"Sit down," Julius ordered, closing the door softly behind Cale and moving into the room.

Cale gulped, a need to pace starting to flutter in him, and he let it out without trying to quell it. There was a perfect space to pace in the middle of the room, as the room was more oblong than Cale's, and the layout of the furniture was different. The desk, for example, was at the foot of Julius' bed, and there was only a single bookcase. The bookcase itself was only half-filled with books, the other half boxes of various sizes, and many small nicknacks.

He grimaced as he walked back and forwards on the soft-looking carpet that he couldn't feel through his shoes. Before he knew what he was doing, he had already pulled the shoes off his feet, and his sock-clad feet settled on the carpet again.

It was soft. And fluffy. Certainly much nicer than the only carpet in Cale's dorm. He frowned and when he looked up, he found that Julius had settled himself on the desk chair, having spun it around so that it faced Cale, and was staring straight at him. Unabashedly, like he had no sense of shame at all.

Cale furrowed his brows and abruptly stopped in his pacing. "How will this even work?" he snapped out.

Oh. Was he angry? Maybe he was.

"I'll court you, and by the time of my graduation, if you're agreeable, we'll settle on a date for the wedding," Julius said. Then he must have seen something on Cale's face, because he continued, "It doesn't have to be immediately. We'll wait as long as you want."

Cale let out a long breath, dragging his hands through his hair, ruffling it even further. He started pacing again. Back and forward. Back and forward. Then he turned suddenly toward Julius again and asked, trying not to sound desperate, "Do you love me?"

"Yes," Julius stated, like there was no doubt.

Cale furrowed his eyebrows and lowered his gaze. "Are you in love with me?"

"Yes," Julius stated softly.

Cale sat down. On the floor, because apparently there wasn't a chair behind him. Poor planning, that was. "How—why—when—how?!"

Then, when he could speak like a sensible person again, Cale burst out, "It's only been a few months!"

Julius nodded as if that all made perfect sense to him. "It was a surprise to me too. I didn't think I would fall in love with you." Julius shrugged and smiled softly at him. Cale felt his heart stutter in his chest and he looked away to protect his sanity. Julius continued, "I wouldn't have asked your parents for permission to court you if I wasn't in love with you. And I wouldn't have spoken with you about it."

Cale gazed up at the ceiling. He swallowed the lump in his throat and made one last attempt, "But... I'm older than you."

"Nobody cares," Julius said. "And it's only four years, that's hardly anything."

Cale kept in the urge to point out that it was closer to a five year age difference between Julius and Calla, much less between Julius and Cale.

"We'll be courting for a minimum of two years, and it'll probably take around a year to plan the wedding. Meaning at least three years until we're married. In that time, I'll do my best to get you to love me, and prove that I am sincere. " Julius smiled again, the kind of helpless smile that made him seem his actual age. "I love you. I am in love with you. I want to marry you. I want to be together with you until we're old and grey. And if that's not what you want, I beg of you to let me court you. Let me try to change your mind.

"And if, at the end of our courting, you still don't want to marry me, I'll leave. I want you to be happy, Calla. And if I don't make you happy, tell me." Julius sighed and leaned back on the chair, staring at Cale while he waited for a response.

Cale licked his lips. He slowly moved to a more proper sitting position, though he was still on the floor. He crossed his legs and stared intently at Julius.

That was... Cale didn't know what to say. Except, "I want to leave this country."

And he found that once he had started, he couldn't stop. "I want to be a librarian, or work in a bookstore, or just research at home. But I want to leave. I want to go to a faraway country, and I want to find a cozy house in the countryside, and live there until I die."

"Then we'll do that," Julius said.

"Why?" Cale barely managed to contain the urge to tear his hair out by the roots. Sometimes, for all that Julius was very straightforward, it was impossible to understand him. "Your life is here, why would you want to go to another country with me?"

