"See you soon." Was what Tsunotarou said before he left, and that "soon" was even sooner then you had expected...
Since that night, the mysterious boy had always visited the garden of Ramshackle Dorm at the night time, and usually, he would just all of a sudden show up right in front of you with his firefly magic. At first, you were always shocked by that, but that surprised face of you would always turned to another soft laughter when you noticed it was him, the usual visitor of Ramshackle Dorm. There was once when you were reading alone under a tree...
The princess hesitated a bit before she held the prince's hand and stepped onto the magic carpet. The carpet flew into the clouds and brought the princess to a whole new world-
"Tale from the Scalding Sands?"
You didn't have to move your eyes away from the book to know who had arrived, but you were still a bit shocked for his appearance. "Tsunotarou!" You called with a smile.
"Evening, Y/n." He greeted before sitting down next to you and took a look of the book in your hand.
"I borrow that from the library. It sounds interesting to me." You added.
"I've read this book, too. Long time ago, in my homeland." Tsunotarou replied while flicking through the pages. "The princess met the prince long before the parade, but she didn't discover that was him until chapter 3. Do I remember that correctly?" He asked.
You stopped for a second before you turned to a few pages backwards. You then looked at Tsunotarou with helplessness written on your face. "Did you just spoil me?"
He raised an eyebrow when he heard your question. Obviously, he didn't understand what that mean. You showed the page on which two big words "CHAPTER 2" were printed to Tsunotarou. "I am still at chapter 2"
The boy widened his eyes when he realised that he had accidentally told you the plots that you hadn't read. "I... I am sorry, I didn't mean that..."
You laughed a bit when you saw the shocking and nervous face of Tsunotarou. "It's fine, don't mind that. I'm not even angry."
Your words seemed to ease the boys's worries. A soft smile appeared on his face as he heard that you weren't mad at him. "Well, according to some of the books I've read and a friend of mine, I do know something about the real Scalding Sands."
"Really? Does it looks like what the story mentions? You can smell the spice and there's music everywhere?" He had aroused your interest. You had only been in Twisted Wonderland for a short time, and you definitely wanted to know more about the countries outside the Isle of Sages.
"From what I've learnt, the scenery there used to be picturesque, and what mentioned in the tale were true, but most of the area had turned into a desert due to the lack of water since about 500 years ago, and residents could hardly..."
Tsunotarou was always patient and would tell you a lot of things about this whole new world. Queendom of Roses, Sunset Savanna, Kingdom of Heroes. It would never fail to fascinate you, that how this world's totally different from yours. And there were a few times when you even forgot that time passed so fast, although Ramshackle Dorm didn't really have a dorm curfew.
Soon, you were used to his sudden showing up, and slowly, you found that apart from being knowledgeable, there were many interesting things about this boy with horns.
"Good evening Tsunotarou." You greeted with your eyes still glued to the book. You knew it was him soon as you saw a single "firefly" floating in the air.
"What are you reading this time? Oh, the tale of the King of the underworld. The Great Seven, huh?" He asked while sitting down next to you, and that's when he noticed the box placed on the left.
"It's a cake from Trey-senpai from Heartslabyul." You explained. After dinner, Trey came with the strawberry cheese cake in his hands. He said he had made an extra one, so he'd like to give it to you, who's a fan of strawberry. But you were already full after the meal, so you took it with you, thinking of sharing it with the usual night visitor of Ramshackle Dorm.
"I am not quite into a whole cake." Tsunotarou told. He mentioned that he had got some bad experience of eating it alone and was so full after that.
"But you weren't supposed to eat the whole cake alone-" you couldn't help to laugh a bit. Hearing that, Tsunotarou pouted a bit and crossed his arms. "Of course I know about that. I didn't have anyone to eat with me back then in my homeland."
You pat his shoulders and comforted, "I'm just joking, Tsunotarou. Alright, my bad, my bad." But you were a bit confused about him saying that there were no one sharing the cake with him back in his country.
"Guess it's because there weren't any other kids had similar age with me. As I remember, I always had my birthday celebrated alone when I was small. As I grew up, I found that birthday weren't that special to me. It simply happens every year. Therefore, I haven't been celebrating that in the recent years." Tsunotarou held his chin on his fingers and recalled.
"Then let's celebrate it together this year." You suggested. "We can hold the party in Ramshackle Dorm, and I will ask Ace, Deuce and Cater-senpai, Trey-senpai, umm... maybe Riddle-senpai either. Trey-senpai will bake the cake. It will be tasty I swear. ADeuce and Grim can have a performance, and Cater-senpai will manage the venue. The table cloth can be dark green, which suits you a lot. Oh and..."
