"Hic!"

"Everything alright?" He had me sit down at the couch, which made me extremely irritated for some reason.

"No it's, hic, not..." I swayed in my seat for a bit, "Heyy, that was alcohol right?"

"A local blend." He replied, "It's high concentration, so you might start to feel a bit dizzy. Still, your mouth seems to have stopped bleeding, so it does work as advertised."

"Yeah, nah~!" I threw a couch pillow at him, "This isn't doing any, ugh, thing for me! I'm ushed to iht..."

"You are used to having alcohol in your body?" He patiently inquired, which made me a bit anxious, "Tell me more about that."

"N-No!" I jumped from my seat, "I-I just meant I had to take medicinal alcohol a lot for uncle's medical exams! Noht orally, just applied to the skin!"

Whew! That was close. For a moment I thought he was gonna chew me out or worse, chew mom out! If he sends even a single letter telling mom that he's worried about me, then I can expect uncle to come pick me up immediately the morning after. I need to watch what I'm saying, otherwise I'm done for.

"Heyy..." My mouth moved before my brain did, "Why didn't you kiss me back then? I wouldn't be drunk off my mind if you did..."

"Hm?" He furrowed his brows at what I said, "Nelly, for the last time, that is not a valid method of curing someone's ailments. If Edward truly did tell you that, then I am afraid your uncle is what is colloquially called a "quack doctor"..."

"Pff!" I burst out laughing, tears practically shooting out of my eyes as I made fun of him, "You actually put quotation marks around quack doctor! Ahahah, and what the hell do you mean "colloquially called", anyways?! Is this how you talk in class!?"

"And with that, I think you have adequately proven how intoxicated you are." He got sick of it and lifted me off the bed.

"E-Eh!?" I looked up at him as he gave me a princess carry, "W-What'sh goin' on...!?"

"You need to rest. I am taking you to your room."

"Hehee~! Taking me to bed are you~?" I stuck my finger in his cheek, "Naughty. Ehee~... Eh?"

Closing the doors to my room with an audible click, he had taken me to a pretty spacious looking room that had a very homely University dorm style to it. He probably felt bad that I didn't get to experience the classic dorm life thanks to this mansion, so he had made it to look like this.

"This is, fueh!?" I suddenly realized we were both falling to the bed, "H-Hey, y-you're not really getting horny are you, ha-ha...!"

"Zzzz..." A bubble emerged from Meil's nose as he conked off right on top of me, "Mn..."

"O-Oi! Are you actually drunk right now!?" I looked at his sleeping face more closely, "Wait, you're not... are you?"

Looking down at his flushed face, one thing had immediately made itself all too apparent to me. Meil had fallen asleep, and not only that, but he had done so on top of me, which essentially trapped me from getting up as well. What the hell, this isn't at all how I had expected my first day to go! Buried under my crush?! This has got to be some sort of prank or something!

"O-Oi!" I poked his cheek, "Wakey wakey, come on now! Seriously, it's getting kind of hard to breathe."

"Mn? Oh, alright." He muttered in his half-woken state before tightly hugging me and rolling over so that I was now the one on top of him, "Zzz..."

"Zzz, my ass! Let go of me!" I started panicking a bit, "Don't get me wrong, this feels pretty nice, sleeping under someone's embrace, but, but...!"

"Shh..." He barely mustered up the strength in his face muscles needed to open his pure white eyes as he whispered, "I am really tired. I had a lot of things to do yesterday before you arrived, so please be quiet."

"A-Ah, I see..." I didn't know what to make of this, so I just went with the flow and returned the embrace, "This feels nice..."

***

Waking up late into the evening, I had felt extremely refreshed as I laid in bed. It was a different kind of refreshing feeling, the one you could only achieve by waking up in the same bed as your crush. Shuffling around in bed to once again take in the view of Meil's sleeping face, I saw a pair of two bright white beams of light staring back at me.

"AAAAAAHH!" I screamed in surprised as I fell out of the bed, "Why the hell were you looking at me like that!?"

"I wasn't looking at you." He replied, his eyes still glaring forward to where the door was creaked open, "I was staring at him."

Whipping around to see who he was talking about, a giant rugged older man with an eyepatch could be seen staring back at us with an equally confused and frightened expression. My immediate response was to scream at the top of my lungs again, but I got stopped by Meil, who reached over and covered my mouth up with his hands.

"I-It's not what it... No wait, who the hell are you!?" I pointed to the mysterious man, "Intruder! Someone help-!"

"So this is why you haven't been answering the doorbell, huh Meil?" The old man chuckled, "Y'know, I don't remember you ever having mentioned that that girl of yours is in "that" type of relationship with you."

"I do not understand what you are talking about, Lee." Meil then sat up from the bed as he rubbed his eyes meekly, "Suggesting I had done anything inappropriate to Nelly is not only your way of showing your distrust for my humanity, but my morals as well."

"Wait, you know Meil?" I glanced up at him as I stood up, "And how did you get in? The door was locked."

"Heh, I got my ways, girlie." He flashed me a womanizing grin.

