“Hm? Ellie? Are you…okay?”

Suddenly, Felly was leaning forward towards me, a concentrated look on her face as her eyebrows scrunched and her eyes narrowed, examining me carefully.

“Eh? What do you mean?”

“It’s nothing…it’s just…are you really okay? You look a bit…pale?”

She was a bit uncertain as she spoke, so she examined me even more carefully, saying ‘hmm’ quite often.

“Felly might have a point…”

It was Angie’s turn to chime in as she held a hand to her chin thoughtfully, and then suddenly pointed at me dramatically, “Ellie, you are blending even more into the light than normal right now!”

“…what is that supposed to mean?”

“Eh…how to explain it?”

Felly was awkwardly looking around, a blush dying her cheeks a light pink, “Sorta like this aura? Well, it’s usually more like a blinding golden light amidst the white light of the sun…but today! Today…”

“Today you are blending into the white!”

Angie finished with an oddly dramatic and serious expression, nodding her head vigorously as if to further affirm her claim.

“Eh~ What are you guys saying? There’s no way! I’m fine, I fine! Hahaha!”

With a wave of my hand, I simply laughed it off without much though. I really am such a bright creature, huh? Hehehe… Inside, I was quite content with myself.

“Ahem!”

A very annoying noise interrupted me from my happy thoughts. With a sudden change of expression, I looked darkly towards the awkwardly standing Magnus. Even though we were all happily having a picnic and sitting on the nice tablecloth on the crater filled grass, he opted for standing right by us with his arms crossed and a disgustingly arrogant attitude, destroying our pretty picture.

“Just now…she was really blending in, right?”

Meanwhile, both Angie and Felly had huddled up facing each other with their fingers entwined, looking towards me as they whispered. Felly nodded vigorously in response to Angie, “It was really bright!”

“What do you want?”

Even my voice was suddenly very dark, making Magnus look extremely uncomfortable as his body unconsciously leaned back. He couldn’t even form words properly, and it seemed like he had forgotten what he wanted to say.

The two girls now looked helpless, “And now it’s extremely dark…Haha…”

*

A nock sounded on the wooden door. When it received no response even after knocking, the door started to slowly open, “What’s this…its open.”

Magnus mumbled as he revealed his head through the crack.

“Hey…Ellie? You there?”

He called out to no response, so he sighed as he opened the door fully and walked inside, “I know you’re here. At least answer, ok- huh? You are here.”

He looked towards the figure kneeling by the mirror, the golden hair draping my body as I slowly trembled.

“Huh? You okay?”

Magnus asked without much care as he scratched his head absentmindedly. When he still got no response, he sighed impatiently, “What? Is this ‘ignore Magnus day’ or something? I have no time for this…”

Slowly, my head started to turn until I faced him, a dark shadow enveloping my face as my sight remained downcast.

“Eeek!”

Starting back, whole body trembling, he yelled at me, “What are you, a specter?!”

“That’s right! That’s the problem!”

Jumping up from my position on the ground, I yelled angrily, “Look at this! And this!”

Pointing at my hair, and then my face, I continued, “Both my hair and skin have lightened by exactly 1.2%! What are the odds of that even happening?! Huh?! Of course, I’m a specter now! An ugly, pale specter!”

“Well, I’m sure that boys will still consider you beautiful if-”

“How am I supposed to trick boys into helping me gain money now?”

My yelling had turned to a whispered murmur as I stared at my hands with wide, desolate eyes.

“So, it was that.”

Magnus voice came out deadpan and he simply shook his head, “Of course, it was. What is romance to Ellie?”

“Who needs romance when you have water?!”

I answered angrily, yelling quite loudly and making him cover his ears with a hurt expression.

“No need to yell! I get it. But wow….you’re quite worked up, huh? This is a first…”

“Of course! It involves money!”

I sighed exasperatedly as I started pacing the room and messing my still golden hair, “This is all his fault…” I murmured to myself as I bit my lower lip.

Finally, I fell to my knees and almost howled up to the sky, “My beauty! My money!”

“No need to pretend, we all know it’s the money you care about- Hey?! What are you doing?!”

Clothes and bottles started piling up in Magnus arms as I threw them from all over the room, quickly going from one corner to another and getting all I needed like a gust of wind. Then, I pushed the pile into the suitcase.

“Quick! We’re leaving!”

I said determinedly as I pulled on the handle of my suitcase. But feeling something wasn’t right, I murmured absentmindedly, “Why is it so heavy? I need to quickly go and become the light Ciel so my hair will turn golden again…”

“What do you mean, leaving?! Get me out of this bag!”

“Ah, so that’s why it wouldn’t move.”

I circled around the bag that had Magnus messily sandwiched between clothes and bottles and was still wide open. Then, I proceeded to repeatedly kick and press down on the lid with my foot so that I could close it.

