Alice looks back and forth between them, playing nervously with her fingers as she speaks. "I mean, yeah? Remember that night at the academy with all those monster and demon attacks? Despite all the chaos, she was running around to find me with a love letter. Even when she was almost about to die, she had my name on her lips," she explains, her voice soft but filled with a strange sense of wonder.
"Too bad that I couldn't read her love letter, though," Alice sighs in disappointment, but then a small, light smile appears on her face. "But I guess I fell for her in that moment."
Kailith looks at Brenna and Ravenna. "....."
Brenna looks at Ravenna and Kailith. "....."
Ravenna looks at Brenna and Kailith. "..."
With a silent exhale, Kailith turns to look at Alice, her expression a mix of puzzlement and confusion. "So did Maruti confess to you later on that she loves you?" she ask, trying to make sense of it all.
"Umm... No. But I already said I love her too before she could, so I guess there was no point in her confessing to me again," Alice replies normally, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"So you didn't see her love letter, and she never confessed to you, but you know she loves you?" Kailith ask again, her voice flat with a low frown.
"Yes, that's exactly it!" Alice nods immediately, a bright, happy smile on her face, completely missing the flat looks on the others' faces.
But Kailith only lets out a disappointed but relieved sigh and sits back on the bench.
"Fuck, worried for nothing," she mutters under her breath, running a hand through her hair.
"Phew, almost gave me a heart attack," Brenna and Ravenna exclaims at the same time, both of them slumping back against the bench as well, their tense shoulders finally relaxing.
"What?! I'm telling the truth!" Alice shouts with a pout, her cheeks puffing out slightly.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Kailith waves her hand dismissively, not in the mood to argue about it anymore.
With that, they rests on the bench for a few more minutes. No conversation happens between them, and the air grows a little awkward. But just before it could reach its peak, Kailith breaks the silence.
She immediately stands up and claps her hands together. "We rested enough. Let's go do something else!" she announces ,her voice cheerful again.
Everyone else nods in agreement, setting off to do some other things.
Walking around once again, they went to a photo booth.
The booth had a large magic machine with glowing runes, acting like a camera. It captured the moment and engraved it on paper. This place was usually popular among couples, and the four of them drew a few curious looks as they crowded inside.
They clicks some photos together, making silly faces and then some more serious ones. There were even some small arcade game shops around, so they wastes some of their time playing those, chuckling and competing with each other, their earlier awkwardness completely forgotten.
Before they knew it, they were already outside of a theater, deciding on which movie they were going to watch.
Kailith suggests watching an action movie, since of all the previous dates, although they didn't go on a ton of dates like what Maruti had promised, still, they had watched multiple romance movies, especially yuri ones.
Alice suggests a mystery thriller instead. While Ravenna was more interested in toxic love adult movies, their premises were basically made it look like a rip-off of movies like "Fifty Shades of Grey."
"What about you?" Kailith asks to Brenna, turning to her with a expectant look.
Brenna lightly shakes her head. "Whatever you all choose, I'm just happy with being with you all," she answeres politely, a gentle smile on her face.
But the polite answer didn't suit Kailith even a bit.
"No! Don't always act like you have low self-esteem. It's bad. Didn't we decide that no one should feel left out?" Kailith scolds her politely, but what she was really teaching her was to propose her own opinion.
"Let's go with an action thriller instead," Brenna saye, her voice a little firmer this time, a small, grateful smile on her face.
"With some toxic love between both leads?" Ravenna jumps in between with an ear-to-ear smile, her eyes gleaming with hope.
"NO!" all three of them shouts in unison, their voices echoing slightly.
"You should remember that we watched movies of your suggestions last time," Kailith exclaims, her hands on her hips.
"That was more than a month ago.... Uhh... whatever..." Ravenna sighs, slumping her shoulders. With being one against three, she didn't have much of a stand anyway.
For the next two and a half hours, they spend their time inside the theater. And turns out, their fear is coming true.
Although theaters exist in this world, they mostly operate through the use of magic and essence stones, so the quality is good enough, like early color TV movies. But the action scenes lack choreography quite a bit; they are unrealistic and over the top even.
This makes them feel that watching romance or slice-of-life movies is a much better option than an action movie.
"Shouldn't we make an action movie instead? We move and fight way better than any of the heroes in the movies," Kailith asks jokingly, a smirk playing on her lips as she leans back in her seat.
"Not sure if photo-audio magic can capture our superhuman movements," Alice somehow responds with a logical answer to Kailith's question, her voice soft but thoughtful.
"You're ri—" Kailith is about to nod but then her eyes slightly widen, a flicker of realization in them.
"Arlecchino?" she asks, her voice suddenly sharp, her playful demeanor gone in an instant.
Alice is calm, but a flicker of shock in her pupils immediately confirms Kailith's suspicion.
She immediately stands up, informing the others in a hushed but urgent tone, "It's Arlecchino."
Hearing it, Brenna and Ravenna, who are sitting side by side, also stand up, their bodies already tense and on guard, their eyes scanning the dimly lit theater.
"How did you find out?" Arlecchino asks, genuinely curious, a slight pout on her face. She has acted like Alice quite perfectly this time.
"Quiet obvious. What do you mean by 'our movements'? Alice always considers herself as weak," Kailith answers with a scoff, her arms crossed over her chest.
"Tch, obvious mistake," Arlecchino sighs, shaking her head in disappointment, and then stands up.
"So what? Why are you all acting like I'm gonna blow everything up?" Arlecchino says, looking at the three, her hands on her hips.
"Cause you do," Ravenna adds immediately, her voice firm.
"Not this time, okay? I'm also trying to cooperate here. Let's just enjoy our time," Arlecchino replies, raising both of her hands in a gesture of peace, a sincere look on her face.
