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It’s late March. Dr. Elric is sitting on a stool at his breakfast bar and stuffing half a hard-boiled egg into his mouth at the sight of me. His feet are bare, automail glinting in the light, clanking shifting into a thud as he crosses the tile to the hardwood to greet me. He’s apologizing with haste, unrelenting when I insist it’s my burden for arriving fifteen minutes prior to our interview time.
He shakes my hand firmly, with both of his, and I fail to not react to the stark difference between them. He laughs, and then I do. “Good icebreaker, isn’t it?” he comments. He flicks a strand of willowly gold hair aside, pulling on a pair of wire-framed corrective lenses previously hanging from the neck of his collared shirt. It’s a soft moment, the kind you’d share with a friendly classmate rather than a prodigal alchemist revolutionizing the world of chemical and physical sciences. At this moment, I’m just one of many journalists requesting his precious time, among the lucky ones that have received a positive response.
Dr. Edward Elric is amongst the greatest minds of his era, and likely more to come. The oldies of the present generation will contest this, and, at the risk of making enemies, I’ve got peers that deny his brilliance from the perspective of personal grudge — Dr. Elric is notorious for denying interviews after all, quite famous for it even, earning himself quite the reputation amongst his own peers and mine for being snobbish, stuck up, and arrogant, a reputation that isn’t helped by his age.
Youth and brilliance are a combination that find no other conclusion but ego, to some. Personally, I contest this, and I won’t deny, part of my goal today is to prove that.
And really, supposing the accusations of egoism hold water, doesn’t he deserve it, just a little? Elric has found himself at the uppermost limits of scientific discovery in an age of stagnation, where Amestris has found a reputation amongst the conspirators of war and fear, the last half-century’s worth of alchemy curated only for military advancement and the greatest of advancements being weapons of war. Budding opinions amongst the more liberal minds of the science world comment that the youth of today — minds like the Elric brothers, Ohto, Strauss, and more — are the founders of an era of renewal, rebuilding, and technology, a pseudo-social movement towards peacetime, placing trade and exchange as the new foundations of our nation over fearmongering.
Though the mindset is contested, the critics tend to lose footing when faced with the undeniable achievements Dr. Elric has racked up in the span of a decade. And he did so in an environment choking on political corruption and lingering old-timers grasping for the remaining dregs of their power. The world changed overnight with the overturning of government, Elric being in the midst of the power struggle alongside his brother as a State Alchemist serving in the very military that was brought to its knees by late President Grumman. Other members of the State Alchemist program tried to leverage their old position to squirm their way into power, either within the government or other state-led institutions, but Elric’s love of alchemy and education seemed to drive him in other directions. He threw in the towel with the military and moved on, taking years to hone his ideas before making his return to the alchemy world, this time as an adult, one who uniquely cannot perform alchemy himself.
“What else was I gonna do?” he tells me later. “Just ditch the one thing I knew how to do? I love it, and I know it, I know it like no one else knows it. Who else was gonna do what I did? Alchemy was a dying discipline and its reputation was shit after the State Alchemist program was exposed for the scam that it was, and I was heartbroken, y’know? This amazing thing, this gift of science that could change people’s lives, that changed my life, and all we did with it was kill people. I couldn’t let that be the reputation alchemy had forever. I needed to do something.”
Today, the study of alchemy and it’s interdisciplinary fields of biology, chemistry, and physics have formal degrees in 70% of institutions across Amestris, and have seen a 40% increase in enrolment over the last 5 years, a statistic no doubt influenced by Dr. Elric and his peers. Elric himself, bridging the gap between the old greats dedicated to science as himself and the youth, has created space for the love of creation in place of destruction. He’s lived up to that childhood admiration of the genius scientist and matched it with a surprising humbleness in his work, the kind that makes you believe you’re just like him, that you can be just like him.
He’s certainly not the first to do this, but his revolutionary work is indicative of all his values and has brought change to how science is consumed in the present day.
I don’t get to formally begin the interview before he begins telling me interview-worthy things.
“Did my brother let you in? He set me up, I swear. He told me to get dressed before I came down to make my breakfast, I bet he knew he was gonna let you in early. He’s evil, I tell you. He’s always trying to embarass me.”
