Dantega:Volume 3 Chapter 2

(PART 2)

With the group dried up and rested, they continue their northbound journey a few more miles until they reach a large walled city. The outskirts of the city walls is surrounded by green grass and a seemingly infinite amount of different colored flowers. The buildings are quaint and are made of wood, stone and grass.

After entering through the open gates of the city, they find that it is bustling with a large festival that seems to be celebrating numerous large statues of Pagan deities. Entering the town square, one can see the similarities between this place and that of middle aged central Europe. Merchants, both on horse drawn carriages and merchants with their own shops closely occupy the place. Bars, restaurants, motels, and outdoor food stands are in or around every other building.

Napoleon bumps into, and knocks over a drunken man, he lifts the man up and says his apologies.

The man burps and raises his wine glass in the air while shouting, "Don't worry about it! I barely spilled a drop!"

Napoleon's eyes water when the stench of alcohol when the man's breath enters his nose, he takes a step back and asks, "If you don't mind me asking, what are these festivities for?"

The man starts laughing a loud drunk laugh and replies, "Ohh? You guys are from outta town eh? Well this is the first day of a week long celebration for the God of Harvest!"

"Harvest God? I see, well thank you."

"No problem kind sir! Get drunk and be merry! She won't bless us next season unless she sees that all of us are celebrating to our maximum potential!"

Napoleon waved goodbye as the man sang a song and stumbled off into the crowd.

He walks to Ubica and asks, "Worshiping such gods as this, would it classify as something that will keep these people from being reborn on Earth?" Ubica looks a little disappointed when he answers, "Unfortunately yeah... though the people of Purgatory aren’t structurally religious for the most part, they can experience things as simple as good luck, and turn their good fortunes into the influence of a god quite easily."

Napoleon is quite interested in what he has to say and listens intensively as he continues.

"The thing about this kind of idolization is that it creates real deities here, so this god of Harvest is alive and likely does bless them. These deities are fueled by their worship, and whether malicious or not, worshiping them takes away their chance at rebirth.”

"To be honest, that doesn’t sound too bad to me. It’s a shame they get punished for something they have no control over."

“I agree, there’s always almost no way of winning with ‘him’.”

“You mean God? Why is he so unfair?”

“Because he hates False Prophets.”

As soon as he said that, his body jolted and he put his hand on his head as if suddenly something forgotten had come to mind.

Napoleon sees his odd reaction and asks, "Is something wrong?"

Ubica takes a deep breath and looks away. "It’s nothing…”

Napoleon shrugs his shoulders and looks at the backs of the rest of the group, they are running around and smelling the many different foods and looking at all the different clothing, jewelry and other goods. They look like they are enjoying themselves so much but it's a shame that they are so broke they could barely afford a loaf of bread.

Napoleon realizes how fortunate they are that they had come to this very town during such a vibrant event; the odds of them getting some kind of part time job is very good.

He gathers everyone together and makes an announcement.

"Hey everybody, I think this is a good time for us to split up and find some work just like we had discussed earlier."

They all agree at first until they realize that they would be spitting up into pairs. Like children at a schoolyard, they want to get picked to join their desired team.

After a few minutes the three decide on who goes with who by playing rock paper scissors, and Trojia wins in a clean sweep. So the groupings go as such, Tsubiri and Daey, Ubica and Trojia, and Stauphius is paired with Niomyo and Napoleon.

Struaphius is disappointed at this outcome as well, out of everyone in the group, Napoleon and Niomyo are the dull ones.

But with the decision made, they all go their separate ways while planning on meeting up at a motel in the town square at midnight.

---

The sun is almost set and the festival lights begin to shine; the illumination of the city really sets the tone for this carnival like atmosphere. Colorful paper lamps line the streets and frame food and trinket vendor’s carts as they pass by selling their products. Napoleon and the two find a large restaurant and head in, by now hunger is setting in because they have not eaten since the early morning, and the delicious smell of the food is causing Strauphius to drool.

They enter and find that the restaurant is stacked with people and all of the waiters are hectically running around trying to please the rowdy customers.

Napoleon walks up to the host and politely asks, "Excuse me, the three of us are looking for a part time job during this festival, and we were wondering if you needed the help, you'd be gracious enough to allow us to--"

The overweight man interrupts him with a loud and panicked shout, "You're hired!"

He then points at Strauphius, "You, dishes!"

Then to Niomyo, "You, waitress!"

