Well, between drawing and writing Nep things, it looks like I felt like writing this time, guess this story fits better with writing.
Disclaimer: HDN franchise is owned by IF and CH.
Today was another normal day in Gamindustri with nothing special going on, the CPUs of the nations were at work (Yes, even Planeptune's surprisingly) and the Candidates were just about as well. Truthfully, one of the CPU Candidates of Lowee had often wondered about a certain situation with two other Candidates. This here was Rom, and her main question had been thinking about the relationship between Nepgear and Uni.
Awhile back (to the surprise of no one), Nepgear and Uni had started the process of 'dating' in a relationship, but Rom had never really understood what exactly that was supposed to mean or what the implications were. In searching for answers, she managed to find a book from Blanc's bookshelf, but she could hardly understand some of the words the book described and now sought to find some help. The first place Rom went to was Lowee's archive of books, where references and encyclopedias are stored. The archive did not have many people around since unlike a library, it was not open to the public. Still, Rom did see someone familiar around, even though it was unusual, perhaps she would be able to find the answers she seek.
"Annnd that's it. Incomplete source of information here, but maybe this is good enough for the quest? Yeah, hopefully good enough for Histy~" the figure mumbled to herself, humming along while carrying a few books. Naturally, Rom recognised this figure, none other than the (usual) lazy CPU of Planeptune, but for whatever reason today she was working over at Lowee. Neptune had barely put the few books down on the nearby desk and sat down when Rom appeared, holding a small book and approached the CPU. Taking note of Rom, Neptune turned around and smiled while greeting the Candidate.
"Oh, hello there Rom, how are you today?" Neptune asked, finding it odd that Rom would be alone in a place like this by herself.
"Hello Miss Neptune, I wanna know about something but Ram didn't seem to know and Blanc did not give a clear answer," Rom replied, hoping that Neptune would have an answer for her question.
"Something that Blanc couldn't really answer? Must be serious then, what is it?"
"What is love supposed to be?" Rom asked, before there was a bit of silence.
"Umm, wait... why are you asking this all of a sudden?"
"Well, sometimes I ask Nepgear if she can play with me, but sometimes she is too busy with Uni, something about love."
"Oooh right! That..." Neptune responded, knowing where the conversation is going but retreating to her own thoughts to how she could possibly answer Rom's inquiries, "(I wonder if this is going to get awkward, I know Nep Jr. and Uni have their thing going on, but... I can also see why it would be complicated for Ram or Blanc to explain the whole thing to Rom... Hmm, what should I say?)"
"I mean, Nepgear loves Uni, but... doesn't Blanc love Ram and I as well? So why do they need to spend time alone?" Rom asked again, breaking away Neptune from her thoughts.
"Oh, well I mean... you can say that there are... different kinds of love in this world, some are more different than others..." Neptune said, trying to best explain it that Rom would understand.
"So it's true, the different types of love described in this book?" Rom asked, holding the book she had the whole time, where Neptune saw the title, Explaining the forms of Love.
"Yeah, there are different types of love for certain people or something like that."
"Can you read me some of this? I got this book from Blanc's bookshelf but it has many difficult words," Rom said, handing the book over.
"All right, let me see..." Neptune replied as she quickly flipped through the pages of the book, and trying to process some of the information.
Surely this was unexpected for Neptune, as her main quest some information gathering for the guild that had her go to Lowee. Somehow, she ended up trying to answer to the curious Rom, to which she did not mind as it was less boring than doing work. After about a minute of quickly skimming a few parts of the book she was able to understand the gist of it and formulate a response.
"Ok, I think I sorta know about this, it's really simple you see, the general idea with love is that it has 4 major forms:
1. Eros - This is where all the romantic mushy things happen. People just love each other and connect in a special way, lots of sappy romance and emotions, you know. Think of Blanc and her writing for example.
2. Philia - A strong bond of love that is platonic between people but are not romantically involved, like friendship that you can rely on one another to survive the lonely nights in places like Lastation.
3. Storge - This is the love through familiarity, like family members have for each other because of their likeness or something like that, something that Vert will probably never understand.
4. Agape - An unconditional love for just people in general, a strong love towards basically like, everybody because you appreciate their existence or whatever thingy. This is probably best shown by Compa towards just... everything.
So something like that, while they are all called love, they are different depending the people involved," Neptune finished as she handed the book back to Rom, as odd as it was for her to explain what love is, at least the book outlined everything pretty nicely without getting too technical.
"Wow, you can understand that, amazing Miss Neptune!" Rom replied, seemingly to have understood everything about love now.
"Yeah, maybe just a little..." Neptune replied, even though she wanted to take credit and maybe brag a little, but even she knew her explanation was improvised at best (Her examples were perfect though... maybe).
Still, at least Rom got her answer and left the room happy, and Neptune finally continued with her work before taking way too long and getting a lecture from Histoire once she got home. "(Well, I suppose it would be difficult for Blanc or Ram to explain all of this stuff to Rom... but with Nep Jr. and Uni like that it's not surprising that she would end up asking something like this... Oh well, I think I once had to explain something like this to P-Ko as well.)"
2 Days later
Neptune exited the guild hall of Lowee, having just finished a few requests in the area. She wanted to stay in Planeptune to finish her quests, but Histoire was already wise to Neptune's tendency to repeat the same quest with hunting 3 Dogoos and calling it a day. With that in mind, Histoire pushed Neptune out of Planeptune for once, and so today she journeyed out to Lowee since Lastation's quests were almost cleaned out by loners and she did not want to fly across to Leanbox. With the quests done for today though, Neptune was free to do as she pleased, and since she was in Lowee already she had the idea to barge into Lowee's basilicom and annoy Blanc or something. Just as Neptune was about to charge through the front door unannounced, the door itself opened up and there stood Rom.