I laugh with him as he leads me to an open back door. “Please, Professor– professor or doctor?”
“Professor is fine.” He holds aside some curtains for me to pass. “I’m more used to it. And for you?”
“Darcy, please. Now listen, eating breakfast is no embarrassing task. I can keep it out of the final cut if you’d like,” I offer. He gestures for me to sit on a wide garden swing bench and sits himself on a cushioned chair perpendicular to me. There’s a calm breeze at this early hour, the sun warm on my legs, temperature otherwise cool.
“No, no, don’t do that. That paper you sent me about how this was supposed to go? It said the interview technically starts the second you knock, didn’t it?” He continues when I nod, “Just include it, it’s fine. Listen, whoever’s reading, I was a notorious breakfast skipper, don’t be like me okay? Just stuff the damn eggs in your mouth before you faint in the middle of your observations and get prescribed ‘eat three meals a day.’”
“I imagine you speak from experience.”
“No clue why you’d assume that,” he says matter-of-factly. He smiles at me, and I can’t help but entertain it with a laugh.
He tucks a strand of hair behind an ear and, for the first time, I notice a gold earring, a small hoop that shimmers white in the sunlight. One of many signs of youth. On that note, I ask, “You mentioned that icebreaker, previously, do you mind sharing a bit more?”
“For you or for the audience?”
I’m caught. “For the audience.”
He squints at me, but I see the glint of amusement in his eyes. “Everyone knows the miraculous story of my arm appearing out of thin air, it’s in the news archives,” he says dismissively. “So how does this work? Does this reporter thing give you, like, some kind of legal allowance to be a stalker? How much do you know about me?”
“I’ll have you know, Professor, you’ve led a very public life, I wouldn’t say my breadth of knowledge qualifies stalker tendencies once you account for public government records, your publications, and my primary research.”
He tilts his head, smile growing as though I’ve challenged him. I’ve done no such thing. “Your primary research?”
“Let’s just say, this isn’t my first interview.”
He laughs. “I mean, of course not. Your other interviews are the reason I agreed to this, but I’m not seeing the connection between that and your primary research.”
“Are you trying to snuff out industry secrets, Professor? Because I won’t be giving up a thing, you must know.”
“Oh, please, you could train me for years and I’d never make it in your industry. Socializing is very, very low on the priorities of a scientist. It’s like, the number one selling factor.” His hands accompany his words, gesturing and swooping in the air to the tune of his inflections. “I’m just curious who gave me up. Surely I get to know who’s talking about me, right?”
“I feel as though I’ve just now realized I’m talking to someone whose job is to inquire. Of course you’d be curious about the sources of my information.”
“Exactly, see? You understand me.”
“I do,” I say with a nod and a chuckle. “And because I do, I’ll tell you one thing. I was ten when you dismantled the political corruption in Liore. My father knew you, and he also knew people who knew you. When I found my love of journalism, I couldn’t imagine a better person to score an interview with besides you.”
“So this has been a long-time pursuit of yours,” he states.
“It has.”
He shakes his head, somewhat awestruck. “God, the world is so small. I can’t believe you– that’s– so you remember my brother, then, too, when he wore that suit of armour everywhere.”
“I do remember that, yes.”
“Wow,” he sighs, falling back into his seat. “Okay, okay, since you gave me that, I’ll tell you something.”
“Please do.”
“You can confirm this with my brother so you can make sure I’m not just flattering you, but I told him three years ago that the only person I wouldn’t deny an interview with is you, Darcy.”
My eyebrows shoot up at that. I’m quite trained in the art of facial neutrality, I have to be, but it shocks me. “Would you tell me why?”
“Because,” he shrugs. “Out of all the journalists I’ve read pieces from that specialize in covering science, you don’t actually focus on the science, you focus on the person, and I appreciate that.”
None of this is about me, so this is an interesting turn of conversation. I smile at the compliment. “I do strive to conduct holistic conversations.”
“See, and that’s good. Nothing bad to say about others, but honestly, if you want to ask me about my research, you read my research, you know what I mean? I don’t wanna sit in a chair and reiterate everything I’ve already said in my work. It’s all public domain! We fought for it to be public domain, you can read my research anytime, so I never really saw the value in sitting down with someone just to say it all over again. I did it a lot when I was younger, but it’s not something I want to focus on these days, you know? I want people to read the books we’ve worked so hard on. When it comes to interviews… I don’t know, I like having a layman’s take. Does that make sense?”
