January 18th, 10:30 am, in Soukai City,

"Where do you wanna go?"

Phillip gave Kiana a side-eyed glance as they strolled through the streets of Soukai City. Kiana walked sideways while giving a massive smile even after asking this question. She had grown far tired of simply taking in the sights of the skyscrapers and wanted to push the date to advance.

If Phillip was being honest, he didn't believe this to be a date. All he wanted was to keep her happy for now, so a "date" was the best thing he could think of to do that. However, that didn't mean he wasn't trying to have some fun during it.

Phillip made a sweeping glance over the area, searching for an answer to the girl's question. The city was jam-packed with various things to do: shopping malls, arcades, restaurants, and more filled the city, which meant they weren't short on places to go. The real question was where did they want to start at.

"Tell you what," Phillip stated as he came to a halt and looked Kiana in the eyes. "Why don't you pick the first place, and I'll pick the next one."

Kiana gave him a pout at his statement. "Cop out!" She then looked around, giving the things around her a critical eye before settling on one place. She gained a cocky smile, latched onto Phillip's hand, and practically dragged him toward the closest arcade. "I'm getting that round 2 this time!"

Phillip sighed in exasperation as he went along with Kiana's plans. If it was going to keep her happy, so be it. He'll deal with the two pairs of eyes that had followed him and Kiana since they left the campus later. Right now, it was time for some video games.

11:00, in SouCade Arcade,

"That's another round to me."

Phillip placed the plastic gun down in the holster and stared down the screen as it displayed the newest high score. Kiana, however, showed nothing but contempt on her face as she tried to enter money into the machine for another round. Phillip stopped her just barely from doing so.

"Don't you think we should try some of the other games?" Phillip asked as he sent a side glance at the clock nearby. "We've spent an hour on this one. It wouldn't hurt to do some other things."

"I guess," Kiana said sulkily as she, too, put down the guns before taking a glance around for the next distraction. "Let's try... that one!" She ran off in the direction of yet another shooting game.

Phillip shook his head and made to follow her, but he ended up bumping into another person in the attempt. Looking down to apologize to the person, Phillip found Bronya there, looking particularly determined for whatever reason.

"Subject Phillip, a troublesome development has occurred. Mei-neesama has asked me to aid her-"

"You guys are tailing us, I know," Phillip said calmly. "It wasn't even hard to tell when I could feel your eyes on me."

Bronya gave a nod, as if expecting this as an answer. "Then you must realize that Mei-neesama has exhibited several symptoms of extreme jealousy and disbelief."

Phillip flinched at this. He had hoped that Mei would be able to refrain from any odd actions from the news that he and Kiana would be going on a date (even when Kiana decided to start yelling about it across the campus at the beginning of the week). However, he underestimated how much Mei may have actually liked Kiana, which means he'd have to explain the entire situation to Mei at some point.

Instead of convincing the younger girl to handle the task, Phillip decided to ask a more obvious question. "How did you manage to distract Mei so you could speak with me?"

"Mei-neesama has her focus set on Kiana Idiotka," Bronya explained bluntly. "Bronya promised her to keep an eye on your movements to seize this opportunity."

Phillip nodded at this. "Makes sense. Could you do me the favor of distracting her a bit? At least until the 'date' is done?"

Bronya kept a steady stare at him for a good minute before nodding. "Da. However, Bronya asks for a favor in return."

"Which is?"

"Please provide Mei-neesama with the same service you are currently giving Kiana Idiotka."

1:15 pm,

Once the two had finished up their time at the arcade, they went back to wandering around the city. They made stops at a few stores (Kiana gaining several new outfits and a sapphire necklace as a present from Phillip) before stopping at an ice cream shop for a treat. Phillip decided to sit down at one of the white outdoor tables in wait

Phillip stared up at the sky from the table he sat at, pondering how he was going to uphold the favor he made with Bronya. It wasn't as if he wanted Mei to get jealous from the "date" he and Kiana were on, but she was, and Phillip needed to handle it at some point, if only to keep their current relations stable.

So lost in thought, Phillip never noticed Kiana walk up to him until he heard the sound of glass slamming onto the wood of the table. He removed his eyes from the sky to find a mountain of a sundae in front of him, which surprised him, as his order was much smaller than what he was given. Phillip opened his mouth to voice this protest, but Kiana shoved herself on his lap and began to consume the ice cream in earnest. A light blush appeared on Phillip's face, which grew fiercer as he heard a wave of murmurs erupt from the surrounding crowds.

