A little something for Valentine's Day. For those who are fond of someone they know, an appeal to be a bit more tolerant; sometimes it takes a while for the opposite party to get the idea -.-;;.
Dedicated to Dessie and Ayumu, whose birthdays I missed and who deserve much more than just a hug and chocolates; and to Ennie, who shares something of the same situation.
Happy Valentine's.
--
Patience
Anonymoussi
--
"And so, you know, he swings out his foot…"
Listening to Akane babble was interesting. Reshmi found her focus wavering, and her eyes wandered over the cobbled streets, the white stone of the fountain glowing in the bleak winter sun.
"…and so, what was a girl to do? I…"
There was a sizeable clique of giggling girls perched on the edge of the fountain, their hair and skirts rippling from the late afternoon breeze and cool spray from the fountain. Beside them, two people conversing, one sitting tall and the other considerably shorter, their silhouettes dark. Next to them, a lone figure seated on the far end of the stone rim, head bent over a book.
"…and then I kicked him."
Reshmi blinked and turned around. Several of them were staring at her, and Akane herself had on her pointed caught-red-handed look.
"…you have to stop looking attractive to men?" she tried.
Most of the girls dissolved into laughter. Akane smirked, still wearing her same look.
"But you know, Reshmi, it doesn't pay to stare all day and not do anything."
Reshmi flinched. Pairs of wide eyes turned towards her.
"What?"
"I didn't hear about this…"
"No kidding, huh?"
Reshmi smiled weakly. "Uh, no?" Her voice lilted into a question halfway through.
Akane shot her the You can't fool me expression, and Reshmi knew she was cornered. For the record, she added, "I seriously have no idea what you're talking about."
Predictably enough, the older girl sighed loudly, but instead of opening her mouth and declaring something that would have had Reshmi wishing the ground would open and eat her, she shook her head.
"But I mean, some of them aren't a total waste of time. Check that blonde at the corner," she said, pointing discreetly—an art mastered by her—at a merchant closing shop on the far end of the walkway.
Verity rounded her mouth in apparent interest. "Honest," she agreed softly. "You know, I could use a nice candlelit dinner one of these days…"
She slipped away, dragging another girl with her, and the rest invariably followed. As soon as they were out of earshot, Akane rounded on Reshmi.
"He's wasting your time," was the first thing out of her mouth.
Reshmi opened her mouth and promptly closed it. This usually didn't crop up until deep into a conversation, and even then Akane would skirt around it and prod carefully. For all her bluntness, Akane was tactful with delicate matters.
Reshmi fished around again and found something. "Well…you couldn't say that the boy you met at the coffee shop was a complete loss of time."
Akane folded her mouth and rolled her eyes sideways, a gesture of grudging concession. "Alright, but that's a different matter entirely. He really was a sweet person, but this-this man, you've hardly met him. Let alone held a decent conversation."
Reshmi winced, surprised again. "You don't need to rub it in, you know."
Akane huffed. "The point is that for all your million subtle glances and what, you've never said more than hello to him. I doubt he knows your name! By now, he might not be aware that you exist."
Her points were deliberate, and they were veritable, but they stung. Reshmi felt her irritation rising. Before she could open her mouth to retort, Akane barreled on.
"So maybe what I'm trying to say is that you're wasting your own time. If you don't bloody do something, you're going to sigh your life away over a hair like him, and then when you're an old granny you'll regret that you didn't do anything."
Reshmi acquiesced with a small, amused smile; Akane often said humorous things in absolute seriousness, causing her temper to flare up when others laughed at her apparently solemn statements.
"But I can't do anything," she said, remembering who it was they were talking about. The tiniest tinge of a whine crept into her voice.
Akane pulled a face. "Easy enough. You'll do something now."
Abruptly, she pulled Reshmi up and led her, by the hand, towards the middle of town square. Reshmi felt her pulse pick up; he was still there, and exceptionally handsome, as always, a lock of dark hair falling into his eyes as he read, and an elegant, long-fingered hand that swept it away with a practiced motion. It fell back into his eyes just as easily, and Reshmi found herself entranced by his image of nonchalant perfection.
Akane took one look at her and groaned. "You know, I'm beginning to think you're too far gone."
"That can't be so bad," Reshmi said absently, staring.
"Here," Akane said, with the air of one who was absolutely fed up, "you're going to go over there and sit down next to him, and you're going to do something and he's going to talk to you, and then you'll have met him and you can have happily married bliss and die on cloud nine or something, whatever."
