Nighttime came and they all had dinner. Marcel went to rest afterward, enjoying the fresh air on the little balcony inside his room alone, when suddenly, someone came flying towards him from the garden below, sitting on a large tree branch-turned magic staff; a blessing specific to battle-type witches and guess who it was? Arcelia! 

  

Marcel greeted her politely, wondering why she came to see him. Oh no, was she also smitten with his troublesome beauty like Shalia and Gwendal?! If so, then he’s got to let her down nicely.  

Much to his surprise, Arcelia asked an entirely different question; one that would take them in a direction Marcel really liked. 

“Want to hear a little story?”  

“Do I?!” He answered with anticipation. 

Arcelia then began her story. 

“Once upon a time, there lived a boy. He was very cold and aloof. His blue eyes were as cold as ice to everyone who looked at them and his demeanor was as cold as frost to anyone who approached him, well, except one person.  

This person was a girl, the only friend that the boy had. She was a bright and cheerful girl, in contrast to the boy who was cold and distant. The boy was expressionless almost all the time except for when the girl came. They would play for a while until the girl had to go. Those times were the most fun for the girl.  

The two people stayed friends for a long time until the girl fell in love with the boy. She tried her best to always visit the lonely boy like she always had, but responsibility wasn’t letting her spend as much time with the boy as they grew. After all, she was born a Battle-type Witch and had her family responsibilities as well. She eventually saw the boy less and less until it was time for her half-coming-of-age ceremony at 500 years old. That day would bring forth the biggest surprise that she’d ever received.  

She learned that the boy she’d been meeting for years was one day to be her husband, and this news filled her with joy. She thought that everything would be fine, even if she didn’t see the boy as often as she used to, because they were meant to be wed, but then an incident happened. 

The girl took a trip to the dungeon one day, and a plant-type dungeon at that, where she met a Vine Grabber. She fought valiantly against the Vine Grabber, even though she wasn’t strong enough to deal with it. She was still a child, after all.  

In the end, she was fully molested by the dungeon beast before she managed to do away with it, and then she got attacked by several additional monsters after that, leaving her injured. She returned back home in bad shape and told her servants to fetch her fiancé for her, but he never even heard the news since he’d already shut himself away from the rest of the world to do his research.  

The girl knew that the boy didn’t care about anything else during the time he did research, but she hoped... she hoped that her friend, her fiancé, and the boy she loved would leave everything and come see her, but that never happened. The boy was as apathetic, indifferent, and cold as he always was and neglected the girl in her time of need.  

This betrayal by her friend, hurt the girl very deeply, but she told herself that it was just a mistake that he didn’t come that day, but she knew oh so well in her heart that it wasn’t. Why did she think that he’d changed over the years just because he paid her some of his attention? He, apparently, had better things to do than be there for her.  

This was the beginning of the rift that would cause the boy and girl to slowly drift apart even faster than they were at the beginning.  

Eventually, the girl consulted a diviner witch friend of hers and had her read the future of their relationship. She learned that no matter how hard she tried and loved the boy with all her being, she would never have his heart. He was forever destined to be alone, even in her presence.  

This news was heartbreaking to the girl and despite how much it tore up her to do it, she terminated the marriage agreement between the boy and herself soon after. After all, what was to be the point of marriage as a witch with an extraordinarily long life if no hearts were to be united?  

So, they stayed friends after the engagement was terminated, but their relationship dropped from that of two people who happened to be childhood friends and former to-be life partners; so close to the relationship of strangers whose paths once crossed. With time, the boy became a multidimensional star, and she, a nobody who maintained some relationship with his mother. The end!” Arcelia said and then she looked so sad. She sighed and peered out the window.  

 

Marcel already guessed that the person she was talking about had to be Allan and herself. He was very surprised to hear that Allan, the cheery guy he knew, was so cold and distant not too long ago.  

He tried imagining it and, somehow, it fit perfectly. He could see the cold and distant Allan in the image of the bright and cheery Allan even now. He wondered what it meant, but thought nothing of it afterward. 

Marcel then asked Arcelia why she had told him what she had and she said that she answered, 

“I felt like it was something you needed to know since you and Allan are ‘very close’ to each other. My hope is that Allan will become even greater friends with you since that’s what will help him. He seems so much better now in spirit compared to when he was all by himself. He’s almost like ‘a maiden in love’, though he might not have realized yet what's happening since he’s probably never felt this way before.” Arcelia chuckled slightly as she stared at Marcel, who couldn’t quite get what she was getting at. 

