The moment the posters were up in the halls, the orphanage was abuzz with excitement. There wasn't a child in the whole building who was talking about the trip to the flying race, which wouldn't be for another month. It was anyone's guess whose name would be pulled, and three weeks later, on the day the names were being mixed and pulled, the children held their breaths.

Black Mist and Anuenue were doing this in Mist's room, with the lights on so they could see and write. Anuenue was in charge of pulling the names, and Mist was in charge of writing them down on a sheet they made so they knew how many names they had. While he was busy writing, she would take a look around the room.

She'd only ever seen it with the lights off; she learned Black Mist liked his room to be dark almost all the time, so she'd never seen what was really in it. She knew he liked music, that much was certain when they first met, but she didn't think his room practically doubled as instrument storage. Cases hung on the walls, presumably storing his precious instruments. On one wall, by a window, a lyre sat on the windowsill and a harp stood right beside it. True to their master's personality, they were painted dark colors, but that didn't take away from the fact that this seemingly stone-cold Number (which she found out to be false almost immediately) was a fan of delicate and typically feminine instruments.

"Quite the collection you have," she commented as she pulled another name. "And here I thought you kept everything in the music room."

Mist took the piece of paper and wrote it down on the sheet. "These are my own, bought with my money," he replied absently. "The ones in the music room are the ones Papa bought with the orphanage funds."

"When did you buy them?"

"Before I came back here, back when I was living int he dump."

"And how did you get paid there? I doubt they give teenagers a job."

Black Mist smirked. "You're assuming I worked for the money. There were gangs in my old town, as you probably guessed, so when I was desperate for food and had no money, I would resort to stealing from those gangs. A little from each, not too much to attract attention. I considered it a "tax," in a way." He chuckled, remembering the old days of messing with the gangs in non-destructive ways. Even at his peak out-of-controlness, he refused to cause very destructive trouble; he still heard Hope's voice in the back of his mind.

Anuenue smiled a bit awkwardly, but she had to admit she found this Number interesting. Still, she didn't particularly want to dig too deep into this. Not yet, at least. "So, are you done writing the names down?"

"No, not yet. Just ten more; we'll announce who gets to go tomorrow." So far, the results were looking good for him; his little Hachi was even lucky enough to get on the list! He smiled to himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Anuenue pulling more names and smiling at the result.

And so passed the morning into afternoon. Near twelve in the afternoon, two Shadow Creatures delivered lunch on a tray, specially made by Hope to keep their energy up. At the same time, they managed to finish writing down names.

"We finished pretty early," Anuenue commented as she swallowed her food. "You sure we should wait?"

Black Mist nodded. "Yeah. It'll keep them in suspense." He chuckled a bit at the thought.

She couldn't help but smile. "Yeah, you're right. It'll make finding out more fun. Besides, we have a week left; we have plenty of time."

"Now we're thinking the same way!"

They smiled at each other happily. For now, the curse was forgotten.

~.The Next Day.~

The children rushed to the living room at Hope's ushering, their excited voices overlapping one another, but the gossip was the same: two hundred twenty-five names would be chosen to go to the flying race. In truth, they would be excited about any outing if it meant going somewhere fun. 

Once everyone was in the living room, aside from the infants, of course, Black Mist announced those who were going. The children cheering and congratulating one another filled his heart with warmth; there was no way this outing would go wrong.

A/N: Short chapter, but I feel like it was fitting for this one. ^^ Hope you enjoyed~!