When he walks into the office the next day, he sees a few strands of light hair peeking out from behind a cubicle wall. The cubicle which had been empty until today. There's only two people in the office who wear their hair up in a way that would protrude from behind the cubicle wall, and he knows for a fact the Director isn't back yet, apart from not being blonde. That would only leave…
"Aster?!" He rushes towards the cubicle, forgetting to greet Jessica (not that she minds). "You're finally back!" He could almost cry from happiness. Finally, someone to share the workload with him. These past few days Jessica's been dropping all the jobs on him. Which he doesn't really blame her for, because it's not like she can assign them to the Director and Baz is never around.
"Hey," xe gives him a two finger salute.
"Where have you been?!"
In a monotone voice, "Around."
All his excitement vanishes. "Do you really have to be so cold? Can't you give me a little bit more than that? Aren't you at least a little bit glad to finally be back?"
Before xe can answer, the office door opens with a bang, and by some miracle, at eight in the morning, Baz is standing there.
"Aster! You're back!" his whole face lights up with a smile. He rushes to where they are, and immediately pick xem up into a bone-crushing hug.
"Put me down right now or I'll bite your head off!" xe threatens, thumping him on the back, but Baz just laughs.
"Can't I be happy to see my friend again?" he says as he puts xem down on the floor again. "And you promised you'd bring me some souvenirs," he reminds xem.
"I promised no such thing," xe sniffs. Still, xe reaches into xeir back pocket and pulls out a key chain with a miniature seal figurine at the end.
"Just this?" He holds the little figurine between his forefinger and thumb, examining it curiously.
"Give it back if you don't want it," xe tries to snatch the keychain back, but Baz raises it above his head and out of xeir reach.
"No, no. I'm keeping it," he cradles it against his chest protectively.
"Then don't complain!"
Just then, Valentine trudges up to them, hiding a yawn behind her face. "Hey, old man, why'd we have to come here so early for- Oh, Aster!" her eyes immediately look more awake, "You're back!" She even offers xem a grin.
"Hey, Val!" xe smiles back, ruffling her hair fondly. "How have you been?"
"About as good as you can be surrounded by these clowns," she points at Baz and Kit. Gnocchi pokes out his head from the backroom. "Oh look. The third one's here."
"Hey!" Gnocchi protests, but he also walks out to greet xem.
Aster laughs. "Here, I brought you something," xe rummages through xeir bag, pulling out a box of salted caramel. "Don't eat it in one sitting, okay?"
"Huh?!" Baz points at between the two of them, "Why does she get a better present than me?"
"Because she actually deserves it."
"Not fair! You're sharing those, you hear?"
"Nuh-uh," Valentine tries to hide the box away from him, "you can get your own."
"Don't be so stingy!"
Aster leaves the two of them to continue fighting, turning to Gnocchi. "Here," xe takes out what looks like a teen magazine from xeir bag, "don't blame me if this isn't the issue you wanted. It's the one they had at the store I went to."
Gnocchi thumbs through a few pages, skimming their content. "Hm. Well, it isn't. But I think I actually like this one better. It's even got a full page spread of OnlyOneOf."
"I don't know who those are, but I'm happy for you?" Xe pats his head. "Where's Mousie, by the way? I have her stuff here." Xe pats xeir bag.
"Oh, she's sick," Gnocchi informs xem, not taking his eyes away from his magazine, "but I can take it to her later if you want."
Kit has had enough of this. "Am I the only one that didn't know where you were going?"
They all turn to look at him, their expressions complicated.
"From what it looks like…" Baz runs a hand through his hair.
"Yeah. Pretty much." Aster gives him a deadpan look.
"Did no one think to tell me?"
"I thought you knew?" Gnocchi tries appeasing him.
Kit smacks him on the back of the head. "Not convincing enough, Gnocchi!"
"I say," Baz ushers Gnocchi back towards the backroom, "we let bygones be bygones and forget all about this."
He turns his glare on Baz. "Why did no one tell me?"
"Apart from Gnocchi," Baz is quick to throw him under the bus, "the rest of us genuinely thought you knew."
"Well, obviously not," Kit scoffs.
"Perhaps this should serve as a lesson to pay more attention to office gossip then?"
"Wow. Thanks a lot."
"Don't take it like that. To be fair, I knew because Aster told me, and the rest only found out because Gnocchi was eavesdropping on our conversation."
He purses his lips. That would definitely explain how the news had spread, but it still didn't explain why he was left in the dark.
"Was there… anything you wanted?" Aster decides to take pity on him.
"Well, no. But just knowing would have been nice. Which reminds me, I still don't know where you went."
"Was sent to deal with a sea serpent around Citrine. It was eating the seals. Real pain in the ass." Aster shrugs, as if it were no big deal.
