didn't push too hard. The truth was she was as poor as my usual self because she spent everything she had on toys and erotic novels. She worried about my finances but I assured her I could at least cover our expenses for the day.

We spent two hours looking around the many fishes and activities offered by the aquarium. It was my first time going to one and it was more interesting than I thought. The many-colored fishes swimming in the small aquariums and the big sharks roaming in the extra-large ones were fascinating. I felt that Sapik also enjoyed herself and thought it was the right choice to come here.

We exited the place to have lunch, eating at a fast-food restaurant in the vicinity. Sapik was a big eater and when she started to eye my fries after finishing hers, I handed my share to her. She initially refused but I only needed to insist once for her to indulge. Her small happiness when eating got transferred to me and it felt soothing, making me want to feed her more often.

After this, I proposed to watch a movie. She immediately agreed, being in a terrific mood. Whenever she wasn't thinking about sex, she would think about the fact that this was like a date, bringing her happiness to very high levels. Even though we weren't lovers, she was extremely satisfied with the current situation. Her warm emotions reached me once more, pushing me to want to bring her even more happiness.

This was also one of the more neutral aspects of my power. I was easily affected by the emotions of the people around me, especially if I cared about them. Today was Sapik's happiness and it was great but yesterday was Reyn's extreme anger, which had hit me strongly. It was also hard to ignore those emotions. To give a bad analogy, it was like seeing the pure smile of a baby or witnessing the absolute despair of someone ready to end their life. No matter what, only a psychopath would be able to completely turn a blind eye to either situation.

We headed to the closest movie theater and I chose what to watch based on Sapik's preferences. She wanted to go with a romance movie, not so much because of the genre itself but more in the hope that some spicy scene would be shown and I would get in the mood to do something with her. It was good that she never changed.