The next day, I had college.
With Shindo gone, my life was a lot less chaotic- though you could also say it was a lot less fun as well.
Now there was little to look forward to other than class, and maybe the streams with Raphtalia.
"Hmm...?" I couldn't help but notice something missing from class that day- the absence of a certain rather annoying bluette.
Where was Melty? Absent?
She seemed like the kind of kid who would come to school even if she was actually sick, and probably had a 'perfect attendance since kindergarten' trophy in her bedroom.
It was off for her to be absent then...
I could hear some people muttering about how our class's 'hime-sama' was missing, but I had work to do.
Oh right, we were doing a project together, weren't we?
Whatever- I'd give her an earful when I next saw her.
Only that Wednesday, I still didn't see her.
Now I was beginning to get worried.
Two missed days in a row? I actually took the time to text her to ask what was going wrong.
Not that I missed her or anything- and I doubted that anything serious was probably happening. Nah, she was probably just goofing off with Filo or something instead of focusing on her education like a responsible adult!
Granted she was twelve years old so...
Anyway, that was no excuse for slacking off! Children her age used to work in the mines alongside grown men!
I furiously texted her asking her what she was doing before hitting 'send.'
Raphtalia was spending quite a lot of time in her room.
Although her parents had been rather skeptical about what Atla had said, it still stung to hear someone flinging words like that at her.
She finally decided to get some fresh air, taking a walk around her neighborhood.
Well, she had to admit, regardless of her father's other rather questionable decisions, he had made the right choice on where to settle. This was a very nice area in the sense that there was greenery all around, and the sea was very close by.
"Raphtalia!" someone called out to her.
"Oh? Kobayashi-san?" she asked, turning around to see a slightly breathless old man trying to catch up to her. "What happened?"
"It's Sadeena- she's drunk again!"
Raphtalia sighed. "Alright, I'll go get her."
Sure enough, two blocks down, she could see the woman, atop a tree, and clearly drunk out of her wits, throwing leaves at passerbies.
"Sadeena-san!" Raphtalia called out. Most people would have their pet cats stuck in a tree, however, Raphtalia had a grown woman stuck in a tree. "Come down from there! You're making a nuisance again!"
"Oh, Lil' Raphy!" Sadeena said, reverting to English. "How've you been?"
"Not good! And all because of you!" she shouted back.
"Eh? What did your Big Sis do to you?"
"You... you told me that kissing would get me pregnant!" Raphtalia yelled out.
Sadeena looked at her with a blank face for a second, before bursting into laughter.
Raphtalia waited for her to stop... and kept waiting...
Sadeena did not stop, laughing till the point she nearly fell out of the tree, before catching her balance and getting down from her perch. She hadn't fully stopped laughing yet though.
"Ah," Sadeena finally said, as her face was red from becoming breathless and there were tears coating her eyes.
"What's so funny!?" Raphtalia demanded.
"You were six years old at the time!" Sadeena said. "I didn't know that you'd take it seriously!"
"Well, I did!" Raphtalia said, face red as a tomato once again. "And no one ever bothered to explain it to me!"
"Eh? Didn't you have Reproductive Ed or something like that in school?"
Raphtalia couldn't remember. "Maybe it got lost when I switched schools! And all they talked about were zygotes and gametes and it didn't really make sense to me!"
"Well, you can't really blame me for all of that," Sadeena said. "I was just telling you that as you were a little girl, hoping that you wouldn't get into any hank-panky later on... don't tell me you still think storks bring babies?"
"I don't!"
"And really... your parents should've told you that, not me," Sadeena said.
"They were supposed to, but conveniently 'forgot!'" Raphtalia said.
"Ah, well," Sadeena said, lurching before supporting herself on Raphtalia's shoulder. "Would you be a dear and help me back to my home?"
Raphtalia sighed. "Why are you drinking so much so early?"
"Early? It's late at night back home!" she said.
"That doesn't work like that!"
"Oh? So then how does it work?" she asked. She then tapped her chin. "Wait- does that mean that Lil' Raphy kissed a boy?"
Raphtalia's face had somewhat recovered up till this point- though now it turned back to that same shade of red.
"Well... uh..." she said, not wanting to give a direct answer. They were rather close to getting to Sadeena's house, which was closer to the sea than Raphtalia's.
"Come on now... no need to be so shy..." Sadeena said, still pestering her. "Unless... did you go even further than that! Oh my, Raphtalia, did you become a woman before your Big Sis?"
Raphtalia turned a deeper shade of red- her mom had had 'the talk' with her, just so that she wouldn't be confused anymore... needless to say she was quite embarrassed.
What would Naofumi think of her? Probably that she was some kind of idiot! It was already difficult enough with her technically being in high school and him already in college, though strictly speaking, in her own country she'd be a second year in college already. Due to having to repeat a grade, and because of a differing school year, she was far behind where she would otherwise would be.
"W-Wait? You're still... a virgin?" Raphtalia asked, that part suddenly getting to her.
"Well duh, what did you think of your Big Sis?" Sadeena asked.
"But you always... were kind of..." Raphtalia began. She didn't put it into words, but Sadeena had always seemed so... provocative, for lack of a better word.
"What?! Are you calling your Big Sis a slut?" Sadeena asked.
'Well, if the shoe fits...' Raphtalia was about to say, but didn't. "I mean, it's just that you're so old so I thought that-"
"-so old! You're so cruel, Lil Raphtalia, I'm a young maiden at heart!" she said. "How could you possibly wound my heart like that?"
A/N: I didn't realize this last time, but this is a year since this fic started! We got to chap 52 next week because of the breaks I took during vacation, but we've been going on the one chapter/week schedule quite regularly.
Thanks for sticking with me so long!