Chapter Text
“See you around, Aglaea.”
“Goodbye, Anaxagoras.”
The words came out cold, though she felt her chest burn as she shut the door behind her. Her expression didn’t change, nor did tears threaten to spill from her eyes. Everything was numb with disappointment—why had she expected anything more from the likes of him? It was not hate that filled her heart, but regret. Regret for all the time she’d wasted.
As the sound of his footsteps grew fainter behind the door, Aglaea locked her heart then, too.
❦︎ °࿐ ࿔
“I’ve already checked your first drafts and commented accordingly. Please retrieve your papers from my office before five today; otherwise, you’ll receive a two-point deduction for tardiness. For those with club meetings, please retrieve it by six.”
Aglaea set her textbook on the desk without so much as a thud. “As soon as you receive your paper, you can start writing your final drafts. We’ll be doing progress reports every week, where you should have already written at least two pages before our class begins. Failing to do so will result in a three-point deduction for your final paper. Is that clear?”
The class murmured in agreement. Aglaea nodded. “Then if there aren’t any more questions, you’re dismissed. Goodbye, class.”
“Goodbye, Miss Aglaea.”
Aglaea started gathering her things, then turned to a girl with lavender hair in the back row. “Miss Castorice,” she called. “May I have a word with you?”
The girl beside her with grey hair snickered. “Ooh, you in trouble, Princess Homebody?”
The other girl with pink hair, faded teal at the tips, sighed and nudged the grey-haired girl’s shoulder. “C’mon, Cipher. Stop teasing.” She turned to Castorice, who had shrunken even more into her seat, and smiled. “Don’t worry. I’m sure it’s nothing, Cassie.”
Castorice kept her head down but, after a few seconds, nodded shyly. “Thanks, Hyacine. Um… you guys can go ahead without me. I… wouldn’t want to keep you.”
Hyacine looked at her with sky-blue eyes filled with worry. “Are you sure? We can always just wait outside, just in case, you know?”
Castorice shook her head. “It’s fine, really. You don’t have to…”
“Hey, if she says she’s cool, then she’s cool,” Cipher interjected, though upon noticing Castorice toying with her fingers and Hyacine’s narrowed gaze directed straight at her, she raised a brow and placed a hand on the lavender-haired girl’s shoulder. “You… are cool, are you?”
Castorice flinched at the sudden contact. She quickly but gently took Cipher’s hand off and shot her an apologetic nod. “Yeah. Yeah, I am. You guys go, I’ll catch up.”
Cipher shrugged, unaffected, though her eyes still held a sliver of concern that she quickly covered up with a teasing smirk. “If you say so, Princess.”
Hyacine smiled. “We’ll go get your lunch.”
Aglaea listened as Hyacine's cheerful farewell disappeared into the hallway, Cipher's lighter footsteps following shortly after. The gestures almost made Aglaea smile herself, but she didn’t wish to alarm Castorice by letting her know that she’d heard their conversation. Instead, she simply waited patiently as the girl walked to the front, her hands clasped in front of her, eyes downcast, a faint pink tinging her pale cheeks.
Aglaea thought it would be better if she started the conversation. “Miss Castorice.”
“M-Miss Aglaea. You… you called for me?”
Aglaea nodded, listening carefully to the hesitation in the girl's voice and the restless movement of her hands. Castorice had always been a shy girl—Aglaea would know as she had been in her class the year before, too—but today, she seemed particularly nervous, as if she were dreading something.
“There’s no need to worry. I simply called you here to talk about your paper,” she said, “which was wonderful for a first draft.”
Castorice sounded visibly relieved at her words. “R-Really?”
Aglaea nodded. “Yes. And it’s not unexpected. You always deliver such well-written pieces; in fact, your draft was wonderful, as it was the finest draft in the entire class. Therefore, I wanted to ask if you’d let me use it as a reference paper for the other students—anonymously, of course.”
“Reference paper?”
“Yes. It would be a great help to the other students. Ah—but, I won’t force you to, you’re free to decline if you wish.”
“Ah, no, that’s… that’s not what I meant…” Castorice fiddled with the hem of her skirt. “I… I’d love that, Miss Aglaea. Really.”
