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It takes him a while to notice. Which is fitting, really; it’s harder to notice the lack of something than the presence, in general. But he starts to notice when it’s been three years since the invasion—he’s graduated now, has set up as an artificer, has Kirielle living with him part of the year and is teaching her magic. Sometimes he shows up at Zach’s place, or, more frequently, Zach shows up at his, and they do something or other.
And he realizes one day, while he’s halfway through making a very expensive doll (it’s a miniature golem, of course it’s expensive) for a noble girl whose parents commissioned him—he hasn’t thought much about love, or romance, since he and Taiven went on their “date” and cleared the air between them.
There are excuses he could make, of course; he was fifteen when he got pulled into the time loop, and then he was focused on getting out, and after that his body was fifteen and yet he remembered living thirty or so years—it would’ve been weird, no matter who he dated. He could make those excuses for himself, but they don’t sit right.
Zorian sighs and goes back to working on the golem. Dwelling on this won’t help him understand it.
He doesn’t forget about it, though, so one day when Kirielle is at school and Zach is draped languidly across one of his chairs, he decides to ask his fellow ex-time traveler some questions.
“Why did you date around so much?” he asks.
“Huh?” says Zach, eloquently.
“When we were in the time loop. You dated all sorts of different girls—why?”
“Ah,” says Zach, somewhat awkwardly. “That. Well.” He sighs and tilts his head back, staring up at the ceiling. “I was lonely,” he says after a while. “And I was bored, too. If I could interact with people in a different way, that helped.” Another pause, and then he sits up to rest his chin in one hand. “I was also trying to figure out what exactly people meant when they talked about falling in love,” he adds, nonchalantly. “Not that I ever quite managed it.”
Zorian blinks. “Well, damn,” he says. “There goes that plan.”
Zach gives him a curious look. “What plan?”
He shakes his head. “I was hoping you could tell me about falling in love with people,” he says ruefully, and Zach laughs briefly before sobering.
“If I were to fall in love with anyone, it would’ve been you, I think,” says Zach.
Zorian stares at him. “Wait, what?”
His friend rubs the back of his neck awkwardly and looks away. “You’re my best friend,” he says quietly. “And you’re also the most important person in my life. People say that that’s supposed to be the person you fall in love with, but I just—that doesn’t describe the way I feel about you. Or anyone, for that matter.”
“I had—or maybe thought I had—a crush on Taiven once,” Zorian admits. “But I was a kid, and it faded in the Sovereign Gate. And looking back, I’m not sure how much of a crush it really was. So I’m not sure if I’ve ever been in love, really. My parents got married when they were fifteen, and Daimen’s got Orissa, and yet—here I am.”
“Well,” says Zach, “that makes two of us, then. Why dwell on it? No point trying to force feelings we just don’t have. If they show up sometime later—then they show up. If they don’t—they don’t.” He smiles. “One benefit of not living in an ever-looping month—we can wait and see about things like this, now!”
Even three years gone, it sometimes still surprises Zorian that he doesn’t wake up in Cirin with Kirielle jumping on him anymore, but Zach is right, at that. They have all the time in the world, now. “I suppose we can,” he says.
Zach just grins at him.