Shirou was in a situation every magus in every time of every world would wish or kill to have.

And that situation was having a conversation with Merlin, the magus of flowers.

Right now, Shirou and Merlin were having a conversation in Chaldea's cafeteria, sipping on tea and having snacks of the sort.

And why were Shirou and Merlin having a conversation?

Because of two things.

One was that Merlin wanted to thank the man who made his student and her alternate versions happy.

And the other was that Merlin was bored.

So, he decided to do this.

"I'll admit, this tea is quite interesting Shirou," Merlin said as he sipped on a cup of Japanese-style green tea Shirou made for him earlier. "I never had this type of tea before, even in Camelot."

Shirou smiled. "Glad you liked it Merlin," he said as he took a bite of a rice cracker he picked up earlier. "You should try the rice crackers as well.

"Why thank you...Queen Shirou," he said with a teasing tone of voice.

Shirou sighed. "Please don't call me that..." he muttered.

As Merlin continued to sip on his tea while grabbing a rice cracker for himself, Shirou's thoughts went back into the past as he thought of the events that brought him here...

(A few hours ago...)

Shirou was walking down Chaldea's hallway, minding his own business.

When out of nowhere, a storm of flower pedals was floating around him, confusing him.

"What the...?" Shirou thought as his sight was temporarily blinded by the amount of flower pedals in front of him. Eventually, the flower pedals stopped floating in front of him and flew to another direction. "What's going on? Why were there flower pedals floating in front of me?" Shirou thought.

However, as Shirou looked at the flower pedals that fell onto the ground, he noticed an envelope on the ground. Shirou then picked up the envelope and opened it, wanting to know who the sender was since it didn't have anything that printed on it.

Inside the envelope was a note.

And it said this:

Dear Shirou, I hope that you aren't busy right now, but I hope that you can join me in the cafeteria for a daily chat.

From Merlin.

P.S: Don't try to reject it or else I'll force you to come here with magic.

Shirou sighed. "Well this is not what I expect today to end up..." Shirou thought as he was done reading the note. "But then again, every day in Chaldea is always unexpected with these many servants around here..."

After a few minutes of thinking, Shirou decided to go to the cafeteria to have a chat with Merlin.

Just to avoid the hassle of being carried off to the cafeteria by Merlin's magic. Root knows what would happen if he rejected the invitation.

The thought of that made Shirou shudder instantly.

"Well...I better get going then..."

(Back to the present...)

"So, how's Arturia and her alternate versions doing?" Merlin asked as he sipped on his tea.

"They're doing fine."

"I see. Have you been treating them well? Especially when you're "alone" with them?" Merlin asked with a coy smile on his face.

Shirou sighed after seeing that smile from Merlin's face, knowing that smile wants to know if anything "interesting" happened between Shirou and the Arturias. "Yes. And Merlin, we haven't done "that" yet."

"Aww...I wanted to know if my student and her alternate versions finally learned how to be a woman..." Merlin pouted.

"Really Merlin? Are you always like this in front of Arturia and her alternate versions?" Shirou asked while taking a bite of a rice cracker.

"Oh, come on! Sure, I may be a jokester considering my heritage, but I don't always act like this in front of her and her alternate versions you know!" Merlin argued in defense.

"Oh really?" Shirou asked, not convinced.

"Yeah!"

Shirou sighed as he took another bite of his rice cracker. "So...how's life in Chaldea for you Merlin?"

"Hm? Oh, it's a blast here. So many servants to have fun with, master's an interesting guy, and Arturia is here as well. Honestly, Chaldea feels like a playground where I'm able to have fun freely, and I like it. However, even with my clairvoyance, I did not expect to see so many versions of her..."

"No kidding. When I first got here, I was surprised to see that Arturia has many versions of herself. Not to mention the fact that some of those versions have...well...different outfits..." Shirou said with a blush.

Merlin noticed Shirou's behavior and had a smug grin on his face. "Well, well, you're fantasizing about my student and her alternate versions now, aren't you?"

"N-No! Why would you think that?!"

"Hey, come on now, you can just tell me," Merlin said teasingly.

"W-Why would I!?"

"Come on now, don't be shy! Look, I'll even help you start off the conversation! Now, which one do you think is sexier, the lancer versions of Arturia or the ruler version of her? Or, which Arturia do you think is more cuter? The original, or the Alter, or the Lily, or the Archer, or the Rider Alter, or the Santa Alter, or the Assassin, or the Berserker, or the Foreigner? " Merlin jokingly asked.

"C-Can we talk about something else?!" Shirou blabbered uncontrollably as images of lancer Arturia, lancer Arturia Alter, and ruler Arturia came into his mind and he tried to get rid of the mental images.

Merlin laughed at Shirou's reaction to the question he asked earlier. "Wow. Now that Shirou's here, life in Chaldea has got a lot more interesting around here, and it's already interesting enough! Now I have another person to tease forever! And he's Arturia's sheath, former master, and queen! Which gives me an opportunity to see if Arturia has any embarrassing secrets from her time as Shirou's servant! And she's not here right now!"

After Shirou had a few minutes calming himself down from the heat he was feeling in his head from the mental imagining, he took a sip of his black tea and said, "There's one question that still puzzles me Merlin."

"Go on."

"How are you even here? I mean, Arturia did say that you were locked in a tower in Avalon, so how are you even here? In fact, you're still alive, aren't you?"

"Oh that? Yeah, I can ask someone to summon myself as a caster class using independent manifestation. In this case, I asked master to summon me to Chaldea and that's how I got here."

"Is that so..."

"Yeah."

For a short while, there was silence between the two...

Until Merlin said something that literally knocked Shirou's socks off...if he had any.

"You want to know something Shirou?"

"What?"

"I envy you sometimes..."