And to Napoleon, "Can you cook!?"

"Uh.. yeah I guess so."

"Good! One of our chefs just quit so you go to the kitchen and take his place!"

The three are so surprised at the suddenness of this hiring they are left speechless.

The man looks at them with a face full of urgency and shouts, "Now go! We're shorthanded here so get to work!"

They jolt up, shout "Yes sir!" and quickly scurry away to their new jobs.

---

"This wasn’t my idea of having a good time at the festival!” shouted Tsubiri in exasperation.

She and Daey are walking down the colorfully lighted crowded street and are frustratingly bumping shoulders with strangers. They almost seem most focused on dodging bodies than anything else.

“Is the thought of spending time with me so bad? Sorry I’m not Ubica.” Daey asked cheekily.

“Uaah no princess I didn’t mean that. I was just hoping we’d all be able to enjoy this together. I didn’t think that we’d be playing rock paper scissors and splitting up.”

"I curse the fact that I am so bad at that stupid game... Trojia always beat me when we were kids too." Daey mutters angrily under her breath, thinking back on her swift defeat.

Tsubiri roughly rubs her hair and says, “Ugh I guess we need to find a way to make money anyhow, as broke as we are we wouldn't have been able to leisurely enjoy ourselves even if we wanted to.”

"What kind of job do you think we should look for?"

"Hmmmm, oh! That place looks perfect!"

Tsubiri points to a building where there are dozens of rowdy drunk men standing outside the door, it's obviously a bar.

Daey sees this and instantly says, "How does that place have anything to do with us getting a job!?"

Tsubiri grabs her arm and leads her toward the large wooden building. "Just watch, I'll make us plenty of money before the night is done!"

Tsubiri walks up to a group of ten men that are sitting around a small table; she follows her sudden appearance by slamming her foot on the table to get their attention.

"Hey!!"

The men all stop what they were doing and look at give her a wide variety of agitated glares.

She smiles and grabs a drink out of one of their hands and asks, "How about we make a little bet here, what do ya say?"

It seems that all of the men know exactly what she means and smile, confident that they'll win at whatever game she conjures up.

Daey is standing there completely aloof as to what is going on when one of the men asks, "So what's the wager?"

Tsubiri laughs aloud and answers, "If I win, you all have to give me half of whatever money you have in your wallets."

A man pours some of his beer into a cup from his pitcher and asks, "And if we win?"

Tsubiri huffs a taunting air out of her nose and grabs a confused Daey. "If any one of you guys can beat me... your prize will be both this girl and I for one night."

The men look at the two beautiful women with eyes full of lust and all simultaneously shout,

"DEAL!"

Daey's face drops, though she doesn't know what the game is, she knows the odds are greatly stacked against Tsubiri by numbers alone. And the mere fact that she is one part of the opposing team's prize makes her quickly realize that this could end up being an absolute disaster.

"WHAT!?!?"

---

Trojia and Ubica are circling the town square gazing at the sights, all of the lights seem to dance around them and the atmosphere is happy and fun. Ubica has never experienced such a thing so he is thoroughly enjoying every minute of this with a big smile on his face.

Trojia is quite nervous, she can't find the right words to say and is twiddling her fingers awkwardly.

"H-Hey Ubica..."

"Yeah?"

Trojia zones out on his face for a few moments and scrambles her sight off into the direction of the sky.

"Eh uh, um... it's nice weather today..."

As soon as she said that she thinks to herself, (Uuahh!!! That was pathetic!)

Her thoughts are stopped by Ubica's gentle shove on her shoulder. "Relax Trojia, it's me you're talking to."

"Ahh sorry! I don't know what's gotten into me."

Ubica chuckles and breaks the ice for her by asking, "So, what should we do for a job? Any ideas?"

Trojia looks around the town center and doesn't see anything that catches her eye until she looks at the large wooden statue of the Harvest god. This large statue is covered with hundreds of candles and is surrounded by torches, the light emanating off of the statue makes it appear that a real goddess is actually gracing the festivities with her presence.

At the front of the statue, a platform with a large sign is based at its feet, she tugs on Ubica's sleeve and points at the writing on the sign. He looks and sees that the platform is for some kind of dance competition.

Trojia grabs his sleeve and shyly looks up at him, "Can we do that?"

"Uh, but we need to find a job."

"I think we’re allowed to have a little fun first."

