Letting out a quick yawn, Lizu lounged greedily, taking up a majority of her bed as she'd always done, feeling the warmth of the morning rays breaking into the bedroom through the balcony-leading sliding door. As the dragolyte pooled her consciousness back from the shores of sleep, she felt a small warmth cradled up in front of her and pressed itself especially firmly into her chest. Opening her eyes lazily, Lizu was greeted by a pleasant sight: Enetha's peaceful face as she soundly slept outside of her cocoon mode, cloth-like appendages left limply and haphazardly behind her to snuggle with Lizu. It was the sort of sight someone would see when a child had done nothing but roll around in their sleep, only to leave their bedsheets as a prime piece of origami.

  While Lizu wrestled with disturbing Enetha's sullenly cute face of slumber, Yuuvia found herself the tragic victim of Anazenpha as the hungry snake demon nibbled on the other noble girl's cheek, causing said noble girl to murmur incoherently at the harmless attacks. The sight was absolutely appeasing to Lizu; Yuuvia's dumb expression was just the cherry on top.

  Recalling her fiancé's impromptu trip to help the beegirls, Lizu scrunched up her face into a mean pout. She honestly couldn't believe him; why did he have to be such a pushover for anyone who wasn't her?

  The thought of Inkaro going off on his own without giving her an extra helping of his Inkaroness to tide her over until his return peeved her, because she knew she'd be in the dumps had he done it during a time when she wasn't moments away from sleeping. No, now that she thought about it, that somehow made her withdrawal worse, because the idea Inkaro could do something malicious was idiotically and statistically implausible, making her feelings entirely her own fault. That being said, the idea Inkaro was trying to avoid spoiling her with the affection she required. Worser so, the thought made Lizu wish she could punch herself in the third person, so she could properly see the look on her own face as she realised how foolish the idea of Inkaro maliciously starving her of his presence was. Lizu decided the very action of worrying over something so stupid was beneath her ire, so she purged the thought process from her mind by reciprocating the sleeping Enetha's desire for a hug. Such reciprocation might've been a little to acomidating as the sleepily clingy Enetha slightly mouthed off about something being too clingy.

  Lizu hugged the little princess for just a little bit longer, despite the sleeping girl's unconvincing protests. But eventually, Lizu let the girl go. Naturally, the little princess tightened her hold and doubled down on her efforts to keep Lizu in her grasp, not wanting to let go for a second. It was truly odd to see.

  Rubbing her head to stifen a snicker, Lizu raised her head so she could gaze across the bedroom to see the sea of beegirl fuzz that obscured the floor. Despite the susceptibility she had for honey, Lizu kept herself focused on the reason behind the beegirl's unusual gathering, and it was Inkaro, sitting right where he usually was: his workstation, twiddling away. She wanted to huff in disapproval, but the warmth from Enetha's clothy limbs hovering to and draping themselves over her tail made it hard for Lizu to keep up her make-believe scorn.

  Of course, not being angry wasn't about to stop Lizu from removing the obstacles between her and Inkaro. So, the dragolyte forced her horns to emit a faint, buzzing crackle that made a sharp popping sound a second later. And that was all it took to get the worker beegirls to scatter, instinctively likening the sound to Enulatina's recall order.

  Swift and soundly, the beegirls funnelled out the balcony door, or really any open window they'd previously used to enter the house. The droves of beegirls abruptly flying all at once, unsurprisingly, startled the three sleeping girls to be not so asleep anymore, while Inkaro remained perfectly unfazed by his spectators' disappearance. Anazenpha even opened her eyes briefly, only to slam them shut much faster than she had opened them, which left Yuuvia stunned into a silence that spoke volumes. Yuuvia wondered if she'd hallucinated from seeing what she could describe as breathtaking eyes.

  Such an opinion was heavily biased from it coming from Yuuvia, for two distinct reasons that she'd be dammed to share in front of Lizu. As for Ana's sudden actions, that was about the limit she could will out of herself, in her groggy, half-awake state, before her senses caught up to her, such senses brought to full force as she caught Yuuvia in her peripheral vision. She didn't want to risk anything.

  Rosy cheeked to the point it made her look like a genuine porcelain doll, Enetha remained motionless. Due to the shock of being snapped awake and the placement of her face in relation to Lizu, the little princess felt conflicted to the point of inaction. She felt ashamed, yet oddly comforted that Lizu hadn't pushed her away for being so bold in her sleep. Nevertheless, on how she'd like to stay where she was, Enetha felt obligated not to be a bother by being so close, but the recollection of what happened last time she tried to move at high speed around Lizu kept the little princess from moving, so she reluctantly waited for Lizu to be the one to move to avoid any consequence befalling her any further.

  Luckily for her, Enetha's mental request was answered when Lizu scooped her up and placed her on her tail, which was emotionally more stabilising for the little princess than where she was prior, yet also strangely disheartening.

  Wasting no more time, Lizu jumped from her bed, landing with an imposingly heavy thud, leaving Anazenpha to continue smothering Yuuvia's face with her mouth, only consciously now. Not even Lizu's presence could keep Yuuvia from sporting a goofy and unrefined ear-to-ear grin. The noble girl giggled like a kid in a candy shop, or a villain about to complete their evil plan; it was hard for Lizu to tell.