"I'm a good mage, Calla," Julius raised an eyebrow and looked at him judgmentally. "I can get a job anywhere. I have a large inheritance and I'm not the heir to my family, I have two older brothers. Moving isn't an issue. I'm not particularly attached to this country, and my family is obnoxiously supportive. They'll help us look for a place if we ask them."

Cale stared at him. Julius looked back at him, a calm look on his face. He didn't appear to be disturbed or upset at all by the fact that Cale wanted to move. "I don't mean," Cale frowned and shook his head. "I don't mean that I want to move some far off time in the future. I mean I want to move as soon as I graduate, the sooner the better."

He clenched his hands in his lap and looked out Julius' window. Cale sighed. "I don't want to stay here a second longer than necessary."

When no quick response came, Cale looked over at Julius. Julius was frowning in thought, his green eyes faced toward the wall behind Cale. Cale furrowed his brows and brought a hand up to his face, unclenching it and rubbing his eye. He waited for Julius to say something.

"I will arrange to visit on breaks," Julius finally declared, his voice brokering no objections. "It will probably be a longer courtship since we'll see each other less, but I'll move there when I graduate and we can make up for it."

Cale let out a groan and pushed his head down into his hands. "You're impossible," he muttered into them. "Are you truly alright with moving to another country? As soon as you graduate? Away from all your family and friends? Just on the off-chance I might fall in love and agree to marry you?"

"Yes."

"And what if I don't?"

"Then, if you'll allow it, well stay friends. If not, I'll go home and never bother you again," Julius said and shrugged his shoulders like it was no big deal.

Cale twitched. "See? You just called this home."

Julius gave him a thoroughly unimpressed look, "You're grabbing straws, Calla. Any place with you will be home to me. So? Will you let me court you?"

Cale's hands drifted to the rug beneath him and his fingers started to card through it. "Ye—" he coughed and nodded, saying softly, "Yeah."

His fingers squeezed the fabric of the carpet. He resolutely kept staring down on his hands, even as he heard Julius' footsteps approaching him. Julius dropped down on the floor right in front of Cale and he held his hand out. Cale's eyes flickered to the hand held out in the air between them, before he hesitantly placed his own on it. He still didn't look up.

"Thank you," Julius said, words that Cale had never expected to hear from him. "I will make sure you don't regret this."

Cale looked up. His eyes met Julius' and he felt his mouth dry. He licked his lips and opened his mouth, but no words came out. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to do. How did courting even work here? He had never read anything about it in 'Fire & Ice'. Was it like dating? Would they go to dinner and watch a theater play? He swallowed, and grimaced at the lack of saliva, casting his gaze back down to where their hands were still connected.

He stared at them. Julius' hand was about the same size as his, the color far more healthy than Calla's pale skin. On his own, Cale could see his blue veins standing out, but Julius' was a tanned color.

"How..." Cale cleared his throat and felt Julius squeeze his hand a little. He started over, "How do we do this then?"

"We start simple," said Julius. His finger drifted along the edges of Cale's hand. "I'll take you out to dinner tomorrow at a restaurant."

"Tomorrow," Cale mumbled out, his hand feeling unbearably warm in Julius' grip. Julius' finger left searing marks after itself. Cale asked, "So soon?"

"Do you not want to?" Julius asked.

Cale shook his head. "It's fine," he said and turned the idea over in his head. A dinner date with Julius. Tomorrow. It was admittedly a tempting thought, and he asked, "Where?"

"It'll be a surprise."

Cale leveled him a calm look. "Not here in school tough, right?"

"Of course not," Julius sounded disgusted by the mere thought, his nose wrinkling. Without any input from his brain, Cale's traitorous hand rose and poked Julius' nose, right where the wrinkling was the strongest.

Julius' skin smoothed out almost instantly and his eyes were unbearably soft. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"Ah," Cale brought his hand down, lowering his gaze. He closed his eyes for a brief second, unable to believe what he had done. His hand was caught as Cale was about to place it in his lap, and he opened his eyes to see that Julius' was squeezing them both. Feeling a fluttering in his stomach, he bit down on his bottom lip.

Tomorrow, they would go on their first date.