"Kiana, what are you doing?"

Kiana turned her head to him, spoon still in her mouth, in confusion. Not a second later, she took notice of the whispers directed at her and Phillip and shot the ground a glare. The group dispersed at this, carrying their grumbles along with them.

"That's better," Kiana mumbled before returning her attention to Phillip. "What's up?"

"Why are you on my lap?"

"Don't girls do this to their boyfriends?" Kiana asked innocently before leaning back into Phillip. He flushed deeply at this and tried to retort when somebody else spoke up from beside them.

"Sup!" Phillip looked to the left to find the source of the arrogant-sounding voice and found a man that looked the part walking towards them. Jacket wide open, greased-up hair, and shades to boot, the man waltzed up to their table and planted a foot on their table.

"Hey, doll-face," the man said in a tone laced in lust. "Why don't you ditch Mr. Baggy and join me for a walk? I know a place we could enjoy the day together."

Phillip sent the smarmy man a glare full of nothing but pure loathing. The mere thought of Kiana going with the man was enough to cause his mood to descend into nothing but rage. Deciding against allowing her to follow the git, Phillip wrapped his arms around Kiana's stomach and rested his head on her shoulder, keen on earning both the man's attention and ire. Unfortunately, the only response he received was from Kiana, who straightened her back and flushed red at the action.

"Well?" the man asked impatiently, playing oblivious to the death glare sent to him. "Anytime today, sweetheart."

Kiana shot her own glare at the man. "Don't call me 'sweetheart'! Unless you wanna get punched!"

The man recoiled violently, as if each word was a stab at him. "The hell you say to me?! What does this pansy-?!" The man's yelling stalled upon, finally, noticing the look on Phillip's face. Fear replaced anger, and the man fled from the place as fast as his scrawny frame would allow.

Kiana frowned and crossed her arms over her chest, disgruntled by the sudden disruption to the date. "There goes the day. I just wanted a day with somebody I liked. Was that too much to ask?"

Phillip didn't respond to this. His hold on Kiana tightened as a small pang of regret at his actions. He shouldn't have gotten so torn up on the matter; he needed to keep his emotions in better check. However, the words the man spoke ran through his head, and the regret was drowned away by the anger he felt.

Phillip's emotions slowly slipped away once he noticed a waitress come by with his order. "I saw that you left your order and didn't come back, so we decided to bring it out to you. Enjoy!" With those happy salutations out of the way, the waitress returned to the parlor, and Kiana regained her appetite to consume her tower of ice cream.

Phillip, however, noticed a rather obvious hindrance. "Kiana, can you get off now? I'd like to eat."

Kiana paused in the middle of scooping some more ice cream into her mouth. Putting the spoon down for just a second, she gave out a hum in contemplation before turning her head to him and giving a wide smile.

"No."

Phillip raised a brow at this. "Were you planning on feeding me then?"

This seemed to get Kiana's attention, as the ice-cream-filled spoon slipped from her grasp. She scrambled to prevent it from falling, the ice cream lost to the gray cement below before she looked back at him with a red face and a scandalized expression.

"W-Why would I do that?!"

"One or the other," Phillip stated, bemused at his situation. "Take your pick."

Kiana seemed even more terrified by the two choices given to her, glaring at Phillip with her mouth wide open for a solid minute before giving in. "F-Fine!" Kiana quickly took up the smaller bowl, scooped up some of the ice cream, and held it over her left shoulder for Phillip.

Phillip indulged the girl, resting his chin on her shoulder to eat his share. Once the two grew comfortable with their predicament, they began to savor their frozen treats.

5:45 pm, back at St. Freya High School,

After a few more hours, which were spent at a mall that Kiana took fancy to, the two returned to the campus with Phillip looking more or less like a packing mule. As they moved through the school grounds and reached the door of the apartment, they held hands, mostly at Kiana's insistence.

As they entered the dorm, the sounds and smells of cooking reached them. Kiana quickly unlatched herself from Phillip and bolted further into the apartment. Phillip shook his head at the eagerness of the girl, removed his shoes, and followed after her. The sight that awaited him was an unwelcome, but not unexpected, one.

