Chapter 78: ~Chapter 26~ Part 1

"You have what?!" the princess shouted in a quite unladylike manner as she jumped to her feet and slapped the tabletop, prompting me to quickly grab the drinks in the middle before she would flood everything with them. I breathed out a sigh of relief as I managed to do so in the very last moment, then I glanced up at the wide-eyed girl standing on the opposite side of the dinner table.

"Careful," I told her as I set the glasses back down, then after a moment I added, "It's not such a big deal," but she only shook her head in response.

"No, this isn't something you can just trivialize like that!" she exclaimed again, and I let out another tired breath and gestured for her to sit back down.

Now, for a bit of an explanation, we had to turn back the sands of time for about… ten minutes or so? Anyways, since my new girlfriends (damn, that still sounded weird, no matter how many times I repeated it) couldn't agree on who should make dinner, by process of elimination, they both did. This explained the fact that we had two different kinds of broths, mashed potatoes, some kind of fruit salad, a plateful of toasts and even homemade waffles. Even if we considered that there were three of us, the amount of food on the table was a little daunting. As for where they even got the ingredients for all of this, that was one of the seven mysteries of my kitchen.

Anyways, once we sat down around the table, I decided to let the princess in on one of my little skeletons in the closet, namely my amnesia. She was my girlfriend after all (still weird), so it was only proper to let her know about some of my secrets, and this was one the less weird ones. … Which made me realize how messed up my life was once again, so I was trying to ignore it by filling my stomach, which she rudely interrupted. Hence, we were back in the present, where I rubbed my temple with one hand while grabbing a toast with another.

"I'm not trivializing anything. I had it even before we first met, and I learned to work around it. In other words, it's not that big a deal."

"How can you say that?" she continued to protest while leaning closer, her hands still on the tabletop. "And why didn't you tell me about this before?"

"It's complicated, so I kept it a secret," I answered between two bites. "In fact, you are only the third person in the know."

The blonde girl's eyes narrowed in suspicion as she took a sneaky glance at my assistant, who was quietly eating her broth on my right.

"Who are the others?"

"Judy and Josh," I answered honestly.

"A—!" She began while she pointed an accusatory finger at me, but then her enthusiasm wilted in a matter of moments and her exclamation ended in a soft "…ha?", then she shook her head and leaned even closer, to the point where she was practically on top of the food in the middle of the table, and she asked, "I kind of expected Judy, but Josh too?"

"He was the first," I answered while I extended my arm and pushed her back with an index finger while telling her, "If you keep doing that, the end of your hair is going to get into the soup."

She let out a soft 'Oh' and sat back down, only to give me a weird look a moment later.

"Why didn't you tell the others about it?"

"I told you, it's complicated," I answered with a voice that was only a tiny bit exhausted.

"But you told me."

Now it was my turn to give her a weird look, and since she didn't seem to get the message, I told her, "It's because we are going out now."

"Oh, right," she muttered with an absent-minded voice, then her cheeks very slowly flushed as her lips curved upwards in a dopey smile and she began to giggle.

"Chief, she is creeping me out," my dear assistant stated with her usual deadpan voice, which was quite an achievement considering her cheeks were so full of waffles she reminded me of a hamster. Unexpectedly, the princess didn't react to her words; instead she had a weird, dreamy look in her eyes. I looked between my two girlfriends (nope, still weird), and for a moment I couldn't decide which of them was the stranger. But then again, people in glass houses shouldn't call other people weirdoes or something. … I never got that saying, by the way. Who lives in glass houses? And why would they throw rocks? Language is weird.

Anyways, I exploited the fleeting lull in the conversation to empty my mug, and by the time I put it down, the princess got over her momentary stupor and shook her head.

"Wait, don't try to sweet-talk me!"

"I didn't," I answered her protest with one of my own, and she honest to goodness huffed.

"You think I wouldn't be on to you after all this time?" she asked with a cocky grin. "Whenever you want to dodge a question, you would say something to embarrass me. However, it's not going to work anymore!" Saying so, she pointed a challenging finger at me. I don't know how I knew it was a challenging one and not an accusative one, I just did. "Since I'm your girl… friend… now…"

Aaaaaand she got exactly that far before her voice trailed off, an almost translucent blush conquered her face, and her mouth twisted into a dopey smile… again.

