Before we left the café I went back to the buffet and took some of the smaller leftover pieces of bread and wrapped them up in a paper towel. No-one was going to eat those pieces anyway, and it’d be a shame to let them go to waste.

“Are you ready to go, Ria?”

“Mhm!” She enthusiastically nodded.

“Let’s go then.” I smiled as we left the restaurant building together. Ria-chan grabbed my empty hand and started guiding me through the school’s gardens.

“Which pond do you want to go to, Ria-chan?”

“The one next to Dormitory A, If that’s okay?”

“Of course it is.” I gently squeezed her hand a little. Why wouldn’t I, after all, I liked my alone time with her a lot. The garden next to Dormitory A was after all one of the most quiet places on the school grounds because the vegetation there was a bit more dense than the other gardens. And apart from Dorm A, it didn’t have any other nearby buildings. Unlike the gardens next to Dorm B, which had the laboratory building and the sport’s complex surrounding it.

After a solid 10-minute walk through the gardens, gradually seeing less and less students around, we finally arrived at our garden of eden. The only other person there was a third year student who was reading a book beneath one of the willow trees, the book’s cover matching her bordeaux red ribbon. She was clearly too involved in it to pay any kind of attention to us. Just like the empty classrooms from earlier today it was clear that, much like the school’s janitors, the school’s groundskeepers didn’t care that much about this piece of the school grounds either. The paths were a lot more mossy, the grass a lot taller and some of the trees clearly hadn’t seen a good trimming in a long time, giving the area a certain fairytale vibe. In short, it looked absolutely amazing, a great place to cut yourself off from the rest of society for a while.

We went to a bench close to the water and I quickly wiped it off a bit before I let Ria-chan sit down.

“Après vous, mademoiselle.” I made a little bow, slightly bending my knees like the nobles used to do back in the day and only let loose of Ria-chan’s hand when she was fully seated.

“Thank you.” Ria giggled.

I handed over the paper cloth bag to her, which she quickly opened up on her thighs.

A couple of ducks had already noticed the bread and started to swim closer to us.

“Just make sure the pieces are small enough for them to eat.”

Ria-chan took a bit of baguette and tore it into smaller, bite-sized pieces.

“Like this?”

“Yep.” I sat down next to her and took a piece of bread myself.

“And then you just throw it at them?”

“Mhmm.” I smiled. Sometimes it was hard to believe how sheltered Ria’s parents kept her. That she hadn’t even experienced little things like feeding ducks in parks. At least I'd experienced that when the lady of the snackbar took me to the park one time when I was a bit younger.

Ria threw her first piece of bread a meter from the closest duck. The duck quickly swum to it and gobbled it up. I could see Ria’s eyes starting to sparkle. I threw mine a bit further, being extremely careful not to tap into my newly vampiric strength, though even then I felt like I overdid it a little. Luckily Ria didn’t seem to notice and broke off some more bread.

It didn’t take long before we had run out of bread to give to the ducks. It’s better to not overfeed them anyway.

“Did you like feeding them, Ria?” I asked while I folded up the paper towel so I could throw it in a bin later on.

“Yes! The duckies were so cute!”

“Cute, huh?” I chuckled. I wouldn’t necessarily call a duck cute like I would call a cat, a dog, and Ria herself cute. But it definitely wasn’t an ugly bird. “I guess they are a little cute. Not nearly as cute as you though.” I leaned back on the bench, stretching my legs a bit. My entire body basking in the sun which only recently broke through the clouds. And looking at the blue sky ahead, it wasn’t going to go away any time soon.

-Sun is shinin' in the sky. There ain't a cloud in sight...-

Ria blushed. “T-thanks…” she paused for a couple of seconds. “Hey, Rora?” Ria looked at me with a demanding look in her eyes.

“Mhmm?” I turned my head a little to the left so I could look better at her.

“C-can I rest a bit?”

“Uh? Sure? You don’t really need to ask me that though.”