"Umm, h-hello Miss Neptune."
Neptune responded to Rom's presence, as unexpected as it was, "Heeey, it's Rom! How are you today? I was just about to see if Blanc was around~"
"Mm, Blanc and Ram just left and won't be back until dinner time."
"Oh what a bummer... well, what are you doing in the meantime?"
"I was about to see if anybody could answer my other question, because since Nepgear and Uni are in love... with that Ear-Ros kind right? How does a 'date' look like for a couple?" Rom asked while holding out a book titled Dating for Couples.
"(Oh my goodness, why is Rom reading about something like this and-wait, she gets her books from Blanc's library... so why does Blanc have something like this!?)" Neptune thought, as it would seem that Rom had way too easily accessed all these books. Still, Neptune had to somehow respond to that question now too. "Oh you know, when two people are in love they just go to park or do something they enjoy, spend time together and love stuff, yeah..."
"Oh I see, you know a lot, can you show me how a 'date' looks like?"
"(Oh no! How did it turn out like this!? Can I even... do this? If anybody saw us it would totally mean trouble! No, there's no way I can-)" Neptune thought to herself before noticing that Rom was looking at her with glitter in her eyes that said "Please?" with an adorable face too cute to ignore.
Somehow one way or another, Neptune got caught into doing something that did not expect to do in her life. Still, Neptune tried not to think about it too much, Rom was only curious and it was not like Blanc or Ram could have done better in showing her the way with this thing in particular. Holding hands, the pair walked through a small park while Neptune explained that couples just liked each other's company and the basic bond of love in dating (After all, it was not as if Neptune was an expert in this field herself).
After awhile though, they both got a little tired and went to the nearby cafe and sat down with one of Lowee's specialty cakes along with some tea. Neptune welcomed the relaxing mood, it was not too bad going on this little venture, it reminded her of the few times she took Peashy out to buy pudding. Only now she noticed Rom seemed to have something to say.
"Hey Rom? Is something wrong? You've barely bitten into your cake."
"Well, I read in this book that couples often reach across the table with their forks to share their cake, can we try that?"
"(Wait! Is she reading some sort of manga!? And I really wonder if Blanc is aware that Rom is reading this stuff...)" Neptune said to herself before replying, "Only real couples should be doing something like that though."
"So we can't?" Rom replied with a pout that would be enough to melt all the snow in Lowee.
"Oh ok fine, but just today because I am showing you..." Neptune relented, it was just so hard to say no when Rom made that kind of face.
Following through with the ludicrous request, Neptune poked a portion of her cake and reached across the table where Rom bit into it, and likewise Rom did the same, much to the chagrin of Neptune. The rest of the day went pretty normally, with the pair visiting shops across the more quiet parts of town (as to avoid being seen, especially by people that know them). Finally, when it was almost near the evening the two of them were almost back at the basilicom and decided to sit down on a bench nearby.
"And so that's basically some of the activities of this 'dating' thing..." Neptune explained, it was a rather weird experience but she knew that Rom was only requesting this venture out of curiosity.
"I see... I think I understand now," Rom replied, smiling.
"Yeah, so... that's it for today, it's almost time, you should head home soon right?"
"Yeah, but... don't couples kiss before they part?"
"(Oooooooooh! Why or how did she know this too!?)" Neptune thought to herself, as this scene was getting incredibly awkward for her.
"Well, I am gonna try it!" Rom said, leaning closer.
"Wait a minut-" Neptune interjecte, but Rom already acted. With a light little peck on her cheek, it was done.
"Hehe, so this is how it is."
"Y-yes... anyway! Maybe someday when you find somebody you could share these moments with them... for real," Neptune said in response, her face showing relief that it was not what she thought Rom meant.
"Thank you for today, see you later!" Rom replied before parting from the scene.
Neptune however, was still too busy shifted her eyes left and right, hoping that Blanc, Ram, or whoever else they knew did not see what had just occurred right now, because she knows that she may very well be buried into the Gamindustri Graveyard if somebody (Like Ram or Blanc) had seen what happened.
The next day...
Neptune had to deliver a mis-delivered package to Blanc from Planeptune, and ended up in Lowee again. The task was easy enough, but since Histoire already had her work with paperwork and a few quests Neptune was exhausted by the time she arrived in Lowee, so she decided to take a break just outside the basilicom while opening a bottle of Nep Bull. Just then, Rom appeared once more to Neptune and approached the CPU.
"Oh, hey there Rom..." Neptune said, hoping that Rom has gotten answers to everything she needs to know now.
"Hello! Good to see you again."
"Yeah, just dropping off something for Blanc, so... everything all right?"
"Yup, I just want to know one more thing..." Rom said, seeing as Neptune seemed to know lots about what she asked.
"Ok... just... ask away, I'll do my best to answer," Neptune replied, hoping it would not be something too outrageous as she started to drink down her Nep Bull.
"Ok, so I want to know, how do couples make babies?" Rom asked as she smiled with curiosity as she held out a book titled, The Miracle of Life.
"PFFFFFFFFT!" Neptune reacted with a spit take.
This was it.
She was not going to answer that question. No way. It all started a few days ago with the question of love, that was fine. Afterwards it was diving into the dating scene and demonstrating the scene, fair enough. This however, was impossible for her to answer (at least comfortably). This time, Neptune would need to take Rom back into the basilicom and start an awkward conversation of epic proportions that involved Blanc as well. Though the conversation may be long, Neptune knew somebody needed to initiate it. After all, Rom is Blanc's sister, so the older sister should take some responsibility for something like this.
And so there's the amusing idea that came up just randomly one afternoon, never thought about the logistics of how such a pair would work, but somehow it worked out.