Silence spanned the growing gulf between us as I watched the world go by with deadened eyes. It was my first day back to school and Faye was giving me a ride - now that we'd moved, Excelsior was no longer within walking distance. I appreciated the lift, I really did, but within the last few days I'd become withdrawn from my friends and family. It had simply become too difficult for me to go on pretending like everything was normal.

I'd been taking the sleeping pills Faye had offered me, and after upping the dose by a few orders of magnitude I barely remembered my dreams anymore. As a result, I no longer needed the twin's help to sleep, and didn't hesitate to tell them so. Ves took it particularly hard, as I knew she would - but just like with Luna, I told myself it was for the best.

Having so isolated myself to the best of my ability, I then made every effort to better develop my understanding of what I'd clumsily dubbed 'compulsion theory'. I'd devoted myself entirely to the task and had already tackled the problem from a few different angles...

And none of it had proven a goddamn thing.

It didn't matter if it was my own father or a perfect stranger; No matter how commanding my inner thoughts were as I made mental demands of them - from the smallest of requests (blink three times fast) to asking the utterly ridiculous (take me on an impromptu vacation to the tropics) - they wouldn't react in the least. In my head I begged Ves to pry herself free from my influence whenever she was around, but no matter how heartfelt my plea, she continued to cheerfully show an unusual amount of interest in her 'little sister' (and to my great shame it was growing more difficult to reject her advances every day). By the end of the week I felt more like some closet chūnibyō than an actual telepath, so I gave up on that avenue of investigation. It seemed obvious that my subconscious mind ruled these powers... I had no choice but to learn to work around this fact.

If willpower wasn't enough to gain control of the compulsion, I thought to turn to an academic understanding of it instead. Since the vaguely relevant paranormal studies I could find weren't at all reliable, I decided to begin with basic scientific process; How to create a hypothesis, conduct an experiment, make use of control groups, that sort of thing. After obtaining a rudimentary understanding, I dived into psychological study - and quickly realized there was virtually no hope that I could ever be certain of what was happening in the minds of the people around me. Even professionals who had devoted their entire lives to the study of psychology were rarely positive whether the results of their experiments were due to correlation or causation. The human mind was simply far too complex for certainties.

And so resigned, I had withdrawn even further into myself. I'd become listless, and my eyes had gone so dull I barely recognized myself in the mirror anymore.

It's far too early to give up, I know that. I've been at this for less than a week for god's sake, so why does it already feel so pointless...?

"...we're almost at the school gates, sweetie. I know you've been fighting to return to school for almost as long you've been back with us, but I want to ask one more time. Are you sure you're ready?"

There was nothing but love and concern in her voice. From the outside, it no doubt looked like the trauma of my kidnapping had finally set in and was the cause of my recent introversion. Faye probably wanted to take me back to therapy, not high school.

The truth was that now, I didn't feel ready. Hell, the last thing I wanted was to be surrounded by people, and yet... I couldn't find the strength to care what happened to me anymore. I had made a vow to the people I'd affected mere days ago, and I already felt like admitting defeat.

Staying at home might be easier, maybe even safer... but I knew nothing would change for the better if I did. There was a remote chance that my interactions with my friends and the other students would result in me learning more about this affliction, and so I had to take it. I owed the people I'd forced into changing themselves for me that much, at least.

"...I'm sure. Thanks for the ride."

Faye opened her mouth as if to change my mind, but bit her lip and nodded reluctantly.

"Right, then... If it gets to be too much to handle, just call your father or I. We can take you home any time, okay?"

"Thanks. See you tonight."

I got out of the car and headed to homeroom. Before I even saw them, I could feel the stares. Students whispered to each other as I walked by. Before that would have spiked my anxiety, but now I found it elicited no reaction. I continued to my classroom.

There was Mae. I noted that some of the usual stir of emotions I felt upon seeing her was still there, and was thankful for it. As promised I had let her know by text that today was the day I'd be returning to school, and just as she'd promised she'd gone all out on her appearance, accessorized with cute ribbons in her long, braided hair and makeup that made her look more at home as a model on the cover of some alternative magazine than in the classroom. I took a few steps toward her, but all of a sudden nearly half the class got out of their seats and started swarming me.

