After a long and hefty explanation on Kevin's part, I finally just gave up on trying to understand why exactly he had built an entire shrine to pray to Green girl's panties and just went outside. There, we met none other than his dear goddess restlessly waiting outside. Well, this should be a treat! Now that I got Kevin all riled up talking about Green girl's panties, he'll probably act super flustered when he sees her! Ohhh, I can't wait!
"Oh, hey." He casually approached her, "Did you wait for us the entire time?"
"What took you so long?" She frowned, "I got dressed ages ago and expected you to be the ones waiting for me, not the other way around!"
"Sorry, Nelly wanted to see the shrine." He explained.
"Ah, is that so." Green girl turned around with a deadpanned expression, "So, do you believe me now? Like I said, the guy sees it as a religion, and he's proven to me multiple times how he has no ulterior motives behind keeping it on display."
"Eh?" I moped.
"Hey now, it's not on display. I mean, what if I get an unexpected guest?" Kevin groaned, "It's not that easy of a thing to explain to someone who isn't familiar with me, so I usually keep it under a curtain."
"Is that so?" She shrugged, "Guess I should give you some more credit for actually having a shred of shame and reason in you."
"Oi, watch it. You know full-well how far I can chuck you if you misbehave." Kevin showcased his muscles without a hint of hesitation.
These guys... They're way too familiar with each other's antics! She's acting like he didn't show me anything special, and he's just more focused on proving to her how strong she is! And these two are supposed to be mutually in love? Is this the true power of childhood friends!?
"Ah, there you guys are." Meil flagged us down from afar, with Librarian guy following close behind, "Thanks for joining us today."
"Heya, Nelly." Librarian guy waved, "How're the studies going? Did you get everything set for tomorrow?"
"Yeah, hopefully I get a good mark." I saluted, brimming with confidence as I said, "There's nothing this smarty-pants can't do if she puts her mind to it!"
The others smiled and laughed a bit at my comical retort, though I noticed Meil was quite happy to hear I wasn't nervous at all about taking the exam tomorrow. Obviously, as the one guy placed in charge of me making it into Uni, it's to be expected that he'd care about my results. But still, I wasn't lying when I said that. I genuinely think there's a super low chance of me actually failing now that everything's said and done. The only thing left is to see how many ranks I can skip once I surpass the 75 points needed to pass.
"Hm?" I looked around a bit, "Where's Waitress girl?"
"I asked, and she said she is swamped with work right now." Meil shook his head, "It is a saturday, so it is to be expected, but she did say that she will try her best to join us when her shift ends."
"Eeh~?" I monotonously replied, "Well, sucks to be her, I guess. More fun for us!"
I wonder, was that too much? Obviously, Green girl immediately noticed my relief when I realized that the girl that kissed Meil wasn't coming to the party, but what do the guys have to say about it? Kevin, he's also way smarter than I first thought him to be, plus he's got experience in fighting with a love rival, if I am to believe Green girl's story. There's a high chance he'd notice, but Meil on the other hand...?
"Nelly, that is not alright." Meil stopped me prancing about with a serious tone.
"H-Huh?" I yelped, "W-Well, I mean..."
"You are using the saying wrong." He corrected me, "The saying goes: "The more, the merrier", not: "More fun for us". If we are to believe the proverb, then fun as a variable is not quantitatively finite, but rather a coefficient that multiplies the end result based on the number of people."
"U-Uh huh." I chuckled nervously, "Phew..."
Turning back around to continue walking back towards the house, I suddenly noticed a huge and muscular shadow loom over me. Before I could turn around, the youngish voice put his hand on my shoulder before dishing out some sound advice.
"Y'know, you really should be thankful that he's so dense." Kevin whispered, "But really, it's rude to be petty against your rival, which is especially true if you're willing to flaunt it openly to everyone. Be honest and true, and when all is said and done, just know that the person he picks was chosen based on their honest virtues."
"Gulp, got it..." I blushed, too embarrassed and ashamed to look up at his face.
The walk to the house was super quiet for the rest of the way there, and when we stopped by Lem's house to ask them to join us, we were greeted by quite the sight. Namely, a very close-to-naked Lem had opened the door before blushing bright red and slamming it back shut. I don't know why he even got the idea to open the door in the first place if he didn't want us to see him in his post-shower suit, but it's good teasing material for later, so I'll let it be. By the way, he came out a minute later wearing some proper clothes and said they'd be happy to join us. Sweet, this is where the fun begins!
----------------------------------------
***
----------------------------------------
"Alright, so what are we playing?" Lem took over the sofa as soon as he entered the living room, "If we're talking board games, then there's stuff like Ludo, Monopoly, Gemitrage... But if I'm being honest, I'm much more of a card person, so Poker is fine by me."
"Hm?" I turned around with a bright yet puzzled smile as I took out the table tennis rackets, ping pong balls and net.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
"Phah!" Lem's dad burst out laughing, even going so far as to slap his knee, "Just what the hell were you expecting her to pull out? Looks like even Nelly's more physically active than you!"
