Jamal POV
“No. I am not,” I lied. I had no idea who this boy was but somehow he knew my name. For all I could tell, this boy could be a spy or worse. He was unknown to me so admitting my name might not be the best thing to do.
“I know who you are, sir. You are Jamal,” he insisted.
“And how did you come about that knowledge?” I asked.
“I inferred it.”
“Well then your inferring is wrong.”
“It is not. He knows you. You were the guy who fought in the mall the other day.”
Damn the internet, I thought. I should have taken that into account before I fought Xander that day but I was overwhelmed with anger so nothing other than the moment mattered. I turned to the boy and looked at him.
“Even before the fight, he knew you,” the boy added.
That was exactly the question I had wanted to ask. Who knew me? who was the ‘he’ this boy was referring to? “Who knew me?” I asked.
“The Watcher,” he whispered.
“The who?” I asked. Quite confused by what he said. Partly intrigued but majorly disgusted.
“The Watcher,” the boy just repeated again not caring to explain more.
“Who is The Watcher?” I tried to patiently ask.
“He mionitors everything. Human, he may be but he sees it all. Some called him a lunatic, but his ways are indeed wisdom to they who seek it.”
“Yeah? Really? Well, maybe your watcher is really psycho and needs medical attention.”
“You don’t really believe that, do you?”
“I don’t know what to believe about this guy.”
“Come see for yourself then,” the boy urged.
“No. I’ll not,” I said firmly.
“You might regret not meeting him.”
I turned around and walked away not wanting to be involved in such a discussion as this. What did this boy know about anything that he was willing to stand here with me and tell me about a man who was supposed to be a kind of watcher? What was he watching? A lot of dumb human cartoons it might seem. Autumn and Summer once told me about how humans were so obsessed with pranking each other to the point some people based their whole content on it or as Autumn might put it ‘base the entirety of their livelihood on foolish deceits of their fellow kind.’ Maybe this was just one of those circumstances. In any case, it was irrelevant.
I walked away from the boy and was a few steps ahead of him when he called out again. This time not with a random remark or call as I expected him to do, but with a question that sent shivers down my spine. “What does a wolf and a dragon love so much in a human?”
I paused, not just me but my entire self, my mind paused, my body froze, my heart seized. I turned back to the boy. “What?”
“The Watcher sees.”
“Who is your watcher?”
“The one who sees,” the boy said then asked. “Have you ever wondered why?”
To be frank, I had never for once wondered why. She had never told me of a crush she had had before. She said I and her was the first romantic relationship and now there is Xander so if what she said is true, then I and Xander were her only romantic encounter making it true that Methis was only attracted to supernatural beings or worse, she could only attract supernatural beings to herself, I and Xander being living examples.
“What do your watchers want?” I asked the boy.
“He wants to talk.”
“About what?”
“About Xander.”
“What about him?”
“What makes him interested in Methis?”
“Love, infatuation. Call it what you will.”
“The Watcher thinks differently. He believes what draws them is a different reason.”
“What’s the reason?”
“Every information has a price.” The boy finally walked away just after he had successfully grabbed my attention.
I shook the encounter off and walked silently back to the hotel where I lodged. Still, the rejection kept playing in my head over and over, reminding me of just how badly Methi's father did not want me to have his daughter. Was it all because of the age difference? Certainly not. Time and time again he had made his stance known to me that he simply did not just like me. understandable seeing that his daughter had spent a year at my palace which was a completely different reality from the human world without his consent and had made him fear for his daughter so much. Not only that, but had taken his daughter’s flowers and made her birth babies. Which father would not hate any guy for that?
I dragged my foot on the ground slowly as I walked back. It was as if the more I kept walking forward towards the hotel, the more the distance between myself and the hotel expanded. I was never going to reach. But thinking was the only good thing about this. From this point, the walk was not supposed to take me more than twelve minutes but with the way I walked, I knew I was an hour away from reaching home. I drew on this inspiration and plunged myself into my thoughts. I was not one for deep thinking and even as I tried to feel what it was I was thinking about; I was unable to. Perhaps the only thing I could think of now was the rejection I had suffered. It was ringing in my head and I knew as long as I stayed here on the human side it was going to ring some more.
Eventually, after a century of walking, I made my arrival at the hotel. It was then I noticed some side glances from the staff and customers. They knew it was me who had fought. It was not until that boy had drew my attention to it had I noticed. But that did not bother me. At least it shooed anyone who might have developed daring ordeals.