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As Camus stepped out of his apartment into the October afternoon, the sharp sting of cold bit into him – still novel. His revival at Athena’s hands had come at the cost of his Cosmos, and without it, Camus was just as vulnerable to the autumn chill as anyone else. Even Isaac had made an off-handed complaint, though that reminder of Isaac’s fragile mortality had sent Camus into a gloom that had taken him the rest of the week to get over.
It had only been a few months since Camus had reawakened, blind and mute to the world. Those first moments of confusion were made even more chaotic when he heard a voice, Isaac’s voice, call out to him, when he had practically thrown himself towards that voice and coiled his arms around a body taller than he remembered, changed. Camus had cried then, like he hadn’t in all his life. When they had found the time, and when Camus’ senses began to return to him, they were able to catch up on so much, and Hyōga, too, helped fill them in on the situation – the mess in the Underworld and the freeing of the souls. (Any onlooker would tell you that Camus was being far too generous to himself and his students. Most of that “catching up” had been incoherent sobbing.)
But that was neither here nor there.
Here and now, Camus was heading to pick Isaac up from his part-time job at a local electronics shop. It was a fifteen minute walk from their apartment complex located in some small Japanese town whose name Camus couldn’t quite pronounce properly (and yes, Isaac and Hyōga did laugh at him over that). Today was shaping up to be an alright day for him: His voice hadn’t left him, and his eyes were alright. A heavy blur covered his vision, one that couldn’t be mitigated with glasses, so he trudged along this familiar path by heart rather than sight. Some days Camus would have nothing but sounds to guide him, and other days, his vision was as sharp as it had been twenty-odd years ago. Some days his tongue felt like lead in his throat. But mostly Camus’ days were somewhere in the middle, which he wouldn’t complain about.
Soon enough, the shop was upon him, and he shuffled in. It was the late afternoon, too early for anyone with a standard 9-to-5 to be out shopping, which meant that the place was mostly deserted except for Camus. Isaac hadn’t needed to get a job, technically, but he’d told Camus that he wanted a change of pace, and a way to practice his language skills. Camus hadn’t begrudged him that – he had even gotten himself a job teaching French and Russian part-time, in spite of his dodgy Japanese.
Isaac called out to him, “I’ll be off in a few minutes.”
Camus nodded, then set himself to fixing up the disorganized shelves. He heard Isaac huff at him in amusement, before sauntering off to complete his own last-minute tasks.
Just as Camus was shifting the last box around, he felt a tap on his shoulder and looked over to see Isaac staring at him, with, presumably, an expression of vague amusement. The deep scar carving down the left side of Isaac’s face was another thing Camus had to adjust to. It had come as a shock to him, when he first woke up – when, unable to see his student, but desperate to confirm his survival, his existence, Camus had run his fingers down Isaac’s face and met with the scar. It felt like a soul-crushing failure. Isaac said it made him look more rugged, that it wasn’t something Camus should worry about.
Still, after some time, he’d been able to come to terms with it. Everyone was stuck with what they had when they died, and, well, Isaac was mostly in-tact. As a Saint (or, rather, a Marina), that was as much as one could truly hope for.
(Camus remembered looking upon little Isaac, only six, begging for Camus to teach him how to use Cosmos, eyes glittering with admiration and excitement. Camus refused outright. Saints lived to die. He would not condemn Isaac to that fate. Never.)
(When Isaac was eight, he rushed into Camus’ room to show him a surprise, holding out his hands to show him the ice splintering in the hair above his fingertips. Camus’ heart sank, even as he smiled and ruffled Isaac’s hair. He felt like a failure then, too.)
“-mus. Are we going?”
Camus blinked, his gaze focusing again. Isaac was watching him, though Camus’ eyesight was too poor to make out just what sort of expression he was making.
“I thought Saints weren’t supposed to get distracted,” Isaac said, the tone of his voice and the tilt of his head letting Camus know that it was a joke.
“That’s only in battle.”
“Well, it feels like a battle, getting you to stop worrying about everything. Let’s get out of here before the Nakamuras start trying to pass baked sweets off on me. Or unmarried relatives.”
The Nakamuras were an older couple that owned the shop in question, and who happened to adore Isaac. He swore up and down that he was going to quit out of frustration because of their antics (though the only interactions Camus had observed were of exasperated affection).
Camus nodded, and Isaac stepped out first. As though it were an afterthought, he turned back and said, “How are you feeling?”
Of course, when it came to the three of them, nothing was ever an afterthought. Camus responded, “Fine.”
Isaac gave him what Camus could only tell was a long look. His silence, though, was a clear indication of concern.
“My vision’s a little fuzzy, but my speech isn’t an issue. That’s all,” Camus elaborated.
Isaac seemed satisfied by the answer at last, turning again to head down the sidewalk as Camus trailed after him. Camus was unused to being worried over. It was never something he enjoyed, or at least he figured as much. After all, he’d always seen himself as an adult and had, thus, always been treated as such. But Camus found himself warmed by Isaac and Hyōga’s gestures (even if he didn’t need the two of them to bother with his health).
They headed down the narrow country roads, meandering along unused paths. Camus usually let Isaac set the pace, decide what path they took home. Mostly he seemed to enjoy exploring the unfamiliar parts of town and the rich forest that surrounded them, as though he was making up for all the time spent in the frigid tundras of Siberia. The autumn leaves appeared to captivate him, especially, though Isaac never said as much. As a pair, they weren’t particularly talkative, and so, although they walked together, anyone who didn’t know them would assume they just happened to be heading in the same direction at a slightly different pace.