"Oh my god, Norma! You're like, back, I can't believe it!"
"Are you okay!? They say you were kidnapped, but there's no way that could be true. W-wait, is it true!?"
"I missed you so much! Do you need anything!? Tell me if you need anything, okay!?"

...I barely knew these people, and yet they were all acting like we had been close friends long before I'd stopped coming to school. I answered a few questions, but quickly grew annoyed by all this sudden attention that they'd never bothered to show me before. I tried moving through the crowd to my seat, but they weren't letting me through. I sighed and let them continue talking with a polite smile on my face, giving the occasional nod or generic response where appropriate.

Time to put the scientific method to use... My amateurish, bastardized version of it, that is.

I scanned the students surrounding me, comparing them to those still at their desks.

This crowd is comprised entirely of girls. Specifically, the ones I might have considered even mildly attractive at one point or another throughout the years...

It wasn't an incredible sample size, but it served to corroborate one of my hypotheses - that I had been accidentally planting the seeds of compulsion in anyone and everyone that I had ever wished would show so much as the slightest interest in me.

But for every piece of potential evidence, ten more questions arose.

Did prolonged exposure to me have any effect on the 'incubation' period? Why was the way the compulsion manifested so different for every victim?

...and if my being attracted to those affected was the trigger, then the real elephant in the room was Faye. She was literally a MILF, attractive to me for all the same reasons that Ves was. And yet despite the many times she'd cluelessly pressed her breasts against me during her signature bear hugs, Faye had never shown more than a wholesome, motherly interest in me. Was it because of our age difference? Could her utter devotion to my father be a factor? Or maybe there were lines even a pervert like me knew better than to subconsciously cross...?

Ha, fat chance. If I'm into my stepsister enough to affect her, I doubt I'd consider my stepmom off limits. As much as I hate to admit it, it's definitely going to be one of those other factors.

I tried to think of more women I considered attractive who hadn't seemed affected... there weren't many. Aside from Faye there was... Raine, maybe? She definitely seemed at least somewhat interested though, even if she hadn't been as overbearing about it... yet.

The only other person to come to mind was Myst. I'd seen her only once, but I definitely found her attractive, and we'd spent a good few hours together, discussing some fairly heavy topics. She never made any kind of pass at me though... in fact, she seemed much more interested in Quin.

Well, of course she did. It's literally her job to learn everything she can about her!

...but asking what kind of lover she was...? That seemed a little too thorough, and might suggest she harboured more than a professional interest in my childhood friend. If that was true I really didn't know how to feel about it - but perhaps there was more to the idea that people already interested in someone else could resist my compulsion. If so, thank god for small victories...

The final clue I had right now was what had triggered my awareness of all of this - Stella backing off of her threat. She and I had barely been together for any time at all, and yet my interaction with her was the first time I noticed real, tangible evidence of my powers of compulsion.

So what exactly had been different that time? Could it have been-

"Norma, I've been keeping an extra set of notes, just for the day you returned-!"
"Come have lunch with us today, Norma! Today's Special is on me-!"
"P-please meet me by the cherry blossom tree after school! I almost lost my chance once, I won't lose it again-!"

Mae suddenly pushed her way through the crowd, wrapping a protective arm around my shoulder. I could smell her heady perfume, like some kind of incense. It was intoxicating.

"Alright chucklefucks, it's time to back off. You - your grades are the worst in the class, she'd be better off reading some shitty fanfic than those sloppy-ass notes. You - my Norma's a pizza and fries girl, if you had paid any attention to her in the last three years you might have actually known that. And you - we don't even have a sakura tree you dumbass, so throw your confession in the trash because that's the only place it's not going to get torn in half. Come on Normie, let's get the hell out of here."

A smile came to my lips at Mae's snarky intervention, and despite my better judgment I let her whisk me out of the classroom. She slipped one arm around my waist and walked me to the courtyard with no concern for the time, even as the bell rang.