(72) The Talk – Part 1

Date: 25/SEPT/35MT

Trying to sleep while you have something on your mind is hard. Getting any decent sleep under those conditions is even harder. But I was too exhausted yesterday to NOT fall asleep. So sleeping I went, with the CSG’s offer weighing on my mind.

I wake up tired, rising out of bed and into the bathroom, just like always. There I strip and enter the tub, thinking time again.

“What to do? What the fuck do I do?” I ask myself, clutching my head between my hands. The question is not: Why transfer to the CSG? The question is: Why wouldn’t I? The facts are this, the CSG’s head just offered 100 times my current salary and infinite times the access to dueling resources, just for transferring. Add to that the more luxurious accommodations and city side location… Why wouldn’t I accept this?

“Well, there are two reasons…” I tell myself. “Even with her offer for me to bring people along, it would be extremely selfish of me to demand anyone to follow me.” Aiko and Mia have no reason to refuse… But Yasuna and Aya have already been students there for years…

I shake my head. “No, I can’t just ask them to change their lives just so I can be satisfied!… Though they currently have to pay tuition at the NWDA and have no other benefits other than what their ranks give them, I doubt they wouldn’t get offered something better…”

“Baa!” I whimper, closing my eyes and shaking my head. “Why am I even thinking about them right now? I can’t even decide for myself, for fuck’s sake!” I bring my legs up to my chest and hug them. “Come, Yuumi… Think… Light sure can be insensitive sometimes… He sent me off to take part in a propaganda campaign for a war I don’t even know the reason for happening… But I at least know Light… Better the devil you know than the one you don’t… Right?”

While I’m stewing in my self doubt, the door to the bathroom swings open, and a tall, modestly tan, pink-haired girl walks in.

I hurry to lie back in the tub. No way I can have her see me like that. “H-Haruna?”

She moves to the mirror and glance at me. “Oh, hey Yuumi, good morning. Sorry, I didn’t know you were already in.”

“Yeah, I couldn’t sleep well. Last night was a doozy, and not in the fun way.”

She sighs. “The party? Or the other thing?”

I raise an eyebrow. “What other thing?”

Haru finishes washing her face and takes a step towards a tub before leaning down to eye level. “Come on, I saw you reading a letter last night. You can’t hide that from me. Now scoot over.”

“W-What?” I question. There’s not enough space in the tub for two people… At least I think there isn’t.

She smiles. “If you sit on my lap, we can both fit.”

I blink intently. When did Haruna become so bold? That’s a silly question. She was always bold. Anyway, I’m not about to refuse sitting on her firm thighs and leaning on her soft breasts. “Hmmm, why not?”

Supporting myself on the sides of the bathtub, I get up and move forward, leaving just enough space for a naked Haruna to enter the tub and sprawl herself out where I was.

Looking at the space left in the tub, I comment. “You know, if you just retracted your legs a bit, we could probably fit in.”

She smiles again and orders with her smile growing with each word. “Yuumi. Sit. On. My. Lap.”

Hearing her horny remark, I smirk before turning my back on her and leaning down, pausing to give her enough of a view of my ass before finally sitting on her lap. I lean back, feeling two soft bumps pressing against my back. ‘This is actually conformable…’

“Now.” I hear her say before she pokes her head over my right shoulder. “Yuumi, what’s this really about? You know you can tell me anything.”

Seeing as she is practically telling me to spill my guts out, I hesitate. “Well… It would be best if I told this with Naeko and Nanako present.”

“Don’t worry about them. If it’s that serious, I’ll spare you the pain of telling them. They’ll accept it if it’s coming from me.”

With no other excuses on my mind, I go about telling her about the whole ‘disgraced princess’ story, just like I did with Mia, Aiko, and Yasuna yesterday.

She remains silent throughout the whole thing, only reacting by tightening an arm around my waist when my voice becomes stutter-y. Something that brings me immense comfort in the moment.

When I finish, she says. “I see now…” and embraces me wholly. “That must’ve not been easy to tell.”

I find her lack of reaction strange, so I ask. “That’s it?”