Mei cooked away at the stove and pan, a sour expression written on her face, while Rita watched the process with blatant mirth. Bronya sat at the table with a handheld in front of her though her eyes flit between Mei and the new arrivals, and Himeko looked thoroughly exasperated with a beer in hand.

Kiana bounded happily into the kitchen, oblivious to Mei's darkening expression. "What are we eating today, Mei-senpai?"

"Stuff." The toneless word that escaped Mei's lips was enough for Phillip to understand the situation. It wasn't, however, for Kiana, who tilted her head in confusion without losing her wide smile.

Phillip decided to clear out Kiana before confronting Mei. "Kiana, take this stuff up to your room first." Said girl twisted to him with a pout and opened her mouth to protest, only for Phillip to beat her down. "I need to talk with Mei for a second. You can eat your food once you come down."

Kiana's face contorted into something resembling contemplation, surprising for the empty-headed girl, before a smirk graced her face. "Oh. You just wanna pick the day for your date with her next."

Mei paused her cooking and looked back at the two in shock. Kiana wasted little time in leaving the kitchen to grab the bags on Phillip's arms, landed a quick kiss on his cheek, and scampered up the staircase in a flurry of movement.

Phillip rubbed the spot on his cheek that Kiana managed to kiss with a light flush but quickly dismissed the feelings to deal with Mei. He entered the kitchen, to which Mei immediately returned to cooking with as just as discontent as before.

Phillip heaved a sigh and looked at Rita. "Could you give the two of us some space?"

"Of course," Rita said with amusement, turned, and walked out of the kitchen to inspect other parts of the apartment.

With one nuisance out of the way, Phillip swept up behind Mei. Seeing as his being there didn't incite any reaction, he wrapped his arms around her and grabbed both of her arms. Mei only froze for a moment before trying to shrug off Phillip's grasp.

"Let go!"

"Not until you've heard me out," Phillip stated, effortlessly keeping hold of the girl. "When you're ready, I'll let you go, and we'll talk, okay?" Feeling only more resistance to his hold, Phillip shook his head and spun the girl to face him, dodging the spatula in her hand as it passed by. With Mei now facing him, he noticed tear trails across her cheeks, and her eyes were already welling up again.

"Mei?" That simple word broke down the dam, and Mei started crying. Phillip immediately pulled her into a hug, forcing her head to rest on his shoulder, as he tried to comfort her. "Hey, now, what's this all about?"

"You – Kiana – I –"

"Yeah, that seems to be the consistent story," Phillip muttered inaudibly, but spoke more openly for his questions. "Were you scared that, if Kiana and I were to get together, we wouldn't stay with you? Or was it something worse than that?"

Mei pulled herself from Phillip's shoulder, though not out of his hold, and tried to form the correct words. "No – Yes, but that's not –" She stopped to take a couple of calming breaths and managed to bring the words. "I liked you, both of you, and I didn't know who I was jealous of." A red blush flooded her cheeks as she managed to admit this.

Phillip kept a stoic expression as he locked eyes with her. After a couple of minutes, Phillip spoke. "You do realize that, if I don't take you on a date after this, Kiana will?" Mei's blush deepened, causing her to stutter again and Phillip to snicker. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure that comment of getting both of us to marry her was a vow, not a joke."

"Right, of course. Sorry, Phillip-kun. I was just being stupid-"

Phillip jabbed Mei in the middle of the forehead, stopping her self-deprecating muttering. "You're fine. Next time, however, talk to me if you're having a problem. It's why I'm here."

Mei nodded at this and, after a couple of minutes of thinking, blushed. "So... about what Kiana said a bit ago."

Phillip winced a little bit at this but answered all the same. "Only if you want to. I don't want you to force it just because Kiana-"

"No, no, no, I want to go!" Mei exclaimed with a beaming smile. "Could we do it soon?"

"Next week would be best," Phillip stated. "Gabriel wants me to continue training tomorrow, so I'll be spending most of my time then."

Mei nodded in affirmation and returned to cooking in a far better mood than before. Phillip sighed, glad to have cleared the air on that matter, and moved towards Himeko, who was currently drowning away in her beer.

"What's your problem today, Major?"

"Paperwork," Himeko said curtly. "Between the ship damages and the number of custom battlesuit orders, I haven't caught a breath for the entire week." She shot one irritated eye at Bronya, who ignored it in favor of her game.

"I'm guessing there's a lot of new Valkyries coming in?" Phillip asked as he sat down in the seat next to Himeko.

