He's not perfect. He's not Superman. Cut him some slack. Even Clark Kent made a few mistakes.

-Sunmeee.

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'Have you lost your damn mind?!' Gavin whispered heatedly.

'Actually, there's still an argument going on as to whether I had one to begin with.'

'I'm on a date!'

'I know. I'm here to ruin it.' I beamed.

'You better leave here before Asia comes back from the toilet.' He warned.

'Nice restaurant. Good choice.' I said, taking in the decor. It was a fancy dimly lit room furnished in rich brown and dark red tones.

'Its cozy and intimate. Nice work.'

'Will you leave!' He snapped.

I pretended to think about it for a second. 'Hmmm. Nope. I'm fulfilling my cougar duties.'

'So, what? This is payback for calling you a cougar?'

'You're a smart one, aren't ya?' I muttered sarcastically.

'You can't be serious.'

'You called me a cougar, Gavin. And cougars don't like it when their... preys go on dates with younger girls. They tend to go all...' I trailed off.

'What are you doing?'

'I'm trying to remember any popular movie where the girl got ditched for a younger girl. Aha! The lady that pushed someone out the window in The Other Woman!'

'She wasn't a cougar in the Other Woman. She was his wife and the other two girls didn't know he was cheating on them with each or that he was married. You know that I'm with Asia.'

'And who's to say you're not cheating on me with her.'

'Are you for real? I'm not. I've never even complimented you! Much less looked at you like that.'

'Maybe in some alternate universe, you're in love with me so that means in this universe, you're cheating on me.'

'That makes no sense. You're insane. You know that?'

I smiled brightly.

'It is not a compliment!'

'Eh.'

'Do you know what I just realized?' I asked.

'I don't want to know. But you're not going to listen to me anyways so just go ahead.'

'You've watched The Other Woman.'

'Kelsey.' He said by way of explanation.

'It's okay to admit you're into girly movies, Gavin. No one is judging you.'

'Just get out of here.'

'I don't see that happening.'

'Vasilisa.' He growled.

'Hmmm. You called me Vasilisa and not Starlight. You must be pretty mad.' I grinned.

'Vasilisa, I swear to God...'

'Hold it. Here comes Asia. We don't want her to see you talking to yourself now, do we?'

He glared at me.

'I'm just saying, it might scare her off.'

'Hey, who were you talking to?' Asia asked, slipping into the dark booth.

'Uh... No one. Kelsey just called.' He lied.

'Liar liar pants on fire.' I sang.

'Shut up and get out of here.' He growled lowly.

'Sorry, did you say something?' Asia shifted forward.

'Oh, no. No. I was just... Clearing my throat.' He said and followed the lie with a series of exaggerated coughs.

'Hmm. Ha! Hahaha.' I laughed. 'Clearing you throat? That's original.'

He didn't reply.

'What are you going to come up with next huh?'

He completely ignored me.

'Oh, so you're icing me out, huh? Good luck with that. I can be pretty annoying when I want to.'

'So how was your coders meeting?'

'Coders what?' I gaped.

'Yeah. It went great actually. How did you know about that?' Asia asked with a pleasantly surprised smile.

'You mentioned it the other day at the grocery store.' He answered.

'Yeah but... I just said it in passing. I didn't think you'd remember. Or that you cared.' She beamed.

'I do remember and I do care. It matters to you and so I'm making it important to me.' He met her gaze.

'Ugh. So sappy.' I groaned. 'Where's a pitchfork when you need it?'

'So how was it?' He pressed.

'Great actually. We have a new member. He's an awesome coder. He wrote this amazing software and it can compute just abou--' She abruptly stopped talking.

'I'm going full nerd aren't I?' She blushed prettily, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.

Hmmm. Wish I could pull off a move like that.

'No. It's cute actually.' Gavin grinned. 'Though I think I have some competition with this new anonymous "awesome" coder.'

'Like you could ever have competition.' She muttered.

A lazy panty melting grin slid onto his face. 'Really?' He drawled.

'Oh my God. Did I say that out loud? Oh God, I did.' She groaned. 'Somebody please shoot me right now.'

'I don't have a gun but I've got a pitchfork I could stab you with if you're okay with that?'

She buried her face in her palms. 'I'm dying of embarrassment.'

Gavin smiled. Smiled. A genuine smile. Do you people see the miracle happening here? Gavin smiled! At her! He smiled! The world is coming to an end. It has to be.

'Don't be. It's fine. Besides its good to know I don't have to worry about your mysterious coder guy.' He took a sip of his water. 'And it's cute when you're all flushed and embarassed.'

Ugh. When I decided to come and ruin your date, I didn't count on you choking me with your sappiness. One more mushy romantic nonsense and I'm out of here.

'Actually he's not mysterious. It's Tom.' She said offhandedly and tried to hide the redness of her face behind a curtain of hair.

Sweetheart, that's not going to do you any good. With how red those cheeks are, they can be spotted all the way from China.

'It's who?' Gavin frowned.

'Tom.'

'Tom as in Tom. My friend, Tom?' Gavin asked.

'I didn't know you knew two Toms.'

'I was just checking.' He nodded.

'Okay.'

'So who else do I have to worry about?' He asked playfully.

'Well, Justin Bieber. But that was just for a short while. Before he went all evil rogue.'

'Evil rogue?' He arched a brow.

'Not the best choice of words. I know but you can't blame me. I for one, blame my mom. She's a college professor. She majored in English Literature. So you see? I had no choice.'

