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“Professor Qifrey… have you ever been in love?”
Olruggio had been successfully ignoring whatever teaching was happening out in the living room where he had been soundly napping, but this question catches his interest, and not only because of the absolutely miserable tone Coco employed.
“Why do you ask?” Qifrey replies lightly.
Other than the scratching of Coco’s pen on paper, there’s silence. Olruggio is afraid to lift his head to look—do they even realize he’s there? Have they fully missed him napping on the sofa for all this time while Qifrey banged about in the kitchen and Coco chattered about glyphs?
He hears Qifrey’s footsteps heading toward table where Coco works. “Coco?”
“No reason,” she lies.
“There are no love spells,” he says teasingly. “And even if there were, they would be forbidden magic.”
“That’s not why I’m asking.”
“Very well. In that case, the answer is yes. I have been in love.”
That’s news to Olruggio. He has a number of follow-up questions, but Coco merely asks somewhat glumly, “How did you handle getting your heart broken?”
He can hear the smile in Qifrey’s voice. “What makes you so certain it was?”
“Well… you’re not married… and you never have girls around. You spend all your time with us and Master Olly.”
Qifrey turns a laugh into a cough. “That… is true. Well.” There’s the shifting of fabric and small movements that Olruggio believes must be Qifrey sitting down at the table next to Coco. “I have been in love, but you’re right, we never…”
He trails off, and Olruggio holds his breath. They never what?
“It was never… possible for us to be together. Married, I guess, as you say. That was not in the cards.”
Olruggio racks his brain. Who could he possibly be talking about? He can count on one hand the people Qifrey actually liked back at the Great Hall. He can’t think of him ever being alone with any of them. He would have told Olruggio.
“Why not?”
“Ahh… hm. Sometimes things just don’t work the way you’d like. Sometimes it’s not meant to be.”
There’s no real reason he wouldn’t be able to be with someone at the Great Hall so that leaves… an unknowing? Maybe someone he met while he was traveling? That would definitely make things difficult. Star-crossed, almost.
Qifrey clears his throat again. “I suppose I never considered myself heartbroken, because we remain friends, good friends. That is the most important part of love, anyway—the friendship you share.”
It’s true that Olruggio doesn’t really track Qifrey’s comings and goings, but could he truly have a “good” friend out there he doesn’t know about?
Coco meanwhile musters all the skepticism in her preteen body—which, to be fair, is a smaller amount than some of the others in the atelier—to ask, “It is?”
“Oh, yes. Definitely. Romance without friendship is just… footwork without music. Maybe it’s dancing, but it’s missing something important. So if I ever do feel down about my ‘heartbreak,’ I focus on what I do have and that I’m awfully glad to have it.”
“But I don’t want to be just friends.”
“Understandable. Just make sure that if you tell her how you feel, especially if she’s someone who… you are going to have to spend a lot of time with, you leave the door to friendship open.”
There’s a thunk and the sound of Coco scrambling to her feet.
“I never said it was a ‘she!’”
“Of course, Coco. My mistake.”
Unsurprisingly, this is followed by the sound of little footsteps running out of the room.
“I might have to rethink the roommate situation here,” Qifrey muses aloud. “Kind of thought I would avoid this problem by only having girls. Don’t know what I was thinking. And you can stop pretending you’re not here, Olly.”
Olruggio shucks the blanket from his face and sits up. “You knew I was here? The whole time?”
“Of course.”
“And you didn’t tell her?”
He shrugs. “Neither did you.”
Yeah, but Olruggio wasn’t the one Coco trusted in her moment of vulnerability just then. Though, damn, now he does feel guilty about it. He should have said something.
Qifrey sighs. “I wish they’d at least wait until after their third test to start dating.”
“Who broke your heart?” Olruggio demands.
Qifrey opens his mouth in surprise. He closes it, smiles, then says, “No one.”
“What, so all of that to Coco was a lie?”
His smile widens. “No, not at all. Do you want me to make some tea?”
“I…” He wants him to be more forthright, but also yeah, he really does want some tea. “Yes.”
Qifrey returns to the kitchen.
“You’re really not going to tell me?” Olruggio calls after him.
“I told her the truth and I told you the truth.”
That’s not what he meant, but fine. If it’s that big of a secret, he’s not going to pry.
He crosses his arms and watches silently as Qifrey places a steaming bowl of tea in front of him.
Olruggio breathes in the aroma and feels he must have failed somewhere. He must have done something to make Qifrey feel like he couldn’t talk to him about this. “I just… you could have told me when it happened. I would have cheered you up.”
“Olly…” Qifrey raises his bowl and smiles into it. “I’m really happy living here with you.”
Olruggio feels his face turning red. He tugs at his collar a little bit, as if that will help with the heat under his skin. And he doesn’t appreciate him changing the subject.
“Still, if someone rejected you, that was… foolish on their part. They deserve to know that. I can’t imagine what they were thinking.”
“Oh, I’m certain they weren’t,” Qifrey murmurs.
“What? What do you mean?”
“Your concern is appreciated, Olly, truly, but you really don’t need to worry about me. Let’s just drink our tea, shall we?”
“Sure,” he mutters. “Whatever you say.”
But he’s going to pay a lot better attention to the people Qifrey spends time with now. That is, if he ever does spend any time with anyone other than Olruggio. Coco was right about that. The man is a shut-in.
When Olruggio looks up from glaring at his tea, Qifrey just smiles at him.