Ubica takes a sigh of resignation, the face she showed when she said that should be illegal, there's no way he can say no to her now. He takes her hand to lead her and they both walk to the platform.

A man dressed in jester-like clothing is working the booth in front of the platform, gathering the attention of all the passersby around him he shouts, "Come one! Come all! Grab your woman and bring her to the dance floor!"

A large amount of people begin to gather and merrily grab random women as the man continues, "Our judges will find the couple that best pleases the God of Harvest with their dance and will pay you generously! To the victor goes the spoils! Come one! Come all! Only two minutes left until the music starts!"

By now, people are rushing onto the platform and it is filling up rapidly.

Ubica grabs Trojia's hand and says, "Did you hear that!? They'll pay us if we win, this could be our job!"

They run onto the dance floor and position themselves for another waltz, she can sense the sudden surge of enthusiasm out of him and it makes her heart race in excitement.

He puts his arm around her back and pulls her close, with a tender smile he says, "Let's win this thing."

"Right!"

The music from a band on the left side of the platform begins playing.

"Remember that our judges will be looking for style, chemistry and beauty! These are the conditions needed to please the God of Harvest!" The announcer shouted before proceeding to join the three judges in watching the group of people dance.

Some are dancing ridiculously in their drunken stupor, some are taking it extremely seriously and some are just making out. But out of all these people, a certain two stand out in the crowd like there is a golden light surrounding them. Dancing very close and very well, these two are by far the most beautiful people on the dance floor and the judges can't look at anyone else but them.

Trojia is staring at Ubica with a face full of content, she is pleased that all of the past dance lessons she received training for royal balls have come to be of good use; she is also surprised that he is such a talented dancer and is wondering where and when he learned as well.

She often seems to find herself internally asking questions about him, and is often nervous at the thought of his rejection to them if she were to ever ask aloud. Wondering what is appropriate or not, she finds that she forces herself against her attempts to learn about him. But this time she wants to ask, she feels as though she has to ask. In somewhat of an entranced state, she accidentally blurts out a thought that she has carefully spent the last couple weeks suppressing.

"What am I to you?"

Her face instantly drops at her own words, she can’t believe she just blurted that out so haphazardly.

Though they are still dancing along without a hitch, she feels as though the suddenness of her question has ruined the once romantic mood.

Ubica is caught off guard at first, and it takes him a few moments to gather his thoughts and figure out an answer.

"What you are to me..."

He can see that Trojia is flustered and apprehensive while she waits for his reply, so he decides to consider his answer carefully, though this causes her to suffer in anxiety a few moments longer.

He thinks back to when they first met on that road in the forest, and remembers how kind and caring she was when he was struggling with problems that he never had the courage to even tell her. He can't help but think that as of this moment, she is his someone very special to him.

"Trojia...you are----”

"Ubica."

Suddenly, a woman’s voice rings in his head and it shakes him to his very core, this voice is familiar to him.

"It sure looks like you've forgotten all about me."

Not only is this voice familiar, it is one he knows all too well, he shuts his eyes and thinks that there is no way he is hearing this voice. After a few moments of denial, he opens his eyes only to see that the people who were once dancing next to them are all gone, and the person he is holding is not Trojia at all.

It is a girl with long, straight but flowing white hair, she has bright gold eyes with almost reptilian-like pupils, a bright halo sits about a half foot above her head and its color matches the golden tint of her eyes. She looks to be in her late teens and she is wearing a flowing white and red outfit with wide gaps at her shoulders, revealing much of her blemish free skin.

The music is still playing and they are dancing, Ubica cannot seem to control his body for some reason, the surroundings around the platform that they are standing on is all black and the only sight that can be seen is the large candlelit statue of the God of Harvest.

The girl is wearing a faint smile when she says, "I see you’ve made some friends in my absence."

"Is she okay?"

"Is that any way to greet me after all this time apart?"

He sighs and says, "Just tell me you didn’t do anything to her... Messor."

"Don't worry she's fine, I'm just taking her place for now."

Ubica stays silent as they dance, Messor puts her hand on his face and strokes his lips with her fingers. "I’ve missed this so much."

Ubica shifts his eyes away guiltily and asks, "When did you escape?"

Messor simply answers, "It’s been a few months now."

"Damien?"

"Yeah… but don't worry, I ditched that bastard the moment he set me free."

“I knew that he would try and get to you, but I was scared that he wouldn't make it in time. When I found out he had been making appearances back on Earth, I was hoping so much that you’d be with him.”

