Enid: What're you writing?
Kastor: Enid. Don't snoop.
Enid: I'm not snooping ):, I asked! didn't I?
Enid turned to Elarie who was engrossed in her phone, her thumb scrolling faster and faster and her eyes moving and up down rapidly.
Elarie: Yes dear.
Enid: See!
Kastor: I'm just used to saying that, forgive me.
Enid: Sooooo what are you doing?
Kastor: It's for a character.
Enid: Oh?
Kastor: You seem surprised.
Enid: Just curious. I swear you always make up your characters on the spot. That's what you're good at after all, improvisation. Right Ellie?
Elarie: *nods*
Enid: We usually do this exercise you made up.
Kastor: You remembered?
Enid: Did I remember- how rude! Do you really think I'm that dense.
Enid looked annoyed as her cheeks puffed up. I think she was more flustered at how direct I was.
Kastor:....
Enid: Don't.
Kastor: I was just asking what the exercise was then.
Still irritated, she walked to her bag and picked up a notebook, laying it down in front of me.
Enid: You would play a character and we would ask you questions as if you were in an interview or like during reality shows. We would do this multiple times with different assumptions like if the character is being fully honest or if they were nervous or not.
Kastor: Yes, of course.
Enid: The only time I see you doing character work was usually during class after we did the interview exercise. You said it helped you "get in the zone."
Kastor: I remember.
Enid: Yes, so do I…
Kastor:…..
A silence formed between the two of us. Was she really that upset over it?
Kastor: Do you want to help me?
Enid: You…. You're asking me for my help?
Confusion, moreover, awe it seemed at what I said. So Kastor was the type to do everything by himself and not ask others for help? Got it.
Kastor: You have more experience than me at this. You can refuse if you don't want to-
Enid: N-no I want to help. What do you have currently?
She took the notebook and retrieved a pen from her bag and sat down next to me, her eyes gleaming. I've been testing the waters but I still can't exactly capture Kastor's essence since I have no idea who the fuck he was.
These girls were friends with him and were in his drama class. We had a substitute today and were sent to do some research for the play we created ourselves in the library.
We're split up into groups in drama, usually in a five. From probing Enid, our group consisted of me, her, Elarie, Cassian and Osric. Apparently we were already a friend group outside of drama and were usually put together pretty often as we work well together.
We were given the theme of Romeo and Juliet by our drama teacher and then sent to workshop our own piece. Me, Cassian and Enid came up with the concept of it.
Cassian wanted it to be a meta commentary dissecting the weird age gap between Romeo and Juliet while also exploring the interpretation that Romeo was ultimately at fault for both their deaths. When he read it, he viewed the story as a cautionary tale of the stupidity of youth and shallow lust.
Enid was firmly the opposite. Wanting to explore the romance between the two and deciding to bump at the ages in our rendition cause even she agreed it was creepy. She viewed the story as a romantic tragedy, a beautiful tale of how sacrifice and love can conquer even generational hatred that has built up for centuries.
Kastor came up with a compromise. A high school Shakespeare club angrily splits into two groups when they can't agree on the correct interpretation of Romeo and Juliet. One group thinks it's a cautionary tale about the stupidity of youth and shallow lust; the other group thinks it's a beautiful tragedy about poisonous hatred conquered by love. Reconciliation seems impossible, then a person from one group falls in love with a person from the other.
The group loved the idea. Cassian liked it because it was meta and he was the type who liked sneaking in absurdist humour and breaking the fourth wall a lot in our plays. Enid liked it because this meant they could still tell a love story and also nobody dies but seven people are expelled. The others liked it because it stopped Cassian and Enid from arguing.
Kastor: It's for a different character however, not for our play.
Enid: Stop teasing me, what do you have!
She's more excited for my own character than I am. It looks like Kastor was pretty aloof with these guys.
Kastor: A quiet yet authoritative manipulator. He's a leader of a secret organisation and I'm trying to figure out the structure of it.
Her eyes lit up when I said secret organisation. It's nice to find a kindred soul who gets as excited for things like those like I used to. Don't get me wrong, I still love creating secret societies, I've just made so many and mastered it to the point where I do it more out of necessity than fun nowadays. It still hasn't lost all its lustre, even though I was making them even from all the way back in my days as Sunny.
Enid: Spill. Now.
Kastor: He created this secret society but he leads it from the shadows. Another person, his girlfriend, a police woman was goaded into coming up with the ideas and then creating it despite him manipulating her into doing it. The organisation doesn't have a name yet but every member is based on Roman gods. They are a small group who personally choose and recruit specific individuals for their cause. They're basically the police department's own awakened group who handle crimes during the daytime.
