Myuria: How many chapters are you stretching this story for?

Final Hikari: It's shaping up to be close to ten, though they've gotten a bit shorter. XD

Myuria: You should feel some shame for making your readers wait so long.

Final Hikari: Yes, indeed I should, but I'm busy listening to promiscuous Utada Hikaru songs at the moment. XD She was so amazing to see live…! -absolutely no attention span-

Myuria: …You're annoying the readers.

Final Hikari: And I still don't own a damn thing from Star Ocean: The Last Hope.

Aroma of Love

Chapter VIII

A Swift Escape

Reimi Saionji jogged up the stairs and into the residential floor, proud of the success - although it was leading to some very out of character behavior caused by the Aroma of Love. She hesitated a moment, inwardly wondering if the apron she'd purchased was still on the surface layer of Lymle's many disorganized piles.

She'd never successfully gotten the stubborn girl to wear any of the cut outfits she'd gotten at the various places they visited. It was rather frustrating.

Not to mention that time she 'accidentally' lit an entire drawer full of expensive dresses and outfits I got her…she said it happened when some embers off Cerberus' tail fell in the half open drawer. But with all the soot and ash in there it looked more like she set a Fire Bolt off… It wouldn't be unusual for her to do something radical like that as an excuse not to do something she doesn't want to…

Faize was most likely resting - if she was careful, she could probably get in and out without mishap.

And if he is still awake, he should really go see Sarah so she can heal him… She does know more healing symbols than anyone else, if I remember correctly…

Though it is pretty scary to put your health in Sarah's hands…

Or maybe butter fingers…

She shook her head slightly to dismiss the thought. She walked up to the door and knocked gently, waiting for a response, but hoping she wouldn't receive one.

To her disappointment, she had no such luck.

"Yes?" a familiar, though oddly impatient sounding voice responded.

"Hey!" Reimi greeted cheerfully as she walked n the door. "How's your head?" she asked simply, somewhat surprised to standing to see him standing in the middle of the room with a small device projecting a holographic display in hand. More so, it was surprising he'd even made it to the middle of the room - perhaps Lymle had disenchanted the divider, since the room had been rather lopsidedly separated before. "Did those two really give you a concussion?"

"It isn't serious," he replied dismissively, gaze returning to the small device in his hand.

The screen looked fuzzy, even at the distance of several feet away. The small device producing the hologram had chipped paint encrusted in all the buttons, which was most likely the cause of the malfunction. She didn't doubt the chipping as the result of failed attempts to remove the symbol paint with various chemicals that were supposed to remove traditional paint.

Caught off guard by the dismissive response, she took a step closer to him and peered at the screen curiously. "What's that?" she asked politely.

"It's a scanner meant to analyze components and chemicals present in the air or atmosphere. It can be connected to any ship's primary consoles to save data on a planet's air, but its maid for indoor or on ship use, as well," he explained, holding it out to her so she could read the screen. "As you can see, it no longer works properly since Lymle submersed it in paint."

She glanced over the text, but was unable to recognize even one character. The Eldarian language was a complex one, from everything o the structure of sentences to the word formation. Giving up on reading it, her eyes fell to the small identification picture. That, much to her dismay, was very familiar. Her eyes widened slightly as she almost paled at the sight of the Aroma of Love.

He knows about it?!

I'm in so much trouble…

She caught herself before her expression alone incriminated herself. "What's that?" she asked simply, handing the device back to him.

Unless I can sneak my way out of this…

"It's called an 'Aroma of Love,'" he said, saying the name distastefully. "It is in the database from the item creation recipe I can't in pinpoint this…things location since the scanner isn't working properly. However, it's definitely in the close vicinity."

"How strange," Reimi remarked, though her poorly hidden guilty expression betrayed quite a lot. "Maybe Myuria made one. She has all kinds of concoctions stored in her room. Some of the names are quite inappropriate so I told her not to leave them lying around the Item Creation area."

"It's somewhere in this room," he retorted, meeting her gaze evenly. "What makes you consider Myuria to be the culprit behind this?"

"Oh, well, I have no idea," Reimi replied with a nervous laugh. "It's just that it's a compounding item, right? She's the best with that type of item…"

"Reimi, do you honestly have no affiliation to this?" he asked crossly.

"What makes you say that? You know I could never make an item like that on my own, I'm just a cook…," she railed off, taking a step toward the door.

