Content warning:

The second half of this chapter deals with offscreen physical abuse, onscreen verbal abuse, and mentions of stillbirth.

Also, I shouldn't have to say this, what Gaius said was absoloutly not okay.

JUNE 3RD, 2011

“But are you a witch? I need you to be honest.”

Gaius was sitting with an older man in a secluded meeting room. Neither of them wanted to be there, but least of all Gaius. “That’s a title reserved for immortals. I’m just a mage.”

“So you admit that you’re using magic.”

“I admitted that I’m a mage, nothing else.” Gaius broke eye contact and sighed. “That doesn’t mean that I have been using magic in my studies.”

“Look, I believe you, and it’s a damn shame that we’re losing someone like you.” Gaius somehow fought the urge to roll his eyes at the program chair’s rather insincere regret. “The good news is that the advisory board can’t prove that you’ve done anything dishonest. So your degree is safe. But they don’t want to employ someone who can falsify research results on a whim.”

Gaius had known this was coming, and he told himself that he was going to handle this gracefully. He was fighting to keep himself from acting out, but he wasn’t remaining stoic, and his eye was twitching, as if on the verge of lashing out.

“Look, there’s still a place for you. You’re good with the undergrads, and they won’t care that their professor knows magic. We just need you to step back. We have a reputation to uphold.”

“So you’re not even going to have the backbone to fire me.” Gaius swallowed most of his rage, but he still glared at his superior scornfully.

“You’ve put me in an impossible situation, Galileo.” The older man let his polite facade drop. “If I keep you around, then that’s a threat to the department’s credibility. But if I fire you after all these years, the media will rip the university to shreds. Especially considering how many of them think you’re a hero.”

Gaius sighed. He was absolutely done for, he might as well give his boss what he’s looking for “You’ll have my resignation letter by the end of tomorrow, but I won’t admit to anything beyond being a mage.”

“Thank you.” The old man didn’t try to hide his gratitude. “I’m sure you’ll find somewhere in the private sector that doesn’t care. If you need a reference, you have my contact information.”

It was another fifteen agonizing minutes of paperwork before Gaius got out of that room, and then he spent another half hour walking aimlessly and numbly around the campus. At some point, he had bought an energy drink from a nearby vending machine and then made his way to a gazebo that was surrounded by a few bushes and flowers.

He brushed some of the leaves with his hand; they looked as if they were in good condition, but he could tell that there was something wrong with one of them. He placed both hands on one of the affected bush’s leaves and tried to sense it more closely. It was something parasitic, likely a fungus. He could have gotten some fungicide to kill it, but there was no point in wasting his time for the sake of keeping up appearances anymore. He channeled a bit of magic to discreetly kill the invader.

Once he sat down, he withdrew his laptop from his bag. He had some work to do before he was truly done, and then he’d start the job hunt. But before he had time to do anything, he noticed that an envelope had fallen out of his bag. It was unassuming, other than the fact that his name was written on the front with a purple fountain pen and elegant handwriting. Should he really open this out in the open? Well, if there was anyone watching, they already saw it.

Hey, I heard some crazy stuff about you, but more importantly, I heard you might not be teaching anymore. I was hoping we could talk in private. Let me know if you have time, okay?

Hikari Moriyama

***-***-****

Gaius was too numb to cringe at the implications. He had almost gotten through his graduate schooling without having to deal with this kind of thing from his students, but everything else was falling apart, so this was just par for the course.

His first instinct was to tear the letter to pieces and forget the whole thing. And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to. This wasn’t some naive and bright-eyed girl. This was a woman who graduated with honors and had always spoken as if she had plans for the future. 

Regarless of whether or not it was okay, she was going to ruin her future if she associated with him, Gaius was sure of it. He shook his head as he started writing out a text. He had a responsibility to let her down easy, that’s what he told himself.

JUNE 4TH, 2011

Gaius spun a pencil in between his fingers as he made his way down the hall. The two of them had agreed to meet in a small meeting room that was no longer in use for the semester. He was fifteen minutes early, hoping that he’d be better able to mentally prepare himself if he was there first. However, Hikari was already there, sitting at the table and staring at him with an inscrutable smile.

“I’m really happy you came here, despite everything that’s happening.” Hikari motioned towards a chair across from her. Gaius stepped in and closed the door before taking his seat.

“This is going to sound bad, but I’ve been watching you for a while now.” Gaius cringed as Hikari got right to the point. So she may or may not have been stalking him, lovely.

This might be a lot more severe then a simple declaration of love. Gaius reached into his pocket for a small travel bottle he kept on hand in case of emergencies, though he hoped he wouldn’t have to use it. “Hikari, you’re a bright girl with your whole future ahead of you. What are you doing here?”