Himeko shook her head at this. "No, they mostly come from your lot." Phillip raised a brow at this, which Himeko noticed and elaborated. "Kiana demanded she'd get two more battlesuits, Mei asked for three, and this one -" she pointed at Bronya as she spoke - "wanted an extra 5!"

"Project Bunny has many versatile capabilities," Bronya said without her eyes leaving her game. "I wish to have suits to utilize and maximize each of them as to be more effective in supporting Mei-neesama."

Phillip turned to her with interest. "What does your current battlesuit maximize, exactly?"

"Cannon projectiles and Project Bunny's black hole generator." Bronya noticed Phillip's shocked face at this. "The black hole generator isn't comparable to an actual black hole, but it does create a powerful vacuum when necessary. Bronya's Valkyrie Chariot battlesuit allows performing this ability with minimum energy."

Phillip opened his mouth to question the possibility of that when the sound of thundering footsteps sounded from the staircase. Turning, he watched Kiana burst from the hallway and return to Mei's side with the intent of talking and stealing some food. As he watched, Phillip noted the two felt far more natural than the relationship he had with them, as Mei contained the rambunctious energy Kiana had by scolding her (even hitting her lightly with the utensil in hand) for trying to steal food while Kiana always gave Mei a smile when she came by.

Between the two, Phillip felt more or less an accessory to the relationship those two had, and, for whatever reason, it made him slightly sad. He shook his head to clear the negative emotion; it wasn't something he should be feeling towards a relationship he wasn't trying to gain anyway.

"You provide the middleman."

Phillip looked back at Bronya with a raised brow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Bronya now had her full attention on Phillip as she explained. "Mei sometimes feels Subject Kiana's energy can be cumbersome, and Kiana Idiotka may feel Mei-neesama to overbearing. Mei-neesama told da Bronya that she finds you to be enough on both sides to allow their problems to be addressed."

Himeko, noticing what the conversation was about, cut in before Phillip could reply to Bronya. "Hold on, you're not going through what Mei did just five seconds ago, something you just convinced her that it wasn't the case, right?" Phillip didn't react to this, causing Himeko to snort at this. "Boy, you really need to take your own advice once in a while. Those girls aren't gonna drop you. That Kiana girl was way too desperate in trying to win your heart to do so."

Phillip shifted his attention to Kiana and Mei, where the white-haired girl was successful in taking a preemptive bite and suffered the consequences. Noting this, Himeko sighed deeply and took another swing of her beer. When she resurfaced, she decided to ask a different question.

"Do you like them?"

Bronya answered before he could. "Subject Phillip experiences increased levels of oxytocin and dopamine around both Mein-neesama and Subject Kiana. Evidence suggests romantic interest."

"Don't think I won't destroy the bot," Phillip declared with a glare at the younger girl. The threat didn't affect her outwardly, but a flicker of amusement danced in her eyes.

"Look," Himeko started as she draped an arm around Phillip's neck. "Just let this stuff play out. Everything will fall into place when they're needed."

"Right," Phillip said, unconvinced. He stood up from the chair and made his way for the stairs. "I'm going to take a nap." He didn't notice the shared look Himeko and Bronya had at this.

As Phillip ascended the stairs, Gabriel made himself known. "Those girls really do like you, though. Whatever chemistry they have by themselves, whatever the effect of chakra on them."

Do you think...

"Oh, absolutely; they're the destined pair in most universes here, after all. However, with this pair, I don't think they'll trade your pain for their love." Silence greeted him as an answer, so the angel continued. "Besides, weren't you trying to avoid having a relationship with either of them?"

Phillip only grumbled as he entered his room. Not bothering with changing, Phillip sat down on the side of the bed and unceremoniously fell back. He could tell that Gabriel was rather amused at all of this even before the angel spoke again.

"Well, if you think a nap will clear your head, so be it. Have a good nap."

With that, Gabriel vacated Phillip's mind, leaving him to his lonesome. Phillip closed his eyes and had a single thought pass his mind before he fell into a dreamless sleep.

I'm being an idiot, aren't I?

Sorry for both the late chapter and how short it is.

I decided it was important to show the date this time, mostly to show Phillip's emotions on these, so I went with it and kept hitting a lot of roadblocks along the way.

I don't know how well it came out but thank you for your patience, and I promise to be more punctual for the next one.

I'll see you in the next one and hope you enjoy the chapter.