Souma trekked over to the Thomas dorms and stepped into the shadow of the doorway, suddenly emerging on the other side. He glanced around the common room and noticed Samantha giving him a strange look. “What?” he asked as he strode over to the other side of the room. “Hey, quick question, would you mind introducing me to your sister? She’s hot!” He took a second to clear his throat as he watched her facial expression change. “I mean, I would like to get to know her.” he corrected.

“Only if you promise not to call her hot in front of me again,” Samantha commented as she pulled her phone out and briefly typed something. There was a slight pause followed by a beep, and then Samantha pocketed her phone once again. “She’ll be down in a moment. You want a sandwich? I’m making peanut butter and banana, but we have jelly and lunch meat.”

“That sounds awesome! I’ll have what you’re having, if you don’t mind.”

Samantha shrugged and handed him the plate with the sandwich she’d just finished constructing, and went to work on a new one for herself. She had just gotten it put together when Thea entered the common room, immediately frowning as she noticed Souma.

“What’s going on, Samantha?” she asked, looking toward Samantha and pausing to give Souma a death glare. She pushed past him to go into the kitchen, her elbow brushing his T-shirt, and realized she recognized the psychic energies surrounding him and pointed, her eyes wide and murderous. “You’re the creep that was in my room!”

Souma froze and gaped at her. “How the hell do you know that?”

“This is Souma. He wanted me to introduce you to him. Apparently he thinks you’re hot,” Samantha told her, frowning at Souma while she earned a glare from her stepsister. “I was going to say he wasn’t a bad guy, but now I’m going to have to rethink that. Why were you in her room, Souma?”

“I meant to look in yours to get pictures of you naked for Kaguya,” Souma told Samantha. “Then I saw your hot sister.”

“Stop calling her hot. It’s kinda weird,” Samantha told him. “Also, I can send my own nudes to Kaguya.”

“Excuse me!” Thea interrupted, frowning at Samantha. “Are you implying that I am not, in fact, hot?”

“I plead the fifth?”

“Wait, this isn’t helping me figure out how you knew I’d been in there!”

“How do you even know Souma Kazegami?” Thea asked Samantha as she continued to stare Souma down. The latter girl finally just sighed and decided she’d have to beat him up a lot more when she was training with him and Gianna next time.

“He’s friends with Gianna, so he shows up when we’re training sometimes. He’s not a bad fighter, and outside of some questionable hobbies he’s not really a bad guy. I’ll vouch for him this time and beat it out of him during training later.” Her look in Souma’s direction caused shivers to run down his spine, and he was slowly inching towards the shadow he had jumped out of earlier.

Thea sighed and stole the plate with the sandwich that Samantha had just finished making, taking a bite of it. Samantha pouted at her lost sandwich and started making a third one, grumbling about it a little as she hastily threw it together. She looked up and saw Thea glaring at Souma, and the latter was staring at the former with what she decided was puppy love in his eyes. It was cute, and disturbing at the same time.

“You two do realize there’s a table over there, right?” Samantha asked them, pointing over at the table before walking over to it and sitting down. After a moment, Thea joined her and sat next to her, while Souma took a seat across from Thea.

Rather than speaking right away, Souma started eating his sandwich and made happy noises about the taste for a while, until she finally had enough of his antics and sighed before saying, “What do you want from me, Kazegami?” Souma paused in his eating, his mouth full of peanut butter and realizing soon after that he wasn’t going to be able to speak anytime soon. He tried to swallow down what was in his mouth quickly, but failed. Thea rolled her eyes and stepped over to the kitchen, returning after a few moments with two glasses of milk. “Now spill,” she snapped after he swallowed nearly half the glass.

Souma grinned and put the rest of his sandwich down. “You don’t seem to like me very much. Is it because I was in your room before? I hadn’t meant to still be there when you came back, and I only peaked in your underwear drawer on accident.”

“Wait, you saw her underwear?” Samantha asked, pausing before taking a bite to give him the stink eye.

“It’s your whole family I don’t like,” she mumbled, still glaring at him and choosing not to comment on his mentioning of her underwear drawer. He shifted in his seat a little, and she leaned forward a bit. “Are you here to keep an eye on Samantha for your sister and using me to stay close?”

“Kaguya doesn’t have to send a spy. I’d gladly tell her anything she wants.” Thea spared her sister a look, which went ignored.

“Huh? No, no, no, not even close,” Souma denied, waving a hand to emphasize his denial. “I mean, I guess this started out because of Samantha but like… You really are hot, so I asked Samantha to let me talk to you.”

“Uh-huh. And how did it start with Samantha?”

“Sorry, Souma, but I don’t like guys. Your sister is way more my type. Also, why does it feel like you guys are ignoring me?”

“Well, I noticed she and my sis were close and I was curious about her. So I started to talk to her, and then I saw you with her one day and my heart just about burst from my chest while my jaw hit the floor and my eyes-”

“Are you for real?” Thea was staring at him with a mix of disgust and amazement. Souma just shrugged and grinned.

“Unfortunately, I think he is,” Samantha pointed out, finally earning another glare from her sister.

“You are not even close to helping, Samantha,” Thea pointed out. “Which is why I’ve been ignoring you. Do you have anything else you can say besides useless comments?”

Samantha thought a moment, looking down at her empty plate. “Anyone else want another sandwich?”