Magic has Consequences

2) Between Love and Hate

"How long have you known Nick by now?" Ray asked interested.
Hiro had decided to stay because of Nick, even though he really didn't want to.

"Fourteen years, why?" he replied with an annoyed voice.
Ray surely already knew everything about their relationship.
They were talking everyday for the past two weeks. Every time Hiro came to pick up Nick from his shift, he caught them in a deep convention at one of the tables. He assumed she would leave them at peace on the weekends but Nick had invited her over several times. They talk so much that she has to know!

"Oh wow, fourteen years! That's great" she repeated amazed.
"That is a really long time." she noticed and seemed very proud of her discovery.
Hiro was so incredibly annoyed, he had trouble controlling himself. It was the type of frustration he felt when his students still didn't understand the topic even after he'd explained it multiple times already.

His frustration lead him to several questions.
Why did he had to stay and torment himself? Why didn't he just leave?

Why did Ray make him feel that way?
And most importantly why was she acting like that, if she knew everything about him already?

"You guys met in school, right?" she asked him. He sensed a weird - probably made up - admiration from her towards him.
He tried to take a deep breath to avoid saying anything rude, which - for Hiro - always had been a problem.

"Ray." he said angrily and finally locked eyes with her. He didn't get lost in them like he did with Nicks. He didn't see anything. Just a brown drained void of nothingness.
"You know everything about me and Nick so drop the damn act and get to the point already!" he said in a furious tone.

Which certainly caught her off guard, she wasn't prepared for such a reaction.
To her, Hiro suddenly seemed like a wild animal loose on the hunt.
Not that Ray would be scared about that, it simply surprised her.

"Well first of all no, you're wrong. Nick didn't tell me much actually. He thought you might get uncomfortable. Up till today I didn't even know you two are in a relationship." she explained to him.

He wanted to disagree with something Ray said but before Hiro could reply, a young man walked by, carrying a cup of tea with himself.

The albino looked him up and down and noticed that he didn't wear a typical waiteruniform.
Instead he wore a white shirt with a darkblue tie hanging loose around his neck and long black trousers. He looked more like a student from the university than a waiter.
Along with that he wore thin black gloves, which were probably some kind of jewellery instead of a heat dispenser. Why would anybody wear gloves in the middle of summer?

He did not look like a waiter at all, more like someone who has just had a job interview.
"I apologize for the long wait. There was a difficult discussion with the staff in the back, but we settled that now." he explained with a higher voice than Hiro assumed he would. After a long pause of silence he asked: "You did order a tea, right?"

His feminine voice didn't really fit his red fluffy hair and the amount of freckles he had on his skin.
"Yes, I did but..." he hesitated for a moment.
"...do you even work here?" he asked mistrustful.

The redhead looked at him surprised and confused for a few seconds, until he put down the tea and explained: "My name is Travis Foxs, I'm the owner of the café »The Foxburrow« in which you're sitting in at the moment, and I think I just heard someone yell my name. Well then, have a nice afternoon and see you!" it flooded out of him like a wave of water, but all the way through he still kept his nice and welcoming smile.

Hiro looked after him, until he lost the read head in the crowd, so he got his attention back to the conversation he was having with Ray.
Completely forgetting what he wanted to tell her.
"And second?" he asked mistrustful, watching her while taking a sip from his tea.