  Marching her way over to him, with Enetha clinging to her tail in a crawl position, Lizu balled up her hands into loosely clasped fists that she used to lightly strike the hyper-focused guy in the back with a drumming motion. It sounded similar to an empty sock being slapped against a rock, along with the clanging of an unintendedly struck chain of metal. Sure enough, and to her anticipation, Inkaro took one-hundred and thirty-seven hits until he diverted his attention to look at her. Inkaro stared at Lizu, seeing her solemn expression. Before he could guess what she had on her mind, Lizu pointed a commanding finger right at Inkaro's nose, not even letting the guy get a word out before voicing her grievance.

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  "You didn't give me a goodbye or a goodnight kiss; I could have died of Inkaroness deprivation," Lizu whined in a pesteringly needy way, bed-hair drooping over her face as she barked.

  Following the girl's declaration, Lizu attempted to have a staredown with Inkaro, which Lizu couldn't maintain for more than five seconds as her facade faltered from the guy's unwavering unbotheredness: technically, an expression of Inkaroness, so she didn't mind that much. Inkaro continued to stare at the pointing and blushing dragolyte, followed by silently mouthing an 'oh' as Lizu booped him in the nose, causing her facade of anger to crack further, shown to be true by a small smirk forming on her face. Inkaro asked if he could finish the base for the infux mana converter's core first, and Lizu nodded, gladly passing on such a chore of a task if it meant having to wait for a little bit.

  So she stood before Inkaro in an assertively patient style (by tapping her foot in a pattern that was clearly the opening to some show she'd watched with Inkaro), waiting for the guy to finish whatever he was doing, so he could give her his full attention, as she deserved. Inkaro placed his birch-handled chisel with a deep blue gem/metal hybrid blade(covered in his styleized runes), and the second he did, Lizu pounced, verbally, of course. "I desire a kiss as an apology."

  "Is that all? Couldn't you have done that while I was working?" His question towards her question got a grumbly chuckle out of Lizu, because of the blunt Inkaroness that she bathed in before booping the guy in the nose again and making a sharp beep to announce how incorrect he was.

  "Inka-rect, if I initiate it now, it will make me seem petty," Lizu stated boldly. To emphasise what she was getting at, Lizu aimed her tail at her head, gesturing the tip of her dragonic balancer towards the spot she had in mind for the guy to peck her at.

  Enetha slid down Lizu's tail like it were a slide. Then she bumped into Lizu's back, which she smushed her face into, intending to avoid seeing something so embarrassing, like kissing, of all things. Bewildered and cocking his head to the side, Inkaro lightly hummed while he mulled over what Lizu had just stated: "I don't believe that is how it works."

  "And I believe it does, so get with the smooching, mister!" Lizu doubled down on her demand by closing her eyes and sullenly raising the angle of her chin, intending to give Inkaro a better angle of her cheeks.

  Such a choice of words and order of actions could only be considered and interpreted in one certain way; after all, what was a guy supposed to think when the word smooching and someone closing their eyes were done in front of him? Obviously, it was to kiss that person on the lips. Such a fact only occurred to Lizu when she shot her eyes open as she felt Inkaro kiss her on the lips. Her tail went slack, slacker than Enetha had ever seen. In fact, Lizu's tail was so weakened that Enetha found herself sliding right off from how little strength the tail possessed as it yielded to the little princess's nonexistent weight.

  "Y-you Reaper! I wasn't ready!"

  Her train of thought was all over the place, celestial bodies colliding, and the resulting debris of fireworks would be the closest comparison she could've made to describe what was going on in her head. But the one thing she wasn't thinking, in the mess her mind had become, was to complain about it happening, just that she felt a little frazzled from the thumping that was her current heartbeat daring to burst out of her chest.

  With tail flicking and flopping from the girl's mental squealing, Lizu took a deep breath, hoping to conciliate her rampaging heart, aiming to keep herself from blurting out any confidential information, but mainly because she wouldn't live it down if she embarrassed herself in front of her archrival.

  "You... are forgiven, I suppose."

  The last bit of her fiery attitude found itself snuffed out and brought to its end, replaced by bashful timidness, a rarity for Lizu indeed.

  Lizu rationalised in her head that by Inkaro doing what he did, it technically counted as him fully being the one to initiate the kiss, not even it being a misunderstanding could sully that fact, since Inkaro still did it intentionally. That intentional part was the juiciest piece of the whole encounter, one that Lizu gladly ate up unabashedly and with no shame at that.

  She did a little dance to commemorate the occasion, one she'd be playing over and over again in her dreams using memoria.

  Lizu swooned and swayed, basking in such a rare gift, swishing and slapping her tail against the floor as the butterflies in her stomach grew and grew. Before long, little sparks of flame, lightning, and all the elements belonging to the elemental spectrum were spitting out from between the plating of her horns, threatening to explode in a passionate firework show of pure destruction. Knowing the devastation that could follow such a situation, having been the victim of a purely wind-element outburst as a kid, Inkaro said something he knew would defuse Lizu instantly: "Are you planning on skipping your usual bath for a shorter soak?"

  "Ah-." Lizu shuddered violently, realising it was ten minutes past when her multi-hour bath should have started.

  Lizu booked it for the bath, briefly doubling back to pick Enetha up from the carpeted floor and bring her along, only to realise Enetha was already on her tail. Seeing her error and not wanting to appear like a klutz or something, Lizu dashed past Inkaro before rushing past him again in the opposite direction with Anazenpha and Yuuvia under her arms.

  "Put me down, I can walk myself!" Yuuvia voiced her disapproval for being carried by the dragolyte so boldly, only to shut herself up when it became apparent Lizu was ignoring her. The noble girl grumbled the whole trip to the bath, which morphed into a weak murmur once she got to wash Anazenpha's hair and scrub her tail, pacifying her anger until it turned into glee.