6 months later…

“Wake up, everyone!” A voice echoed as the members of ARA Gang got out of bed, “Todays breakfast is horsemeat! We’re celebrating!”

What it is we were celebrating? Simple, today was the siblings’ birthday! Carter was turning 14, while Cecily was turning 16. Even though they weren’t twins, they still shared a birthday, which was a crazy coincidence.

Don’t get me wrong, we planned this day out months ahead of time. We actually had to get Carter dead drunk for him to give away their birthdays, but we won’t go into the details of that evening… It’s their fault for not telling us, their closest friends and co-leaders about it!

It was a joyous occasion, so the whole gang chipped in to get a whole heap of their favorite dish just for today! We had to work a bit extra in Blue’s though…

“Whoaaaah!” the siblings gasped upon realizing what awaited them in front of their very eyes.

“Ready everyone?” Ed shouted, “Here we go!”

Happy birthday!!!!

These words echoed the dining hall as everyone from the gang got a good shout in, and their reaction…?

“Sniffle, sniff, you guys… how did you know it was our birthday?” Cecily said with tears running down her face.

“Are you not happy with it? Should we have thrown a city-wide party?” I half-joked.

“Nnahh!” she laughed, “Ya’ goof! That’d be way too embarrassing! Of course we’re happy!”

With the mood just right, everyone proceeded with the feast. I looked around as the gang members who just under a year ago couldn’t stand each other, now sat shoulder to shoulder, joking, singing and having fun. Aaron sat next to Ed, drunkenly talking about his experiences with branching out The Depot, which was now all but completely connected to The Fort, which made for, basically, a castle of sorts. Ironically, he wasn’t all too thrilled about being tasked with the job, as it meant he basically had to make a pathway directly through the town.

I’m tirred ‘f lookin’ at walls and pathways, Edward! Come on down n’ help me, will ya’? He would say as Ed quickly went to fetch a glass of water for him. No drinking in the morning! He would reprimand him endlessly for this.

Looking over at Jorgen who was looking to be a lot livelier than before, but still kept this visage of a worn-down leader. He certainly didn’t seem glum on purpose, but I rarely ever saw him guffaw or laugh at all. I guess he just isn’t the type to show when he’s having a good time. We once asked him outright if he wasn’t feeling well or something, but he just looked at us with a question mark and answered back I’m as fine as ever, though? This made it extra hard to gauge how he took the news about us requesting him stepping down as General, in favor of getting the Vice-General treatment like dear Aaron.

During this time, I was asking Cecily all sorts of questions. Her and her brother sat next to each other at the head of the table, with us sitting right next to them (although not at the head of the table, mind you. It wasn’t that wide of a head!)

It has been four months since the two of us started dating. And oh boy is it a story!

***

It all started as a regular day, like any other, with us Generals and Vice-Generals (minus Cecily) enjoying a nice lovely game of Black Jack. Everything was going swimmingly, until Aaron suddenly asked a heavy question.

“You gonna confess to Cecily already?” he asked.

“W-huh?!?” I choked on my glass of water, “What are you talking about?!”

“Yeah,” Carter stepped in, “if y’make ‘er wait too long, she’ll lose int’rest in ya’!”

The heck do you guys mean? Since when did you know I had a crush on her?

Ed sighed after looking at my face, supposedly reading my expression like a book, “Grim, everyone in the base sees you guys stealing glances at each other, and frankly it’s disgusting how you still aren’t together.”

As I was scrambling to defend myself to the best of my abilities against these pricks, a quiet but solemn hand was raised, indicating the person it belonged to had a question.

“What is it, Jorgen?” I asked, hoping he’d back me up.

“… You guys aren’t dating?”

NOOOOOOOOOOO! Not you too!

With that, it was all but decided.

“Alright.” Said Ed, “1on1 Black Jack, you'll be house. If you win, we all treat you to drinks as a sign of apology. If I win, you confess to Cecily.”

Oh shit, the stakes were high…

And with that, I… lost immensely. The house always wins, though… I grumbled as he smugly took away all my chips.

“Yeah, Ed’s been gettin’ reaaaaal good at hidin’ those cards under tha’ table!” Said Carter, giving away Ed’s master plan to cheat against me.

“W-You cheated!?! No fair, deal’s off!” I said, storming out of the room.

“Now you’ve done it, Carter!” The Vice-Generals said, “We were on the verge of seeing something great! We were this close!”

Heading outside, it was quite chilly. That’s winter for ya… I didn’t really have an aim with going outside, I just kinda wanted to empty my thoughts a bit without their noisy asses butting in.

Just then, I saw her. Hair flowing red as a rose, eyes sparkling yellow as she looked to the starlit sky as if searching for something greater than her. She noticed me staring, and quickly asked me what I was doing outside with an ahem.

“Just… going for a stroll, same as you, I guess.” I answered back, recalling the events that transpired in the Generals’ quarters. She noticed my flushed cheeks and mistakenly thought I was getting cold.

“Here, take my cloak if you want. You went outside without grabbing a coat again.”

“No! You’ll be cold then! A-And I’m not cold at all!” Is what I said, but it was the truth. Since I was blushing from head to toe, the blood circulation kept me toasty even in the middle of winter.

“Then…” she hesitantly looked down and bashfully asked, “wanna share? That way neither of us will get cold.”

Stop being so cute, damn it! I’ll die of heat stroke!