“You prefer to speak without all the professional huffery.”
He nods exaggeratedly. “Exactly, see? You get it.”
“Tell me then,” I start. I mimic his stature, sitting back in my seat, notebook set down to my side. “How does it feel to be on the cusp of your thirties and a name in the as-of-yet unwritten history of alchemical physics?
He rolls his eyes at me and my heart jumps. “God, do not mention that I’m about to be forty. If anyone out there is interested in researching time travel or time dilation or whatever you can use to take me back to twenty-eight and an uncreaking back, move here. I’ll hire you. I’ll fund your research. Did you know one of the drawbacks of prolonged automail reconnection is literal spinal degradation? The nerves and joints get, like, damaged. It’s really little, like, barely there, very close to being an insignificant statistic, actually, so it’s more like a complete non-issue, but oh my god, it does not feel like it. I wake up and feel like my bones are eighty years old.”
I’m laughing with him, but in hindsight, I sit here and process how terrible a fate that is. “And you’ve decided that time travel is a better solution than neurological advancements?”
He puts a hand up as if I’ve gone too far. “Okay, yeah, maybe I can imagine a reality where that might be a better course of action, but if I pretend it’s not then I don’t have to face the demon of guilt that I’ve based my life’s research on something completely unrelated to my own ailments.”
“Any particular reason why?” Only because it’s my job to ground the conversation.
“Why I went into energy?” When I nod, his expression shifts from that playful smile to a gentle, more inquisitive one. He bites his bottom lip, then runs the side of his thumb along it, seemingly choosing his words. Amongst Elric’s earliest pieces is buried an empirical review of the top energy sources consumed in conduct with wartime research and military training. I imagine his answer will have something to do with a desire to change that, to create something that was resourceful, renewable, more environmentally conscious than burning gallons of gasoline and more dignified than illegal labour. I’m not far off.
“It kind of fell in my lap, honestly. When I lost my ability to do alchemy I– well first I had to make peace with that, and once I did, I realized the thing I missed most about it, and the thing that I love most about it, is the freedom it gives you. You’re not limited by anything but your own skill level, you know what I mean?”
“Could you elaborate on what that means for someone like you, who’s skill level wasn’t a hindrance?”
“For me it was like–” he forms these claw-like shapes with his fingers, as if he could assign the concept he’s trying to illustrate to an arbitrary section of the air and grasp it with his hands, pulling it into existence. “It was like, I could do anything I needed as long as I had the materials, and those materials could be infinitely put back to their original state and re-transmuted into something else, literally forever. Like, actually forever, the materials don’t degrade over time, you know?”
I nod quickly to validate the thought process. “I can see how clearly that connects to renewable energy sources.”
“Right?!” he exclaims, leaning forward in his seat. “Isn’t it incredible? You can literally use a material forever thanks to alchemy, limited only by your own skill level and your starting materials, and I just couldn’t make the connection between the military having that at their disposal and still being as wasteful as they were in those years.”
“Everything about the administrative regime in those years is up for scrutiny, I imagine.”
“God,” he sighs, shaking his head in disapproval. “Don’t even get me started, you’ll have to censor half my comments if we go there.”
I return the expression with a thin pressed smile. “How about we pivot, then, back to what you mentioned about how alchemy is freeing?”
He acknowledges the question with a stout nod. “Yeah, what about it?”
“I want your perspective. How does the freedom granted by general education differ from the freedom you feel alchemy can provide?” I’ve come to learn his feelings are quite transparent, his expressions inviting open perception of his emotions. His hands find a place under his thighs, one bouncing up and down as he mulls over the question. I sit back against the chair, using a foot to swing the bench ever so slightly to accompany myself in the silence. His eyes track my movements and I wonder if it’s a conscious choice or a symptom of his tendency to tune out as he thinks.
