Canon: Remove if not applicable.Astolphe spat hair out of his mouth. He blinked. It was still dark outside, and the only source of light came from the dying fire. He wrinkled his nose and brushed impossibly soft hair out of his face, and he turned a scowl Gralat’s direction. His hair was everywhere. Astolphe couldn’t understand how he could manage having such long hair.
Gralat was still asleep. Probably. It was a bit hard to tell, because his hair was all over in his face. But it looked like he was sleeping.
“Wake up,” Astolphe said, and he shook Gralat by a shoulder.
Gralat had ended up sleeping in Astolphe’s room because they didn’t know when Astolphe’s father might return. They were still wary of being caught walking between each other’s rooms. He had felt as if he shouldn’t ask more about what he had been told about his friend’s mother, but the words he had said before, the first time that he was in her office, still held true.
When he stretched with a tired groan, Gralat seemed to get even taller. No wonder he was tall if he stretched out his back like that every day. Except that thought was illogical because stretching wasn’t what made people tall. Genetics really were scary.
“Good morning,” Gralat said and pushed himself to sit up. He brushed his hair out of his face, pushing it over his head and he ran his fingers through the fall until they stuck in a tangle of strands.
Astolphe looked up at Gralat, at his tousled blond hair that fell like a curtain around his shoulders, the pale eyelashes framing his sleep-heavy blue eyes, and he made himself stop nibbling at his lower lip when he realized that he was doing it.
Gralat noticed him staring. He seemed to notice every time he was being watched. “What?”
“Well…” Astolphe hesitated, but it wasn’t like Gralat hadn’t already said weird stuff, so. He sat up, crossing his legs in front of him, and he took a breath before explaining himself. “I think you’re unreasonably pretty.”
Gralat blinked at him, his face taking on a look of surprise. He dropped his hand by his side. He was silent for an uncomfortably long amount of time.
Then he reached out, and picked at a lock of Astolphe’s hair. Astolphe jolted in surprise. “Wh-what?”
“This is your real hair color, isn’t it?”
“Wh-... Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Because you and your father are the only ones I have seen with a hair color like this. Everyone in Ellvaldez have more,” he quieted as he searched for the appropriate word for a few moments, “down-to-earth colors. More grounded.”
“That’s what you’ve been thinking about? The color? Not that it’s too coarse?”
“Mmh? No, I like the texture.”
Wait—Why had the focus changed? And why was it that even though Astolphe had been the one to say something strange first, he was the one who was blushing and not Gralat?
He drew away from Gralat’s hand and looked out the window, but the darkness gave no clue as to what time it was. He stuttered a moment, before he found his tongue and the words. “It is time for the morning meal soon, isn’t it?”
Gralat retracted his hand, and he looked over to the fireplace, as if it was able to tell him the time. “It is, yes. I should go change.” He freed himself from all the blankets and slid to the edge of the bed so he could get out of it. “I’ll see you at the dining hall,” he said, and Astolphe nodded.
Left behind all alone, he buried his face in his hands. He could feel the burning heat in his cheeks against the skin of his palms.
Gralat’s father joined them at the table, for the first time.
“This is Astolphe,” Astolphe’s father said, “Astolphe, this is Ragnfríðr, he’s an old friend of mine.”
Gralat called his father ridiculous, but that might simply be because he was not as serious, and smiled more. Later Gralat pointed out that maybe he was naturally weird because he had a woman’s name, but Astolphe couldn’t even tell. A lot of the names in Ellvaldez were peculiar and made it hard to tell if someone was male or female. Gralat also mentioned that he had heard Astolphe’s father call his father Randi before, and it made Astolphe narrow his eyes at him.
“Why didn’t you tell me that before? Last night, for example.”
“I didn’t really think of it,” Gralat said with a shrug. Astolphe pointed out that maybe that was something worth thinking about when they were having discussions about what sort of relationship their fathers might have.
“If he’s using a short version of his name, then doesn’t that make them really close?”
“I suppose that it does but that’s fine by me. He did say they were friends. It doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“Well, no, I suppose it doesn’t, but still. It’s strange that I’ve never heard of him then.”
Gralat shook his head. “You don’t need to talk about someone to other people to be friends, do you?” His gaze was intense.
“Didn’t you say you don’t know a lot about friendship?” Astolphe asked, and Gralat shrugged again. “Yes, but I don’t talk about people a lot. Am I wrong?”
Astolphe sighed. “I don’t think so. I guess you’re right. I just don’t see why he wouldn’t, when he talks about his other friends.”
“Maybe it’s the distance. Living far away could make a difference.”
“That’s just a guess.”
“Yes.”
Just guessing felt a little unnerving. How often did they talk? Did living so far away from each other mean that they were inevitably going to drift apart? Did it mean that this friendship that he was building with Gralat wouldn’t work out? The friendship between their fathers seemed to work just fine, but what if?
“It’s nice to meet you, Astolphe,” Gralat’s father said, and he didn’t hint at the time he had found Astolphe in the wrong corridor.
Astolphe decided to play along, in case they were pretending that it didn’t happen in front of anyone in particular.