Tsunotarou widened his eyes a bit as he listened to you talking about how his birthday party would be planned. Perhaps in his hundreds years of life, you're the first person who tried to plan a birthday party for him. Although Lilia did celebrate his birthday with him long time ago, but all he could remember was the awful taste of the cake. A pink blush upon the pale cheeks of him with heat, but you didn't really notice that as your eyes were still glued to the book while you were wondering how Tsunotarou's party would be held.
"When is your birthday, by the way?" Your question brought Tsunotarou back into his sense. He blinked twice and cleared his throat before answering, "18th... 18th January it is."
"Great! I'll mark it in my calendar, but first," you picked up the cake box, "let's eat the cake!"
As a response, Tsunotarou smirked and two sets of tableware appeared in his hand. You then cut a slice of cake and placed it on Tsunotarou's plate and one on yours. At the end of the night, you two couldn't finish the cake, even though each of you had already had two big slices, but his impression of whole cakes was definitely changed by you after that. You gave half of the rest of the cake to him. There'd be someone who would enjoy that, according to Tsunotarou.
"How come I still know literally nothing about you, Tsunotarou?" you once asked him at another night. You had known him for a period of time, yet you still knew nearly nothing about this mysterious boy, except the fact that he's a student in NRC.
"From your uniform, I guess you are from... Diasomnia Dorm?" You wondered. You had noticed that for a while. You had seen some boys in your class wearing the same green vest and having the same black-and-green ribbon bonded around their arms.
"Precisely." Tsunotarou didn't think of lying about that. He simply didn't have a way to do so.
"But what's more?" You asked. At least his name, you thought.
"That's for your own good, Child of Man. Knowing more about me have nothing good for you." He replied with a smirked, just like the first time you met him.
You couldn't help but rolled your eyes. "Ya ya... here we go again..." You couldn't understand how knowing his name could get yourself into danger. But still, you respected his privacy and stopped persuading for an answer.
"Well at least you could tell me something about those pointy ears and the horns of yours?" You pointed at the boy's ear. Having been in Twisted Wonderland for a period of time, you had already accepted the fact that human wasn't the only intelligent beings here. You had seen beastmen, and kitten-like creature who could talk. You could accept that even if he tell you he's an alien.
"..." Tsunotarou kept silent for a moment. "Will you believe me if I say I am a goat beastman?" Tsunotarou threw a question.
You giggled, "If you say so, Mr Goat."
"I can tell you a secret," maybe it was for apologising for not answering your questions directly and clearly, Tsunotarou voiced, "about me."
You immediately turned to him with an excited look on your face. "So finally you decided to tell me something about yourself, huh?" You smirked.
"Well the secret is..." he uttered and signalled you to get closer so he could whisper that next to your ear. You then leaned closer while raising an eyebrow out of curiosity.
"The secret is..." He muttered. You couldn't help to hold your breath, getting ready to know a big secret about the most mysterious student in this school. You could feel his breath near your ear.
"...my favourite food is ice cream." Tsunotarou whispered.
"HAH??!" You widened your eyes. So that's the "top secret" he was trying to tell??!
Tsunotarou seemed innocent, "That's a secret I have never told anyone." He really considered that as a serious secret. You couldn't but laughed helplessly, leaving Tsunotarou looking at you completely cluelessly.
"How is Tsuno. Junior, by the way?" You asked after you calmed yourself from laughing.
"Tsuno. Jun...? You mean the tiny creature which you called a digital pet?" Tsunotarou thought for a second. You nodded, except for the fact that it's not a creature at all. "It has horns, and you have horns. Therefore it's name is Tsuno. Junior for short." You explained.
"It is perfectly fine, under my mindful care." He replied with a profound smile. He then reached his hand to his pocket. "Here he's, Tsuno. Junior." Just saw the digital peacefully lies in the middle of his palms. It's still as "lively" as the day you gave it to Tsunotarou.
Just then, you noticed something shot across the dark sky. The next second, another one, and another another one. You looked up, the original dark blue sky was full of sparkling shooting stars.
"Oh my god..." You gasped without even noticing that. You had seen a meteor shower before, but it was a long time ago, and this's the first you had ever seen in Twisted Wonderland. Your eyes couldn't leave the sky and kept admiring this magnificent moment, and that's why you didn't notice the boy next to you wasn't admiring the shooting stars but looking at you instead.
"You humans like the star rain?" He asked.
"You mean the meteor shower?" You kept your eyes glued to the sky. You didn't want to miss any one of them, not even one. "Well, I don't know the others, but I'm kinda a fan of it."
