"I did tell my parents about it," I told Raphtalia. "Well, I tried to, but they really weren't there at the time, so you can't really blame me for that. They weren't there at the time, so I'll speak to them when they call back."

I could hear her sighing on the other end. "How did Atla take it?"

"Not very well though Fohl tried to calm her down, but we're not out of the woods yet," I told her. "We have to go to the next deposition- sorry, by that I mean me and Atla and Fohl, not you. Did you get any word back from Eclaire?"

"Ah- yes, actually," Raphtalia said. "She said she would still be fine meeting with me this weekend."

"Did she say anything about Melty and why she isn't coming to college?" I asked.

"Well, nothing specific- only that there was something going on at her law firm that was keeping her busy," Rapthalia said.

Was that so? And here I thought that she was playing hooky with Filo or something along those lines.

"What could be going on that requires her presence there?"

"I... don't know honestly. If you're that worried about her-"

"-I'm not worried!"

"You could try to visit her. I know her address-I don't think that they would turn you away..."

"...hmm, not sure about that," I said. Melty had mentioned to me earlier that it wasn't a good idea to visit her house because of the issues she was having, and I didn't want to intrude without asking her if it was fine first. "But I'll look into it. Main thing though is that I need to head towards the deposition day after tomorrow along with Erhard. Oh yeah, I need to tell him about it."

"...who is Erhard?" Raphtalia asked.

"Ah, I'll introduce you to him one day," I said. "Matter of fact, I wanted to ask- are we still on for tomorrow for a stream?"

"Yes," Raphtalia said. It had been a while since both of us had met in person, and this would be a great opportunity to catch up.

As it was it would be the first time that the two of us would be together ever since my brother had left, meaning we now had the apartment to themselves.

I hoped that that wouldn't make things weird.

"Oh!" Raphtalia said. "Did the 'SwordMaiden' make any response?"

"I'm still trying to figure that little bit out," I said. "Ah, might need to be on hold until I get this thing with Fohl settled out, you know."

"Right..." Raphtalia said. "You know, even if this doesn't work as planned, I'm glad that you tried to help out Fohl. It sounds like their family is terrible."

"Yeah, I just hope that this doesn't end up biting me in the butt later on," I said to her.

Who was I kidding though- it almost certainly was going to, knowing my luck.

The next day I was going over the paperwork and various legal documents, both soft copies and hard copies as well. I had taken the next day off, saying that I had some kind of legal deposition I needed to prepare for, and for some reason my law school didn't even question me twice on it!

It was like they were saying 'Yeah, Naofumi Iwatani definitely sounds like the kind of person to get himself into legal trouble' and just said 'alright then.'

Man, I really was pissed off at them sometime.

Still, I was almost done with everything when there was a knock at the door.

I opened it to see Raphtalia- she had done something new with her hair, getting a small hint of turquoise highlights as well as using something that looked like hair gel. In addition, she was wearing a new cardigan that I hadn't seen her wear before.

Ah right, I thought to myself. Perhaps she was hoping to alter her style to better endear herself to the viewers of the stream.

That was the conclusion that I'd reached, but then soon realized that there was a significant problem with said conclusion.

The gentle smell of cherry blossoms wafted into the room- she was wearing perfume? Today?

Wait... she wouldn't wear perfume for a livestream. So that meant that...

...it was for my sake?

"Ah, I love what you did with your hair," I said.

I tried to keep my mind off of what she else she might be here for.

Could it be that she was looking to take our relationship further? Could it be that she wanted to...?

As my face nearly flushed at these thoughts, I hurriedly cast them away.

No way, that was impossible.

She didn't even know where kids come from yet.

"Thank you but... is something wrong? You seem to look... weird today," Raphtalia said.

"Ah nothing, just thinking about our last meeting," I said.

"Right, with Atla and..." Raphtalia suddenly jerked her chin. "Ah- about that time- regarding kisses- I'm sorry, my parents had to explain to me the whole thing- wait, why is your face suddenly becoming pale?"

"Ah, nothing," I said. I tried not to think too hard about what she might be planning for this evening- no, she was likely just dressed up because we had started dating. There was nothing more to think about- I doubted that if she had just learned about that she would care about it anyway. At least, not at this point. "Come on in!"

"What should we do today? About the stream, I mean?" Raphtalia asked. She looked at the paperwork I had scattered everywhere. "You've been really busy, haven't you?"

"Well, kind of," I said. "I mean, there are so many legal loopholes and other things that might be thrown our way. All we can really do is think on our feet and hope that things work out."