Aglaea offered her a small smile. “That’s good to hear. Thank you, Miss Castorice.”
Even then, Castorice couldn't seem to stay still. Her sleeves rustled constantly beneath nervous fingers, and her breathing remained uneven. Aglaea’s eyes almost narrowed, but she quickly stopped the habit so as not to make the girl even more nervous.
“Is something the matter?” Aglaea asked instead, her tone gentle.
Castorice quickly shook her head.
“Miss Castorice. If something is troubling you, you may share it with me.” She took no further than a single step towards Castorice, noting her interaction with Cipher earlier. “I promise you.”
Castorice lowered her gaze immediately. “It’s… nothing important.”
Aglaea remained silent, a technique she had learned years ago. She’d taught long enough to know that the students who say ‘nothing’ usually mean the opposite and oftentimes rush to fill the silence if it was provided. Castorice, fortunately, was one of them. She shifted nervously, her fingers tightening around the edge of her sleeve.
“Perhaps it’s something unimportant that’s been troubling you.”
“Well, that’s not really… um…”
“Miss Castorice.”
At the mention of her name, the girl immediately stiffened.
"You've checked the doorway six times since your classmates left," Aglaea continued. “You haven’t stopped fidgeting since your classmates left. When Miss Cipher touched your shoulder, you flinched. That is not normal behaviour for you, and I think we are on the same page.”
Castorice looked mortified. “S… Sorry…”
“Why are you apologising?”
“B-Because…” She fumbled for an answer, then her shoulders slumped, defeated. “I don’t know.”
Aglaea exhaled quietly. “Sit down.”
“What?”
“Please.”
Castorice obeyed. Aglaea sat in the desk across from her instead of standing over her—the distance would help, she knew.
“Better?”
Castorice nodded.
“Good. Miss Castorice, pardon my intrusion, but has someone been bothering you?”
Castorice froze, the reaction noticeable in her small stature.
“A student?” Aglaea asked.
Castorice shook her head.
“Someone outside the university?”
She shook her head again. Aglaea’s expression slowly hardened into something colder.
“A faculty member?”
Castorice’s hands stopped moving. Cold settled in Aglaea’s chest, the answer clear. “I see.”
“P-Please don’t tell anyone,” Castorice immediately blurted, panicking. “I… I didn’t say anything! I mean, I-I didn’t…”
“Calm down, Miss Castorice. I’m not asking you to accuse anyone, nor am I forcing you to tell me something you are not ready to tell. But if someone has made you feel unsafe, then I would like to know.”
Castorice stared at her lap. “I… I don’t want people to make a fuss.”
“That’s not your decision. If someone has behaved improperly, then the consequences should belong to them—not to you. Never you.”
Castorice’s eyes turned glassy. “It wasn’t… it wasn’t. Nothing happened, not really…. He… he just…”
“He?”
“I… I mean…”
A knock interrupted her. Both women immediately looked toward the door. Hyacine poked her head inside, and beside her stood Cipher, who was carrying three drinks.
“Is she alive?” Hyacine whispered.
“We brought reinforcements,” Cipher said, “and by reinforcements, we mean overpriced coffee.”
Aglaea heard Castorice's shaky exhale and felt some of the tension leave the room at once.
“You may enter,” she said coolly.
The two girls hurried inside, with Hyacine immediately taking the seat beside Castorice.
Cipher remained standing, her gaze fixed on Aglaea. “Teach.”
“Miss Cipher. Don’t call me that.”
“Are we interrupting?” Hyacine asked.
“We are, aren’t we? Oh my god, Hyacine, I told you we should’ve waited.”
“You just wanted to wait in line for that burger. You weren’t even going to get it, by the way. Mydeimos already had his eyes set on it, and he was way ahead.”
Cipher rolled her eyes. “I could’ve bargained, y’know?”
“No, Cipher. No, you couldn’t have.”
“I could.”
“Couldn’t.”
“Could.”
“Couldn’t!”
Aglaea pinched the bridge of her nose. Students.
But Castorice, to Aglaea’s surprise, let out a small laugh—a very, very minuscule one, but a laugh nonetheless. The tension in her shoulders eased ever so slightly.
