Chapter Text

Does curiosity really kill the cat?

…

It took only half a week since the day X moved to a new lab for him to get curious about another researcher. An arcanist called Medicine Pocket.

Most people would say that was such a strange name, but that wasn’t the thing that caught X’s attention. As arcanists, many of them had code names instead of simple human names like Jack or George. X had one as well – a very short one indeed – so he was in no position to complain about other arcanists’ strange and even eccentric names. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder what kind of person would name themself Medicine Pocket? A doctor or a pharmacist, perhaps? Well, he could find that out later when he got a chance to meet that person then.

The thing was, it seemed hard to schedule an appointment with Medicine Pocket. X heard that the other was a valuable asset of the research team – a prodigy among geniuses. Being an extremely intelligent individual and an inventor himself, that kind of information triggered X’s endless curiosity about Medicine Pocket. How many things has that person achieved to be graced with such an impressive title? How old were they, and how was their personality? He wanted to find out all, and he couldn’t wait to finally get the chance. Impossible or not, he had to meet that arcanist. 

Still, two weeks passed already and X still hadn’t seen a single hair of Medicine Pocket. He was starting to get impatient – was it really that hard to get a glimpse of that person? He had asked around a lot, but his colleagues didn’t seem to know much about that genius either. At that moment, Medicine Pocket’s existence felt like a mysterious riddle that X hadn’t gathered enough clues to crack through,  and that irritated him to no end.

X was so ready to resort to some not-so-morally-acceptable methods to get a chance of meeting Medicine Pocket, then it turned out that fate had quite a strange sense of humour. On the twenty-first day of working at this not-so-new-anymore lab, he bumped into someone dressed in all white and accidentally spilled his whole cup of hot coffee on them.

“Ouch!” The other let out a soft yelp of surprise, staring at their now-ruined clothes with wide eyes.

X, on the other hand, flushed to a light shade of red from embarrassment and started to profusely apologise, “I’m truly sorry! It was all my fault for not looking at the way I walked properly. Please forgive me, how can I make it up to you?”

“Huh…?” The other blinked, tilting their head slightly to the right side while looking at X with an unreadable expression. “Well, at least my documents are fine, so no worries. I just need a change of clothes, that’s all.”

“I can lend you mine!” X offered immediately before grimacing, “Well, or I can buy you some if they don’t fit or you don’t want to wear them. I can’t make assumptions that we’re the same size, right.”

This person seemed a bit taller than him, so there was a chance that his clothes might not fit them. Or maybe they simply didn’t want to wear a stranger’s clothes, and X couldn’t fault them for that either. 

“Whichever is fine,” the person whose white clothes dripped with hot brown coffee shrugged like it was no big deal. “But I need to get these to my lab first. Well, you can grab your clothes and come with me if you want to, but make it quick.”

“Thank you! Please wait a minute!”

X nodded his head and ran to his locker to get these clothes. He got back to the stranger with impressive speed, flashing a grin at them, “Shall we go now?”

The other nodded and started to lead the way. X followed them closely behind. Only now that he had time to notice that the other had quite striking white hair with a layer of brown underneath. Their hair was pulled into half a ponytail on the left side, secured by a pair of scissors. What an odd choice for ties, but X wasn’t judging now.

The white-haired person’s lab turned out to be pretty far away from X’s – in another building even, with its own security passes to check in and out. X tried to not look when the other put in a series of numbers and letters as codes, but then when it came to the eye scan, he realised that it didn’t matter whether he looked or not.

The siren blazed so loudly when he set foot in and made X flinch when the other slapped their forehead, “I forgot to put in that I have guests. Sorry.”

It took thirty seconds to resolve the incident. At least no security guards came running toward them, and X let out a relieved sigh at that.

“Your workplace seems to have a high level of security,” he casually commented as they strolled in a pristine room. “Are you working on something confidential?”

“Probably.”

The other gave him a nonchalant answer as they dropped the bunch of documents down a table. They then proceeded to strip down their stained clothes right there, much to X’s surprise and horror.

“Woah, slow down, you have a visitor right there, mis–”

Miss or mister? X suddenly realised he hadn’t worked out either the other’s name or gender, and he felt ashamed of his people skills. “Sorry, we haven’t introduced ourselves properly, have we? I’m a new researcher, and also an arcanist. You can call me X. May I know your name, and how to call you? As in, your preferred pronoun.”