So that was the reason behind the seal keychain and salted caramel. Citrine was one of the major trading points in the country, being located by the sea. But what it was really famous for was its salted caramel and the vast amount of seals that would beach on its coast every summer. It had become such a big occurrence it was now a bit of a tourist attraction and most of the country's selkie population could be found there. If there were to be anything disrupting the seal population, even something minor like a new plant species sprouting in the area, the authorities would do anything in their power to fix it, let alone if it were something as serious as a sea serpent.
"They sent you to deal with a sea serpent?! An honest-to-god sea serpent?" Kit feels his jaw drop to the floor.
"I think it wasn't fully grown though."
"It's still a sea serpent!"
"Eh." Aster shrugs nonchalantly. "I've dealt with worse."
He opens his mouth. Closes it. That… that was probably true.
Aster, being one of the few magicians who specialised in combat, would get sent on jobs out of town more often than not. With most magical creatures that could pose a real danger gone from this world to the Lands Beyond, the demand for battle-focused magicians had dropped, and the number of people who still chose to pursue that path were few and far between. So those who did were considered extremely valuable assets. It wasn't that they were spread thin, just that they would be called to carry out jobs across the country, regardless of their actual area of jurisdiction.
"So… How was your trip back?" he decides to change the topic.
"It was fine."
Out of all the people in this office, Aster was probably the most well travelled. It was a little bit depressing to think about, if he was being honest with himself.
When he had just enrolled at the Royal Academy of Magic at thirteen, he had wanted to travel all around the world, encountering all types of magical creatures and helping out people, just like he'd read magicians did in the history books at school. Looking back, of course he could tell it was a stupidly childish dream, but the disappointment he had felt back then had been very real. As he grew up, he had abandoned that dream, but he still wanted to become someone; if not a figure of legend, he at least wanted to achieve something of importance in his lifetime. Sadly, he had been average at all subjects, with the exception of seals.
But just his knowledge of seals wasn't enough to guarantee him a place in society. He still remembers very clearly the day the higher-ups had told him he'd been assigned to this town.
He had gotten his magician licence a year ago, right after he'd graduated from the Academy, but was still unable to find a job. As a last resort, he'd decided to apply for the Bureau of Magical Affairs.
"You got a letter in the mail today," his then roommate (he forgets his name now) had knocked on his door.
Sighing, he heaved himself up from the floor where he had been lying on. The small apartment they had been renting had no A/C and no functional ventilation system, and during the summer months it would heat up like a furnace. It was a real shitty place, but by virtue of being in the capital, the rent was higher than it had the right to be, hence the roommate. He met his roommate from his days at the Academy, where they had vaguely been aware of each other simply because they were in the same year, maybe collaborating on one or two projects during their school time together. When he had graduated at eighteen, he had been desperate enough to get out of his parents' house; desperate enough he had taken the first offer that came his way, and he was lucky enough his roommate had turned out to be someone he at least knew.
Moving sluggishly, he had made his way out of his room. He had gone for an interview at the Bureau's main offices a few days ago and they had told him they would get back to him in a couple of days.
Even though during the interview everything had seemed fine, he wasn't going to get his hopes up. He'd gotten enough rejection letters in the past year.
"Your letter's over there," his roommate gestured at the kitchen table with his chin.
"Thanks," he trudged over towards it, opening the letter slowly. He scanned the contents of the letter, his eyes widening the more he read. He'd… gotten the job? "Hey," he called out to his roommate, "I… I think I got the job."
"Really?" He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Congratulations. Where are you being assigned to?"
He scans the contents of the letter again. "Juniper." Why did that name sound so familiar…
It was like a bucket of cold water had been dumped on his head. He knew that place. He'd been there before. Once, years ago…
"Juniper?" his roommate said, pronouncing it slowly. "Nope. Never heard of it. Have you?"
"I… I think I have." If his memory wasn't failing him, that was where Baz was from. Memories from a summer three years ago started coming back to him.
During the summer vacation of his fourth year, his parents had decided to go on a trip to visit a distant relative of his in another city. He had put forth some excuse about needing to study and having too much summer homework to get out of accompanying them on their trip, and somehow, it had worked. Which meant, he was going to spend that summer home alone.
When he'd mentioned it to Baz in passing during a conversation, he had immediately suggested, "Why don't you spend the summer over with me?"
He had been taken aback at first, but after considering it for a few minutes, he'd accepted. It was a bit pathetic, but the truth was, he'd never really had a friend until he met Baz, so he'd never really been invited anywhere and didn't know how to respond in such a situation. He had imagined it was a much more momentous situation, but Baz had made the offer so casually, he would have felt… bad if he hadn't accepted.
Baz…
He hadn't seen Baz in two years, not since Baz had graduated and moved back to his hometown. They had kept in touch for his last year at the Academy, but when the pressure for his licence exam had started, contact had basically stopped between them. And then during the year he had been unemployed, contact had completely disappeared. Would he even remember him now?
