Sunday morning, instead of getting dragged to church with her mother again, Nah found herself driving to their favorite donut shop, parking as far from the building as she could and walking inside like she was supposed to be there. Even though it was a lovely late March morning, she wore a hoodie with the hood up over her head, the drawstring pulled enough to obscure most of her face, and when she got inside and to a table without ordering anything, she let the hood come down. "Let's see how long it takes for this to happen," she said, pulling her phone out of her pocket and checking the time.

Her plan had been rather hastily-made, and she knew that if she'd been thinking through it a bit better, she wouldn't have acted in the exact way she did, but things had felt dire in the moment that she'd been concocting everything. The meeting time (during the early manakete church service) and the location (the donut shop, so that she could get a snack before going home) were the first details she'd gotten her heart set on when making the plan, outside of who she was asking to come meet her. Now, had she let herself actually think things over a bit more, she would've definitely made it for later in the day, and perhaps invited another person or two as backup, but what was done couldn't be changed and she felt at least somewhat okay with what she'd put in motion.

She checked her phone again. It was only two minutes past when she'd gotten there at that point, and the business seemed to be its standard amount of busy. At the very least, there wasn't anyone fighting her for the table she'd claimed, which was nice. Nah's eyes tracked up the street, to where she knew that, at that time of morning on the weekend, there'd be some work getting done in the nearly-complete natural goods store. Maybe knowing that people were definitely over there was another part of why she'd been adamant about the donut shop was her meeting place; if things went sour, she could easily try to call Laurent and see if he was at the store, or if he could have his mother come down and bail her out in his stead.

Another check, four minutes past her arrival. Her eyes went to the other end of the street, where she didn't exactly have any landmarks to think about but it was a nice view on a cloudless, early spring morning. "If he doesn't show up, I'll just get a donut to go and head out for a nice, long walk," she told herself, slowly letting her eyes track back to her phone to see the time yet again.

Five minutes. It wasn't even that she was expecting the person she'd asked to be there to be punctual, but she didn't want to feel like her time was being wasted. The thought crossed Nah's mind that she could just call him and see where he was, but she didn't want to interrupt something if she wasn't reaching out at a great time. So rather than look for answers, she just sat there, looking at the clock on her phone every one to two minutes, wondering if she'd made a mistake in arranging the meeting to begin with.

After thirty-six minutes of waiting, Nah rose from her table and went up to the counter, planning on ordering herself a single donut and perhaps a large coffee for the road. She made it as far as getting waved down by the cashier when— "Dinah! Why are you late to your own meeting?" Morgan asked with a laugh, wrapping his arms around her like he'd been with her the whole time. "Did you forget when you told me to be here?"

"I…what? I've been here for over half an hour, Morgan, you're the one that's late, not me." Grimacing toward the cashier, who merely turned to go find something else to do instead of watch her getting tackled by a guy she hadn't come inside with, Nah attempted to get Morgan off of her but failed despite multiple thrashes. "Seriously, let go of me so we can talk. I've been waiting for you and I'm not taking any excuses for why you're late."

"I really wasn't late, though," he insisted, squeezing Nah a bit harder before releasing his grasp entirely. "I've been sitting here for, uh, twenty minutes or so? Outside. I didn't want to come in, just in case you were in your car looking for me. Then I saw that your car was out there, but it was empty, and that's when I came in. Promise."

Nah closed her eyes and sighed. She could forgive Morgan's mistake on thinking they were supposed to meet outside and come in together. In fact, she could forgive that he spent a good chunk of time out there waiting on her. But there was one tiny aspect that was bugging her, because it wasn't the defense he thought it was. "Twenty minutes ago would still be considered late, Morgan. So even though you thought you were waiting for me in the right place, which you weren't, you were still late getting there to begin with."

"Well I tried my best, but Mother drove me and she…oh, right, can you take me home after this? She's only in town for a short errand and is probably already heading back, but I'm clearly not done here with you." Morgan looked at Nah and saw that her eyes were still closed, and he poked her cheek to try and get her attention. "Hey, open up, I'm asking you a serious question."

"I'll take you home, on one condition." Cracking her eyes slightly, Nah saw Morgan getting closer to her face, nodding eagerly as he awaited her request. "You have to buy me my breakfast this morning."

His nodding stopped as he considered what she'd asked, but he began nodding with even more enthusiasm after deciding he could do it. "What's another donut and maybe a second drink between friends, anyway?" he said with a laugh, backing away from Nah to head toward the counter to get the attention of the cashier that was still away from their post. She watched him banging his hands on the tiled countertop, sighing as she heard him start to call for someone to help give them service.

"He's the only one that can help you now, just force a smile and pretend everything's perfectly fine," she reminded herself, plastering a fake grin on her face as she walked up beside Morgan and gently put a hand on his arm to get him to stop smacking things so hard. "I haven't even decided what I want yet, so you acting rude isn't going to get us anywhere at all. Calm yourself and be patient, will you?"

"What do you mean, you haven't decided? Weren't you coming up here to order when I came in?" Morgan's hands rest on the counter, but he was still looking around for the cashier. "I think you're just lying to get me to stop trying to find the person who works here, who never should've left the counter in the first place!"

He was right on that, but Nah wasn't going to let him know. "I mean, I was going to look and see what they had to offer today, but it's early enough that it looks like everything's still in stock. And because everything's still in stock, that means I've really got to think about what I want to order. Can't feel forced to pick from scraps."

