We headed back downstairs to the living room, where our girlfriend and our friends were seated. Apparently, in the short time we were gone, they had procured some more snacks for us all to eat, and both Ria and Anya had taken out their make-up boxes. I had no idea where they had even kept those as their luggage didn’t look that big, but that might be one of those things only girly girls know how to do, just as cats have their pocket dimensions.

Speaking about cats, Shima had nestled herself on Claire’s lap and she was eagerly being petted by her too.

“Hey there, welcome back.” Claire said as she saw us return. “Do you mind if I sit out on the girly activities? As you can see, I am catbound at the moment. It would be very dishonorable of me to move her, you see.”

“You are not getting out of it that easily, Claire.” I said as I dropped the blankets down on the floor. “Otherwise, I’m gonna be incredibly cross with you. If I need to suffer, you are going to suffer together with me, you understand?”

Both Anya and Ria started chuckling at my comments, as for Claire, she started chuckling as well. Putting her hands beneath Shima, carefully lifting her off her lap and placing her down on the pillow beside her. Shima acted as if nothing had happened. “Alright, I will take the duty of suffering with you onto me.”

“You better.”

While Anya and Ria were messing about with their coffers, the three of us spread out the blankets and pillows around between the sofas so we had a very fluffy surface to sit upon. We also then fetched some kitchen towels and other towels in general so we didn’t make a mess on the blankets.

We put the snacks on the small living room coffee table, well within reach, just in case we wanted to eat something, and then waited for Anya and Ria to be done with their preparations. After which we all went to the bathroom to quickly wash our feet, just to be hygienic about it all.

An enthusiastic clap from Ria signaled that everything was ready. “What do you want to start with?” She asked happily.

I looked at Claire and Em, they both looked back at me too. “I don’t know, what do you want to do first, Ria?” I asked back.

“Maybe we should do the pedicure first, Corelia.” Anya proposed.

“Sounds good to me.” After which, she turned back to us. “Is that okay with you?”

“All ready for it!” Claire gave them a thumbs up.

Em just nodded, and I just went with a casual “Yeah, sure.”

“Since there’s three of you, is it okay if we start with Em and Claire?” Ria asked.

“Definitely.” I was quick to reply, to the amusement of Claire and Em.

“If you are too enthusiastic, we can start with you too.” Anya smirked, which quickly put me back in my spot.

“No, no, I’m fine.” And slowly sat down on the blanket in front of the sofa. “I just like to watch first.” That’s when an idea sprang to mind, taking me right off the sofa yet again.

“Rora, do you want to go first now anyway?” Em asked, looking rather confused.

“No, I just had a great idea. You girls just continue as you are, I’ll go and get something.”

Ria and Anya looked at each other and shrugged as I walked past them towards one of the closets in the living room. It took me only a couple of seconds to find what I was looking for, one of the scented candles that we had bought in the store. Now was as good a moment as any to start one of them, as it would give more of a spa-day feeling to the others.

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“Ah, that was what you were looking for.” Em chuckled as she was taking off her socks.

“Yes, I’ll put up some regular candles as well, to get more of a moody lighting. You two don’t need too much light, right?”

“Not for the pedicures and manicures, not really.” Anya replied. “For the makeup, we might need a bit more.”

“Time to light some candles then!” Maybe it was because I wasn’t really looking forward to it that I suddenly became very productive, but it did seem as though everyone present really appreciated the candles once they were up and about. Even I was proud of my work, although we did need to make sure that Shima didn’t jump on the closets with the candles burning. Not that she did that often, but I didn’t want a cat running around the house with a burning tail or something like that.

When I was finished with my candle lighting, Anya and Ria were already well underway with Claire and Em. I sat back down on the spot I had chosen earlier and looked at them while they were diligently at work, wrapping my arms around my legs and resting my head on my knees.

Claire had chosen a dark blue for her nails which actually fit her really well. “You actually have some really pretty nails.” I said.

“Hmm?” Claire turned her head towards me.

“Sorry if that’s weird to say.”

“She definitely does.” Claire’s girlfriend replied in her stead.

“You can blame Anya for that.” Claire stuck out her tongue just a little. “She very much likes taking care of me after fencing practice.”

Without lifting her eyes from what she was doing, Anya nodded. “Your feet are very important for your general wellbeing, especially if you sport a lot. You use them all of the time, after all.”

“That’s true, I suppose.” I looked over to Em, looks like they were working with a purple nail polish.

“Anya is right.” Em replied. “Well-cared for feet is very very important. It’s so much more comfortable, which makes you run as you want to. If something in your feet isn’t right, like too many calluses or whatever, you’ll be thinking about that constantly, it doesn’t feel right, it will make you run weird at times and can cause injury.”

-I’m really really happy that due to my vampirism that I don’t really need to look at that anymore…-

“But Em has very soft feet! Very good” Ria exclaimed, putting her nail polish aside for a while and squeezing Em’s feet a bit.

“Don’t do that Ria, that tickles.” I could see from the twitching in Em’s leg that she wasn’t lying.

“Hehe.”

“You are going to smudge the nail polish.”

“Nah, it’s going to be fine.”

Em had nowhere to go while Ria was quite literally playing with her feet, at least that gave me some gratification for betraying me earlier.

A bit later, Anya was done with Claire’s pedicure. Because Ria had messed about with Em for a bit, she had still a while to go.

Anya looked at me and tilted her head. “Do you want to wait a bit until they are ready, or can we get started?”

“Well…” I looked over at Ria and Em and remembered our conversation from earlier about trusting and bonding a bit more with Anya. “Yeah, let’s get started.” I gave her a smile although there was still a hint of discomfort within me. After which I took off my socks and got ready for some basic pedicure.

“What color would you like?” Anya took her basket of magical girls stuff and showed it to me, she had pretty much every color of the rainbow and then some. It gave me quite the choice paralysis, especially since I’m not that used to this all.

“I honestly have no clue whatsoever.” I admitted.

“Hmmm.” Anya browsed through her nail polish colors before she settled on a single bottle. “What about this one?” She showed me a dark red nail polish.

“Sure, that’ll do fine.”

Anya smiled and handed me the bottle. “I’ll be right back. I need to go to the bathroom, after that we can start, okay?”

“Yep, I’ll wait right here.”

“And I’ll make sure she doesn’t run away.” Claire smirked.

“Thanks sweetie.” Anya gave Claire a kiss on the cheek and then left for the bathroom.

It gave me some time to take a look at the bottle some more.

“What color did she give you?” A curious Claire looked over my shoulder.

“This.” I showed her the bottle to which Claire immediately frowned. Which, in turn, made me frown at her facial expression. “What’s wrong?”

“Did you read the name of it?”

“Uh, no?” I took the bottle close to me and spinned it around. I immediately saw what Claire was referring to. The brand was the same as her other bottles, but the name of the color she had picked for me was called ‘blood red’. “Oh… Surely just a coincidence right?”

“Probably.” Claire nodded. “Scary coincidence though.”

“Well, the color does fit you.” Em said. She was looking over at me together with Ria.

“No doubt about that…..” I replied, looking back down at the bottle in my hand.