We finished our food, threw it in the trash and got back to work packing. However, for me, the less than fun part of cleaning out that room awaited. Alessia joined me as I opened the door to the rather dusty room.

Alessia put her hand on my shoulder. “What do you want me to do?”

“Maybe get the mattress off the bed already so it’ll be easy for the guys from the second hand shop to move it. I’ll clean the glass from the floor once I’m done with the closet.”

I made my way over to the closet and opened it. In front of me lay the money coffer. “Ah… I should probably move this before they arrive, though.”

“Oh, right.” Alessia chuckled. She was already handling the mattress. “Let me go and put it in the back of my car.”

“Might be best.” I nodded and put the coffer behind me, which Alessia carried out of the room with the mattress in her other hand.

While Alessia was walking out, I started dumping all of the clothes and blankets that were in the closet in a couple of big trash bags. They filled up rather quickly.

When I started to clear out the clothes on the highest plank, however, something fell from in between them. It fluttered down and hit the floor, right in front of Alessia’s feet, who’d just returned.

“What’s this?” She picked whatever it was from the floor.

“I have no clue, it just fell out of the closet when I moved these clothes.”

“It’s an envelope.” Alessia held the presumed envelope to the light. “And it looks like there’s a letter inside. It’s signed ‘To Aurora’.”

When Alessia said that, my heart just sank. But I didn’t reply.

“Aurora?” Alessia asked, she walked over to me. “Do you want to read what’s inside?”

I brusquely turned around to look back at the closet and shook my head. “No, I don’t.” I squeezed my right hand tight before just continuing throwing clothes in the trash.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I am!” I snapped back at Alessia, who quickly took a step back.

She held out her hand. “Okay, I… I’m sorry.”

I brought both of my hands to my face and crouched down. “No… sorry…” I shook my head. “I’m sorry for snapping at you…”

“It’s fine… I understand…” I could hear Alessia approach again from behind me, as I also heard some running down the hallway.

“Auro, are you okay? We heard yelling.” It was Em’s voice.

“Rora?” Ria had joined her as well.

“She’s fine.” Alessia replied in my stead, resting her hand on my shoulder once more. “This room is a bit hard on her.”

“Do you want to come back to the living room to carry some boxes?” Em proposed.

I shook my head. “We’re almost done… I’m sorry for worrying you.” I got back up and faced my girlfriends. “It won’t take too much longer.”

“Alright.” Ria nodded and walked over to me, giving me a big hug. “Don’t forget to pack my manga, okay?”

The room was silent for a second, I needed to process Ria’s joke a bit before I started laughing. “They’re already packed, don’t worry about it.” She’d managed to lighten my mood once more. She really is our little angel.

“Yay!”

Em rolled her eyes and smiled, although when she looked at me, I could see that her smile hid quite a bit of worry as well. “We’ll be in the next room if you need us, ‘kay?”

“‘Kay.” I nodded.

Ria and Em then went back to the living room, Alessia and I staying behind to clean up the last of this mess.

But with the two of us, it didn’t take too long before the room was empty apart from the actual furniture itself. No more glass on the floor, either.

Before I could leave the room and leave all of this behind me once and for all, Alessia stopped me.

“Do you mind if I take this with me?” She was obviously referring to the envelope but I didn’t even bother to look.

I looked down at the corner of the room as I thought about it for a moment. “Do with it as you please.” I sighed. “Although I’d rather you burned it.” I then looked back up and walked over to the door, just before I opened it back up I stopped, for just a moment. “If you decide to read it however, please, for the love of the Goddess, don’t tell me about the contents. Okay?”

“I promise I won’t.” Alessia replied.

I just nodded and opened the door, walking out towards the living room. There we helped Ria and Em with the last couple of boxes. We finished right in time for the people of the second hand store to arrive. As they took out the bed, the manager came over to talk to me.

