Having arrived at the store, we started looking around for the ingredients we needed for the chicken parmesan and some other general foodstuffs.

“Hey, Auro, what about this?”

“Hmm?” I turned around only to be greeted by a large bottle of milk in my face. “Yuck! Please get that away from me!”

Emma started laughing. “Aurora, the vampire who is allergic to milk instead of garlic.”

“Haha, very funny.” I replied dryly.

Em put the bottle of milk back where she found it and walked over to me with ingredients we actually needed. “This should be most of what we need - just need to get some chicken.”

“Mhmm.” I nodded. “The butcher’s counter is past the snack alley over there.”

“Talking about snacks…” Em walked towards the alley I pointed at. “Which snacks does Ria like most?”

I followed her and stopped near a couple of boxes. “She really likes these cookies.”

Emma took a box of ten out of the rack and inspected it more closely, “I see…”, and put it in her shopping basket. “Anything else?”

I smiled without saying anything and showed her a couple more of Ria’s favourites.

In the end, Emma ended up with four different kinds of snacks. “Thanks. Do you think she’s going to be happy with this?”

“Em, she’s going to be over the moon.”

Emma smiled and put away the last box. “Let’s go and get that chicken.”

“Yeah, let’s.”

We got our desired chicken pretty quickly as there was no line at the butcher’s counter at all. After having paid for our groceries, we swiftly left the shop and headed back home.

“Is it okay for you to pay for the groceries? I could’ve paid for it, you know?” Emma was holding one of our bags while I was carrying the other.

“It’s fine. Money isn’t really an issue anymore anyway.” I shrugged.

“Hmm? What do you mean by that?”

I looked at her for a second before the penny dropped. “Ah, right, I haven’t told this to you two yet… You see, Viktor actually gave me a coffer full of money a couple of days back. To repay me for all the hassle he has caused and such. And apparently buying, you know what, isn’t cheap either...”

“Wait what… How much money are we talking about?”

“Don’t know… it was a lot, I’ve never seen that much money in the same place before…”

“Huh…” Emma looked in front of her in disbelief. “So you hid it somewhere, I guess?”

“Yeah, I can show you and Ria when we get home. It almost gave me a heart attack when I first saw it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s a lot…”

“Wow, this vampire world thing is getting crazier by the second.”

“I just hope they didn’t get it illegally.”

“The vampire criminal underground…”

“Yeah, something like that.” I laughed. “But Viktor doesn’t look like someone who’d do that kind of thing, or be okay with it… so it’s probably okay…”

“I guess we’ll have to see. But I do think you are right, he definitely doesn’t look evil.”

“Mhmm.”

Emma switched the bag she was carrying to her other hand and took my hand in hers with a big smile on her face. “Even though you are clumsy around people’s feelings at times, you are still a good judge of character.”

“Hey! Just because it’s true doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt.” I pouted.

“Eh, you’ll live.” Em bumped her arm into mine.

“Ria, we’re back.” I called out to Ria when I closed the door behind me and Emma. “Emma got something for you.”

“Really?” She poked her head around the corner.

“Yeah.” Emma walked towards her and took the snacks out of her bag. “Here.”

“Oh! Yay! These are my favourites!” Ria enthusiastically started jumping up and down.

“I asked Auro what snacks you liked…”

“Thank you so much, Emma!” She put the snacks next to her on the backrest of the sofa and gave Emma a big hug. From where I was standing I could see Emma blushing a little.

“N-no problem.” Emma returned the hug, albeit a little bit clumsily.

While my two girlfriends… -I really still need to get used to calling them that.- While they were hugging it out, I took off my shoes and jacket and put the groceries in the kitchen.

“Oh, Rora, I was brushing my teeth earlier, but the water in the sink wasn’t draining well.” Ria commented, still embracing Emma.

“That’s not good, I should probably take a look at it. Can you two keep yourself busy while I do that?”

“Definitely.” Ria smiled and pushed Emma into the sofa.

“Auro help, she’s squeezing meeee.”

“Eh, you’ll live.” I grinned and took a couple of cleaning products with me to the bathroom.