Hikari leaned forward eagerly and grinned a bit wider. She knew that he had a trick up his sleeve, but if anything, she was eager to see it. “I could ask the same thing. Why is a mage skilled enough to put out a small scale wildfire wasting away at a mid-tier university?”

Gaius huffed and looked away. Of all of the questions she had to ask, why that? He added the contents of the bottle to the water bottle he was carrying with him under the table. Hikari could tell he was doing something under the table, but she couldn’t tell what. “Don’t change the subject.”

“I’m not.” Hikari didn’t hesitate to clarify. “I came here from Eclipse. My real name is Hikari Inoue. I’m here to talk about your future, but unlike your superior, I think your future looks quite bright.”

The good news is that Gaius did not, in fact, have a crazy stalker. The bad news is that he was talking to the next-in-line to lead a particularly notorious mage clan. He took a drink from the opaque water bottle and placed it on the table. “Look, there’s a good reason I don’t associate with the magical community. I just want to be left alone.”

“Left alone to do what, exactly?” Hikari stood up in an attempt to look imposing, but it wasn’t very effective; she was just too short. “I’m assuming that you left any family behind after you changed your name and removed yourself from data broker websites. You have plenty of casual acquaintances, but no truly close friends. You threw yourself entirely at your work and studies.”

Okay, scratch that, she is a crazy stalker. Gaius’s blood ran cold, and he stood up and grabbed the bottle along with his laptop bag, ready to leave as soon as possible. “Okay, you got me. My family sucks and I barely have a social life. But I was doing some serious good, and if I can’t continue my work here, I can find somewhere else.”

“What do you think I’m here for?” Hikari planted her hand on her face and shook her head. “The Director is interested in your work, especially your research into undoing desertification and other ecological damage. You’d be getting a substantial pay increase, free room and board, and you wouldn’t have to hold back your real talents anymore.”

Dammit, she drove a hard bargain. Still, this was far too good to be true. Gaius set his bag down for a moment and sighed. “You have my attention, but I want details, in writing.”

“You won’t regret this, I promise. I have some paperwork for you to look over, but Daiki- sorry, The Director, asked me to tell you not to sign anything until you meet him in person.”

So he’s not being pressured to commit right away, that’s a good sign. Gaius was starting to calm down, and decided to speak honestly. “You know, this would have been a lot easier for both of us if you were more up front about what you wanted. You’re giving people the wrong idea by slipping people notes like that.”

Hikari wasn’t sure what he meant. Wasn’t it best to make sure there were no electronic trails? Still, she smiled a little. “What kind of ideas?”

“That… looked a lot like a love letter.” Gaius answered bluntly. This prompted Hikari to turn red and break eye contact.

“Oh. Um, I can see that now. I’m usually not the one in charge of recruiting, sorry.  Um… we’ll talk later, okay?”

Hikari left through another exit, prompting Gaius to do the same. That woman was a confusing mess, but at least things are looking up now. His hand started twitching; The magical performance enhancers he had just drank were too potent, and weren’t fast-acting enough. He’ll need to find a way to safely dispose of the rest of it, then he’ll be spending the rest of the day at the gym trying to work this out of his system.

JULY 23RD, 2014

“You know, I think this is the most time we’ve spent together since I became director.”

Hikari stood over the operating table, as well as Gaius. She ran her hand over the incisions she had made hours ago, and her hand glowed as the wounds partially closed. She rested her hand over his heart. It had truly stopped beating, and yet, Gaius was as lively as ever. Well, other than the drugs she kept having to give him.

Gaius wanted to do nothing more than just sleep, but he was pushing himself to stay awake again. He hadn’t been in these labs that long, but it felt like this little project had gone on for an eternity. “Lucky me. Who knew that all I had to do to get you to give a shit was sign my own death warrant.”

Hikari looked away with a guilty expression on her face as she started to gather surgical to pick up the used tools and anything else that needed to be disposed of. “I didn’t have time to give a shit. You could have left without making a scene, you know. But you had to publicly run your mouth, and now everyone considers you a traitor. I was supposed to make an example of you, make it clear that I’m not soft like my brother was. But I found a way to save your life, an this is the thanks I get?”

The only response she got at first was a scoff. Gaius had come to despise Hikari’s twisted logic more than anything else. Hikari had finished cleaning up and was about to leave so her assistants could deal with her husband. But before she could, Gaius finally spoke up.

“You know, I’m glad someone as fucked up as you wasn’t able to bring a kid into this world. God only knows what you’d be doing to our son if he was alive.”

Hikari froze in her tracks. How dare he. How dare he. She looked back towards him with a look of pure hatred. “Do me a favor and drop dead like the other test subjects.”