[ - Oy, Babe, let’s eat!] - Jack happily wiggled his tail around while preparing some food.

- I’m not hungry! - Elicia answered from the Dungeon Core’s area.

[- Are you sure?! I’ve made your favorite! I’ve made everyone’s favorite! There’s roasted dragon meat with spices, kraken sushi, and I’ve made some golden sweet dreams as well!]

One might find strange for a dragon to eat other dragons but, as long as it was a NPC, what’s the problem? Jack and Elicia used to be humans, after all. And roasted dragon meat just so happened to be Pietro and Sandro’s favorite dish…

- Sigh… hon… - Elicia came from the Dungeon Core, helplessness written all over her face - Why’re you cooking? We had a meal tree days ago. Don’t you get tired of eating all the time?

After so much time, even a dragon’s favorite - gold - would become a boring snack. It was still tasty, sure, but even the best feeling in the world, if constantly repeated, will become dull - after all, one’s brain will get slowly used to the food’s flavor and it would them start to ignore the taste.

- Golden Sweet Dreams! - A small thunderous voice could be heard, while heavy steps made their way into the kitchen - I want! I want!

Sandra was the first to arrive, soon followed by Pietro.

[- Hehe]

- Sigh… - Elicia rolled her eyes again. - Don’t eat too much you two. Also, Pietro, take some of the roasted dragon to your brother, ok? He’s staying in his room, but I do know he wants some.

- Okay mom!

***

Dragons didn’t really care about day and night. They did care about the time to sleep because of their inborn instincts, but once they were awake, they would become active 24/7.

As for Sandro, Pietro and Sandra, their sleeping time had been adjusted with some help. On one side, Sandro was training his Sleep Resistance. On the other, Pietro and Sandra surely did enjoy a little bit more of sleeping time.

[- I hope mother comes back before its time for the children to go to sleep.]

- That would be good. - Elicia answered, unfazed. As for Jack, a small, uncomfortable feeling welled inside of him.

[- What’s the matter babe?]

- Nothing… - Elicia answered in a tired voice - it’s just that…

Anticipation could be felt in the air as Elicia’s shoulders tensed a bit and she lightly held her breath.

- Ah, forget about it…

The uncomfortable feeling became stronger. As for Elicia, she seemed defeated.

[- Common babe, what’s up?] - Jack answered, this time standing at her side, his eyes as honest as possible as he unconsciously tried not to betray the real reason why he asked - because he was feeling bad about her atitude.

It wasn’t comfortable to speak to someone who wants to know what’s wrong with your feelings just because they’re feeling bad about it.

Elicia felt as if Jack wanted her to stop feeling bothered about the issue, and that bothered her. Still, that couldn’t be said to be the first time this happened.

It wasn’t easy for her, since she had always been the active side of the relationship. Still, it might be a chance to solve things.

She took in a big breath and choose her words carefully.

- Why did you cook that meal earlier? - Such event had happened two months ago. However, for beings used to sleep long periods of time and to do the same things over and over again, that amount of time didn’t really matter.

As one repeats the same routine, thirty years or thirty days eventually becomes the same. After all, no changes on that meant every event was just a re-hearsay of the previous.

Such a psychic trap was one the System didn’t protect against, at least not unless one activated some very specific skills - which Jack and Elicia kept off, since they had the “unsettling” effect of making things progress too fast.

As one would be constantly present in the present moment, living every experience as the first, it would become unbearably clear when one couldn’t leave their routine, as well as all the mistakes they committed on a day-to-day basis.

That said, these two months had been unproductive. With the skill on, most of the times they just wouldn’t have the time to live new things - or the motivation to look for them if they were stuck on a vicious cycle - and, therefore, any kind of discussion and reflection upon the thing in question would be as unproductive as these two months.

Still, what to do?

Elicia bit her lips. Jack wouldn’t go out and live new things, so the things they hadn’t solved between them would remain unsolved, since he wouldn’t change who he was and what he was learning on his daily basis. Also, being present in the present moment and doing things “as if it was the first time” also wasn’t helping - they had accumulated a long list of small grudges along the years, and even after forgiveness, something that bothered the other would keep bothering - even after being forgiven.

Was it worth it, then? To even talk about this subject? It would just repeat the same thing, over and over again. Go in circles. That… she was tired of that.

She wanted to order him “go live something new, and then we talk about this once we can do something about it!”. But that, as well, would be useless.

Jack was passive. One could call him a couch potato, unreliable or even a dimwit on some aspects - as intelligent as he was.

The thing is, as long as he lived the same way all days of his life, he just wouldn’t become able to see what he currently couldn’t see, or do better what he could eventualy do better.

Of course, she could take on herself to accept and love him the way he was, with all of his imperfections - but how many times hadn’t she done just that?

She had taken onto her to love him as he was so many times - to forget about the things he did that annoyed her, to try and become a better person, a more loving and carrying person.

Sometimes, she was just tired. Tired of doing that. And she needed something like that, someone to do that to her. Not always, but at least some times…?

[- I don’t know babe… I mean… yeah…] - Jack stopped and stared at the void. He knew he didn’t know why he did that. He wasn’t hungry.