"You're really going to make me look like a fool on this one." Sighing, Morgan took a tiny step backward away from the counter, only for the original cashier to return to their post with both arms supporting a fresh tray of donuts. He looked sheepishly at the cashier, realizing that he'd been making himself look like a fool the whole time, before side-stepping to hide behind Nah. Not that it worked for him, given how small she stood even at full height with her head craning to look at the menu board, but he attempted anyway.

After several extra moments of making absolute sure she knew what she wanted, Nah came to the counter and placed her order, exactly what she'd set out to order in the first place, and then she stepped aside for Morgan to place his as well. While he did that, and paid for it all too, she went back to the table she'd originally claimed, sitting down and watching her friend as he waited for their drinks and donuts and brought it all over to her. "I'm surprised you didn't drop any of that," she remarked as he sat down the drinks first, passing her the coffee and leaving the blended drink where it was, before placing the bag with the donuts down in between them. "Honestly I should have stayed up there to help you, but this table could've been taken if I wasn't quick getting back to it."

"No one's come in since we've both been in here, I don't really know who you think would be taking the table." Morgan sat down and promptly knocked his cup over, but thankfully the lid on it kept the icy mixture inside without so much as a drop leaking out. "Good thing that didn't make a mess, that drink isn't cheap," he laughed, picking the cup up and putting it a bit out of harm's way as he dug into the donut bag, giving Nah what she'd ordered before keeping the rest for himself. "Seriously, why do they think they can get away with the fun drinks costing so much more than the coffees?"

"Maybe because they take more effort to make? Or because they require more than just water and coffee beans and a splash of cream?" Holding her single donut despite not having asked for it at that moment, Nah tried to figure out what to do with it before shrugging and biting into it. It tasted exactly like donuts from the shop always tasted, but there was something about how it had come into her possession that made her feel awkward eating it. That didn't stop her from finishing it in a few more bites, while Morgan continued rambling on about his thoughts on the unfairness of the prices of drinks.

When he realized that he was going on and on about something he didn't have an interested audience for, Morgan finally quieted down and ate one of the donuts he'd bought for himself, commenting on how delicious it was. "I've never actually come in here and gotten anything before today," he said, licking his fingers to get all of the glaze off of them. "I've had donuts from here before, of course, but never sitting here, getting to choose what I want, that sort of thing. I take it you do this a lot?"

"Not as much as I used to, but this is a place that Mom and I still come to on mom-daughter dates all the time. Plus, on my birthday, she came and got donuts for our family for breakfast, which was pretty cool." That felt like it was a lot further in the past than just a few days ago, and the realization of how recent that was made Nah squirm a little where she sat. "Actually, on that note…"

"That's neat that you get something nice like this twice in one week," Morgan told her, ignoring her hook for whatever she was trying to say. "My parents don't really do things like this, but sometimes Lucina will come by and bring things she tried to make herself. Emphasis on 'tried' because it's never any good."

Nah nodded, having heard plenty of horror stories regarding anything that Lucina tried to make on her own. "Right, well, we can maybe make this a thing we do more often. Possibly. Depends on how things go."

"What do you mean, how things go?" It was like Morgan had forgotten completely about how Nah had asked him to meet her there that day for a specific reason, and she went wide eyed at the realization that perhaps he thought it was just to get breakfast together. "You're not about to tell me you hate me or something, are you? Or, or, worse, that our sessions won't work for you anymore? Please tell me you're not cancelling those on me, Nah!"

"None of that!" Her mind racing with all of the reasons why he immediately went to her wanting to tell him something negative, Nah recentered herself with a deep breath, wrapping her hands around her coffee before getting right to the point. She wasn't going to say the dirty truth of the matter, so she needed to bait him into saying it himself. "I need to know what your thought process was for the birthday gift you got me. That wasn't exactly a cheap bottle of wine to buy."

For a second, it seemed that Morgan had no idea what she was even talking about, but when she reminded him of the brand name, he laughed. "I forgot I even bought that, honestly," he said, watching as Nah's entire demeanor darkened and she winced at the truth. "I mean, it was a while back that I placed the order, and I never got told that it was shipped until pretty recently. I thought it would've been a nice surprise to show up at your doorstep after a hard day at work. It arriving for your birthday was an even nicer surprise."

"Let me get this straight, you bought it as a gift just because you saw it and thought I'd like it, and it just happened to arrive for my birthday?" He nodded, and Nah leaned back, amused at how fortuitous of a turn of events that was. "That's neat, actually. Naga looking out for our relationship, I guess."

Morgan waited for Nah to bring her coffee to her lips for a drink to say, "I mean, Naga does always want to bring new followers into the fold." The sheer earnestness with which he said it had her sputtering her hot drink all over herself, slamming the cup down and watching it splash out through its small hole on top. "What? Did you think I'm not aware of what Laguz Gardens is known for? Laurent's told me a lot about the brand, they've got a bunch of different flavors made for manaketes specifically, as well as other cultures that have dragons as their spiritual leaders."

"So you know that…?"

"That it's primarily used as a drink to get people in the mood for making babies? Yeah, I had to check the box when I ordered it that says that I understand that's the reputation the brand has in most of the cultures they cater to." Morgan leaned forward, reaching out to wipe a couple drops of coffee off Nah's face. "But I swear to you that I didn't buy it because of that, because…well, I know how things are with you and your parents. I haven't forgotten that night where I got caught over there with you."

None of this was what Nah had been expecting to hear, so she was quiet for some time, sitting with her drink drying and sticky on her hands and elsewhere on her face. "You never fail to surprise me in new and exciting ways, Morgan."

"Huh? How do I do that?"

