We got to the car without a lot of issues and Emma instructed Helen to go past my house first like she’d asked earlier. The traffic going back home was even lighter than on the way to the shopping area but that was to be expected as it wasn’t anywhere close to rush hour.

When we arrived back at my house, Em asked Helen to wait for a bit while I quickly got out the bags with mine and Ria’s clothes, as Ria was probably not allowed these kinds of frilly dresses. She could still wear them whenever she came to my place. In the meantime, I gave my key to Ria so she could open the door and go inside to hug our little tiger.

Em came with us for a while as well. “What do we do with the rest of the chinese food?” She asked.

“Good question. I can keep my portion and hand over the rest to you. I suppose left-over dinner is too low on the status hierarchy chart for Ria’s parents…” I walked into my bedroom to hang Ria’s dresses in my dresser, which was half-empty anyway. Ria was in my room as well, looking beneath my bed. “Did she hide herself?”

“Mhmm… I can’t find her...” Ria admitted as she sat upright again.

“Where would that silly cat be.” I closed the closet again. “Well… there’s one way to get her out.” I smiled. “Ria, why don’t you go and get her a baggy of that cat soup? You know where to find that, right?”

Ria smiled, she’d figured out the plan and jumped upright. “Yep!” She then hopped over to the living room. Em and I followed her along.

“There’s one surefire way to lure out kittens. Using their weakness… their favorite food.”

Ria took a baggy of cat food out of the designated cabinet and shook it a little.

Sure enough, a small, probably-not-even-hungry, tiger-striped cat came running down the hallway from the direction of my room.

“Wait, she was in your room? How? We checked that, didn’t we?” Em looked completely perplexed.

“You know how cats are, whenever you try to find them they hide in some kind of demi-plane, only accessible by felines of floofy nature.”

“Right, I forgot about that.” Em chuckled.

Ria had put the baggy on the floor and had taken Shima in her arms for a big and well-deserved hug. “I’ll give you the food, Shima. I just want to cuddle you first.”

Shima mewled and started purring. She didn’t seem to mind that at all.

“Is it okay if I give the rest of your portion of Chinese food to Em, Ria?” I asked.

“Mhmm!” She nodded happily. “Otherwise it’d just go to waste.”

“My mom will be happy, she really likes dumplings.” Em smiled as well.

“Oh, I didn’t know that.” I replied, also with a smile on my face, of course. “Then again, I don’t think we’ve ever eaten Chinese at your house before.

“What has not been can yet be in the future.” Em replied with a sentence that could quite easily come out of a fortune cookie. “I’ll ask her if she wants to go to a Chinese restaurant with the three of us once she feels better.”

“I’d love that.” I nodded.

“Me too!” Ria replied, she’d just let Shima run free again and was emptying the baggy of food into a bowl.

After Ria was satisfied with her dose of Shima we brushed off the cat hair with one of my anti-cat hair rollers. I then handed Em the Chinese leftovers in a plastic bag.

“I guess I’ll see both of you on Monday?” I asked as we walked towards the front door.

“Mhmm.” Em nodded. “I would love to come over tomorrow but I can’t. Plus, it’d be a bit unfair towards Ria.”

“You don’t need to mind me!” Ria proclaimed. “She’s a girlfriend to the both of us.”

“Eh, I still wouldn’t really feel okay with that, Ria.” Em replied with a smile. “But as Auro said, soon we probably won’t have to worry about that anymore once you are free to come here without excuses.”

“Mhmm!” Ria nodded and flew at Em to give her a big hug, after which she hugged me as well. “I’m already looking forward to it.”

“We are too.” I gave her a head pat after she was done hugging me. ”Now, on you go before Helen kicks my door down. I don’t want to get it replaced for a second time this month.”

“Probably a good idea.” Em chuckled and took Ria’s hand in hers. “I’ll message you later.” She waited for me to open the door for her, which I did.

“Yep. You’ll message me too, right, Ria?”

“I’ll try to remember.” Ria stuck out her tongue.

“You better.” I chuckled as well. “Love you both.”

“Love you too.” Em and Ria replied practically in unison.

Helen took the bag of chinese food and put it in the trunk, after which she waved at me and they quickly departed towards Ria’s place.

And since I got bored being by myself again, I decided to start cleaning the house a bit with some studying afterwards. That must be my girlfriend’s good nature rubbing off on me. At least my teachers wouldn’t mind that at all.

Having poured myself a glass of vampire nectar, I’d just opened my math books when I got a message from Em. “Good night, babe. Hope I didn’t annoy you too much with the shopping trip.”

-Wow, already this late, huh?- I hadn’t even noticed it was practically midnight already. “Nah, it was fun. Going to bed a bit early today?” Em liked to use her weekends to game, so she often didn’t go to bed before one or two o’clock on Saturdays.

“Yeah, I’m tired. The shopping trip was pretty exhausting.”

“Oh, I didn’t notice any of that.”

“That’s because you are a vampiress, you darn dumdum.”

“Hehe :p”

“Don’t you hehe me!”

“I just did :p hehe.”

“Goddess, I wish I were there with you again.”

“Ria said you could be.”

“But I need to be strong. Just for a little bit longer.”

“That’s my girl :)”

Em was typing something in response but removed it again. After a couple of minutes, she started again. “I’ll let that slide for now… good night, Auro.”

“Night night

“

And with that, our short string of messages had already ended. Now I was just waiting for Ria’s. In the meantime, I just continued doing some math.

Two hours later, I finally got the message I’d been waiting for.

“Good night, Rora!

“Good night, princess

“I won’t be able to talk much tomorrow because we are going to a fancy dinner with my parent’s friends. So don’t forget I exist, okay?”

“How could I ever forget my sweet cutiepie?”

“<3” her message was quickly followed by a second. “I’m going to go now, otherwise I’ll fall asleep while texting. Nini Rora

“Good night once again, sweetest princess of mine

This time it wasn’t that easy to fall asleep and my usual trick of hugging the pillows my girlfriends had slept on, didn’t work either. Maybe it was because of some stress for the confrontation on Monday, but I didn’t really feel that stressed about it. Especially with Alessia’s help, it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. It could also be that stupid math problem that I couldn’t get out of my head. Or a combination of both, while also having the normal difficulties of falling asleep as a vampire. The only thing I knew is that I kept rolling around in bed until I heard a rooster usher in the coming of a new dawn.

“Well… that sucks.”

That Sunday went by terribly slowly as I got bored without my usual company. I’d already cleaned the house so much that if I didn’t make a deliberate mess, there was literally nothing to clean. Shima was sleeping, so I didn’t want to wake her to play with me. And while I could study even more… my mind really wasn’t ready for that right now. As I looked through all my options, I remembered there was a batting center in the next city over, which might have been fun to visit. But that plan went to ruin as I checked the timetables for the public transport. Apparently that strike from yesterday had not resolved and had gotten even worse as the other forms of public transport had joined in. Even train service had been completely disrupted. And while it's true that I could technically go there on foot, if I kept to normal human speeds it would take me hours to get there.

“Awh man, this sucks balls…” I slumped back into the sofa like a bag of potatoes. “I really need to get a bike or something….”