Ubica takes a sigh in relief, but he still looks like he’s troubled about something.

The smile on Messor's face disappears when she asks, "Is that a face full of guilt I see?"

"....."

"I have forgiven you for leaving me back then, it’s okay.””

“I’m sorry Messor, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, I’m here now, it’s all been worth it. We can go back to the way things were before.” she said with her soft hand pressed onto his cheek.

He lowers his eyes and replies, "I don’t think we can do that anymore..."

She glares at him with eyes that seemingly penetrate into his soul. "I will always be your past, present and future. you and I are one… of course we can still do it."

Ubica is overcome with emotion, and he’s feeling so many different things in regards to her presence in front of him. The strain on his face is evident, and it isn’t lost on Messor.

"You’re the same person, yet you seem so much different to me now. I’ve never seen you look like this."

He flinches, but the two still dance effortlessly, she does a twirl and says, "What has changed you into this I wonder? Something has had to influence you after you escaped the pit… or is it someone?"

Ubica is starting to feel his senses come back to his body, but he still can’t find it within himself to reply to her.

“Perhaps this is why my search for you on Earth felt so impossible, the you I could sense ceased to exist, it only took me until a few days ago when you finally used Dantega that I was able to make my way here to you."

“I was waiting for Damien to release you, but I never could sense you either, I had thought he’s had you hidden this entire time. I don’t understand why or how, but I’ve become separated from Dantega.”

“Separated? It seems more like you’ve rejected Dantega.”

She snaps her fingers and the music stops, she puts both of her hands on each of his cheeks and moves her face closer to his. "And if you’re rejecting yourself, that means you’re rejecting me."

"....."

"I won’t allow you to do that."

Messor puckers her lips and begins to kiss him.

Ubica has now regained complete control of his body, and instead of pushing her off of him he strokes the silky soft skin of her lower back with hands full of sensuality. It’s as if a long lost sensation has returned to his body in a bolt of energy, and it feels addicting; just a bit of this isn’t enough, he instinctively wants more and squeezes her tightly into him.

Messor gently pushes him off her just when she felt him melt from her kiss, she smiles and says, "I'm pleased to see that my lips still have such an effect on you."

She pulls his collar and moves his face so close to her that their noses are touching.

“We’ve found each other again, and this time you’re not going to leave me behind.”

She puts her hand over his eyes and gives him a quick kiss on the lips.

But the electricity that came with her touch quickly fades, and when he opens his eyes he is shocked to see that he is actually touching lips with Trojia.

The music is still playing, but by now the majority of the dance goers have their eyes stuck on the sight of these two beutiful contestants sharing this kiss.

Trojia's face is beaming in a bright blush, she smiles and embraces him tightly. "So that’s your answer... I'm so happy."

Ubica is about to try to explain what had just happened but he himself doesn't exactly know what's going on.

Before he can find the words to speak he is interrupted by the host of the dance competition saying, "Ladies and gentlemen! I think we have our winners!"

The host is pointing at Ubica and Trojia and all of the participants begin to clap.

Trojia smiles and excitedly says, "Yay we did it! Did you hear that Ubica? We won!"

Ubica is still confused and is so distracted he has yet to blink, without a shred of positive emotion he replies, "Y-Yeah..."

In her elation, Trojia fails to notice that he is obviously distraught as she grabs the sack of this town's currency being handed to her by the host.

After being congratulated by the judges and others who were standing by, Ubica and Trojia are now walking to a fireworks show that the host had told them about. The host stated that it is said that any couple who sits on a certain hill in the middle of the town during this event are destined to be together, so with this and the fact that they had won the dancing contest she can hardly contain her excitement.

Ubica hasn't said much since they left the competition and is being helplessly dragged by the hand of Trojia. They begin walking up a stone path that leads up a flower filled hill; once they reach the top they join a group of a dozen couples all sitting or laying on the grass and flowers awaiting the fireworks show.

The two sit down and Trojia glares at a spaced out Ubica. "Hey... are you okay? You look distracted."

He doesn't respond quickly and it causes her to be a little impatient.

"Ubica!"

His shoulders jolt, "O-Oh sorry about that... I'm just a little tired."

She blushes and pats her hand on her lap and asks, "You can rest on my lap if you'd like."

He bashfully replies, "No it's alright, but thank you though."

She pouts and grabs his ear, she pulls him closer to her while she also moves closer to him, causing them to both be leaning on each other with an equal amount of weight distribution.