"I thought you were trying to make a move on me, imply that we should sleep together, something like that. It didn't seem like there was any other possible explanation for why a bottle of fertility wine showed up at my front door, from you, with a note telling me that you hope I like it." Nah's eyes shifted downward as she thought about what she'd hoped would come out of this meeting, before she lifted her gaze back to Morgan's face, seeing him confused at how she was taking matters. "Sorry if I might've gotten my brain wrapped around something that—"

"I'll sleep with you if you really want me to!" Cutting her off with a loud yell, Morgan's response would definitely have caught the attention of all the patrons in the donut shop if there were any others in there. "Dinah, that absolutely was not my intention with this gift at all, but if you're looking to sleep with me, I'm willing to do it."

"I-I never said I was looking to sleep with you, I just thought that was what you wanted out of all of this and was willing to possibly consider it." Biting her tongue before she kept rambling on about how she'd been thinking about the possibility for days, Nah tried to smile at Morgan but it came off as more of a sheepish look than anything else. "I don't want to ruin our friendship just because I misunderstood the intention of your gift, but I wanted to make my understanding of it clear. Does that make sense?"

Morgan seemed to be on the cusp of jumping out of his chair with how much energy he was putting behind his answer. "It makes perfect sense! It's only natural that when a guy and a lady know each other so well and for so long, they start wanting to know more about each other than they already do. I mean, Noire and Laurent probably go at it every other night at this point, in case you didn't know that."

"I've suspected as much…"

"See? And Owain's probably skipped the 'getting to know someone' step and is sleeping around with all the Nohrian girls he can possibly get in bed with. Or Severa. He might be sleeping with Severa." Morgan's head wobbled as he slammed his hands down on the table, sending ripples through what had melted of his drink. "Of course this means that poor, poor Brady gets left in the cold, but I'm sure he's had his chance."

At the mention of Brady's name, time seemed to freeze for Nah, as she thought about her friend and what could have been. She'd truly thought that there was something brewing between them, but he'd made it very clear that they weren't ever going to be more than friends and she needed to get past that. "He's definitely had plenty of chances, sure," Nah agreed, shaking her head to clear those longing thoughts from it. "I would hate for him to think that we don't care about his relationship status, or lack thereof, though. Us hooking up might come off as a slap to the face or something like that."

Morgan scoffed. "Why does it matter how he feels about us getting together? Like I said, I'm sure he's had his chance, and if he wants to get jealous then that's on him."

"Right, yeah, makes sense. We shouldn't have to consider anyone else's feelings when it comes to what we want." How bizarre of a statement for Nah to make, but she knew that it was long past the time for her to think about how anyone felt about what she did. "But let's pump the brakes a little here, okay? We're not getting in a relationship. We're just hooking up, trial run, testing the waters."

"Of course, that's what we're doing now, but after it's the greatest thing we've ever done, you'll be begging to be my girlfriend." The confidence was radiating off of Morgan, with the smile he wore that was progressively getting smugger, the way he was positioned to make himself seem physically imposing… Nah worried for a second that she was getting herself in way over her head with this plan, but she knew the point of no return had passed the moment she'd brought up the bottle of wine.

On that note, she cleared her throat and said, "I'm not drinking the wine before we do this. I've heard far too many horror stories about what that stuff does to even risk it. Even if it's a placebo or something, it's better safe than sorry."

"I mean, that's up to you. I'll be doing my part to keep things running smooth, but if you think you can get at it sober, then power to you." He winked at her, before settling back down in his seat. "When do we want to do this, later today? This week? I'm free pretty much whenever, but I know you've got your whole work schedule to contend with and I don't think it'd be right to ask you to call off for my sake."

"Not for this reason, that's for sure." Nah brought a finger to her chin and tapped it twice, before her eyes widened. "I think we should be spontaneous on this one, let it happen when the moment feels right. I don't think planning it out will do us any favors."

Nodding, Morgan crossed his arms in front of himself, trying to play nice and cool. "If you insist, then I'm cool with the spontaneous method."

"As long as the timing's the only thing spontaneous happening here, anyway."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Blinking as she tried to gauge how serious Morgan's question was, Nah realized that he was genuinely asking what she meant and a gnawing feeling began to eat away at her stomach. "It was a poor attempt at a joke, that's all. You ready to wrap things up here and head home?"

"If you'll tell me what you meant on the car ride, then sure." She most definitely did not want to tell him what she'd meant at all, for fear of what kinds of comments he could possibly make on the matter, but in the battle of sitting in public discussing their sexual behaviors or getting somewhere private, the need to be back in her car won out. He at least took the meaning behind the joke in stride, laughing and promising her that he wasn't going to take advantage of her in any way and that they'd be perfectly, absolutely safe.

The thing was, Nah knew far too well that miracles did exist, and accidents were more than likely to happen, and if Naga wanted her way in the year of the dragon, there was going to be very little to stop those whims. And Nah was already playing with fire with going further than her parents had said she could, so adding fuel to the flames would not be a step in the right direction by any means.

It was the last week before the school district was on break, and the students were looking forward to having no school for an entire week, while the teachers and staff were excited to have a short rest from their jobs. Nah shared in most of the excitement, minus the part where she knew that the return from break would be rough for some of her special friends, especially since they were leading into the last few weeks before school let out for their extended summer break.

"Do you think that the kids realize that the lack of structure their parents give them over breaks is bad for their brains?" she asked out loud while sitting in her office Monday morning, the other teacher in the room looking at her and laughing. "I'm being serious. If parents knew how much their children thrive with structure, do you think they'd work on giving them what they need?"

"I think you're expecting far too much of parents," her coworker replied, not looking from her computer screen, "and that's never a good thing around here."