But after weighing down the options, I took her up on the offer. We sat down, looking at the stars together, before a voice nudged me from inside my head.

Confess, it said. There’s no time like the present! Before I could even stop to think about it, I-

“I love you.” I said flat out.

“Eh? WHUH-EEEEEEEEEEH???” She looked back at me, surprised. “WAWAWAWHAT? L-LOVE? S-Stop joking around, Lune!”

“I love you, Cecily.” I repeated, since I didn’t really know how else to convince her, “I’ve always looked up to you. Your perseverance through the toughest of times, your ability to keep going forward past all the troubles, in search of a better solution. And to top it all off, you’re cute as hell!” I ruined the speech with my personal opinion.

“C-c-c-cute?!?” she was all but dizzy from the shock.

“… You don’t have to answer immediately, I just wanted to tell you how I felt. I’ve liked you for some time now, but I didn’t want to get too ahead of mysel-”

She stopped me mid-sentence.

“I… I’ve liked you too…” she said, bashfully looking down out of embarrassment, “A-And… I’d like for us to be together as well.”

Fireworks were going off in my head, and I could feel my heart practically pop out of my chest with every word she spoke. I ain’t ever falling in love with anyone else again, it’s bad for the heart!

“B-But…” she stopped to warn me, “Whatever you do, don’t tell anyone about this.”

“What? Why?” I asked, purely out of curiosity.

“Well, they might think I went soft… I want the gang to still rely on me.” She said proudly, “Plus, it’d be embarrassing.” She blushed as she tucked her knees in.

My g-girlfriend’s so cute…

“Think of it like this: It’ll be our little secret!” she giggled.

And just like that, four months later…

***

I… still haven’t told a single soul. It’s not like either of us don’t intend on spilling the beans, it’s just that the opportunity hasn’t arisen yet!

We would often go out together on dates, under the false pretense of wanting to study up in the library or just go for training exercises in the fields. But whenever anyone saw us strolling about, holding hands, we’d chalk it up as "One handed joint exercise!" And quickly run away. This little secret was what kept the thrill of our relationship, well, not like we didn’t have any thrill to begin with…

Anyways, back to the present, the two of us discussed many topics, from our recent victory against The Great Hianics Gang, to the newest release of the books we’ve been reading, then speaking in code about our relationship, it really felt like we never ran out of topics to talk about.

I had no intentions of spoiling her any more than I already did, but I guess my feelings went ahead of my wallet and I decided to take her out for a birthday date! We visited many places of the city, all the while I made sure she was having fun (My biggest fear is for her to one day say our date was boring!)

The places we visited weren’t chosen arbitrarily, either. We walked past the inn where we first stayed after having met, the alleyway where Carter tried to mug me, the crepes store where I always wanted to take her… All these places meant a lot to our relationship, and the way she nibbled on her crepe with a comforting smile brought me to my knees. Gods, I’m a pantheist, but I’ve never wanted to thank you more in my life for blessing me with this precious soul!

After we had our fun, we sat at a nearby park bench together, still subtly holding hands as we talked about all sorts of things. Mostly about future plans, though.

“If you had a field of roses in front of you, how many would you take?” She asked, looking far into the distance.

“Huh? That’s a weird hypothetical.” I said, “But… I guess 3?”

She blushed immensely upon hearing that “3!? I see... I’m glad.”

“Yep,” I answered back, “one for Carter, one for Ed, and one for you!”

“Jeez! I don’t even wanna imagine it! Let me be more specific then. Only you can have the roses. How many do you want?”

“Still 3.” I shot back immediately.

“Why such a specific number?” she asked.

“I’d make them into a bouquet and hand them to you. That way I wouldn’t be gifting roses, but a bouquet instead!”

I thought she’d praise me for my clever problem solving ability, but I got a way different reaction instead. She was quite flustered from the response, she suddenly looked my way before rewarding me with a peck on the cheek, then immediately wanted to head back to base. She didn’t look at me at all during the walk home, but I knew she wasn’t mad or anything, judging by her singing along the road and the spring in her step.

It still made me anxious about what it is I said exactly, so I went to the one person who I knew could help me in this situation.

“Max! I got a question for ya’!” I asked, pulling him away from the crowd.

As it so happens, Max was the only person who actually 100% knew about our relationship, as he was on patrolling duty on the night I confessed, and basically got a front row seat to the cheesiest and most embarrassing moment of my life. Even still, after he told me about this, he said he’d respect our privacy and keep it a secret, but since it was both Cecily’s and my first time dating anyone, we’d frequently ask him for love advice.

“What’s the question, bud?” He answered back.

“Say for example you were near a field of roses…” I was stopped midway through my hypothetical.

“How many roses would I pick?” he guessed what I was going to say next.

“Yes! That’s it! What does this mean? Is it a common saying in Great Hiana?” I asked.

He laughed loudly before proclaiming “This is a fun little thing a girl asks her boyfriend. They say the number of roses you pick is how many kids you want.”

I suddenly blushed with all my might. So that’s why she was so cheery? I only recently got used to referring to her as my girlfriend in my internal narrations, but this is too big of a leap!

Max asked me how many I chose, but I didn’t wanna tell him. I did strike a cool pose and shout “Stick around and find out!” in the coolest voice I could muster though, but I stopped quickly after realizing what I just did was extremely embarrassing.

With this, the siblings’ birthday ended like any other day. After having dinner and a bit of an after party, we all went to bed. We had no idea what would be waiting for us tomorrow…