"No need to be tentative, you are always welcome to lean on me."

He smiles and begins to relax, this is the same warm feeling he was reminiscing on while the two were dancing. He feels a rare sense of security until the first firework is shot into the air, the flash and the bang instantly make him think about the face of Messor.

He flinches and Trojia assumes he was frightened by the blast, she begins to laugh along with all of the noise. "Hahaha, how cute of you to be startled by such a silly thing."

He nervously laughs and replies, "I wasn’t expecting it to be so loud I suppose."

The two's eyes meet for a split second and in that short time frame a multicolored firework explodes and the shining lights flicker on their face. Trojia's heart beats fast as she scrolls her view from his eyes down to his lips. She leans in for a kiss, with her slight movement the sound of another exploding firework bangs in the air.

Ubica is frozen, he feels that he should move but he finds it very hard to reject her advances. But again, the image of Messor once again pops in his head and all he can think about is how her lips felt and how it made his body numb with a certain feeling he failed to remember after many years.

He grabs her shoulders and gently pushes her away. "There’s something I need to tell you."

Trojia is surprised and is suddenly feeling her touch is unwelcome to him. "W-What's wrong?"

“When I kissed you earlier, my mind was somewhere else.”

Confused, Trojia looks at him quizzically and says, “I don’t understand…”

“There’s someone that I know that took me away from you, obviously I was physically with you so it’s hard for me to explain, but I wasn’t fully there for that brief moment.”

“So you’re saying that you didn’t mean to kiss me?”

“Yeah… I’m sorry.”

She doesn’t like the tone of this apology, it sounds like he’s rejecting her and it is almost making her feel sick to her stomach.

"If that wasn’t for me, was it for this person who took you away?"

"....."

“Don’t do that.” she says, raising her voice to get his attention. She looks guilty about demanding something out of him so aggressively, but as tears well up in her eyes it’s obvious that she can no longer hold her frustration back. “Stop keeping secrets and just tell me what's happening with you!”

She blinks and the tears that were forming in her eyes fall down her cheeks, she looks so pitiful while she unsuccessfully tries to wipe her flowing tears with the palm side of her sleeves.

"What just happened was so important to me… if you push me away from knowing why it happened, you’re going to break my heart."

Ubica can't stand the feeling that is brewing in his chest, he knows that what he’s doing isn’t fair to her, but he’s too spineless to reveal the truth. It makes him wonder why he’s so afraid for her and the others to know about him in the first place, and then he realizes that it’s just because of this new found insecurity in maintaining the relationships he’s formed with them. It’s this selfishness that’s starting to push Trojia away from him and cause her pain, and he can’t stand that his weakness is the cause of it.

Ubica grits his teeth as he tries to explain. "In the past, I had a lover…” He leans back and finds it extremely hard to allow the words to escape the back of his throat. “We were inseparable for as long as I can remember, and it was only recently that we’ve been apart.”

Finally getting into the head of this person she’s found herself so infatuated with, Trojia looks on in amazement as he reveals this new fact about himself.

“But the truth is, we’re still connected, and she has just regained access to my soul. She replaced you in my mind and it was her I kissed.”

“I see…”

As hurtful as it was to hear this, she is relieved to at least learn something about him deeper than the what he presents to her on the surface.

“This woman, do you still love her?”

“I don’t know if what I feel for her is what you would consider love.” Ubica said, troubled by how hard it is for him to understand what constitutes that word. “But I can tell you that I’ve never been able to live without her.”

Trojia takes a deep breath, trying to expel the array of emotions she had just gone through underneath the exploding fireworks overhead. She looks disappointed, but satisfied at the answer when she says, “Then I guess my question to you was just a burden, huh?”

“No.” Ubica quickly replies, “I can give you my answer.”

Caught off guard, Trojia’s shoulders jump and she looks at him wide eyed in apprehension.

“I consider you my savior, I wasn’t who I wanted to be before I met you... you are my first real friend, and I am forever indebted to you for that. In a way, you’d call that love right?”

Blushing with a racing heart, Trojia finds it within herself to smile.

“Well, it's certainly a start.”

---

Tsubiri and Daey are walking rather gingerly down the street toward the motel, it's close to midnight so they are ready to rendezvous with the others.

"Buahahahahaha! I told ya Daey, they didn't have a chance!" said Tsubiri in a sloppy slurred tone.