"Chief, I think Eleanor is broken. We should return her to the shop while we still have the warranty on her," Judy spoke up with a serious expression, then after a momentary pause she added, "No need to fix her, just ask for our money back."

"Hush, Dormouse," I chided my assistant. "She's just not used to the situation yet. Remember how much she used to freak out whenever I teased her in the past? She got over that too. I'm sure if we give her a little time, she'll be fine."

Judy looked over the princess, then shrugged her shoulders and continued eating her fruit salad. In the meantime, Elly wiped the smile off her face and scowled at me.

"Oh, that's a nostalgic look," I spontaneously muttered, earning me a curiously raised eyebrow from both girls, so I hastily added, "It's been a while since you glared at me like that. It brings back memories."

The princess let out a huff and averted her face with a pout.

"And whose fault was that?"

"You can't fault me. It's in men's nature to tease girls."

"No Chief, that's just your nature," my assistant retorted between two bites.

"Right, it's all because you are a flirt!" Suddenly the princess's eyes opened a fraction wider and then her brows immediately knit together in a frown as her gaze returned to me. "Now that you mention it, no more flirting!"

"Pardon?" I asked reflexively, taken more than a little aback.

"I said, no more flirting," Elly repeated with a look that was even more intense than usual. "Since we are in a relationship…" She paused for a moment, and while I was half-expecting that she would start giggling to herself again, she only closed her eyes for a moment, took a huge breath, and continued, "… since we are in a relationship, you cannot flirt with other girls anymore!"

"I never flirted with anyone other than you," I answered emphatically, which, to my sincerest surprise, drew a reaction out of the other girl.

"I knew it!" Judy exclaimed… well, no, in her case it was more like 'said a bit more forcefully', but the effect was the same. Semantics aside, she continued by stating, "So you were aware that you were flirting with Eleanor."

"Well, in retrospect…" I muttered while scrutinizing the far corner of the room. Because it was interesting. There was no other reason. I was most definitely not avoiding her gaze at all.

"He was flirting with you too!" the other girl exclaimed as she pointed at my assistant with a fork in hand.

"That's a given," Judy answered, completely deadpan as usual.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means it's only a problem when he flirts with other girls."

"That's right!" the princess agreed, completely ignoring the fact that Judy probably meant said category included her as well, and she faced me again. "There you go, we are both in agreement! You are no longer allowed to flirt and tease girls."

I let out a small sigh and faced her accusatory fork (that somehow collected half a kiwifruit somewhere along the conversation).

"Fine, fine. So what you are saying is that I am only allowed to tease you from now on, my princess."

"That's…" Elly gave me a classic deer-in-the-headlights look.

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"Say no more! I promise that, from now on, I will dedicate my whole being to teasing you!"

"Don't do that!" she riposted while she was getting red up to her ears again.

"But I have to! You just told me that it's my nature, and therefore I have to tease someone. Since you are the only one I can tease, it is only logical that I will—"

"What about her?!" she interrupted me while waving her hand towards my assistant. I also glanced over, and for a moment our eyes met. We held eye contact for a second, then Judy put down her own fork and let out a small sigh that sounded weirdly exasperated.

"I guess I have no choice," she uttered in a defeated voice, "Since you asked me directly, I will oblige and tease you too. Are you happy now?"

"No! That's not what I was asking for!"

"Too late," Judy said before she turned to me and asked, "Chief, since you are awake now, would you mind if I stayed over?"

The question raised a brow on my end, especially since it felt like a bit of a non-sequitur, but in the end I nodded. We had a lot of things to discuss regarding the past three days, the state of the Celestial Hub, and some other things as well, so I was already inclined to ask her to stay for a while longer.

"Very well. We need to explore a lot of things," Judy told me with a weird emphasis on the word 'explore', but I still nodded. "For example, we need to document your scars. I want to observe your body. From up close."

Again, there was some weird emphasis on certain words, and I finally figured out where she was going with this, so I gave her a knowing smile and told her, "Sure, you can look as much as you want."

"Can I touch too?"

"Only if you promise you won't poke too hard. I'm sensitive."

"I know. I will be very gentle for your first… examination."

