The Italian resto was a bit busier than usual when I entered but luckily it still didn’t feel crowded. Claire had seen me enter the building and waved me over from a table on the opposite side of the room.

When I arrived, Ria was already munching on a slice of pizza, while Emma was eating a bit of salad with some Prosciutto di Parma. Karin was eating the same thing her sister was.

“Pres went to the English resto?”

“Yeah, she wanted to have some tea.” Claire nodded, taking a bruschetta from her plate.

“And Anya?” I pointed at the other plate loaded with food.

“She will be coming soon, she should be here any minute now.”

“So this plate isn’t for me?”

“Sadly enough, it isn’t.” Claire winked.

“Awh.” I chuckled. “Anyhow, I guess I’ll go get some food for myself then.”

“Rora!” Ria stopped me before I walked off. “Can you bwing me anothew slice of piwza?”

I looked at her plate, she still had half a pizza left. “You sure?”

She nodded and swallowed the food that was still in her mouth. “I’m very hungry.”

“You should bring her some salad instead.” Em commented.

“But I don’t want salad. I want pizza!”

“What about some salad and a hug?” I offered.

“Fiiine.” Ria stuck out her tongue just a tiny little.

“Bring her some bruschetta too. It’s healthier than pizza, but tasty nonetheless.” Claire added.

“Good idea.” I smiled. “I’ll be right back.” I then headed towards the food line and started queuing. After about five minutes I managed to reach the serving area. I took half a pizza for myself together with tomato bruschetta and two bowls of salad.

When I arrived back at the table, Anya had arrived and had already started eating.

“Heya, Anya.” I put my food down next to Em.

“Hey, Aurora. How are you today?”

“Pretty cool, you?”

“Just so so.”

“Oh?”

“She just had to do a test for IT class and it didn’t go too well.” Claire clarified.

“Ah… my condolences.”

“Thanks…”

“Rora! You brought pizza for me anyway!” Ria commented as I put the bowl of salad and a couple of the bruschettas in front of her.

“Sadly enough, that’s all for me, sweetie.” I took a slice and started eating it myself.

“Nooooo!”

Em giggled. “It looks like she doesn’t want that hug anymore.”

Ria suddenly went quiet again. “I do, I do. Forget I said anything.”

“Ain't that a good girl…” Everyone at our table temporarily stopped eating, apart from Karin, who just went on undisturbed. Ria was staring down at her plate, clearly affected by what Em had just said.

“Emma, we are eating… all that not-safe-for-work talk around the table is unfit for a lady, don’t you think?” Claire winked.

Em went beat-red. “It-it… I…I… I didn’t…. I didn’t mean it like that!”

“Didn’t you?” I decided to pile on the teasing, as every opportunity to tease Em should be taken with both hands.

In response, she gave me a tap on my shoulder while she started pouting at me. It made me chuckle. Her ‘angy’ face was just too cute.

After our lunch, it was time for the second half of the lessons. Math and French went by like usual except for Mx. De L'Arbre who had already corrected our catch-up tests. The three of us all passed the test with flying colors, even though Ria edged out Em and me by a tiny bit by having a perfect score on the test.

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After French, it was time for P.E. Just like I had heard it was going to be some classical gymnastics, so I didn’t have to worry much about holding back.

I also didn’t really bother hiding my musculature from the rest of the class anymore, since it was mostly for Ria that I’d been hiding it for before.

Some of our other classmates did take notice, but apart from some whispering didn’t really bother me about it.

“You should give me your practice routine, Aurora.” Claire talked to me after we were done getting changed.

“She just cut down on the sugar.” Em stated in my stead, which was not really a lie, since I cut down on pretty much all food. -I do wonder what the sugar content of blood is, though…-

“Really? Does that help build muscles?”

Em shrugged. “I’m not a dietist.”

“Hmmm.” Claire looked at me, but I just shrugged at her as well.

“It just worked for me.”

Poor Claire looked a bit confused, but she decided to drop it with a sigh and a smile.

For our stretching exercises I paired with Claire, Em with Ria and Pres with Karin. It was quite nice to have an even amount of people in a friend group so no one would end up alone when you needed to have pairs for exercises.

“Even with all that muscle, you are still as stiff as a board, Aurora.” Claire pushed against my back.

“I know…. ouch! Don’t push too hard!”

“You’ve barely bent at all!?”

