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Alisa frowns, crossing her arms over her chest as she watches Jusis walk past with yet another stack of documents in his arms. This would be the third time within fifteen minutes. She grabs him by the arm, rooting him in place.
Jusis looks at her, his glare just as icy as his Crafts. "Alisa, would you mind letting go?"
Alisa doesn't back down, instead meeting his glare with a fierce look of her own. "And since when did Towa take you on as Rean's replacement?"
A brief look of pain flashes across Jusis' face. It disappears as quickly as it appeared. "I asked for her help in preparation for my return to Bareahard. I don't know why you're talking about replacing Rean." He jerks his arm out of her hold.
"Shouldn't you be talking to the instructors instead of the student council?"
"I don't see the point in this conversation," Jusis sniffs. "Now if you'll excuse me."
Alisa speaks up before Jusis takes more than a few steps. "You're not the only one worried about Rean, y'know?"
Jusis whirls around, livid. She half-expects him to start yelling in the second floor hallway, but instead he hisses, "why is everything related to Rean?"
"Can we talk in private?"
Jusis huffs, opening the door to his bedroom. She follows him inside. She takes the stack of papers from his arms and puts it right beside the others on his desk. There's five different stacks, all of them coming up to her chest.
"Well? Let's hear your reasoning, Miss Reinford." His tone reminds her of how he used to be at the start of the school year. Bitingly cold, impatient, and almost impenetrable. If she didn't know any better, she would've fallen for his façade like everyone else. But she knows exactly how the Albarea heir feels.
Alisa prods him to sit down on the bed before taking a seat beside him. "You're going to make yourself sick at this rate." She smooths her skirt. "When was the last time you've slept?"
"Don't change the subject. This isn't about my sleeping habits."
"Fine. You're overworking yourself to forget about Rean." Jusis looks away. She'd hit the nail right on the head. "I'm worried about him too, if he'll come back to us alive or we're just gonna get news one day that he died in Crossbell." Alisa's shaking like a leaf after vocalizing her fears. She takes a breath to calm herself before looking at Jusis. He's rigid, pale as the sheets he'd been carrying. She reaches out and cups his cheeks in both hands, making him face her. He doesn't bother, or rather, he can't hide the pain, terror, and worry while she's holding him still.
She pulls him into a hug and he simply slumps against her, too drained to resist.
"I suppose being Rean's best friend means you can see through me like glass as well."
"I know because that's how I feel too. I'm terrified, Jusis. But you can't let yourself waste away before he comes back."
It was hard not to notice the change in Jusis' demeanor after Rean's drafting. He took to helping Towa with her never-ending mountain of paperwork, throwing himself into his accelerated curriculum, as well as leafing through documents pertaining to Bareahard in between those. It wasn't out of place to see him carting off stacks of documents as he'd been doing before she stopped him today. He rarely ate with the class, Sharon often bringing him soup or something easy to eat. Elliot and Emma had already tried getting him to relax, but both were brushed aside.
He was acting exactly like her mother, shortly after her father's death.
"I don't understand...you love him too. Why?" He speaks softly, his voice lacking the biting chill it had just a few minutes prior.
"Yeah, I love him." Alisa places a hand on top of Jusis' and squeezes it. "I love him, so I want to see him happy...even if he can't find that happiness with me." She tries but fails to mask the sharp pain in her chest at her own words.
"That's...mature of you."
She leans against him, and surprisingly, he doesn't pull away. Instead, he shifts to make her more comfortable. "Has Rean ever told you how he got the idea to confess to you?" She tries to keep her tone even, almost conversational. It won't last very long, but at least she can say she tried.
"No, he hasn't."
"I told him to."
"...you did? But..." Jusis trails off, unsure how to finish the sentence.
"I know. Why would I encourage him to pursue someone else when I love him?"
Jusis nods. He waits for her to continue.
"He called me out sometime in June. I was ecstatic at first. It seemed like a dream come true, that Rean loved me back."
Alisa closes her eyes and she can still picture the heartbroken look on Rean's face that night. She takes a breath. "'I'm grateful for your feelings but…but I c-can't love you in the same way,' he said." Her voice cracks, tears blurring her vision. Jusis wraps his arms around her, saying nothing.
She keeps talking, her head pressed to his chest. His hand's running through her hair and it feels just like Rean's. Alisa sniffs. "H-he looked even more upset than how I felt back then. Blamed himself for not being able to l-love me back. Like he was somehow broken because of that."
Her tears continued to fall and neither of them did anything about it. "That hurt me a lot more than him not loving me back. Rean hated himself because of me." Alisa presses her hand over her mouth to stifle the sobs. She's grateful Jusis hugs her tightly, his touch keeping her grounded. He's shaking as well.
"I…I didn't want him to be miserable for my sake. So I let him go. Lied to him about my love just being a silly crush and I'd get over it soon enough."
"You're still in love with him though." Jusis sounds just as broken as she feels right now.
"He would've tried his best to make me happy even if it was killing him inside." Alisa hiccups. "I knew he loved you. And I knew he was trying to divert that love towards me as hard as he could." She rubs at her eyes but the tears keep flowing. "I didn't want that…it wouldn't be fair to either of us." She doesn't say anything for a while.
Alisa feels strangely relieved now that she told Jusis. She rubs her eyes with her knuckles. "I'm glad I did though. He was so happy just being with you before the war." She finally lifts her head. Jusis' eyes were just as red and puffy as hers.
"I...thank you for telling me." Jusis keeps his head bowed. "...you've had to sacrifice a lot for Rean...myself in extension."
"I didn't tell you so you would feel guilty about it." She cups his cheeks in both hands, making him look up. "I want you to love him in the way that I can't. He will come home, alright? That's why you can't kill yourself from exhaustion. You need to be here for him so he has someone to come home to."
His hands cover her own. He holds them in place, closing his eyes and tilting his head down. "You're much stronger than I could ever hope to be, Alisa. I'll take care of him, I swear."