“I mean… I mean it in a lap pillow kind of way…”

The motors in my head started turning again and I quickly sat myself upright, quickly adjusting my skirt. “Ah!”

“Can’t I?” She pouted.

“No, no! Of course you can! I was just a little surprised.”

“Yay!” Ria beamed and let herself drop to the side so she could rest her head on my thighs.

“Feeling a little bit spoiled, do we?” I looked down at her and put my hand on her arm so she didn’t accidentally roll off the bench.

“Just a little.” She laughed and closed her eyes.

I smiled and softly repeated her words. “Just a little.” I rolled my neck and took a good look around. My right hand had found itself gently going through Ria’s hair, making me laugh to myself. “To an observer this scene must really look like those you could find in the several yuri manga Ria-chan likes to read so much. Although to be completely honest, I think those are pretty neat too…”

I looked down at Ria on my lap as my thoughtstream continued. “And I’m sure as heck glad that I’m not thirsty anymore, otherwise, with the position she’s in now…” A small breeze brushed even more of her beautiful blonde hair off her neck and onto my lap. “It would be pretty darn dangerous….” I gulped and decided it would be best to lean back a little and close my eyes as well, while gently petting my best friend.

Although I would have more than happily dozed off in the warmth of the sun, I found that I was completely unable too. Instead, after focusing for a while I got in some kind of meditative state. I felt my body connect with the nature around me. Feeling every single living thing, Ria-chan on my lap, the ducks, the birds, even a little family of squirrels in a tree 70 meters behind me couldn’t escape my senses. It was an overwhelming experience especially when the wind came into play.

A tap on my shoulder abruptly brought me out of it.

“Hey there. Sorry for waking you up.” The upperclassman from earlier smiled apologetically, her bordeaux red ribbon bobbing in the breeze.

“Ah, no, it’s fine. Is something wrong?” I asked her while thinking how in the name of all things holy she managed to sneak up to me.

“I just wanted to make sure you got to your classes in time.” She gently spoke. This time the wind blew a waft of her soft floral perfume in my face. Somehow, the way she carried herself and that perfume matched each other perfectly.

“Oh, right. Thank you, upperclassman.” I checked my phone, we’d indeed be cutting it close for the next lesson. Apparently, losing the track of time is pretty easy when meditating.

“Don’t worry about it.” She turned around, just fast enough to make her short black hair twirl a little. “See you around.” And with that and her pretty sizable book under her arm, she left.

I did wonder what she meant with that, as it was quite uncommon at this academy for the different grades to mingle. “She probably wanted to be polite…” I shrugged and looked down at my best friend who was still pretty much out of it on my lap. The pile of cuteness had apparently even drooled a little on my right thigh, not that I really minded.

“Hey Ria.” I gently tried to wake her caressing her arm.

“Mhmm, Rora… just a little bit longer…” she mumbled.

“Wakey wakey, Ria-chan.”

“Only... if you bring me breakfast in bed...” I don’t know what kind of dream she was having but she had an incredibly stupid smile on her face.

I softly poked her cheek which made her finally open her eyes.

“Good morning sunshine.” I looked down at her and smiled.

“Eh...how late is it?” She rubbed her eyes before she suddenly turned red. “I didn’t say anything weird, did I?” Ria was clearly a bit flustered.

“Nah, didn’t hear anything.” I lied. “We should probably go now or we are going to miss history.”

I helped her to sit upright as she was still a bit dazed.

“Thank Rora.” She yawned.

I patted her head and tried to stand up, but before I could do so she grabbed my sleeve.

“Hug?”

“Alright, but after that we need to go, okay?” I smiled and embraced her.

“Okay!” She hugged me tightly.

After the incredibly comfy hug we quickly hurried back to the classroom, hand in hand and our skirts fluttering in the wind. The wind sure had picked up the last couple of minutes -the open blue skies from only 35 minutes ago were now being threatened by dark clouds in the distance. -Me and my big mouth…let’s hope it won’t start storming.-