Upside Down (COMPLETE) Inside Out, Book 2 [BoyxBoy]

Nathan

Fascinating, he thought. Keith's presence made the world felt like heaven. It was too miraculous to be true, and Nathan never wanted it to end.

He knew it wasn't just because Keith was his mate, but having the boy around allowed Nathan to control the way he sensed others' mood. Mostly, his attention was diverted to what Keith was thinking, and after having that the rest of his surrounding became easier to handle.

He drove home in peace, and to test his sanity he had taken a slow drive in a crowded area near Greenfield Park. Once there, he didn't feel the usual jam-packed emotions scurrying in his head. While thinking about the peaceful eyes Keith had, Nathan fixed his eyes on a particular child in the park and immediately his focus was on the little boy instead of everyone else there. The little child was developing some sort of tantrum of being abandoned by what Nathan assumed his mother. The emotion was intensely hot but Nathan could control the way it entered into his mind at the moment. For the first time, Nathan felt cool having this ability.

Then he drove home quickly to give Keith a text message. Keith replied immediately, and it weirded Nathan out how both of them could engage in such frisky conversation so quickly. It seemed like nature for the both of them to be flirty to each other, even though Nathan had never gotten to experience any scandalous relationship with anyone before.

Sometimes he stopped and thought about something he realized he didn't think about before: was he gay now? Nathan had never thought much about liking guys before, but now Keith was everything he had in mind. Would he develop sexual attraction to Keith? Hell yes. Would he change as a person after being a homosexual after this?

He knew sexuality wasn't a choice, like how he didn't choose Keith to be his mate. At the same time, Nathan had heard of sexuality being something that wasn't always solid. He never really had a gay friend before, and he knew his volleyball practice mortal friends had made fun of gays in locker room before. Nathan didn't really give a fuck about them, anyway, because it always didn't feel right making fun of people being gay. Anyway, Jace was Nathan's best friend, and Jace hated homophobic bullies. Jace was the school's GSA President, and homophobia seemed to hit Jace hard long before he discovered Jordan as his mate.

With that thought crossing his mind, Nathan knew he could talk to Jace afterwards about this. He thought deeper about himself and his attractions toward girls—as far as he knew, he had liked a few girls before, but the experience wasn't really intense. Nathan understood why a guy was desirable sometimes, he could list a few names of male celebrities he thought was attractive . . .

Maybe he was gay after all, or there was a part of him that was attracted to the same-sex all along, but he never labelled that part with any terms, because it felt natural. It didn't feel strange or foreign, just one of the natures inside of his body.

Apart from that, maybe having to surround himself with majority of people that would assume everyone as straight made it difficult for Nathan to reach out to this part of him that might like guys, because the predominant norm made Nathan assume himself as straight as well.

The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to justify his sexuality. He knew he didn't want to make Keith as the sole reason of his attraction towards the same sex, even though in mate theory that could be true. He would feel better if he got to convince himself that he was attracted to guys all along, because it made himself feel better to like Keith both romantically and sensually.

The thought of Keith made Nathan shivered. He wanted to see Keith so badly again. He went to his bedroom and crashed onto his messy bed, pulling out his phone. Should he call his mate?

He pushed away all of his doubts and dialed Keith's number.

Hearing his mate's sweet voice made Nathan trembled, suddenly not being able to put his thoughts to words. There were many things that Nathan wanted to tell Keith, so many questions that he needed answers. But whenever he wanted to say something, his voice faltered due to the sound of Keith on the other side.