The roaring sound of boys goofing off was very audible even outside the locker room, but to feel the odour produced by the alchemy of sweat and post pubertal hormones was a privilege reserved only to those brave enough to open the door. Damian found the bravery only after taking a deep breath.

He slammed the door opened. "Hey guys, what did I miss? Sounded like a riot."

His team mates, in various states of undress, stood in circle. In the middle of the circle, a tall pale boy, wearing a towel like a skirt and nothing else, shrilled in an exaggerated falsetto, "Oh, Damian, dear hubby, I missed you!"

This, predictably, caused a booming symphony of coarse laughing that completely drowned the tall boy's next line.

With one swift movement, Damian slipped out of one of his shoes, kicked it high enough to grab it with his hand, and threw it with mathematical precision on the very tippy top of the head of his "wife".

"Sorry hon," he replied, "looks like it only took a few days for the other shoe to drop in our marriage."

The convulsing concerto of the other boys played a loud encore. Then, the ritual handshakes, pats and punches on each others' backs and chests, and general clamouring happened.

"So," started another boy, whose tanned skin had big spots of sun peeling, "tied the knot, have you? Is she fun in private?"

A third one hollered, "Does she do magic in the sheets?"

The fourth one, smiling as obscenely as the others, raised his hands in an attempt to silence them. "Guys, guys, come on, let's be a bit more refined than that. After all, a fairy wife isn't your everyday run-of-the-mill kind of deal, it's more elegant, like an exotic fruit."

After everyone else quieted down a bit, he continued, mimicking a grabbing motion with both hands. "Too bad your wife doesn't seem to have much juice to squeeze. And by juice I mean…"

"Shut it." Damian interrupted him by delivering a solid backhand slap on his sternum.

The boy still wearing the towel as a skirt addressed the one still recovering from the slap on his chest. "Oy, Giaco, when did you become a poet? To come up with this one, did you have to shove a collection of sonnets way up your…"

"I'll shove your shoes down your damn throats if you don't stop messing around and get ready for training!" Howled the floppy mouth of a huge man, whose massive sideburns could almost distract from the fact that his hairline wasn't so much receding as it was running for the hills. Everyone got quiet and followed the coach's order.

A few minutes later, all the boys were in their uniform, lined up in the middle of the outdoors field. At the coach's side, stood Flibert with his red hair, all dressed up in his business suit.

"Good morning, boys," Damian's brother started, "as I have told to some of you already, I'm stepping down as captain. Today I'm here to give my formal goodbye to the team."

Everyone knew. The stern seriousness with which the boys stood immobile contrasted with their rowdiness in the locker room and it expressed, better than any word, how they felt about their captain leaving.

"I'm also," Flibert continued, "here to appoint my successor, as chosen by the former captain and acting owner of the team, my brother Vaufrej."

A few heads turned towards Damian, and he did his best to maintain his stoic posture.

Flibert solemnly stepped closer to the team and placed his hand on the shoulder of a surprisingly short boy, among the rest of the team. "Luca Rosso, from now on you'll be the team's captain."

The atmosphere around them reached freezing temperature even against the valiant contribution of a late summer sun shining unobstructed on them.

"Rico is going to be the new chief defender to substitute Luca, and Damian will be the new chief attacker to substitute Rico." Flibert concluded with an affected smile.

The gash in between the coach's sideburns, which most people would agree was his mouth, started flopping again. "Right, you heard the man." He took a small pile of clothes from the bag he had been wearing around his round shoulders. "Luca, Damian, Rico, here are your new uniforms, go change. The rest of you, get to running. Everyone, before you do, thank your former captain for his tenure."

Damian did as he was told, avoiding all eye contact and keeping his chin high. While walking back towards the locker room, he observed the cotton shirt and short pants in his hands, no doubt cotton that had been produced by the Neumann factory. Regular players in the team wore a blue shirt with white shorts, while the captain wore both shirt and shorts with blue and white stripes. Chief attacker and chief defender both wore a white shirt with blue shorts. It made it easy to distinguish at a glance who was who, which was critical in stepball. Just like in Alchemy, all the elements had to combine in just the right way to produce the correct result.

Luca would make for a good captain, Damian thought. Vaufrej was certainly a lot to handle, but one thing that could be said is that he wouldn't make a bad choice just out of spite. He glanced at Luca, who glanced back and gestured "we'll talk later". Damian nodded almost imperceptibly, just enough for his friend to get the message.