Kailith stares at her for a few seconds with narrowed eyes, her expression unreadable, and then looks at Ravenna and Brenna, who are still on guard.
"Let her be, ladies. I'm here anyways," she says, sitting back on her seat, her posture still a little tense.
The other two also sit back but are a bit on guard, their eyes occasionally flicking towards Arlecchino.
Arlecchino also smiles, but her smile feels a bit uncanny as she sits down as well, her eyes gleaming in the dim light.
Surprisingly, Arlecchino doesn't do anything. Throughout their time in the theater, she quietly enjoys the movie, her focus on the screen.
The thriller part is quite good about the movie, with the objective of finding the real syndicate of essence stone smugglers, and even Arlecchino seems engrossed in the plot.
By the time the movie ends, it is already early evening.
"See? I didn't do anything," Arlecchino says, slumping her shoulders a little, a proud smile on her face.
"Why can't you always be peaceful like now?" Ravenna asks, her voice a little softer now.
"I like chaos," she replies without any hesitation, a wide grin on her face.
But as she does, a grumbling, hungry sound comes from her stomach. She has eaten popcorn and a cold drink, but it isn't enough to fill her stomach at all.
Not only hers, but the other three's stomachs rumble as well, the sound echoing in the quiet theater.
"Let's go to a restaurant and eat something," Brenna says, her practical nature taking over.
****
There is no doubt, the restaurant is going to be the last stop of their date. It is already evening, and their purpose of the date isn't to have intimacy but just to spend some time and get to know each other better.
With dozens of different items presented in front of them on the menu, everyone of them takes their favorite dishes first.
There isn't a lot of food on the table despite the four people since only the heavy eater between them is none other than Maruti.
As they continue their eating session quietly, the comfortable silence is broken by Arlecchino.
"By the way, I wanted to ask something. How did you turn into a fallen dragon? Do you like sex that much?" she questions, not fearing for a second that it might upset Kailith, her voice casual and curious.
Although Ravenna's face surely turns serious the moment Arlecchino brings the topic, her eyes narrowing slightly.
But surprisingly, Kailith doesn't get upset at all. She just calmly takes a sip of her drink, her expression thoughtful.
"It's because of you all, of course," Kailith answers, her voice calm but with a hint of something deeper.
"Huh? How?" Ravenna asks immediately, her confusion evident, her fork paused midway to her mouth.
"I mean, not particularly because of you all. What I meant is, I didn't want any rivals. I wanted her all to myself. So I kind of got overly obsessed with her, even stalked her sometimes," Kailith confesses, her voice dropping a little as she admits the darker parts of her feelings.
"Sometimes?" Arlecchino asks again with a suspicious look, one eyebrow raised.
"Umm... Yeah, only sometimes. Definitely!" Kailith answers with a gulp, trying her best to sound normal, but the slight blush on her cheeks gives her away.
"There were a few things as well, here and there, and BOOM! I'm a fallen dragon now. Also, I kinda hated my mother for being like her shadow, but she helped me out so much. I guess it was me who didn't try to understand her at all. That's it for now. Let this girl have some secrets of her own," Kailith ends her story dramatically, taking a deep breath as if she's just run a marathon.
"Now what about you all? Am I the only one spreading my life stories to you three?" she adds immediately, changing the subject with a bright smile, her mood shifting instantly.
"What's there to talk about? I was just a village girl with no parents. I don't think you would be interested in hearing stories about Ethan and me," Brenna confesses, her voice quiet as she pushes a piece of food around her plate.
"My parents are dead as well. Rest aren't much worth to talk about," Ravenna adds casually, and continues her eating, as if she's just commented on the weather.
"My parents are dead as well", Arlecchino says.
"Fuck, I guess we again have something in common," Kailith says cheerfully, trying to lighten the mood, but her smile doesn't quite reach her eyes this time.
"Your mother is alive," Ravenna whispers lightly, not looking up from her plate.
"Ohh, shoot!" Kailith almost chokes on her drink, her face turning red.
"What about you, ali— I mean, Arlecchino? Anything else?" Kailith asks, quickly changing the subject again, her voice a little too loud.
Meanwhile, Arlecchino falls silent for a few seconds, a dry, humorless smile appearing on her lips.
"Well, Rather than my parents dying, I killed my parents," she confesses, her voice flat and devoid of any emotion, her eyes fixed on the table.
"No, you didn't," Kailith adds immediately, her voice firm and certain, without a hint of doubt.
"Huh?" Arlecchino was slightly surprised by her response. She expected them to be surprised or horrified, not to deny it so bluntly.
"Maruti told me about it. She is also pretty sure you didn't do it," Kailith says, her voice turning serious and honest, her eyes meeting Arlecchino's.
"You too? She talked about it to me as well," Ravenna says, looking up from her food, her expression soft.
"Me as well. She told me to not bring the topic about her parents in front of her," Brenna says, her voice gentle.
"How considerate of her," Arlecchino smiles again, but this time, the smile was different. It's genuine, a little sad, but real.
She immediately understands that Maruti did it so others wouldn't unknowingly bring the topic and might hurt her feelings.
"It's quite a boyish way of dealing with it, though," Ravenna says, a thoughtful look on her face. "I saw a lot of boys changing the topic or never bringing it in the first place, since they find it awkward to straightly give validation to someone."
"Well, she's quite boyish for sure," Kailith chuckles, a warm, genuine laugh this time.
"But it isn't correct way", Ravenna adds.
Meanwhile, Arlecchino couldn't help but giggle to herself, a light, happy sound. "Hehe... I couldn't care less about her ways. This just shows that she loves me the most," she says, a triumphant look on her face.
"There she goes again," Kailith sighs at her antics, but she was smiling too, a fond, exasperated smile.