~~~
He set his suitcase down with a dull thud. It turned out not even the last bus stop got all the way to his destination, and he'd had to hitchhike all the way to Juniper.
He didn't remember the trip being this long the first time he'd come here, but that was probably because there had been someone ready to pick them up at the train station, saving him the hassle of having to jump from bus to bus.
"You have a driver?" he had asked Baz. Oh, he had thought somewhere in the back of his mind, so he's a RICH kid.
Baz had just shrugged. "Technically it's the family's, not my personal driver."
Sadly, there was no personal, or family, driver this time, and he'd had to bear with the jostling of the bus over the horribly patched up roads.
He started walking, looking for the living arrangements the Bureau had given him, checking the directions every couple of minutes on his phone.
"Kit?!"
He peeled his gaze away from his phone screen to look for the source of the voice, to find, there, in the middle of the road…
"Baz?" They stared at each other for a few seconds, neither believing the other one was real. He was riding a motorcycle, but he'd taken off the helmet to leave his face visible. There was no doubt. It had to be him. He hadn't changed in the two years they hadn't seen each other. Well, if anything, his hair was longer.
(He'd started growing it out during his fourth year; Kit's third year.
"I thought I'd go for a new look," he had said when he informed Kit of his decision, "what do you think? I heard somewhere girls are into that nowadays."
"I think it's going to take more than just growing out your hair for a girl to like you," he joked.
"Hey!" he protested, but he was laughing, "For your information, there are a lot of people who like me."
"Yeah. And none of them girls."
"Hey!" He shoved him playfully.
A few months later, he had gotten a girlfriend.)
"What are you doing here?" Baz asked him, parking his motorcycle next to where he was standing on the sidewalk.
"Apparently I work here now."
"No way. You went into government work?"
"Mhm."
"So you're going to be working under Fluorite then?"
"She's the Director now? I thought it was your mom."
"Nah. She retired like… a year ago? I think?"
He took a look at Baz's clothes. He was dressed in a very simple manner, nothing like what he remembered him to be like, in just some faded jeans, a t-shirt and a leather jacket. "And what about you? What have you been up to?"
"Nothing much. Mom forced me to find a job, saying something about how she was tired of seeing me laze around the house all day, so I've been acting as an errand boy these past few months."
He burst out laughing. When he finally managed to speak again, "An errand boy?" he wiped a tear from his eye. "No offence, but that really doesn't suit you."
"You think?"
"Not at all."
"I thought the roguishly handsome look fit me."
He burst out laughing again. "Trust me, it doesn't."
"Shame," Baz sighed, "guess I'll have to find another job then."
"I always thought your mom would force you to join the family business."
"The family business? You mean being the Director? Because Fluorite's got that covered already."
"No, I meant Bureau work."
"Meh. It always looked like too much effort. And you know, I've never been interested in magic like them. Or you. I only studied at the Academy because it was either that or a private tutor. And at least at the Academy I could get rid of Mom breathing down my neck 24/7."
"So what? You're going to spend the rest of your life doing odd jobs here and there?"
"Or until Mom dies and leaves me my inheritance."
"Baz!" he scolded him.
"What?"
"You can't just say that!"
"It's true though. And it's fine as long as she doesn't hear me."
"Hm. I suppose. But that doesn't take away the fact you're horribly shameless."
"Hey, Kit," Baz grinned, "never thought I'd say this but, I missed your scolding."
"Shameless!" he tried to scold him again, but he was laughing too much to sound convincing.
"Well, I have to get going now," Baz walked back to his motorcycle, "but I'll see you around?"
"Sure," he agreed easily.
Perhaps being assigned to this town wasn't going to be so bad.
~~~
Back in the present…
"You can't be any more specific than that? Just 'it was fine'? That's it?" Baz is trying to press Aster for more details.
"What do you want me to tell you? It was fine. Not good, not terrible. Just. Fine."
"I hate to agree with Baz, but he's right. You should give at least a little bit more than just that," Kit says.
"Thank you," Baz gestures towards him. "You know? This is why I hated playing with you as a kid. You were always such a bore."
"Yet you still played with me."
"Because Fluorite was even worse! I had no one else aside from you!"
"Sucks to be you, I guess."
"Ugh!" He turns to Kit, "See what I had to deal with my whole life?"
"Yeah. Honestly," Kit taps his chin, "it explains a lot about why you are the way you are now."
"No, no," Aster interjects, "if we must blame anyone, I think we should blame Fluorite. I was nothing but a wonderful friend to you."
"You," Baz points at xem, "were nothing but a horrible friend."
"That's subjective."
"It really isn't."
Jessica comes to interrupt them. "Are you three finished bickering yet? You have a job. All three of you."