This was the day after the mess with the vampire nest finally settled down. It was a Friday. I was at the Mages room signing off for the day after my training with Alexei. The man himself said he had some business to attend to, so it was just me and Natasha in the room.

I didn't talk very often with Natasha. Probably because I just spent a lot more time with Alexei instead. I tried making some small talk with her, but we ran out of things to talk about after three exchanges.

I decided that it'd be best for me to go home, since it was getting late anyway. "See you tomorrow then, Natasha," I called out.

Natasha looked at me as if she wanted to say something. She stood still for a few seconds, looking at me hesitantly, then said, "See you."

I walked out of the room. Just as I was about to shut the door behind me, I heard her say, "Wait a second, Roma." I knew it. She had something to say.

Wait, was I about to be confessed to? Wow, that's so cool! But... no, Natasha, I'm sorry, but I still need to answer Lana's confession. You're really cute and stuff though so I'm sure you'll find someone else, don't worry.

After that irrelevant little inner monologue, I stepped back inside.

She was standing quite... cutely, was the only word that came to my mind. She wasn't looking at me, and she was holding her fingers against each other in front of her. "It's about... Alexei," she said, finally looking up at me, then looking back away in embarrassment.

A little part of me died on the inside. I shed a tear, I moved on. "W-what about Alexei?" I asked.

"The thing is... his birthday is next week," she explained, "And... I was wondering if I could get your help in picking out a present for him." Ah, so that's what it was about. "We haven't had a chance to get to know each other very well too, so we can spend some time together that way," she tried to convince me.

"Well... I guess I could help you," I replied.

We decided to meet on Saturday, the next day, at the little shopping center in our neighborhood.

Cue Saturday morning, at school. I walked into class as usual when Lana approached me. "Hey, hey, Roma, you free after school today?"

It instantly clicked in my head that she had already said this same sentence to me once. I also knew the outcome of what would happen if I did say I was free. However, I already had plans today, and I didn't want to call them off after all the trouble that Natasha took to reach out to me.

"Nah, Lana, sorry, I'm busy with something else today. How does Monday sound?" I offered.

Lana stuck her hand on her chin in the typical 'I'm thinking' pose, and said, "Hmm... I guess I should be free on Monday."

"Well then, I'm looking forward to next week!"

She flashed a wide smile at me, and trotted off to her friends, satisfied. Ugh... I was this close to getting a girlfriend! What a shame it'd have to wait until Monday.

The school day passed by without any particular event.

After school, I headed home to get a change of clothes. I didn't wanna show up in school clothes after all. I decided to get a little edgy and donned the leather jacket that was gathering dust in the corner of my closet.

I got on a bus and was on my way to the shopping center. I reached 5 minutes earlier than expected, so I stood there waiting by the entrance.

"Hey, Roma," spoke a voice that nearly scared the shit out of me. "Wha-! Hey, can you not creep up on me like that?! Also, why are you coming from inside the building anyway?" I turned around to look at Natasha. I don't know what I was expecting her to come in, but it certainly wasn't ripped jeans and a daring shirt. Well, at least it matched my leather jacket.

"Any good mage knows how to teleport," she hinted. Wait, did she teleport into the washrooms? "Let's move on then, shall we?" Natasha said, not giving me a moment to consider the absurdity of the situation. Not having much of a choice, I followed her into the shopping center.

She dragged me to the gadgets store, apparently having something to get my opinion on over there.

"I thought of getting him a pair of headphones or something. He's been getting into music lately, and he keeps stealing my earbuds while I'm listening to stuff," she said. So she just wanted him to get off her case?

I gave it a thought and came to a conclusion. Alexei was quite tame after not seeing me for so long, but recently he started opening up to me again, especially after the whole thing with the monster nest. And to put it in good words... he isn't very reserved about... well, anything. The guy's as loud as a fucking truck when he's excited.

To put it simply, he seemed like a guy who'd listen on speakerphone because he just couldn't care less about what others thought of it. At least, in the presence of people he knew and trusted. I threw a suggestion at Natasha: "I think he'd like a wireless speaker more. Do you have anything in mind?"

Natasha browsed through the speakers that were on display, and said, "I don't think I have the budget for a good one. I want to give him something that will last for a long time."

