Chapter 101: Invitation
[Edited by: Arthur300000, ArchmageNaoki, and Deathbricks]
“Close your eyes.” Barbara said just before several tiny streams of warm water from the showerhead landed on me, sending several bubbles flying up into the air.
With my eyes closed, I could sense the sensations around me even clearer. I could feel every bit of the bathroom tiles under my feet, the pressure Barbara’s fingers applied on my skin, and sometimes, Barbara’s boobs brushing on my back.
In other words, right now, I took a shower with my niece again…
Dear FBI, there was also a good reason behind this. I did it because of those mini ducks. Right, these harmless yellow ducklings are very scary. It gave me no other choice but to take a shower with my niece as soon as we entered our new temporary home.
Anyways, my morally doubtful conduct aside, our new place was one of the suites in the student dorm. It was on the top floor and also has a nice view. Still, it was a lot smaller than my last place. But since I blew up that one spectacularly, I had to put up with this for now.
The suite consisted of one bedroom, one bathroom, and one living room cum kitchen. Moreover, necessary furniture was preinstalled. It also didn’t have any mold like my apartment on earth, and it had sufficient lighting from some kind of strange yellowish boxes that slowly expand and shrink on the ceiling... Sometimes, I could swear that I heard it faintly breathing.
“Alright, do you need me to wash your back?” I turned back to Barbara and offered my help.
“No thanks. On the contrary, you should dry your own hair this time.” … She seemed to still be angry at me about throwing her mini duck away.
I nodded and went out of the shower room but decided to turn back.
“You know that I did that for you, right?” I deeply breathed in vapor filled air to gain more courage to talk back to my niece.
“But poor Mr. Snubby might not survive the fall!” She said while setting her hands on her hips.
“He’s a fungus-” So, he should be able to survive the fall, was what I was going to say.
“Because he's made of mushroom, it’s alright to throw him!?” Barbara looked angry…
“I wouldn’t put it that way…” I tried to argue.
“So, how would you like to put it?” She forcefully stared at me. The courage from a deep breath of air seemed to not be as effective as I thought.
“Something like that, but less angry.” I gave in. Lesson learned, don’t argue with an angry woman.
It took some time to apologize, but she seemed less angry when I did so. However, her mood seemed to be pretty fragile, like walking on thin ice. So I decided to play it safe and went out of the steamy bathroom alone, in my new pajamas, and a big towel on my head.
Usually, Pristia, mom, Cocoa, and Barbara always took a turn drying my hair for me. But seriously, how hard can it be to do it alone. The only difference from my past life was the length after all.
While Cocoa is still busy transferring the content of one pot to what she called a pressure cooker while mumbling something like ‘the meat was tougher than I thought’, I skipped to the sofa and turned on the television. Then I began to move the towel on my head to absorb the moisture off them. The cool sensation after the hot shower felt refreshing.
“Welcome back my dear- Who is that girl behind you?” A middle-aged actress said to a man.
“Uh, you see-” The man looked awkward.
“Hello, I’m Jezabel, your husband's wife from his past life.” A blonde elementary girl announced.
… ‘Soap opera in this world seems scary’. I thought as I kept rubbing my hair with a towel, but for some reason, it refused to dry. Anyways, I switched to the next channel.
“Look at what I bring, Sarah! It’s BFV-10000! This time, it’s even more powerful than the BFV-9000, the super-popular vacuum cleaner that we sold last week.”
“Oh my god Josh, it’s over 9000!”
Damn, my mom bought that 9000 model just a while ago, now they come out with a better model, huh? I wondered whether or not they have the option to return the previous model.
As I was going to change to the next channel, the doorbell rang.
“Kuro, can you get the door for me? It might be the stuff I bought from the internet.” Barbara yelled from the bathroom.
“Alright, I’ll get it!” I yelled as I tread on the hard wooden floor to get to the door. How she could order something to deliver the same day we moved in was beyond me though.
The door’s peephole was installed too high for me. So, I didn’t bother looking through it and just open the door as it was. However, what's waiting at the other side of the door wasn’t the delivery man, but something else entirely.
