Yixing knelt on the floor, pain shooting up his back as he wiped the floor with a tattered rag. A soapy bucket of water stood nearby, occasionally stirring itself up. Yixing stifled a smile when he heard the squeals of satisfaction coming from the mice swimming in the suds. He’d slowly been growing ever more closer to the creatures, their companionship being all that he had for prolonged periods of the day.

“What are you smiling about?” Lady Fan Lei crossed the room, cat-like eyes slanted downwards. Yixing ducked his head immediately, scrubbing at the floor without a word to cover his slip.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spied a mouse scrambling out of the bucket, heading straight for Lady Fan Lei’s poison green dress. He bit down hard on his lip to refrain from laughing just as the woman turned and the mouse scaled up the back of her dress, little claws scrambling towards her waist. He could see Chanyeol in the corner and nodded his head towards the mouse, calling his attention to it. Chanyeol looked carefully and a slow smile crept over his handsome face.

The mouse clawed up to the back of Lady Fan Lei’s neck and start to nibble on the end of her heavy necklace. Chanyeol tried to cover a laugh behind his hand while Yixing bit down on his lower lip hard, dipping the rag into the bucket gently so as not to disturb the rest of the mice in water.

“Mother! Mother! Have you heard?! The king’s messenger just arrived!” Just as Zitao came rushing into the room, the clasp on Lady Fan Lei’s necklace snapped and it fell from her neck to hit the floor at her feet.

Lady Fan Lei screamed and the mouse dashed off her shoulders, jumped down onto the floor in front of her, waving its whiskers mischievously. Its black eyes teasing her. Zitao let out an ear splitting shriek and leapt up the nearest chair, pointing at the mouse on the carpet in terror.

Lady Fan Lei screeched again and Chanyeol burst out in laughing.

“Catch it you idiot!” The woman yelled and Yixing obediently placed down his rag, going over to scoop the mouse up in his hands, hiding a smile by biting the gummy parts of his cheeks.

He took the mouse outside and set it down.

“Off you go and thank you.” He grinned and its tiny head before returning inside.

The rest of the mice had already evacuated the room because Lady Fan Lei had Minseok poking into corners to look for any more mice while she listened to her son’s animated chatter about the king’s messengers. “The king has proclaimed a ball! Three nights, dancing the night away with the prince! It’s a masquerade ball. Oh Mother, I simply must have new clothes made for it.”

Zitao gushed, clutching the invitation tightly to his chest, Chanyeol just looked at his brother in exasperation. “Why do you even need something new? Surely there is something in that massive wardrobe of yours that is ballroom worthy. Yixing is the one who needs new clothes.”

Lady Fan Lei’s elaborately painted lips fell open in a unattractively fierce snarl. “Surely you are not suggesting that I would allow that servant boy to attend this ball! That is absolutely absurd Channie.”

Yixing’s heart sank like the rag he’d just placed into the bucket of soaped water. Chanyeol rolled his eyes and pointed to a line on the invitation.

All eligible young men and maidens in the country are required to be present.

“It is the king’s word and the king’s word is law, isn’t it Mother?”

Zitao scoffed and got up from his place. “I sincerely doubt you can make someone like him presentable for something like this.” Lady Fan Lei nodded in agreement. “I will not be wasting money and resources to buy an outfit him when he is not even going to be seen by the royal family.”

Chanyeol watched on open-mouthed as his mother strode off into her room, no doubt to send a telegram to the dressmaker and have her create new outfits for her and her two favoured sons.

Yixing picked up the bucket and smiled sadly at Chanyeol as he passed him to the kitchen. “We will get you ballroom ready. The ball is in three days, we will find something for you.” Chanyeol pushed Yixing up the stairs and into his room. He rummaged around in his wardrobe as Yixing stood in the doorway of Chanyeol’s room uncertainly. Chanyeol had taken his old room but had left it just the way Yixing had decorated it with the blue wallpaper and velvet green drapes. “Come in. There’s no need for you to stand in the doorway like a stranger.” Chanyeol tossed the sentence over his shoulder as he pulled clothes out of the wardrobe. He frowned at the first outfit he held it in his hand and threw it aside. “Too shiny.” He plucked out a white button up and a pair of black slacks. “Try this on.”

The command spurred Yixing into action immediately and he slipped behind the screen across the room and changed into the clothes Chanyeol handed him. The taller clapped his hands in delight when Yixing stepped out from behind the screen, self consciously hugging himself. The button up was so tight that it clung his every curve almost obscenely and he wondered where on earth Chanyeol had managed to find something so small when he was so tall. “You look amazing! We just need to get Minseok to shorten the trousers and find you some good shoes.”