“The practical part,” he says decisively. “It’s– I mean, obviously general education has practical applications, but alchemy– you can just draw the circle and bam, you can make something. My brother and I were making ourselves toys when we were toddlers. Can you imagine what kids could do if the curriculum taught alchemical symbols the way they taught letters and stuff? If you think about, like, let’s use reading, right. Language is one of the most complex things that humanity’s ever come up with, I mean, communication in general is just bonkers, but then we have these eclectic constraints and minute little rules and grammatical crimes that everyone just knows you committed if you happen to say brown big tree instead of big brown tree, and children just– they just know it. They just learn it because you talk to them and they develop that language centre in their brain and then you connect that language centre to a visual centre that codifies the written word and bam now you have a kid that can read.
“Imagine if we taught alchemy like that, like a language, because that’s kind of what it is, right? The symbols are how you communicate a transmutation. That’s what I mean by freedom. Everyone can do it, as long as you teach them that it’s an option. And once they can, you get to this place where you can’t look at the newspaper and pretend you didn’t read the headline, because you just know how to read. You can get to a place where you look at something and you just know what it's composed of, how to transmute it into whatever you want. I mean, think about it, wouldn’t you love it if your kid could just transmute his toy car into a toy train instead of you going out to buy a whole other thing?”
“I think you’re in the running to put certain sectors out of business, but yes, I fully see your point, especially from the standpoint of financial security as a working mother.” He laughs at my response. He uses it as a buffer in his tirade and takes a breath, putting his gesturing hands down to his metal armrests, painted white but distressed over the years. He grips the round edges and I can’t help how my eyes flicker between the one hand, smooth and soft, and the other, adorned with sunspots. “Considering your passion in this subject, I’m sure you’ve heard that schools have brought alchemy to their general curriculums.”
“I have, I have,” he nods. “I know it’s more of a specialized thing in universities, but I’m really glad it’s starting to hit public education too. I’ve worked with some of the people that are really pushing for its inclusion, and I’m really proud of the progress that’s being done to shift its reputation into something beneficial to society.”
“You speak as though that shift is removed from you.” He tilts his head as a form of question. It’s another thing that simply oozes youth. Had I no prior knowledge of the man, I can imagine one would fail to grasp the depth of intelligence contained in the mind before my eyes. “You must realize that your groundbreaking research in nuclear energy has changed people’s minds on alchemy on a nearly unprecedented scale.” I see the way he struggles to accept the statement, as though it were some mad theory composed by an equally mad man.
“I guess I do, but I think I saw my research as more revolutionary in my own sector. I supposed I neglected to see how it was influencing people outside of my industry.”
I raise my brows at him. “Professor, with all due respect, that’s nuts.”
He bursts into laughter. “In my defense!” he starts, hands up like he’s been caught. “We’re like twenty years removed from the war and to me alchemy has always been a positive thing. In my brain this whole bad reputation thing was solved when I was like, twenty-one, I don’t know.”
I shake my head at him, half in disapproval of his defense, half in good-nature. “Tell me how you landed on nuclear power.” He sighs at me, understanding that I’ve taken away his chance to defend his thinking, and I allow him no give anyway. “Listen, you invented the self-renewing system. You and your team alone are the sole reason Amestris was able to steer away from weaponry as our main export. Your research changed our trade system, and as the only journalist that’s managed to score an interview with you since you’ve completed this groundbreaking research, I want to know how you landed here. Tell me.”
He squints at me, again, as though I’ve challenged him. “I get the feeling you know exactly where you’re directing the conversation, Darcy.”
I give him a thin smile. “I’m leading the interview, Professor, of course I do.” He seems to find great amusement in that.
“How many of my papers have you read?”
“All of them.”
He raises his eyebrows at me, then shakes his head, as if accepting defeat. “Ask me properly, then,” he says.
He seems to misread whether or not I challenge him, but he has most definitely challenged me. I cross a leg over the other, tucking my pen into my chest pocket. “I recall a particular name cited in one of your earlier papers about splitting atoms. Enlighten me of the connection between the minimally researched yet infamous flame alchemy and your early prospective research into nuclear fission.”
“You’re going to ask me about the rumours, aren’t you?” he murmurs. He sounds… delighted, in a way.
“One question at a time, sir,” I say.