“H-hello, I saw that you just moved in, so I thought that you might want to go out and have dinner with me.” It was a brown curly hair highschool boy thrusting three crystalline flowers at me.
“Errrr- you are not the delivery man?” In my defense, my head short-circuited the moment I realized that a horny boy was standing outside my room.
“I.. er.. I could be-” He awkwardly placed his hand on the wall while trying to lean on me, making a very strange face.
“No.” I reorganized my thoughts and closed the door.
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‘Maybe I should try drying a few strands at a time, rubbing them all together doesn’t seem to work well’ I thought as I went back to the sofa. However, it wasn’t even half a minute before the doorbell rang again.
“What is it this time-” I was going to yell at the boy, however, this time it was two girls instead. I was too absorbed in watching TV and drying my hair that I didn’t notice the people outside had changed.
“Surprise!!!!” Valerie’s roommate, the platinum hair, red eyes, sharp fangs, and pale skin girl in a revealing dress yelled while popping a party cone... Her suggestive dress made a stark contrast between her and Valerie who was garbed in a cute stylish Eskimo suit and carried a basket of fruits.
“Hey, how did you know that I moved in?” I didn’t remember telling them. I was too busy pushing my niece to take a bath, after all.
“A little bird told me.” The cleavage-, ahem, Valerie’s roommate replied.
“Oh, come on in.” I had absolutely no idea what that little bird was, but I invited cle-, I mean them in anyway.
“Thanks, by the way, did you know that cute moping guy who just passed us by?” Valerie’s roommate asked.
“I have absolutely no idea.” I honestly answered. However, as soon as Valerie’s roommate spotted Cocoa, she seemed to immediately forget about that boy and rushed in.
“Aww! And who is this cutie!?” Valerie’s roommate locked on her new target and went for a hug.
“Un-hand me this moment!” Cocoa protested while she helplessly swung her large spoon.
“Hey, don’t cause trouble, Scarlet!” Valerie rushed to the scene. Her name was Scarlet, huh? Anyways, I feast my eyes on the nicest scene of the day, the three girls wrestling.
“Are they your friends?” Then Barbara came out of the bathroom with a hairdryer in her hand. Judging from her facial expression, she seemed to be less angry.
“Yep, I hope so.” I replied honestly and tried my luck by asking for her to dry my perpetually wet hair.
.
.
.
The meal was wonderful. Cocoa’s cooking was perfect. I’ve never tried this kind of meat before, it had a unique texture and fragrance. Totally worth the long wait.
Also, the sociable Scarlet made the mood jubilant. We chatted and teased each other like the argument between me and Barbara didn’t happen.
After the meal, Cocoa seemed to be a bit reluctant about bringing out her dessert box. However, as a host, I ordered her to distribute the cake inside. Well, there were only four pieces of cake and five of us, so I can see why she was reluctant.
In the end, we solved the problem by sharing all of them amongst us. And for some reason, it turned into a feeding each other by spoon game. Valerie was a tough nut to crack, but after I poked her cheeks a few times with a spoon while calling her ‘big brother’, she gave in and let me feed her.
Some people are easy to manipulate if you know how they tick. I learned something new every day.
“Do you have any plans this weekend?” Scarlet asked after the dessert.
“Uhm, not yet.” I answered.
“Me neither.” Barbara chimed in.
“How about we go hiking?” Scarlet suggested. Hiking? Stupidly climbing a mountain and offer yourself to be a wild animal's meal with no goal in mind? I have zero interest in that kind of activity. Still, climbing Scarlet-, I mean climbing with Scarlet might not be so bad.
“Isn’t that dangerous? I heard that there were monsters outside the city.” Barbara asked. Well, I did tell her that because Barbara didn’t have anything to protect herself with except that flimsy fireball spell out there.
“There are several tourist spots that are monster free.” She replied while eyeing Valerie. Maybe that means we were thinking alike. “The troll peak near our school for example, above the ski resort, there are beautiful glaciers and a crystal cave.”
“I want to go!” The outgoing Barbara said excitedly… Shouldn’t she have some doubt about why do they put the word ‘troll’ there?
“Uhm, sorry, but I am forbidden from leaving the city.” I tried to stop this line of conversation before things start getting out of hand.