“He-hey! Please…Can’t breathe! Get… get me out! I…I haven’t even packed yet!”

Magnus reached out an arm from within the suitcase and begged as he gasped for breath. Looking at him weirdly with my head tilted, I said, “What do you mean? You are packed.”

“What do you mean, I’m packed?!”

With a sudden burst of strength, and having caught me off guard, he managed to throw the lid of the suitcase open and yelled angrily at me, “I’m not the one who should be packed! It should be my things! My things! Got it? Huh?! You specter!”

I calmly listened to everything he said, but once the word ‘specter’ left his lips, my foot ‘accidently’ flew towards his face and sent him flying a few meters away and into the wall, creating a small crater. What? I controlled my strength, or else that would have been a ‘large’ crater!

“Ok! Now we’re leaving!”

Having my suitcase ready and packed at my side, I held onto the handle while standing before my room’s door grandly awaiting my adventure.

“…do you really need to act so dramatically? We are still only leaving your room. And I haven’t packed yet.”

“Oh!! Let’s go!”

I pumped my fist into the air, and then went for the door handle and opened it in one fell swoop.

“So you’re gonna ignore me…”

But while I was opening it, ‘something’ collided with the door and was sent flying. However, I didn’t have time to think of that ‘something’ as two figures emerged on the other side of the door.

“Hehe! What? Did you think we would let you leave by yourself?”

Angie proudly put her hands on her hips as she grinned mischievously my way. At her side, almost hiding behind her as she held onto Angie’s clothes, was Felly.

“T-That’s right!” She weakly yelled, closing her eyes as if afraid of speaking up.

“Um…by herself? I’m still here, you know…?”

Magnus weakly held up his hand as he spoke helplessly, and was ignored for the hundredth time that day.

I could only smile gently at my friends’ loyalty, “I see…yeah, there is no way you guys would let me leave you behind.”

“Of course! I still need you to teach me how to make strudels!”

Felly puffed cutely as she spoke determinedly with her fists baled, somehow more courageous now as she emerged from behind Angie.

Eh? That’s why? I thought helplessly to myself, but ignored it. There was something else that I would have liked more to be able to ignore…

“How could I…How could I…How could I…”

The ‘something’ from earlier was now drawing circles on a piece of unbroken wall with his finger as he pouted, mumbling the same thing over and over again. Seeing a grown, handsome man with killer abs acting like a little sulking kid with a dark shadow cast over him as he grew mushrooms on his head was not something pleasant to see. Immediately regretting having glanced, I shivered and looked away, prepared to leave and pretend I never saw anything.

However…

“Ellieeeee!!!”

Just as I took a step to leave with my friends on an amazing adventure for golden hair and money, ‘something’ flew towards me at the speed of light, dogeza bowed in front of me, and started banging its head repeatedly over the floor, creating a huge crater in the process, while repeatedly apologizing with tears streaming down its face, “What I have done is unforgivable! For me to have allowed my disgustingly perverted older brother to have tarnished you…no! To even have laid eyes upon you! It is unforgivable! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

With each ‘I’m sorry’ his head hit the ground heavily and made the crater larger. It even started gaining people’s attention as doors started opening in the hall, heads popping out to see what was going on. But, as soon as they saw the number one war Ciel candidate Ezekiel, expression harsh with a mixture of tears streaming down his face and blood from his forehead, their expressions immediately turned pale and one door after another was slammed closed with amazing force.

Not bearing the scene any longer, I forced myself to smile despite being met with such a disgusting sight, and said kindly, “It’s ok, it isn’t your fault. I decided to go there myself, and who can blame you for having such a *beep* *beep* *beep* brother?”

“Did she just cuss while having a pure and innocent saint-like smile on?” Angie asked with a helpless expression.

Felly nodded, “Yeah! And three times.”

“You guys sure put up with a lot,” came Magnus helpless comment as well.

Meanwhile, Ezekiel was now staring up at me with an expression full of awe and admiration, “Ah! As expected of my angel! With a heart so pure and forgiving! To be able to forgive this awful and disgusting sin of mine…truly a pure, white angel- Oooff!!!”

As soon as I heard the word ‘white,’ my foot ‘unconsciously’ flew towards his face. Ignoring Ezekiel with his head stuck in the wall, forming a large crater, his butt twitching as it stuck out, and the dumbstruck look on everybody’s faces, I grabbed the handle of my suitcase and started walking. Then, I momentarily paused as I looked back calmly, “What are you all doing? Let’s go. You guys still need to pack your things, and we don’t have a lot of time.”

“…you didn’t have to use dark aura on him, did you?” Magnus said in a deadpan voice.

Then, we all left.