All was dark in the Yoshikawa home. Most of the house's residents were asleep. Chiaki, and Fuyuno, were both soundly dreaming in their rooms, Maika tossed and turned every so often, sometimes happily purring in her sleep, other times growling with jealousy and twisting her sheets until they began to tear, and Rika was lying so still in bed that any normal person might have thought she was dead, (or at least turned off.) There was only one female in the house who was still awake, though it was not by her choice. Ayumi Mamiya had found it impossible to fall sleep that night. She just couldn't seem to get her brain to shut down. She sighed and turned over in her bed again, this time facing out towards her window. The moonlight pored through the tall pains of glass and spilled out over the floor of her room.

My room?

No, this wasn't her room. Her room was back in the magical world. Her room was enormous and extravagantly decorated, with a huge bed and beautiful portraits of enchanted landscapes and magical creatures, not dull white walls and small bed that doubled as a dresser. …So why had it felt so familiar as soon as she'd seen it? Why did she feel so happy when she had first seen Haruo Yoshikawa? After all he was so wimpy! Not her kind of man at all.

Upon arriving in the human world she had decided that she would just seduce him, have him lift her curse, and get on with her life. But once she saw him she immediately began feeling herself being pulled in two directions. Part of her had wanted to run away in disgust at being fated to such a wimpy looking looser, and yet another part of her had wanted to throw her arms around him and never let go again.


In the end she decided to compromise and mealy allow him to approach her. He was obviously smitten with her from the get go, what man wouldn't be? His kind dark eyes and handsome face told her that he was enchanted with her beauty. At least that's what she had thought until he politely asked her why she was starring at him.

That had earned him a sharp slap across the face before she stomped away with her nose in the air, (not to mention a pink tint on her cheeks.) It was only after she had cooled off three blocks away that she realized that she may not have left the best first impression on him.

Was that really the first time we met?

Ayumi shook her head and closed her eyes tightly. She needed to sleep, she had to be ready incase one of her rivals tried to make a move on Haruo again.

He always seemed so familiar, almost… safe.

She opened her eyes and let out a sigh of defeat. It was useless. She was wide awake and her mind wanted to tell her something. Or was it her mind?

Maybe it was something else… something she thought she had locked away for good after her mother died...

Her eyes flitted over to her bed side table and fell upon a very small stuffed cat. She stared longingly at it for a moment before finally reaching out and picking it up. She held the cat tenderly, her thumb gently playing with the small bell around its neck. She gave a small smile when her thumb flicked the bell just hard enough to make it ring. She hadn't had any kind of stuffed animal to play with since He-Bunny, the pink rabbit she used to carry around with her when she was young…

She frowned and put the cat back on the table. She was too old to be playing with stuffed animals. She should be thinking about how she was going to get Haruo to awaken as a man and break her curse so she could leave this stupid human world and go back home.


She looked around the room again. Then back at the cat. It had been almost a year since she had moved into this room. Several months ago since Rika had moved in with them as a second maid. Some weeks since they had put on the play for the cultural fair, which to everyone's amazement went off with out a hitch (if you didn't count Ayumi using her magic to change the cut out pumpkin into a hoarse drawn carriage in front of the entire school.) And it had only been three days, three agonizingly long days, since Christmas Eve, and Haruo's surprise party.

She picked up the cat again and turned it over in her hands, scrutinizing every centimeter.

Why? Why get me a stupid stuffed cat? He got everyone else those dam bracelets!

She stared at the cat a while longer, before she realize she was very close to crying, and quickly shut her eyes. What was going on? Why was she getting so sentimental over some stupid fucking cat doll? Her mind was racing as emotions she had buried long ago begin to surface. She clutched the doll to her chest. That helped a little, but it wasn't enough. The tears were still building in her safire blue eyes and she shut them tighter.

Why am I the one who's special?

Her eyes opened in shock. Tears started to fall down her face and her she began to loose control of her breathing, but she didn't notice.

Why did I think that? Of course I'm the one who's special! I'm Ayumi Mamiya! I'm God's gift to man! I'm the most beautiful and sexy girl he's ever laid eye's on! I'm… i'm…

Her ego drew blank in its defense as she thought about how she had fought with the other girls for his attention. How she was just using him as a tool to get what she wanted. How she was trying to take him away from people who carried about him in ways no one would ever care about her…

I'm a complete and utter bitch…

She gave in to the tears, sobbing for what seemed like hours and clutching the tinny cat doll to her chest as tightly as her trembling hands could hold it. She realized how much she hated, and loved that tinny doll, just as much as she hated and loved the man who had given it to her. The tinny cat was the single most important thing anyone had ever given her. It had been given to the real Ayumi Mamiya. Not to the sexy school girl she pretended to be or the greedy aristocrat she had been raised as. It had been given to a little girl she thought had died long ago. A girl who wanted more than anything to marry a goofy boy she had seen in a cursed mirror so he could give her a big kiss and tell her she was the most important person in the whole wide world to him and then live happily ever after like in the story books.

She eventually cried herself to sleep. Just before she slipped out of consciousness, she managed to whisper a small prayer to who ever would listen.

"Please. Please, let me have one more chance. I promise I'll do it right this time. I don't care about the curse anymore. I don't care about my family name. I don't care if I have to be a maid for the rest of my life. Just please, please let it not be too late for me to change…"

As he body slowly relaxed the cat doll shifter slightly in her hands. Not by much, just enough for the bell around its neck to give a small *tink.*