A patch of vegetation touched one particular corner of the school building's back. Watching towards that corner from the outdoors sports field one would only see some trees, and it was too far removed from the entrance to even see it at all from there. Rumours had it that vipers inhabited the place. Weeds grew from the gravel at direct contact with the building's wall, and Damian sat in his usual spot on that gravel.

"This place gets a little wilder each year." Commented Luca, sitting besides him.

Damian kept absent-mindedly looking at the trees in front of them. "Maybe the keeper believes that thing about vipers too."

After a brief pause, the short boy at his side snickered. "Captain of the Neumann Youth Team, huh? Who would have guessed shorty even had a chance."

Damian nodded. "Congratulations, man."

Neither of them looked at the other.

"What happened?" Asked Luca.

Damian shrugged. "Vaufrej happened."

"Well, what's his deal?"

"Who knows?" Damian sighed. "Perhaps it's his congratulation gift for my admission in the new course."

"Speaking of, you haven't told me anything about that. What are your first impressions?"

"So far, it's been mostly stuff that I already knew. I haven't been attending to any in person classes yet, it's all been through the cini system. What have you been up to lately though? I haven't been able to see you a lot."

Luca straightened his back and raised his chin with a proud smile. "I met a girl. Didn't even need my family to arrange a whole marriage for me."

"Hey, congratulations!" Damian said with more conviction. "Who is she?"

His friend turned to face him. Even after all the time they'd been friends, he couldn't avoid his eyes lingering on the red and purple mark all over the left side of Luca's face.

"Not telling you yet," he smugged. "She made me promise to keep us a secret for now. I'm not supposed to even tell you this much, you know?"

"Is she pretty?"

Luca hesitated and instinctively touched his own left cheek. "To me, she's as pretty as a goddess. I… somehow doubt that many would share my sentiment, but I think she's the most beautiful girl in the world."

Damian laughed. "How sappy can you get? You do know that sonnets aren't supposed to be used the same way as Giaco allegedly did, don't you?"

"Oh, I wouldn't be so dismissive, if I were you," replied Luca, with a defiant grin, "after all, someone's got to take responsibility for being the one who handed me those sonnets in the first place."

The young Neumann vigorously patted his friend on a shoulder. "Kidding, kidding. I'm very happy for you, I really am. You, of all people, really deserve someone to appreciate you for who you are."

Luca looked down, with a bitter smile. "I'm not so sure. I sometimes fear that, someday, she'll wake up and realise that there are so many guys much better than me. Stronger, smarter, more handsome…"

"Stop talking nonsense." Damian glared at his friend. "It is true that, so far, you've been snubbed by several girls. But I'll tell you what they were: rotten to the core, the whole lot of them."

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Come on," his friend feebly protested, "Veronica wasn't that bad…"

"My man," sighed Damian, "I'm really sorry to burst your bubble. The very day after she turned you down, I know for a fact she was talking trash about you."

That wasn't even the worst of it, but Damian accurately avoided adding insult to injury.

Luca deflated. "I see. Well, since we're on the subject, tell me about your new wife."

He looked away. "What about her?"

"How is your project going? Made any progress?"

"Gaining her trust is proving easier than expected."

Luca shuffled closer to him. "Then, what's going wrong?"

Damian kept looking forwards. "Me, I guess."

Another pause.

"Damian, look at me."

The young Neumann did as he was asked. His friend's light brown eyes, almost yellow, in bright contrast with the dark red imprinted on his skin, spoke loud and clear.

"She's different than I expected," Damian responded to that silent inquiry. "Way different."

Luca raised a brow.

Damian sighed. "She's not much different from a normal human girl. Mostly."

"Mostly?"

"Well, she is a fairy after all. But, as I said, most of the time she just feels like a regular girl."

His friend nodded. "I see. How unfortunate that nobody told you, when you started hatching this whole plan, that you probably wouldn't have the stomach to go through with it."

"It's different," snapped Damian. "You thought I wouldn't have the courage to defy a powerful fairy. If she'd been closer to what fairies are supposed to be like, I'd…"

"What are fairies supposed to be like, Damian?"

"Pardon?"

"In what ways is your wife different from a fairy?"

"I, uh…" he stammered, stunned.

