Mark kept his eyes closed, not because he was sleepy, but because he had decided it was preferable to pretend to be asleep rather than break the quiet that had settled over the bed.
’If I stay still long enough, maybe neither of them will notice I’m awake,’ Mark thought.
But his plan didn’t work, because at that very mont, Mark felt the two weights on his shoulders shift slightly at the sa ti.
First Ely, then Aria.
"...Master?"
"...Master, are you awake?"
Mark let out a very small sigh through his nose.
"No," he replied without opening his eyes.
"He’s awake!"
"MASTERRRRR!"
And in under a second, the two weights on his shoulders disappeared, replaced by two considerably more enthusiastic weights on his chest.
Mark finally opened his eyes, more out of survival instinct than anything else, and found Ely and Aria’s faces centiters from his.
Ely had her white hair falling over her right shoulder, and her blue eyes were shining in an almost dangerous way.
Aria, with her two blonde pigtails slightly disheveled from sleeping, stared at him fixedly with puppy-dog eyes.
"Master," Ely said in a tone that mixed reproach with relief. "How dare you leave us behind for so long?!"
"That’s right!" Aria added before Mark could open his mouth. "We were worried sick!"
Mark laughed lightly at that last part.
"And if you do it again...!" Aria said, her eyes slightly wet as always. "If you do it again, this ti we’re not going to forgive you!"
"That’s right!" Ely added, nodding vigorously. "We’re never going to forgive you!"
After saying that there was a silence of a couple of seconds as both stared at Mark.
"Wait..." Aria said, putting on a thoughtful face. "Speak for yourself, because I do forgive the Master for everything."
Ely’s mouth dropped open in disbelief.
"...Excuse ?"
"I forgive the Master for everything," Aria repeated with confidence. "If he decides to go on another trip and leave us here, that’s fine, he’s my Master, he can do what he wants."
"You just said you weren’t going to forgive him!"
"Yes, but then I thought about it more."
"That was five seconds ago!"
"Five seconds is enough ti to think, Ely."
"You’re doing this on purpose!"
"I don’t know what you’re talking about."
Ely turned completely toward Aria, completely forgetting that both of them were still sitting on top of Mark, and they began arguing face to face.
"You’re trying to look better in front of the Master!"
"Not at all!" Aria replied in a voice so innocent it was impossible that it was. "I’m just being honest about my feelings, if you want to hold a grudge against the Master, that’s your business."
"I AM NOT HOLDING A GRUDGE!"
"You just said you were never going to forgive him."
"I SAID I WOULDN’T FORGIVE HIM IF HE LEFT AGAIN! THAT’S NOT HOLDING A GRUDGE, THAT’S SETTING BOUNDARIES!"
"Master," Aria said, turning her head toward Mark while still sitting on top of him. "What do you think? Am I the good head wife or is she?"
"Hey—"
"DON’T DRAG THE MASTER INTO THIS!"
"If I don’t drag him in, you were going to!"
"THAT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE!"
Mark let his head fall back against the pillow and closed his eyes.
’Now that I think about it...’
While the two kept arguing on top of him, moving and gesturing with no consideration for the fact that they were crushing him, Mark stayed with a thought.
While Ely and Aria had been fighting basically since the day they t, no matter how much they argued and yelled at each other, they had never reached the extre of trying to kill each other the way Rose and Alice had.
At most there was so hair-pulling, so shoving, and raised voices, but nothing more.
’It’s almost impressive,’ Mark thought, watching the two keep screaming at each other on top of him. ’These two fight every day and still have never actually hurt each other.’
And that’s when it hit him.
’If I don’t sort things out with them, that could happen again... no, it’s definitely going to happen again.’
Mark let out a long sigh.
’I’m going to have to set so ground rules... because if I leave them to their own devices, one day I’m going to wake up and there won’t be a dungeon left.’
But before he could continue developing that thought, he realized sothing else.
Aria and Ely were still fighting on top of him.
Mark opened his eyes and raised his head slightly.
"Ahem."
The two didn’t hear him.
"Ahem."
Nothing.
"HEY!"
Both stopped instantly and turned their heads toward him at the sa ti, with identical surprised expressions.
