Wake up. Go to school. Homework. Sleep.

For the last couple months she had been living the same day over and over again. And for the last couple months every day had been the worse day of her life. She wasn't going to cry, she was stronger than that, but her mother had been questioning her mood a lot more lately, so she made it a point to leave for school before she woke up. It's not like she had a bad life, she knew there were a lot of people worse off than her, but she couldn't help but feel numb after doing the same thing everything with nothing to look forward to. She always ate her breakfast alone in the park, just because she was depressed didn't mean that she was starving herself on top of it. If was always empty this early in the morning, and her home always seemed to have the same perfect weather. She had lived here her whole life, that didn't stop people from staring though. She couldn't really blame them, the cat ears, the tail, the pointed teeth. They weren't exactly common, people didn't usually notice her claws. Well until someone touched her ears or her tail.

She was an only child, well she used to be, before her parents decided to take in three orphans from their home country. She was born in the iron kingdom just like a lot of kids, but that didn't change the fact she was still a foreigner here. Both of her parents were born in a place called Extalia, an island that was destroyed by a volcano a few years ago. An island full of cat people, she heard a rumor that her people could sprout wings. She thought it was ridiculous. What did a cat person need with wings? People already thought she was a freak, and there was a good amount of perverts that had a fetish for an appearance like hers. That's probably why her mother was so popular.

She would be lying if everything didn't change when her father left for a month and came home with three new children. She would also be lying if she said she didn't wonder if she would have fit in better in her home land. But there was no point in wasting your time thinking about something that would never happen. She had to share her parents now, she couldn't change that. She was always placed on the back burner now, and she couldn't change that either. She knew it was selfish to think like that, She tried to understand, she was the oldest, she was still only an eleven year old girl. Well twelve now. Since today was her birthday, it's not like anyone would remember though. Her mother always had her hands so full with the others. The last couple years she remembered after the fact, usually by the end of the day or the next morning but it was too late at that point. And on the rare occasion her father was home. He was still too busy to give her the time of day."Charla! I wish for once you would actually pay attention in class. Your grades would be better if you did." She hated school more than home, but it was a much needed distraction. At least at home she was ignored, here she was always the center of attention.

"Yes ma'am" She hated this teacher, she had the best grades in the class and she still found any reason to single her out at least once a day. Charla was sure that it was because if her race, her teacher was born in the south, And she heard from her father that Extalia was often at war with neighboring countries. Charla tried not to take it personal, but she was sure that her teacher just didn't like her. She tried to ignore the giggles of her classmates, but it was just another reminder that she didn't have many friends. Charla was daydreaming again , she didn't care that it annoyed her teacher, she had no real reason to pay attention to her when she already knew the material. She couldn't help but have a little bit of wanderlust when she heard stories about where her fathers been, and everyday life being so dull.

She looked up when she heard the whole class gasp, it wasn't often anything exciting happened around here. So when it did Charla had to be sure not to miss it. It was the first time she had ever seen her teacher giddy. Her face was flushed and she was tripping over the words trying to ask the messenger who the flowers were from. It was hard to believe that her teacher had a secret admirer or a lover. She was so unpleasant all of the time it was hard to imagine her any other way. Charla was already bored again, she didn't care that her teacher was getting flowers, and what kind person buys a girl white roses. Wait... White? The roses were white? Damn... Her teacher was really about to hate her now.

"I'm looking for a miss Charla Rae?" She raised her hand hesitantly, she could already feel all the eyes in the room on her at the moment. She tried to ignore the fact her teacher was giving her one of the dirtiest looks she had ever seen in her life, but a part of her was glad that her teacher was probably going to go home and cry about the fact someone had sent her least favorite student twelve dozen roses and she was a forty year old single woman. Charla walked to the front of the class to pick up her bouquet and made it a point to put on her best smile and push the roses up to her nose. She was glad that he used her actual name and not the stupid nickname he always called her. If anyone else had the nerve to call her "cat girl" to her face she would probably kill them, but he got a free pass because she knew it was a sign of affection. "Miss Rae?" She was a little annoyed, she was sure this guy was about to ask her for a tip. "Where would you like the rest of them?"

"Rest of them?"

Charla knew she shouldn't have asked, she should have just said she didn't care and went about her business. This idiot didn't exactly know what subtlety was, and he never did anything half assed. But twelve thousand roses was absolutely ridiculous, she was sure every girl in the school was hating her right now, her principal was very excited for her. The line of delivery boys ended up packing them all in the lunch room and Charla said it was okay for everyone to take whatever they wanted. This was more flowers than she would ever need, and she was sure there was going to be a rose shortage in the kingdom for a while. All because a certain idiot had to prove a point, the dumb ass couldn't even show up himself, he just sent her a bunch of flowers like that was going to make her forgive the fact she hadn't even heard from him since he got home. She was going to give him a piece of her mind, if he didn't come see her on her birthday she would never forgive him.