"What the hell's that supposed to mean!?" Lem piped up, "I'm plenty active, I go to the University building and back on the daily! I just like tabletop games way more than having to move around aimlessly like a fly missing its head!"
"Oi! Take that back about physical games!" I shot a ping pong ball straight into his forehead, "They're way more fun exactly because they don't require any brain power! If a game requires you to rack your brain for hours on end, then it ain't a game!"
"Ooh, she got you there, bud!" Kevin egged Lem on further, "You see, me personally? I wouldn't take that. But then again, that's just me."
"Grr...! Fuck off!" Lem kicked himself up and off the sofa, "You're all gonna take her side just cause she spent her childhood playing in the mud, is that it? And you call yourselves scholars... Pathetic!"
"Oi, who you calling pathetic!?" Librarian guy shot back, "Bookworm over here thinks he's hot shit cause he ain't saw the sunlight in years. Didn't you say you used to be raised in a bandit camp? Your old bandit mates would laugh their asses off if they saw how spoiled you got!"
"Shut the hell up!" Lem's eyes turned bright yellow, "I'm in the right here, fuck you!"
"Y-You're in the right..." Librarian guy all too easily succame to the Command.
"Uhh, actually, I'll have to agree with Lem on this one." Green girl raised her hand sheepishly as she let out a nervous chuckle, "Sorry Nelly, but I'm pretty sure that type of thing is more for when you only have two people."
"See, I knew someone had a brain in here!" Lem turned around to me all smug, "So ha, whatcha' got to say to that?"
"...Sorry, I didn't know." I looked over at everyone's faces as I sheepishly held onto the rackets, "A-Actually, back home, mom and I would always play a few rounds when she had the time, so I kind of defaulted to that. The truth is I've never actually been to a get-together with friends like this before, so I didn't know what the norm was..."
As the room filled with a deafening silence, everyone's faces clearly looking astonished and filled with pity, they quickly went to rectify the situation by retracting their previous statements.
"A-Actually, I-I could go for a few rounds to limber up!" Kevin was the first to break the tension, "M-My muscles, yeah, they've really been inflexible these days! Some table tennis would definitely do them good!"
"R-Right!" Lem broke out into a cold sweat, "What the hell are you saying, Kiria? Of course you can play table tennis with more people, just set up brackets and have a tournament!"
"Wha-Me!?" Green girl jumped from her seat, "N-Nelly, forget what I said! Let's not forget that Lemmy was the one who first opposed you! I was just taking pity on him and evened the numbers a bit!"
"Gasp, you traitor!" Lem shouted, triggering Meil a bit.
"Traitor!?" Meil glared back over at a now very nervous Green girl.
"Hey, it's alright!" Lem's dad went in between them just in case, "It's just a word, so calm down!"
"Pff." I chuckled before fully erupting into a full on laughter, "You guys...! You guys always liven up whatever place you're at! Phahahahaha!"
Seeing me so cheery made them calm down a bit, so Lem took the opportunity to make some interesting stakes. Basically, we would be playing a somewhat odd variation of table tennis, wherein every time someone loses in the bracket, they gotta take a shot of alcohol. The closer one would get to the top of the tournament, the more they'd have to drink if they lost. So for example, if say Meil and Kevin played the first round and Kevin lost, he'd have to take one shot. But when Meil would advance and lose against me, he'd have to take two shots, and so forth. Everyone seemed fond of the idea, but there was just one problem.
"Nelly is under the legal drinking age." Meil shot down the idea, "Besides, she has an important test tomorrow. We do not want her to go there under the influence. It would cause all sorts of problems."
"Then just have her drink something like milk." Kevin gave me an over-the-shoulder hug, "It's okay, Nel! I'll be drinking milk too, just so you don't feel left out."
"Oi! Quit trying to weasel your way out of this, jackass!" Lem started shouting slurs at him.
"Ehe, maybe it's for the best." Green girl giggled, "How about we all swap the alcohol for milk, then? Drinking can only cause problems, after all."
"Yeah, though that was the plan from the beginning." Lem's dad chuckled, "You kids really think I'd let you get drunk off your asses like that? Hell, I gotta act like a responsible adult too every now and then."
"Yeah right, you'd purposefully lose on the finals just so you could drink as much rum as possible..." Lem groaned before getting slapped on the back of the head by his dead pop-pop.
And so, the game was afoot. The starting brackets were randomly chosen by way of taking scrap pieces of paper from a hat, and thus the matchups were: Meil vs Lee, Lemmy vs me and Kiria vs Kevin. We also decided that it'd be good to have a prize for the winner of the whole tournament, so Meil casually threw in a 100 gigabyte cash prize, taken generously out of his own pockets. Ah right, he's actively trying to go broke.
"What the-?! Dude, are you for real!?" Lem's eyes shot wide open.
"Meil, that ruins the casual aspect of the game..." Lem's dad facepalmed with a wry smile, "But I live by the bandit creed: No take backs."
"This'd let me pay off my student loans to Kevin..." Green girl drooled a bit.
"Okay! I think we all know now that it's winner takes all!" Kevin smiled as he put in a good few practice swings, "Meil, Lee, get ready, because things are about to get heated! Let the games begin!"