Yet another morning approached, and I left behind a sleepless night. For me, the feeling of being tired and yet so uncomfortable within my own mind had become a common occurrence. I softly got out of my Victorian bed and waved my hand at the curtains of the large, beautifully decorated room. Throughout the expansive gold-stitched and embroidered fabric of the pink curtain, tiny threads began to fold themselves systematically and were folded into a tiny sheet of cloth that eventually rolled up, beautifully exposing the room to the warm sunlight. The folded cloth that had rolled up into a thin sheet of paper slowly began to change colour and turned transparent, losing all of its shades and disappearing into the magnificent glory of the other elements of the room.
I slid my feet into sandals that immediately activated some magic code, making a tiny magic circle appear under the soles. I didn't mind it because now when I walked in these sandals, they would make me feel like walking in the air without having me fall. It was perfect to avoid heel cracks.
I sat in front of the giant mirror in front of me and slowly picked up the sparkling hairbrush, made of a large clear crystal, and then I stopped with my hands raised towards my head, in midair. I sighed, and slowly my hand fell back into my lap. A tear rolled down my cheek, and I tightly clenched the hairbrush.
My caretaker entered the room and quickly tiptoed next to me. My family had kept her to take care of me and to be my helper and lifelong friend. Although she was the same age as me, I saw her as an older sister. She was also adept in magi-code, even more than me, and was allowed to study at my school. We had gotten admission into the same classroom, but because of her sharp mind and good grades, she was put into a class above mine. When I objected to my class teacher, she told me to be as good as Aarin and catch up to her. It was understandable, because Aarin did not deserve to be held back because of my weakness.
"Princess Laiba is awake early today."
Aarin inquired, looking at the hourglass simulation she had opened up using her cloud computer. She had chosen to implant her chip under her chin and preferred to look at the screen from above at an angle that would never transcede my own screen.
Aarin began to comb my hair and gently loosen all the knots.
"Ouch!"
I winced, not being able to hold in the sudden pinch. Then I smiled as I turned towards her to pat her head.
"It's no problem."
Aarin and I had lived together and known each other since our childhood. Although it was a strict requirement to establish formality in the gatherings, we were like sisters and didn't care about the small formalities. Still, Aarin did take care to maintain respect.
Once my hair was done, the next part of the morning routine was to get changed into a new school uniform. Then me and Aarin would have breakfast and go to school. This lavish treatment was very common for me. I was the heiress of the Souls family of air, after all.
One day, as I and Aarin sat in our car on our way to school, I realised Aarin was staring at me closely.
"What is it? Is my hair not styled properly? If it isn't, I insist on letting it be."
"Princess Laiba. What is it that makes you so strong?"
"Heh? That's a very sudden question, and I don't seem to understand it at all."
"You know, the people in our school sometimes say rude things to you."
"Oh. I don't think about it too much."
"That's what I want to know. What do you think when they say such things to you?"
"I won't lie, Aarin. At first, it used to hurt. Then, I realised I had all the things they couldn't have, and it made them jealous. Isn't that how it works?"
"I see."
Aarin looked out of the window sadly. Perhaps she was not satisfied by my answer. I felt really happy that my answer was not enough to satisfy her. That's because it was proof of how well she knew me and how close we were. I hadn't given her an honest answer after all, one that would really satisfy her curiosity.
The kids in our school didn't like me very much. At first, I thought it was all going to be fine eventually, but the hate that was directed towards me only got more severe. I recalled that day when I first confronted Aarin and found out the truth, when we were younger and newly admitted to the school.
"You know the reason, right? Why do all of them hate me?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, Princess Laiba."
"Fine then. As long as you don't tell me, forget we're friends."
"Princess Laiba, I apologize. You really don't need to pay attention to such things!"
"Just tell me... I don't care about it; it just hurts me more that you don't believe I can handle it. Not knowing hurts too, you know?"
"Well, well, how should I say this?"
"Jeez!!"
"Uh.. they.. They don't like you because the Souls family of Air is well known amongst the nobles for lending money. The nature of the business seems to be their concern."
"Ha! I couldn't care less about it. They can hate me all they can, and I wouldn't care."
This conversation was taking place during our recess, and just when I had said this, a boy from our class appeared in front of me.
"Oh? What do we have here? An angry little princess?"
Aarin quickly stood up and blocked me from his view.
"Please play with the boys. You are causing the princess distress."
"Wow. She's way better than me. I'm lucky to have you, Aarin."
I hated confrontations and preferred to live a small, comfortable life. Aarin knew that it would be hard for me to speak to a boy I hadn't talked to before, so she was doing it for me.
"Step aside, you maid. I'm the prince of the Bodies family of Earth. Your princess is lucky I'm even talking to her. Do not disrespect me."
"Oh. So this boy's name must be Adem. The famous child prodigy, who also belonged to the strongest of the four noble radioactive families, had two blessings aiding him from birth and was known to be very strong."
Aarin understood this as well, because if someone else had spoken this much, she would have beaten them by now. However, she wasn't moving. Was it because of her strength, or was she scared? This question angered me, so I got up from the small bench where I had been sitting.
I softly touched Aarin's shoulder and ushered her to give way.
"Why are you here, Adem?"
"I'm pleased that you have heard of me. I overheard your little conversation with this maid. Since it would be wrong to hear misinformation and not correct it, I'll let you in on a not-so-secret fact. No one here hates you because of your family's lending business. We just don't like your face. It's very ugly."
With this, Adem left, and I was left standing, with nothing but embarrassment.
"Hey everyone. It seems that Laiba hates us. I overheard them just now and even recorded it for you all to remember."
Then, Adem activated his cloud computing chip, and a screen appeared above his head. The part where I said everyone could hate me was all they liked.
"See? She has no problem with it, so do it properly now."
Aarin rushed towards him angrily, but Adem, like me, had a guard as well, who punched Aarin so hard that she fell to the ground. Everyone who saw it laughed, and that was the beginning of open hatred towards me.
That day, I decided to never make Aarin suffer the punishment of being my friend, so I decided to make it my strength and continue forging on. I cried as well, but always when Aarin wasn't there. No matter how I looked at it, the mirror became the most dreaded place for me because I could never know what part of my face caused people to hate me so much, and it was a matter I didn't dare to inspect from anyone either.
"Princess Laiba?..."
I was shaken out of the painful memory by Aarin, and I realised we had arrived at the school. As I got out of the car and parted from Aarin, I entered my class. It seemed to be a normal day, but I expected someone to make a rude remark because recently the government had created strict laws for money lenders. Although these laws only affected the bottom of the food chain, the topic was circulating on the news enough for most of the fools in the class to make it a reason to target me. What I didn't expect was for Adem to stand next to my desk arrogantly.
"What? He's too mature for this!"
Adem kicked my desk hard, startling me. More than the shock of being bullied, I was worried that he may have officially lost it. There was no reason for someone as important as him to be doing something so useless.
"Adem, what was that? Have you lost it? I did not see that coming from you."
The children of the upper nobles were well adept in politics and law. He didn't need to be explicitly told anything, because I was sure he understood what I was talking about.
"Oh? Do you think I'm going to beat you right now because of that worthless bill that got passed? No, no, no."
"Heh? Then… why?"
"It's because my dad just got appointed as the Chief of Radioactive Staff. Now, I can finally beat you as much as I want, because no one will stop me."
I didn't know at that time that that day was going to be the first time I would meet my future husband, the heir of the Hearts family of fire.