Part I - Summer (Late) - "I wanted him to see me."

"So … you like books, huh?"

A less than stellar opener, perhaps—but the best Cameron could muster, given the circumstances.

And as Elegia Nocturne—seated on the floor of his own bedroom, some massive hard-cover tome open in his lap, having been so rudely interrupted in the middle of his reading session by his younger sister's human boyfriend and this thinly-veiled attempt at small talk—stared back silently, expressionless, through those bang-covered eyes (which seemed to—not just right now, but always—be asking any potential interlocutor, … What do you want?), Cameron couldn't help but wonder if he hadn't made some grave mistake in knocking on his door.

(… And oh, he definitely had—though he had no idea how badly, just yet. He would certainly find out in the next ten minutes.)

"… They're okay," came the eventual Elegia-esque response.

Cameron looked around the room. Books everywhere. Stacks of them, piled up high along the walls. Titles and authors written in elfen scripts he'd never even seen before. All across the tatami, volumes lay opened, covers and spines toward the ceiling, as though he were using the floor itself as one, giant communal bookmark. (… Cameron would've expected him to have at least one bookshelf, or something.)

"Cool," nodded Cameron. "Cool. Literature, yeah … Awesome."

… No segue came to mind.

"So listen," he began. "I know the two of us haven't really gotten along …"

"I wouldn't know," came the response, immediately. "You've never really tried to talk to me. Until now."

"Th-that's not true … What about the time—…" Cameron winced, as his mind came up blank. (Okay, but come on—in Cameron's own defense, it's not like Elegia was the most approachable person in the world. … How exactly had Heinrich, of all people, even befriended this guy, again??)

Cameron shifted awkwardly from side to side. "Okay. Yes, you're right. My bad, completely. We, um—we should definitely all hang out more, when we get back to Crystal City. You, me, Heinrich, Miyu …"

Elegia: "Cameron. Do you need something from me? Because …"

"—Oh, hey, speaking of Miyu …" (Nailed it, Cameron. King of the segue.) "I've been thinking, all summer long, about the rest of our lives together, me and her, when we get back, and … well …"

Elegia raised an eyebrow.

Cameron breathed in deeply, and exhaled. Then, he began reciting the same speech from earlier, nearly the exact same one he'd given Mr Nocturne nearly half an hour ago in the garden, every word of it still fresh in his head—with a few adjustments, such as swapping out mentions of 'your most cherished daughter' for 'your most beloved sister'; and switching out some of the more difficult to pronounce elfen words for their Common equivalents (goodbye, narwhals tusks)—and he was somewhere in between the part where he compared Miyu's smile to the splendid glow of a thousand shining crystals twinkling brilliantly in the night sky like a sea of stars (surely Elegia, as a discerning appreciator of the finest wordcraft, would appreciate that one—it'd taken Cameron all night to write), and the part where he likened their eternal love to the unbreakable bonds that existed on the corpuscular level of every crystal (working in his own love for science, you see … clever, right?), when he first noticed the slight twitching on Elegia's face, the way his forehead began to crinkle in mounting discomfort—these first subtle signs of revulsion developing rapidly into a full-blown grimace of physical nausea, the unmistakable look of one in actual, physical pain as Cameron, quickly losing confidence, struggled to get through the rest of his speech.

"Stop, stop. STOP," pleaded Elegia, cutting Cameron off mid-speech. "Please spare us both any more pain and just come out with whatever you want to say. Please."

Cameron stared at Elegia for a bit. Then, re-adjusting his posture, straightening out his back, standing up tall, he said:

"Elegia Nocturne, please allow me to marry your sister."

Elegia sat for a very long time. Then, he slammed shut the open book on his lap, with an audible thud. In that same serious tone he always had, he asked: "Cameron … What kind of future do you envision with my sister, exactly?"

And so Cameron told him. All of it. How Cameron would find a job, right after graduation. He would provide for both of them, maybe finding some kind of small starter home, a one-bedroom apartment somewhere Downtown, where he could walk to work, and she could work on her own career, if she wanted, or if she just wanted to stay home and focus on hobbies, that would be fine too, whatever she wanted; and how, after a few years, the two of them would start having kids of their own, at which point they'd have to move to the residential district, in a house of their own, on one of the upper terraces, because hopefully by that point he would have been promoted to a manager position, or maybe even executive level, or hey, maybe he'll even start his own company, and—

"—And how do you expect," Elegia, his teeth clenched now, his eyebrows twitching, clearly trying his best to stem the tide of … something threatening to burst through that normally cool exterior of his, "any of that to be done?"

"Um …" stammered Cameron. Which part was he talking about? And why … did he look ready to murder him? "Well—the job market is really great for engineers right now, a-and, housing is more affordable than ever in the City, so—"

"No," he said, sharply. "The family you're hoping for. Please explain how you intend to make that happen."

"I, uh—" … What? Was Elegia hoping for an anatomical lesson or something? W-wait, hang on, was there some sort of incompatibility between humans and elves Cameron wasn't aware of—

"You've got to be kidding me," exhaled Elegia, his barely restrained rage disappearing for a second, replaced by pure exasperation. "You don't know, do you?"

Cameron had an inkling that asking, … Know what?, would be a terrible idea right now.

Then the rage returned, amplified ten-fold, and Elegia exploded, everything that he was holding back unleashed all at once: "How dare you come in here, with all this fairy-tale nonsense, when you clearly don't even know the first thing about my sister. You don't even know what they did to her. And you stand there, merrily going on about raising a family with her, without the least bit of shame. … Is this your idea of a twisted joke? Is this the kind of thing humans find funny? 'Ha ha, funny human joke?' Is that what this is? Because if not, you're either completely delusional, or worse—totally blind to everything around you. Either way, you are clearly not fit to marry my sister. I can see now that you never were. And you never will be."

Cameron said nothing. Elegia sat glaring at him.

Then, in a huff, Elegia opened his book again, and picked up where he left off. "You have my answer," he said, without looking up. "Are you satisfied?" He turned the page—a bit too harshly, the corner tearing as he did so. "… Now get out of my room."