The next morning, those who were sleeping woke up to delicious smells coming from downstairs. Specifically, the delicious smell wafted from the kitchen where Emilia and Ondine were busily cooking away their breakfast while Sumara cleaned and arranged the dishes.

The first order of business in the morning was for Venezuela and Erza to have their breakfast and head off first to the capital. Tagging along with them was Cantia, who seemed to be overseeing the training of the kingdom’s soldiers ever since she had defeated them all on her own.

The next order of business was for Lakshman’s sisters to get ready and have breakfast before departing for Astral Academy. Normally, this happens an hour or so after Venezuela, Erza, and Cantia left. Sumara also leaves with the twins as she was a lecturer at their academy, whose department was the magic department since it was her speciality.

“Wow! Today’s breakfast smells really good!” Indira asked as she and her sister came out of their rooms to check out the smell.

“Yeah! Normally, I’d go back to sleep if we woke up early but my tummy’s rumbling now that I smelled this!” Priya agreed with a grin.

“Honestly, Emilia is too good at her cooking skills!” Sonia said, licking her lips in a display of her hunger. “Cantia, you’re drooling. You’re drooling!”

“Oops!” Cantia said, wiping away the drool and apologised with, “Sorry but this smell is just too… tempting!”

“I’d say,” agreed Sonia with a smile.

“Where’s Lucky?” Silvera asked, glancing towards the room her husband slept in. “Hasn’t he woken up yet?”

“Could it be that he couldn’t smell this delicious aroma floating around the house?” Cantia asked in concern.

“Not everyone thinks with their stomachs, you glutton,” joked Silvera with a cheeky grin.

“Ha. Ha. Very funny!” Cantia said exasperatedly.

After chuckling, Tetra suggested, “Let’s check up on him,” and they nodded in agreement.

With Mariana staying behind to look after their babies, Tetra, Silvera, Cantia, and Sonia headed towards their husband’s room. Indira and Priya followed them as well, but from a distance as they were just curious about what their brother was doing in the morning.

Sonia knocked twice on the door and asked, “Lucky, are you awake?”

There was no immediate response and after glancing around at them all, she said, “Alright. We’re coming in.”

She turned the door handle and opened it, being surprised at the room being slightly dark. It was evident that their husband did not wake up because the curtains were drawn and the lights in the room were out. They carefully entered into the room while the twins hung back at the entrance to watch and see what transpired.

Looking towards the bed, they saw him lying there with a peaceful expression on his face while he was fast asleep. This amazed them because Lakshman would usually wake up a little earlier to begin his routine morning training, but it seemed that he slept through on this occasion.

“He looks so cute while he sleeps,” commented Cantia as she walked over and sat next to the bed.

“Indeed,” agreed Tetra with a soft smile.

“He probably is tired from all the activities he was engaged in without any sort of rest,” remarked Silvera with concern.

“It’s a good thing we convinced him to take a break from pushing himself so much,” said Tetra with a smile, “and seeing him like this makes me feel we did the right thing.”

“It’s not just his duty to protect us as our husband but it’s our duty to protect him as his wives,” stated Sonia firmly.

“Agreed,” they all said in unison.

They then became silent and watched him sleep for a few seconds before Cantia suggested, “Why don’t we wake him up with a morning kiss?”

“What?!” They all exclaimed, suddenly looking stricken at the sudden suggestion. “A morning… kiss…?!”

“Yeah because, you know, we haven’t given it to him for quite a while now,” said Cantia, suddenly becoming energetic.

“The last time I did it was way back when he was still a teenager, and he got so embarrassed,” said Tetra as she remembered fondly about the past.

“Same here,” said Cantia with a grin.

“In that case, why don’t you girls choose who will give him a morning kiss,” said Stuart from the side, causing them to jump with fright. “What? Don’t tell me you forgot that I was here as well?” He asked, looking a little hurt.

“No, no, no! It’s nothing like that!” Sonia reacted first, realising he was hurt.

“We just didn’t see you so we… uh… assumed you were probably somewhere else,” added Silvera hastily.

He looked at them blustering and smiled before saying, “Sorry for spooking you but still, why don’t you decide who’ll give him a morning kiss?”

“Um…?” They wondered aloud and looked at each other.

“Okay. Let’s do this!” Cantia said, suddenly becoming excited. “Let’s do this with rock, paper, scissors!”

There was a moment of silence before Silvera asked, “Cantia, are you still a child?”

“But what better way of deciding things other than to fight it out?” Cantia asked back.

This made Silvera blink in surprise before she sighed and said with a wry smile, “So, basically, in your terminology, to decide things, you either use rock, paper, scissors or fight it out. It’s official. You’re a meathead.”

“No, I’m not!” Cantia retorted indignantly.

“Shh! You’ll wake him,” said Stuart with a finger over his mouth, “that is unless you don’t want to give him a morning kiss.”

He was teasing them, but he was surprised by their girly reactions and realised he had found something interesting to entertain himself with.

“Alright. Do rock, paper, scissors and the winner can do it,” he said with a beaming smile.

“This is so wrong…!” Sonia said, but she prepared to perform as the game dictates and closed her hand to form a fist like the others.

“Ready. Rock. Paper. Scissors. Go!” Stuart announced, and in an instant, all the girls unravelled their hands forward.

As it turned out, that round was a draw and caused Stuart to say, “Damn. No winner. Well, try again in 3… 2… 1… Go!”

While they were continuously battling it out within themselves to see who gives their beloved husband a morning kiss, Lakshman has silently woken up from his sleep. The sound they made was enough to wake him up since they were not particularly trying to keep it down.