“Hmm, so how did you use this again?” I picked up one of the bottles and read the user manual that was printed on the back. “Okay, pour the contents of the bottle in the sink. Check. And now I just need to wait a couple of minutes for it to start working.” I closed the bottle back up again and sat on the side of my bathtub to wait for the product to start working. Luckily the clog didn’t seem to be that bad as I heard the sound of the product dissolving it. I checked by running the water for thirty seconds - it had no issue at all draining away.

“That’s that.” I washed my hands and took the cleaning supplies back to their storage space in the living room. “Sink should be draining pretty well now.”

“Y-y-yeah, o-okay.” Ria stuttered, which made me turn my attention to her. When I looked over, Emma and Ria were now sitting on the sofa, facing each other, their faces were both incredibly red.

“Did something… happen…?” I asked tentatively.

“Uhm… well…” Emma started. “While you were gone, Ria asked… how it felt to be… bitten…”

Ria immediately covered her face in embarrassment. “R-R-Ro-Rora, you didn’t t-t-tell me it w-was so l-l-lewd!”

“Uuuuuuuhhhh….” My brain was trying to calculate what to say next.

“Well, it’s not like Auro can help it. She tried to be really gentle the second time, but it still-”

“Y-you did it t-t-t-twice!?”

“It was a bit of an emergency…” I defended myself.

“Auro’s eyes wouldn’t turn normal anymore after P.E. so she needed it...”

“I-I s-see… b-but still…”

“I’m sorry Ria… that’s why I prefer the bottles more…”

Ria shook her head. “I-it’s fine, I-I’m not angry… b-but…”

-Oh no.-

“I-if Emma has done it t-twice…”

-Oh no.-

“I-I want to do it too…”

-Oh no.-

In the meantime Emma had started giggling. “Well I think that’s only fair, if she really wants to do it.”

“Y-yeah…”

“Ria…” I scratched the back of my head, not immediately knowing how to respond to this situation.

“P-please…” She put on the most dangerously cute kitten eyes ever which tugged on my heart strings so badly that I just couldn’t say no.

“Fine… But can we do this after dinner… So I have some time to prepare myself…”

“O-okay.”

“Let’s get started on that chicken parmesan then.” Emma stood up from the sofa and grabbed me by my shoulder. “Want to help too, Ria?”

“Mhmm.” She nodded and followed us to the kitchen.

While Ria was cleaning the lettuce to make a salad Emma whispered in my ear. “Ria sure is dangerous with those eyes.”

“You don’t have to tell me...”

She softly laughed. “I guess not.”

“Doesn’t it bother you?”

“Hmm? What does?”

“Y’know, what we are going to do after dinner.” I blushed.

“I said it was only fair, didn’t I?”

“Yeah… but…”

“I think I know what you want to say, but she’s your girlfriend too.” Emma stated matter-of-factly. “I don’t think it would be okay for me to deny that to her. But why are you holding back so much? D-didn’t you enjoy it when you... w-well...”

“I did, I did. But maybe I enjoyed it too much. And I just don’t want to make use of the both of you like that…”

“As long as we both consent, there’s no issue, right?”

“I guess… I just don’t want to get addicted to it either.”

“Did I taste that good?”

“Emma! You were flustered just a couple of sentences ago!”

“I just can’t pass up the opportunity to tease you.”

“Well, in that case, the stuff in my fridge doesn’t even come close to how good you tasted. It was the best thing ever.” I teased her back, but apparently I overdid it a bit as her face shot bright red again, and after I realized just what I said, so did mine.

“Is the salad good like this?” Ria walked over and showed us the salad she’d been working on.

“L-let me taste it.” I tried to compose myself as fast as I could and took a fork to taste-test the salad. Apparently she’d opted for a vinaigrette to accompany the chicken parm. “It just needs a bit more pepper. What do you think, Em?”

She took my fork of me and tasted it too. “Y-y-yeah, a bit more pepper should do. But the amount of vinegar you put in is just perfect.”

You could see on Ria’s face that she was proud of her accomplishment and nodded happily. “Okay!”

“She doesn’t cook a lot at home, does she?” Em asked while Ria went back to add more pepper.

“We can teach her, one step at a time.” We happily watched as Ria was turning the pepper mill.

“She’s adding way too much, isn’t she.”

“Yep.” The two of us quickly rushed over to her to stop her from adding even more, but it already looked like it was going to be quite a spicy salad.