Reshmi tore her eyes away. "Wait, what?!"
Akane rolled her eyes. "Sit down and, I don't know, knock his arm accidentally and—"
Something suddenly fell into Akane, and she tumbled over with an alarmed yelp.
"How are my favorite ladies?" Deos called exuberantly, smothering Akane in a bone-crushing hug.
"Get off of me!" she gasped, kicking him hard in the ankle. He howled miserably and hopped in agony on one foot.
"Brilliant," Eziek said, amused.
"Shut it." Akane scowled.
"My lady doesn't love me anymore!" Deos crowed pitifully.
"You should be ashamed," Sati admonished, hands on her hips, a smile playing around her mouth.
"She used to be so well-behaved…" Deos moaned.
"It happened when you convinced Mother Mathilda to send her to the abbey," Hiroshi said, eyeing him with detached mild curiosity.
A vein was, metaphorically, visibly throbbing on Akane's forehead. "Come on," she growled, taking Reshmi forcefully by the arm.
"Wait, where are you going?" Deos wailed pitifully, still clutching his foot.
"Somewhere you can't follow," Akane answered flippantly, dragging Reshmi along full speed.
"She's mortified," they heard Eziek say as they left.
"Perhaps just angry," Sati amended. "She'll get over it in an hour."
--
"Alright. What does he do?"
"…he teaches."
"Where?"
"…at the Academy, in Yuno."
"What position?"
"Professor."
"What is his field of specialty?"
"…ice?"
"See? You can actually strike a conversation with him!" Akane beamed. "Right, going on. Any siblings?"
"A younger sister…"
"Parents?"
"Living in Geffen, I think."
"They are. What was he before he became a mage?"
"…what?"
Akane sighed.
"You were on a roll. He helped his father keep shop. Moving on; his greatest hobby?"
"Reading?"
"Wrong. Writing anarchist letters to his parents."
Reshmi stared. Akane stared back.
"Idiot." She burst into laughter. "I was teasing you."
Reshmi smiled wanly. "What's next?"
"Well, he likes painting portraits of his younger sister. You're smiling."
Reshmi shrugged, flushing slightly. "It's…admirable."
Akane snorted. "A regular romantic. I guess it comes with you being a sage."
Reshmi frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing," Akane said quickly. "Alright…his favorite time of day?"
Reshmi's thought process flailed. "Late afternoon?" she guessed wildly.
"Break of dawn," Akane said with relish. "That's barely human. I told you to give up."
Reshmi sighed.
Akane threw down the sheaf of paper in her hand.
"So that was how you knew more about him than me," Reshmi said, slightly surprised.
The older girl said nothing, but grabbed Reshmi by the shoulders and shook her.
"Get this," she said loudly. Reshmi felt her teeth rattling in her jaw. "You have to do something. I can't help you anymore than this. It's all on you, honey."
Reshmi sighed again. Akane had been right; she had been sighing an awful lot. It had to stop. "I can't talk to him…"
"You teach, too. And you couldn't just strike up a casual conversation in the hallway?"
"I'm still in the initiation process!" Reshmi reasoned. "He's already teaching older classes."
Akane gaped. Reshmi's nerves settled, and she looked anxiously at Akane.
"How old is he?"
"…twenty…twenty-two?"
Akane's jaw, if possible, fell even further.
"He's five years your senior! What were you thinking?!"
Reshmi's mouth twisted into a frown. "I didn't decide to like him!"
"You could have pushed it down!" Akane shot back.
"You aren't free to pick and choose who you like! Love is unpredictable!" Reshmi said heatedly.
"Oh, so you love him now?!" Akane retorted.
"I never said that!"
"Well, your emotions are just as fickle as whatever sentimentality you call love is!" Akane bit off angrily. "You're a sage, I would have thought you were more reasonable—"
"That has nothing to do with anything!" Reshmi took a deep, rattling breath. "Besides, why are you so concerned?!"
Akane fell silent, eyes wide and scrutinizing, lips parted. Then she spoke.
"Reshmi, you can't just sit here and do nothing." Akane sighed sadly. "You may think you'll be content with simply watching, but soon that won't be enough, and you'll want something you can't ever have, because Izenas is above you. He's above everyone. He's absolutely untouchable and quite possibly not the road you want to walk."
Reshmi stared, speechless. Akane closed her eyes apologetically.
"I think I would know," she said quietly.
