Talia nervously arranged her shirt.

The blue-haired girl was standing in front of the entrance inside her house. Her attire constituted of a navy skirt with her legs covered in black stockings. The upper half of her body was clad in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. A small blue tie was enlaced around her neck.

She checked the hour on her phone for the ninth already in the span of five minutes. It was a bit past 6 o’clock.

Suddenly, her head lifted up as she felt two presences outside. In a split of a second, Talia arrived in front of the door. She opened the door without wasting a second. However, the sight before her left her speechless.

There was Cathia holding a box, surely some pastries from the store. She was wearing clothes more beautiful than your normal everyday ones. But, this was not what shocked Talia the most. It was Sanya.

The blond girl had her hair braided on one side. A slight touch of makeup gave her a more mature air. Despite this, her cuteness was still present through her young face and the blush taking over her cheeks. The mature aspect still won a few additional points with the white one-piece dress on her.

Her lips painted in red opened up after some hesitation. “...H-Hi.”

Boom, a few more points to the cute side. The bashfulness of the young maiden hit Talia right in the heart. The only thing that could escape her mouth was “...Incredible.”

Cathia smirked before pushing her daughter forward. “I told you she would like it!”

Talia caught Sanya in a hurry. Now, that she was closer she could smell some kind of perfume coming from her. It was subtle, but with her nose more sensitive than average she could pick up a fruit scent like orange. The sweet smell was very tempting.

However, a voice in the background brought her back to reality. “Talia! Are Cathia and Sanya there?”

Talia turned around to see her father, Adrien poking his head out of the living room. Seeing the arrived guests, he walked up toward them with a calm smile. “Welcome. Thanks for coming. Don’t stay outside.”

Cathia entered the house and gave the box. “Here a little something. Thanks for having us.”

Adrien accepted it gladly and turned toward Sanya. “Welcome Sanya. As always you are close to Talia.”

The two stopped hugging each other, but Talia still had her hand on the back of Sanya’s waist. Sanya hurriedly greeted Adrien with a bow of her head. “G-Good evening, Mister.”

After this, the mother and daughter duo also greeted Angelina. Cathia stayed behind to familiarize herself with the family. Meanwhile, the two girls set off toward Talia’s room. While walking, Sanya made a remark. “I didn’t see your brother.”

“Ah, his exams are coming soon, so he is rather busy. He will still come later.”

“He is in college, right? Must be hard.”

In response, Talia had a wry smile. ‘I could help him with his studies, but that would a bit strange.’

After entering the room and closing the door, the both of them stood in the room in silence. Their faces were blank, but a bit of tension could still be read inside their eyes.

“...”

“...Today is the day.” Sanya gently whispered.

They were going to tell about their relationship to Talia’s family. Nowadays, it was a lot easier for people to tell that they liked people of the same gender.

Nevertheless, there was still some apprehension.

Sanya looked at Talia with the corners of her eyes. She knew what her lover had gone through. The bloody battles and the responsibilities as the Protector of this world. Despite all the accomplished hardships, her expression was showing signs of nervousness. ‘...Becoming stronger doesn’t mean she became prepared for this.’

Talia felt a warm touch around her hand as she was pulled forward. Her head lifted up in surprise. “Sanya?”

Sanya said nothing and pulled her to the bed. She fell down, taking Talia with her. Talia moved her hands in to prevent her from falling on Sanya. However, the final scene was even more ambiguous.

From an outsider’s point of view, it was like Talia was pinning Sanya down.

Sanya moved her hands to Talia’s reddening cheeks, a smile blooming on her face. “Don’t worry, I’m here. Besides, you’re more cute with a smile.”

Talia slightly gasped. All her worries about today seemed pointless now.

Her lips approached until they reached her beloved’s ones. The two of them stopped thinking for a moment in order to appreciate the love coming from the other. It was only a few seconds, Talia laid on the bed next to Sanya while holding her hand. This time with her mouth arched up.

“...Okay, let’s tell them at the end of the meal.”

“Mmh.”

“Until then, what should we do?...” Talia raised herself to look around her room. She had not really any hobbies, apart from eating sweets. She was still enjoying things like listening to music, and games. But, none of them would interest her more than eating sweets.

Sanya also sat up. “What were you doing at the Stellar Temple during your free time?”

“Free time, huh? Training and discovering new sweets I guess.”

“...As expected of you. You always have plenty of sweets inside your earring. Just how much can you stock inside anyways?”

The dragon earring appeared on Talia’s ear as if it had responded to Sanya’s call. “How much? I don’t really know as I got this one when I became part of the Ylas. However, I can at least put something the size of a house inside. One of my friends has a starship inside her own. As for what I have inside…”

Talia closed her eyes, bringing her focus to the folded space inside the piece of jewelry. “Weapons, sweets, equipment, food, clothes, money, and other stuff that I picked up during those fifty years.”