Her giddiness is not to be underestimated. I wonder if she has an interest in Roman gods?
Kastor: He's called Mithras while his girlfriend took the name Bellona.
Enid: That's so cool! What code name would you give yourself?
Kastor: Probably Janus or Dolus.
Enid: Should I read too deeply into that?
Kastor: Nope. What about you?
Enid: Aurora. What do you think I would be?
Kastor: Panda.
Enid: Really?
Kastor: It's a real roman goddess. A goddess who is open to or admits any one who wants protection.
Enid: I know you just want to call me Panda! Use her other name Empanda, or better yet just say Juno since she's theorised to be an epithet of hers!
Kastor: What can I say except you're welcome.
Enid: And where did that music come from?
Kastor: Stop, being meta is my thing. Anyways, I'm figuring out how to structure the secret society.
Enid: So the founders would be at the top. Have you thought about ordering it in terms of when each member joins?
Kastor: Yes, but I plan for certain characters to be quite important and limiting them based on experience seems…. Needlessly trivial.
I hand her the notes and let her read for herself.
Enid: Like how Naruto was a genin despite being wayyyy stronger?
Her eyes dot from the top to the bottom of the page, giving the illusion that she's skimming it. I can see however that she is fully internalising and digesting every word and sentence. She reads scarily fast.
Kastor: Yes. Exactly that.
Enid: Wait, I'm on here.
Ah, she finally noticed.
Kastor: What do you mean?
She points to a name highlighted in pink. It said Juturna.
Enid: No, I'm right. Juturna, the paragraph literally describes my appearance and the exact clothes I'm wearing. What's going on?
I put my finger to her lips making a shushing motion.
Kastor: shhhhh…
Enid: why are we whispering?
Kastor: wanna know a secret?
Enid nodded, not noticing just how close we were getting.
Kastor: I'm starting to like you.
Enid blushed, if a little flustered. She didn't back away however. It's working.
Enid: w-what?
Our faces inch closer and closer together. I whispered softly in her ear.
Kastor: come to the Sakura tree after school. I'll tell you then.
Before she could ask me any more questions, our time was up and I picked up my stuff, preparing to go to my next class. I smiled, coyly at Enid, as if I was reminding her of where to go after school before taking my leave.
I didn't know the layout of this school but Kastor did. So I embraced myself in my thoughts as I walked to my next class. My body had walked through these halls thousands of times, it knew where to go.
[Addictive Contentment]
[9]
[The user can cause other beings to develop immense or even addictive emotional attachments to either themselves or others. This very powerful and intense sensation can convert almost anyone into unquestioningly loyal subjects freely willing to do anything the user wants them to do so long as their attachment to them remains.
The targets do not undergo any brainwashing or mind control but instinctively and naturally develop a very strong attachment (physical, spiritual, emotional, etc.) towards the user which makes it almost impossible to notice to be affected by this power.
Trying to break this bond may lead to experiencing strange withdrawal-like symptoms that can cause great suffering such as strong sadness and depression or can even cause death because the target will "need the user" so much that they cannot bear to live without them. This effect however needs continuous use on a target. The longer the user has been using this ability on a target, the more obsessed they become]
God, it hurts me to even think about this ability and how I got it. It can be very powerful if I use it right and my current target right now is Enid. She's very expressive and the most "close" compared to the others to Kastor.
What I mean is that among our group, she is the easiest to actually be around and get to. My body language analysis had an easier time as well reading her so I can track my progress as I use this ability on her.
[Current Target: Enid]
[Target's Romantic Attraction: 34%]
[(He's a pretty guy, I admit it but I've never seen him more than a friend… except now that is)]
[Target's General Attraction: 76%]
[(He wanted MY help! He never asks for help…. Does he think I'm a good friend? I hope so. I hope they all see me like that]
[Target's Current Mood: Conflicted]
[(Am I getting seduced?)]
[Addiction Progress: 11%]
[Makes you always present in their thoughts in some form]
[Addiction Triggers: Teasing, Closeness, Making them feel special]
That ability does give me an addiction meter to keep track of but my body language analysis just gives me a more precise measurement. Like how she's currently feeling, what she's thinking and how certain actions or words affect her.
I usually have to do that sort of work myself but now I have an ability to do it for me. How convenient. Another thing the ability does that isn't outlined in the description but I found out by tinkering with it is keeping track of certain Addiction Triggers. I'm giving Addiction Triggers and Addictions Progress short from terms now,
AD, make the AP progress faster when I use them. Based on the fact that I have to uncover them by experimenting and testing certain triggers on the target, I think it's different for every person.
