A Little Romantic Discussion:

“Love… is such a dangerous thing, isn’t it, Jeanne?”

The assistant in question only deigned the professor with a glance before shaking her head and turning back to her work. If there was something she learnt over the years of being Albern’s assistant-slash-secretary, it was the fact that her employer was a very strange man.

Professor Albern, teacher in Oxford and PhD in General Psychology. If he wasn’t talking to his pet pigeons and acting like they were super spies every time they came back home, he was stopping random people down the street and asking them strange things like their appreciation for mayonnaise.

If it wasn’t for the fact that he was a very charismatic man, his life would’ve been a tragic story. But since he was, he was just famous in the university about his eccentricity and nothing else.

“Jeanne, I have to tell you something.”

Taking a moment to take her reading glasses off, she turned to the professor-

Only for him to take her hand in a tight grip and with a flaming determination in his eyes.

“Jeanne Orlana.” His face was completely serious, utterly flooring Jeanne. “I love you. With all my heart, with the heat of a thousand blazing stars, I love you and I wish that you would take me as a husband.”

Jeanne blinked. Then, her face went up in red as she took in the words of the professor she respected for so long.

She stood up, backing a few steps.

“W-w-w-what?” She stuttered, mind shutting down as her emotions went haywire.“P-P-Professor! T-T-This is so sudden, I d-don’t know what to do, ah I mean it’s not that I don’t like you or anything-”

That was when she saw the amused smile on the face of her employer.

“See?” Albern said smugly, his face in pleased folds and his arms crossed over his chest. “I told you, love is a dangerous thing, Jeanne.”

Jeanne’s response? Deadpan.

“Oh, I see.” She calmed down greatly, her voice now taking in the tone of someone commenting about the weather. She knew Albern – annoyance wasn’t the way to go, as that would only amuse him more. “Interesting experiment, I suppose. Well, would you now leave me in my job?”

Then again, Jeanne still couldn’t help being greatly frustrated at the man before her.

After all, only he would be so oblivious after all this years, so innocently offensive. She just had to think Albern had finally realized and reciprocated her feelings, now look what happened. It was just another prank all over again.

Albern, the infuriating man he was, ignored her to sit on her chair. “Now, now, Jeanne. Let’s continue our talk about the subject of love.”

Our? More like yours, Jeanne thought, but she didn’t voice them.

At this point, all one could do was resign to his eccentricities if they wanted to somehow finish something at the end of the day after all.

So, in response, Jeanne just pulled out another rotating chair for herself, pressing on the bridge of her nose as she complied.

“I never would have pegged you for a cynic, Professor.”

Albern made a tut-ing sound, waving a finger as a smirk rose over his features. “No, no, you misunderstand me my dear. I’m no cynic; au contraire, I like to consider myself as a great romanticist! That’s why believe love is so dangerous: love does so many things, so many horrors and wonders on the people who catch it!”

His assistant looked at him almost sardonically. “You make it sound like some sort of disease.”

“No, no, not a disease!” Albern steamrolled over her words, arms waving like a child. “Like a weapon! Like a biological weapon, where the symptoms are increased emotional capacity, a tendency to stare off into the person’s beau, and a chance of heartbreak!”

Heartbreak, huh? Jeanne reflected, internally agreeing as she stared at the professor that suspiciously acted like he was under the effects of a high blood glucose content. You don’t even know half of it, Albern…

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“And what was that about that confession earlier?”

Albern gave her that frustrating grin of his, that smile that somehow simultaneously charmed and irritated her in the same time. She wanted to wipe it off his face… and if she had thought once in a while of using a kiss to do just that, nobody other than her would know.

“The same way I fashion myself as a romanticist, I also see myself as an actor!” He revealed giddily, making her quietly press her palm over her face. “Thus, if I would say something, I would always say it with all of my heart!”

And thus, almost breaking hers. But Albern didn’t need to know that. She loved him way too much, and she knew that while he could sometimes carelessly hurt someone’s feelings, it didn’t mean that he didn’t feel guilt over his mistakes.

She didn’t need for him to feel guilty. What she needed was for him to realize her feelings for him already.

But as it was now, even if love itself threw itself at him with the subtlety of a rock smashing through a window, Albern wouldn’t notice. How ironic, considering the man’s specialty in psychology.

“Love is like a weapon, like a sword or a gun.”

Ah, it seemed Albern went off to another tirade without her.

“Like the way that it practically pierces through people’s hearts?” Jeanne added, as if she was listening the whole time. “Leaving holes and wounds in them… allowing them to only heal and feel complete again after they finally meet that person of their heart…”

Like what it did to hers…

Albern nodded with a proud smile on his face. “Not what I was thinking, but that works too!”

He then settled down, turning away from Jeanne. “What I was thinking was actually how people would literally fight for love – romantic, platonic, familial, it doesn’t matter. To fight and to protect, all for love…”

His voice then went into a murmur. “How I envy them so, to be able to do so much for love.”

Jeanne’s heart burned for him, really, but she just had to yell inside her head:

Really! Albern, just look at the person in front of you!

But instead, she said, “Do you feel that you won’t ever feel that kind of love, Professor?”

Albern gave her a fond smile. “Like I said before, you can just call me Albern. But yes – sometimes, I feel like wouldn’t ever get that one true love other people keep speaking of, like I would be forever unable to stand and fight for the person I love. I just don’t have the courage.”

Jeanne’s throat went dry. “H-How about me then, Albern? Do you not consider me to be a good friend or coworker?” Or potential lover?

Was there really no chance for her…?

“I consider you to be one of the closest people in my heart.” Albern closed his eyes and said so sincerely, so wholeheartedly that Jeanne was once again floored. And this time, it was no act from the eccentric professor. “That’s why I care for you, Jeanne…”

Suddenly, she felt like standing up and washing her face. Turning away from the professor, she stuttered:

“A-All right, then!” Jeanne announced, heading for the door. “If you really care that much for me, then I suppose you would be alright with treating me to dinner later.”

She didn’t wait for his reply as she left with her face beet-red.

Albern blinked.

Then blinked again, and a bright smile lit his face as he took in the words of the one the he loved so much.

“And here I was thinking I failed so badly…” He muttered with a smile, his hand fiddling with something in his pocket. He then took it out, placing it over the table. “But it seems Jeanne still hasn’t realized that I now know.”

It was a small, square box.

Almost sardonically, he remembered his impromptu discussion earlier.

“I really am a bad actor, aren’t I?”