“The volume of a house worth of what you just said...Wow.”

However, Talia shook her head. “No, I don’t have a lot in fact. A normal Protector would visit numerous worlds during their training. Which means they would get a thing or two from each world. Well, I also received gifts after protecting some worlds. Oh, I know. I have something that might interest you.”

A thin device appeared in Talia’s hand. It was exactly the same as the one Sanya got from Lord and the one Barostl had yesterday. The strange apparel really picked Sanya’s curiosity. “What is this?”

Talia grinned and sat cross-legged on the bed, kicking off her slippers in the process. Her hands placed the object on top of the bed while replying. “This is a Personal Communication Apparatus, PCA for short. Just think of it as a very high-tech smartphone. We use it to communicate with others via the network of the Stellar Temple, but it has a lot of utility apart from it.”

She waved her hand over it, which unlocked the device thanks to her fingerprints scanned by infrared waves. Suddenly a 2D holographic menu, a screen the size of a sheet of paper, floated mid-air. colorful Icons were static in front of Sanya. There was no background picture like on an ordinary phone. Seeing the curiosity painted on her lover’s visage, Talia spoke up. “There are several ways to operate it, like manually or using your voice. For example, you can move a folder or application by pinching the corresponding icons and moving it around. Tapping the icon will open it and waving your hand will switch panels. How about giving it a try.”

“Eh? Ah, yes.” Sanya timidly moved her fingers with the hologram followed suit. Icons changed alongside the panels, just like a normal smartphone. Most of the icons were totally foreign for Sanya. Nonetheless, the excitement of using what would normally only been seen in movies was real.

After a few seconds of moving around her hand, she stopped her gaze on a certain folder. The icon was quite similar to the folder one present in her world, so she could see that the folder was containing pictures and photos. Without thinking, her finger tapped on it.

“! Wai-!” Because she had been too busy looking at Sanya’s cute face, Talia failed to prevent her from opening the sole folder that should not have been open out of everything.

Out of nowhere, rows of photos appeared between Talia and Sanya. In total, there were only a few dozens of them, but seeing them Sanya opened her eyes wide. “...Those are photos of you and me.”

A part of the photos had the two girls together on it, while the other part was photos of Sanya alone. She recognized them. They had the habit to sometimes take pictures of each other or the two of them before when they would hang out. In fact, some of the projected photos resembled the ones pinned on the wall inside the room.

With a tap of her finger, Talia returned to the main menu.

“Talia, this is..?”

The blue-haired girl blushed and looked away. “...My phone was useless and using it too much would have reduced its lifespan. So, I transferred the photos of us from it to my PCA. This way, I could look at them. I hope you don’t find it creepy.”

As to deny her fear, Sanya shook her head. “Of course not. In fact, I’m happy. Very happy.”

“...” The two maidens were motionless during a small period of time. As to hide her shyness, Talia navigated through the menu. But, the holographic screen was not high enough to hide the thin smile that she had.

Talia finally stopped scrolling and landed her finger on one of the myriads of icons displayed. The screen turned from the menu to a list of books. The covers were floating in arrays, making the whole easier to look at.

After some gestures, Talia selected one of them. A window on the side allowed the user to select pages, change things like the font or the size of the letters. The main window was showing images of dishes, mostly desserts. The paragraphs of text were written in English next to them.

Seeing the unfamiliar food, Sanya tilted her head as her shining eyes swept over the rows of text. Fortunately, Talia was here to explain. “Stellar Temple has a virtual library where one can read hundreds of millions of books from various worlds. I downloaded some and asked to have them translated. They have a software that use language databases to convert to the desired one. The one here is about recipes of exotic sweets and pastries.”

Sanya took a good look at all the unfamiliar dishes. Despite their uniqueness, they still had a few similarities with what was made in this world.

One looked like a thick shortcake with the inside browner than normal. It was topped with slices of what looked like a crimson fruit, bigger than an apple. Another one was a round cake with silver jam covering it.

Talia spoke up to give additional information. “Well most of the ingredients can not be found here, but I’m pretty sure there is a way to substitute them. You can also get some ideas from it….Do you find it useful?”

Sanya immediately raised her head and nodded. “Yes! But, it’s not like I can take your PCA to try them later.“

“Don’t worry about this. You can borrow the PCA if you want. I just need to be around just in case.” What Talia didn’t say was that she could easily convert the book to a standard format and transfer the files. Her real aim was of course to find excuses to spend more time with her lover.

Sanya simply smiled, oblivious of the schemes. She then sunk once more into the book, asking Talia from time to time questions about some ingredients names.

Time passed gently and peacefully in the bedroom

Suddenly, a knock on the door caught the two girls’ attention.