Slowly. Very, very slowly. The trick was to move with deliberate, smooth movents and— Okay, that's one side done. Now, I just had to move this arm to the side a little aaaand...
"Finally..." I whispered under a breath of relief, and then I promptly slipped down the side of the bed. However, the mont my foot touched the floor, my whole body stiffened in alarm.
"Mmm..."
Holding my breath like my life depended on it, I warily glanced over to my left, towards the source of the sleepy mumble that made halt on my tracks. I stayed perfectly still for what felt like at least two-thirds of an eternity, and only let out a tiny sigh once I was sure the crisis had passed.
It took a subjectively long ti to do it, but I was finally back on my own two feet. I promptly stretched my back, after which I glanced over my shoulder towards my bed, or rather, the two girls on it.
The three of us stayed up until eleven, watching movies and discussing things, at which point it felt like so kind of switch flipped inside the two of them from 'energetic' to 'sleepy'. Normally I would've found their behavior really endearing, with all the yawning and eye-rubbing, but then ca an issue I failed to consider ahead of ti: they wanted to sleep together. Or rather, Elly wanted to, after Judy told her about how she slept on my bed once.
This was, of course, absolutely impossible due to the fact that I didn't sleep. This wasn't exactly a big secret, so I let my draconic girlfriend in on it, yet it did nothing to deter her, so in the end we reached a compromise; I'd stay with them until they fell asleep, and then I'd slip out once they were neck-deep in dreamland. Or, as my assistant put it, 'once Judy-bot is dreaming of electric sheep'.
Sounded like a nice middle ground, except for one tiny issue: as it turned out, my girlfriends were super-clingy, even in their sleep. No, I should say especially in their sleep. As in, imagine a pair of baby-koalas, on steroids!
Just thinking back on the hour-long slow and ticulous struggle it took to peel them off myself made want to grumble like an old dwarf fresh out of ale, yet I held the urge back, lest I would accidentally wake the girls. I didn't want to go through the whole process all over again… and, on second look, they were all kinds of adorable sleeping together like that, and I really didn't want to ruin that image.
In fact, I may or may not have spent a sowhat unnecessarily long ti staring at the two of them under the blanket. And no, I had absolutely no regrets about setting my own deadline, aning that trying anything physical tonight would've made an enormous hypocrite, even though they were sprawled out in front of and completely defenseless.
…
Well, okay, maybe a tiny little bit, but you didn't hear it from .
Anyhow, once I had my fill with the sight, I quickly (and very, very quietly) turned around and tiptoed towards my PC. I brought it out of standby mode with a single click of the mouse, and I was once again grateful for my bank account, as it allowed to buy a pre-built machine with a water-cooler, so I didn't have to worry about the fans waking anyone. That said, the screen was still pretty bright, and so I quickly turned it down a notch.
I glanced back to check on the girls one last ti, and since they were still happily snoring away the night, I let my shoulders relax a bit and lowered myself into my custom swivel chair.
Once I was seated, I made sure to mute the speakers before automatically checking the Hub, mostly out of habit. I skimd over the new forum threads and browsed the titles of the new reports, but there didn't seem to be anything noteworthy at a single glance. As such, I opened a new tab and clicked on the bookmark of my favorite movie database site, and once it loaded in, I imdiately typed the title of the schlock movie we just watched.
It didn't take long to find the user reviews section, and after I limbered up my fingers, I quickly typed in my concise review of the film.
'The Heating Coil of Doom is the worst thing I've seen since polio. The main character has too much plot armor, the side plots about the lesbian cheerleaders and their pet moose were slow and confusing, and the explicit sex scene between the sentient toaster and the grandmother living in the attic had no buildup or consequence whatsoever. Also, a little gross. The ending also left a lot to be desired, as we never learned if the toaster managed to kill the moose at the end, and the romance subplot between the cheerleaders and the lion tar from the Danish traveling circus was inconclusive as well. Overall, it was a bad movie. Two out of ten.'
Once I was satisfied with what I wrote, I posted it and moved the cursor over to close the tab, but by doing so my eyes naturally skimd over the other tabs, and so I inevitably noticed a notification from the Hub. I had a bad feeling about it, but I figured it could also be important, so I closed the review site as originally intended and steeled my nerves before checking the chat logs.
Surprise, surprise; my hunch was on the money.
"W1NG3D N1NJ4: HI BOSSMAN! ARE YOU ONLINE!? (￣▽￣)ノ"
"W1NG3D N1NJ4: IF YOU ARE ONLINE, PLZ ANSWER ASAP!!! I NEED SO ADVICE!!! (´｡• ω •｡`)"
It was for monts like this that I had stockpiled a lot of exasperated sighs, so I could freely breathe one out whenever I had to. Like just now. Haaaah…
Anyhow, I reached out for the keyboard and began to type my reply.
"Admin: Hello, Ninja. Please tell you're not looking for relationship advice."
"W1NG3D N1NJ4: HUH!? Σ(￣。￣ﾉ)"
"W1NG3D N1NJ4: NONONO! THINGS ARE PROGRESSING SUPER WELL ALREADY! (＾▽＾)"
Oh, look at that. A classic spit-take mont. And here I thought I wouldn't be surprised by anything anymore. Once I got over the first shock, I decided to ask the obvious, just to be on the safe side.
"Admin: With the granddaughter of the Arch-Mage?"
"W1NG3D N1NJ4: YEP! WE ARE TEXTING EACH OTHER EVERY EVENING, AND SHE IS SUPER DUPER CUTE!!! EVEN CUTER THAN I ORIGINALLY THOUGHT! LIKE, HYPER-SUPER-UBER-DUPER CUTE!!1! (≧◡≦) ♡"
"W1NG3D N1NJ4: ACTUALLY, I WAS JUST PLANNING TO ASK HER TO HANG OUT!!! WISH LUCK!!!1!!ONE! (⁄ ⁄>⁄ ▽ ⁄ω
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