Viktor and Claire talked to each other for a little bit longer until Viktor had finished his drink. He then stood up and walked towards where he’d hung his jacket. “I’ll leave you girls to it. Please try to stay out of trouble… or at least off the police radio.”

“Are you sure you don’t want another drink, Viktor?” I asked and stood up as well. While we teased and bullied each other pretty much constantly, it was actually pretty fun to have him around, from time to time.

“No, thank you, I’m full. And I still have a date to go to.”

“A date?” I whistled teasingly. “With Alex?”

“Yes, we are going to go to a musical together.” I could swear I saw Viktor blush a little as he admitted who he was going with.

“Are you into musicals?” Claire asked.

“Not really, but Alex likes them a lot and I like her company.”

“Tell her hi from me!” Ria said enthusiastically.

“And from me and Auro too.” Em added.

“I will, I will.” Viktor nodded as he put on his jacket. “It was nice meeting you, Miss Claire.”

“Likewise.” Claire nodded.

After that I led Viktor to the door, as I opened the door and Viktor walked outside I asked him one final question. “Where are you going to watch the musical anyway?”

“Ah, it’s at the coast.”

“The coast? That’s quite far away from here, isn’t it?”

“Even more reasons for me to leave right away.” He winked. “Auf Wiedersehen, my vasal.”

“Get lost before I get my baseball bat.” I laughed.

Viktor jogged jokingly for a couple of seconds before slowing down again and waving me goodbye.

I waved back and closed the door behind me.

“I should probably go soon as well.” Claire said once I came back into the living room.

“Awh, don’t you want to eat dinner with us?”

“No, it’s my turn to cook dinner for my family today. So I should probably get going so I can get started with that as well.” Claire stretched a bit. “Even though, I wanted to talk a bit longer about how you feel about your newfound wealth and the prospects of being the owner and administrator of a castle.”

“We can always talk about that on a later date.” I smiled and got her bag from the dinner table to hand over to her. “We don’t have to hide stuff from you anymore, so we have all the time in the world.”

“Yeah, you definitely do.” She laughed and accepted her bag out of my hands.

“See you Monday at school?” Em asked, as Claire got up, she got up as well.

“Yeah, if I don’t get hit by a bus on my way to school.”

“Please don’t joke about that.” Em gave Claire a hug, and Ria soon followed up with one as well. “Experiencing that shit with Ria was already scary enough.”

“Sorry, dark humor is my way to cope with stuff.” Claire smiled. “But I’m happy the three of you have confided that much into me.”

“And we are happy you took it so well.” I smiled and gave her a hug too.

“It was definitely not what I expected to say the least, but you are clearly not evil, so why would I want to shun one of my best buds.” She reciprocated my hug. “Next time I’ll definitely stay for dinner, maybe I’ll even make one of my specialty dishes.”

“Oooh, what’s that?” Ria heard food, so Ria asked.

“It’s my specialty dish called ‘love under the sakura tree.’”

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“And what doth that mean?” I shook my head with a laugh.

“For me to know, for you to guess, my dearest friends.”

“Aight, I see.” I shook my head once more.

After Claire had said her final goodbyes, I also led her to the door and waved her off.

“That went better than I expected.” Em said as I walked back into the living room, she sunk back into the sofa and sighed a sigh of relief.

“The ‘confession’ part or the ‘almost-getting-hit-by-a-van’ part?” I looked at her. In the meantime, Ria was mimicking Em. It was pretty funny to look at, but I kept my attention on Em instead.

“You know what I mean, dumdum.”

“Haha.” I laughed. “But yeah, it did go pretty well, all things considered.”

“Hmmm…” Ria groaned slightly as she almost slid off the sofa, having exaggerated her copying of Em just a little bit too much.

“What’s wrong, Ria?” I asked.

“It’s nothing…” She pouted with a slight blush.

“C’mon, tell us.” Em tapped the top of Ria’s head with her index finger.

