The school island was fantastic as far as Neko was concerned. A constant supply of fresh air, greenery, and crystal clear waters surrounding the moderately sized island. It was better now that she was allowing everyone to see her, and interacting with everyone made it all the more fun. Everyone was so nice to her, and she didn't even use her powers!
Much...
Weismann didn't like it when she used her power to have her way. He only ever condoned it when it was to stop conflicts, like fights that sporadically broke out over trivial disagreements. Mostly boys. Weismann was always somewhere nearby when things like that happened. It made her wonder, though she never paid much mind to it. He was her king, and she obeyed like a stray cat.
Wait.
Adolf, he preferred she call him, claiming that "Weismann" alone was far too formal and that she and Kuroh were close friends. Still, she could never unstick her head from Weismann, especially since she was in his advanced history course. Everyone she knew, excluding Kuroh, called him either Mr or Professor Weismann, so it made no sense for her to call him something different. She thought it strange, but once again disregarded it because he was her king and she aimed to please. Only behind his back did she ever refer to him as Weismann, inadvertantly making her feel like she was betraying him in some sense.
Once, not so very long ago, she asked Kuroh what he thought of their kings requests, to which he shurgged and gave her a simple, "It is what he wishes, and so it is what I grant," never lifting his nose from the textbook laid out on the coffee table in the center of their room.
Neko nodded and continued with her homework that night and Kuroh did his in record time. There wasn't much for either of them, but surprisingly Neko made it into an advanced class Kuroh did not. She must have been smart before she lost her memories and ceased attending school. She often wondered how old she was when it happened, or how old she truly was now. For that matter, when was her birthday?
Currently, it was six thirty on a Friday morning, and Neko considered it the perfect moment to rouse Kuroh from his silent sleep and ask him about her thoughts.
"Kuroh," she nudged him. He didn't respond, prompting her to roll him off the bed. He landed on the carpeted floor with a thud and Neko smiled at his sleepy scowl when he looked back at her.
"What reason could you possibly have to wake me up in such a manner?" He asked, pulling himself off the floor and dragging his mop of messy black hair into a sitting position on the floor.
"I have a question," she answered. Kuroh letting out a long, tired sigh. "You don't have to be so grumpy about it," Neko said, crossing her arms.
Kuroh stood up and found his way to the bathroom in the dimly lit room. The only source of light was coming from a lamp on the other side of the small room, beside where Neko spent her nights tossing from occasional insomnia. Maybe it was a cat thing?
"Please," Neko tried again for him to agree to help her with her question, standing up clumsily off the bed, sure not to make any noise so as not to wake anyone in the surrounding rooms. She followed him to the bathroom, standing just outside the door as Kuroh brushed his teeth. "Please," she tried yet again.
Toothbrush still in his mouth, Kuroh caved, "What is your question?"
"Well, I was just wondering," she blushed and fidgeted, unsure why the question was making her so nervous. "When is my birthday?"
Kuroh had looked at her with a confused expression when she began blushing, a few select possible questions trickling through his tired, still fuzzy conscious, that all made him want to choke on the paste in his mouth. When she finally spit out her question, he was both relieved and even more confused. "Your birthday?" he asked. Neko nodded mutely, stepping into the bathroom beside him and grabbing the hairbrush off the white counter. "You mean you don't know?" Kuroh spit bubbles into the sink and rinsed his mouth with water.
Neko raked the brush through her tangled, slept-on hair. "Nope."
"So, does that mean you don't even know your age?" Kuroh asked, wiping water from around his mouth on a yellow towel hanging beside the mirror.
"Yep." She nodded and shook out her hair, hoping to free some tangles. The brush glided through her locks and she smiled.
Kuroh could have sworn she was purring, an occurrence that was happening more often since they were rescued by Adolf when he still occupied Yashiro's body. During the year they searched for him, she only was happy enough to purr like this twice, perhaps three times. Kuroh was genuinely pleased she was happy enough to be this way. When Weismann, more accurately Yashiro at the time, she purred only for him; only with him. The life had been replenished in her tired, sad eyes that looked upon him for such a long time he stopped noticing after several months. But he could see it when Yashiro returned, plummeting from the blue of the sky just in time to save their skins. In that moment, just before he appeared, Kuroh heard Neko screaming for him, for Shiro. Despite the sadness that had become a normal expression for her, she always had faith in him. An unwavering, unfaltering faith that he was still alive, and that when they needed him the most, he would come.
She was right. But Kuroh's faith was never as strong as hers. There were days, weeks, that he believed perhaps Mikoto had killed Yashiro, Weismann, on that snowy afternoon when Munakata Reisi was forced to kill Mikoto to keep a disaster from destroying them all. A gnawing feeling inside him that they would never see Yashiro again; that he was never coming back. There were days he lost faith, hope.
On those days, Neko picked up his slack, believing in Shiro enough for both of them. Believing her would return. Sometimes Kuroh thought maybe he came back because of her. And that was okay with him because he came back, for whatever reason, he did.
"You expected me to know when your birthday is?" Kuroh inquired, taking to brush from her when she finished and pulling any of her bleached pink hair from the bristles.
"I don't know. It's just something that's been on my mind and I didn't want to bother Weis- Adolf about it." Neko quickly corrected herself.
Kuroh raised his brows, clearly surprised to hear her lapse in thought. "You still refer to him as Weismann, don't you?"
It wasn't a question. Neko nodded.
Kuroh shook his head and finished with his hair.
"Its alright." Weismann's voice startled them both. He stayed in a room down the hall from theirs, mainly because the small room felt even smaller with three people inside, but he was known to hang around their room more than he did his own. Kuroh thought of suggesting trading rooms since it was obvious he favored this one, but had yet to do so. He wondered if it was because when Adolf was still inhabiting Yashiro's body, he stayed here for the longest time, oblivious to who he was.
"I'm sorry," Neko bowed low, ashamed she'd been caught calling him formally in an informal, casual conversation.
"It doesn't bother me." He seemed to brush it off like it was something that always happened. Maybe he knew? Neko felt like she could cry. "Seriously, I really don't mind. Call me whatever makes you comfortable." He smiled at her and her nerves, which were already making her feel like a shot rubber band at even this early in the morning, calmed significantly. It seemed sometimes he could read her thoughts better than she could herself.
"We should get ready for the day." Weismann; Adolf; her king; the silver king; reminded and wandered off into the hallway.
Neko moseyed into the living room and dozed off until Kuroh finished making their breakfast and parking their respective lunches for later in the day. Lazily eating, Kuroh looked at her with concern. Neko usually ate her food in a hurry, always happy to eat, but today she seemed different. Neko shrugged him off and finished her meal in no particular haste, languidly gathering her schoolwork into her bag and lofting out the door and down the hall to her first class.
Kuroh's first class was just down the hall from hers, so he had the opportunity to watch her as she seemed to drift down the hall in fluidlike motions, smiling at everyone she passed, and slipping into the door to her first class, biology honors, without a single peep. It was extremely uncharacteristic of her to be so quiet; she was usually so chipper, saying hello to everyone in the halls, hanging all over them. Everyone knew her for this. Everyone was used to this.
Neko stared out the window all through her classes, ahead in every core class she was attending. The school island was fantastic as far as Neko was concerned. A constant supply of fresh air, greenery, and crystal clear waters surrounding the moderately sized island. And not to mention an ever elusive white haired boy who always around every corner.