Chapter 14

The New Year was uneventful.

Cale spent most of the days leading up to it stuck in bed. Turned out the ball was a bit too exciting for him and though he was an ice mage, he wasn’t immune to colds. While his nose was running and he was nursing a fever, the snow continued to pile up outside. By the time that he was finally well enough to leave bed, it was the day before the New Year.

He stumbled down the stairs and into the living room with a hand on the wall. Spending so much time stuck in bed again, when he had only just recovered from the Fire Spirit incident, had made his legs weak. They trembled as they bore his weight, and he worried that he’d fall.

Luckily, he managed to get to the couch facing the fire place without any trouble. Cale fell down on the couch face first and sighed deeply. For a couple of seconds, he didn’t move. Then he pushed himself up on his hands and painfully positioned himself so that he was sitting up properly, leaning heavily against the backrest. Exhaling, he blearily looked around at the room. A fire was crackling in the fire place. The curtains flowed gently along the tall windows, the lamps on the walls lighting up the area around them.

At the moment, he was alone. After spending a couple of minutes resting his sore body, Cale stretched out and picked up one of the books on the coffee table. He dragged his finger along the book’s spine covered in brown leather and examined it. There was no title on the cover or the spine, the leather undamaged though slightly worn.

Opening it to the first page, Cale pulled his legs up underneath him and nestled into the couch’s corner, reading in silence. The only sound in the dark room with flickering lights from the fire was Cale turning the pages intermittently, his eyes drifting quickly over the words. After a while he changed his position when his back was starting to hurt, shoving a soft pillow behind him against the armrest and stretching out his legs across the length of the couch.

When he looked up again, the sunlight streaming in through the windows was almost gone. Cale rubbed his eyes and yawned, stretching his arms over his head and frowning at how stiff his back felt. He was only about half-way through the book, but he could no longer ignore the growling of his stomach.

Just as he was about to stand up, Isaac walked through the entryway into the living room (he thought he remembered them calling it the parlor, but he wasn’t sure) carrying a tray. Isaac frowned when he saw Cale half-standing, one of his feet on the floor and the other knee supported by the couch. ”You should rest some more,” said Isaac and walked over, effortlessly carrying the tray full to the brim.

Cale sank back on the couch. ”For me?” he croaked out.

”Yes,” Isaac said. He put the tray down on the coffee table in front of Cale and stepped back. His eyebrows furrowed and he narrowed his eyes as he stared at Cale, looking him over from head to toe. ”Have you been getting enough sleep?”

”Ah, yeah,” Cale dutifully nodded.

He had. It took a while for it to come—he found himself tossing and turning on the bed for hours before he fell asleep—but once it did, he slept deeply. And it wasn’t like he had anywhere to be, there were no classes or anything like that, so he could carelessly sleep until two in the afternoon without any consequences. So he was getting enough sleep—though his sleeping schedule was thoroughly shot.

”Good.” Isaac had a satisfied look on his face as he down on one of the armchairs facing the fire place. Even when sitting, he was still just as unreadable.

Cale waited a moment but the man didn’t say anything else. Taking it as his cue, he picked up the tray and carefully sat it on his lap. There was a large bowl of steaming soup on it, cutlery for eating with, a glass full of milk and a small bottle of familiar medicine. Picking up the spoon, Cale blew on the soup to cool it.

He ate in silence. Isaac didn’t say a word the entire time that he was eating and by the time he had finished, Cale looked up to find that Calla’s father had picked up the book he’d been reading, leafing through the pages absentmindedly. Frowning, Cale set down the spoon and placed the tray back on the table. ”What are you doing?” he asked.

Isaac held out the book toward Cale. ”I simply wished to see what book you were reading,” he said. Cale took the book and let it rest on his lap, his fingers tracing the edges of it.

He wasn’t sure what to say to Isaac. He never was. Cale didn’t know what it was about the man that made him so hard to talk to, but every time they were alone together, Cale clammed up like he couldn’t speak. He lost, instantly, to that voice in his head that claimed that nothing he said mattered, that he shouldn’t bother the man with something so insignificant as him. That was a stupid voice that he ignored on principle, but it was always so much louder around this man.

Had it been like this for Calla, too?

Cale had tried so hard, back when he first woke up in this body, to stay away from Isaac and Mariana. He hadn’t wanted to interact with them, hadn’t wanted to alert them to the fact that he was essentially possessing their son’s body. He had tried so hard, and agonized so much over what could happen.

But he’d been interacting with them daily for weeks now, and nothing had. By all accounts, they hadn’t noticed anything amiss.

What did say about them? About Calla? About this whole situation?

