"So this is where we'll be eating, huh?"

Of course, one could only frolic in the cole (or rather, not cold) sky for so long before growing tired and/or hungry, and as such, at Sucy's request, Constanze had decided to show her to the dining room - or rather, the kitchen that they happened to also eat in.

Like everything else in the Stanship, the kitchen was elegant in its simplicity. A small round table placed in the centre along with a fridge and a stove top left just enough room to line every available spot on the walls with cupboards. Sucy sat idly by as Constanze rummaged through them, picking out ingredients from each before assembling them near the stove. As she got to work cooking, Constanze even began humming to herself, allowing herself to relax a little.

Sucy had never really gotten the appeal of cooking. After all, why smell food when you could smell the wonderful aroma of a freshly brewed poison? But now, even with the pristine ventilation of the Stanship, the savoury scent of sauces and spices filled the air and Sucy couldn't help but let a relaxed grin form on her face as she sat back.

"You sure you don't want me to help at all?"

Unsurprisingly, Constanze shook her head. While she had learned a thing or two from Jasminka, the best thing that one could say about Sucy's cooking would be that it's only about half as deadly as her toxins.

"Gotcha. I'll be right back, then."

After all, she still had to brew up that vomit potion she'd been putting off all day. That would take longer than a few minutes, but surely she could stop part way through, right?

After all, Sucy can stop brewing potions whenever she wants.

###

15 minutes later, Constanze figured that she should just leave the plate outside Sucy's room.

###

Wiping the sweat off her brow, Sucy could feel the effects of her potion wearing off as she completed the batch of vomit potions.

"Sorry for the wait, Constanze, I'm done-"

Opening the door, Sucy found that there was a small shelf that had been pulled slightly out of the wall with a small bowl of mushroom pasta. Taking the bowl in one hand, she tentatively pushed the shelf only for it to be swallowed up by the wall as she did.

"Always full of surprises, huh?"

And as she started to eat, a thought occurred to Sucy:

Is she going to be making exclusively mushroom dishes for the rest of the trip?

###

After finishing her food, Sucy headed to the kitchen to wash her dishes only to come to an inconvenient realization:

She turned the water off? Does she trust me that little?

On one hand, Sucy understood: having Akko as an assistant much of the time probably meant that there'd been more than 0 incidents involving a shop flood. On the other hand, being put on the same level as Akko was slightly demeaning.

Oh well. Not much to do but ask her to turn it back on.

Setting the plate and fork on the table, Sucy headed over to the machine shop, knocking on the door.

"Constanze? You there?"

There was an emergency stop button on the wall that Sucy figured would get her attention, though something told her that that wouldn't be a good idea.

"Ah, whatever. If she doesn't want me inside, she'll have locked the door or something. I'm coming in, Constanze!"

Turning the handle and pushing in the door, Sucy peered inside the room to find…

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEE-

Constanze standing behind her with a very cross look on her face.

"Oh. Constanze. You know, I was actually just looking for you-"

Before she could even finish her sentence, she was already being dragged off to Constanze's room.

###

Maybe it wasn't that dumb of her to turn off the water.

Sucy was, by all accounts, a calm and measured individual. Whether it came to a life-threatening encounter with a cockatrice, getting detention with Akko for the umpteenth time, or making poisons that could kill cities with a single drop, Sucy Manbavaran wouldn't even flinch.

But an angry Constanze? Sucy had a long list of things that she could do, but outrunning a magical bullet shot from a magical SMG wasn't included.

The door swung open into Constanze's room and Constanze gestured at the bed, prompting Sucy to take a seat.

"L-look, Constanze, I-"

Wow. First the alchemy shelf and now this? She really needed to get her act together. Though the piercing gaze that Constanze was making it a little bit hard to concentrate. Honestly, how could someone half her height be so intimidating? Maybe the fact that she was sitting and Constanze was standing had something to do with it. Taking a deep breath in and out, Sucy stabilized herself, saying:

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gone into the shop without permission. Your tools are every bit as dangerous as my potions, so I should've been more mindful of that."

The stern gaze of the technomancer remained, but softened slightly at this. She exited the room, leaving a slightly confused Sucy by herself as the door swung shut.

"Constanze? What are you-"

When Sucy looked at what Constanze was holding, a wide grin began to spread across her face as Constanze handed her a controller.

"No way."

The video game cartridge in Constanze's hands wasn't something that Sucy had seen before, but that didn't stop her from discerning what it was:

Super Smash Witches.

###

When looking over everyone's abilities, Sucy found that a lot of thought had gone into this mod. Of course, some were obvious like Amanda's moveset consisting of several movement abilities incorporating the shooting star and her own set of potions, but the one that really got her was Jasminka's final smash being turning into a giant, muscly demon who ruthlessly force fed her opponents various food items, guaranteeing damage if the initial grab attack wasn't dodged.

Sucy lost every match. She managed to make a few somewhat close, but no matter what, every single time, Constanze managed to claw it back, winning by the skin of her teeth.