'Of course not. You poor thing. I'm sure your childhood was filled with big intellectual words and zero baby talk.' He joked.

'And let's not forget the fancy dinners for her colleagues and their book club meetings.' She played along.

Their eyes met. Neither of them said anything. They just stared at each. Their gazes locked. And then she gave a small smile. Gavin smiled back. Two seconds later, they were laughing over God knows what. Maybe there's something in the air that's making them act loony.

I glanced around the restaurant. Nope. Nothing in the air. Everyone seems fine except from that guy who keeps itching his butt. Weird.

'You know, you're not what I expected.' Asia commented.

'I hope that's a good thing?' He reached over the table and took her hands.

A pitchfork. A spike. An axe. Just give me something to kill myself with.

'Yeah. It is.' She whispered. Her cheeks reddened even further. I didn't even think that was possible. And that's coming from a girl with the wildest imagination known to mankind.

Gavin studied her intently for a few seconds. She stiffened slightly and toyed with the sleeve of her blouse.

'What is it? Did I say something wrong? Or do I have something on my face?' She asked with a nervous laugh.

'Yeah Gavin. What is it? You don't study a girl like she's some bacteria under a microscope. It tends to make us self-conscious which we do not like.' I butted in.

'No. You didn't do anything and you don't have anything on your face either. It's just... You're beautiful.' He whispered, giving her hands a small affectionate squeeze.

That's the Playboy I know.

'Okay. That's it. I can't take this anymore. I'm out of here.' I announced.

In the blink of an eye, I was back in his room. I wasted no time in continuing The Flash. Thank God Gavin had enough common sense to rent the entire season.

***

A knock echoed through the room. Kelsey poked her head in. She sighed before nudging the door wider. She walked in and shut it quietly behind her. She sat on the edge of bed, just centimetres from my feet. She wrung her hands nervously.

'Hey.' She said softly. 'Are you in here? Gavin said you were. That you're watching The Flash. I love that movie by the way. Can you hear me? I wanted to talk. I don't know if you can do something. Make a way so I can hear you as well. I brought a dry erase board and a marker in case.'

Seriously?

'I can hear you, Kelsey.' I projected my voice so she could hear me as well. I'm was a powerful witch once upon a time but I'm not as good as I used to be so my voice came out muffled and a little distorted.

'You have a nice voice.' She smiled.

'Thanks but you didn't come here to talk about my voice.'

'No. I didn't. I came here to talk about you. And Gavin. And this whole curse thing.'

'Kelsey, I know the fact that I'm cursed isn't exactly promoting confidence in me at the mome---'

'No. That's not it.' She interrupted. 'I'm sure you're a good person. I know my brother. Gavin wouldn't do this... All what he's doing. The good deeds. The donating stuff to the foundation and all those other things for just anyone. It pains me to say it but that's not who Gavin is. His first instinct isn't to help other people. Well, actually it is because he's always putting me and our parents first but we're family and that's different. Anyway my point is, you're good. Or at least there's something good about you that convinced him to help you. I know when you look at him, you see this playboy but he's more than that.'

Actually, I blackmailed him into helping me but sure let's assume he saw something good in me.

'Kelsey.'

Taking that as rebuttal, she went on to try to convince me that Gavin isn't just a playboy.

'He is. He's thoughtful. He's honest. Caring. I want to say kind but I'm gonna stick with kind-ish. Once in a while. And he surprises you. Sometimes he just does things that are so thoughtful and heartfelt and you wonder how he knew that that's exactly what you needed but that's just who he is. And he pretends it's nothing but he listens. He notices. He cares.' She shifted closer to my feet but she didn't know that since she couldn't see me.

'Gavin is... You probably don't know. I'm sure you've never seem him do that but he does it. And it just warms you inside.' She smiled fondly. My mind flashed back to the library when he wanted to ditch his friends just so I could see the stars.

And then to the alley behind the Callahan bakery where he saved that woman and her son.

Okay, so maybe there's more to him than just a player.

'I know. He has his moments.' I whispered.

'Oh. Good. That's good. I just... Please don't get him into any trouble. And when I say trouble I don't mean petty things. I mean serious trouble. Is this safe for him? I don't want him getting hurt? I know he likes to act like he has this tough exterior. They all do. Him, Tom and Leo. Ever since they were kids, they've been doing that but they aren't so tough. They care. I'm not saying that they don't have a tough exterior. They do but they also care. So please just keep my brother safe. I don't want him to get hurt just because he didn't say no to helping you out.'

'And you trust me to not lie to you?' I asked.

'Gavin trusts you enough to help you. Something about you obviously convinced him enough to trust you that much and even though sometimes he does dumb things, really dumb things he's a pretty good judge of character. He acts stupid when it comes to emotions and things like that but he's not. Not even a little. I'm lucky to have a brother like him..'

Another montage of memories came into my mind. When Leo called him dumb and he pretended they were talking about academics and yet a few minutes later, when I told him about my grandmother, he understood everything perfectly.

'He's not going to get hurt breaking the curse. I promise. And for what it's worth Gavin is just as lucky to have you as you are to have him.'

'Thank you.' She smiled, standing up. 'That's all I wanted to talk about.'

I sighed dejectedly when the door closed behind her.

What have you gotten yourself into now, Hida?

Author's Note:

I'm swamped with lots of school work and I haven't had time to write so updates maybe a little erratic.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Thanks for reading. Have a lovely day/night :)

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