“Please wait!” Alex cried out, looking imploringly at the middle-aged man. “Sir! Please think about it.”

“I won’t,” the man replied stubbornly, “and no random kid is going to change my mind about it.”

“Why?” Asked Alex, looking saddened by his teacher’s father’s response.

“You just don’t give up, do you, kid?” The older man asked, scrutinising the kid with a look of annoyance on his face. As Alex continued to look imploringly at him, he sighed and said, “I won’t do what I don’t approve. Okay? Is that enough of an explanation?”

Alex was baffled by the man’s response, and he tried another approach by asking, “If you’re unwilling to train a stranger, why not your daughter?”

“Her?” Lucia’s father asked, turning to face his daughter with a look of amusement on his face. He scoffed, “I don’t want to teach her as well because she has the bad habit of doing dangerous things.”

“Dangerous things?!” Lucia exclaimed, angered by her father’s choice of words. “Look, father! I’m following my dream! What’s so wrong about doing that?”

“It’s not wrong to follow your dreams,” he said sardonically, “but it is wrong to sacrifice your life for it. You should prioritise to live in peace, not go off in a tangent that puts you in danger.”

His statement made her chortle with laughter and say, “Father, that is one of the biggest hypocritical things you’ve ever told me.”

“What?” He asked, narrowing his eyes and looking sharply at her. “Explain yourself, Lucia.”

“I mean, you’re a member of the council, father, and I, as your daughter, lacked the ability to control my energy. Instead of giving up on me, you taught me magic. Why’s that?”

“I wanted you to live, Lucia.”

“Why? Is it because I’m your daughter?”

“Yes. What more reason should I need to help you?”

“Okay, father, That’s great and all but, tell me one thing. What about the public? What happens to your responsibility towards your race?” She asked him, which made him narrow his eyes even further to look both serious and angry at the same time.

There was a moment of pause before he replied, “They are off less priority than the priority of raising you.”

“Oh!” She exclaimed, and she began clapping while letting out a loud laughter. “That’s great, father. Really wonderful! You care more for your only daughter than upholding the responsibility you have towards your race as one of its leaders.” Then she snorted and said with a disgruntled expression on her face, “I can’t believe how degraded you’ve become.”

“Lucia!” He snapped, widening his eyes and looking sharply at her. “Watch your tongue!”

“It’s the truth!” She thundered in a fierce voice, glaring angrily at him. She pointed her finger at him and said, “Look at yourself, father! Look at what you’re becoming! A man, who’s so selfish that he practically ignores the very people that depend on him! If you were going to be like this, why the heck did you join the council in the first place?”

An intense silence followed at the end of her question before her father replied curtly, “You have no right to judge me, nor do any of you have the right to demand anything from me.” He suddenly rose to his feet and looked coldly down at them before stating, “This is the end of this discussion. If you don’t have any other business here, you may leave,” and he walked away and left the room through a side entrance.

Lucia watched her father leave the room before she looked down at her knees and brought her hands up to cover her face. Then she began silently crying into her hands, which she was using as a cover to hide her the misery that her face was covered with. Alarmed, Luna quickly rose to her feet, moved over to sit next to her, and began speaking to her in a soothing manner while Alex sat there and stared in shock.

“Why…?! Why is he always like this?!” Lucia demanded in a voice full of frustration and grief.

“It’s okay, miss. It’ll be alright,” said Luna gently, rubbing the older girl’s back while looking troubled as she glanced at her childhood friend.

Alex was both saddened to see his teacher break down like that and felt anger towards her stubborn father. Deciding he has to do something, he got off the chair and went after the old man. He entered through the side entrance and found himself in a hallway going left and right. At first, he was confused as to which way he should go in when he heard a distinctive sound of something gently hitting a wall coming from the right.

“Must be this way,” he muttered, heading to the right.

He walked for a few seconds in silence before turning a corner and seeing the older man seated at the edge of a bench overseeing the back of his house. Alex approached him and soon found out that there was a garden on the back of the house as well, and it was a beautiful sight to behold with many different kind of flowers that were both beautiful and elegant.

For some reason, from just seeing the flowers alone, Alex’s anger subsided towards his teacher’s father and he instead felt something strange about him. He looked at the older man and could see the lines of worry formed on his aging face and realised there must be more than stubbornness involved for him to be so rude to his own daughter.

So, he took the seat next to the older man, who asked him without glancing at him, “What do you want?”

Alex turned to him and asked, “I was wondering why you’re being so rough with your daughter.”

“I have no choice because of the dangerous path she has taken in life,” the older man replied, glancing away and looking out towards his garden.

“Right, but is that all?” The kid asked him, making the man shift his gaze at him momentarily before looking away again. Alex grinned and asked, “I don’t think you’re the kind to do whatever he wishes without fully thinking about the consequences upfront, so I find it hard to believe that you trained your daughter and never expected her to take this route in life.”

The older man snorted and asked, “You’re thinking too deeply, kid.”