Marcel smiled back, "I hope so too! Allan’s great!”  

Arcelia smiled as she realized that Allan was in for a harder time than she had with him. This person... is um, unnaturally dense! Allan might be a magical genius in alchemy and spell-making but he certainly isn’t a ‘genius of the heart’. She could only wish him good luck. 

Afterward, she picked up her stick and then flew off once again. She felt so relieved to finally tell someone her story; someone who really listened to all she had to say, especially Marcel. It was nice to have his attention at that moment, but... that time is gone forever. Time to move on!  

She is Arcelia Wilcox, and the specialty of Wilcoxes, is thrashing the barriers that stand in their way, be it physical or magical ones. Allan might have been a barrier that she couldn’t breakthrough, but her efforts weren’t pointless. She helped shape his current and hopefully, future self, and for that, she is content. 

 

After Arcelia had left, Marcel looked back into his room to notice Allan there and asked, “You heard?” 

“Yeah... hehe~” Allan answered awkwardly with a wry laugh. 

“Yeah, I guess I am a really cruel person for doing that to her, now aren’t I?” He continued, his expression indecipherable. 

“No, you aren--” Allan interrupted Marcel from finishing that sentence. 

“You won’t think so, by the time I’m done!” Allan yelled, his voice resonating throughout the entire room before he calmed down, feeling slightly embarrassed. 

He sighed, 

“Let me give you a different side to the story you just heard; from the side of the very boy who broke the heart of the only friend he had.” 

 

Allan’s POV

Of all the things I could have been born incapable of, I never imagined that I would be emotionally inept. The feeling of, um…... 

Yeah, I knew none of those! Whatever primal force that ensured that the fleshy organ within, known as the heart, didn’t exist only to pump blood throughout the body, had undoubtedly left me untouched. 

Since I was born and became Allan Archlen Wolfram, I found myself to be what can only be described as apathetic, viewing all things with indifference. That’s just how I was, and it seemed like there was nothing I could do about it. It never even bothered me that I was this way... until he met Arcelia. 

Arcelia was a cheerful young girl who barged into my life one afternoon when she came to visit our mansion. She’d come to see my mother. She was the definition of a ‘child’, whatever that word was defined by. She was a curious young thing, a bit slow in the head, but hey, at the level I found himself at, that was mostly everyone. That’s probably why my mother liked her so much. She possesses all the things I didn’t have. She... was a child. She could move them, while I couldn’t. 

Anyway, the young Arcelia found herself, um… happy, I don’t know, that I was around whenever she came to visit, but I guess I was different. At that time, I couldn’t even feign happiness, because I knew not what it entailed.  

Regardless of the facts, Arcelia’s presence was very much welcomed. She gave me the means to understand what I lacked back then. In her own way, she gave me what this universe had failed to give me. She kickstarted the process of my understanding of people and their emotions. 

Arcelia was important! She paid me some attention and, I don’t know, maybe something at my core that I still don’t understand, needed that attention so much back then that Arcelia became meaningful in my life. Maybe, it could also be the fact that I considered her a valuable study subject for observation. Compared to my parents, who elicited no such feelings at all within me, Arcelia was placed on my highest available pedestal. My parents were, after all, just people who helped bring me into this world and had expectations of me. I’d always tried my best to try and meet the standards set by them, but not like Arcelia. Compared to her, my younger self viewed his parents through the same monochromatic lenses that he viewed all other things.   

Arcelia brought some life to him, the young Allan, breaking through some of the indifference he felt towards everything to the best of her abilities. She was his first interesting subject. With herself as a medium, she taught him the way of emotions, filling his lenses with the first drops of color. For the first time in his life, he began to understand; gathering information on what to feel! He had ‘thoughts’ regarding his work. He discovered what he ‘liked’ doing best; what made his cold heart tremble slightly. At first, they were just that; imitations, but when the first color touched the lenses, they spread far and wide. 

His feelings towards various things increased until gradually, he grew to ‘love’ his research and looked forward to seeing Arcelia even more. She ‘truly’ became the center of his world; the filter through which he could gain new insight into the world. 

Anyway, Arcelia’s presence brought to him the knowledge of emotions, something that he found useful to better his understanding of the world in general, and so he kept her around.  

