Chapter Three
The Curse Revealed
In a few minutes, we returned to my place of residence, a large lakeside house that rested a little bit off the shore. I opened the door to let our guests into the house. It was notoriously tidy, because Miki was (in addition to being everything else she was) a clean freak. If there happened to be a single stray item of mine left lying around the house, she threw it away or put it away somewhere that I would never find it. Don't get me wrong, I'm fairly neat myself, but not insane about it like Miki is.
She used to be even worse with the whole cleaning thing when Haruki first got here. She was trying to impress him and wanted everything to be absolutely perfect whenever he came over. Miki was always wearing her nicest clothes around him with her hair done in a style that had taken her four hours to get right. I was thankful that nowadays she was comfortable sitting around on the couch in sweatpants with him, and didn't mind if I was in the house at the same time as them.
Kurogane and Fai looked around the house in amazement, obviously wondering how we kept it so clean. It was abnormal, the state of organization in this house. I rolled my eyes at Miki, and then began to walk toward my room, the only place that she did not clean all the time. My room wasn't necessarily messy; it just wasn't as clean as the rest of the place. I opened the door to my room and let Kurogane and Fai walk in behind me.
Spell books, sketchbooks, and all sorts of other random paper were all over my room. I loved anything written or drawn, and that was the absolute only clutter in the room. My bed was made sloppily, and the blue and white blankets were in complete disarray. I tried to move some of the books and papers, but Fai and Kurogane didn't seem to care.
"So, are you a magician?" asked Fai.
"Yes, I am," I replied quickly, not wanting to explain everything to him, including my curse.
"Me too," he said.
"Yeah, he's a wizard and all. Spells and not aging and stuff," Kurogane said.
"Not aging?" I asked curiously. Could it even be possible? If Fai didn't age, it meant something tremendous to me, even though it just seemed like something abnormal to everyone else who looked upon it.
"Yes, as Kuro-puppy so said, I don't age. It's odd, I know, so don't worry about saying it," he said.
"I don't age," I explained flatly. "It's a curse. Or at least, they all say I won't age. I'm only eighteen, so I wouldn't know."
"Heh, you're lucky to know that at such a young age," Fai snickered. "I don't even remember being eighteen."
"It's kind of interesting, not aging," Kurogane said.
"No it's not!" Fai protested, shaking his head. "All it does is scare off girls so I never get a date!"
"Unless the girls don't age either," Kurogane said. He shot a glance at me, then at Fai, and left the room. My heart skipped a beat as he said that, and when I next looked at Fai, he was blushing a little. He sat down on my bed in a spot where there were no books and beckoned for me to sit next to him.
"Don't mind Kurgy, he just misses his princess," Fai laughed.
"Princess?" I asked. Fai nodded.
"Never tell him I said this, but… Kuro-wan-wan has a certain fondness for the princess of his country," Fai said.
"Lucky princess. I don't have anyone who has any 'fondness' for me," I said. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye, his ever-present smile widening.
"I wouldn't be so sure of that," he said quietly. Then he stood and left the room, leaving me dazed in his wake.
Kurgy does miss his princess. That would be Tomoyo, by the way. She'll show up in here eventually. But not really her.