Evidently, Cale acted similarly enough to Calla that no suspicions were raised. He hadn’t intended to, he knew hardly anything about Calla, but he had. And it must be a close similarity too, not just a passing one, for Calla’s own parents to not notice. Every interesting he’d had with them said that they loved their son fiercely. And yet, they didn’t notice when he was replaced by a stranger.

That meant that outwardly, Cale acted in much the same manner as Calla. Outwardly, their personalities were similar enough to confuse others. Outwardly, Cale had managed to do what he never thought he could; act like Calla.

The thought was nauseating.

Cale gagged and leaned over his lap, the book digging into his stomach as he dry-heaved.

He didn’t want to replace Calla. He didn’t want to act like him. He didn’t want to steal his place! It was despicable and nauseating and it made his toes curl with disgust.

Cale didn’t understand how all those main characters in transmigrations stories did it, how they could just wake up in another person’s body and steal their whole life. How they could just go on and pretend to be someone’s child, their lover, their spouse, their parent. How could anyone do that?

”Do you require assistance?” Isaac asked.

Cale shuddered, hiding his face in his hands. He swallowed the saliva that had been pooling in his mouth and shook his head, electing not to say anything. He waited to see what Isaac would do while he tried to keep his dry-heaving to a minimum.

Isaac stood up; Cale could hear him moving, the rustling of his clothes and the sound of his footsteps. Finding himself holding his breath despite the fact that he was fairly certain that Isaac wouldn’t hurt him, Cale waited to see what he was doing. He heard him sit down next to him on the couch. Carefully, the book still cutting into his stomach was pulled away from him and Cale breathed a little easier when he was released from the pain of it.

Quietly, Isaac asked, ”Should I fetch your mother?”

Cale squeezed out a faint, ”No.”

If they just waited, it would pass. It wasn’t even a reaction from his sickness—which he stood by that he was getting better from—but rather him thinking unfortunate thoughts. Waiting for it to pass was really the only thing to do.

”Okay. Would you like me to read to you?”

”Yeah, ah, thank you.”

Isaac’s voice, when he read, was soothing. He kept a consistently low pitch and read slowly, carefully pronouncing every word. The sound washed over Cale, allowing him to focus on it and forget about the nausea sitting heavily in his stomach. He matched his breathing to Isaac’s rhythm and closed his eyes, listening diligently to the story being told.

Slowly but surely, his nausea started to abate. His position progressively changed until he was sitting curled up on the couch with his knees hugged to his chest. He kept his eyes closed, not wanting to disrupt the strange sense of peace that had settled over him.

He could feel sleep beckoning him.

Eventually, all that he could hear was Isaac’s voice and the rest of the world faded away. He dozed against the backrest, his breathing steady as his tense body unwinded. With his eyes closed it was easy to slip into a kind of pseudo-sleep. He would wake up every once in a while only to be lulled back to dozing by Isaac’s soothing voice.

Cale blinked blearily, his eyes watering, when he regained awareness only to notice that Isaac was no longer reading. Rubbing his eyes and yawning, Cale sat up straight and looked around the room. Isaac was nowhere to be seen.

Frowning, Cale looked to the table. The book he had been reading was laying there, closed and facing Cale. Picking it up, Cale leafed slowly through the pages. His bookmark was still where he had left it. He couldn’t find any clues from it, so he put it back down on the wooden table and stiffly stood up.

His stomach growled. Pressing his hand on it, he frowned. The soup had been good, but it ultimately hadn’t been very filling.

Cale slowly trod out of the parlor. He made his way through the long, narrow hallway and peeked into the dining hall. Nobody was there either, so he simply continued on toward the kitchen. His hand lightly trailed along the walls as he walked, in case he fell and needed to catch himself. As he got closer, he could hear voices. Whispers too low for him to make out the words, and when he turned the corner he was faced with Mariana and Isaac standing side by side with their heads close together.

They were smiling as they spoke, their bodies tilted toward each other and holding hands. Cale stumbled over his feet and immediately backed out. Turning the corner, he stopped by the wall and covered his eyes with his hand.

* * *

The first fireworks went off at only eight in the evening. Cale started and dropped his book when the loud bang reverberated through the air. Sitting up straight, he stared breathlessly out his bedroom window at the yellow flower that formed in the dark night sky, only to immediately fizzle out.

Ignoring the book on the floor, he rose from his armchair and cautiously approached the window. He pulled the curtains to the sides as far they would go and stared up with bright eyes. Soon, another long fizzling sound was heard and then came a mighty bang when the firework exploded, streaks of red flashing across the sky. Cale held his breath—his hand on the windowpane as he leaned forward as far as he could to get the best possible view—as it slowly faded from sight.