"Guess I can't beat the creator, huh?"

Constanze simply shrugged, stretching as she knocked Sucy off the map yet another time.

"Fair enough. If I'm not giving you a challenge, why don't we do some of the campaign - ah, that is, if you coded it and all."

Unsurprisingly, Constanze nodded as she switched over to the campaign mode, gesturing for Sucy to pick a character.

"Who do you think I'm going to pick?"

Rolling her eyes, Constanze picked herself, but as Sucy picked herself to play as, she couldn't help but notice the slight lift in the corner of Constanze's lips.

Quickly, Sucy came to the realization that any bot designed by Constanze would be an insurmountable wall for her. Every move she made, every time she tried to do anything but running from her life, she'd end up getting knocked straight off the map.

But despite this, Sucy found herself beginning to relax. The room was nice and cozy, the light from the projector was dim but visible, and despite the temperature adjust potion having long since worn off, Constanze provided plenty of heat herself.

Sucy couldn't remember the last time she'd been able to have a moment of quiet, unbothered by her lack of motivation for alchemy, or the endless noise of being within a 50 mile radius of Akko. Instead, she found herself almost mesmerised as Constanze took down level after level, essentially on her own despite the difficulty of the levels being adjusted for 2 players.

But she'd just end up dead anyways, so she just sat back and enjoyed the view as Constanze demolished Croix all on her own.

"You're pretty good at this, huh?"

Well, that earned a snort. Sucy watched as Constanze turned to grab her whiteboard, then writing down:

"Movie?"

Thinking to herself for a moment, several ideas bounced off of one another inside of Sucy's mind. Well, there was that one documentary on a serial killer who invented a poison called 'the glove cleaner', but that would probably hit a bit close to home. She had other ideas, but one began to grow larger and larger until it drowned out all the others and before she could stop herself, Sucy said:

"Surprise me."

Over a year of Lottes sappy romantic dramas and Akko's endless supply of dragon ball (I mean seriously, it's still ongoing?), Sucy had learned to never, ever utter those 2 words together under any circumstance.

But that was Lotte and Akko. And this was Constanze.

And the moment that Constanze pulled out a disc for "Friday the 13th", Sucy had only one thing to say:

"You know me too well."

In response, Constanze appeared as though she'd just realized something before reaching into her pocket and pulling out…

"Mushrooms? Seriously? You trying to get something from me?"

Constanze merely shrugged before simply writing down:

"Fortification potion."

And when Sucy saw that, she didn't just smile. She didn't just say 'Fair point' or roll her eyes.

No, Sucy laughed.

It wasn't just a short chuckle, she clutched her sides, throwing back her head as she wiped a tear from her eye, and as she regained her senses, all she could say was:

"Pfft… you got me there…"

Constanze would try to say something, or do anything to respond, but all she could focus on was the sensation of Sucy's hand on her shoulder.

###

The movie was relatively uneventful, neither of them talking or emoting much apart from a few dry comments from Sucy like 'That was a pretty cheap jumpscare' or 'I could totally see Akko doing that'.

Still, they'd settled into a rather relaxing atmosphere and once the film had ended, Sucy almost couldn't bring herself to break the calm spell that had fallen over both of them.

Despite that, drowsiness had a way of trumping all else, and as such, Sucy found herself stifling a yawn and getting up and off of the bed, saying:

"I think I'll turn in for the night."

Constanze hopped off, exiting the room and gesturing for Sucy to follow her. Going across the hall, Sucy found herself in a room about as spacious as the kitchen, fit with a double-sized bed on the (oddly warm) tile floor. Beside it was a nightstand and on the other side of the room was a small closet with a simple set of black sleepwear.

"You got my size?"

Constanze nodded before elaborating:

"It adjusts."

"Gotcha."

And as Constanze exited, the room once again fell silent as Sucy changed into her sleepwear and drank her pre-bed potion.

Effectively just having taken a bath, Sucy hummed to herself as she snuggled under the blanket, letting out a small sound of satisfaction as her ears were greeted by nothing but the low hum of the Stanship's engines.

Truth be told, she had barely had a single night of quiet rest since she'd arrived at Luna Nova. Sure, that was often the fault of her own late-night experiments, but when she wasn't preparing a mixture, it was Akko's snoring or Lotte's habit of loudly reacting to whatever it was she was reading late into the night.

How did Akko always manage to sleep so soundly through all that?

Then again, through a recent failed sleepover, Sucy had learned that between Amanda and Jasminka's midnight snacks, she probably had it just as bad.

Maybe that's why Constanze invited her on this trip, she thought. After all, if she had her own lab and bedroom, there was little-to-no chance of Constanze being disturbed in her sleep. Still, was Constanze not worried about being poisoned in her sleep? Maybe she'd put an alarm on her door to wake her up if a potion was brought near her room? Sucy wouldn't put it past her.

Or maybe, did she simply trust Sucy not to do that?

That was the thought that drifted through Sucy's mind as she slowly drifted off to sleep.