"I do not mean to sound rude, but your elusive behavior is rather suspicious," Faize reasoned, voice flat.

"W-well, if you're worried, why not go ask Myuria about it? Or maybe Welch?" They'd probably know something, since Welch must have overseen its production and all."

"…I doubt asking Welch would be the wisest idea," he said after a brief pause. "If I may ask, what did you come in here for?"

"Uh, I bought Lymle a cute little pink apron back on Roak," she explained, coming up with a quick lie, as the garment in question was most likely in the same drawer as the Aroma of Love. Even malfunctioning, she figured his censor would be able to pinpoint the potion if it was released into the open air. "But I just remembered that I kept it in my room so she didn't get paint on it…or light it on fire."

She was indeed a horrible liar.

Before he had the chance to get a word in edgewise, she continued to ramble on. "So I'd better get going, I won't keep pestering you. You might want to have Sarah examine your head f I still hurts," she added helpfully, not stopping to think what a sorry day it would be when Sarah preformed head examinations. "See you later!"

She disappeared out the door and down the hall, not even trying to keep to her story and checking the room she shared with Edge. After all, she knew for a fact it wasn't in there. She hurried down the stairs, not bothering to say hello to Ying and Yang as she went past. Sarah was preoccupied with the treadmill and Meracle was too distracted staring at Sarah's wings to notice as Reimi returned to the item creation room.

That was very close…far too close for comfort.

Maybe Edge was right about hiding it better…I really didn't think he'd find it this fast…

The first of the automatic doors that lead into the dividing hallway side open noticeably slower than it usually did. When she passed under it, a sprinkling of brown sugar landed on her head. She grimaced and turned around to stare at the area around the top of the door, confused and stunned to see the dark, molasses soaked sugar to be caked around the top.

How in Earth (or perhaps Lemuris) did a young girl less than four feet tall get sugar way up there?

She shook her head, party in disgust, but mainly to shake the sugar out of her hair.

At least Lymle's still blissfully unaware of it…for now, at least.


Myuria Tionysus stood on a step ladder to reach the storage compartment near the ceiling between the bed and desk on her side of the room. (Have fun picturing the view from the other bed, fan boys.) She was currently sharing the room with Bacchus - she pitied his wife, even if he did 'disable his optical censors.' They planned to have her share the room with Sarah, since the tension in the room she shared with Meracle was creating a loss of sleep.

She hummed an Earthling song from the year 2009 A.D. to herself as she organized all the potions stored there. She'd gotten it from Reimi's severely neglected base of vintage music.

"I know you've thought about it, but it's all in your head," she sang to herself pleasantly. "And you can't wait to see me, to see me in the flesh. I see you really need to get this thing off your chest, but you know I gotta get you back in my nest…"

She had been procrastinating on organizing her love potions, perfumes, dyes, and other random concoctions for a few days; however, the lengthy trip to Aeos ended up yielding more than enough time to go through them. She kept them all in an air tight storage compartment for a reason, as they were all very, very potent.

One entertaining recipe she'd recently perfected and was stocking up on was her Love Perfume No. 690. It had the same effect as the Love Potion No. 256 (or the banned Love Potion No. 356) and came in several intensities. It was always entertaining to see how they effected the ship full of - save herself and Bacchus - teenagers.

Even though Edge was technically twenty-one, he still fell into the later category.


Myuria: -frown- What was the purpose of that last scene? I refuse to flirt with any fan boys unless I deem them worthy. And you made it utterly impossible for them to keep even halfway pure thoughts with the comments and lyrics.

Final Hikari: Bah. I get paid (although well) to write so much worse. -sob- And besides, this is the fate you were doomed to this fate the moment your husband died and you started dressing like a hooker. XD -ducks the bricks, flames, etc of fans- Kidding! I was only kidding! T.T

Myuria: And the disclaimer?

Final Hikari: 'Dirty Desire' is © to Utada Hikaru. Since it's only a few lines and not the complete song, it's completely legal to quote. XD If you would like to talk to one of my wonderful friends who is very savvy with copyrights, go right ahead and ask for the link. -starts to sing terribly- 'When I'm alone at night, I sit and fanaticize. And in my fantasies I love you long tonight. During my nine to five, I'm thinking six and nine. I've gotta make you mine.'