Chapter 2

Wolfram blinked in confusion, staring at the lavender-haired man that was currently babbling to Yuuri about something. He felt a surge of annoyance at the man's close proximity to his Yuuri, but let it pass for now.

"That's great! What'd it say?" Yuuri asked, also seemingly excited.

Gunter cleared his throat. "It's called the Amulet of Innocence, Your Highness…" Gunter showed an illustration of the necklace to the teenage king. "Rubbing the red gem on this side will cause the person's mind to be reverted to that of a child's."

"So Wolfram must have picked it up and rubbed the red gem," Yuuri realized. "How do we fix it?"

"Well, it took me a while to decipher the text, since it was so faded, but it says that rubbing the black gem on the opposite side of the Amulet will cause the effects to be reversed."

"Okay, so we just have to find the Amulet and make Wolfram rub the black one, and then he'll be normal?" Yuuri asked for clarification. "Easy!"

Wolfram blinked. Why were they talking about him? Did he do something bad? Was Yuuri mad at him?

"Wolfram!" Yuuri turned back to his fiancé, smiling. Wolfram blinked in reply. "Do you remember a small necklace? It looks like this." Yuuri showed Wolfram the illustration from the book.

Wolfram looked at it for a few seconds before recognizing it. He nodded at Yuuri meekly. "What about it, Yuu-chan?"

"We need to find it, Wolfram. Do you know where it is?"

"The necklace attaches itself to the last person to use it," Gunter explained. "Meaning that it's somewhere on Wolfram's person."

Yuuri looked at Wolfram expectantly. The prince stared back, still confused. Yuuri sighed after a few moments of this. "Wolfram, could I have the necklace?" he asked.

Wolfram's hand flew to his neck. For some reason, he didn't want to give it to Yuu-chan. "No," he replied, shaking his head.

"Wolfram, give it," Yuuri said again, only slightly annoyed at his fiancé's sudden childish behavior.

"No!" Wolfram growled, his hand closing around the necklace through his shirt.

Conrad stood up, making a move towards his brother. "Wolfram, just give it to Yuuri. He's trying to help."

"No! I don't want to!" Wolfram insisted, standing up as well. His eyes flashed dangerously, and Conrad visibly backed down. Wolfram glanced quickly around the room and sprinted out, leaving his food barely touched at all.

Yuuri made a move to go after the stubborn prince, but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. "Conrad! Why are you stopping me?" he complained.

"Wolfram's element is fire, Yuuri. It's connected heavily to his moods… As a child, he didn't know how to control it well enough to use it. But now that his body's used to the Maryoku being usable, he could accidentally hurt someone because of a small pinpoint of anger towards them. That includes you. Let Gwendal and I handle this," Conrad requested.

"But…"

"Not buts, Your Majesty. Your safety comes first, no matter what the reason," Gwendal interrupted.

"But Wolfram's my friend!" Yuuri shot back.

"It isn't your fault that Wolfram picked up the wrong treasure at the wrong time, Yuuri," Conrad assured him. "So don't try to fix it. Gwendal and I can handle it."

Yuuri growled under his breath and looked away. "Good luck finding him," he grumbled. "Took me nearly two hours. Why'd he do that, anyways?"

"Well, the amulet can have a bit of an… addicting quality to it. The wearers often have a strange tendency of not wanting the effects of the red side reversed," Gunter explained. "That's as far as I've been able to read. I apologize, Your Majesty…! I'll get right on the rest of the passage!

--

Yuuri yawned, and flopped back onto Wolfram's side of the bed. "Man, I'm tired…" he mumbled sleepily. He rolled onto his side, and heard a muffled yelp. He jumped up, and looked down, seeing emerald-green eyes peering back him.

"Y-Yuu-chan?"

"Wolfram! There you are!" Yuuri was honestly glad that he was safe – after all, he'd gotten himself into more than a little trouble the past few hours as a (mental) child.

"Yuu-chan!"

Yuuri stumbled backwards as his frilly-nightgown-clad fiancé clamped himself around his midsection. Yuuri allowed it, bewildered but understanding that younger kids often took comfort in contact with others. "Wolfram, it's okay," he said quietly, patting the stubborn blonde's head comfortingly.

Wolfram sniffled. "S-so, you aren't angry with me, Yuu-chan? For running off like that?"

"No, I'm not mad, Wolfram," Yuuri assured him. "Why would you think I was mad?"

"Well, it's just… I thought maybe… that you'd be mad that I didn't do what you wanted me to do," Wolfram admitted. "But I just didn't want to, Yuu-chan! I don't know why not, but I didn't!"