Tsunotarou followed your sight and looked up. "Back in my homeland, some people believe that their ancestors pass away and become the stars in the sky. When they miss their descendants, they'll shot across the night sky to see them, and that's when star rains occur."
That's a total new concept to you. Back from where you came from, shooting stars represented hopes, and people loved making wishes when they saw shooting stars, especially when there're a meteor shower.
"Making wishes? Huh, that's new to me." They didn't have such a tradition in his homeland, Tsunotarou told you.
"Well if we combine the two beliefs, we can say that it's our ancestors who fulfil our wishes." You suggested with a smile.
"That's quite an innovative idea, Child of Man." You heard his reply.
You closed your eyes and hands, trying to make a wish. Well, maybe more than one.
"I hope I can find a way home and have my dream finished.
I also hope that my friends will be fine. Please don't let Ace and deuce do anything stupid that will have them off with their heads. Tsunotarou can have a party with everyone.
And..."
Just when you were still closing your eyes and thinking for the next wish, a person all of a sudden appeared in your mind. That arrogant and annoying face, but yet always wearing a confident smile, somehow with an unspoken blue in his green eyes, and a scar over his left eye, which part of it's covered by his long brown hair.
You immediately shook your head to get that face out of your head once you felt your cheeks becoming warmer and warmer and even blushing a bit. "Dammit..." you hit your temple a few times to clear your mind.
You turned to Tsunotarou, and found that he was trying to make a wish just like what you did. A while later, he opened his green eyes and looked at yours. "What wish did you make?" He asked.
"It will not come true if it is spoken out." You smirked. Sometime you couldn't help wonder where he came from, which made him knowing nothing about the modern world.
Tsunotarou nodded like he had understood something new, "Alright, so there's such a rule in making a wish..."
You didn't hold the giggles, "Yep, you can call it a rule. Let's keep that a secret, until it comes true."
Tsunotarou looked at the girl who was giggling next to him, and looked back to the sparkling sky, watching the shooting stars slay through the sky until they became gloomy.
"Right, let's keep that a secret." He agreed with a smile. That's right, he wouldn't want to speak his wish out loud anyway.
"I wish Child of Man will be happy and fine, and I wish to spend as much time with her as I can."
There's no way he could speak that out in front of you. Even he knew about that.
——
That night, you went back to your dorm after Tsunotarou left. Grim had already been sleeping to death as always with a soft snoring.
You sat on your bed and scroll through the album in your phone. Crowley finally decided to give you one a few days ago. You still had the image of him expressing how "kind" he was in your head. You had nearly forgotten the feel of scrolling through the screen without a certain purpose.
You clicked into the MagiCam. Cater helped you open a new account once he knew you got your own mobile phone. You chose a photo of the shooting stars taken back there in the garden.
"#firstmeteorshowerhere #timeforawish" you typed. Done and posted. You had definitely learnt some tagging skills from Cater.
You turned off your phone and put it aside, getting ready to sleep. And that's when you heard a "DING!" sound from the phone. There's a new notification. You couldn't resist the temptation of the noti and decided to turn on the phone once again to check it. It's from MagiCam.
"leona.k727 liked your post" was all popped out.
"Kingscholar...?" You quickly checked the post you had just uploaded, and found that the lion had first liked it.
"He hasn't sleep, at this time? Huh, that's weird of him, a sleepyhead." You couldn't stop yourself from thinking about that.
"DING!" Another notification cut into your thought.
"leona.k727 commented on your post: Thinking of what kind of wish a herbivore would have made."
"Really? Kingscholar?" Within your expectations, tho. You entered the comment bar and clicked reply.
"It... will not... come true... if I speak... it out loud... Basic rule, Kingscholar;)" You mumbled as you typed. Posted.
You wouldn't tell your wishes, not only because of the tradition, but perhaps also because he had come to your mind when your were making the wish although you would never admit that.
You decided to switch off the phone and went straight to sleep. There's no way you could wake up so early tomorrow if you sleep so late.
"Good night Grim, tho you can't hear that." You smiled and whispered. All you got as a reply was another snoring from the grey kitten.
"Wishes... Only if they will really come true..." You thought, before you closed your eyes and finally ended the day. You wouldn't say you'd believe that shooting stars would make your dream come true like the three-year-old kids, but you always had some little hopes in that, even though you couldn't explain that either.
——
"Good morning, Y/n-chan! The photo you posted last night was marvellous! Cay-kun loves it so much!" It was Cater who came to you at the early morning in the cafeteria.
You nodded to thank for the compliment. Cater-senpai had always been so energetic when it came to the MagiCam stuffs. You could recall his enthusiastic face when you asked him to help you sign up for a new account. He also helped you to follow a bunch of people, including the other NRC students and some celebrities. Perhaps you followed Leona that time...
