"Happy Birthday!"
Melusine begins the morning by pulling the covers off of her
master's bed and yelling at the top of her lungs to provide a unique experience of a morning wake-up call.
At least six months have passed since Vali Lucifer first met his servant of the lance. She slammed into his life like a freight train and completely derailed it. Though it was difficult at first, he eventually grew accustomed to her antics.
Unfortunately, he hasn't seen all of the small servant's theatrics. And now a new one is becoming apparent to him.
"Jeez Mélusine," the boy grumbles. "It's 5 AM!" He screams and tries to cover himself in sheets.
Which doesn't work because Mélusine rips them off again.
"We don't have time for that!" She takes out a notepad filled with various ticks and other things. "There is so much that needs to be done! I had to wake you up early today just so we could get everything done. As a result, we cannot afford to waste any time! " Now fully awake, the devil prince is somewhat perplexed at this excitement and becomes even more worried since she appears to be far more eager than usual.
The devil gives her a critical look. "You know you can't just walk around like that?" He couldn't help but think that in her excitement, she forgot that the only people that should be aware of her presence are the ones in this room.
She says, still beaming, "Oh don't worry about it, Albion took care of that," as the half-demon looks over his shoulder in shock.
"I thought with things like this you were on my side!" He claims that he views this as a betrayal.
The sole answer from the heavenly dragon is one of frustration. "...If I didn't assist, she threatened to tear down the entire building." The holy objects seemed to be subject to her whim.
The Lucifer looks her in the eyes and sees the untold destruction held back by restraint, which makes him confident that she will keep her promise.
"You must have been through a lot." Vali's voice was filled with sympathy.
"Yeah, but to be honest, she and I put a lot of effort into this, so why not give it a shot?" The dragon pleads.
"Well, I don't have much of a choice, but..."
As the thought passes through his mind, he turns to face his servant, who is excitedly hopping up and down as she discusses all the things they are going to do to themselves while going through the schedule.
"It's fine for either of us to have fun."
"Alright, where first?" says the user of divine dividing, sighing dejectedly.
Melusine's eyes were sparkling as her smile spread and she became even more animated.
"All right, first thing!"
X-X-X
"Mélusine."
"Yes?" his companion asks. She changed from her usual clothes to don plain trousers and a blue and black t-shirt, more contemporary attire.
"Why are we in an arcade?"
That is exactly what the two are doing. Despite the fact that it had only recently opened due to the early hours, the games are now all ready to play. In all honesty, he wasn't angry; he was just expecting something more unusual, which was more typical of her.
This behavior, on the other hand, appears to be even more vexing.
It's among the top 10 locations to visit on your birthday, foolish, so that explains it. Her chastising him didn't help either.
"This is so childish," the devil scoffs, and at that, she turns to him, confusion bare on her face.
"But aren't you a child?" She responds, clearly not understanding what he's going through.
"Not at all!" He said back, with slight anger in his voice, continuing, "And first, aren't you-." He pauses, realizing he is speaking to a 200-year-old fairy dragon, and makes the wise decision to hold his tongue.
"You know what? Forget about it," and then begins pouting as a result.
The servant sighs from her nose at the sight of her spoiled master. "Come on, stop pouting." She tries to cheer him up with an unconvincing smile.
"I'm not sulking."
"Yes, you are."
"..."
The fairy knight observes the quiet treatment with a resigned expression on her face and says, "Well, let's go with the true and tried way of treating this." She then put on an arrogant, fake-snarky expression.
"All right, that's fine." She turns around and walks away. She paused briefly before continuing.
No response.
"Why bother when you know you're going to lose?"
At those words, he turns quickly to face her, a fire in his eyes.
"Oh, you want to play it that way?" He yells in anger, demanding vengeance. "Best of five!" He then bolts in the direction of the nearest game. "Come on, we're burning daylight!" she responds by following him with a deadpan stare and the same awkward smile returning.
"Albion?" Melusine's thoughts were tinged with honest worry.
"Yeah?"
"At first it was funny, but now it's just weird how he falls for this every single time".
In response, the ethereal dragon could only laugh.
"HAH, you would see it that way! But let me just say, rather than seeing this as him being tricked, think of this as more of you giving him an excuse to be true to himself. "
"Oh!" She appears surprised that she was not aware of this. "Well, that's just adorable now." The knight claims, as she sees him walking to the racing game, grinning viciously.
Her surrogate father affirms,"It is."
X-X-X
"Ha! First blood!" As his vehicle crosses the finish line, Vali shouts and jumps up in excitement.
Mélusine, on the other hand, was constantly hitting her head against the steering wheel.
"For once, I despise the throne of heroes for not bestowing upon me the riding skill." Upset the girl says without showing emotion while still slamming her forehead on the steering wheel.