“I’m going to need help getting up now. I think I tore something.”

“Oh Goddess.” Claire facepalmed. “You can bet your arse that we are going to work on that during our warm-ups at fencing.”

“Awh…Do I really have to?”

“Yes you do. Otherwise, you’ll get injury after injury.”

-I actually don’t know if that’s true… streching hurts… but does that mean I can still get hurt, hurt? I’m pretty sure my vampirism protects me against that… but I’m also not really keen on testing if I can tear my ligaments to shreds or not. That’d be… unpleasant…-

“Aurora?” Claire had turned around so I could help her do stretches.

“Ah, sorry, I was thinking about something.” I got up and got on my knees to help my stretching partner.

“Stop dreaming about your girlfriends and help me.” She smirked.

“If only…” I pushed on her back and while I was doing so looked at my girlfriends who were sitting not that far away from us. Ria was just helping Emma do her stretches. -Darn, Em’s so bloody flexible…-

As for the lesson itself… It was a lot of rolling, falling, spinning, tumbling and then a little bit more falling for me. At least the falling didn’t really hurt anymore.

“That last faceplant looked like it hurt, Aurora, are you okay?” Miss Garcia asked right before we headed back to the changing room.

“I’m fine, really. I’m pretty good at taking hits” I waved her concern away.

“You sound a bit like a boxer.” She chuckled. “Oh, and I heard you joined the fencing club?”

“I did.” I nodded. “Claire said they are going to have me work on my flexibility.”

“That’s definitely not a bad thing.” Miss Garcia clearly approved of that decision. “We will continue gymnastics tomorrow, so you can get a little bit more practice in.”

“Looking forward to it.” I grimaced.

Miss Garcia just chuckled as she sent me on my way to the changing room.

We got changed and were out of the door within ten minutes of the lesson having ended. Our entire group gathered in front of the gymnasium to say goodbye to each other.

“See y’all tomorrow.” Claire waved at us and quickly walked off.

“Bye, Claire!” I called after her.

“I’m also going, we are baking cookies today.” Pres said, after drinking a bit of her iced tea.

“What kind of cookies?” Ria didn’t let Pres go that easily.

“We were planning coffee cookies, but I’m going to put vanilla in them.”

“Sounds goooood.” I could hear Ria’s mouth watering already.

“You should probably go before Ria decides to follow you to cookie heaven, Pres.” I laughed.

“Mhmm.” She nodded and waved goodbye to us as well.

“Sis, you are going to Aurora’s house?” Karin asked once Pres had left.

“Yeah, we have something to discuss.” Em nodded. “I’ll try to be home in time so we can do some astronomy together.

“Okay.” Karin gave her sister a big hug and then the four of us walked towards the school gate to drop off Karin at Helen’s car.

“Do you want me to drop you off at lady Aurora’s house?” Helen asked as Karin got into the car.

“No, it’s fine.” Em shook her head. “It’s good weather for walking.”

Helen gave her a nod and waved us off as we walked off towards my house.

Once we crossed the street and turned the corner, Ria poked me in my side. “Rora?”

“Mhmm?”

“I didn’t want to say anything at school… but could you stop staring at Em’s butt that much during P.E.?”

My face shot red in an instant. “Wha-!? I wasn’t!”

“Yes, you were, Auro.” Em confirmed.

“Wha- uh… w-well… I guess I was… but can you blame me? I mean…” I tried to wiggle myself out of the conversation with no real degree of success.

“You should at least stare at mine as much as you stare at hers.” Ria demanded with her typical pout.

“Ye-... Wait… Ria, that’s not the point I thought you were going to make.” Em looked at Ria, a surprised look on her face. The situation had taken a turn neither of us had anticipated.

“But it’s not fair!”

“Okay, I will look at both of your cute butts equally from now on, deal?” I saw my opening and grabbed it with both hands.

“Deal!” Ria immediately agreed.

“No! Ria! Look what you’ve done now?”

It didn’t take long for the three of us to start laughing about our silly conversation.

We were still chuckling about it when we took the turn into the Rue du Moulin. But that’s when the three of us fell quiet as a familiar car was parked in front of my house.

When we got closer, Alessia stepped out and greeted us.

“Hello, I hope I’m not inconveniencing you.”

The three of us looked at each other before Em took the lead. “No, not at all, we actually had something we wanted to discuss with you anyway.”

“Oh?”