And he takes a deep breath. The sun is harsher as we pull into high noon. The doctor’s cheeks colour a curious pink. He fidgets more — folding up his sleeves, pulling his hair up into a bun. When his hands come to rest, he folds them in his lap. Peculiar. “Okay. The connection is what you just mentioned, splitting atoms. He taught me how it worked–”
“It?”
“Flame alchemy,” he quickly adds. “How he did it. Which, I mean, there isn’t much to explain anymore because the fundamentals are pretty well known now, but the part that I learned back then, that inspired my research, was that simple act of being able to split water at will to create more oxygen. And, I mean, I use the word simple, but it’s really difficult to do it the way he did, in high stress situations, on the fly, calculating everything in his head and all that. But!” and he’s using his hands again. “When you apply that concept to a controlled situation, it actually does become simple, and it’s repetitive, and it kind of follows this linear thinking.
“Like, okay, you can split a molecule and use the energy and products to posit an explosive reaction. So what if you split an atom, what happens then? Turns out, it releases a crazy amount of energy. Now what if you could control that energy the way he controlled the combustion reaction? And after you exhaust that atom, couldn’t you just… transmute it back into your starting material? I mean, it’s a controlled reaction in a closed system, so anything goes, really. And I’m making it sound way, way more simple than it really was, but in basic terms that’s all we did.”
“It sounds very similar to the principle alchemy is based on. That circular nature of a system.” He goes quiet for a moment, and it comes to mind that I wish I could do a second interview with him based on his behaviour in this interview. In an era marked by so much anguish and fear, Dr. Elric has managed to spin every destructive concept on its head and turn it into something of goodness and connection. The all-damning flame alchemy as a basis for renewable energy research, an era of wartime alchemy into an era of science. There’s a certain meta-poeticism to it — that his life’s work relies on transmutation from one thing to another, that his story is marked by the same principle.
“Isn’t it so cool?” he pipes up.
“What a juvenile comment.”
“Hey!” He puts his hands up in mock-defense again. “Adjectives don’t belong to a certain age group.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” I relent. “So that was Mustang’s contribution, was it? The inspiration?”
He nods eagerly. “Yeah, yeah he– I mean–” His hands are wild again. “He put this idea in my head and it just snowballed from there. I…” he trails off, sinking into his seat. “I owe him a lot more than a single mention at the tail end of one of my first papers.”
“Careful, people will try to use this admission to discount your own contribution to your work.”
He scoffs, waving it off with a hand. “Let ‘em. It’s my name on the patent.”
I sit forward, finding his eyes. “You’ll let me ask about the rumours?”
He hides his face behind his hands, groaning into them with a vigour I’ve yet to witness today. Behind cupped hands, his voice comes out muffled when he says, “I’ll let you ask about the rumours.” His hands fall and his face is a stark tomato-red. I can only imagine why.
“Let me preface by saying how much I appreciate that you’re giving this to me.”
“Look,” he starts, wiping a hand down his face. “It’s for me too. I mean, this way, we’ll attract readers that have more interest in gossip than science, right? Maybe we’ll both get new supporters. Just promise me you won’t use this as the headline.”
“Promise.”
“Okay.” He takes a deep breath. “Okay. Okay okay okay.” He takes several little breaths in quick succession, shakes his head, tucks back hair. He finally settles by sitting his thighs on his hands. “Okay, ask.”
“I just have to know how you ended up in that compromising phot–”
“I was whispering my Granny’s secret ingredient from her pecan pie into his ear so he could impress his god-daughter and the camera angle was bad! That’s it! That’s all!” I can only describe this as Dr. Elric exploding at me.
“No kiss?” He hangs his head down with a wince on his face, hair whispering over his thighs while he grumbles and groans.
“No! No kiss…” he whines, gaze still in his lap. He sounds disappointed, funnily.
I use all my practical experience with willpower not to laugh at him — apologies if you’re reading this, Doctor. “Would you care to share the secret ingredient? Just to lend credibility to the story?” That gets his head up.
He whips it up, jabbing a finger at me. “I heard that use of the word story! None of this is made-up and no you don’t get the secret ingredient, I’m no heathen! Why would I give up my Granny’s gift to culinary society? That’s crazy.”
“Not even a hint?”
“Nothing. You people are greedy. You want my indulgence about a kiss I didn’t get and then you want my research and then you want my food… have some shame.”