“Why’s it so noisy all of a sudden?” He wondered within himself.

As he awoke, he saw them playing rock, paper, scissors and heard his childhood friend talking about a morning kiss, he quickly understood what was happening in his room.

“Oh. So, it’s like that. Silly Stuart, trying to amuse himself obviously,” he thought as he inwardly chuckled.

“Yes, but I can’t believe these silly girls are going along with this silly plan of his,” said Asura with a sigh.

“Asura, we’re only twenty-years-old and still young,” protested Lakshman with a smile, “and this isn’t like the ancient times where the girls are more reserved and such.”

“From the way you say it, you seem to be interested to see who gets to give you a kiss. Are you really that interested? Is being kissed really that special?”

“For a husband, it means a lot when their wives want to kiss them,” replied Lakshman as he smiled to himself, “although I do want to pull a prank on them.”

As he thought that, he heard a yelp and noticed Cantia holding up her hand in triumph while saying, “Yes! I get to give my husband a morning kiss!”

“Don’t be so childish and get it over with, Cantia,” said Silvera while letting out a sigh.

“Oh~! What’s this that I sense? Ah! It that jealousy that I sense coming from you, Sil?” Cantia asked cheekily with a grin.

“No, I’m not!” Silvera reacted although it was easy to tell that she was indeed jealous. “Now just get on with it before he wakes up!”

“Sure, sure,” replied Cantia, still in the same cheeky manner and turned to look at her husband.

Before she did, Lakshman quickly corrected his posture and appeared as though he was still asleep. Through using only his senses, he was able to tell when Cantia came closer to him and leaned towards his face to plant the kiss. However, for some reason the kiss never came.

What he could not see was that Cantia had gone very bright red in the face when she was within reach of kissing her apparently sleeping husband. She was clearly feeling very embarrassed at the prospect of kissing him that her emotions started to go haywire as her heart started to beat faster.

“What’s the matter, Cantia? Why’d you stop?” Silvera asked curiously.

“S-Stop looking, will you?! I-I can’t do it with you staring like that! Look elsewhere!” Cantia hissed at her.

“But we don’t want to, isn’t that right?” Silvera asked and glanced at the others, who were also red in the face with embarrassment and averted making eye-contact with her. Then she glanced back at Cantia and asked, “Cantia, don’t tell me you’re all bark and no bite?”

“I’m not like that and don’t treat me like a dog!” Cantia retorted as she glared at her before looked back down at her sleeping husband. “I just… I was…”

“Don’t tell me you were unprepared for this,” sighed Silvera wearily.

“Well, you try doing it then!” Cantia retorted irritably, about to move away from her husband.

Sensing that Cantia was pulling away, Lakshman decided to pull his prank and opend his eyes with a flash and said, “Boo!”

“Kyah!” Cantia exclaimed, reacting in a girly way and looked down at her husband. “Ah! Lucky?! Wha?!”

As she had reacted violently, her hand that she placed on his other side slipped, and her face leaned down and they ended up kissing each other. In an instant, there was an inaudible reaction of surprise from the others as his wives quickly covered their mouths with their hands while Priya covered her sister’s eyes with her hands while witnessing the whole scene without a filter.

“What’s going on, Priya? Why did you cover my eyes?” Indira asked curiously.

“Annayya is bold, and you shouldn’t see it!” Priya said while staring at the kissing scene with her face blushing crimson.

“Mmm?!” Lakshman reacted when he heard his sister’s voice and immediately sensed that they were there. This made him immediately feel very ashamed of his behaviour and thought, “Dammit! My chelli witnessed that! No!”

“It’s your fault that you weren’t aware of your sisters being there in the first place,” chided Asura with a laugh.

After a moment of pause, he realised that Cantia had passed out from the embarrassing moment and gently raised her up. She was making cute sounds of “fue” while appearing to look very dizzy and distracted. Then he laid her down on his lap and looked at the others, who were looking at him with blushing faces.

“S-Since when were you…?” Began Sonia awkwardly.

“From the moment that all of you were playing rock, paper and scissors,” he said, and they all widened their eyes in alarm. He suddenly looked cross and asked, “Seriously, did none of you think of keeping your voices down?” But then he smiled and said, “But still, I sincerely did not expect to be woken up by a morning kiss. Rather, I’m grateful.”

He looked at Cantia lying on his lap and saw that she was still in a daze, which made him chuckle. Seeing that he was fully awake, everyone quickly bid their farewell and scampered out of the room. It seemed like being caught in a naughty act caused them to become frightened to stay in the same room as him. Sonia, however, paused to head over and draw the curtains open to let the light in before leaving in a hurry with a blushing face.

Once they left, Lakshman asked, “So, you had fun causing this to happen?”

“What do you mean ‘causing this to happen?’ as if I’m the main culprit!” Stuart retorted indignantly. “The girls were already filled with the idea when they came in, so I just indulged myself to some comedic act. But you tell me how you enjoyed it! Clearly you were awake and ready to prank them like what you did just now!”

“It has been a long while, so I thought why not?”

“Unbelievable,” said Stuart with a shake of his head. “Simply unbelievable. Who would ever guess that you, the Phoenix Titan, the leader of the Nine Pillars of Power and the strongest warrior in the world… is at home pulling pranks on his wives? Who would ever believe that?”

“You believe me,” said Lakshman with a smile.

“That’s just one!” Stuart retorted irritably. As his childhood friend laughed happily, he too smiled with joy and said, “Anyway, good morning, Lucky.”

“Yeah. A very good morning to you, too, Stuart,” said Lakshman, and he looked towards the window with a serene smile on his face.