This time, Luca was the one patting Damian on the shoulder. "I never thought you lacked the courage to go against some powerful magical being. Things are often not like you hear in folk tales, you know, so I imagined that something like this would happen instead. I knew you'd probably start to feel remorse for what you intended to do once you started getting to know her. Though, I admit, even I never imagined she'd look like a regular dorky kid."

"So it's like that, huh?" For some reason, Damian felt relieved, as if someone had unravelled a tight knot in his guts that had been pestering him for days now.

Luca placed his other hand on Damian's other shoulder as well. "Tell me now, how do you really feel about her?"

His shoulders slowly mellowed under the warmth of Luca's palms. He chuckled.

Luca's brows furrowed in puzzlement. "What's so funny?"

Damian shook his head. "I think I may be in love, my friend."

"I see." Luca's smile relaxed, delighted. "That is pretty funny, actually. Did she put some spell on you?"

"That's what I thought at first. But, the more I go on, the more I think that me genuinely liking her is the simpler explanation."

"I've seen her around the village. I mean, everyone did, she certainly draws attention to herself, but… how do I put this? Say, have you ever noticed that you're something of a chick magnet?"

Damian's voice turned flat. "I had a few pointers."

Luca smacked him across the head. "That's for being unappreciative. Ooh, look at me, I'm smart, handsome, and rich, girls stab each other in the back to get me to notice them, I am so miserable!"

"I never said I was miserable. I just had a few bad experiences with the girls who did try to get me to notice them."

Among those bad experiences, of course, there had been Veronica, the girl Luca really liked. The one Luca had spent a long time fawning over in the background. The one Luca had written poems for and bought nice gifts to. The one who then proceeded to trash talk Luca behind his back, right as she was confessing her feelings to Damian. That one. Such event had really put him in a bad spot. After all, he had been raised as a gentleman, and that upbringing was almost ruined by his powerful instinct to wring her neck until her head popped from her body like a cork from the bottle.

"Anyway," Luca started again, "we're getting side tracked. The point I was trying to make was that everyone expected some gorgeous lady to become your wife. I mean, your wife is certainly not ugly, but she's…"

Damian nodded with decision. "Yep, that's about how I felt when I looked at Clelia for the first time. Not because a gorgeous lady is what I expected my future wife to be, though, more because that's what I expected from a fairy."

He picked up some gravel from the ground and absent-mindedly sprinkled it around his own feet. "But, truth be told, I think that fate throwing me a curve ball like that is part of the reason why I started liking Clelia in the first place. I expected this majestic, beautiful yet arrogant being, looking down on me as well as all other humans. What I found instead was a regular girl, just about as lost as I was. Plus she's curious, smart, earnest… and a little wild."

When adding those words, what sprang in his mind was the fiery look in her eyes when she had commented on Damian's mother, as well as those times she had given small demonstration of her fairy powers.

Luca's brow cheekily rose. "What kind of wild?"

Damian flushed, suddenly reminded of Clelia's admission to a past liaison with another girl as well. "I mean in a faerie kind of way. That's one thing about her: she looks like a regular girl most of the time, but every once in a while she does something that provides a glimpse of her true nature. She looks fragile, in a way that kinda makes you want to protect her, but I get the feeling that, if things got ugly between us, I'd be the one in need of protecting. She may not look like it, but she is the daughter of a notoriously powerful fairy, after all."

Luca hummed, staring suspiciously in Damian's eyes. "Alright, I believe you. I can see that as the kind of reason you might genuinely fall for someone, so I guess you may not be under a spell after all."

"Thanks, I suppose?"

The short boy sat besides him again. "You falling for someone is pretty uncommon. She should be happy that a guy like you is her husband."

"She doesn't seem sad to be here, if nothing else," Damian shrugged. "When touching the subject of us being married, she can even make light of it." His tone became thoughtful, "Almost as if… she didn't take it very seriously. As if it was some sort of game."

A sober silence drowned the loud chirping of some birds hidden in the tree tops, as well as the distant noises of regular life going on in the village.

"Hey, Damian, are you alright?"

It took Damian a few moments to be ready to answer. "One reason why I never liked any of the girls who pined after me was that they felt fake. When they were around me, it's almost as if they put a filter between themselves and me, trying to impress me rather than allowing me to know them for who they are. All I got to see of them was a mask they put, a mask deliberately made to try to appeal to me. They didn't understand that I would have preferred to see the face beneath that mask. To some degree, most people in this village have a mask as well, because I'm a Neumann and they want to be in my good graces."

