"Well." I looked over at Meil as we alone stood in front of our house, "Here we are."
"Indeed." He stared at the front door, "Home sweet home, as they say."
"I took the time to clean the house up while you were away." I chuckled a bit nervously, "I know you said you didn't want me moving things without your permission, but I just couldn't stand the untidiness, ha-ha..."
"No, it is alright." He awkwardly grabbed hold of the door knob and twisted, "Ah."
"A-As I thought, you don't like it-!"
"No, it is just different. A change, if you will." He smiled before awkwardly putting his hand on my head, the edge of his lip trying its hardest to quell my worries, "A-And changes are... good."
"Mn... Alright, get in already!" I pushed his back through the doorframe, "We're gonna remodel the entire house interior, and we're gonna do it together! That way both of us can be happy with the end result, got it?"
"Y-Yeah..." His warm smile got a lot more natural all of a sudden, "I would like that."
This is the first time in a while Meil walked into his own house. What was supposed to be a moment of reprieve for him turned out to be a full on spring cleaning session, but he didn't seem to peeved about it, oddly enough. He's taking direct actions to try and trust us a bit more, though even I can understand people moving things in your room around, much less the entire house.
In reality, I only moved some furniture around and took out all the junk that was lying around, instead having it all moved to the attic. Unsurprisingly, the attic is pretty empty, which makes sense when you remember that this house was built pretty recently. He still hasn't told me how he managed to buy such a spacious abode though...
"Oi Meil, this house is pretty nice..." I thought tricking him into giving me the answer could work, "I'd suuuure like to get one just like this myself one day. You don't suppose you could tell me how you managed to afford it, could you?"
"I won the lottery." He offhandedly replied.
"You... won the lottery?" I tilted my head.
"I won the lottery."
"Look me in the eyes and say it."
"Mn..."
"Meil!" I reprimanded him, "Are you lying again? Ugh, how do you expect to trust anyone if you keep making it harder and harder for people to trust you?"
"Urk, I know, but..." He scratched his cheek.
"If you know, then tell me honestly."
"I cannot." He sighed as he continued moving the junk around, "You may ask whatever else you want of me, but this is the one thing I must take to my grave. Please Nelly, I believe it was your father who himself said that everyone has their secrets."
"I don't remember him saying that, but I won't let a chance like this slip by." I continued glaring at him before I got up close to him, "So you promise to tell me anything else with 110% honesty?"
"Well, 110% would be redundant." He raised an annoying point, "100% suggest one whole of the variable we named "Honesty", thus I do not believe 110% percent would even make sens..."
"Do you promise?!" I shouted, shaking him up a bit as I did.
"R-Right, I promise! Anything you want to know, just ask away!"
"T-Then about the k-kiss..." I inched closed towards him, not expecting him to run to the other side of the room immediately at that moment.
"Anything but that as well." He hollered from across the spacious foyer.
"Grr...! You promised!" I started running towards him, "Tell me! Why did you do that!? Was there some meaning behind it, or did you really just wanna kiss Silvia again!?"
"L-Like I said! I was not in the right headspace back then, so please put the matter to rest, Nelly!" He continued running away from making, leading to a pretty comical chase around the foyer.
"I'm not stopping until you.. Whoa-!?" I slipped on the shiny marble floor.
"N-Nelly!?" He turned around in just the right moment for me to tumble towards him, picking him up along the way as we both fell to the hard marble flooring, "Ugh... Y-You alright?"
"Now you can't run away." I smugly retorted as I got up to straddle him, "Tell me honestly, what's the deal here."
"Nelly! Sigh..." He finally gave up after a few more measly attempts to break free, "I do not know why I did that. If you are still mad about it, I am happy to make it up to you in whatever way you want, but as for why I did it..."
"I'm not..." I mumbled under my breath.
"Pardon?"
"I'm not mad!" I looked him in the eyes, tears falling from my eyes as I spoke to him, "I'm not mad you did it! I'm mad you don't wanna tell me why! S-Something like that, k-kissing a girl all of a sudden... I-It's just too fast, dammit! I wasn't ready!"
"O-Of course, I understand your qualms completely." He stammered a bit, "What I did was completely wrong on multiple levels, I know that wholeheartedly! In the end, such a thing wouldn't be alright to do to a girl that is of legal age, much less a minor like you."
"Eh? That's not what I-!"
"And I understand if you want to press charges." He shook his head, "I never could have imagined that my pride in not taking my pills would have hurt you like this, the little girl I considered my niece..."
Eh? Ah, so that's how he always saw me. Heh, makes sense, I did used to call him uncle before... Dammit, I knew he never did see me as a woman, but this is a whole different level of pain. Ugh, dammit...
"I never said I didn't like it, dummy." I muttered.
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"Huh?" He yelped.
"You, you did this to me first..." I felt my head spinning as I inched my lips closer to his, "So I'm just getting payback. Dodge if you don't want this..."
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Closing my eyes as I felt his breath, I puckered my lips out and hoped went in to kiss him. Kissing someone feels different than getting kissed. It's a lot more cold, and... flat. O-Oi, wait a minute!