"Hmm... I don't think any gadget would last for longer than a year, considering our budget," I said. Then, I got an idea. "Hey, how about I pitch in a little too? He's my friend too, after all. I'm sure we'll be able to buy something better with more money on our hands."

Natasha seemed hesitant. She took a few seconds thinking about it, then said, "Alright, I guess that works too." Something told me she didn't want me to pitch in on her gift. Well, nothing bad could come out of some more funds... right?

Next, we went to check out some clothes. When I asked Natasha if she had Alexei's sizes, she promptly raised her thumb in affirmation and flashed a smug smile at me, saying, "I've got all his measurements down to a T!" Something felt a little creepy about that. "Uh... great?" I replied.

We browsed through the store for interesting items. Natasha inquired if men had an underwear section, and I simply pointed at a shelf with neatly arranged boxes of J*ckey boxers and whatnot. Her playful smile turned into a dejected frown. Wait, was she actually considering getting him a pair of undies? Gross. I had a feeling she was a closeted pervert.

In the end, we couldn't really pick out something nice for him, in spite of spending over half an hour ogling at shirts, so we assumed the store just didn't have anything good. Besides, I wasn't that good of a judge at what clothes a person would like to wear to begin with.

We walked around the shopping center for a while, hoping something would catch our eye, but nothing really stood out. We tried our hand at a spinning wheel hoping to get some prizes but we just got a flyer for some cafe on the second floor. It absolutely stabbed my heart when I saw a guy ten steps down the corridor handing out the exact same flyers for free.

All of a sudden, something struck my mind.

Back when all I did from morning to night was read, watch or play fantasy genre stuff, many of them had objects that could be enchanted with magic to give them special properties. However, I hadn't really noticed any enchanted items in my time at the University.

I asked Natasha, "Hey, is it possible to enchant items?" She looked at me with a strange expression. "Enchant? Depends on what you want the item to do... I guess." I probed, "What kinds of things can you enchant an item for?" She replied, "Stuff like communication, far sight, tracking... well not anything relevant considering your smartphone can do the same anyway."

Well, no wonder I didn't see any enchanted items. You could just ring up HQ or throw a tracking bug on someone and it would accomplish the same. Still, I kept thinking about what kinds of things I could make with enchanting.

I thought of this light novel that I read where the lead couple had a pair of pins that would alert the other if the bearer was in danger. In the novel, the main character ended up saving his beloved because of the pin alerting him on time, and I thought that it was something worth considering.

I pitched this idea to Natasha, being careful not to mention that it was from a light novel.

"Hmm... well, it's worth considering, I think," she said. She seemed not too convinced on the idea. I tried pitching it some more. "As long as he has it on his person at all times, you would be able to rest assured that he is safe and secure. And if something did happen to him, you'd be able to rush to his rescue. Of course, that would go both ways."

Natasha gave me a thoughtful face. "I think you're onto something," she said.

"Oh, and you'd also just have a pair of matching pins. Even without the enchantment, it would remind him of you," I said.

If this gift-giving business was because of what I thought, it seemed like an ideal gift. Childhood friends would surely be able to pick out what to give their friend by themselves. As long as they were giving a gift to a friend, that is...

"Well... I think that sounds like a nice idea," Natasha finally caved. For her outfit, she was acting grossly out of character, what with her shy and quiet responses. Well, that probably applied to me too.

"That's great! Let's go find some cool pins," I offered.

Now that we knew what we were looking for, we finished buying the pins relatively quickly.

I looked at my phone. "It's getting quite late," I exclaimed. Natasha looked at me and offered, "Hey, as thanks for helping me, let me treat you to something." I realized I hadn't spent a single penny for the pins, so I counter-offered to treat her instead. After some exchanges, we decided to just split it.

We went to that cafe that we got a flyer for and were surprised by how full of people it was. We could only manage a seat next to the corridor. We got ourselves some light snacks to talk over.

"So when did you and Alexei join the University?" I asked.

"Well... we joined about 3 years ago for regular practice and duty," Natasha explained. "But our parents began teaching us magic at a fairly young age. Our parents were friends at the University and we lived pretty close to each other. So I met Alexei fairly often."

