Micah exhaled nervously. The fact his breath didn't fog up in the cold night air like everyone else's didn't escape his notice. He looked at his reflection in the window, adjusting a stubborn strand of black hair that wouldn't stay in place. His heart fluttered, and he wondered if humans' did too. His didn't pump blood, Hector had told him, but it still moved in his chest, circulating mana-infused fluid to keep his body parts from decaying too quickly. He'd asked Hector once if he would die if his heart stopped. Hector had told him he wouldn't.

The answer had been meant to be reassuring, but Micah had been upset. He'd always known he wasn't human. Micah didn't grow, didn't change. He'd watched Hector's many students over the years, seen them age. He'd watched Hector himself grow gray and wrinkled. But Micah had stayed the same. Well, not the same. Sometimes his body parts needed replacement, and he'd change subtly. But not enough. At first, he hadn't cared, but then he'd started feeling something new, and...

He frowned as he swatted away a fly. He'd done his best to clean up, to put on cologne, but the damn things could sense the faint signs of decay a mile away, it felt like. He hoped he smelled okay. His hands tightened around the flowers as he raised his fist to knock on the door. Swallowing nervously, trying to will away the butterflies in his stomach, he rapped his knuckles on the door.

"H-Hi," he stammered when the door opened, the sight of Hector's star pupil making his hands shake slightly. Micah held out the flowers, trying to remember the words he'd practiced. "I, um, I got these for you. I wanted to tell you. For a while now. I really, um, really like..."

The sound of someone else's voice coming from the room made his words die in his throat. His hands went slack, and the bouquet dropped to the floor, scattering petals everywhere.

"Oh, I..." He quickly crouched to pick up the flowers, his chest throbbing with a sharp pain that he'd never felt before. "I'm sorry. I didn't... I... I'll go."