A man with sharp, thick eyebrows and large, intense eyes suddenly emerged from the crowd on the dance floor. He was dressed in a sleek suit, his hair slicked back in a way that screamed 'all grown up.' It was Louis.
"Why do I get the feeling you're enjoying this?"
"It's not often I get to see you struggle with something." Louis sat down next to him and picked up a glass of red wine, swirling it thoughtfully. "Honestly, since I first met you, you've always seemed... well, invincible."
"I'm not Doraemon." Wayland rolled his eyes. If he actually had a Time Machine, an Anywhere Door, or a What-If Phone, then maybe he'd be invincible.
"Wait, you've watched Doraemon too?" Louis's eyes sparked with excitement. "I thought you was either in a library or on your way to one."
"Hardly. I'm just another student who'd love to be a lazy bum but doesn't have the luxury."
"A slacker?" Louis shook his head. "If you're a slacker, what does that make me? A single-celled organism?"
"A paramecium? Can you do an aerial split?"
"Huh?"
"Never mind. Don't look so surprised--I'm a total otaku. I never miss a seasonal premiere."
Before he was reincarnated, Wayland's primary hobbies outside of his studies were gaming and anime.
Even though he'd mostly watched the newer releases from the past few years, 2003 wasn't that far back. He was still familiar with the heavy hitters from this era.
"Slam Dunk, Hunter X Hunter, Neon Genesis Evangelion... and we already talked about Fullmetal Alchemist when we first met."
"That's incredible!" Louis grabbed his hand, his grip surprisingly tight. "You have to tell me--how do you manage to stay on top of your studies while watching that much anime? Your time management skills must be legendary!"
"Let go! Two grown men holding hands like this--what's wrong with you?!"
"Ugh, you have no idea how miserable my life is!" Louis let out a long, dramatic sigh. "My family is a small, relatively new house. Our lineage only goes back three or four generations, and I'm the only heir. But I just don't have the talent. My entire childhood was spent grinding away at the family magecraft, preparing to inherit the Magic Crest."
"Isn't that the standard experience for every magus family? What's so miserable about it? Just because you didn't have time for anime?"
"Do you even know what our family's Magic Crest is?"
"Enlighten me."
"Electrical magecraft." Louis's expression turned tragic.
"Pfft--!" Wayland couldn't help but snort. "Sorry. I didn't mean to laugh."
"It's fine. Go ahead. Laugh it up." Louis raised his glass and downed the wine in one go, as if trying to drown his sorrows.
Magecraft training was almost always a brutal affair.
For instance, to ensure Sakura Matou was a suitable heir, Zouken had completely restructured her body with Crest Worms.
To inherit a crest focused on electricity, Louis had likely been subjected to a lifetime of shocks--a literal version of a 'troubled teen' being electro-shocked into compliance.
Wayland suspected that Louis's permanently wide eyes were a direct result of that 'training.'
Yet, his hair somehow hadn't turned into a permanent afro.
"Life is hard! I could write a dozen novels about the blood and tears I've shed fighting with my old man. Maybe you could write my story one day--I could be the next Harry Potter of the magical world. To 'train' me, he'd wait until I was right in the middle of an episode and then cut the power to the house. I had to literally turn myself into a human generator just to see how the season ended!" Louis bit into a chicken leg with righteous indignation.
"Talk about 'powering your passion' with love." Wayland patted him on the shoulder in a sympathetic gesture. "Well, you're at the Clock Tower now. Your father can't reach you here. You can watch whatever you want."
"No!" Louis said, his voice cracking. "I'm graduating soon. I have to go back and inherit the family title."
"Oh. Well, that is a bit depressing."
"My youth! My beautiful teenagers and adorable lolis! It's all going to end!"
"..."
Wayland gave him a skeptical look. "You're just a pervert. You're just lusting after their bodies, aren't you?"
"That's slander!" Louis puffed out his chest and wiped a bit of drool from his chin. "I'm just a connoisseur of beauty! Can't you understand that?"
"You've got the desire, but no guts to back it up."
"I have principles! Besides, 2D isn't like 3D."
"A shut-in truly only loves his 'waifus' on paper."
"Hey, I'm actually quite popular in the real world! I was just dancing with a junior student earlier!"
Wayland raised an eyebrow and gestured toward the room. "And where is she now?"
"Man, I only came over here to keep you company because you looked so lonely. Where's the gratitude?"
"Give it to me straight."
"Elena didn't have a partner, so she... well, she 'borrowed' mine." Louis gave him a resentful look.
Wayland felt a sudden, cold shiver. "You're really that afraid of her?"
"Aren't you?" Louis asked. "A girl who knows everything about everyone--how could you not be afraid? She's stronger than you, she has more authority than you... if you get on her bad side, you're looking at a one-way trip to a penal colony or worse."
"...Point taken."
Wayland's lip twitched. "But why didn't she just dance with you? Isn't dancing supposed to be between a man and a woman?"
"Because I'm too tall. She said her neck would get tired from looking up at me the whole time."
"Pfft--!" Wayland started laughing again.
Louis was a quintessential Westerner, standing nearly two meters high. The sight of him dancing with the diminutive Elena would have been a literal 'Beauty and the Beast' scenario.
"Look on the bright side. Dancing is exhausting. Look at this steak, this Australian lobster--doesn't it smell amazing?"
"You're just a lonely dog!" Louis said with a sneer.
"Say that again!" Wayland fired back. "What do you know? Life is short! Why waste it on something as tedious as a relationship?"
"You're an idiot." Louis looked at him as if he were a complete stranger. "A magus can easily live for two or three hundred years. Besides, if you don't find a wife now, your aunts and grandmothers will probably be lining up dozens of arranged matches for you the moment you graduate. Do you really think you'll find someone better than the girls here at the Clock Tower?"
"..."
'Is the world of magic really this grounded in reality?'
Wayland decided it was time to play his trump card. "You really think a guy with a face like mine is going to end up as a 'lonely dog'?"
Louis was instantly silenced. He'd lost that round.
After a long silence, Louis spoke again. "In all seriousness, I think Elena is a great match. Her family background is incredible. If you married her, you might even get a branch of their Magic Crest. It would save you decades of struggling on your own."
"She's too small."
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]