Time passed and, as she mentioned earlier, they slowly began drifting apart. Arcelia, over the years, had given him all she could. She’d furthered his understanding and had nothing more to give. Yes, she was still important, but not as much compared to everything anymore, which was probably why he let ‘that’ happen. 

Young Allan was doing research on a new attack spell at the request of his father when ‘that’ happened to her. He was in the critical phases of finishing the request when some maids probably approached his workshop to deliver a message. You see, they always came in and disturbed him at the most critical times, so he shut himself off from the world completely and focused on his work. This, however, meant that he didn’t hear anything about what happened to Arcelia until he was done weeks later. The Oh-so different Young Allan had very different priorities. On a quick side note, that spell my father wanted turned out excellent. He still uses it to this day. 

So, the next thing Young Allan knew was that she had canceled the marriage agreement. This was no big deal since he thought that she’d done so for good reasons. He followed her wishes. Besides, he never had any opinions about the arrangement from the beginning anyway. He didn’t even bother to go find her and ask for an explanation, much less know that she’d gone to meet a diviner about their future. She also just stopped coming to see him. 

Anyways, Young Allan grew from that whole experience, especially after she stopped coming to see him. After that, he learned that people hated the apathy within himself. They were disgusted by his indifference to everything and looked at him like he was some pitiful creature. Those stares, somehow, bothered him so much that he made a move that helped him progress past where studying Arcelia had left him in his understanding.  

The knowledge he’d attained from studying Arcelia was certainly valuable, helping him create a nice façade. He quickly mastered feigning interest in people, all while he remained the very same. To them, he became a regular boy. Apparently, that and rarely meeting people to give them enough time to discern how uninterested he was in others was all it took to finally make the Young Allan a multidimensionally known name. Oh, and his many works, too! 

I admit that, over time, something changed! A line was blurred. He made another breakthrough... when he met a ‘certain boy’. What he thought to be another façade became, well... ugh, I won’t say it! All I will is that he felt different, like he was complete somehow. 

Ahem! Now, Allan... myself, has real friends who care about him enough to not abandon him when they discovered how petty, angry, worried, and how mad with power he can be sometimes; feelings that are a product of the time he spent with Arcelia and studying many others.  

He doesn’t know... he’s still doing that, putting on a façade, even now to make them like him more.  

 

Narrator’s POV

“He doesn’t know... he’s still doing that, putting on a façade, even now to make them like him more.” Allan revealed a sad, tired expression that he’d never revealed before to Marcel or any of his other friends. It was his most vulnerable self that Marcel had seen because he looked so unsure of himself. He looked like he didn’t even know himself. 

The Allan that stood Marcel wasn’t emotionless; simply apathetic! Marcel understood!  

Allan naturally didn’t care if his heart beat violently or if his entire body was excited enough to jump for joy when he made money off of ‘enslaving’ his ‘Alchemic Cauldron’ best friend. That’s all! There was nothing wrong with him as he thought.  

Marcel understood Allan’s problem. Allan wasn’t emotionless, even though he claims that they’re just a product of his studies because, at some point, the feelings he felt became real... at least, the ones he shows him. He didn’t have them at first, but he gained them. Even after he did, he couldn’t erase a fundamental part of himself: his indifference. 

He had feelings now but just didn’t care to act on them. He continued to ‘act appropriately’, as expected of him, occasionally letting the most natural reaction he could produce slip out. His so-called façade was his own attempt at producing appropriate responses to what others did and felt so that he could please them. In the simplest of terms, Allan was a person who didn’t give a shit, trying to look like he did to please others. He... was literally everyone, except nothing really moved him, even his own ‘acquired’ emotions. 

“Allan...” Marcel had a hard time putting the feelings he felt into words. What was he feeling? A deep sadness, worry, and pity at Allan’s predicament, all at the same time. He was sad that Allan thought there was something wrong with him, which led him to try and defy his own nature, making him act as he did.  

He was also worried that Allan looked so tired because, um... if Allan and Arcelia are childhood friends and he’s assuming that they are around the same age, then that means... Allan, counting from, when Arcelia had her half coming-of-age ceremony, has been maintaining his ‘I’m interested’ façade for almost 300 years! Woah! He also pitied young, probably 500-year-old Allan, who decided that this was the way to go, because, if they were indeed destined to meet, then that meant that Allan would still have met him 300 years later and had his big ‘emotional’ breakthrough, pretty soon in comparison to the thousands of years that normal witches live for. At this point, there was only one thing he could do. 

