"First," Lone said as he took out a spare set of pyjamas for Soph, "Some clothes?"

Bobbing her head up and down, Soph grabbed the blue button-up sleeved pyjama shirt and silk trousers combo.

Carefully getting off Lone and unwrapping herself from his fluffy tails, she began putting the clothes on.

Meanwhile, Lone searched in his Dimensional Storage and grabbed a tank-top to wear since he was still shirtless. Once he had done that, he waited for Soph to finish getting dressed.

As soon as she was done, she shyly held his hand and looked up at his face. "Sleep?"

Lone shook his head. "Not yet. I'm way too awake now. Plus, I think we both need a bath at some point. We reek of sweat. Late-night snack and a talk first?"

Soph nodded shyly. "Mmm..."

Lone chuckled. "I don't hate the smell of your sweat. It's just a bit gross thinking about it outside of a more... intimate moment.” He then shook his head. “That was awkward. I shouldn’t have said that. Uh, to the kitchen?”

She seemed just as keen to move away from the topic judging by her expression and the fact that she began leading him by the hand to the kitchen.

Once there, she helped him set up the candles which he appreciated. When that was done, he watched her sit on a stool and wait in silence as he began to use his magic to create different ingredients.

Lone had decided on pancakes for their late-night snack. While he was mixing together the batter, he chose to start their important discussion.

"My parents were pretty rich retrospectively. They owned a fairly successful business selling computers," he said.

"Computers? Are those the things you always talk about? With the 'screens' and 'pictures'?" Soph asked, clearly trying to be engaging.

Lone smiled. "Yup. Those are the ones. My dad ran the company, and my mum was his secretary – they were married before she became his secretary, by the way.”

He laughed at the confusion that sentence formed on his companion’s face. “Anyway, it wasn't the most successful business nor the most relevant around, but it made more than enough money to support us and then some."

He created some chocolate syrup and added it to one of the two bowls of pancake batter that he'd been mixing. Soph adored chocolate, so he was hoping that this little treat would help cheer her up.

"When I was about seven or eight - I can't really remember which - my dad made a few shitty deals and the company started collapsing. It was still turning a profit, but it wasn't as much as before, so in his eyes, it was a failure. A slowly capsizing ship, so to speak," Lone said.

He pulled out a frying pan from his Dimensional Storage and sat it atop the counter. Lone then created some propane with his Creation Magic, an expensive thing to make since he had no clue what it was made of, doubly so since he was making a small canister of it.

After that, he let the gas flow up through the stove and then created a match to light the hob. He then retrieved some butter from his storage and spread it across the pan before pouring just enough of Soph's pancake batter into it for a single pancake.

“He got irritated more easily, smiled less, started losing his hair from the stress. Nothing good, more or less. I don’t know if this shift in him made the company sink faster or not but before long, he had to file for bankruptcy,” Lone explained stoically.

This was the distant past for him, even if the scars of what happened were still firmly visible in his mind.

"As soon as that happened, my dad changed even more. He never touched Hazel, thank God. Ah, excuse that... Bit of a habit. I'm not actually thanking God. It’s just an expression," Lone said as he scratched his cheek with a bit of shame.

Soph nodded. "It's fine. I know what you mean."

"Thanks." Lone smiled. "Anyway, he started beating me pretty much every day. If I failed a test, beating, if I came home past my curfew, beating, if I left the toilet seat up, beating, if I looked at him wrong, beating. You get the picture."

Using the slight physical boost his Dexterity afforded him, he perfectly flipped the pancake and started cooking the other side.

Soph had a pained look on her face imagining it. "That sounds awful. I was never tortured like that... Well, kinda, but not so directly..."

Lone chuckled a bit. "I can't imagine what I went through compares to your story, but still, thank you. It's nice hearing you say that."

Soph blushed, but otherwise remained silent, so Lone continued. "This went on until I was 15. No one ever helped or stood up for me. Not Hazel, not my mum, not the school authorities. No one seemed to notice."

He wore a ponderous expression. “Granted, Hazel was barely a toddler, but she knew what was going on. I can forgive her but it’s my bitch of a mother and everyone else who didn’t do anything when they could have stopped it.”

Soph looked a bit disgusted. "Really? Not a single person? Why not? Didn't they know you were in pain? Wasn't your body bruised?"

Anger clouded the girl’s face. "I would have helped you."

Lone shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe it wasn't worth the legal troubles? We still had a decent amount of money despite the failed business. Only the company filed for bankruptcy, not my dad himself. I guess the people I told were scared he’d hire a great solicitor if he needed to. My family? Maybe they were just scared to go against him in case he turned on them. People can be real fuckin’ cowards when it comes down to choosing between their suffering or someone else’s, even if that someone else is just a kid."