The thing was, Nah knew of a student who didn't necessarily need the services she specifically provided who always found benefits in having structure in her life. And it was after school on Tuesday that the very student in question came barreling into Nah's office at that campus, eyes wide and hair streaming behind her as she came screeching to a halt in front of her adult friend. "You're still going to hang out with me next week, aren't you?" Ribbon asked, rapidly blinking as she awaited Nah's response with her head bouncing up and down. "Please, please, please say you will!"

"I…can't, Ribbon. I'm going out of town with my parents." That was the truth, as Nah had been invited along on a short trip to visit some areas of interest around a work site in the north of Ylisse her father had been working at off and on. "But that shouldn't be a problem, you've got so many people around you that can hang out with you in my place."

Shoulders deflating to the point that she was doubling over, Ribbon gave a long, drawn-out sigh that represented all of the wind being forced out of her sails. "Dad says that it'd be better if I had people to hang out with that are outside of the family, which I definitely, totally agree with because I'm going to have to spend all of my break with Mom and Lace and does it look like I wanna be babysitting my sister on break? I don't think so!"

"You begging me can't change that my father really wants to show off some places that he saw while out of town for his job. This is probably the last time I'll be able to take a trip like this with my parents, since they're kind of old and I'm…you know, an adult with my own life." Nah paused, looking at how Ribbon was still doubled over, then shook her head as she continued speaking. "Trust me, I know how much you'd rather be with other people, but it'll be a good time for you and your mother to spend time together."

"I don't want to spend time with her, because spending time with her is spending time with my sister and that basically becomes me watching Lace while Mom goes and does whatever she wants to do." This time, Ribbon dropped down to her knees, banging her fists on the ground. "It's not fair, Nah! It's just not!"

Nah pursed her lips together, thinking very carefully about how she could respond. On one hand, she understood that this was a pretty hard situation for the young girl to navigate, thinking that she was going to be stuck on babysitting duty for her school break. On the other, she knew that Ribbon was probably over-dramatizing things, and she needed to be called out on it. "Life's not fair, Ribbon. Let's not pretend that, once upon a time, your brother was probably put in the same situation with you when you were a baby."

"Huh? What do you mean by that?"

"Get up and let's head to the car, and then I'll tell you when we're there." Watching as Ribbon slowly rose to her feet and headed to the door that she'd come through not that long before, Nah collected her things and followed the girl out. She stayed completely silent while on the way out the building, only waving at other staff members as they passed them, while Ribbon's head still hung with lingering sadness and conflicted feelings.

Of course, once they were in the car Ribbon was jabbering away, begging this time to know what Nah had been referring to back in the office. "Oh, you know, the age gap between you and your brother is pretty similar to the one between you and your sister, don't you think? Wouldn't it make sense for him to have been in the same situation as you when he was around your age?"

Her jabbering and begging coming to a complete stop, Ribbon very dramatically crossed her arms over her chest and gave a loud hmph. "I'm sure I was a much, much better baby to watch than Lace is. I bet I at least played and stuff."

"Does your niece play?"

"She's a baby, Nah, babies don't play." Ribbon gave a head waggle that would have been quite distracting if Nah had been watching it, but she was focused on driving. "I can't believe that you'd even ask me such a thing."

"That's funny, because what I said was that when you were little, your brother might've had to watch you sometimes, just like you have to watch your sister sometimes. And you countered that by saying that you'd have been a better baby to watch because you'd play, but then you told me that your niece—who would actually be a closer match in age to you in this scenario, now that I think about it—doesn't play because she's a baby. But you were a baby back then, too." One of Nah's hands came off of the steering wheel and reached over toward Ribbon, trying to pat her on the shoulder but missing and hitting the seat instead, as the girl shifted closer to the door than toward her person driving her around. "I'm just saying that you've got expectations for your sister that don't make sense."

Ribbon didn't respond for several minutes, her face contorting into all sorts of fun and exciting expressions. When she did speak again, she was onto a completely different topic, which was completely predictable in Nah's mind, but the topic itself took her entirely by surprise. "Do you think we can ask my parents if I can come hang out with you and your friends tonight?"

"Can you what? Ribbon, you have school in the morning, I'm not carting you across town and back just to…" Nah trailed off as she remembered that she hadn't actually told Ribbon about the changes in her game night setup. "Look, it's all online now. I go over to Morgan's house to use his sister's computer to play with everyone, so there's not even anyone there aside from me and Morgan."

"But I made my own character for your game." Her arms coming uncrossed, Ribbon slunk down in her seat as far as she could without making herself too unsafe. "I've been working on her for a while now, actually ever since the time I came over and got to see things for myself. Dad's been helping me build her, he told me that he's happy that I found something that I'm kind of interested in and…"

Nah could hear the sadness that was building in Ribbon's voice, and her heart panged at the fact that there wasn't anything she could do to make things better for the girl. "Look, I can't have you come over tonight because of how things are set up these days, but I promise that I'm not going to let you have made your character in vain. What's her name?"

"Elegantia. I came up with it myself."

"It's a pretty name, and I bet she's just as awesome as her name is. I'll talk to Morgan tonight and see if he can help me come up with a way to give you a game that Elegantia can play in." Internally, Nah was cringing at the childish name that she'd just complimented, but Ribbon was just trying to fit in with someone she admired and she wasn't going to stomp on the girl's creativity in such a moment. "Just be patient on this one."

"See, that's kind of what I was hoping to do with you next week, but I guess I'll have to wait even longer now." Ribbon may have spoken like she was handling things well, but the sadness in her voice was still present, and there wasn't anything Nah could do to rid her of it right there. "Do you think that maybe, while you're gone, your friends could play with me?"