Her partner begins to give her a deadpan look after he stops relishing the victory. "So you were planning to cheat?" he asked, giving her a disappointed expression.
She pauses from hitting the wheel and returns his look with one of her own, as if he's factually incorrect. "Can you even call it winning if you don't use your abilities to their full potential?" She acted as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"That's... a good... point." The dragon-scared gear could only agree because it had no words to oppose her. " You know what? Forget about that. " He shifts gears quickly and points to another machine. "How about we go there next?"
"What's that?" The servant quickly recovered from her loss, asking for and anticipating the next game.
"It's-"
X-X-X
"How the fuck is she so good at DDR?!"
It wasn't so much a fight as it was a total blowout that left her spinning around the dance floor and him staggering in defeat.
"HmmHmhhm!~ "
"How?" The young man thinks, trying to wrap his head around the loss. "She didn't even know what DDR was?! When I told her what it was, she said this-"
[Before they got on the playmat]
She examined the device closely, making a thinking gesture with her palm on her chin.
"Is this some form of a remnant of the so-called dragons of dragons I heard so much about? Like myself?" Her voice was oddly serious for what they were doing as the boy stared at her like she had lost her mind.
[...]
"How can a person like that kick my ass?!" He paused to think once more. "It was like she was teleporting... Maybe I should try dividing her movement speed... " Seeing this child drifting further and further into more dangerous thoughts, a certain someone had to put a stop to it.
"Vali no."
"Eh?"
The boy, confused, snaps out of deep thought, seeing that the dragon continues.
"No, she did not use any magic, and NO, you're not going to be doing anything, you were just thinking." He elaborates.
"Geh."
"It wouldn't even work anyway, remember? We already tried using divine dividing on her and you saw where that got us."
"Hmm..." Vali was still pondering whether or not he should try anyway.
"Just move on to the next game." The dragon, not taking any of this, puts his foot down.
X-X-X
"It broke." She says, simply facing him as she's holding a hammer to a crackling whack of a mole machine, as steam is erupting from it.
It doesn't even matter anyway, she got a max score after he went.
"I'm not even surprised anymore." He says this in an empty tone with a blank expression as the staff starts rushing to the machine that has seemingly caught on fire.
"That, I'm amazing or you're losing?" The lancer asked back.
"Shut up." The master tried not to give her any way to stroke her own ego.
He was well aware of her amazing coordination and control of her strength, which gave her an advantage over any familiarity he had with the games. So now he has to find a game where neither applies.
Completely ignoring the remark, something catches her eye and she stares in excitement.
"Vali!" The knight excitedly calls out, pointing toward the machine. "What's that?!"
"That's a-" An idea came to his mind as he turned to see the machine.
"Oh!"
"Well, that could work."
X-X-X
The crane machine slowly drops upon the silver dragon doll and places it in the desired spot after each of their several attempts.
"Yes! I did it! Take that-. " His voice dies out as he sees her holding on to her pants, looking downwards like she is about to cry. Unsurprisingly, he did not know what to do because she usually takes a loss better than this, so he awkwardly shifted and waited for her to explain why she was sad.
"I wanted it..." Her voice sounds unusually quiet.
"?" "Wanted what?" The boy could only think.
"I really wanted the plushie..." She explains as she grips her jeans harder.
"Oh."
Before someone says anything else, he extends his hand with the toy to her face and turns sideways with embarrassment.
"Look... We can share alright." He was trying to sound as standoffish as he could.
The girl let out a short gasp as the sparkle in her eyes returned before grabbing the plushie and holding it out in front of her.
In her moment of innocence, she snuggles it and giggles.
"Ehehehe-" For a second, she was in pure bliss before stopping immediately. When she comes back to reality, her face turns red, and as quickly as she could, she puts the plushie right in front of her to hide her face.
"What are you doing?" Vali could only ask that.
In a tone trying to contain any emotion, she answers. "Trying to hide my face in embarrassment since I don't have my mask with me currently."
Vali could only think of that response as...
"Doesn't that destroy the whole point if you explain it like that?" The dragon helpfully voices his opinion within the confines of his mind.
"Grk! Hmm!" From the display he got from the fairy, Vali sputters incoherent words in his mind as he holds his chest. "Why does she have to be so...?" He exclaimed in frustration at his sacred gear.
"Like a girl?" The dragon finishes his sentence.
"YES!"
"You know why." Albion did not even bother to answer.
"Let's just finish this damn contest already." His wielder mostly lost his strength to argue back after his lancer's antics today, which were surprisingly tame compared to normal.
X-X-X
"STRIKE!" The machine screams as the last of the pins fall.