"It's okay, Wolfram. I won't make you take it off if you don't want to, okay?" Yuuri sighed. He'd rather deal with this situation in the morning. He was exhausted. Playing with little kids (well, he wasn't exactly a kid, but…) was the most tiring job in the world.

Wolfram looked at Yuuri with a small smile on his face.

Yuuri rolled back to the other side of the bed, yawned, and turned onto his side.

"Hey… Yuu-chan?"

"Yeah? Yuuri replied sleepily.

"You and the purple-haired-freaky-guy were talking about the necklace earlier… right?" he asked.

Yuuri nodded. "Yeah. Don't worry, Wolfram. It can wait until morning."

"You… were glad that I'd be different," Wolfram said reluctantly. "You were glad when he said that it'd change me."

Yuuri stiffened. "Wolf…"

"Do you hate me the way I am?" Wolfram whispered.

"No!" Yuuri sat up, indignant. "Wolfram, that's not it! It's just… I miss the old you. It's strange, seeing you so carefree and acting like a kid. You're normally so serious… You never get mad at me, and you're just… not the Wolfram I got used to."

"So you do hate it," Wolfram said quietly, sniffling and rubbing an eye with the back of his hand.

"Wolf, don't," Yuuri said quietly, wincing as the other boy started to cry silently. "Look. It's just that I'm used to the temperamental you. It's just strange for me. It's okay. I don't hate you, okay?"

"But you liked me before more. You love the other me more," Wolfram sniffled. "You don't love me the way I am now."

"Wolf…"

"I don't wanna talk about it," Wolfram said quietly, on the verge of bursting into tears.

Yuuri sighed and pulled the other boy into a hug. Wolfram let out a small squeak of surprise, but let Yuuri hold him, tears clinging to his long lashes. "Wolfram, it isn't that I don't like the way you are now. It's just that the guy I knew was different. It has nothing to do with the way you are now. If you want to, I'll let you stay like this and just get used to it. Okay?"

Wolfram nodded, burying his face into Yuuri's shoulder.

Yuuri lay back down, and Wolfram snuggled right up against him. Yuuri allowed this, his hand resting on Wolfram's hip; the king then closed his eyes and fell into a deep slumber.

Wolfram pulled the necklace out of the collar of his nightgown, and gazed at the red side for a moment. He turned it over, seeing the black side of the jewel. He'd heard Purple-Hair say something about rubbing the black side to reverse the effects.

Yuuri loved his other self, and he wanted Yuuri's love and acceptation more than anything else in the world.

Wolfram ran his forefinger over the onyx-black jewel, vaguely thinking about its resemblance to Yuuri's eyes.

--

Yuuri woke up to the sun shining in through his window. He opened his onyx-black eyes blearily, and looked around. Wolfram was gone. "Wolfram?" he called, blinking in confusion.

He heard a door slam. He turned towards the source of the noise quickly, and saw the door to his closet closed when he'd left it open the night before.

He walked over to it, eyebrows furrowing. His bare feet padded against the carpet quietly. "Wolfram? Is that you?" he asked.

"G-Go away!" It was definitely Wolfram, but for some reason, his voice was maybe a half-octave higher.

"Wolfram?" Yuuri reached out for the handle. His fingertips touched the handle, and he turned the handle, preparing to open it.

"NO!"

There it was. That forceful, no-nonsense tone that Yuuri had missed. But it was all wrong… Why was it so high-pitched? "Wolfram, I'm opening the door," he warned.

Yuuri felt slight resistance as he opened the door that strengthened. Was he really…? Yuuri tugged harder. He was.

Wolfram was holding the door shut.

"Wolfram, that's immature," he said in a warning tone.

"I don't care! Go away!" Wolfram yelled hysterically back at him.

"Wolfram—" Yuuri grunted as he heaved the door opened.

Wolfram yelped and spilled out of the closet, bringing a few other things with him, covering him in blankets, jackets, and spare shirts of Yuuri's. Yuuri fell back as well, landing roughly on his backside.

"I told you to go away!" Wolfram complained.

Yuuri looked up, and pushed a blanket off the pile that currently covered his fiancé.

Wolfram screamed bloody murder. "NO! DON'T LOOK AT ME!" he yelled in that oddly high-pitched voice, and Yuuri found one of his jackets chucked into his face.

"Wolfram, what's with you?" Yuuri asked, removing the jacket from his head, beyond confused with Wolfram's behavior.

Yuuri froze dead in his tracks.

Curled up in a small pile of blankets and looking none-to-happy was Wolfram, of course. But for some reason, he was miniaturized. Yuuri's fiancé's 'effects' had been reversed, so the book hadn't lied… But it wasn't the way Yuuri had been hoping.

Instead of having the mind of a five-year-old, Wolfram now had the body of one.