Marcel patted the back of a tired and dejected Allan who could only look down after he revealed his secret to Marcel, for fear of being judged or seeing what could be that disgusted expression he’s seen from others when they learned of his situation in the past. He couldn’t bear it; seeing that same expression on Marcel’s face. 

“Allan... I don’t know what to really say, except, um... you do you!!!” Marcel blurted out. 

Huh? He said, to do him? Allan was surprised, very surprised! What did he mean? Allan’s brain almost short-circuited. 

Marcel didn’t keep the confused lad wondering for much longer, 

“You see... when Arcelia talked about you being a cold and distant person, I tried to imagine it, and somehow, in my head, I saw it! I don’t know how it’s possible, but I think I’ve seen your default facial expression before... not with ‘these eyes’, but--” Allan looked increasingly flabbergasted compared to earlier. 

“You don’t need to get it, and I don’t either, but I know you!” Marcel’s expression turned serious and he peered into Allan’s eyes, “Whenever I look at you now, I see you... your expression blank, those ice-cold eyes peering at everything as if but a spectator of some grand game. I don’t know about the others, but I noticed, apparently, the very moment Arcelia mentioned it! That’s how I see your face in my head now.” Marcel blabbered more nonsensical stuff that Allan couldn’t understand. Just what was this fool getting at?  

Ah, yes! Allow me to elaborate!  

If you’ve been paying attention to Allan in the past, then you’d notice some things... like how he almost never got mad or angry in situations where a normal person should have been. When someone got too close to Marcel, like that Vantel guy, who also impregnated his cousin and makes his blood boil, or even Gwendal and his shenanigans, Allan simply expressed slight displeasure. It was as if he possibly couldn’t be mad and flip out, well, unless his werewolf blood makes him go mad with power and he becomes extremely aggressive and bloodthirsty. Even that was a natural reaction produced by his blood, not something he could control.  

Marcel made himself clearer,  

“All I’m trying to say is that I don’t care about whether you look cold and distant. You are my best friend, and as far as I’m concerned, façade or not, Allan is the same. It won’t make me like you less. You are allowed to do whatever makes you comfortable, and whether it is an Allan who looks happy because he thinks he must be or an Allan who looks at me like I’m part of the air that blows, I don’t mind at all. Hey, I’m not any better myself, haha~!” Marcel laughed and shrugged, lighting up the mood even more. He really didn’t get it, but strangely, nothing that he’d learned bothered him at all. Yeah, weird! 

“Really? Am I allowed to be like this?” Allan asked, his expression indecipherable. 

“Haa... You’re asking the guy who can kill you and be emotionally undisturbed afterward, your best friend! Any other people would think that I was some kind of psychopath, but you guys don’t. You and the others are what bring even a shred of normalcy to my very weird life and existence, and for that, I’m grateful!” Marcel bowed slightly to show his gratitude to them. He would have liked to say this in front of all the others, but now is not the time. Allan needs him. 

A silence spread through the air after he spoke. Marcel found it weird that Allan wasn’t saying anything, so he remained bowing for a while longer before... he heard sounds of sobbing! 

Tears began streaming from Allan’s eyes. Oh no, had he done something wrong?! Marcel wondered. 

“Sob... nobody has ever said that to me before...” He cried, “Thank you... sob... I gueessss~”  

“You’re welco--!” Marcel squealed because Allan hugged him tightly before he could fully grasp the situation. He guessed that this must have been another natural reaction from Allan because he used all of his body strength. Marcel’s footing grew unstable and Allan’s entire body strolled downward. He was falling to the ground and took Marcel down with him. He felt so relieved. 

After that, he cried and cried for as long as he wanted on Marcel’s big, strong chest. Marcel let him, and thus, Allan showed no hesitation. He let out a lot of his feelings through those warm, burdening tears to his heart’s content. He no longer internalized the last of his own insecurities and let them all out on that chest. He felt light as a feather afterward, never the same again. 

On that day, Allan Wolfram’s heart was fully enflamed, a feeling within like none before, fully germinating from a little seedling into a tree of desire. Seriously, why does Marcel always stir such feelings in people? This might really not end well!