"Ribbon…" Nah's chest rose and fell as she took in several deep breaths, going through what she knew she needed to say to the vulnerable young girl in that moment. "It's not appropriate for my adult friends to play games with you like that. It's barely acceptable for me to even consider doing it, but since I sort of take care of you from time to time, I think I can justify it. When we make this happen, I'll definitely be there, and if not me, then your brother, whether he likes it or not."

There was the distinct sound of Ribbon's jaw dropping, her lips and tongue smacking as she was overtaken with surprise at the concept that had just been thrown her way. "You're really going to get Yarne to play with me? Oh, oh, that'd be so great! Do you think he'd like Elegantia if he met her?"

"I mean, probably? I know he'd been considering playing with the rest of us but couldn't due to his schedule and everything else going on in his life, and, honestly, he wouldn't really like the way we're playing the game. He'd definitely be much better off playing a chill version with his little sister and a friend or two." Nah didn't want to imagine the anguish and crying that would take place if a character died in front of Yarne (or Ribbon, for that matter), so she was certain that she'd need to come up with a lighter way to make the game happen to accommodate their sensitive hearts.

Nodding solemnly, Ribbon said, "Dad already told me that sometimes you work super hard on building a character and then they get killed first time you play as them. I don't think Yarne would be very okay with that happening to him."

"It only gets harder to grapple with the idea of your character dying as you get to know them more, so losing them in the first session might actually be easiest on you. At this point, I think I'd quit playing altogether if something tragic happened to Farona." Bringing the car to a stop outside of Ribbon's house, Nah looked over at the girl and saw her still looking dejected, even with the happier events they'd been talking about. "Hey, don't feel bad about not getting to play with your character today. It'll happen, I promise."

Ribbon's head nodded again, but her demeanor didn't change until she reached down to grab her backpack, unzipped it, and pulled out a small stack of papers that were covered in bright, garish colors and messy lineart. "These are my pictures I've drawn of Elegantia. Dad's kept all of the stuff about how she works and what she does, but…I've taken care of the art."

Nah held her hand out to take the papers, but Ribbon refused to give them up, merely holding them in the air to show them a bit better. They were definitely the work of a child who wasn't particularly artistic, but there was so much love and care put into each picture that their quality was easily overlooked. Ribbon seemed dead-set on getting to play games with her little lady who looked strikingly like a humanized unicorn, and Nah knew that she was going to need to work to make it happen. But that was thinking several steps ahead, as first she'd need to see if Morgan could help her with getting the game running in a manner that was playable.

And before she could do that, she needed to actually be around him and hope that it wasn't the time they were going to make good on their previous agreement. "I'm looking forward to when we can bring Elegantia to life," she told Ribbon, as the girl started tucking the pictures back in her bag. "I'll let you know when that is, but it might not be until summer at the earliest, since I might need some time to get things started."

"As long as you make it happen, I'll try my best to wait patiently." Flashing a smile, even if it was masked with sadness, Ribbon got out of the car and ran to the front door of the house, and Nah watched her until she was safely inside with her father closing the door after her.

She waited until she was down the road before she screamed in frustration at what she'd just roped herself into, for the happiness of a little girl who always seemed to be struggling in some way. "I don't know how to run things, and I'm really not comfortable with her having to play with Morgan running it, but what do I do? What can I do? I should've thought this one through before I said anything at all!" If she wasn't driving, Nah certainly would have thrown her head against the steering wheel a few times in frustration, but she couldn't risk getting pulled over for reckless driving and getting another ticket, not after the previous one.

Instead, she kept her emotions mostly in check until she was parked outside Morgan's house, and only when the car was turned off did she start banging her head into the top of the wheel. "I'm stupid, everything about this is stupid, I should've thought better about my actions before I did anything. Now I'm going to have to go inside and ask a guy who's interested in sleeping with me if he can explain how to be in charge of a game so that I can play with a literal child. What even is my life anymore?"

Right as the question fell from her mouth, Nah heard a rapping on her window and she threw herself to sitting upright, looking over to see that Morgan was standing there, confusion in his gaze. She scrambled to unbuckle herself, get the keys out of the ignition, and get out of the car, him watching her carefully until she was on her feet. "I take it you haven't checked your phone since you left work, huh?" he asked, sounding gravely serious. "Because if you had checked, you probably wouldn't be here right now. Or maybe you did check and that's why you're here, I don't know."

"What, did something happen?" It was true that Nah hadn't looked at her phone in quite some time, but based on how Morgan was talking to her it didn't seem like what she was supposed to know was a serious matter. "You're going to tell me, right?"

"Uh, yeah, session's canceled because Owain bailed on us for the night. He's out doing things with his new friends and forgot to tell me about it until about an hour ago. And then when I talked to Laurent about it, he said that he's fine with canceling tonight because it means that him and Noire can help his mom a bit more with her shop, since that place opens next week. Haven't actually spoken to Brady, but he did give me a thumbs-up emoji when I texted him so I think he gets it." Morgan inhaled, having said most of that on just a couple breaths. "So there's no session and you're here at my house. With me."

"Man, maybe tonight would've been a good night to bring Ribbon down after all, you could've talked to her about the game and helped her understand why she can't play with us." Nah shook her head, putting a hand on Morgan's shoulder. "Let me tell you, that girl's created her own character and is looking for a group to play with."

"I could run a game for her, maybe get Yarne involved, you can be there too. Three players in an easy campaign should be doable."