She shrugs. “Well, I can see it happening, and there’s not really anything outlandish. Actually, I’m a little relieved. I thought you had nothing in common with any of us and here you are telling me we come from similar places. Still, what has that note you were reading have to do with any of it?”

Frowning, I say. “Please don’t act like we’re the same. Those 4 years have been a massive wake up call.”

The pink-haired girl holds me tighter. “I can only imagine, sorry. And the letter?”

‘She’s pushy!’ I think, but quickly decide to satisfy her. “Well, if I, for some reason, wanted to return and live with my family again, I couldn’t really continue being a NWDA student with the island and whatnot. So the CSG offered me a deal to consider… It just happens that this deal is a million times better than what the NWDA is offering me.”

Haruna tightens her arm again. “I see… If you want to live with your family again, you need to change schools.”

I turn my head to her and hastily clarify. “NO! That’s not it. I don’t want to live with them again, but the CSG’s offer is that good.”

She furrows her brow. “Then what’s the problem? If you don’t want to live with them again, don’t. If money is the issue, just hassle Light. You have a generous offer to base your negotiations on.”

Shaking my head, I counter. “You don’t understand. Light saved me from quite a snag. It doesn’t feel right to pester him about such trivial things.”

Haruna pauses, blinking intently. “So you’re saying that instead of simply asking the Director to give you a raise, you would rather run away and live with an uncaring family? Hmm, Yuumi, that’s daft.”

…

…

…

‘Yeah, put like that, it is stupid. What the fuck was I thinking? How did a simple offer get me so off-track?’

Noticing my expression, Haruna smirks. “You didn’t think about it like that, did you?”

I blush bright red. “No…”

Haruna just laughs. “The big bad bitch ‘Yuumi the Penta-Summoner’ brought to her knees with an enticing offer.”

That doesn’t help my blushing situation, so I try to reflect a bit. “‘Big bad bitch?’ Come on, nobody calls me that.”

Yet she counters. “Nope, that’s pretty common. Your looks bring all the bad boys out and yet you don’t care about a thing they have to say, then if they don’t back out, you make them, sometimes with brutal results. Broken arm ring a bell? And you were even in you were cheerleader outfit, if I remember correctly.”

“Hey! That only happened because the Director thought it was a good idea to call me to the tower in that. Besides, it’s not like my preferences are a secret at this point! Why do they even try?”

Instead of answering my question, Haruna simply confirms. “Oh, they’re not a secret for sure.” *Splash* she drives her hand right between our legs.

“MMMmm! H-Haruna! Don’t get so cocky!” *Splash* I do the same.

“Fu, fu, my cute little bad bitch!” With that, she presses her face against mine, invading my mouth with her tongue.

The ring of micro solid vision projectors firing up echoes around the small bathroom, followed by the humming of vibrators…

—

“So, you fucked?” Naeko plainly quizzes, her voice coming out with a tinge of disappointment after hearing the reason we took so long in the bath.

A deep blush develops on my face, with Haruna simply saying. “Yup, and it was amazing. Yuumi has the best wet pu—”

“That’s enough!” I interrupt, my face glowing red.

The girls turn to me with teasing, smug smiles.

Haruna cuts off the silence by turning to them and telling. “Right, serious time girls, there’s something I promised Yuumi I would tell you for her. She would’ve told us three herself if I hadn’t insisted on hearing it, so don’t get mad that it’s coming from me.”

I walk away, not about re-hear the same story I told twice in two days, get repeated in front of me. Then, I sprawl myself on a nearby bed, not caring it reeks of sweat and it’s probably not mine.

‘Do we even have any matches today? I forget what our schedule was.’ Grabbing my phone to check. I catch a stream of notifications.

[Missed call: Unknown GNIDx20]

‘What? Who did I even give my number to? Wait… All of them were for last night.’

[Message from Unknown GNID: I see. I will wait patiently until you are ready. Love you, my dearest daughter.]

I lower the arm with the hand gripping my phone to the side, closing my eyes with force and breathing deeply through my nose. “Arrrrrrrrgggg……………. I totally forgot…..”