Daey hiccups and replies, "Yuuueeeaaah, nooo chance!"

It is quite obvious that they are in a drunken state as they weave and bump into each other, their loud laughing and manner of speech allows them to blend in with the rest of the rowdy crowd still partying in the streets.

The two are drunk for a reason, the challenge against the group of men proposed by Tsubiri was a drinking game.

This game is called 'fire and ice', it involves a deck of cards and the rules are simple. In a standard deck there are four different suits of two different colors; black and red. Each contestant is given three face down cards, and before they can flip one over, they have to guess what color it is beforehand by saying 'fire' being red, or 'ice' meaning black. If the card is opposite of what they chose that means they have to chug a large wooden cup of beer or wine, so the one who chooses the most correct out of three wins the bet.

Tsubiri played ten of these best out of three games and by pure luck she won them all, but she still guessed wrong more than enough times to be completely belligerent.

The money she had earned can be considered a small fortune since all of the men forfeited half of their wallets to her, chances are they made enough cash to cover at least another week of travel. As a celebration, Daey joined her for one cup of wine, it was her first time drinking and it truly showed because she was faded before she even knew what hit her.

The two wobble to the front of the designated motel; in front of the entrance is Napoleon, Niomyo and Strauphius. They look comically exhausted and their bodies are slumped over in a pathetic way.

"Soooooo how much money didjjyaaall make?" asked Tsubiri.

"Are you two drunk?" replied Napoleon dejectedly. He automatically assumed they never found a job if they are in this bad of shape.

Tsubiri pulls out a purse full of gold coins and smiles. "Tellll me how great I am."

"Wow that's a lot!!!" shouts Strauphius, the first to jump in and praise her.

"So whaddya got?"

Napoleon takes the three’s combined earnings out of a pouch out and shows them less than a quarter of what they have.

Tsubiri and Daey look at each other and proceed to break out in laughter at their expense.

Tsubiri can hardly contain herself when she says, "Hahaha what the hell's up with that chump change?? What kind of job did you guys even do for that mere pittance?"

They don't answer her question because the fact of the matter is, they spent all night working the most back breakingly stressful job they have ever done for this small amount presented.

Niomyo changes the subject and asks, "Well what did you guys do to make so much?"

"Let's jusstss say that some men weren't able to hold their liquor as well as meee."

What goes through their minds when she said that is the thought of them robbing some drunkards. But that thought is brushed off when they catch sight of Ubica and Trojia walking back. They all say their hellos and the two drunken girls glare at them coldly, in their unstable emotions and through their inebriated lenses, they feel as though the two of them are looking awfully cozy.

"How did you guys fare tonight?" asked Napoleon.

Trojia has a smile on her face when she pulls out a sack filled with almost as many gold coins as Tsubiri's and says, "There was a dance competition in the town center, we won and we got this as the prize."

Strauphius's shoulders drop and he asks, "Is that all of the work you guys did?"

She smiles and replies, "Yup!"

Strauphius, Napoleon, and Niomyo sigh loudly and their body language is that of complete dread. They worked a ruthless job and they don't even have half the amount of money the other two groups have, to add insult to injury, the others earned that much by simply drinking and dancing.

---

All of them are sleeping in two rented rooms, the men in one room, and the women in the other. Tsubiri is still extremely drunk and restless laying on a bed next to a passed out Daey. All she can think about is Ubica and she is getting more and more agitated at the fact that they did not spend any time with each other at the festival.

So she decides to leave her room for a walk, while in the hallway she passes Ubica's room and figures she might as well see if he is still awake. It is a couple hours past midnight so she is hoping for the best, she knocks on the door to see if he'll answer but nobody does.

She tries to open the door and finds that it is locked, with a drunken smile she takes a hairpin off her head and easily picks the lock. She learnt this through her days as a maintenance worker when she would need to clean the inside of a room that had its door locked; because she did not have the keys to every room, she would sit at the door for hours on end until she figured out how to pick it.

"Sorry to intrude." she said quietly with a slight slur.

Once entered, she sees that all three men are asleep.

She finds it hard not to laugh at Napoleon's sleeping position when she sees that he is laying on his bed flat on his back and has his hands crossed over his chest, making him look just like a vampire fitting perfectly in a coffin.

Strauphius on the other hand is sprawled out on his bed with his limbs flopping in different directions awkwardly and is snoring loudly. He flings his arms upwards as he yells in his sleep and shouts,

"No more dishes!!!"