“I’m just getting a bit hungry… I’d love to continue talking about this… but…”

“Alright, alright. We’ll get started on the food first, then. If you want to lighten your hunger, you can always take a snack from the cookie drawer.” I smiled at my hungry girlfriend.

“Too weak, can’t move.” Ria was almost sitting on the floor.

“I’ll get one for you then.” Em pulled herself upright on the sofa and stood up. “Auro, can you start with the food?”

I gave her a two-finger salute and headed towards my fridge. When I opened it, something hit me. “Oh… right…”

“That doesn’t sound good.” Em looked at me from the cookie drawer next to me.

“Well… it looks like you actually need to do some grocery shopping before you can make food and I kinda forgot to defrost something else… Who’s fine with take-out or food delivery?” I rubbed the back of my head as I awkwardly pushed my fridge close again.

“Urgh…” Ria groaned, invisible from behind the couch. “But that will take ages!”

“The Chinese restaurant’s delivery is pretty fast.” I took my phone out of my pocket and started browsing the internet. “If I need to start defrosting meat, it will take even longer.”

“Sounds good to me.” Em nodded. “For you, Ria?”

“...Okay…”

Em smiled and walked back over to where our girlfriend was. She tossed a madeleine at the floor, where Ria was presumably laying. “Here you go.”

“Yay!” Well, at least Ria was easy to please.

We didn’t waste much time calling our order through to the Chinese restaurant nearby.

“Thank you, see you in a bit.” I hung up the phone.

“How long will it take them?” Em asked, she’d gotten Ria’s head back on her lap in the meantime. Something told me that Ria liked Em’s lap as much as mine, if not even more so.

“Ah, they said in an hour or two.”

“What!?” Ria shot upright from Em’s lap. “That long!?” She sounded utterly distressed.

“No, I was kidding, forty minutes at most.” I chuckled.

“Pffff…” Ria blew off some steam and dropped her head back on Em’s lap, who smiled and started brushing her hand through Ria’s hair. “Don’t ever do that to me, Rora.”

“Sorry, I will not do it again… today at least.”

“Buuu.”

“Shhh, your dumplings will be here soon, Ria.” Em softly chuckled.

“At least you are nice to me, Emma.” Ria looked up at Em with a big and overly friendly smile.

“Of course. Someone needs to balance out Auro.” Em winked back.

I smiled and got on the sofa next to my two beauties so we could wait on our food together.

Apparently those forty minutes were an exaggeration, as the delivery man got to our door within thirty minutes. Which pleased Ria so much that she wanted to give the man a fifty euro tip right there and then.

As I put the bag of chinese food on the dinner room table, Em and Ria were laying the table. Not that long after, our little family was gathered around the aromatic smell of our small feast.

“Bonne appétit!" Ria rubbed her hands in glee and she quickly chomped on one of the dumplings. “Awh, ish sho goood!”

Em and I just smiled at her as she enjoyed her first couple of bites before we started on our own plates. I’d just gone for some spring rolls and some friend rice, while Em had gone for Beef Chow Fun.

After Em’s first bite, she looked around the table. “What do you want to do after dinner?” She asked.

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I hadn’t really planned anything, and the tv is showing reruns pretty much constantly.”

Ria chomped down on another dumpling before answering. “It doesn’t really matter to me as long as it's something all three of us can do together.”

Em and I had to bite away the cuteness for a second.

“What about the three of us do a bit of drawing?”

“Drawing?” I tilted my head slightly.

“Yeah, you know, paper, pencil, creativity? You have pencils and paper, right?”

“I do… but…”

“I think it could be fun!” Ria replied. “It’s something nice and relaxing to do together!”

“Yeah, Auro, it’s going to be fun.” Em smiled.

“Alright then.” I gave in. “As long as you don’t laugh at my drawings, okay?”

“Okay!” Ria nodded.

“I’ll try, but I won’t promise anything.” Em gave me a wink.

-Just you wait, Em… my art will surprise the world!-