Soph frowned. "Sounds complicated."

"I bet it was to them," he laughed. "Then there was school..."

"School?" Soph echoed.

Nodding, Lone continued, "I got bullied a lot there. Both primary and high school. I never spoke to anyone and just kept to myself. I was thin, average-looking, wore glasses, had a pimple-covered face and was just a loser in general. I probably looked depressed to everyone thanks to what was happening with my dad. Easy target, I guess. It didn't help that if I tried to fight back against my old man, he'd beat me twice as hard - which I sometimes did, then I'd be even more upset, and fight back against the bullies, making it ten times worse."

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"That sounds like hell... I don't know if I could have put up with so much suffering from so many angles..." Soph’s tone made it sound like her heart was aching hearing this despite everything she herself had experienced.

"You're a strong woman. I'm sure you'd have done just fine," Lone replied with a confident tone.

The first pancake was done now, so Lone plated it and made some whipped cream and a cherry appear on top of it. He put a steel fork on the plate and passed it to Soph with a smile on his face. "Eat up. Don't lose your appetite because of my story, 'kay? I put a lot of love into that."

Soph nodded mutely and began munching on the food. Lone smiled again and got to work on her second and final pancake. "Well, one day, I come home from school to find police standing guard and forensics in the house. Turns out my dad hung himself. I wasn't even happy. It all just happened so fast. The forensics were in and out in a couple of hours. No detectives since it wasn't suspected to be foul play. His body was carted off. End of story."

Lone sighed as he flipped Soph's second pancake. "The day I turned 16, I moved out. The bastard left me some inheritance money. I've no fuckin’ clue why, but I wasn't going to turn my nose up at it.”

He felt a bit sick thinking about how he had so willingly used that evil man’s money. Still, he continued with his tale. “I lived off of benefits when my inheritance ran out, and I went to college then uni to get my teaching degree.”

“Why a teacher?” Soph asked with a face full of chocolate pancake.

Lone shrugged. “Studied for seven years. I have no idea why I wanted to be a teacher. Maybe to help people like myself? Doesn't matter anyway. I just ended up getting bullied again. Some things never change until they do, I guess. I dunno. That sounds stupid now that I'm thinking about it. I was lucky to live in the UK. Benefits were easy to swindle out of the council, but even with my gaming addiction and my weekly phone call from Hazel, life fuckin’ sucked."

The pancake had finished cooking now and thankfully, Soph had finished her first one. He plated the new one and topped it with honey and strawberry syrup this time.

"I'm honestly really glad I met you. I don't know how much longer I would have lasted in that repetitive cycle," he admitted.

Lone got to work on his own pancakes while he waited for Soph's reply.

"I only understood about half of what you said. I don't know anything about police, forensics, phone calls, bullying, benefits, the council, but it all sounds horrible." Soph had finally chosen to come clean.

"Lone, there's two mes," she said after taking a deep breath.

Lone raised an eyebrow, but otherwise nodded and continued cooking.

Soph smiled at that and continued, "I'm the normal me... It's hard to explain, but the time that I spent running from the templars and being imprisoned by them... tortured by them... everything before that… It hurt me. I spent decades trying to kill myself. To end the pain, but nothing worked. I was completely immortal."

Soph looked down at her food and grinned bitterly. "It's sweet." She sucked back her tears and continued talking. "I eventually stopped trying to kill myself and filled my time by talking to myself."

"And this created a split personality?" Lone asked.

"Mmm." Soph licked her plate clean. It really was very sweet. "Everything that happened before killing God... It all kinda joined together and formed…. me. Uh, even though I’m not the original she's really nice to me, but ever since I met you, she's been trying to get me to murder you."

Lone froze for a moment mid-pancake flip, making the batter splatter all over the floor. "Ah, fuck. Gotta clean this up now."

He poured the second half of his pancake batter into the pan and took out a few rags which he started using to clean up his mess. "So she's really paranoid? Of men, or just people? I don't mean to ask a really sensitive question, but you weren't... sexually abused, were you? We’ve gone over this before but I’d like to confirm it again."

Soph shook her head. "Like I said last time you asked, God, uh, didn't let anyone directly touch me. They tortured me in different ways. Mostly pouring this liquid they called 'holy water' into my eyes. It blinded me. Both of us don't trust people, but for different reasons. I'm scared of being left alone, she's terrified of betrayal and insists that there's an evil in all people that controls them. She really didn't like you. Saying that you're just using me, that I'm only using you. I'm scared she's right..."