Ignoring his nightmares of his tortuous night’s work, she passes him by and finds Ubica sleeping beautifully on the ground in the corner of the room.

"Jackpot." she snickers to herself as her eyes turn glassy from the alcohol.

Tsubiri walks to him and turns him from his side onto his back, she removes his blanket and while doing so she accidentally hiccups loudly, she looks to see if she had woken anyone up and to her relief they remain dead asleep.

Napoleon and Strauphius worked long, grueling hours at that beyond busy restaurant so they are already past their breaking point; it's doubtful even an explosion would wake them up. Ubica on the other hand rarely seems to sleep, so when he does he's usually out like a rock. She throws the blanket back over him but this time with her joining him under the covers, resting on top of him she finds that he is not wearing any pants, and is only in his boxers.

"Ohhhhooo izz this an opportunity to take a little peeeek??"

Because she is not thinking straight, she doesn't realize how creepy this kind of act is considered to be, all that is going through her hazy mind is that of wanting to be with him in any kind of way. Before she pulls down his underwear she decides to sneak a kiss or two in first so she shifts her eyes to his face, there she sees a sight that makes her sober up a bit.

Under Ubica's head is the giant obnoxious blue jacket that she had bought for him a few days back, he is using it as a pillow. At first she assumed that he is just using it because there was nothing else to rest his head on, but it turns out that just a few feet to his side are two pillows that are not being used at all. The only explanation for this is that even though he doesn't like wearing the cumbersome jacket, it was still a gift from someone important enough to him that he will put it to use whenever he can, specifically with that person in mind.

Tsubiri starts smiling and halts her sneaky stealth attack on his lips.

"You are so kind Ubica..."

Instead of proceeding with her drunken plan to assault him while he’s asleep, she rests her head on his chest and asks, "I hope you don't mind if I stay like this for a little while do you?"

Of course, Ubica doesn't answer so she adds, "Good, cause either way, I'm not leaving just yet... Muah...ha...ha...ha."

By the end of this sentence she trailed off into a deep sleep. This mission on her part was a complete failure, but she will certainly wake up realizing that it was better off this way if she can remember it.

---

"Uaaaaahhh! What is this!?!?!?" shouted Ubica when he woke up to see Tsubiri sleeping with her head a few inches below his belly button. She is drooling on him and he can feel it sliding down his belly all the way to the inside of his boxers.

She slowly opens her eyes, and looks at him with a tired face full of confusion. "What are you doing on my bed Ubica?"

"You're the one laying on top of me in 'my' room!"

Tsubiri puts her hand on her head and rubs her temples. "Could you not yell so early in the morning? I have a terrible headache."

Even though this is such an odd situation, Ubica can't help but think of how cute a face she made when she looked at him like that, but that doesn't change the fact that she is on top of him for a reason unbeknownst to him.

"Just let me go back to sleep for a little." she says as she drifts back to sleep.

Ubica grabs her shoulders and begins to shake her. "No! You can't go back to sleep like this! Imagine what someone will think if they see us!?"

As soon as he said that, he felt the sharp glare of two pairs of eyes coming from the left of him. He turns to see Napoleon looking at him dejectedly and Strauphius is looking so stunned that it seems as if his jaw will fall to the floor.

"W-Wait guys! This is a misunderstanding!" Ubica pleas, but his words fall on deaf ears as they continue to give him a death stare.

At this moment, with brilliantly bad timing, the rest of the girls come rushing in through the door of the room.

"What's wrong!? I heard some shouting!" Trojia asked in a huff.

Once she sees the scene that has just unfolded she gasps with a face full of horror.

Daey, who walked in fighting a hangover of her own, flinches back in shock.

"Ubica, I didn’t take you for someone who would take advantage of a drunk girl." Daey said while shrinking behind the door and giving him a cold stare.

Ubica has gotten blindsided by this, one moment he was asleep and the next moment, everybody thinks of him as some kind of pervert. "This isn't what it looks like!!!"

He frantically tries to wake Tsubiri up so she can explain this to them, she postures up but she is obviously still asleep. He tries to get away from under her in this brief moment of freedom. He backs away but she quickly drops down onto him, and as a result her head lands right on his groin.

He looks at everybody in the room and they all have their mouths wide open upon seeing this. He can feel her face sink into the gap between his legs and he continues to turn blue knowing that everyone is watching this unfold.

"This isn’t what it looks like!!"

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