“That’s too bad. I thought we could celebrate the full moon festival together.” I didn’t know what this festival was all about, but Barbara seemed visibly sad.
“Maybe we could go to the city’s park-” I was going to suggest the lake that I saw from biology class as an alternative, but the doorbell rang again. It should be Barbara’s package this time.
“I’ll get it.” I slid down the chair and run for the door. It was already late, so it was safer for me to handle this. If there were bad guys out there, at least I could still do something.
“Oh, it’s just you.” I opened the door and found that it was Kael waiting outside.
“I’m offended by the word just.” He jested. “By the way, the delivery man came. So, I took the liberty to check your package.”
I was going to say thanks, but his next words stopped me in my tracks.
“Didn’t you learn from the last time? Ordering things from the internet can be dangerous. How stupid can you be?” …
“Is that the bomb?” I crossed my arms defensively.
“Luckily, no.” He shrugged.
“Thanks, then.” I quickly took the box and was going to close the door.
“Not so fast.” Kael suddenly blocked my way with his arm and began to lean on me… I had to admit that his move was a lot smoother than that curly-haired boy. Still, this must be my unlucky day that I got two guys doing this to me.
“What is it?” I used the box as a spacer between me and him.
“I come to say goodbye.” He said sternly with his big dark brown eyes.
“What? Why?” It came out so suddenly that I didn’t have enough time to process.
“I went to kill a lot of people today. Those mercenary groups and their employer. So, you should be safe from now on.” Ms. Bluebell didn’t call him for sexual things but for a real job, huh? Well, I didn’t totally believe what he said though. There was the scent of alcohol coming from him after all.
“Are you drunk?” I accused him.
“No, it was just a glass of wine.” He denied. Maybe I should ask him to close his eyes and walk heel to toe in a straight line to prove it. But there were more important things for me to ask.
“So, who are they?” Let’s see who wanted me dead.
“It’s a company secret.” He said while inching closer.
“Oh, well, goodnight to you then.” Since he was going to be cryptic, I better ask Ms. Bluebell tomorrow.
I pushed him out of the way with the box. Then I shut the door just before he could recover his balance.
“So, who is that cute gentleman?” Scarlet asked with a naughty inquisitive look. She seemed to have eavesdropped on everything we said. Barbara also smirked from behind her while Valerie just played with Ms. Fluffy.
“What gentleman?” I pretend to not know what she was talking about. But as I looked away from Scarlet and co., I spotted Cocoa on the sofa, watching TV… in mute mode with her ears strangely perked up.
“That heroic dark knight with cute doe-eyes, long fingers, and just talked to you, duh?” There were so many words in that sentence that I wouldn’t use it to describe Kael.
“For the record, he slept with five girls a few nights ago.” I tried to nip Scarlet’s trouble in the bud.
“So, who is that stud?” … Nothing can deter her, huh?
“He’s Kael, my ex-bodyguard.” For some reason, I stressed on the ‘ex’ word.
“Not your boyfriend? I thought I saw him looking at you affectionately.” Please, I ruined his sex life, tainted his expensive car, and blew up his house. I would rather use the word annoyingly or murderously instead.
“I only like girls.” I tried to resolve our misunderstanding.
“Hmm, I can see that.” … Did I oogle her too much? “That means he’s available then.” … Now my head hurts.
“Come’ on! Boys are great! Maybe I should introduce you to some of my friends. There are some boys with very good night time techniques.” Oh, hell no. I vehemently shook my head.
“Anyways, since your curfew is over, how about you go hiking with us?” Scarlet suddenly changed the topic.
“As long as there are no boys in our group.” I gave in because Barbara seemed to really want to go. But the ‘no boys’ part was non-negotiable though.
“Pinky promise.” Scarlet reached out her cute little finger. To be honest, it was one of the girly things that I wouldn’t do. However, there was some air about Scarlet that made people want to go along with her… Was that because of her panties line that peeked out of her very low hung shorts?
“But we can still look for boys there, right?” After we did a pinky swear with a few sentences that I couldn’t recall, Barbara whispered to Scarlet.
“Shhh!!!!” Scarlet shushed her.
… I heard that, you know?