Kastor was quite closed off, emotionally to this group. This made Enid, the total opposite of that, caught off guard that the quiet stoic pretty boy suddenly had a dramatic change in both his expressions, body language, how he speaks, acts and how he interacts with her.
Kastor is usually quite calm and blunt in response to anything Enid does. Seeing him start joking and teasing her distracted her enough and set off her focus making my ability much more effective.
Easier to manipulate vulnerable people than stable healthy ones after all. You got to scout for the right targets or start "prepping" them first. Getting someone addicted to you is something I've done a handful of times mostly as Sunny as his style of using love, affection and adoration to manipulate people suited it more.
Dominic's style of manipulation was more of admiration, fear and respect. The relationship between Dominic and someone who's addicted to him was like that of a military commander and a loyal undying soldier while Sunny was more of the relationship between a god and his devoted worshipper.
So is Kastor's more on the lines of a lover and his obsessed partner? That's just what I picked up based on what I've learned from him. He too also used strikingly different identities with others. Different when with Enid and his drama group and also different when with Lydia.
I know it's just not just the case of "you act how you want to be seen differently by different people" because there's no overlap. No matter how much you try to unconsciously change yourself, there's always that in every character you play.
This is why two people can play the same character and be so different. Their perception of who that character is, what they want and why they are who they are differs. They inject themselves into their character no matter how different they are with them. That's the nature of it all when you pretend to be someone else.
You're not pretending to be them. You're pretending to be the version of who you think they are.
Enough about the semantics of it. You're here to read a power fantasy and be immersed to escape your real world problems after all. Anyways, back on manipulating this 16 year old girl I don't know.
The reason I told her about Mithras and Bellona and this secret organisation I'm actually going to create is because I'm gonna induct her into it. Of course, I'll do it as her image of Kastor, not Mithras. I wanna keep some semblance of separation after all. I can't let anyone know more than one of my identities and certainly not my civilian ones.
Pretending to be lost in my thoughts, I bump into another girl that gave me a headache when I looked at her. I've learned that certain headaches usually mean whatever I'm staring at is connected to Kastor in some sort of way. I got the same when I first met his drama group.
Kastor: Are you okay?
I bend down slightly and offer her a hand. I make a mental image of her appearance and save it in my "Kastor's Associates Folder" in my mind palace as she takes my hand and gets up. I help her collect back the notes and stuff she dropped.
Kastor: Forgive me, I should have been more focused on where I was going.
???: Ah, no, don't blame yourself. I-I shouldn't have been running so fast.
A hurried, if not nervous or maybe frantic tone. Is she running late? No, if I look more closely, something is causing her to act more…. Feverish.
Kastor: Were you in a hurry?
L??: Uhm- yes! Ah where was I going…?
Not something. Someone. It's not necessarily causing them anxiety, well, not in a negative way. Like how you would act when you see something that makes you excited.
L?cin?: Oh, I'm wasting your time aren't you? I'm sorry, where were you going?
Why do I detect a hint of joy in that worried tone? How curious. So it's someone that's exciting her…..
Kastor: Theology. That room there.
I pointed vaguely to a direction I was walking in as I didn't know where I was going anyways. I was relying on Kastor's experience and only stopped my train of thought once that headache distracted me and I "accidentally" bumped into her. Right, her name was-
Lucina: I see….. well- sorry for bothering you, I-I need to go!
As she passes me, pieces of Kastor's memory come to me. Only shards however. Shards of the broken glass that are his memories. I get it now.
I turn to look at her. Lucina. Yes, Lucina.
Cyan, diamond, long hair that reached her waist. Fair skin, regularly blemished with bandages, bruises and wounds due to her natural inclination for getting hurt as a result of her clumsiness.
Mesmerising blue eyes that stare at you with a naive but purely sincere innocence. She was one of the shortest and most petite girls in our year. While clumsy, she is surprisingly reliable despite all appearances and assumptions. Kind and caring too. She was well liked anyways aside from her physical attractiveness.
Lucina. The girl that was too good for this world. So sweet and trusting. That was how many saw her. There was one person who saw her differently.
How did Kastor see her?
"The girl who fell in love with me"
That was the sentence that rang in my ears as those memories came back to me. She wasn't just some girl however, as she was the first person to actually cause any memories to resurface.
She was important. Kastor. Don't tell me….. that she wasn't just "The girl who fell in love with me" but-
"The girl I fell in love with"