As if it was on cue she heard the music start, and everyone in her class ran to the window to see just what was going on. "Prince Gajeel is outside!" You would think it would be one of the students jumping around and crying about that fact. He was pretty popular, half the girls in the school had a crush on one or more of the princes and of course all of the boys wanted to be them. Especially Gajeel, her principal was the one jumping around and laughing at the fact he was outside singing. But Charla was the one being serenaded and she was more embarrassed than anything. She grabbed her things and made her way downstairs, there was no way she was going to get anything done in school today, she would be too much of a distraction, and she didn't want a million people asking her how she personally knew Prince Gajeel. Not to mention she wanted to avoid all of the people suddenly wanting to be her friend just to get close to him.

"Hey there cat girl, so what do you think?" She tried to give him a dirty look but she couldn't help but smile at how ridiculous he was, it was barely nine in the morning and here he was in a white suit with guitar in hand singing her happy birthday. She knew he didn't care that he just disrupted a whole school day, or that he probably cleaned out every flower shop in the kingdom. She couldn't help but laugh, she missed Gajeel so much these past couple months that she couldn't really stay mad at him now that he was here. "Remember, you told me to Disney Princess the shit out of ya for your birthday." He pulled her hand to his lips, making her roll her eyes. He was really hamming it up and the screams coming from the school behind her let her know that she had just made an enemy out of half of the people in her school. "And it ain't complete unless you dance with me brat." Gajeel exaggerated his bow, she knew he hated dancing, all the balls he was forced to attend over the years helped with that. But it also made him excellent at it with years of practice.

He waltz her around the schools courtyard easily, she couldn't even count the number of times she had danced with Gajeel before. He was really tall, but still not as tall as her father. For anyone else her height, dancing with Gajeel would probably be a pain, but she had been dancing with him before she could even walk on her own. For the longest time she would just step on his feet and he would twirl her around the room, and before that he would just pick her up and do the same thing. "You are so incredibly embarrassing." By the way he laughed she knew he did it on purpose, where she felt invisible at home she could always count on Gajeel to go out of his way to make her feel special. Even if that meant embarrassing her to the point she wanted to throttle him. "You know I was kidding when I told you to Disney Princess me... But thank you Gajeel."

"Lily's gonna be pissed that I pulled you out of school, you know that right." She knew he was right, her dad was a stickler when it came to that sort of thing. But its not actually like anything was going to be taught after the spectacle Gajeel pulled. Charla didn't always get excited about things, but when Gajeel offered to take her to her favorite bakery on the other side of the kingdom she jumped at the chance. It wasn't every where that they made chocolate cake like this, and even though he wasn't big on sweets himself Gajeel was on his third cupcake already. "And don't tell your parents I gave you sweets, your mom will kick my ass if she knew I was letting you eat like that. Charla rolled her eyes, she wasn't an idiot. She wasn't going to willingly tell on herself for skipping school and spending the day eating her weight in cupcakes.

As much fun as she was having, and how thankful she was to have a little excitement in her life, she just couldn't ignore the elephant in the room any longer. She looked around the bakery, it was surprisingly empty and she was curious if Gajeel rented it out for the time being. Even the clerk was in the back and Gajeel seemed pretty distracted but she wasn't entirely sure it wasn't because he scarfed a fourth cupcake. "So you're getting married... Are you trying to practice being romantic on me or something? Usually you make me a figurine and ruffle my hair and tell me I'm your favorite brat. This year was insane, not that I don't appreciate the gesture." She knew she hit a nerve with him, but she couldn't just keep quiet. She over heard her parents talking about it, and she was wondering why no one was really talking about it yet. She watched him close his eyes and take a deep breathe, but the way his jaw clenched he was anything but calm.

"Can we not talk about that right now. I know I'm a dick for not seeing you sooner, but a lot of shits been going on. I know that I'm a shitty friend, and I wanted to make it up to you." Gajeel rarely apologized, and he couldn't seem to look her in the eye when he did it. Her father got home over two weeks ago, and she hadn't even seen a single sign of Gajeel. It was true her feelings were hurt, but when she heard about his engagement she wasn't sure what to think about his absence. "Plus I know you're probably super pissed that I can't keep my promise about making you Mrs. Redfox." If her cake wasn't so delicious she would have chucked it at him, she should have known that Gajeel couldn't be serious more than a minute.

She could feel her cheeks heat up, he was never going to let that go. "I was a kid when you made that promise! I wouldn't want to marry you anyway. I don't wan't to be stuck taking care of an old man like you!" When she was four she told Gajeel that she wanted to be a real princess so he was going to have to marry her and buy her one of everything.

"Ouch! Kitty, I think you just broke my heart." He grabbed at his chest and tried to hide his smile, the two them could insult each other all day and find it funny. Her father always blamed Gajeel for some of the rude comments that would come out of her mouth. "Plus your still a kid, you're already growing up too fast for me. One day you're gonna come home with a fucking boyfriend, who I'm going to kill by the way. But you were just a little shit hugging my ankles, and now you're a brat that tells me to go fuck myself and you ain't gonna be a brat much longer. I just wasn't ready for it, this whole wedding things got me all fucked up. Can we skip this whole talking about our feelings thing and go back to stuffing our faces before your old man figures out where we are."

"Give me one of your cupcakes and I'll consider it."