Hold on, why did he all of a sudden popped out in my brain again? You thought. It wasn't the first time, and it's nearly impossible to make it disappear. It always took you back to the day when Leona and you were in the arcade. The heat on your cheeks, and the pounding of your heart, you could still remember that feeling.
"Oi herbivore. Zoning out at the middle of the road again?" A voice brought you back from the memory. You blinked twice and found that it was Leona who was standing in front of you, half bending down, so as to meet your eye level.
"Leona- Wha-" You couldn't form a complete sentence when you found that you were in such a close distance with the upperclassman, and you didn't even noticed that you had accidentally called him by his first name.
Leona shocked his head as he took out a hand from the pocket and flicked on your forehead, "You herbivores really needa bring your brain with you when you leave your room in the morning." He said, before he turned around and walked towards the hallway.
"Ouch!" You covered your forehead where he flicked and mumbled. Childish, as always. Looking at the back if the lion, you couldn't help to believe that that heat on the cheeks and that pounding heart were nothing but only because of the sun being too hot and you were on the edge of having a heatstroke. There's no way you would have any feeling for this idiot.
Leona turned to the back and looked at you, "I'm going to the lounge for a couple rounds of chess games before the classes start. You wanna come?"
You had not played chess for a while due to all the things that had happened. You must say you kinda missed playing it. Plus, you wouldn't want you skill to become rusty. "Yes sure." Was what you answered before you fastened your pace to keep up with the yawning lion.
"What is your first lesson?" You randomly asked.
"..." Leona thought for a second, "Probably astrology, but I'm thinking of skipping it anyways." He answered like being absent for lessons was completely alright.
"Ruggie-senpai said if you keep on skipping lessons, you wouldn't be able to get promoted to the fourth year." You couldn't help rolling your eyes.
The lion shrugged, "Do I look like I care? I only have to be present in the exam, and everything will be fine." He wasn't completely wrong, after all.
"Ya ya. I am wondering if you can actually graduate when I do, Leona 0ssan (Japanese word referring to middle-aged people)." You smirked and teased.
Hearing that, Leona starred at you and questioned, "What did you just called me, herbivore?"
"Leona OSSAN." You repeated, emphasising the word "ossan" by speaking it more loudly and more slowly.
"I do believe you herbivore know nothing about the word 'fear'. You are kindly reminded that I am just 20-year-old." He uttered.
"Leona ossan!" You didn't think of stopping to call him like that, as a little revenge for your forehead.
"Oi are you done? Stop acting like a child." Leona shook his head and complained. Well, he seemed to be the less qualified person to call you childish.
You couldn't stop laughing when you saw his ears swinging when he's angry. But the next moment, you all of a sudden remember the fact that you wouldn't actually graduate in this school. You would leave this world once Crowley find a way to send you home, and you supposed that wouldn't take four years. "Well, I don't think I'd have a chance to witness that anyways."
Hearing that, the anger on Leona's face slowly faded. He understood what you meant was you would leave anytime. He put his hands back into his pockets and stopped complaining. All of a sudden, you two became quite and nobody talked. The atmosphere became a little bit awkward with you two keeping silent and looking at the floor as you walked to the lounge.
"..." You tried your best to break this atmosphere. "But it's Crowley we're talking about, so... I don't pin high hopes on him. Ha ha."
Leona smiled and looked to the other side, "Right, all that bird knows is gaining profits. Yet he calls himself kind. Nonsense."
"Can't agree more." You giggled. You unconsciously tucked a strip of your hair behind your ear and looked away, "Therefore, I don't really think I will be able to leave in a short period of time."
"Then bless you for having to stay with a bunch of problem children for a while longer." The lion joked. You probably didn't notice that a tiny smile appeared on his face as he was facing the other side.
You smiled as a reply. For some reasons, you started to not mind getting along with these troublesome students, although most of them liked to cause troubles and you would be asked to clean up the mess afterwards.
But still, your life here made you smile from your heart every day before you closed your eyes on the bed.
Seeing you two walking away, Cater who was still sitting in the cafeteria looked at the backs of the two of you with a pair of suspicious eyes. "You see that, Trey?" He put an arm on his classmate's shoulders and asked.
Trey who was having his breakfast put a meatball into his mouth and looked up, "See what?"
Cater couldn't but facepalmed, "THEM, Trey! Can't you sense that?" It only made his friend even more confused.
Seeing the completely clueless look on Trey's face, Cater decided to give up explaining. He opened the camera app and quickly took a photo of you two without being noticed.
"Gotta send this to Ace-chan." He would definitely understand that.