Paxton nodded as Mirajane explained that she would prefer to stay outside of her lamp house while she could. Apparently it wasn’t as great of a place as he had thought it was, but if she didn’t like living in it, why did she seem so annoyed when he summoned her? The genie’s actions seemed to contradict what she said. If the inside of the lamp really was such a dark and dull place, he would have expected her to be rejoicing that she was free again, not wrinkling her nose whenever her new master said a word to her.

[color=fff79a][b]“Now, I shall return in a moment.”[/b][/color] Mirajane said. [color=fff79a][b]“Simply alert me if you require my attention.”[/b][/color] With that, she ascended right through the roof of Paxton’s bedroom. He opened his mouth to call after her, initially jumping to the conclusion that she was ditching him to run away, and then closed it again when he caught sight of the vaporous trail that followed after the genie. He had forgotten: She was still bound to the lamp and couldn’t leave even if she wanted to. Now that he thought about it, maybe that was why she was so bitter. In a sense, Mirajane was a slave to whoever picked up the lamp. That was a sad existence. He made a mental note to be nicer to her in the future.

With the genie gone, Paxton got up from his bed and walked down to the bathroom across the hallway. He looked into the mirror and frowned at the reflection that stared back at him. He looked exactly the same as before: messy black hair, wide rimmed glass perched on the bridge of his nose, and a noticeably pathetic lack of muscles. He had been gypped after all.

Paxton marched irritably back to his room. Mirajane had said to alert her if he wanted anything, but she had conveniently forgotten to mention [i]how[/i] he could do that. He sighed and flopped down on his bed, staring at the trail of smoke that led up through the roof of his bedroom. He would just have to wait until she came back.