“Bye!” You say to Charlotte. The taller girl beams down at you and pats your head and ruffles your hair.

“Goodbye Dreamer,” she says before pointing to Web who is riding on her shoulder. “Web says bye too.”

The spider wiggles one of its tiny limbs in the air before it and if you're not mistaken its big furry mandibles are stretched out in a smile.

“Bye Web!” you say to her before waving. Abigail and Daphne say bye too and then your group splits up, Charlotte heading off towards her evening with the Athletics Club and you and Abigail and Daphne heading off to... “Hey, where are we going?” you ask.

Abigail and Daphne both jump at your question and pause to stare at each other, then they look away. “W-we should talk,” Abigail says.

“I agree.” Daphne crosses her arms. “Though the Academy is a bit public for that kind of discussion.”

“Maybe we could wait until tomorrow?” Abigail says and Daphne nods.

You narrow your eyes. You don’t know exactly what’s going on between the two. It’s all some mortal stuff that’s beneath your notice and that you would usually ignore. If it wasn’t for Abigail being involved then you would definitely not care one bit. But she is, and Abigail is important.

“No,” you say and both girls jump. “You two should talk until you find out what’s wrong with each other, then fix it.”

“Dreamer,” Abigail whines.

“Nu-uh,” you say with a shake of your head. “Talking first. Whining after.” Reaching up, you grab both girls by one hand each and start walking. You were already on the edge of the campus, so it doesn’t take long for you to reach the streets beyond where there are a bunch of small shops.

“Where are you leading us, Dreamer?” Daphne asks. She sounds calm, but her hand is all sweaty.

“There,” you say before nodding to a place across the street. There’s a big cafe nestled between an alchemy shop and a small office building, the sign out front calls it the Garden of Lilies. There are snacks at those places, and snacks make things better.

“Oh my,” Daphne says as you drag her into the store. It smells like coffee and cake and pastries and other yummy stuff inside. There are quite a few people too, mostly girls but some boys, nearly all of them sitting at little tables for two here and there.

“Hello,” says a rotund lady with an apron and a smile on. “May I help you?”

“Yes,” you say. “We need yummies and a place to talk.”

Daphne coughs to clear her throat and takes a small step forward. “If I recall, this establishment has a... private room, where we can discuss things in confidence?”

The lady’s eyebrows rise. “I see. We do have a room available at the back, though it’s for, well...”

“I,” Daphne looks away. “I’m a member of the Gardening Club.”

The lady looks at her, then at you, then at Abigail. “Oh my. In that case, follow me.”

The room you’re brought to is very small. There a pair of chairs sat next to each other before a small table, and off to the corner is a couch that’s just big enough for someone to sleep on if they wanted to. A big urn filled with flowers makes the whole place smell pretty.

“Shall I return to take your orders?” the lady asks.

“No, that’s fine,” Daphne says. She rattles off a list of things, then looks at you and adds two cakes to the order. You hope they’re for you.

You take over the couch and bounce on it a few times before plopping down and looking at the girls. Abigail sits down on one chair, Daphne on the other. They stare at each other with fleeting glances then look absolutely anywhere else. Sometimes they make noises as if they’re going to speak, but then cut themselves off when the other looks at them.

Then the lady returns with a tray. She takes in the room at a glance as she moves to place it on the table. “It works best if you both speak your desires aloud,” she says as she places tea on the table. The rest of the tray, cakes and all, is left in the middle. “You have the room for another half hour, miladies,” she says before bowing and leaving.

Daphne’s cup rattles as she picks it off her saucer. She holds it up for a moment, then lowers it back down. “I... I love you,” she says.

Abigail freezes.

“I’ve loved you since, since I discovered what the word meant. You’re, you’re Abigail, and that means everything to me. I want you to be happy, to be strong and fierce and a little bit naive and, and to be you. And I want to be near you while you’re happy and there when you’re sad. Which.” Daphne chokes on her own words and takes a gulp of her tea. “If you just want to be friends, then I owe it to you to be just that. The best friend you’ll ever have. And no matter what you do, I’ll still be there.”

Daphne sets her cup down. It’s empty now. She stands up.

“I’m, I’m going to go. Don’t worry about the bill, it’s, I’ll cover it. M-maybe we can continue as we did today? It was fun?”

“No.”

The word rings through the room and has Daphne stopping mid-motion. She starts to shiver.

Abigail shakes her head, hair bouncing with the motion. “No, that just, that just won’t do. You’re, you’re my sister, my best friend, and even if I’m not sure if I feel that way about girls, I know that I love you too. I just don’t know if it’s the same kind.” Abigail takes a deep breath, her brows scrunch up and her hands ball up into tiny fists. “But I’m going to find out.”

“What?” Daphne squeaks.

“We’re, we’re gonna go on a date.”

“What?” Daphne squeaks louder.

Abigail is standing up now too, her chair scraping against the floor with the motion. “We’re going to go on a date, and m-maybe we’ll try... k-kiss.” She stops, her face an inferno. “Things. We’ll try things. And then I’ll know if I love you that way too. And if I don’t, then we’ll have tried, and that’ll be enough, and we can still be friends, and I’ll help you find someone cute and nice that you can love like, like that.”

You take a bite out of your cake.

It’s really good cake.