Twisted-Wonderland: Heart of the Night

Episode 1-3: Garden Scarlet!

We all made it to the dormitory hall and went through the mirror representing Heartslabyul.  The mirror was decorated with card soldiers, similar to the ones I saw in my dream, but at this point I don't remember too much from it.  When we arrived, we we're in front of a maze garden filled with rose bushes at every turn.

"Howoah!  This is gorgeous!  It couldn't be more different from ours!", Grim.

"Ours is still in development!", I answered to Grim's remark.

"Crap, crap.  I've gotta get these roses painted.", a voice was heard from up ahead in the maze.

"Oh, somebody is here", Grim.

"Oh, watch out.  Any paint splatters and my head is gone.", a man with orange hair with a paint brush in his hand turned to us when he noticed our presence.

"I feel like I've seen this before...", I spoke quietly to myself.

*(!) And this person, does he... Nah it's just me imagining things... (!)*

I shook my head, thinking it's still early in the morning and not too awake yet.

"...Hm?  Do you all need something?", the man questioned our puzzled looks.

"What are you doing with that?", Ace asked first.

"This?  As you can see I'm painting the roses red.", he explained.

"Eh?  Why would you?", Deuce replied to his answer.

"Hmm, your fresh reaction is so cute!  Now that I take a good look at you, you're the freshman that busted the 10,000,000 madol chandelier yesterday.", he says.

"We're gonna hear about the chandelier until the day we graduate...", Ace groaned.

"And you're the one who added on more punishment by stealing the dorm leader's tart last night!  I feel so lucky getting to meet the notorious newcomers first thing in the morning.", he pointed to Ace, sounding really excited.

"Hey, hey, hey let's take a selfie!  Yaaay!", all of a sudden, he took his phone out and before I knew it a flash was struck and gone quicker than I realized he took a group photo.

"Can I put this on Magicame?  Tell me your names so I can put you in the tags.", and just like that he moves on to posting it without our say.

"I'm Deuce Spade.", Deuce was the first to oblige.

"Ace.", Ace.

"Grim and my hen-", before he finishes that sentence, I covered his mouth and intervened my name.

"Kalin."

"Hoi, upload finished!  Ah, I'm your senpai, third year Cater Diamond.  Call me Cater.  Cay is fine, too.  Nice to meetcha~", Cater.

"Nice to meet you too.", I replied.

"Ah, you're the supervisor from the Ramshackle Dorm I heard about.  Good on you, living in a place like that!  It's super dark and you can't get a good magicame in there.  You have my sympathy.", he took notice of me.

*(!) Great, now he reminds me the difference... (!)*

"This guy is really running his mouth.", Grim states.

"Ah, I don't have any time for small talk!  The party is in two days I don't wanna lose my head for being late.  Hey you guys, will you help me with painting the roses?", Cater speaks in a rushed tone.

"But why are you doing something so weird?", Ace questioned.

"Red Roses at a party are the most photogenic!  I guess? I've also got to change the flamingos' colors for the croquet match, so I'm busy with all this work.", Cater says in stress.

"You're changing flamingos' colors!?  Your chores are so weird.", Grim.

"So the tart that Ace ate was going to be used for the dorm leader's birthday party.  That's why he was so mad...", Deuce stated.

"Nope, that's not it.", Cater replied.

"It's not!?  Then who's birthday is it?", Ace.

"It's not anyone's birthday.  The day after tomorrow is our dorms traditional "Unbirthday Party".  The dorm leader chooses a random day that isn't anyone's birthday and we have a tea party.", Cater explains.

"The heck is that!?", Ace.

"Later, worry about the reason later!  All you have to do now is make the roses red!  Deuce, Grim, you two can do it with magic.  Ace, Supervisor, since you can't use magic here's some paint.", Cater hurriedly set up to work.

"We can change the color with magic...", Deuce.

"I've never done anything like that.", Grim stated.

"Okay, it's fine, just relax!  We'll figure it out!  We better hurry if we don't wanna lose our heads to the dorm leader~", Cater was definitely in hurry to get this done.

But after seeing Ace's situation with the collar, I could see why.  I try to delicately paint the roses gently and in a rush at the same time.  But I was nervous to my performance, since I've never done this before.  Cater was still doing his part in painting roses, but he was mostly watching how we we're doing on our side and I could tell from a glance he wasn't that pleased with our work so far.  I hope we don't lose our heads now...  I may not have magic, but it doesn't mean I want that collar on me anyhow.