There was a stony silence. Akane stood up.
"Why don't you go take a walk," she said wearily, rubbing one eye. "I'll go with you as far as the library, I have something to do. You can decide what you want."
Reshmi felt like sighing, but stopped herself. She felt as though she had run a long way, because she felt slightly breathless and her throat had gone dry.
--
After she sent Reshmi on her way, Akane did not go to the library.
The bell on the coffee shop door jangled brightly. Akane stomped in.
"Hey," Deos hailed her from a corner table, seated with Eziek, Hiroshi and Sati.
Akane marched straight over and did not sit down, but planted both hands on the table.
"Reshmilikessomeone," she said in one breath.
Deos blinked over the rim of his cup of coffee. "Come again?"
Akane took a deep breath.
"Reshmi likes someone."
It had the desired effect.
Deos spat coffee. Hiroshi winced and Sati's eyes widened.
Eziek took one look at Akane.
"It's Izenas," he said, swallowing a mouthful of black coffee. He grimaced.
"Are you sure you wouldn't like sugar?" Sati asked, concerned.
Akane stared. Deos wiped his mouth with his sleeve and coughed heavily.
"Wait, WHAT?!"
"How'd you know?" Akane interjected.
Eziek cast the window a sideways glance. "He has an air about him," he muttered quietly.
Akane decided not to prod. She stood straighter, debating whether to push Deos aside for a seat, but Sati moved to make room for her. She sat down, giving Sati a grateful look.
"So what do we do?"
"She can't do this," Deos said.
They gave him a collective surprised look.
"I won't let her," he added, which only served to confuse them more.
"She isn't going to approach him," Akane said, puzzled.
Deos stilled. "She what?"
Eziek moved his dark eyes from the street. "Then what?" he asked.
"She has it in her to do nothing."
"Nothing."
"Well, watch him."
Deos waved a hand, taking a deep sip of coffee. Akane eyed him warily, lest he undergo another severe fit of coughing. He let the cup hit the saucer with a clatter and sighed, agitated.
"She's really in over her head. Izenas is…"
Sati blinked. "Is what?"
Akane's mouth drew into a thin white line.
"He is…brilliant. And able. But he isn't someone you can turn to…"
"He isn't a gentleman."
Sati lifted her gaze to Eziek, as did Hiroshi. Akane said nothing. Deos gave her a surreptitious glance.
"He doesn't feel. The only person he has ever been sighted being concerned for would be his sister. Perhaps his parents. And maybe his mentor."
The table was quiet.
Akane put her head in her hands.
"We have to do something about this."
--
Walking was calming and inspirational. It was also, incidentally, the last thing Reshmi felt compelled to do.
There were great oak trees looming overhead, their barren branches stretching over her like crooked elderly arms with bony fingers. A few snowflakes were falling. Reshmi swallowed a breath of cold air and exhaled in a misty puff.
Then she noticed a figure in the distance, marked against the austere white-grey of the sky, street and horizon.
She swallowed hard.
It was him.
Her feet continued moving of their own volition. She panicked. In five seconds, she would be ten meters away from him. In another ten seconds, she would be close enough to reach out and touch him. Their paths would cross. He would notice her. Would he? Did he even know her name? Should she turn back? Would he find that strange?
Reshmi didn't realize she had stopped walking. She glanced up and blinked.
He had come to stand right beside her.
She struggled to maintain some semblance of composure. He was staring straight down at her. She swallowed several greetings that sounded awkward in her ears.
Now what?!
"…hello, sir," she said, and managed to sound calm and slightly perplexed at his abrupt focus.
He spoke, brow furrowed in concentration. Reshmi forced down the butterflies in her stomach that found this becoming of him.
"I believe I have seen you around the Academy," he said.
Reshmi nodded carefully. "I am in the initiation process to become a professor," she explained.
"I see." He studied her carefully, then stepped back a little and turned. She took this as invitation to follow. Her hands were numb and cold.
"Your name is…Reva, is it not?" he directed at her as they walked.
"It's Reshmi," she answered, wondering why she sounded slightly apologetic.
"My apologies," he said. Something fluttered in her throat. "You reminded me of my sister."
Her stomach settled unpleasantly. His sister? "I, um…that must be quite a compliment." She kicked herself mentally.
"She is very clever," he said listlessly. "Albeit somewhat precocious…"
Reshmi nodded. "Well…I can't say I'm quite as clever as her, perhaps. What does she do?"
