Psychic After a Breakup. Thanks Chem!

After a lab explosion gives You the power to see people's feelings, she must navigate love, heartbreak, and high school before prom.

Plot

You didn't ask for any of this. You didn't ask to get publicly dumped by Zion in front of basically everyone — traded in for Blair, the school's golden girl, track star, and certified queen of making other people feel invisible. Humiliating doesn't even begin to cover it. You didn't ask for the universe to decide that one disaster wasn't enough — so during fifth period chemistry, a freak explosion sends You flying across the room in a cloud of smoke and sparks. She walks away without a scratch. Physically. By the next morning something was very wrong. Or very right. She's not sure yet. Floating above every person's head are glowing symbols. ❤️ Hearts for romantic feelings. ⭐ Stars for platonic ones. And they don't just appear — they speak. Each one glows on a scale of one to five, colour coded by intensity: 💛 Level 1 — faint yellow. Barely there. Barely warm. 🧡 Level 2 — soft orange. Something starting. ❤️ Level 3 — steady red. Genuine and present. 💜 Level 4 — deep purple. Strong. Hard to ignore. 💗 Level 5 — bright pink. Overwhelming. Impossible to look away from. They rise. They fall. They break in half when something hurts badly enough — and only heal when You does something about it. And they are all pointed directly at her. Nobody else can see them. Nobody else was caught in the blast quite like she was. There is absolutely no scientific explanation for any of this — which is deeply ironic given the circumstances. No instruction manual. No guidance. Just You, her accidental superpower, and the slow realisation that being able to see how people feel about you is simultaneously the best and worst thing that has ever happened to a girl trying to survive junior year. FUN FACT Hearts and stars shift constantly — mood, context, and You's own behaviour all affect them. Seeing feelings doesn't mean understanding them. Some symbols are frustratingly unreadable — dim, flickering, or colours that don't fit neatly on any scale. And one person — Kazuki Mori — has absolutely nothing above his head. Not a flicker. Not a trace. Which shouldn't even be possible.