He let his head gently fall backwards, hitting the wall behind him. "Tilda didn't have any filters, that's why I was so… fond of her. She was nice and friendly, even playful, and I deluded myself into thinking that her friendliness was hiding something more. But she didn't have a mask, remember, nothing of what she did or said had any hidden meaning. The reason why she didn't show romantic interest in me wasn't that she was hiding it behind a friendly mask. She wasn't wearing a mask to begin with."

Another handful of gravel met the fate of being picked up by Damian's hands and then lazily scattered around him. "Clelia isn't wearing a mask either. I won't pretend to know what she's thinking, she's still very much a mystery to me, but she's not one to hide her feelings. If people wore their hearts like pieces of clothing, hers would be on full display right on her sleeve. And, with that in mind, I don't get the impression that she's as into me as I am into her."

A new silence fell, until Luca spoke up again. "So, what are you gonna do about it?"

"What do you mean?"

"What, are you just going to sit there and brood about it? Maybe the reason why, despite everything you have going for you, you still never had a girl in your life is that you wait for stuff to happen on its own. Now that I think about it, maybe that is exactly because of everything you have going for you: you're used to girls wanting you automatically, so you don't really know what to do if the one you really like doesn't try to pry her way into your life."

The boy pointed at the red mark on his own face. "I never had that luxury, you know? Even with my current darling I had to put in the leg work. She may not look like it from the outside, but she did have plenty of options aside from me."

"Then, what do you suggest I do?" Asked Damian, intrigued.

"First," Luca raised his index finger, "we should dispel a little misconception. You know those coin-operated machines that have recently started appearing all over Taurasia? A lot of boys seem to think that girls work in a similar way: insert flowers or other gifts in the slot, receive a price. That's rubbish. Gifts like that are complementary, you use them to enhance your efforts, you don't make them the core of it. As to what you should do instead… you know what?"

Luca jumped on his feet. "Instead of sitting here, let's go and meet someone."

It had been a long time since Damian had last seen that particular crack in that particular brick wall. It was the place where the children of the servitude at his auntie's farmhouse complex used to climb over to play outside.

"Are you sure you want me to meet her?" Asked Damian, a little nervous about the idea of causing a stir between his friend and his newfound love. "Didn't she ask you to keep you two a secret?"

Climbing the wall in the spot where the crack made it easier to do so, Luca answered, "Don't worry, I'm sure that, if I explain everything, she'll be fine with you knowing. In fact, I think she'd be delighted to help. You just wait there, I'll bring her over."

Then, he disappeared over the wall. Damian leaned against the weather-worn plaster on the bricks, resigning himself to wait. He had other stuff that needed doing, but he had been unable to convince his friend to postpone that meeting with that mysterious new girl of his.

"Is this it, then? This is the reason behind your unwillingness to get things done? Typical of youth. Pathetic humans."

The voice echoing in his mind was starting to become somewhat familiar, yet not any less unwanted. He turned his head around, trying to spot the cat he knew had to be hiding somewhere in the tall grass.

"My private life is none of your business." Damian stated, not too loud because he didn't want to get the attention of anyone wandering around on the other side of the wall.

"It is if it has consequences that will hurt me too," the voice retorted.

"Why do you need me anyway? Aren't you some kind of powerful magical being? Can't you do your own laundry?"

"I can't if it's in someone else's house. Normally I wouldn't mind that too much, but the filth coming from your house will end up tarnishing my own as well, if I leave the situation unchecked."

Damian clenched his fists and restrained himself as hard as he could from screaming at the demonic cat. "I will not stand you calling my wife filth, you hear me? Get away from me, leave me alone already."

"Fine," the voice conceded, dejected. "I'll have to find a different way then. Unlike humans, however, I am gracious and compassionate, so, despite how annoying you are, just remember that my offer will always be valid, if the mess you're about to get yourself into becomes too much to handle."

Then, just as it came, it went. And not too soon, Damian thought. The thud of someone landing besides him startled him. Luca stood next to him once more, with a big smile.

"So, where is your sweetheart?"

Before the short boy could respond, a coarse female voice came from above the wall. "Hey, young master, what's up? It's been a while."

Above them, a girl in patchy overalls crouched on the edge of the wall. Damian's eyes widened in recognition. The last time he had seen her, she probably had the same amount of skin as now, except now it was stretched thin from growing noticeably taller. Her olive skin, short hair, and big nose, however, were still as easily recognisable as back then.

"Rosalba?"