Lone tapped his chin thoughtfully. 'Not going into detail about her past? Still, this is a fantastic start.' He hummed softly. "What's so wrong with that?"

"Eh?" Soph made a strange noise at Lone's unexpected words.

"Well, I am using you." Lone sounded like he was stating the most obvious thing in the world.

"Y-You are?" Soph was confused and started to panic.

Flipping his new pancake, Lone smirked. "Sure. I'm using you to keep me company, to talk to, to help me fight, to help me train, and hell, maybe for even more depending on how our relationship pans out. There's nothing wrong with using someone. It's how you use them that matters. That's what I believe, at least."

"... 'There's nothing wrong with using someone. It's how you use them that matters'..." Soph echoed Lone's words as if entranced by them.

He laughed upon seeing that. He plated his pancake and sat next to her after turning the gas off. "You can be really adorable sometimes, you know?"

Her cheeks flushed a shade of crimson. "Sorry..."

"And you're back to apologising for no good reason," he said with a roll of the eyes.

Lone saw Soph pout, so he rubbed her head with his free hand as he shovelled the pancake into his mouth, piece by piece. "Don't worry about it. We'll work things out. Don't force yourself to change though, or her, the other you. Forcing it to happen can only lead to a disaster."

"Mmm," Soph agreed.

He couldn’t help but noticed her eyes kept darting back and forth between his fork and his mouth.

Of course, he noticed that. "Want some? You're such a glutton..."

"Ah, em, no! That's not it!" Soph replied in a bit of a fluster. "I was just wondering what it felt like to... to ki- to ki-"

“Ahhh, to kiss. We can… do a redo if you’d like?” Lone asked as he felt his heart pound rapidly in his chest.

He had never been this forward before but he felt confident he wouldn’t get rejected.

Soph blushed furiously but slowly nodded. She turned to face him, closed her grey eyes, and puckered her soft lips.

Lone’s hand was shaking as he reached over and held her chin in it. He then leaned in and softly pressed his lips against hers.

"Well, uh… got an answer now?" he asked as he averted his eyes. ‘I have no idea if that was smooth as fuck or awkward as fuck…’

"Ah, um... Yeah... It was nice... sweet... and a bit wet." Soph brought a finger to her lips and was beaming from ear to ear. "I thought you wouldn’t want to do that kinda stuff…”

Lone scratched his cheek and smiled a little bit sheepishly. "I’m super attracted to you. I said that, already, didn’t I? I just wanted to sort out our feelings. So, uh, wanna be my girlfriend?”

She wore a confused look in her dead eyes. “But I’m already a girl and your friend, aren’t I?”

“Hahaha, right. Middle ages. It’s a more common word for lovers. Like, the relationship stage before marriage and betrothal,” Lone tried his best to explain.

“L-lovers…” Soph’s smile bloomed. “I’d love to!”

"I'm glad. That was pretty fuckin’ stressful," he claimed as he felt a massive weight lift from his entire being.

He then finished his pancake and a thought crossed his mind. "We should use different names for you and this other you... Hmm... Maybe Soph for you like now, but Sophie for the other you? Sofia can be for both of you."

"Sure." She clearly had little-to-no issues with that.

Soph then creased her brow and said, "I usually suppress her since she's been so mean to you, but she's sleeping right now. I can't even talk to her."

"You can usually talk to your other self?" Lone asked in shock.

He knew nothing about split-personalities or anything of that like so this was news to him.

"Mmm. She's really supportive and protective of me, but she's really violent. I don't like her much. She was my only friend for a long time, but I don't know... I want her to like you too," Soph admitted.

Lone rubbed his chin. "We can work on that I guess. We have nothing if not time."

"Mmm." Noticing that Lone had finished his pancake completely, Soph asked him, "Bedtime?"

Lone nodded. "Sure. Sounds good. It's been an exhausting night. I guess we can have a bath in the morning."

"Em, Lone," Soph looked to the floor as she got up off her stool and called out his name.

"What's up?" Lone questioned.

"T-Thanks for not hating me... I-I know I'm weird, and I know I act strangely... but I'm really grateful you treat me normally. It means a lot to me. I wanted to say that I think I really do love you..." Soph's bashfulness was only overshadowed by her embarrassment.

Lone chuckled softly. "Right. You never said it until now... Anyway, like I already stated, we're all a bit fucked in the head, so don't sweat it."

"Still... really... thank you..." Soph mumbled as she took his hand and followed him out of the kitchen.

It had been an eventful night for the both of them. Not everything was positive, but their relationship had gone a step forward, hopefully, in the right direction.