"Yes, Master?"
"What is it?"
Mark looked at one and then the other.
"Quick question," Mark said in a very calm tone. "Because I was just thinking about this."
"Yes?"
"Yes?"
"Why am I naked?"
Silence.
"Because as far as I rember," Mark continued, maintaining the calm tone, "when I arrived at the dungeon I still had my clothes on, or at least I think I did..."
Ely opened her mouth with an expression of shock, as if she couldn’t believe he was asking her that.
"Master, of course we had to take your clothes off!" she said, bringing a hand to her chest.
"Of course?"
"Of course!" Aria confird in the sa tone of obvious fact. "When you arrived you were covered in sweat from head to toe, your hair was plastered to your forehead, your clothes were completely soaked, you slled like forest, campfire, dirt, like—"
"I get it, I get it."
"We couldn’t just put you to bed like that!" Ely continued. "That would have been a huge lack of respect toward you!"
"Toward your bed too," Aria added, nodding firmly.
"Exactly, toward the bed too."
"So we bathed you."
Mark blinked in surprise at that last part.
"You bathed ?"
"Obviously," both said at the sa ti.
"..."
Mark tried to process that information and decided, very quickly, that it was one of those things it was better to just let go.
"Alright," Mark said. "And my clothes?"
"We already washed them," Ely replied with a tone of pride. "Cali helped with that, and we brought you a clean set, it’s folded on the chair beside the bed."
Mark turned his head to the left and sure enough, there was a small, neatly folded pile of clothes waiting for him.
"Ah..." Mark said, nodding. "Thank you, I really appreciate it."
"You’re welco, Master!"
"It was the least we could do!"
Mark pressed his hands down at his sides to sit up.
"Well, then—"
"Wait!"
Both said it at the sa ti, and both gently pushed him back down by the shoulders.
Mark looked at them without understanding.
"What?"
"Master," Ely said in a tone that was suddenly much more serious. "Aren’t you forgetting sothing?"
"...Am I?"
Mark paused trying to think if he had overlooked sothing, but nothing ca to mind.
"Did I promise to bring you sothing from outside? Sothing like that?"
"No, Master, nothing like that."
"Then honestly I don’t know what—"
"Master," Aria interrupted, placing both hands on Mark’s chest and leaning slightly forward. "Since you left, not a single day has gone by that we haven’t thought about having sex with you."
"...Huh?"
"Not a single day," Ely confird, leaning over him from the other side. "We spent the whole ti arguing about who was going to go first the mont you ca back."
"In fact," Aria added, raising one finger, "we argued about it so much that in the end we decided to make a schedule."
"A what?"
"A schedule," Ely repeated with complete seriousness. "With assigned days for each of us, so neither one has more than the other and everything is completely fair."
"..."
Mark didn’t know what to say.
"But," Aria continued in a tone that had beco slightly concerned, "now that you’ve co back with more subordinates... logically the schedule is going to be affected."
"So we’re going to have to adjust it," Ely said, nodding. "And we thought that, being your two head wives, it’s fair that we get more days than the others."
"Many more days."
"So many more days."
"In fact," Aria said, moving a little closer with bright eyes, "we consider it fair that after this long trip you made, you compensate us properly for all the ti we spent waiting here worrying about you."
"Unable to sleep peacefully."
"Thinking about you all the ti."
"Every day."
"Every hour."
Mark could feel both of them getting closer and closer, one on each side, with those smiles that made it very clear they had already made a decision about what was going to happen next, and that decision did not include Mark getting up to get dressed anyti soon.
"So, Master..." Ely said in a much softer voice.
"...We hope you’ll compensate us properly in bed..." Aria continued, almost in a whisper.
"...For all the effort we made waiting for you."
Mark stayed quiet looking at them after hearing what they said.
’Two won who can’t agree on anything for three minutes, who argue even over what order they should greet in the morning... and it turns out the one thing they managed to collaborate on peacefully was making a schedule for sleeping with .’
Mark closed his eyes for a second and deep down, very deep down, let out a silent laugh.
’Looks like the solution to stopping them from fighting ca on its own... maybe this could work with Rose and Alice too.’
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