Shirou was confused from Merlin's statement. "What do you mean by that?"

Merlin let out a sigh. "Isn't it obvious? I'm jealous of you that you're able to attract girls without trying."

Shirou spat out his tea. "W-W-W-What?! What are you talking about?!" He exclaimed.

Merlin sighed again. "Are you this dense? I've been watching you for a while, and I'm impressed. Not only you managed to attract my student and her alternate versions, but you also attracted Ishtar, her rider self, Ereshkigal, Parvati, Kama, BB and her sisters, Astraea, and somehow, Nero and her alternate versions. I mean, even I don't work that fast! And I'm half incubus! In fact, I'm even tempted to ask you tips on how to attract girls fast like how you did! So, tell me! How do you manage to attract girls that easily Shirou?! Is it some sort of skill of yours or is it a book that you read?! What is it?!" he exclaimed as his tone went higher.

Shirou was speechless from Merlin's outburst. "Is this what Merlin thinks about most about the time? Even after hearing from Arturia about how Merlin acts like a pervert sometimes, seeing it in the flesh is just...wow."

Realizing that his tone went a bit too far, Merlin calmed down and took a deep breath. "Sorry. I accidently let my emotions loose in a moment of envy."

"I-I can see that..." Shirou said awkwardly while being a little bit scared of Merlin at the same time.

"So...yeah, what is your secret Shirou?"

Shirou sighed "Honestly Merlin, I have no clue what you are talking about. However, all I can say is one thing only."

Merlin listened, waiting to know what secret Shirou holds.

"I'm not a womanizer."

Merlin was baffled. "Really?"

"Yeah."

For a short while, there was silence between the two, until Merlin said something.

"I see," he said in a calm voice before sipping on his tea.

Shirou was glad that nothing bad did happen. "Wow. I'm guessing Merlin took it well..."

"Anyways, I want to thank you," Merlin said.

"For what?"

"Isn't it obvious? For giving my student the one thing that she had lost in her entire life, which was her happiness as a human. The same can be said for her alternate versions as well, considering their reaction to seeing you in Chaldea for the first time."

"Well, I did promise myself to make Arturia herself happy, even that applies to her alternate versions as well," Shirou said with a smile on his face.

"Yeah, but that's not it. You also mended the relationship between her and Mordred as well, making them to get along with each other for once! Not to mention the fact that you cleared up the misunderstandings Mashu had with Lancelot and got them to get along with each other. And there's the matter of Gawain's cooking..."

"Oh yeah. Arturia told me about Gawain's cooking. Was it really that bad before I started to give him cooking lessons?"

Merlin went serious for a moment. "Trust me Shirou, before you came along and gave Gawain cooking lessons, none of us, I repeat, none of us wanted to eat any of Gawain's cooking. Seriously, he only knew one thing to cook, which didn't involve any preparation."

"You don't have to say that about Gawain you know..." Shirou muttered.

"Sorry, but it's true. You have no idea about how bad his lack of knowledge of what cooking is. During our time inside and outside of Camelot, all the Knights of the Round beside Gawain dreaded the day when it was his turn to cook, and it wouldn't be considered cooking as well."

"Really?"

"Yeah. In fact, there were times where me and the knights would make jokes about Gawain's cooking. One of which was what was going to kill us first, the Saxons or Gawain's cooking."

"Wow."

"Yeah. Anyways, after you came along, it felt like you just did us a favor by fixing Gawain's cooking. Although I'll admit, I would have never expected your cooking to attract so many people. Especially to the point where some people wanted to learn under you."

"Oh yeah. I still remember the time where after I taught Gawain the basics of cooking, all of the Knights of the Round came up to me and asked me how to cook the next day," Shirou said with a chuckle.

"Really? How did it go?" Merlin asked.

"It went well, especially for Lancelot," Shirou replied. "He seemed to be the most excited out of them all."

"I can see why...Lancelot probably asked for those lessons for Mashu's, or rather Galahad's, sake..." Merlin thought.

"Anyways, there's something I need to tell you Merlin."

Merlin listened. "What is it?"

Shirou took a deep breath before saying, "Thank you for telling me what to do in order to see Arturia again. If it hadn't been for you appearing in my dreams, I wouldn't even be here right now."

Merlin smiled. "You don't have to thank me. All I did was that I just gave you a hint on what to do to see Arturia again. And you did it, although the wish was fulfilled...in a different way I might say."

"You can say that again," Shirou replied with a sigh.

"Yeah. By the way Shirou, I want to ask you something."

"What is it Merlin?"

"What was it like being Arturia's master?"

Shirou gulped at Merlin's question. "Why do you want to ask?"

Merlin gave him a coy smile. "Oh...for no reason..."

Shirou did not like the smile Merlin was giving him. "I have a bad feeling about this..." he thought.

"Well?"

After a few seconds of thinking, he decided to answer Merlin's question while keeping his life with Arturia a secret.

However, before he could even do that, he felt a familiar presence behind him. Not only that, but Merlin's happy face turned into a face of fear.

"Merlin...what were you talking about with Shirou..." a familiar voice said.

Shirou turned around to see who it was. As it turns out, it was Arturia.

And she looked angry.

"H-Hello Arturia. I-I was having a chat with Shirou here..." Merlin muttered.

"Oh really?"

"Y-Yeah..."

Arturia then looked at Shirou and said, "Shirou, do you mind leaving for a bit? I need to have a chat with my old teacher here..." with a smile but in a menacing voice.

"Y-Yes..." Shirou replied before running away quickly, leaving Merlin alone with Arturia.

"Well then...now can you tell me what you were talking about with Shirou?" Arturia asked Merlin in a menacing tone of voice.

Merlin gulped. He was not getting out of this situation any time soon...