"Did you actually dodge!?" I only then realized that what I had kissed was just the marble floor and not him, "Ptu! Filthy!"
"What are you doing?" He questioned my actions, "What's gotten into you? Is this some sort of prank that flew over my head, Nelly?"
"Sigh, forget it." I got up, thus freeing him in the process, "Let's just get on with cleaning the house. Forget I tried anything."
"B-But, huh?!" He stammered as he got himself up and off the ground, "N-Nelly, that was dangerous, and not at all funny, mind you!"
"It wasn't supposed to be funny, idiot." I heaved a disappointed sigh as I picked up the broom to clean up all the dust we raised in our chase, "It wasn't a joke to begin with..."
"Ah, I understand now." He gently put his hand on my shoulder, "Nelly, I misled you. You, a girl in the midst of adolescence, still not ripe when it comes to the world around you. The actions during one of my episodes confused you, making you think I had romantic feelings for you when in reality that could not be further from the truth."
"Urk..."
"I know, I know. You were always a kind and honest girl, so I imagine you only did this now because you thought doing so would make me happy." He nodded with a strong sense of understanding, "But do not worry, since I have no romantic feelings for you."
"Please stop talking..." I felt a bit sick from such a blunt rejection.
"You must have been disgusted by me when I did it, but I assure you that from that I will never again treat you as anything more than my niece, so you can rest easy knowing...!"
"Shut it!" I slammed the broom hard onto the marble floor, "For fuck's sake, can you be any more stupid!?"
"R-Right, I am indeed stupid for doing that-"
"No! What I'm saying is...! Ugh, get away from me!" I shoved him away before storming out of the room.
"Nelly, where are you going?" He called out.
"To my room!" I shot back angrily, "Don't follow me!"
Slamming the door with all my might just in the nick of time, not a moment later I had started to bawl my eyes out as I cooped up on the bed. Meil, that jackass...! How does he misunderstand my intentions after I literally tried kissing him!? This was supposed to be the turning point of our love story! I was supposed to kiss him and confess my feelings, he would blush before sorting it all out in his head before ultimately accepting my feelings just as easily! Every love story goes like that, dammit, so why did he have to dodge!? What's more, he even unknowingly stomped all over my heart with that stupid naive logic of his! Crap, I hate this...
"Hey." His voice rang out from the other side of the door, "Can we talk?"
"Go clean that stupid house of yours!" I shouted back, my voice cracking through the tears, "Overwrite all that I've done for you just to fuel that stupid paranoic brain of yours! I don't wanna see you until you do!"
"...Okay." He quietly muttered before walking away.
Shit, he didn't even argue after I shunned him away... Dammit, he was supposed to say something like "No, I really need to talk with you" and enter despite my orders. Then he'd gently console me as I poured my heart out to him! That's how it was supposed to go, so why the hell isn't he doing any of this!? Is he really just stupid? No, I can't blame him for not acting the way I want him to. He's Meil, the dense idiot who got kissed multiple times by women and never once caught onto the fact that they might've liked him. He's just a knowledge-hungry study-freak.
Studying... Right, I left all of my previous mock exams over here, on my table. Maybe... Maybe he likes studious girls? Sniff, well, I said I'd do my best on the test, so I should really study regardless. He might praise me if I did. Yeah, he doesn't follow the rules of traditional romance plots, so maybe the best way to win him over is to play by his rules? If I make myself the overly studious good girl type, he might finally accept my feelings for him...
Getting out of bed and slowly making my way across my room to the table, I picked up the exams and started revising. It took a while, but after some time I seemed to be getting in the groove of things. Before long, I had completely forgotten about my sadness and just started solely focusing on my studies. Soon after, just as I was finishing up, I could hear a knock on the door.
"Hey." His voice rang out awkwardly, "I did what you asked. May I come in?"
"Yeah." I sighed before bracing myself, "Come right in."
Nervously opening the door as if unsure it was okay to do so, he saw me sitting at my table with the mock exams in my hand and smiled. Good, he seems happy that I'm revising.
"I see you are taking your studies seriously. I am glad." He sat down on my bed, "Actually, I had wanted to ask you to revise your mock exams before, since you did not do so well last time, but it seems my worries were unfounded. Good on you for keeping yourself motivated."
"Wha-!? You didn't come here before to console me!?" I got a bit pissed, though I quickly shook my anger off, "Ugh, whatever... So, as you can see, I'm studying, so what do you want?"
"Right. I wanted to ask if you wanted to eat lunch with me?" He grinned, "We can go to the fancy restaurant Jelena and I went to the other day. It is quite elegant. My treat, of course."
"Huh? Usually at this time you'd make me take another mock exam, so what's the catch?" I saw right through him.
"No catch." He meekly scratched his cheek, "I just want to treat you. You deserve it after all the trouble I gave you."
Meil wishes to treat me? Just like that, we're going on a date all of a sudden!? What the...? Isn't the plan working a bit too well? Could Meil really only be into smart girls? Huh, looking back, I don't know how I didn't piece that together sooner...