Manbun had used a funny strategy to warn me about Daniel. Not funny as in “amusing”, but funny as in “what the hell was that?” After this encounter, I felt more inclined to stay away from Manbun himself than from anyone else. I started avoiding him more and more, which meant I had to stay away from Clara and the others as well, since they often hung around together. Luckily, my new job in Daniel's lab kept me busy. I didn’t want Daniel to regret hiring me, so I made sure to remain professional at all times. It was difficult, not to stare at him whenever he was around, so I just stole glances when he wasn’t looking. It was even more difficult not to brush against him while we were putting up shelves side by side, for example, so I just waited for it to happen by mistake. It was all a bit pathetic, but what can you do.
As it turns out, Nicole also became part of the lab as a volunteer. And then there was Shaina, who would be starting projects for her master's thesis in a few months. She was a shy girl, but we got along well. One Friday afternoon, all four members of the lab met to catch up. As usual, I was lost in my contemplation of Daniel. I noticed he’d been frowning more lately. I wondered why. I hoped it wasn’t because of me. At some point, Nicole’s words pierced through my daydream, "When finals will be coming up, I'd like to take time off to study."
"Well, that's a bit inconvenient since that will be our last chance to finish up before next semester. You should make an effort to become more organised."
Daniel had said that. Daniel-happy-go-lucky-easygoing-I'm-sorry-for-bothering-you kind of Daniel. As far as Shaina, Nicole and I were concerned, he might as well have been yelling at the top of his lungs while tearing off his shirt with fire coming out in the background. Nicole had been very involved since she'd started in the lab, and finals were still a few weeks away. There was no reason to lecture her about slacking off yet.
Daniel duly avoided making eye contact with me throughout the meeting, which was supposed to be my special technique, not his. When it was finally over, I followed him to his office. I observed him wearily put his notebook on his desk before he noticed me waiting in the doorway. He immediately erased his frown. "Hey, come in! Is there something?"
I walked in, closing the door behind me.
"Daniel, are you alright?"
He tried to smile, but it wasn't very convincing. "Of course, why?"
"You look tired..." I dropped my bag by his desk. All was silent; most people had already left for the week-end.
"I've been a bit busier lately."
It might have been that. I stood in front of him, looking into his eyes, trying to read what was there. His lightheartedness always seemed so genuine, no one really doubted it was true. Now, however, he was struggling to maintain his usual mask. “Is that it?” I asked.
An undefinable expression slowly took over his face. It was made of sadness, uncertainty, fear, weariness. Daniel wore his grief like an expensive coat. It enhanced the grace of his back, the elegance of his lazy curls, the quiet slope of his shoulders. He placed a hand at the nape of my neck, weaving his fingers in my hair. Then, he seemed to wake up from a dream. "I’m sorry, I shouldn’t..." He moved his hand to my shoulder, shaking his head.
“I don’t mind,” I said.
"Damian... you're my student.”
He walked to the window, turning his back to me. “Thanks for worrying... but you should go."
At that moment, someone knocked at the door. Daniel told the person to come in, and another one of my professors, Dr. Esther Joseph, entered. She seemed in a good mood. “Hello, do you have a minute? I can come back if you’re busy. Hi there, Damian.” I nodded at her uneasily.
“No, no, it’s fine, Esther. What is it?” Daniel replied in his characteristic affable tone.
“It’s about the Christmas dinner for the faculty members…”
I picked up my school bag, nodding again at Dr. Joseph, and left them to their chat. I hoped she hadn’t noticed the sudden awkwardness that had crept between Daniel and me when she entered.
Well, people were decidedly sending out confusing messages these days. On my way out, I got a text from Nicole asking me if I wanted to join her and Clara for dinner. I said, sure, is anyone else (i.e. Manbun) going to be there too? She replied it would be just us three, so I went to meet them at our usual restaurant. Once we were seated, Nicole opened the conversation by telling Clara about our meeting earlier.
"Yeah, and so when I mentioned needing time to study, he just snapped at me.”
"Snapped at you?"
"I mean, for Daniel it counted as snapping. I guess for anyone else it's just being normal."
Clara nodded. In what most people would only consider normal human behaviour, she saw the tip of the iceberg. The iceberg of drama.
"But why?" she inquired.
"You know what, I think the stress of his new job is getting at him," proposed Nicole, "and he's slowly turning into a bitch."
I choked on a piece of green pepper and started coughing uncontrollably. Clara patted me on the back, which I'm not sure is the right thing to do, while Nicole kept telling me to drink water. When I was sufficiently recovered, I blew my nose with the table napkin, dried my eyes and said, "Be a bit more respectful!"
Clara flashed me a meaningful smirk. Obviously, they didn't listen to me and they just kept on making outrageous suppositions to explain Daniel's "dramatic" change of personality. I couldn’t blame them; I myself was lost in conjectures about what was going on in Daniel’s mind.
I sighed. There was Christmas music playing in the restaurant. I hated Christmas music for various reasons, but I guess the main one was that my father had passed away during the holiday season. As you know, I kept very few memories of that period, but this one stood like the last tree in the middle of a burnt field. I was with my grandmother, doing some shopping for gifts at the mall. Those songs were playing in every shop we visited. We were looking at some punch bowls or whatever when my grandmother's cellphone rang. She picked up and her face immediately changed into a mask of dread. Even then, I knew what it meant. I could hear my mom's sobs emanating from the phone. My father was on the point of passing away and she had called to urge us to come by his side to see him one last time, which is what we did.
Eventually, we finished our meal and Nicole had to leave. Clara and I stayed a bit longer at the table to chat. Actually, now that we were alone, maybe I could take advantage of her uncanny ability to know everything and ask if she had heard about my former blackmailers. Solving this mystery had taken the backseat lately, but now was the time to pick it up again.
"Hey, Clara, do you know what happened to those two guys?"
I wasn't wrong in assuming she knew something. She immediately lit up.
"You mean Carl and Rashid? I helped a bit."
My eyes grew big as saucers.
"Don't look at me like that. I didn't have anything to do with them. But I knew something wasn't right with you. One afternoon, I came to see Daniel to his office about the paper and I saw you storm out of it. He followed you a moment after, leaving the door open. I had a look inside his office, just checking to make sure no one else would come in to steal anything. He already had the files open on his desktop, so I couldn't help seeing the names without even wanting to. You know, these two guys have a bad rep. I searched on them a bit, and it's not the first time they do shady stuff. They were second year students, part of the football team. Apparently, the coach had been threatening to kick them out if their grades didn't improve. I have a friend who was able to get into their mailbox. We found a bunch of incriminating e-mails, and not just the ones from you."
"So you said you would reveal the whole thing if they didn't leave?"
"I didn't. I just got the evidence. Someone else dealt with them directly, but I promised I wouldn't say who they were."
"What? How much do they know?"
"I only said that you were being bothered by these two guys, I didn't say why. I don't even know what they did, just that it solved the problem."
I stared at her with my mouth gaping open. Well, it was definitely better to have Clara with you than against you. I was a bit reassured. Whoever she had asked for help couldn't be that bad, right?
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