While Nah was glad to hear that Morgan wasn't immediately turning his nose up at the idea of a child playing, and had come up with some of the same things that she had already, there was one aspect of the statement that she didn't care for. "Yeah, um, see, I don't know if I'd want you in charge of her game. You tend to take things a bit too seriously with this and make it way harder than it should be, especially for someone her age."

"I'd tone it down for her!" He seemed appalled that Nah had admitted such a thing to him, to the point that he brushed her hand off of himself and took a step backward, allowing for her to properly close the door to her car (instead of getting back in, which he seemed to have thought she would do). "W-wait, are you staying here?"

"We're discussing something, it'd be kind of a jerk move for me to leave in the middle of the conversation." To prove her point, Nah locked her car and tucked her keys in her pocket. "Now would you like to keep talking out here, or would you like to go inside?"

Morgan's eyes darted around, checking the surrounding area for anyone watching them, before making his decision. "Definitely inside. Too many neighbors around here might see us talking and think we're up to no good and tell my parents about it. The fewer questions they have to ask us about things, the better."

Letting him take the lead inside the house, Nah found herself wishing she hadn't ever gotten out of the car in the first place, especially once the front door was closed behind them both. She wasn't even sure what else she wanted to talk to him about, and now that they were alone in his house with no session to distract them from things, she felt like there was a chance that she was about to get into a mess she wasn't ready for. "I…I probably should ask you about how to run things for this game for Ribbon, since I told you I'd prefer it if you weren't the one in charge."

"You can ask all you'd like, but I don't know what I can do to help you. I mean, you can go out and buy all your own books and I can show you the important stuff from there, but you're not borrowing any of mine." Morgan didn't sound overly spiteful with his words, even though he was clearly hurt by her choice to not let him be a part of things. "I'd prefer not to have to worry about you having my books if I need them for setting up a session in the future, that's all."

"So you're not telling me I can't borrow them because you're salty about me saying you can't run the game?"

"What's this? Dinah, using slang that she learned from the kids she works with?" He leaned closer to her, face scrunching in amusement, only for her to raise her hand and gently bop his nose with it. "Ha, but seriously, I'm not that bothered that you don't want me involved. Even though I completely disagree with why you don't want me there. The only reason I've made things so hard here is because of some of the other players, specifically the one that bailed hardcore on us tonight."

"It all comes back to being Owain's fault, doesn't it?" Nah asked, tilting her head back to look up at the ceiling. "Imagine the world where you didn't feel obligated to cater to your cousin's desires, what a better place it would be."
Morgan didn't respond for a few moments, before he began making his way toward the stairs down to his room. "If I didn't keep his interests in mind, our campaign would've run out of steam before it even got started and we never would've gotten anywhere," he said, right before bolting down the stairs. This left Nah standing in the dining room area of a house that wasn't hers, without anyone around to tell her what to do or where to go, and she blinked rapidly to make sure that she wasn't merely imagining her loneliness there. Once she knew that she had been abandoned physically, she had to make the choice: she could chase Morgan down and see why he'd fled, or she could leave and go home for the night.

A more rational version of herself would have easily chosen the latter option, but she was curious as to what had gotten into Morgan in that moment and so down the stairs she went, finding herself staring at the closed bedroom door when she got to the bottom. "Are you trying to hide from me?" she called, getting no response from the other side of the door. "I take it that you are, and that I should go."

There was a loud thud, followed by Morgan hollering for her to come on in. When she came inside, Nah saw that he'd pulled out a clear-sided bin of hardback books, all similar size and shape. "You made me realize that, now that we're playing online, I haven't needed to really refer back to these things, and because I'm not actually using them, maybe I can let you borrow a couple for running your game." He popped the lid off the bin and picked the top book up, holding it out for Nah to see. "This is the big one, the one you'll definitely need to run things smoothly. Without it, you've got nothing."

"Thanks, I think," she replied, reaching out to take the book from him, but when she placed her hands on it his grip seemed to harden. "Uh, Morgan? I can't take it from you if you won't let go of it."

"I don't want to give it to you yet."

Nah's hands remained on the book as she looked at him across its cover, seeing that he seemed to be reconsidering what he was doing. She gave it a couple seconds, counted to five under her breath, and then let go herself. "Right, of course. Any reason why you're changing your mind on this again?"

He set the book back in the bin, climbed over the mess he'd created in his room, and threw himself down into the chair at his computer. "I've been using an online version of the book, but I've taken so many notes in the physical version that I…don't want to lose if I'm letting you borrow it, if that makes sense? So I need to make sure that I've got the important notes written down somewhere on here for when we're playing."

"That makes sense, I suppose," Nah said, coming to sit next to Morgan's chair, which meant that she was on the edge of his bed. His room seemed so small with how much of a mess there was in it, and that was on top of how cramped the place usually was. But there was something about that moment that made her feel like she was a lot closer to him than she would have been normally, and that closeness had a pit forming in her stomach. "I take it you're going to check on that, then you're going to let me borrow the book and I'll be able to leave for the night?"

"I guess that's the case, yeah. Might take a little while if I have to copy over those notes, but if I already have them then this should be fairly painless." He paused, leaned over her to grab the book back from where he'd dropped it, then sat back up and put the book on his desk in front of him. "Uh, sorry about that one, Nah. Probably should have asked you to grab it for me, instead of me…doing that."

"It's no problem," she replied, that pit growing deeper as it began to clench and turn inside her core. "I didn't mind what you did too much."