His breath hit the glass, but it didn’t fog it up the way he still half-way expected. Cale frowned but decided not to think about it; he continued to stare at the sky. Another five fireworks went off somewhere over the rooftops far away in a different part of the city before it slowed to a stop.

When he had been standing there for nearly fifteen minutes and there still hadn’t been any new fireworks exploding beautifully in the sky, Cale left the window. He walked over to the armchair and picked up his book, placing in on the high, narrow table next to the chair. Before he left his room, he turned the lights off. He didn’t want to be the cause of a fire, too.

His legs were feeling much better now. He walked along the hallways without any trouble, easily stepping down the winding staircase, and headed toward the parlor. Both Isaac and Mariana were waiting for him there, sitting side by side on the couch. When he entered the room, Mariana looked up from her book and smiled at him.

”Come, sit,” she patted the couch.

Cale ambled over and sat down where she’d indicated, if the tiniest bit further away from her. He saw her frown, but she didn’t say anything about it. Lowering his gaze to the table in front of him, he ignored the way that his chest squeezed at the sight of her crestfallen gaze.

On the coffee table, a variety of snacks were laid out. Cale leaned forward and picked up a small vanilla cookie (he wasn’t entirely certain that it was vanilla, but he was going to call it that for simplicity’s sake) and said, ”I saw fireworks through my window.”

”Some people always start the festivities early,” said Isaac.

Cale peeked at the man through the corner of his eyes, but Isaac didn’t seem very upset. His face was as calm as always, it was just that his tone was too harsh. Cale’s lips twitched briefly into a smile before he smoothed his face out.

Taking a bite out of the cookie, he hummed in delight. The cookie had a refreshing taste and almost melted in his mouth. He swallowed the bite and quickly took another one, his eyes getting progressively wider every time he chewed it. When the cookie was entirely gone, he frowned and picked up another one.

Cale had eaten four cookies in quick succession before he became aware of somebody staring at him. Looking to his left with a fifth cookie half-way to his mouth and wide eyes, Cale made eye-contact with Mariana.

She grinned brightly at him, ”Like them?”

Cale nodded without saying anything.

Slowly, he put the cookie back down on the plate and picked up a glass of water. There had already been three glasses on the table when he arrived, so they must have counted on him coming down. He cooled the water quickly and took a sip, using it as an excuse to avoid looking at Mariana. He could hear her quietly laughing next to him.

He took another sip and felt the cold water travel down his throat and into his chest, spreading as he breathed. Placing the empty glass on the table, he cleared his throat and asked, ”Will we be going outside when the fireworks start?”

”Yes,” said Isaac sharply. ”We’ll use the patio out back.”

Cale hummed. He was very much looking forwards to seeing what they’d look like outside; he couldn’t wait for them to go out. But he also didn’t want to rush them and he assumed that, like in his original world, the celebrations wouldn’t really start until closer to midnight. There was always someone that set the fireworks off early, but it would be too cold for normal people to stand around outside, waiting for them.

”I look forward to it,” Cale said.

He picked up another cookie and started eating, taking small bites. Then he caught sight of Mariana smiling at him so wide that it had to hurt. He sank back into the couch and sullenly continued to eat his cookie, deciding that it tasted too good for him to deprive himself of the pleasure just because Mariana was for some reason absurdly happy.

Time went by quickly, yet slowly at the same time. It was slow in the way that he repeatedly looked up to check the time, only to find that once again, only some fifteen minutes had gone by. Yet it was fast in the way that once the time passed eleven in the evening, he suddenly looked at the clock to find that it was nearly twelve.

Midnight. Only a few more minutes now and the new year would start. Cale hoped dearly that it would be a better one than this one; then again, he didn’t think a year could be worse than the one he spontaneously switched body’s and world’s with a stranger.

So things were off to a good start.

Cale’s feet tapped restlessly on the ground when he stepped outside. The patio was wide and low, the ceiling stretching over about half of it. A table surrounded by four chairs sat in the corner next to the wall, and the handrail looked onto a small hedged-in garden. The garden was just as narrow as the house itself, deep but not very wide. It was covered in snow, with a tiny statue and fountain a bit away. The head of the statue had snow piled so high that Cale had to cough to hide his laughter.

Snowflakes were drifting gently on the breeze. When he exhaled, Cale could see his own breath in a cloud of white smoke. He looked over at Mariana and Isaac; they were standing hand in hand by the edge of the patio, patiently looking up at the sky.

A loud bang broke the calm silence.