"She is training to join the High Court of Geffen." Izenas bowed his head a little. "I believe she is capable."
"She sounds very much so," Reshmi said, all the while thinking that she might have dug a hole for herself and sunk into it.
Izenas cast her a glance.
"You have the same hair," he said softly. "Very dark. And startling eyes."
"Um, thank you," Reshmi said, startled. Can't you say one thing without hesitating? "They're really only grey…"
Izenas slowed and turned to face her a little. "They carry a depth that is not present in most other eyes."
She said nothing, and stared at him. He stared back. His own eyes were very black, perhaps darker than Eziek's, and most definitely more than Akane, although her eyes deepened to a winy purple when she was angry.
"You are, very much like Desa," he murmured.
You have to do something. I can't help you anymore than this.
Reshmi bowed her head, and reasoned that she might as well have been hung for killing someone, say, Deos, although she couldn't imagine Akane complaining.
"Izenas, sir," she added hastily. She swallowed "…I believe you have caught some of my attention at the Academy, with your dedication to your position…and the intensity with which you approach your students. And…"
He was watching her avidly, with heavily-lidded, silent eyes. She had no idea how she possibly said what came from her mouth next.
"…and I do admire you."
Her mouth remained open, until she realized there was nothing more to say, and then she closed it sharply. Her mind buzzed erratically with the magnitude of what she had done. She had the sensation of balancing on the balls of her feet in mid-air, a sweeping feeling of being untethered, her emotions bound to a heart belonging to a single other person.
And then he opened his mouth.
"You handle your affairs in quite the same way as Desa, as well," he concluded.
….what?!
--
"…well, I never thought you had it in you."
Akane sounded equal parts mortified and amazed. Sati was smiling, perhaps a little ruefully, but genuinely. Hiroshi was grinning. Deos was shocked. Eziek was absolutely silent, but the corner of his mouth was upturned in a slight smirk.
Reshmi smiled nervously. "Uh, Deos, would you please close your mouth? You're scaring me."
Akane waved her hand. "Don't mind him, he's still in apoplectic shock. But really, that's incredible. Well, wow."
Reshmi shook her head, still smiling a little.
"And I can't believe…"
"Please don't, Akane," Reshmi interrupted. "I can't bear it anymore than I already have."
"But to do that to someone…" Akane drew a long face. "He really has no feelings."
"He certainly sounds dedicated to his sister," Sati mused.
"Her name was Desa." Reshmi's voice was muffled by the hands cradling her chin.
Silence.
"Desa," Hiroshi huffed, chuckling.
"It sounds…" Sati considered.
"Like a grandmother," her cousin finished.
"Hiro." Sati hit him lightly.
"It was good of you, though," Eziek said.
Reshmi glanced up, surprised.
"It's best to get it out of the way," he elaborated. "At least now you won't be distracted on guild missions."
"Well, 'Izenas doesn't feel', alright," Akane huffed. "But you have utterly no room to talk."
Eziek shrugged. "One has obligations as a guild member. They are not to be forgotten."
"I suppose, though," Reshmi mulled aloud, "that it was better than a flat-out decline." She refused to say rejection; it seemed to connote feelings of bitterness.
"It was, at any rate, more interesting," Akane said, still grinning despite her attempts to subdue it.
"Actually," Sati said, "if you're still interested."
Several surprised glances turned her way.
"There's someone I know who might be available," she said. "He's quite the guy."
"No." Hiroshi stared. "You don't mean…" When Sati nodded, he shook his head.
"I'm not signing her up with a psycho."
"He is not a psycho."
"He's other-worldly. His mind happens to have been replaced by…something else."
"Hiro!"
Akane laughed at their antics. Reshmi smiled weakly, and her eyes wandered to the steam-edged window of the café.
There was a young boy playing in the snow, with dark hair and darker eyes, and latched amiably onto his arm was a tiny girl with short dark hair, her eyes laughing and her smile brilliant.
Really, Reshmi mused, it wasn't much of a loss.
"Izenas must be incredibly dense."
"Deos, you're alive!"
"I mean, really now. He's ridiculous, to be that emotionless. He's like a turtle!"
"Watch what you say; he has quite the position of authority."
"He's still undeniably thick. Honestly, any self-respecting guy would snatch Reshmi up in an instant!"
"…Deos."
"What?"
"Go jump off a cliff. We'll miss you, I promise."
"Oi! That was uncalled for."
"You are aware that martyrs are quite well-respected."
"…"