“Thank you for the donation, it’s really appreciated. These pieces of furniture are in a really good state. You are 100% sure you want to get rid of them, right? We have a return policy of about a week.”

“I’m absolutely fine with it. I assure you.” I smiled. “I already have furniture at my new place. Figured I’d give these away to support your store. Otherwise, they’d end up in the trash and that's not really responsible, is it?”

“Someone will definitely get some good use out of these, that’s for sure.” He then handed me a piece of paper. “Just in case, if you would change your mind, you can come to the store and hand this over to the cashier, they’ll know what to do and we can get your stuff back.”

“Thank you.”

He gave me one final nod as he followed his employees out of the door.

“That was that.” I crumpled up the piece of paper and threw it in the last trash bag we had lying around. Just some boxes to move over and then this house would be completely empty. That’s pretty weird to think about if you’ve lived somewhere for this long.

“Look at that, and it’s not even that dark yet.” Alessia looked out of the window and stretched as I taped the last box closed.

“We’ll probably need to go back and forward twice, though to get all of the boxes moved over.

“Luckily, your house isn’t that far of a drive.” Alessia started playing with the keys of her car. “Let’s get moving, then? I think we can still take five more boxes with us.”

“Won’t that be a bit tight.” Em looked at Alessia in disbelief.

“No, it’ll fit perfectly.”

“I’m not too sure about that.” Em shook her head slightly.

I looked back and forth between Alessia and my girlfriend. “Do I smell a bet?”

“Do you?” Alessia smirked. “Depends on Emma.”

“I would gladly take that bet. But what are we betting with?”

“Hmmmmm… Good point. I already have everything I want… What about the symbolic euro?”

“A symbolic euro, I like that.” Em smiled. “I agree with those terms.”

“Alright, let’s see who’s right then.” Alessia picked up two boxes, leaving the three of us to carry one box each.

I walked out together with Em, but she seemed particularly smug.

“Are you confident you are going to win, Em?”

“Pretty confident, yep.”

“Why?” I chuckled.

“I’ll explain after I’ve won.”

We left the puzzling boxes to Alessia as we waited outside of her car. After about ten minutes, she walked over to us with her purse in her hand and handed a euro to Em. “I admit my loss.”

“Thank you.” Em’s smug smile hadn’t wavered for a bit while we’d been waiting.

“What made you so damn sure that I was going to lose?” Alessia asked. She seemed a bit puzzled at Em’s confidence as well.

“I’m not going to say I was 100 percent sure.” Em admitted. “However, I knew I was betting against someone who forgot that you could dismantle a painting frame to easily move it from one room to another.”

“Oh! Back at the castle!” Ria commented.

“Yeah.” Em laughed. “Plus I’ve seen you pack, so I know your spatial awareness isn’t the best.”

Alessia stayed quiet for a couple of moments, looking pretty serious until her face pulled into a smile, and then finally she started laughing. “I have to admit. That is indeed not my strong suit.”

“Don’t worry, Alessia, Rora is bad at puzzles too!”

“Like mother, like daughter.” I chuckled. It made the others laugh too.

Alessia’s car disappeared in the distance as she drove off to my new house all by herself to unload really quickly and then head back for the rest of us and a couple more boxes.

“I’d say we could cuddle up in the sofa to wait until she’s back, but sadly enough the sofa’s already gone.” Em said as she crossed her arm with mine.

“I’m going to miss that sofa, I didn’t have it for very long, but it was a good one.”

“But your new ones are cool too!” Ria said as she took over my other arm.

“That’s true.” I quickly kissed both of my girlfriends. A gust of wind then sent shivers of cold through my spine. And because our arms were locked, I could tell that affected my girlfriends too. “What about we take some boxes, stack them against the central heating unit and sit on those while we wait?”

“Yeah… Let’s do that….” Em agreed incredibly quickly to that.

Ria didn’t reply, she just started to pull me in the direction of the door instead.

-I think that’s a yes as well.-