My grumble grabs the attention of the three, who had already finished hearing the story from Haruna.

“What is it now?” Haruna questions.

I turn my head to face them and say. “I was supposed to have a call with dad last night, but I fell asleep as soon as I hit the sack…”

They share amused looks with each other, then shout in unison. “““Welcome to the club!”””

…

I let out a nervous laugh. “Haha… Right… You would know that feeling exactly.” ‘I hate how I’m starting to relate to them. The faster I get this out of the way, the sooner I can move on with my life.’

—

I sent Liam a message right after confirming when today’s match would be. From today on, it’s one match per day, starting with the beginner finals today, then the intermediary, followed by the advanced finals and losers finals on the same day. The last three days of the month will be for the beginner vs intermediary finalists, then the Advanced Grand Finals; and finally, the tournament Grand Final will be the winner of the advanced bracket versus the winner from the beginner vs intermediary duel. The inter-bracket duels are mostly gimmicks. The leaderboard is technically determined by these last three matches, but in most cases, the beginner duelist will lose against the intermediary — leaving them in third place — Then they will lose against the advanced, placing them in second and first place respectively, the loser of the advanced grand finals places 4th and then on.

Anyway, Yasuna vs Aiko is only later in the evening, so I’m taking this time to get this over with. I’m currently alone in the hotel room — After telling the three I was going to need some space — Awaiting his call.

On an unrelated note, I found it pretty strange that instant communication was possible between a space station orbiting the sun and earth. From the little I know about space travel, I thought even with radio signals traveling at light-speed it would take at least a couple minutes for a message to travel all the way from earth to here. Obviously, I did some research about it. Apparently, they use something called “Q-Bit Quantum Entanglement,” that allows instant communication at any distance. Pretty cool tech, probably useful for managing those interstellar colonies when it can take multiple years to travel there even at half to near light-speed. Uses a lot of power though, relying on powerful solid-vision projectors, not viable without a beefy antimatter-initiated fusion reactor.

‘Solid-vision sure has some amazing uses… Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure it breaks E equals MC squared. Duel disks don’t take that much power.’

[Incoming call, Liam Katayama (“Father”)]

Finally, here it is. Yes, I saved his number. And no, I won’t change the quotes even if it becomes official.

I lay back on the couch and sync my phone up with the project screen in front of me. It’s only after getting comfortable that I accept the call.

The picture on the screen changes from my phone background — Which is just me dressed in a costume I really like — To a black-haired man wearing a dark suit dominating over a large cushioned arm-chair with a cold neutral tone on his face. He’s Yuumi’s father, Liam Katayama.

Beside him, there’s a purple-haired woman sitting on a similar cushioned chair, dressed in a simple but expensive looking white sleeveless white dress. She’s smaller than Liam, but considering his enormous build, she’s also pretty tall. Her lips are colored a nude pink shade with her big Lilac eyes surrounded by sharp dark eyeliner and smoky eyeshadow. It’s only 8AM, so she probably did it just for this call. She’s Yuumi’s mother, Miranda Rafaela Katayama.

““Hello, Yuumi/Liam.”” Me and the man say in eery unison with similar impersonal voices.

I stagger back while he just smirks, then we both turn to Miranda.

She’s frozen, gaping at me, her eyes running up and down the video call.

I also look over myself, just to check what’s so shocking. I’m sitting cross-legged in my NWDA uniform without the tights and barefoot — I’m not about to wear stockings and shoes inside. But, other than my shiny, purple-colored toenails matching my fake, sharp, pointy, galaxy-purple nails, I don’t have any other cosmetics on, not even basic everyday makeup.

She stays still for a moment before weakly murmuring. “Y-Yuumi? Is that really you?”

‘Wow, she actually looks pretty shocked… Maybe I should take this a little more seriously. From what I can remember, mother actually cared a little.’

I smile and say in a calm tone. “Yes mom, it’s me.”

Miranda gets up from her chair and takes a single step forward, her makeup beginning to smudge… Before fainting without warning.