Theory Of Love

The Theory

It was a weird night.

The sky was tar-black, a complete darkness as if mirroring the growing anxiousness of Lucas's feelings at that moment. This contrasted the warm orange and yellow hue of the sky during the evening. Large dark gray clouds were moving and thundering, swarming the sky while covering the shining moon and stars that were visible just a moment ago.

The tapping of falling rain could be heard from the window, accompanied by lightning and rumblings. White light flashed intimidatingly bringing a white beam to the room every time it appeared and then followed by a series of fierce thunders. Sounds of the fire from the fireplace crackled and the red glint of fire blazed in the midst of the thundering rain, providing not only a comforting warmth in the cold night for Lucas but also additional lighting to the room, giving it a red hue.

Sounds of scribbling and paper flipping were the only things Lucas subconsciously noticed, his eyes desperately scanned through the pages of the book, he was hanging on a thread of hope that somehow the answers would in some unforeseen way appear even though it was logically impossible. The ink from his quill ran out once again, as if begging him to stop, he could already feel numbness and pain from his hands pulsing. But, he wouldn't stop, he couldn't. Not when Hugo desperately needed a cure or something- anything to make the Prima Macula stop. He felt as if the answer to everything was at the tip of his fingertips but he still couldn't grasp it and this frustrated him.

What kind of alchemist would he be if he couldn't help the De Rune family? The exact family who had been nothing but kind to him, who took him under their wing and provided him with every single living necessities, who gave him a nice bed even when they're in a time of desperation, who supported his studies of alchemy, and who treated him like he was apart of the family. He would consider himself a pathetic alchemist, an alchemist who didn't deserve every single good thing that came his way.

After everything they've done for him, he felt indebted to them, the least he could do was help them to the best of his abilities. He was desperate to find anything to help or at least to be useful for them in any way possible. He was driven to pay back every single good thing, to return the favor.

Books were scattered all over the table, some stacked in a corner and many open or even upside down. Crumpled papers were littered on the ground beside him, containing scribbles and hypotheses but were discarded. Lucas's eyes started to droop, threatening to close on their own from how tired and exhausted he was, but he was stubborn. There had to be something from these books right? The dark circles underneath his eyes were evident of how bad his desperation had become. He massaged his head to decrease the pain even if just a bit. His shoulders became stiff from how many hours he had been sitting, it was worsen from how bad his sitting position was, he was practically slouching on the chair.

The candles on the table were now on the brink of dying, flickering its fire for the last few times. But, a new source of light entered the room accompanied by high-pitched creaking of the door. It was almost drowned by the sounds of the hard rain and thundering clouds. Sounds of footsteps were headed towards Lucas and he turned to see Beatrice with an obvious worried expression on her face. Her eyes scanned the room from left to right before settling her gaze to the boy in front of her.

She sighed at the boy's disheveled appearance. "How long have you been awake for, Lucas?"

"Ah- perhaps for 4 or 5 hours?" He answered, seemingly unsure himself. A bashful smile crept up onto his face. "To be truthful, I lost count a few hours ago..."

His answer didn't erase the worried expression off of her face, but made it somehow even worse. "You should take a rest now, you look exhausted."