Alex chuckled and said “On the contrary, I feel like I understand a bit of what’s going on here. I mean, I saw your love for your daughter when I first came here, and it’s quite obvious that you cherish her very deeply. So, you being downright stubborn and rude to her is basically contradicting all that I’ve seen… but I don’t think your feelings are false. Rather I feel as though there was some kind of external force… external factors that are keeping you from assisting her.”

While he was speaking, his mind began to race through everything he had seen and experienced, making him finally come to the conclusion that he stated out loud. After all, no loving parent would say no to their beloved child from achieving their dream, especially with the kind of love that Matthew showed for his daughter, Lucia.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Alex asked for confirmation.

For a moment, the older man remained silent as he looked out into the garden before he formed a sad smile and asked, “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” admitted Alex with a smile, looking out at the garden. “Do you look after it all by yourself?”

The older man nodded and said, “Yes, just as I’ve taken care of both my wife and my daughter up until now, but… I got careless somewhere along the way and lost my wife.”

His daughter’s student felt something strange about the older man in the way he was explaining and realised something must have happened for his wife to disappear, probably that she was killed. Then his thoughts suddenly connected the dots between the council and the fact that his wife died, making him think that they must have been behind it..

“Are you saying the council did something to her?” Alex asked in a hushed voice, looking shocked.

“Oh?” The older man asked, looking surprised and a little impressed by the quick analysis Alex had demonstrated to him. “You’re quick.” Then he nodded in agreement and said, “Yes. I was much younger back then, and I was fueled by the responsibility of my job, however, the council was, how do I put it…? A nest of ugly insects that sacrifices others to feed itself.”

“And you were against it,” said Alex, and the man nodded again with a chuckle.

“My master believed the people should come first as it’s our responsibility to lead them to happiness. After he retired and they gave me his seat in the council, I was thrilled as I wanted to fulfil his wishes and make him feel proud of me. However, reality was cruel and the people of the council were even more so than the insects that crawl beneath our feet.”

He paused and sighed as he thought back to the events in the past and continued with, “I openly opposed to forcefully enlisting people into the army to fight against the other races, but they disapproved. So I began a campaign to bring awareness, and I was getting somewhere when... disaster struck.”

A sorrowful expression formed on his aging face as he fell silent, not saying any more. Alex did not press him about what had happened because he could imagine what had happened afterwards. They sat there in silence for a few seconds before Alex finally decided to break the silence and speak to the older man.

“I’m only guessing but they must’ve threatened you that if you assisted your daughter, she will face the same consequences as your wife, right?”

“Yes,” the older man said, and a pained look formed on his face. He even clenched his fists tightly as he said, “I… really wish I could help my daughter, but… my hands are tied. With her life on the line I… I can’t do anything against them.”

When the older man nodded wordlessly with a grim expression on his face, the kid nodded in understanding and said, “Okay. I get it now. I’m really sorry for causing you inconvenience by meddling into your business.”

After sincerely apologizing to him, Alex rose to his feet and made to go back when the older man asked him in surprise, “You believe me?”

“Of course,” replied Alex, smiling sadly as he glanced at the garden. “I felt your passion and the grief you must’ve felt at the loss of someone you loved. That’s why I won’t say your conviction to being firm with your daughter in this is the wrong thing to do.”

The older man looked up at him in amazement before asking him, “You know that I won’t help even if you try convincing me, right?” When the kid nodded, he continued to ask, “Then, what will you do?”

The kid paused and turned back to look at him uncertainty before saying, “I… don’t really know. I mean, I’m not going to give up in mastering my magic skills, but… I don’t want to become a burden for someone else, especially when it risks the life of someone that I’ve come to respect very greatly.”

“So, you’re going to accept your situation without questioning it?” The older man asked, looking shrewdly at him.

Alex smiled sadly at him and replied, “There’s nothing much that I, a kid, can do when you, an adult and a member of the council, can’t do anything.” Then he raised a finger and wore a look of determination on his face as he said, “However, I won’t give up in finding alternative ways of achieving my goals without becoming a burden to other people. Afterall, where there is a will, there is a way.”

His teacher’s father looked at him and widened his eyes slightly in amazement at the strong attitude of this kid. For some reason, he felt as though the maturity level of the kid was much greater than his appearance suggested, almost making him think there was an adult living inside the body of a child.

“Sorry to have bothered you by coming and making you relive the past, and if I hurt you with my curiosity, I am deeply sorry for it,” said Alex apologetically. Then he bowed and straightened up to say, “Please excuse me,” before turning around and headed back to where his teacher and childhood friend were at.

The older man watched him go and the impression he got from Alex was that he was an earnest, sincere, and honest person that was willing to try his best to improve himself. At the same time, he felt the kid was a considerate person that would not put others in danger in order to achieve his goals.

“What was his name again? Alex was it?” He asked himself, taking a brief moment to remember the kid’s name before smiling warmly as he watched the kid take a turn at the corner and vanish from sight.