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“Hmm-hmm♪ La-la-laaa♪”
Romani hummed and kicked his feet as he waited. It was nearly the time for Magi☆Mari’s blog to update. Yes, there were other things that he could be doing but… He had already been working since the light of dawn and they had hit a little bump in the road trying to locate the seventh Singularity, so he deserved this much.
He opened up the page, the familiar sight of the bright, floral background filling him with joy. There it was, the new post--
“Hey Doctor!”
“Gah-!”
Romani went to close the tab, but he already felt the presence of the intruder behind him. They probably already saw his computer screen. How had they moved so quickly?
“Oh, were you busy?” the intruder asked. “The door wasn’t locked, so I assumed…”
Blood drained out of Romani’s face. Judging from the voice alone, he had a guess as to who might have came into his room. He turned around slowly, to come to face with:
“King David!”
“Yes, that’s who I am. Though I do wish you would drop the ‘King’ part…”
“W-Why are you here!?”
David, for some reason, didn’t seem to remember either. He looked around the room for a few moments before locking sights onto the screen behind Romani. “Is that the Magi☆Mari you always talk about? I… Ah yes, remember the other day? When you mentioned Magi☆Mari’s ‘goodnight CD’? I thought it might be good to try listening to it and improve my sleep.”
There were a couple things off in his explanation, the glaring one being that Servants didn’t need sleep so David wouldn’t need something like that. The other would be… Did he really mention Magi☆Mari that much in David’s presence?
Not to mention that David was technically his father. It would be extremely embarrassing to show David his guilty pleasure. Rational Romani would not have given David the CD. But apparently, Sleep Deprived Romani thought differently. That was to say, he was thinking about the fastest way to get rid of David.
“You want the CD?”
David nodded.
“Just the CD? Uhh okay, here you go. Thanks and goodbye!” he said, all but shoving David out of the door.
Phew. Romani sighed and pressed his cold hands against his hot cheeks. He sat at his desk counting his breaths in an attempt to think about anything other than what just occurred…
Who was he kidding!! Why did he just do that! Despair, shame, and regret all bubbled to the surface of his mind and it took all in his power not to bash his head against the wall. Instead, he angrily ripped open a package of his emergency manjuu and stuffed it in his mouth. Then, he moved right into Magi☆Mari’s chat box to lament his sorrows. If anything could make him feel better, it would be her!
DrRomantic: magi☆mari help!!!
✿❀Magi☆Mari❀✿: Oh? What’s wrong?
DrRomantic: i just lent my father something i shouldn’t have orz. what should i do ><
✿❀Magi☆Mari❀✿: What did you lend him?
DrRomantic: SOMETHING I SHOULDN’T HAVE.
✿❀Magi☆Mari❀✿: …
✿❀Magi☆Mari❀✿: Uhuh, I see, so it’s like that…
✿❀Magi☆Mari❀✿: Aren’t you making a big deal out of nothing? Well, the best you can do is just pray☆ Good luck~
“How could you say that, Magi☆Mari!! So heartless! But that’s so like you!” Romani sobbed. “The only option I have is to pray…? Ugh…”
Okay, so maybe he was making a big deal out of nothing. But there was just something about David that threw him off balance. Everything about him, really. He could never tell what David was really thinking at any given point and that scared him. Had he found out about his secret yet? Romani surely hoped not. That could mean losing the edge on one of his greatest trump cards. But, for some reason, he also half-expected David to have shown even the slightest sign of acknowledgment towards him. Maybe that was silly. After all, David had admitted himself that he had no interest in child-rearing. Even his own memory as Solomon could attest to that. Why would David have any reason to believe that Romani was the human reincarnation of Solomon, of all things?
And then, there was the other possibility - that David knew his secret. If so, then why did David barely talk to him? In fact, he saw David even less than any of the other Servants, and not just because Romani took some measures to avoid him... The possibility that he was ignoring Romani scared him the most.
“Ha…” Imagining all these scenarios and these fruitless thoughts gave him a headache.
Another long day of staring at the cold, unforgiving light of a monitor left Romani as tired as ever. It probably didn’t help that his shoulders and neck were stiff and sore. He had woken up that morning and found himself wrapped in his bed sheets, but for some reason his body felt like he had passed out at his desk.
He dragged his feet to his room, ready to crash on his bed. Before doing so, he spotted the Magi☆Mari CD he had lent David on his desk. There was a little note that said: “Thanks! ☺” stuck to the cover. It was there when he woke up, but he hadn’t had the chance to do anything with it. Maybe it would be nice to listen to it now.
Technically, the files from the CD were also on his phone, but sometimes it was fun to listen from the CD itself. Romani slid the disk into his computer and put on his headphones.
What greeted his ears was not the breezy and synthetic background music from the ‘bedtime CD’, but the soft and soothing strings of a harp. That was strange. The CD definitely looked the same, so why would the contents be different?
Romani didn’t remove the disk though, nor did he stop the music. If he was looking for something to help him fall asleep, this certainly fit the bill. He idly noticed that it was almost as if whoever was playing limited themself to a certain number of strings, rather than play the whole breadth of a modern harp. Or maybe their instrument only had a few strings to begin with. He couldn’t say. The only thing he could say was that the sound was familiar, nostalgic even. As if he had heard it long, long ago.
“King David!”
Romani knocked on the door to David’s room. Though he was content to let the harp recordings play the other night, he still needed to find his Magi☆Mari CD. David was the last one to touch it, so maybe he just put the wrong CD back in? Either way, he wanted answers.
“Oh? If it isn’t the Doctor,” David said. “How are you? I was expecting to see you about now.”
“Fine, I’m fine. I was actually going to- Wait, you were expecting me!?”
David smiled. “What did you think of my little prank? Did I surprise you?”
Prank? What prank?
Romani looked at the ground, as if it would tell him the answer. Then, he remembered the CD in his hand.
“This! This was your fault, wasn’t it!” he exclaimed, flailing the CD case in David’s direction.
“So you didn’t know. Oops,” David said without a shred of apology.
“Were you just trying to mock me!?”
For a moment, David’s eyes widened, surprised by Romani’s outburst, but he quickly smoothed his expression over with a smile. “Doctor, why do you look so upset? Was it that bad?”
“Ugh, I just-” Romani made a noise of frustration.
Why would David even have done that? Romani thought back to how this started. First, David heard Romani talk about Magi☆Mari when David was talking nonsense about wanting to fight giants. Then, he actually asked Romani for the “goodnight CD” out of the blue, only to return it with a recording of his harp recordings! And here he was, saying it was a prank! So clearly, the only explanation was that David was making fun of him!
“Ah, Doctor, don’t start to cry on me now…”
Crying? Who was crying? Romani was just tired, that’s why his eyes were watery. Right.
“I wasn’t trying to mock you. I swear! My reason for borrowing your CD was two-fold…” David laughed sheepishly. “I really did want to know about this Magi☆Mari that you talk about so much and I also… oh wait, never mind.”
“Anyways, here, I’ll give this back to you,” David said and patted Romani on the shoulder. “Don’t cry, please.”
Romani took the other CD back from David. With David’s sincerity, he couldn’t really stay mad at him.
“Did you dislike my harp playing that much though, I wonder…” David mumbled, more to himself than anything.
“…No, it was fine. I-I liked it,” Romani said.
David gave him a brilliant smile. “Is that so? Then, I’m glad!”
Romani smiled back a little. “R-right. Well, that’s all, so I’ll see you later, King David.”
“Mm hm, I’ll see you later, Doctor,” he said with a wave.
Well, that was something short of a disaster, Romani thought to himself. Why did things always have to be so complicated when it came to King David?