Weak Hero Short Stories

Jinx (short story)

Sitting in a circle, sort of, at Ben's house, the boys had gotten awfully bored.

"You guys wanna play a game?" Alex asked, the edges of his mouth creeping into a smile. 

Nobody responded for a moment, Alex was definitely being suspicious. 

"Why not?" Ben piped in, clearly bored as the rest of them.

"What game?" Teddy asked.

"20 questions?"

The boys agreed, this was one of the better options. He could have picked something awful.

"Who wants to go first?"

The boys eventually decided that someone would ask everyone a question, and that they all had to answer.

...

(You guys in the audience should answer the questions, in the comments... just sayin)

One round goes by, it was relatively uneventful, "Your favorite vacation?"

Second, "Your star sign?"

Third, "If you'd ever been out of the country?"

Fourth, "Worst experience with a friend?"

Fifth, "Tom Holland or Tobey Maguire?"

Then the sixth rolled around, "What's your favorite middle school memory."

Most of the boys answered with something premature like, "Oh that one fight." or "When they had a nice meal with friends."

But Gray had a different answer.

"The time where I was jinxed for a day and half." He answered stoically, as if it wasn't a big deal.

"What?!" Alex said in shock, "A day and a half?!"

Gray nodded, as the room fell silent.

He knew exactly what they wanted, though they'd have to ask.

"Gray," Ben started, "I need to hear that story."

Gray smiled.

~

"Gray!" Stephen called, dashing down the hall to meet with the boy before their first class started.

He turned to him, "Yes? Stephen Ahn?"

He smiled brightly, and with a tad of mischief mixed in.

"Are you busy after school today?" He asked.

And just as Gray had begun his answer, "I'm always busy Stephen." He soon found Stephen saying the same.

"Jinx!" Stephen smiled, "You can't talk, you're done, you've been cancelled, I'm Twitter now."

Gray rolled his eyes.

"Respect the rules of the jinx." He said in a serious voice, standing upright and tall.

Glancing over at Gray he smiled and asked once more, "Hey Gray do you have anything going on after school?"

Gray said nothing.

"Great," He replied cheerfully, "Say nothing if you want to come over after school."

Gray sighed.

He laughed, "Looks like were going to have a great time today."

Gray crossed his arms, as the bell rang and both boys dashed off to class.

~

Not talking at school wouldn't be a problem, since he didn't really have any friends other than Stephen (this is before that shit Bryce Oh), and teachers already knew that he knew the answers, so they'd stopped asking him in class to give everyone else a chance.