Looking up, Cale saw the gigantic red flower in the night sky. The light soon fizzled out but it didn’t matter, another one rose quickly. More and more streaks of light flew up as high as they could, exploding one after another. Red, blue, gold, white… colors decorated the sky like flowers on a black canvas.

Tilting his head back as far as it would go, Cale stared breathlessly up at the sky. His eyes veered from one side to another, his head tilting this way and that, as he tried his best to catch sight of every firework. His hands squeezed the wooden handrail rightly as he leaned against it to swerve his head around in every possible direction. There, a blue firework so big that it covered his entire field of vision. And there, a small red one that barely bloomed before it was gone.

One after another, again and again and again. There were too many to count, and Cale didn’t even try to. Instead he stared, and watched, and felt his breath leave him over and over.

He felt somebody come to his side. He was far too enthralled to look over, but he recognized the feeling of Mariana’s hand when she gripped his. ”Are you happy you came here?” she asked.

”Yes,” Cale exhaled. His eyes were watering from the strain of staring so harshly, but he couldn’t force himself to stop. It almost felt like if he did, he would start crying. But maybe he already was? He couldn’t tell.

He heard Mariana sniffle quietly, and she said, ”I’m glad you’re here.”

Midnight past while they were outside. The fireworks increased in number to such an extent it almost seemed like there was not a single piece of the sky that hadn’t been dyed in a spectacular array of colors. By the time they finally slowed down, Cale was sitting on a patio chair, resting his elbow on the table and his head on his hand. His eyes are half-lidded as he still tried his best to engrave the image of the fireworks in his memory.

Mariana had gone inside a while earlier, but Isaac was still outside. He waited patiently by the door to the house for Cale to finish. Cale, his hair covered in snowflakes that wouldn’t melt, found himself lingering outside just a bit longer.

The snowflakes continued to fall.

* * *

Being back at Aurelis Academy was disorienting. Cale sorely regretted his decision to offer his brain a reprieve from studying when he got back to school and promptly spent the next week speed running through an entire semester’s worth of notes. Resting his brain had not agreed with him; most of the information he’d spent the last year cramming into his head had been permanently lost.

There were five major exams for four different classes that he needed to prepare for this semester. They played a large role in his ability to graduate and passing them was crucial. As such, Cale didn’t see a wink of either Julius or Magdalena the first week back in school. He was instead locked in his dorm, trying desperately to refresh his memory enough to understand the bare basics of the lessons. He couldn’t slide back now, not when he’d been making so much progress.

Nearly two week after they’d returned to school, Cale stumbled out of the room at the wee hours of the morning. Rubbing his groggy eyes, he slowly meandered down to the cafeteria to get his recommended dosage of food.

Barely anyone else was up at this hour. The few people that he passed in the long, dark corridors looked just as tired as him. A faint bending of the head, nearly unnoticeable, was all the acknowledgement that anyone had the strength for. The whole walk passed in silence, Cale’s mind still furiously churning away.

At the cafeteria, he got his breakfast mechanically. Looking over at the clock, he frowned when he saw that the library still wasn’t open. He had an assignment due today that still wasn’t finished; if he hurried, he was fairly certain that he could complete it before classes started.

Settling his tray down on a table, he sat down on a chair. He licked his lips, his body demanding sustenance so that it could keep functioning. He ate the whole meal on reflex, barely putting any mind to it. His mind was preoccupied with a dozen other things—most of them related to schoolwork. No matter how hard he worked, there was no way that he was going to catch up. But, he was gaining more and more confidence in his ability to just barely skate by.

Someone sat down across form him at the table. Looking up with his glass of water halfway to his mouth, Cale felt himself freeze.

Sayer asked, ”Mind if I sit here?”

Cale mutely shook his head.

Sayer stared at him. His relentlessly blue eyes were cutting, his red hair pulled back into a high ponytail. His tanned skin stretched over his muscled body. He was frowning as he looked at Cale, something displeased about the twist of his lips.

Cale put the glass down. He took the deepest and most unnoticeable breath he could. Laying his hands docilely on his lap, he squeezed them harshly together, feeling his shoulders hunching slightly. His body was tense; a tripwire just waiting to go off.

”Did you need something?” he asked, impressed with himself for getting the words out.

This was the first time he ever spoke to Sayer, wasn’t it? To think, all this time he’d spent avoiding him, undone with a single move from Sayer.

Sayer clicked his tongue. ”I have been… informed that my conduct toward you has not been satisfactory. Apologies are in order for the way I’ve treated you, and the things I’ve said. Obviously, you are a fine marriage prospect and it is not my place to comment on it, regardless. My words were out of line.”