The other stopped mid-track, looking at X with a mildly interested expression. “He, she, they, whichever is fine, I don’t care. And the name’s Medicine Pocket.”

X’s mismatched eyes widened at that information to an almost comical size before he pinched himself. It took weeks for him to try and fail many times to get a hold of this person, and now a cup of coffee did the trick and even got him invited to the other’s private lab? This was surely funny if he chose to look at it in a light-hearted way.

X then took a proper look at the other and decided to settle on calling them a he. Well, to be honest, they should be fine, too, or even she, since Medicine Pocket had such an androgynous appearance. Even without the outer layer of their clothes, X still couldn’t find a trace of something truly gender-defining…

Hang on a minute.

“I’ll put my clothes here and turn away right now!” X nearly screamed as his hands hastily placed the bundle of clothes on top of a table before he turned around and took a few steps forward. When he was busy musing, Medicine Pocket continued to take off his clothes, and if X hadn’t realised it soon, they might have gotten stuck in a really difficult and awkward situation. 

X sighed as he managed to avoid stepping on a landmine here, just barely. The sight of Medicine Pocket’s unblemished back with milky-white skin already burned a deep impression into his caffeine-lacked brain. X couldn’t help but wonder how it would feel like to have his hands travel across that back, taking in each inch of such nice skin…

X mentally slapped himself for having such indecent thoughts about someone he just met. And it was just 9 in the morning, damn it, get a hold of yourself, X!

“I don’t mind if you look,” the other chuckled softly, and X felt his cheeks grow hotter at that. The thing was, he did want to look, alright? Sue him for being a curious sixteen-year-old boy with some unrestrained hormones swirling inside his system.

The soft rustling sounds of fabrics gave X more than enough to let his imagination run wild. He still didn’t dare to turn around till the other person let out a giggle, “I’m done. Thank you for the clothes you lend me, I’ll return them after washing.”

X nearly lost his balance when he turned too quickly on his feet, and then instantly regretted his decision. Medicine Pocket looked absolutely breath-taking in his clothes – he looked fantastic in the all-white attire, too, what a shame that X couldn’t have a proper look at that – and that was doing funny things to his stomach.

“Oh, uhm, that’s fine,” X stammered and stopped himself before he actually said ‘It’s alright if you don’t wash them’ because he didn’t want to sound like a creep. “You look good, by the way.”

“Really? Thank you,” Medicine Pocket made a soft noise of surprise before beaming at X. Gosh, wasn’t that a blinding smile? “They are comfortable to move in, too.”

The clothes fit the white-haired boy better than X imagined. Underneath all that layer of white clothes, he must have quite a slender, delicate body. Speaking of those white clothes, X arched an eyebrow when Medicine Pocket proceeded to leave them lying haphazardly on the floor as he stepped aside and walked toward another table.

“Uhm, your dirty clothes…?” X raised his voice hesitantly.

“Oh.” The white-haired boy made a small noise of realisation as he came back and kneeled down to collect them. “Normally the cleaning workers will take care of anything I discard, so…”

He trailed off with his arms full of clothes. Medicine Pocket looked around for a few seconds before he found an empty basket to dump the dirty clothes in, and then he brought the basket to the outside hall.

When the white-haired boy got back, he immediately picked up a document and flipped it open. After a few seconds, he climbed on top of the examining table to continue reading, legs swinging slowly in a non-rhythmic sort of movements. X had spare shorts and Medicine Pocket was wearing those, showing off his long, milky-white legs. The mid-calf white boots were just adding icing to the cake. Those legs looked so pretty and surprisingly hairless, too, and X realised that his fingers were itching with an urge to touch them.

Still, a few more minutes passed and X now had a suspicion that the other simply forgot that he was still there. Medicine Pocket looked beautiful focusing on work like that, with his eyes trained on the papers, a hand carelessly playing with his cascaded brown locks. X would spend all day just staring at the other if he could, but he didn’t have that much time to allow that kind of leisure.

X coughed pointedly, “Sorry, should I leave? You seem busy.”

“Ah.” Medicine Pocket looked up from the document that occupied his mind, shrugging nonchalantly. “Suit yourself. You can look around if you want to, just don’t touch anything without asking me first.”

That was a generous offer and X wasn’t going to let it waste away. “Thank you. I’ll be careful, then.”

…