Suddenly, Isaac slowed down a bit, to walk alongside Camus. Camus wouldn’t have bothered to think on it, normally, since Isaac often just liked to make sure Camus was keeping up, or – when his eyesight was totally gone – guide him down particularly tricky paths. This past week, though, had been strange. Isaac appeared, felt, sounded oddly tense. Like he had something he wanted to say to Camus, but he wasn’t sure how. Camus wondered where that bright-eyed boy of his went, the one who shared just about everything with him (even, Camus would admit, things he didn’t necessarily need to know). He’d expected Isaac to broach the subject eventually, but his student had been particularly reserved as of late, another change that Camus hadn’t seen coming.
The clear autumn sky had started to turn, like the foliage that surrounded them, to an orange-ish red, the smell of wet earth filling the air around them. The rocky forest path they had meandered down was quiet. Only the sound of their own boots crackling over the leaves accompanied them down the path, and Camus looked up into the shaking branches. He’d seen, felt, smelled, heard things like these, long ago, before he’d devoted himself to Siberia, but those memories were so distant to him that the season still had a sort of newness to it.
In the Arctic Circle, there were no distinct seasons. It was just cold. A coldness that Camus had grown numb to, so numb that he hadn’t felt anything at all. He hadn’t needed to feel anything. Nothing existed beyond his duty to his students, and that had been that.
(It was pure self-deception. Torn between binding loyalty and a desire to hide from painful reality, Camus had run off to Siberia without looking back. It was no escape. The happiness he’d felt there, caring for Isaac and Hyōga, was so powerful it drove him to guilt. And the Pope still had his wretched hold over Camus.)
(But things were different now.)
Camus looked to his student, to find that Isaac was looking at him, too.
Isaac flushed and looked away, but Camus seized the opportunity. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Isaac snapped back, more out of instinct, Camus knew, than any sort of truth.
It was Camus’ turn to give Isaac a quiet, accusatory look. “Your heart’s beating fast.”
Isaac huffed. “There’s no way you can hear that.”
“Isaac.”
“Fine,” Isaac grumbled. “It’s just, we’ve never really talked about it, but…” A pause, indicating an uncharacteristic hesitation. “Doesn’t it bother you that I’m a Marina?”
Camus stopped in his tracks, and Isaac stumbled to a stop alongside him. Oh, of course. It had been a silent disconnect between the two of them, one that Camus hadn’t even seen fit to acknowledge – that Isaac had not died in Siberia, but in Atlantis. The shift in time frame hadn’t mattered much to him beyond that, but he was no fool. He had noticed the slight awkwardness between Isaac and Hyōga, and the names Isaac slipped into conversation happened to be those of Poseidon’s soldiers, rather than any of the familiar names of Athena’s Saints. Not to mention, the weekly hour-long long-distance phone calls Isaac received from Greece that only a man like Julian Solo could afford to make with such frequency. There were times it felt as though he were living with a stranger wearing his student’s skin. But it was among the many things about Isaac that were new to Camus, alongside his straight-backed, self-assured posture and sharp-eyed gaze. Isaac was not the child Camus had once tucked into bed every night.
Camus turned his attention back to the treetops, taking in the faint birdsong, the rustling of leaves, the cool, autumn wind that still caught him off guard. Finally, he said, “No. I think I would have been more troubled if you ended up being a Saint.”
“...Really?” Isaac said, his tone spelling disbelief.
“Isaac.” Camus looked to his student again, to find that Isaac had directed his full attention to him. “I failed you.”
He paused, to allow Isaac some sort of response, but none came.
“Your strength, the man you grew into, it wasn’t because of me. It was because of the bonds you made in Atlantis. I never had anything like that,” Camus said, shaking his head. “Back when Aiolos died, I retreated to the only form of safety I felt I had, out in Siberia. When I found you, I was at my lowest point. Because of that, you were the reason I started dragging myself out of bed in the mornings, my second chance. You were the reason I tried to improve myself. And when Hyōga arrived, well, that was just another reason to keep moving forward.
“But I was only deceiving myself,” Camus sighed, casting his eyes towards the ground. “My attitude hadn’t changed in the slightest. I was still just as scared as I always was. I was hiding things from the two of you, just as I was hiding the two of you from everyone else. That was my own weakness. I only ended up causing more suffering, for myself and for others. So I’m glad you had a chance to be away from me, to grow into your own person.”
They stood in silence for a few moments, until Isaac said, “...You’ve grown, too, Camus.”
It was Camus’ turn to be struck speechless, waiting for his student to elaborate.
It took Isaac a minute before he continued on. “What I mean is, back then, you’d never have said something like that to me. But, I don’t know, I guess it feels more like you’re opening up. Like it’s okay for you to say what you really feel to me and Hyōga… or whatever.”
“...I see.”
Isaac clicked his tongue, a tic that meant he was either annoyed or embarrassed. “...Anyways, let’s get back home. It’s getting late, and Julian will throw a hissy fit if I miss another call from him this month.”
“Right.”
As Camus trudged home alongside Isaac, on the narrow sidewalks of an old Japanese town whose name he couldn’t quite pronounce, he couldn’t be sure if he really was happy to be alive. There were still days Camus felt frozen in time, incapable of advancing. But then, he thought, maybe things would change, and maybe they already had. Just as the autumn gave way to the familiar winter snow, so too would that bitter chill give way to spring.
And Camus could be happy about that.