Yixing gave him a rare, shy smile and feels the excitement build up within him.

He was going to the ball!

---------

The night of the ball came all too quickly for Yixing as he spent his time gluing sequins to his stepbrother’s already blindingly bejeweled jacket. Once it was completed, he spent hours sewing feathers to Zitao’s mask and fixing Chanyeol’s old mask up for himself. The taller stepbrother actually managed to crack Minseok’s icy exterior and convince him to alter Chanyeol’s pants for Yixing.

Yixing spread yellow glue across the mask he was holding it; it was an old white mask that Chanyeol passed over to him and he repainted it blue to compliment his dark brown eyes. He pressed the feathers he managed to find against the glue delicately and held them as steady as he could.

The single candle he had been given by his stepmother flickered and went out, settling a blanket of dark over everything. He sighed while setting the mask down onto the old box he was using as a desk, keeping it out of sight of everybody but himself and the mice.

---------

“Mother! I need new boots for the ball!” Zitao ran into the room where Yixing was polishing Chanyeol’s already shined dress shoes.

“What’s wrong with your old ones?” Chanyeol looked up from where he was writing inside a notebook to ask his brother, confused by the spoiled attitude his younger brother showed.

“Nothing. I just need new ones.” Chanyeol rolled his eyes until only the white could be seen and went back to his book. Yixing hid a smile and picked up his cloth from the floor before heading out of the room.

It was the evening before the ball and Yixing was kept busy with orders from his stepmother and brother with things like; “Come fix my dress!” and “Some sequins fell off, put them back on now!”

He had no time to even think about his own outfit which Chanyeol had assured him was ready. When Lady Fan Lei and Zitao are finally satisfied with their outfits, Yixing was so tired that he could barely make it up to the attic to change into his own outfit.

He slipped into the contrastingly simplistic clothes as quickly as he could, practically running down the stairs when he heard his family preparing to leave.

Lady Fan Lei froze in the doorway when she laid eyes upon her step son standing on the staircase, looking stunning even in a plain white button up and black trousers. Much more so than her own sons in their ornate designs, not that she would ever say that aloud. She forced a smile to her lips as she turned from the doorway and approached Yixing.

“Why, how wonderful you look Yixing. Wherever did you get something so nice from?” She gritted out from between clenched teeth, as she reached a hand to touch Yixing’s collar.

Yixing flushed a pretty pink. “Thank you, stepmother.” He bowed his head and allowed the lady to finger at the neckband of his shirt.

“It’s a terrible pity.” Lady Fan Lei’s lips curled up into a cruel smirk, even as she closed her fingers tightly around the cloth and tears.

The horrific ripping sound startles the two men standing in the doorway and Chanyeol clenches his fists in anger. Yixing cried out in surprise when the fabric of his shirt was torn away and the skin beneath assaulted by the cool night air immediately. He stares at his stepmother, completely dazed.

“You can’t go to the ball looking like that can you Yixing.”

There was a teasing smile on Lady Fan Lei’s face as she released his ruined shirt and turned away. “Let’s go boys. Stay at home Yixing.” She threw the command carelessly and it struck like a knife into Yixing’s heart.

He barely managed to hold in his tears until the golden carriage rolled out of sight before rushing out of the house towards the white wood tree over his parents’ grave. The tears flowed freely as he collapsed upon the gravestones and wept out audibly, shoulders heaving up and down with emotion, torn shirt flying loosely in the night air.

He released all the pent up frustration, anger and hopelessness that he held in through the years that night, until there was nothing left for him but to sob quietly to the tree that he was sure held the souls of his parents.

Footsteps echoed on the granite stones that paved the way to Yixing, the boy looking up to see Minseok standing with a lantern in his hand. He gazed down sympathetically and Yixing shut his eyes, feeling his face go hot, and red, with humiliation.

“Get up. You’re going to the ball.” Yixing let out a long breath and huffed, still keeping his upper lids set down to the lower ones.

“I’m not allowed. The curse remember?” He opened his eyes to look up at the servant and, to his surprise, Minseok laughed and held out a hand for him to take.

“You seem to have forgotten that I am your fairy godfather.”

Yixing’s face dropped in complete shock.“You mean, you can reverse…”

“No.”

Yixing visibly deflated.

“I can reverse her command until midnight. By midnight, however, the curse will take effect and you must return.”

Yixing nodded excitedly before his face fell deeply again. He glanced down at his torn shirt and shook his head. “I cannot go like this.”

Minseok rolled his eyes. “Of course not. Come.”

He said nothing more and just started taking swift steps towards the house, leaving Yixing with no choice but to follow behind.