"Okay, well, no looking at my screen while I'm doing this. I can't have you finding out secrets to our campaign before everyone else." He couldn't exactly move himself to fully block the screen, so Nah had to find something else to focus her attention on while Morgan worked. What she decided to do was pick up a different book from the bin, one that had a pretty lady on the cover, and start leafing through the pages to see what interesting things she could find within its pages.

She honestly couldn't have guessed how long she was going through that book, but she was stopped by a hand reaching out and grabbing her face, fingers and palm tucking themselves under her chin. "H-hello?" she asked, eyes shooting up from the book to see Morgan, a dazed expression on his face, staring at her intently. "You know there are better ways to get my attention, don't you?"

"I…yes, I know that," he stammered, coughing awkwardly after the fact, "but I felt this was the best way to go about this." He'd turned his chair so that he was facing her directly, his computer screen still open to the website he'd had it on before, so he had snapped himself out of focusing on his work to grab her like he had. "Dinah…"

"You're using my real name again. Usually means you want something from me. What do you—" Her question wasn't able to be gotten out before Morgan was pulling himself onto her, using her sitting on his bed as a way to get up on her lap with relative ease. "—huh? What has gotten into you?"

"Dinah, I…I realized that I don't like being in here with you like this without taking advantage of the moment." He was speaking slowly, as if he truly was in a daze for whatever reason, and lust was dripping off of his every word. "Ever since we talked about what we want to do with each other—what we want to do to each other—I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. When our plans tonight got canceled, I hoped that you'd show up anyway so that we could…"

She swallowed down hard, a sensation made all the stranger with a hand still underneath her chin. "I'm not ready for that right now," she told him, trying to sound assertive in turning down his advances. "I'm still serious about us sleeping together sometime, but today's not the day. Sorry if you…I don't know, got your hopes up about it?"

"That wasn't what I was looking for tonight. Before we can go that far, I'd like to try something else with you." Morgan moved his hand off of Nah's chin and instead used it to caress her cheek, while he slowly pressed his upper body against hers, until their faces were barely apart. "You know, I've never had the chance to kiss someone before."

"I guess it only makes sense that we'd do that before we get into the raunchier stuff," she realized, feeling her breath bouncing back at herself off his face, him giving a small smirk at her statement. "And there's no harm in kissing, it's all to test the waters for whatever it is we want to do."

"That's like what we said at the donut shop. The end goal here is to sleep together, isn't it?" Despite his already close proximity to Nah's face, Morgan moved himself closer, a hunger in his eyes that she only caught a glimpse of before he was biting at her lower lip, trying to make sure that she was on board with what he was about to do.

For having never kissed someone before, he sure was prepared to get right to the point, and the forcefulness of it all was quite surprising to Nah. She'd kissed others outside of family members before, sure, but never more than a quick little exchange that had both parties feeling awkward after it was done. This was different, this was her going along for the ride as he pushed his lips onto hers, then pulled away and came at it from another angle, over and over again. At one point she was pretty sure he was looking to go further than just simple kissing, but she was shocked at how aggressive the entire display was and couldn't bring herself to open up long enough to let things progress.

It was after thirty or forty seconds of nonstop kissing that he pulled back again, giving a breathy smile at her. "I've been watching tutorials on how to make this happen," he explained, a suitable justification for why he happened to know how to kiss someone like that. "Not specifically for this moment, but for whenever a girl liked me enough to let me kiss her."

"That was a lot," she replied, trying not to sound like she'd just been thrown for a loop, but her pretend acceptance of what had gone on was taken as an invitation for a second round and he was right back against her lips. This time, Nah felt no choice but to accept the aggression and the desire to go as far as they could together right then; at around the same time that she felt a tongue that didn't belong to her rolling around in her mouth, she felt a much different sensation somewhere else on her body, and she pulled her eyes (which were wide and staring at Morgan in disbelief of what he was doing) down to the space between them. His hand, which she'd lost all track of in the heat of the moment, had made its way under her shirt and was creeping upward, wandering like a thirsty animal to water.

She gave a surprised chirp, muffled by their faces being smashed together, and tried to pull away without causing any alarm. Unable to break things off, she raised her arm to try and get his hand away from her before it was too late, but he moved quickly and was caressing her chest with fingers much gentler than his mouth was being. Her head shook a little, her thinking that he'd take that as a hint to stop touching her, but when all it did was make the strength of the kiss grow, she knew that he was lost to the passion of the moment and she was merely along for the ride.

Her eyes going back to look at his face, Nah noticed that he was still with his eyes closed, blissful in his successful conquest, but then she happened to catch a glimpse of the computer screen he'd been trying to hide from her before. It was a lot of words and pictures that were clearly work for their campaign, but there was something that shouldn't have been on the screen there as well, and the sight of Noire's face in a video call window, seemingly horrified at what she was watching, was enough to get Nah to forcibly pull herself out of the kiss. "Morgan, what the hell is going on here?" she snapped, pushing his hand off of her chest as he finished pulling it out from under her shirt.

"I'm pretty sure we were just making out."

"I know that, but what's with the call you've got going on?" Her eyes narrowing at him, she waited for an explanation but saw nothing but confusion flooding his mind. "You're up to something here, I can tell."

"Dinah…trust me when I say that I don't know what you're talking about. Swearsies." Morgan climbed off of her and got back into his chair, turning to look at the screen and going silent after giving it all a once-over. Finally, after Nah cleared her throat to remind him she was looking for an answer, he spoke again. "Oh, you're talking about the video I had paused, is that it?"

"Why in Naga's name would you have a video of Noire on your computer?" Nah wasn't buying it for a moment, but sure enough, Morgan really did have a video saved from their previous session, of Noire having a bit of a breakdown over a stressful moment in which Zelaia had stumbled into some lore of their campaign's world. "Huh, that's oddly fitting that you happened to have that up while we were doing…that."