He says as such, but his face, god, that red, it must be burning — again, apologies in advance, Doctor. “A kiss you didn’t get, you said?”
He sighs, more or less flopping back in his chair, looking defeated. “Yeah… you’re gonna ask anyway, right? Thought I’d get you started.”
“Well, I had a bit more decorum planned,” I explain. “I was going to start with ‘is there a reason you’ve remained unmarried all this time,’ but thank you for throwing the bone.”
“That question is so obvious,” he teases.
I purse my lips. “Part of my job is being insistent. Can’t beat around the bush for too long, I’m sure you’re aware.”
He waves me off. “Yeah, yeah. Look, I like to think I’m smart, you know? I like to believe so. When I have a good thing going, I don’t like to mess with it. Love just didn’t cross my path, not– not in the way people think of it most of the time, romantically and such. I was surrounded by other kinds of love. I have my brother, my friends, my family, my work. I had a lot in my corner, I didn’t need more.”
“Do you think some people would describe you as the type to be ‘married to your work’?”
“Oh, absolutely,” he exclaims. “I’d argue about it, but I think I’d lose.”
“You’d still argue it, though?”
“Yep,” he says with a decisive nod. “Because I was fulfilled, you know? I didn’t wanna mess around and chase more. It wasn’t even part of the equation, really. I don’t think I’d have been able to achieve the things my brother and I did if I was letting myself lose focus by searching for things I wasn’t even sure I wanted.”
“In that case, how would you describe your present relationships? Work related or otherwise? How have you been able to balance them?”
He starts to get some of his normal colour back, blond brows furrowing in thought. He interrupts himself to murmur an apology to me for taking so long. With a consoling wave, I sit back and look away from him, resting my eyes on the bed of bushes while he collects his thoughts. It’s a thing to appreciate about him, to take any and every question given to him with such sincerity, allotting the time and attention necessary to ensure he provides a succinct and true answer. If this is how he approaches all inquiries, I imagine his successes in his field owe more credence to this part of his character rather than his prodigal status.
I return my gaze to him when he takes a breath. “Long lasting,” is the answer he’s come to.
“Would you like to elaborate on that?” I ask.
He accepts the open floor with an absent-minded nod. “Well, ‘cause I have personal relationships and work relationships, right, and, all my personal relationships I’ve had for, I mean, decades really. I’ve known everyone basically forever. And even my work relationships, which you could say are more recent than my personal ones, I still maintain. For example I still remember the first guy I ever collaborated with, and I still remember the first intern I ever had. I’ve sent them letters as recently as last year, y’know?”
“You seem to strongly believe in curating things that withstand time. Your research, your relationships.”
He nods. “I do, I really do. I don’t– I don’t like fleeting things. I like the idea that you can immortalize things that are important to you in different ways.”
“What does that mean, immortalize? How do you mean?”
He tilts his head, likely shuffling through potential ideas. He drops a fist into an open palm when it comes to him. “Like we were talking about before, Mustang’s name in that one paper? It’s just one paper, but my relationship with him is immortalized by his presence in my ideas.”
“That was, what, sixteen years ago?”
“Seventeen now, actually.”
“Wow.” I hear the genuine awe in my voice, and I can tell he hears it too. There’s a smile on his face that I haven’t seen yet today.
“Yeah it’s– it’s crazy. Actually he’s– I’ve known him for… what is it…?” he mumbles. “Twenty-eight years? God that’s like, two thirds of my life.”
A moment of silence washes over us as I process a period of time just a few years removed from my own age. “That… that is a long association.”
He chuckles. “Please, you could say that again.”
“What is it about him, or the people you’ve known in general, that made you want to remain in touch all this time?”
“He’s brilliant,” he answers almost immediately. “He’s– I mean we already talked about this, but he’s the one who started it all, you know? Whenever I’d get stuck, he’s the person I’d go to. This isn’t even his field– god, field, what am I talking about? He works in government, this isn’t remotely in the realm of his daily proceedings, and despite that he just knows how to get you out of your head, y’know? He knows what to say to get the clock ticking again. Do you know anyone like that?”
“I think I do, but I also think that type of character differs from person-to-person. My person works for me, and your person works for you.”