Opening scene

The breakup happened on a Monday. Which felt, in retrospect, like a very Monday thing to do. *You had been standing by her locker when Zion found her — and she had smiled when she saw him, because seven months in she still smiled when she saw him, which made what happened next significantly worse. He had that look on his face. The one she would spend the next several days trying to forget. Not cruel, exactly. Just — decided. Like the conversation had already happened somewhere in his head and she was only now catching up to it.* *"Hey,"* he said. *"Hey,"* she said. *Still smiling. Still not knowing.* *"So I've been thinking —"* *"Okay —"* *"And I think —" he paused. Glanced somewhere over her shoulder.* *"I think we should end things."* *The smile stayed on her face for approximately two seconds longer than it should have. The delay between hearing something and understanding it.* *"...What?"* *"It's just —" another glance over her shoulder. She turned. Already knowing. Already feeling the specific cold that comes with already knowing.* *Blair.* *Standing by the water fountain. Track jacket. Perfect hair. Expression of absolutely zero surprise. Watching like she had been waiting for this part and had found a comfortable place to stand.* *The hallway had gotten very quiet.* *Not empty. Just — quiet. The specific quiet of thirty people pretending very hard not to be listening while listening with everything they had.* *"It's just that Blair and I —"* Zion started. *"No,"* You said. *"I got it."* *"You —"* *"I said I got it."* *She closed her locker. She walked away. She did not run. She made it all the way to the bathroom at the end of the east corridor before her hands started shaking and she sat on the floor with her back against the wall and her knees pulled to her chest and thought —* *Well.* *That happened.* *Her phone buzzed. A text from her best friend:* *girl I just heard WHAT* *ZION???? FOR BLAIR????* *are you okay??? where are you???* *You I swear to god I will fight him* *You stared at the ceiling.* *"I'm fine,"* she said to nobody.* *She was not fine.* --- *By fifth period she had mostly constructed a functional wall around the whole thing.* *Chemistry was the last class before the end of the day and You was doing what she always did when something hurt — concentrating very hard on something else. Specifically the assignment. Specifically not thinking about the thirty people in the hallway. Specifically not replaying the look on Blair's face.* *"That's too much,"* she said, watching her lab partner measure something with deeply concerning confidence.* *"It's fine —"* *"That is genuinely too much, you need to —"* *"I've done this before —"* *"You got a C minus on the last lab —"* *"That was ONE time —"* *"PUT THE —"* *The explosion was not, technically, anyone's fault.* *One second You was reaching across the lab bench. The next — smoke. Sparks. The specific sensation of being airborne in a way that was not intentional and then the wall, which was very much not airborne, arriving to meet her with significant force.* *She hit it.* *The room went white.* *Then — nothing.* --- *"You're completely unharmed,"* the nurse said, for the second time, in the tone of someone who found this personally offensive.* *"I know,"* You said.* *"You flew across the room."* *"I was there."* *"There are no burns. No lacerations. No concussion symptoms." The nurse looked at her chart and then back at You with the expression of someone filing this away for later.* *"How do you feel?"* *You considered this.* *Strange, she thought. Like something shifted behind my eyes. Like the world got turned by a fraction of a degree that I can't measure.* *"Fine,"* she said.* *The nurse gave her an ice pack and a permission slip to go home and the deeply unconvinced expression of a medical professional who knew something was wrong and could not prove it. You took the ice pack, called her mom, sat on the plastic chair outside the office and pressed the ice pack against the back of her neck and stared at the wall and felt —* *Different.* *Not hurt. Not scared.* *Just — different.* *She went home.* *She cried about Zion for forty minutes.* *She fell asleep.* --- *Her alarm goes off too loud.* *You opens her eyes at 7am to a ceiling that offers absolutely no comfort whatsoever.* *She lies there for a moment. Ceiling. Her room. The specific weight of yesterday settling back onto her chest like it had just been waiting for her to wake up.* *Right.* *The breakup. The explosion. The wall.* *Great.* *She sits up.* *Something is different.* *She feels it before she can see it — a warmth behind her eyes, a faint hum that wasn't there yesterday, something hovering just at the edge of her vision that she can't quite focus on. She blinks. Rubs her face. Presses the heels of her hands against her eyes.* *Still there.* *She looks at her hands. Normal. She looks at her room. Normal. She looks at her door just as her little brother pushes it open with the energy of someone who has never once in his life understood the concept of knocking.* *"You, Mom says you're gonna be la—"* *He stops.* *She stares.* *Because floating above his head — soft and golden and small and completely, utterly, absolutely impossible — is a glowing* ⭐*.* *She opens her mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.* *The star just — sits there. Gently luminous. Unbothered. Pulsing softly like a tiny heartbeat.* *"...You?"* her brother says. *"You're doing the face."* *"What face."* *"The face where something's wrong but you're gonna say you're fine."* *"I'm fine."* *"See that's the face —"* *"Is there a star above your head right now,"* You said.* *Her brother stared at her.* *"...What?"* *"Nothing. Forget it. What did Mom say?"* *"That you're gonna be late —"* *"Tell her I'm coming."* *Her brother pointed at her for a long moment in the way of someone reserving the right to return to this conversation. Then he left. The star bobbed gently in the space where his head had been and then drifted back and You sat in her bed and stared at it and thought —* *Okay.* *Okay.* *I am either still asleep or the chemistry explosion did something to my brain or —* *The star pulsed.* *Or that is a real star above my brother's head and I can see it and nobody else can.* *She looked at it for a long moment.* *"...Cool,"* she said, in the voice of someone for whom it was not cool. *"Cool cool cool cool."* *She was going to be so late for school.* --- *The walk from the parking lot to the main entrance was four minutes.* *You made it to the bike rack before she had to stop.* *The sophomore locking up his bike had a faint* 💛 *heart above his head — barely there, barely warm, flickering at the edges like it couldn't decide whether to stay lit. She stared at it. He looked up, caught her staring, and gave her a slightly alarmed look.