The white dragon emperor slowly got up from his form as he kept staring at the machine, slowly replacing the pins with a new set as he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding in.
*Clap clap clap clap*
while Melusine is cheering him on in the background.
"Honestly, I did not expect our match to end this way.."
[Right before the start]
"What's bowling?" That was the first thing she asked when he explained what they were doing next.
"Oh right." He said more to himself, remembering that servants do get important information, but that's just to acclimate to modern society at the bare minimum.
After explaining the game, she responded with five words.
"I don't want to play."
He turned to her, somewhat confused.
"Wait, why?"
"Hmm... She squeezed the plushie(which they agreed to share) while deep in thought.
"Because it's more fun to see you enjoy yourself." She said with a smile. "It's your day after all."
(...)
So, now it has devolved into her cheering him on on the sidelines with the match basically over.
But he thought back to what she said.
"Because it's more fun to see you enjoy yourself."
made the white dragon emperor think.
"Was he having fun?"
"Yes."
"Yes, I am."
To be honest, the thought was so alien to him. He never thought that the meeting in Azazel's lab would turn into this. But he has no reason to lie. He wouldn't trade these moments for almost anything else in the world. This leaves one question...
"Should I tell her?"
"I think you should." The dragon answers firmly, stating where he stands in this dilemma.
"But..." he hesitated.
"Vali, she's already opened her heart to you. You should really do the same."
Instead of responding back, he goes deeper into his mind.
He's right. I know he is. In comparison to her life, my secret is definitely much smaller.
But she did it anyway. Because she trusts him... us. Am I supposed to reject that trust?
No, that's not the problem.
"... s-she might think less of me." He says this more to himself than to his dragon.
"Really?" Was all that the dragon said.
"No..." He admitted, "I.. I'm... I'm just scared, Albion. He finally admitted it, and with that, all the emotions and thoughts he had held back came flooding through. "I don't know what she'll do! How she'll react! What'll she think of me! angry? Sad? I don't know what she'll do, and it scares me! I don't want her to change! I don't want it to be different! I don't want these days to stop! " He relents.
"I see." The dragon's voice was neither angry nor disappointed.
Well... We don't need to worry about that for now. As she said, it's your day after all." He pauses, as if realizing something. "Oh yeah, and you should probably get her."
"Hah?"
*BOOOOM!*
But before the heavenly dragon could answer, he hears a loud crash in front of him as it breaks him from his thoughts. What he sees before him is Mélusine looking up in perfect form with a bowling ball firmly indented above the bowling alley with an expression of a straight face with her lips stretched out into a thin line. It was almost as if she was barely holding back an oops.
"I don't need to even ask." He thought absently as he quickly got up and stomped over to the girl who looked completely unapologetic, which was cemented by what she said when he came up to her.
"I put too much power into it." She said simply.
"I thought you said you didn't even want to play!?" He shouted back.
Not caring for his anger, she responds flatly. "No, I said I prefer to watch you. Since you stopped playing, I thought I'd give it a try."
"Hey, it's those kids again!" They both heard from a distance who was probably the staff.
"And we're leaving." Vali fermented in his mind as he grabbed Mélusine and booked it towards the exit.
Not bothering to care about the current predicament, his servant exclaims. "Oh good, we're leaving." As she is being dragged, she pulls out the notebook and opens it. "That means we have an extra 20 minutes on us!"
Finally, understanding that his being mad wouldn't get through her thick skull, he sighs and asks. "Where are we going next?"
"Multiple famous ramen chains!"
He looked at her intensely. "Really?"
To which she smiles back. "Yup, Albion got Azzael to book them for two all day!" Also developing a ramen addiction over the months they met, she naturally fell in tune with Vali's love for the food.
Trying to hide his excitement, he lets her go and starts briskly walking, as they were already outside of the arcade with the sun shining on their backs. "Well, let's go then!"
She puts on a smug smirk. "He's so cute when excited." She said to herself, happily, seeing that he was really on board with this.
not even bothering to listen to the jab. He yells, "I don't hear you walking!" The white-haired boy was already a few paces away from her.
"Coming!" She yells back.
Despite being excited to go to the shops, he was still thinking back to the lingering message Albion gave him.
"Albion's right, I should enjoy this day. They both work so hard so that I can enjoy it, so it would be a waste if I moped all the time."
"But even if I have to reveal it to her..."
Slowly gaining on him, she takes the lead as she starts running.
"Even if things change for the better or worse..."
She turns back, giving him a toothy grin. "
"I'll remember these moments."
"Can you keep up with me?" "Teasingly," she said, as she started to get further and further ahead.
"Now."
He responded with an uncharacteristic toothy grin himself, his eyes wide in joy as he started sprinting.
"And forever."
"I'm coming, Melusine!"