Hyacine immediately brightened. “There she is.”
Castorice looked away, embarrassed. Aglaea listened quietly. Hyacine had moved immediately to Castorice's side, while Cipher lingered by the doorway despite her casual tone. Protective, both of them. Which was a good thing.
Castorice seemed to realise Aglaea was observing and quickly straightened. “I-I'm sorry, Miss Aglaea.”
“There is nothing to apologise for, Miss Castorice,” Aglaea replied and started gathering the remaining papers from her desk. “Thank you for speaking with me.”
Castorice nodded. “Thank you,” she said, the words quiet but sincere all the same, “for… for listening.”
Aglaea inclined her head. “Should you ever wish to continue our conversation, my office door is open.”
Castorice's expression softened. “Okay.”
Hyacine immediately hooked an arm around her. “Great! Now we're eating before Cipher steals all the fries.”
Cipher rolled her eyes. “I have never done that.”
“You literally did it yesterday.”
“That sounds fabricated.”
“It was my lunch!”
“Allegedly.”
The three girls disappeared into the hallway, their voices fading into the distance, and the classroom grew quiet once more.
Aglaea remained standing beside her desk, thinking. Warm afternoon sunlight spilled through the classroom windows, heating the desks nearest the wall. Outside, she could hear the students laughing as they crossed the courtyard. A basketball bouncing repeatedly against concrete. Life continued as normal, but Aglaea’s thoughts remained fixed on Miss Castorice.
She’d seen fear before, and it was not the timidness she usually saw in the young girl’s eyes. Castorice did not react like someone embarrassed. She reacted like someone who expected consequences.
Aglaea slowly slid the last stack of papers into her satchel.
A faculty member. The words sat unpleasantly in her mind. Perhaps she was mistaken—perhaps she was overthinking a student’s behaviour, but she was sure she wasn’t. In fact, she doubted it. Students often lied, yes, but their bodies never did.
Another knock interrupted her thoughts—three, to be precise. Measured and predictable, Aglaea already knew who it was. “Come in.”
The door opened, and Cerydra stepped inside carrying a mountain of folders balanced against one hip. “You’re still here,” she said.
“So are you.”
Cerydra glanced at the clock. “I’ve approximately seventy-four essays to grade.”
“Then I suppose my situation is preferable.”
“Only marginally.”
To this, Aglaea almost smiled. Cerydra walked over and dropped the folders onto a nearby desk with a dramatic sigh. “I heard shouting in the hallway,” she said while sorting through them.
“Students, naturally.”
The two women shared a brief silence before Cerydra’s frown—soundless as it may be—broke the silence.
“You seem troubled,” she said.
“It’s nothing, really.”
“You know, that’s usually how faculty members announce that something is, in fact, not nothing.”
Aglaea sighed. “Cerydra. If you already know, why ask?”
“Because you’re thinking about it, Aglaea. Whenever you think this hard, somebody is either in danger or about to fail an assignment. Now tell me, which one is it?”
Aglaea turned slightly toward the classroom door. “A student.”
“What happened?”
“I’m not certain myself. Though I’m sure I’m not casting suspicions unwisely.”
Cerydra looked concerned, more so than if Aglaea had simply said something vague. “If you’re concerned about it, then it’s serious. If you need support…”
“I know.”
“You can always…”
“I know.”
“If you continue answering every sentence with those two words before I finish it, Aglaea, I may become very offended.”
Aglaea finally smiled a little. “Then I’ll endeavour to restrain myself, Cerydra.”
“Good.” Cerydra picked up one of the folders, but not before dropping them upon a third knock’s sounding, echoing across the classroom. Neither woman had time to answer before the door swung open.
“Emergency!” Tribbie stood in the doorway, with Trinnon and Trianne next to her.
“Good afternoon?” Aglaea said.
“No. Bad afternoon,” Tribbie corrected.
“Worse afternoon.” Trinnon added.
“Moderately concerning afternoon.” Trianne finished.
Cerydra groaned. “The three of you only appear together when paperwork’s involved.”
“Exactly.” Tribbie marched into the room. “We need all department heads in Conference Room B.”