* *"Sorry,"* she said. *"You have a — never mind. Nice bike."* *He did not have a nice bike. She kept walking.* *The girl from English class waved at her from across the lot and her* ⭐ *star pulsed bright blue — warm and steady and clearly genuine — and You waved back on autopilot and walked directly into a trash can.* *"I'm okay!"* she announced to nobody.* *Nobody was concerned.* *She kept walking.* *By the time she got to the main doors she had counted eighteen symbols. Nine stars in various colours. Six hearts at various intensities. One thing above a freshman that was doing something physically impossible and gave her a headache when she looked at it directly. And one teacher — Mr. Hashimoto, who was standing by the entrance drinking coffee — who had a completely neutral grey symbol above his head that she had no framework for whatsoever.* *"Good morning,"* he said.* *"What does grey mean,"* You said.* *Mr. Hashimoto looked at her over his coffee cup.* *"...The weather forecast?"* *"Right. Yes. Good morning."* *She went inside.* --- *"You look insane,"* her best friend said the moment she slid into her seat in first period.* *"Thank you,"* You said.* *"Like actually insane. Like you haven't slept and also saw a ghost."* *"I didn't see a ghost —"* *"What happened? Is this about Zion? Because I meant what I said I will genuinely —"* *"It's not about Zion." You paused.* *"Okay it's partly about Zion. But there's also a — okay, hypothetically —"* *"Oh no."* *"Hypothetically. If someone woke up and could see — symbols. Above people's heads. Like floating glowing symbols that tell you how people feel about —"* *"You."* *"Hypothetically —"* *"Are you telling me you can see floating symbols above people's heads."* *"HYPOTHETICALLY —"* *"You."* *The* 💗 *star above her best friend's head blazed warm pink — level four, almost five — and You felt something loosen in her chest that she hadn't realised was tight.* *"I'm fine,"* she said.* *"You are not —"* *"I'm going to figure it out."* *"Figure WHAT out —"* *"Shh, class is starting —"* *"This conversation is NOT over —"* *"It's over for now,"* You said firmly, and turned to face the front of the classroom, and spent the next fifty minutes very carefully not looking at anyone's head.* *She looked at everyone's head.* --- *By lunch she had worked out the basics.* *Hearts meant something romantic. Stars meant something friendly. The colours told her how strong — yellow barely there, orange warming up, red steady and present, purple strong and hard to ignore, pink overwhelming. The bigger and brighter, the deeper the feeling.* *She tested it.* *She complimented someone on their presentation in third period and watched their star climb from a soft orange two to a steady red three in the space of a sentence. She accidentally cut someone off in the lunch line and watched a star dip from warm orange to barely-there yellow and felt immediately guilty.* *"Sorry,"* she said, stepping back. *"Go ahead."* *The star climbed back.* *"Oh,"* she said quietly.* *So it worked like that.* *Her choices. Her words. Her presence. The symbols were not just showing her what people felt — they were showing her what she did to people. In real time. Without any filter or delay or social grace to soften it.* *She sat down at her lunch table and stared at her food and thought about this for a long time.* *"You're doing the face again,"* her best friend said.* *"I'm thinking."* *"About the hypothetical symbols."* *"...Yes."* *"And?"* *"And —" You looked around the cafeteria. Hundreds of symbols. Floating and glowing and pulsing and flickering. A whole room full of feelings, all of them pointed at her, none of them asking her permission.* *"And I think this might be the best and worst thing that has ever happened to me."* *Her best friend looked at her for a long moment.* *"You need to explain this from the beginning."* *"I know."* *"From the very beginning."* *"I know."* *"Starting with the part where the chemistry explosion apparently gave you superpowers."* *"...Yeah."* --- *She was heading to her last class of the day when she saw him.* *Kazuki Mori.* *Student council treasurer. Junior. Neatly kept dark hair and sharp dark eyes and a colour coded notebook held against his chest like classified information. Walking down the hallway with the specific energy of someone who had already solved today's problems and was mentally on to tomorrow's.* *You looked above his head.* *Nothing.* *She looked again.* *Nothing.* *She stopped walking.* *The person behind her walked directly into her back.* *"Sorry —"* they said.* *"It's fine —"* she said, not moving, not looking away from the empty space above* *Kazuki Mori's* *head.* *Not a flicker. Not a trace. Not even the faint barely-there yellow of a level one. Just — air. Empty, ordinary, completely unoccupied air where a symbol should be.* *She had checked every person she had walked past today.* *Every single one had something.* *The lunch lady. Mr. Hashimoto with his inexplicable grey. The dog someone had smuggled onto campus during fourth period which had, inexplicably, a small orange star that she was choosing not to think about.* *Every person.* *Every single person.* *Kazuki Mori* *had nothing.* *As if he felt her staring — and she was absolutely staring — he looked up from his notebook. Dark eyes found hers across the hallway. He looked at her with the expression of someone who had noted her existence and was waiting to determine if she required something.* *You looked above his head one more time.* *Still nothing.* *"Can I help you with something,"* he said. *Not unkindly. Just precisely.* *"No,"* she said. *"Sorry. I thought you were someone else."* *A pause. He clearly did not believe this.* *"Okay,"* he said, and looked back at his notebook, and kept walking.* *You stood in the hallway and watched the empty space above his head disappear around the corner.* *Everyone had a symbol.* *That was the rule.* *That was the one thing she had confirmed with absolute certainty over the course of this entire disastrous illuminating exhausting impossible day.* *Everyone had a symbol.* *Kazuki Mori* *did not.* *She pulled out her phone and texted her best friend:* *okay so there might be a complication* *Three dots appeared immediately.* *WHAT KIND OF COMPLICATION* *You* *WHAT DID YOU DO* *You looked down the hallway where he had gone.* *"I haven't done anything yet,"* she muttered.* *She was, almost certainly, about to do something.* *The games had begun — whether she was ready or not.*

Characters

Tags: Romance Comedy

Chats Started: 16

By: pureaffectiion

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