Cale’s eye twitched. He blinked, the words taking a moment to make sense. Sayer was apologizing? For the things he’d said at the Winter Ball, Cale would assume. That was… not good. Sayer was a proud person; he hated apologizing. It always made him feel like he was being looked down on.

”It’s fine,” Cale hurried to stay. He didn’t want to give Sayer any reason to break the fragile peace that had settled over them since Cale had arrived.

Sayer was still staring at him. His cold eyes were uncomfortable and Cale had to suppress the urge to fidget. He couldn’t show any signs of weakness. Sayer would latch on to it the way a bloodhound would. Weakness was a taboo territory. Hunching his shoulders a little bit more, Cale winced when he saw Sayer’s eyes sharpen. He was sure that he was about to say something bad and so Cale quickly squeezed out, ”How are your parents?”

”They’re fine,” Sayer stated. His voice was unwelcoming and distant, but at least he no longer looked like he was going to say something that’d make Julius punch him. Again.

Cale nodded. He wanted this conversation to be over, but he also wanted Sayer not to kill him. That was a hard middle ground to walk. Leaning as subtly away from Sayer as he could, Cale desperately tried to think of something to make Sayer go away. He didn’t want to spend another second in his company.

”Julius told me you woke up the Fire Spirit and almost killed me,” said Cale.

Let it be never be said that Cale wasn’t smart.

”You—!” Sayer took a deep breath. He leaned over the table and furiously whispered, ”Don’t talk about that. And it didn’t kill you, did it? So it’s no big deal. I don’t understand why everyone panicked so much.”

No, he didn’t, did he? He hadn’t understood it in the novel either. Sayer meddled in so many things, caused so many situations to escalate—because he thought they were ”wrong” and had to be fixed. It was wrong to trap a Spirit under the school, so he had to try to save it. Never mind the damage it would cause once awake while school was still taking place. Never mind the consequences. Sayer wasn’t a bad person, Cale didn’t think. He wouldn’t have been the protagonist in that case. But the way he disregarded all thoughts to consequences like he didn’t even understand how they worked… when he thought about that, Cale got the urge to punch him.

”You really don’t understand,” Cale said. He stood up from his seat and decided that he didn’t owe this person anything. They weren’t friends, they weren’t family and frankly, Cale didn’t like him.

He’d liked Sayer as the protagonist but as an actual person, he left a lot to be desired.

”Tell your parents I’ve apologized,” said Sayer.

Cale nodded. ”No worries, I will.”

He would. And then he was never going to talk to this person again. He wasn’t going to get pulled into the plot, not now when he had managed to stay away for so long. He refused to let all his progress and panic go to waste; he wasn’t going to be one of those transmigrators who swore up and down not to get dragged into the plot, and then ended up right in the middle of it as the new protagonist.

Picking up his tray, he walked away.

Cale didn’t look back.

His shoulders relaxed the further away he got from the walking disaster that was Sayer. And maybe that was uncharitable, after all, Sayer did a lot of good. He saved the world (well, to be more accurate, he saved the country, the whole world hadn’t been in danger until he went and escalated things). He rescued orphans and slaves and built up an organization to combat homelessness.

Sayer was a good person. But being a good person didn’t make one immune to making choices that would lead to bad things. You could save a person and it was undoubtedly a good thing; but if that person used to be a murderer, did that make saving them bad? Sayer had never been able to understand this nuance; saving a person was a good thing. Always. Even if it lead to a murderer escaping all punishment and living a good life while the victim’s family was filled with the despair of knowing the murderer went unpunished, to Sayer, it was a worthy act to do.

It was almost like he thought it was the act itself that was good, and not the intentions or the results or the consequences for the people involved.

Cale wasn’t going to act like he was the authority on what was good and bad. But he had his own thoughts on it, his owns ideas, and they weren’t compatible with Sayer’s. Rather than getting into arguments about them, Cale thought that it would be smarter to simply walk away.

When he exited the cafeteria, he turned in the direction of the library. It would be opening soon and he decided to take advantage of it. He still had homework to complete.

There were more people in the halls at this hour. Some were heading in the same direction that he was, and Cale politely greeted those that he recognized. He threw all thoughts about Sayer and his morality and the plot to the back of his mind, forcefully keeping them away. He had things to do and couldn’t afford to get distracted.

He nodded to the librarian on duty when he swept into the library. She smiled back at him. Following the same familiar path that he always did, Cale walked over to what was starting to consider his regular table and sat down. He pulled books and notebooks pens out of his bag, already feeling tired.

He couldn’t wait to graduate.

Cale bit down on his lip and concentrated. He pushed his hair back behind his ears and started to carefully read the slightly lilting and fading text. All he had to do was keep up. Soon, he would be able to leave.