He nodded slowly. "Yeah, if I'd considered how fast things were going to escalate, I would've closed that and come back to it another time. Sorry about that scare."

"It's fine, I'm glad you're not into shoving your intimate moments in other people's faces."

"I'd never imagine doing that, not to you." Morgan turned to look at her over his shoulder, giving her a small smile that emphasized his reddened cheeks. "Just like I never imagined doing that with you. That was a lot of fun."

As helpful as it would have been for Nah to speak the truth and say she wasn't nearly as into it as he'd been, she didn't want to ruin things when she'd put them into action to begin with. "I suppose it was. You really did learn a lot from those videos."

"And when the time comes for it, I might've learned a thing or two about how to really get into the mood for other activities." Before she could make the accusation that he'd been watching porn to learn techniques, Morgan elaborated on where he got his lessons from. "It's this channel that talks about intimacy and how to make a partner feel good in the moment. I never knew that there's more to sexy times than, you know, the obvious part."

"If you're not able to look me in the eye and say that you didn't know there's more to sex than the actual act, maybe I'll need to ask someone else to help me here." She wasn't being serious about that, but Nah was beginning to question if Morgan really was the person she should be doing those things with. He was immature at times, he didn't always make the best decision in any given moment, and he never seemed to take things seriously. One wrong move and she was going to have to put all of her trust in him for a very long time.

That wasn't something she was going to decide right then, especially when he asserted that he was plenty ready to take things that far between them. "Okay, well, when it happens you better show me what you learned," she said to him, standing up from the bed and adjusting her shirt from where he'd moved it. "I'm going to go ahead and head home, mind if I take that book today or are you still using it?"

Morgan looked at his computer and the book he'd been working from, then closed its heavy cover and handed it over to her waiting hands. "I'd like it back next week, if you don't mind, but I suppose you can borrow it now."

With the book in her hand, Nah looked at its cover and how daunting of a task it was she was taking on by borrowing it. Just as she was about to agree to his terms, though, she remembered something important. "I'll be out of town next week. My parents and I are going on a trip since I'll be off work."

"Then give it back, you can borrow it when you get home." He held his hand out once again and Nah handed it right back over to him, it getting set down exactly where it had been before. "There, I think we've got all that settled. You mind walking yourself out?"

Without thinking about the consequences, Nah asked, "Why, don't you want to be a gentleman and escort me to the door, after all that?"

"You don't want me doing that right now. Just make sure you close everything behind you." She was about to ask him why she didn't want his company, but a voice in the back of her head piped up and told her to forget about it, so she shrugged and bid him farewell.

At the front door to the house, Nah crossed paths with both of Morgan's parents and gave them a small wave as she went to leave. "Where's Morgan?" his father asked, confused to see his son's friend but not his son. "Did he forget he's supposed to be here?"

"Oh, he's down in his room, doing nerd stuff. I'd recommend staying away from there for a little while, he's got quite the mess going on." Nah smiled at the older couple, before stepping past them to get out of them house.

On her way down to her car, she heard Morgan's mother say something about how they were lucky that their son had such a strong, positive manakete presence in his life, and how he couldn't have picked a better friend. "Yeah, just friends," Nah mumbled to herself, thinking about the events that had transpired on the bed. "Nothing more, never anything more, that's just how it is."

It took getting buckled into her seat for Nah to remember that she hadn't checked her phone in all that time, because she hadn't actually gotten it out of the car when she'd gone inside. That made for quite the surprise when she unlocked the screen and saw that she had multiple missed calls from Noire, a voicemail from one of them, and a single text message from her as well, which read: Are you mad, or are you stupid, or did you forget who you've been pining for?

"How in the…?" Nah looked at the message several times, then called her voicemail to hear whatever it was Noire was trying to tell her. While it dialed and connected, she ran through all the possible reasons for such a cryptic message being sent her way. Maybe someone at the donut shop had overheard her and Morgan when they were talking and somehow got that conversation back to Noire. Maybe Nah had been spotted driving over to the neighborhood Morgan lived in and the assumption was being made.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was something more nefarious. The call quality was horrendous on the other end, so Noire's voice was fairly choppy at delivering what she was trying to say, but there was enough of it that Nah could figure the gist of it out, especially when it ended with, "You can't let him…you have to be better than that, Nah! You're letting him…can't you hear me? Stop! Stop! You're making a mistake!"

"That wasn't a paused video at all!" Deleting the voicemail and hanging up, Nah put a death grip on her phone as she realized that she'd just been shown off as some prize to at least one of her friends. "What's the point of all this?" In her hand, her phone buzzed, and she loosened how she was holding it to see the screen, which had lit up with a new message, this one not from Noire, but rather from Brady.

Ma wants us to do dinner sometime, the three of us. You in?

Her plan A had just proven himself to once again be an agent of chaos, so maybe going back to plan B was the best course of action after all. Yeah, tonight? Or tomorrow?

Tomorrow. Looking forward to it.

She gave the house she'd just been trapped in a disgusted glance, before typing out her response, that she was looking forward to it as well. At that point, she'd rather spend a million dinners suffering with Maribelle around than have to face Morgan after what he'd just done to her. Inside, she knew that escaping the consequences of her night's actions wouldn't be so easy, but she was going to hope that her dinner with someone making her life miserable wouldn't be as bad as needing to talk to a friend about why sharing their kissing online wasn't appropriate by any means.

A/N: if I said that the original plan was somehow worse...?