"Now that you put it like that, I am getting a little shy," I told her with fake modesty.

"I want to see all of you, but I guess we can do it in the dark for the first time."

I wanted to point out that the innuendo no longer worked with that, but then all of a sudden there was a loud creak coming from the other side of the table. We both looked over and found the princess gripping her fork so hard it was being bent out of shape.

"Leooooo…" she began to growl in a weird voice, but before I could answer, she suddenly jumped to her feet. No, correction: she jumped right over the table and towards me with a weird battle-cry saying, "LEWDING IS PROHIBITED!"

Before I knew it, I too was on my feet and, using my finely honed girl-catching reflexes (which was a skill I still couldn't believe I had to develop), I grabbed the irate girl under her arms with a deft motion that surprised even me, then I spun her around to disperse the momentum. This part made me a little dizzy, but by some miracle I somehow managed to land my butt right back on my chair with a faint thud, followed by another soft sound as the princess landed on my lap.

After a long moment of silence, during which I admired the fact that I somehow managed to do all that without turning over the table, or even disturbing the dishes too much, I let out a pent-up breath and asked, "What does 'lewding' even mean?"

"Was that really the first question that you should ask in this situation?" my disgruntled assistant inquired while getting out from under the table. I was tempted to ask just what she was doing under there, but then she sat down like it never happened, so I decided to ignore her and focus on the beet-red girl on my lap.

"What was that all about?"

"Shut up," she answered while averting her eyes. "You two are jerks."

"Now, now," I reflexively patted the head of the sulking girl. "We were just teasing you. We even told you we were going to do it."

"That's…" she began speaking, but then she just fell silent. I let out a sigh and looked over at my assistant, only to find her frowning back at me.

"Is there something you would like to say, Dormouse?" I asked cautiously.

"She tried to attack us, and you are now rewarding her. You are spoiling her, Chief."

"I'm not," I answered indignantly. "Not to mention, I am pretty sure that wasn't an attack, just another one of her embarrassed reactions. She didn't mean harm, right, Princess?" The girl on my lap nodded without a word. "You see?"

Judy's expression didn't change an iota.

"Playing favorites already?" she asked with thinly veiled irritation.

"Most definitely not," I answered in kind.

"That's not how it looks like from here," came the instantaneous answer, prompting me to roll my eyes and gesture with my free hand.

"Then come over here."

There was zero hesitation in her movements as my dear assistant stood up, walked over, and pushed the princess to the side with her butt so that she could also sit on my lap. For some reason, I was getting a distinct sense of déja vu…

"Are you happy now?" I asked with a smile I hoped was dry enough to soak up oceans, but then Judy honest to goodness raised a finger to her lips like she was deep in thought before she lowered her head.

"Head pat," she stated with her usual lack of enthusiasm, yet the small tinge of red on her cheeks told me she was less calm than what she showed on the surface. Since I didn't respond right away, she repeated, "I demand a head pat."

I rolled my eyes again and used my free hand to tussle her hair a little.

"We should've done this in the first place," Elly grumbled, earning a questioning look in the process.

"We should have done what? Head pats?"

"No!" The blonde girl puffed her cheek for a moment, then she exhaled and told me, "I mean, I'm not saying I'm against it. It feels really nice and comfortable, and it makes my heart beat harder, and… Um…" She paused, probably realizing she went off-topic, and then she came back with, "I wanted to say we should've sat like this from the beginning. I sat on the other side so we could eat face to face, but then Judy sat down next to you. Then I realized I wanted to sit next to you too."

"… Then why didn't you just come over?"

"Because it would've made it look like I was following Judy's lead, and I didn't want to be second in line."

For a while, I could only stare at the girl in disbelief.

"Don't tell me we are going to be dealing with this kind of nonsense from now on?"

"It's your fault," Judy told me while she reached over and grabbed a toast.

"Yeah," Elly agreed while trying to, and failing, to reach her plate while still sitting on my lap.

I couldn't help but shake my head. My girlfriends (no, still not used to it) were on the same wavelength at the weirdest of times, but I had to grant it to them, they were right. I chose this outcome, so I had to live with the consequences. We still had a lot of kinks to hammer out though. For example, how the heck was I supposed to have dinner like this…?

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