- Does it have something to do with Sandro’s transformation?

[- Ehhh.. no. I think not.] - Jack had been bothered about how his son was with him lately. It wasn’t as if he had changed too much but, time to time, he would see that judgmental eyes on him.

Shouldn’t a child love its father regardless? Isn’t that what filial piety was all about? Well, no one in his family ever had any ties with Confucianism, but, still, it gave him something of a bad feeling.

[- I mean, maybe… I don’t like how he’s looking at me. But that wasn’t the main reason, I think.]

- Then, how about you go and talk to him?

[- Yeah… maybe…]

Elicia looked at Jack with the tired eyes she always had on these situations. However, the passive-aggressiveness she had started to cultivate soon vanished. It was useless to get angry now. At least that much she knew.

Now, if she wanted to help him, then that’s what she would do. What if it was tiring? She could stop just now, and things would go on.

But Jack’s main reason for doing what he had done hadn’t been answered. Should se continue? Or not? Would she have enough patience and strength?

…maybe. It was worth a shot.

- So, that wasn’t the main reason. What was it, then?

[- Eh… I don’t know babe. I don’t know.]

- Okay, let me rephrase. How did you feel while you were cooking?

Jack stopped for a moment to look at what he had done. Thinking about that moment, the perception of how messed up where his emotions at the moment came to him.

[- Yeah, I was in a bad mood that day. So I decided to cook…]

- And what did that cooking do to you?

[- It felt good... Yeah, it did] - Jack said, while relaxing some of his muscles, the bad feeling inside of him relaxing and going away as well. He knew that, as soon as he noticed what he did that bothered Elicia, then he would be able to judge if that was fair for him to change or something she had to change on herself.

[- I mean, it was as if I was letting that whole thing behind… yeah…]

Jack felt a little downtrodden at that moment. Only by that much he could already see the problem. And it was him, acting like a freak and avoiding seeing reality in front of him.

- And what were you trying to escape from? - Elicia, herself, found some relief after getting on this level of the conversation. She would be able to start some self-reflection on Jack and, at least, once he started to self-reflect, he would probably be able to notice what he had been doing that was unhealthy and crazy - for both him and everyone else as well.

It wasn’t nice having someone running away from life by doing things which affected you and those next to you. Running away from the facts was infectious, it was like a disease. Once it started to spread, one would become more and more trapped inside their own imagination and unable to talk to others or even be real about themselves.

At least that much all of them, except for little Sandra, maybe, had already understood.

[- I just don’t like this whole thing… I don’t want to go out, I don’t want to live new things. What if… what if I can’t control myself and then, bam, next thing we see is me getting home and saying “babe, it happened, I was just talking to some girl and then… it happened”. I don’t want that.]

The bottom of the question. That was why Jack ran away from new experiences in his life, and also why he started to get delusional once Sandro decided to regain his memories.

[- I mean, I… I don’t know what to do. How can I deal with this?! I can’t… I can’t endure the idea of you going out with other men, but if that happen to me, then I would need to let you do it as well…]

- And why would you? - Elicia knew that she would have a hard time forgiving Jack if he ever cheated on her. She had been faithful for over 100 years, never going beyond infatuation with other men. If he suddenly came home and said that he had lost control and fucked another woman… well, she would be furious at him. However, they had had that conversation already. Jack’s problem wasn’t with that. He would beat himself up over justice instead of doing that undercover. She was fairly certain of that.

[- I… I don’t know. I think, it would be fair. I don’t like unfair things.]

- Then, what if I let you live it for a little? Without getting a men for myself? We could try it with other girl, or I could let you go and live something out of our relationship as well… - That was something she had said to him multiple times as well. The first time they actually went to bed, she was in-between dating and not dating a guy. Then she asked if both wanted to try a ménage, they tried it, and it went wrong. Her previous boyfriend got a trauma for life, Jack almost became a psycho for a while after, and in the end, she decided never to try that again - unless she was more than certain that things would go well… or at least not terribly wrong again.

One of the ways of doing so would be to let Jack go and start an affair. A “consented affair”, so to say. It was something she wasn’t sure if she would be able to go through with, but, at least, it would be a shot at something new…

[- No. I can’t do it.]

- Okay hon. Here, let’s stop at this today. It’s good that you saw that.

[- Yeah… sorry.]

- It’s okay.

Jack felt a little defeated. In truth, he had had some breakthroughs in this whole “free love” thing. A little while ago, just under fifteen days, he had decided that he would assume that he indeed wanted to have an affair with other girls.

He would assume that he wanted to fuck other girls. That he even wanted to do some things he himself thought as real jack-ass stuff to do.

Would he do it?

Hopefully not. Still, if he didn’t accept that he wanted to, how could he deal with it?

Except that he didn’t know how to talk about it to Elicia. Things were repeating themselves, and he could see how tired she was getting of this same topic being brought up over and over again.

He usually felt relief on these small sessions of confession, but it should be frustrating for her.

In the end, he sighed and looked away.

He would have to talk to her about it, eventually. But maybe he should think about it himself first.

Just maybe. Who knows...