"...Which is to say you broke in." I shot back, not expecting to be right on the mark about it.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"I-I just wanted to meet the girl he was raving about is all, okay!?" He started to sweat a bit, "I asked Lemmy about it, and he said you two went home to study for your entrance exams. But when I didn't get a reply from the doorbell even though the lights were on, I had gotten a bit scared for you, is that so bad!?"

"Trespassing is trespassing." I folded my arms, "I'm gonna need your name and address, cause as soon as this is over, I'm having you arrested."

"Oi, is that really a good idea, girlie?" His smile remained, though his eyes got all scary suddenly, "Cause if you do, then you're also gonna have to explain how and why you and Meil got into the same bed when I got here, y'know? He's my friend, and I've known him since before he enrolled here, so I know full well nothing happened between you two, but the cops on the other hand..."

"And how do you know nothing happened, huh!?" I still felt a bit woozy from the alcohol as I defied his words for no reason at all, "I'll have you know he was the one that suddenly grabbed me and pinned me to the bed!"

Well, I'm not technically wrong. I mean, it was because he wanted me to sober up while he took a nap, but I kind of incriminated him this way. Still, I will not tolerate another person not taking my love for him seriously! Besides, this is Meil's fault for not mustering up enough strength to go to his own room and sleep!

"Okay, settle down. I do not wish for Lee to lose any more trust in me." Meil patted me on the head, "Besides, where are your manners? A guest said they specifically asked to see you, and you did not even give him a proper introduction."

"Yeah, what he said!" The rugged older man then approached me before politely sticking his hand out, "Just kidding. The name's Lee. I'm Lemmy's father."

"So you're Short guy's dad, eh?" I shot back before lightly chuckling, "Just kidding. I'm Nelly Grimheart, pleasure to meet you."

"Grimheart?" His eyebrows raised up high.

"Hehe, I know, the name's way too cool for a cute girl like me is probably what you're thinking." I threw my slight bed hair over my shoulder as I struck a ladylike pose, "Now, what business do you have with someone like me?"

"Meil, she's..." He then looked over at him, "Exactly like her!"

"Her?" My eyebrows furrowed as I turned to Meil, "Her being...?"

"Yeah, even I am not following here." Meil shot him a blank stare as well.

"Who else?" He put his right hand on his hip and his left slightly over his mouth as he began giggling like a lady would, "Ojou-sama."

At this, Meil's reaction was mostly stone cold, however I had caught a bit of an eye twitch soon after her name was spoken. O-joe Saama? What kind of a girl name is that? Is she foreign or something, and if so, where the hell was she born in to get such an out there name?

"P-Please do not compare Nelly to that girl. It is inappropriate." Meil's face contorted into a difficult to discern mesh.

"Oh come on, you gotta notice at least some similarities!" The Rugged old man then grabbed me by the shoulders and flipped me around to face Meil, "She's small, cute, but her tongue is sharp, and most importantly, her pride is inversely proportional to her chest size! Oof!"

I got pretty pissed when he said the last part, so I had apparently unknowingly elbowed his crotch, which was just within reach if I reached down a bit. He immediately fell to the ground, but instead of wailing in pain, all he could be seen doing is cry-laughing.

"Oh! Oh, she's a riot!" He curled up into a fetal position, "Oww... R-Right, S-Silvia liked to punish us harshly back in prison too, d-didn't she?"

"Hold on, Silvia?" I then recalled a name I couldn't believe I had heard, "By Silvia, you wouldn't happen to mean Silvia Quartz, would you?"

Staring at me with a face that spelled "Oooh boy...", the Rugged old man had looked to Meil with a bit of a worried expression. Still, he was quick to notice that I didn't think too fondly of her, obviously, as she was the one that caused mine and Meil's separation to begin with, not to mention sent us down south to Sulfury, so he began guffawing as he picked himself back up to reassure me.

"So she wronged you as well, huh girlie?" He tried patting me on the head, though I backed off, "Tsk. Well whatever, you'll be happy to hear she died a few years back."

"Huh? She died?" I didn't buy it initially.

"Yeah. In a Carmen prison, while all the prisoners were making their escape." He then glanced over to the person behind me, who was looking down and away as if remembering something he really didn't want to, "Meil killed her."

Huh? So Meil managed to track her down? No way, he's not the type to do that. The only thing he cared about was going to University to find out more about his Raamic Descent. Meaning she must've been the one to track him down. But wait...

"You were imprisoned!?" I turned to him.

"Sigh, looks like the cat is out of the bag." Meil slumped his shoulders forward before taking us out of the room, "It is a long story, one which can and should be told over the dinner table. I am sure everyone is as hungry as I am, judging by how late it has gotten."

As my tummy grumbled at the thought that I haven't eaten in a while, a huge wave of shame washed over me as the Rugged old man and Meil laughed. Once we had eaten, he had properly regaled me with the tale of how he was wrongfully enslaved and taken to work for the Great Canal that is to be built one day. Talking about all the atrocities he went through made me feel extremely bad, though the way he would smile as he talked about how blessed he was to have met friends like Lee and some guy named Issei made me think he didn't regret the experience. Though, he kind of glossed over the part where he killed Silvia. I'm sure it must be tough for him to talk about it, so I won't pry too much.