“Who’s your person?” he asks. It sounds more like a demand to me, really. At the silence just a hair too long, he says, “Oh come on, you know mine, who’s yours?”
“Oh, but this is about you, Professor.”
“And the professor wants to know something about you.”
I get caught at that, and he knows he’s won. There’s this sly little grin on his face, and I just have to answer, “My daughter. One pouty little ‘you’re so mean when you’re stressed, mommy,” and I know it’s time to reset.”
“That’s adorable.”
“I’m not letting you pivot your way out of this, Elric. Tell me.”
He purses his lips as if I can’t see that sheepish smile he’s hiding. “Tell you what?”
“The ‘almost’ kiss, the decades of friendship, the man you go to when you need a pick-me-up. Were you in love with him?”
He’s rolling his eyes. He’s grinning. He’s strangely relaxed, leaning back in his seat. “Absolutely, obviously.” He shakes his head at me, like I’ve just asked him if one and one make two. “I mean, of course! I have yet to come across a single man, woman, child, anyone, who can’t help but fall completely, passionately–” his eyes search the sky for more adjectives and his hands place the words in different spots in the air “–insanely, desperately,” he goes on, voice airy and light, like he were reminiscing a childhood crush. “Especially hopelessly–” he adds quickly. “–in love with the man. I mean, you can’t single me out, I’m the one in the article!”
“And no part of said article was true?” I ask one last time.
“No!” he says with a laugh. “No, I swear it. We were friends, we’re lifelong friends.”
“But you were in love with him?”
“Of course! I mean come on, have you met the guy?!” he insists, though I use that descriptor lightly — it doesn’t take much persuasion to understand where he’s coming from. “I’m pretty sure everyone’s a little in love with him, right?”
“I’m inclined to agree with you, yes,” I say, because he deserves that vindication. “So there was no personal connection to the degree of the rumours.”
He shakes his head decisively, granting me a swift pout. “Never.”
“So why not dispel the rumours, then? At the time, when they’d come out and disrupted both your careers?”
“Because it wasn’t worth it,” he states. “Why deny it? What would I be denying? That I wasn’t in love with him? I am! What could I say?” he’s laughing at himself as he admits as much. “But making a statement about it would just draw attention to it. We were friends, and we were doing important things with our time. It wasn’t worth giving attention to something as meaningless as gossip.”
“And what does that make of your present self here, giving air time to the topic?”
He scoffs at me again — once more, Doctor, if you’re reading, thank you for your patience with me, I felt great joy teasing you. “Oh, please, I did my big thing. This is my down time, it’s all over and done, I don’t mind telling it to you. Besides, this wasn’t a gossip cover, you’re asking about my relationships, how they molded my career, and he’s one of them,” he finishes more seriously.
“Just know that I’m giving you my profuse thanks for sharing it with me.”
“Don’t mention it, really. I told you when you got here, I wanted to be interviewed by you. I know you did your research, I knew things would come up, I was ready for it.”
A smile finds its way to my expression. “Well, speaking of, my scheduled time with you has actually passed as of ten minutes ago. Is there anything else you’d like to share before I conclude? Open ended, anything about yourself, your research, your family, that one paper of yours about feline self-awareness in reflections…?”
He barks out an incredulous, “You read that?!” with his face scrunched up in amused confusion.
“I told you earlier, I’ve read all of your papers.”
“You’re crazy, you know that? You’re a stalker, you’re a legal stalker.”
“Your papers are publicly published, Professor.”
“I published that one under a pen name,” he iterates, as though I wasn’t privy to that information.
I shrug. “It’s my job to have an in-depth understanding and all-encapsulating breadth of knowledge about my interviewee.” I circle back to the final question. “Anything to share?”
“Let’s cut it here. If I have anything left to share, or you have any burning inquiries, we can do this again in, say, five years' time.”
It seems I’ve been beat — Doctor, you knew exactly what I wanted and you gave it to me just so I’d shut up, didn’t you? “That’s a splendid idea, Professor. Thank you so much for your time. I truly look forward to speaking with you again. We’ll celebrate your forty-fifth?” I say, standing with a hand out.
He chuckles, meeting me in the middle. And with his hand closing around mine, he says, “Deal.”