"Your parents are mages too?" I asked. "No, they are wizards," Natasha answered. "They do have a lot of experience fighting monsters though, so they still do that fairly often."

"Wait, if there's adults who fight monsters, why are we sent in too?" I probed. "Because there's very few adults who go on fighting them for years and years," she replied. "It hurts them when they kill so many human-looking creatures for so long. That's why after reaching a certain threshold, they are given the freedom of only accepting hits when they want to."

That made sense. It wasn't rare for a soldier to develop some sort of trauma after a war, due to the guilt or due to horrendous sights they witnessed. Killing monsters was not the same as killing people, but it still took a toll, especially if you thought about the humans you couldn't save.

Still, sending people to fight while they were still young would only worsen the onset of that trauma. Whoever thought this system up was surely strange.

A heavy silence loomed over the table while I was thinking about this, so I decided to lighten things up with some small talk.

However, no sooner had I started talking that I saw a familiar face walking past me from a table further inside the cafe.

"Lana?" I asked. She looked at me, then smiled widely when she recognized me. "Roma!" she screamed a little too loudly, cheerfully running to my side. She seemed to take a moment to realize I was sitting with someone else on the other side of the table. That someone happened to be a girl.

"Roma, who's that?" she asked inquisitively. The excitement in her voice suddenly vanished, though she still held her smile.

"Ah... well... you could say she's a colleague, I guess," I answered. I couldn't exactly tell her that I frequent a certain University of Wizardry, and that we worked there together.

"Your... colleague?" Lana asked. She took a pause, apparently not believing me.

Wait, wasn't this kinda suspicious, from her perspective? I was sitting alone in the cafe with a girl, and she was someone that Lana didn't know. I also never told her that I worked anywhere at all, even during actual jobs I took up in the past. Considering she liked me... oh no, I might have invited some sort of misunderstanding.

I rushed to explain to Lana, "Hey, we're just friends, alright? We usually hang out with a mutual friend, but he isn't here today." Lana's look told me I made things worse. Maybe I should have left it at 'colleagues'.

"Hey Roma, I was gonna message you, but now that you're here, umm... I'm going to be busy on Monday, so I won't be able to hang out. Sorry," Lana said.

Wait, what? Oh no. Oh no! This was the worst way things could have panned out! Why?!

As I was panicking, a guy, clearly older than Lana, walked up behind her. "Hey, what's with the holdup?" he asked. "Ah, nothing much, just saw a school friend," she replied. "Oh, that's great! Still, it's getting late so we should probably start moving," he rushed her. "Sure," she said. She said, "Bye," with a bitter smile and trotted off by his side.

The thoughts inside my head were a mess. On one side, I was panicking because she thought Natasha was my girlfriend, and on another, I was also sad, seeing her with a guy, especially someone older than her.

I just got myself into a mess. This was the result of me postponing her confession until god knows when. Now she's gone ahead and picked up some other guy.

If only I didn't wait to learn some questionable fucking magic, if only I made the move myself, it would be me by her side right there.

This was my fault. I shouldn't have listened to that fucking witch. I shouldn't have waited for ages and ages to learn some fucking spell I'd only ever use once. I should have been a fucking man and asked her out myself.

"I'm sorry," Natasha said. I realized the mood was permanently ruined and we'd have to wind up soon. "It's okay, no issues," I said.

It occurred to me that magic was now useless to me. I was studying it so I could lift that goddamn memory block, but now that she's with someone else, there wouldn't be any point in her remembering her confession anyway. She wouldn't care about it being answered, and in fact, she'd probably distance herself from me.

I decided that I would give back my wand today and never step foot inside that University again. I didn't need anything to do with it.

"I hope Alexei likes your gift, Natasha," I said. "It's getting late, so I'll leave. Goodbye." I walked off to the washrooms, to Teleport right back into my bedroom.

I stripped and jumped into my bed. I didn't care for dinner. I didn't care for a bath. Negative emotions washed over me.

I hugged my pillow and cried.

Cried because I was indecisive. Cried because I was unlucky. Cried because I was replaced so easily.

Cried, because there was nothing I could do.

At some point, without realizing it, I fell asleep.