Chapter 616: Supper III

"Wait, Heka can cry?!" I jolted, seeing the amazon standing beside me crying her eyes out, one hand still half-raised as if I could somehow stop the tears by catching them in mid-air. "I mean, what’s going on, Heka?"

"Haha, relax, Benjamin," Erica skipped over towards Heka’s side and patted her back softly, the motion steady and familiar, the same way she would settle a restless animal. "She’s just overwhelmed by this first feeling of her life."

"First feeling...?" I pondered aloud, the words leaving my mouth slowly.

She didn’t cry when we first had sex, so what could be so powerful as to make this hardcore masochist cry?

The question sat in my mind while I stared at the wet tracks on Heka’s face and the fine tremor that had started in her shoulders.

"You see... Heka, with some help from me, of course, prepared the dish you just ate. She’s simply glad it was to your liking."

Just then, Heka lunged at me and wrapped her arms on my neck.

The force of it pulled me halfway forward in the chair, her blonde hair spilling across my shoulder and the side of my face in a warm curtain.

I could feel the wetness of her tears against my collarbone and the fine, continuous tremor running through the muscles of her arms as she held on.

"I love you, Benjamin! I will follow you forever!!" She said aloud, voice thick and completely unrestrained, the words landing straight against the side of my neck.

Although it was a first for me seeing Heka, a typical amazon warrior, cry like this... but over a meal done right?

Silly girl...

I smiled and pet her hair in slow, steady passes, my fingers moving through the strands the way I might calm something startled and fierce at the same time.

"Geez, that’s enough. You’re embarrassing me here. Stop crying and get me a second plate already."

She nodded furiously, hard enough that her hair bounced against my cheek, and bolted towards the kitchen, very determined to stuff me full that night.

The sound of her boots against the floorboards faded quickly into the kitchen, followed at once by the clatter of other people’s bowls and the chatter of the party members.

***

It was a delightful dinner.

The second bowl arrived still steaming, and then a third. Plates were passed without anyone needing to ask twice, and bowls were refilled.

The last of the colorful soup disappeared while small conversations rose and fell around the table like ordinary evening talk.

We all felt like one big, happy family.

Elbows and shoulders occupied the same space without anyone needing to apologize for it. Laughter came easily and left soft edges behind.

It made my heart warm, as someone who persistently avoided people in their past life.

I think I should do a big dinner for all my friends and family as well: Verdant Spire, Shishi-no-su, and Fairylynch.

Seraphina can come. And Renard can come as well, to wash the dishes if he doesn’t want to be left out that bad.

The thought stayed with me while Heka returned one more time with yet another bowl.

It’d be one hell of a dinner.

Chaos might unfold with so many dangerous folks out together under one banner; the kind of chaos that started with someone’s wine glass shattering and ended with a city block on fire.

I know very well those guys don’t get along much. Most politicians never do.

Sakura and Elara do seem to be actually friendly with each other, though. And I don’t think it’s just because they both like me.

Also, the cost of the dinner would be unrealistic.

I could already picture the receipts piling up, the sheer weight of feeding that many appetites.

And even though financial support would fall out with only a whisper from me, it’d be a pain in the ass to plan every detail.

I’d have to map out the table like a battlefield, and figure out who could sit next to whom without someone being offended.

So yeah, probably not.

I let the thought drift away, watching it dissolve like smoke in the air above the table.

"So I was thinking of getting another house," came the voice from somewhere to my left, light and hopeful, the words tumbling out with the particular brightness of someone who had been holding onto them for a while, "but entirely for flowers and gardening this time. What do you guys think?"

You should know who would say such a thing by now.

Erica had her hands clasped together in front of her chest, fingers interlocked, her whole body leaning forward just slightly as if she were physically pushing the question toward us.

Her eyes had that particular gleam in them...

I had learned that it appeared whenever the subject of flowers came up.

It made her look less like a party leader and more like a child who had just discovered a field of wild blossoms.

"You and your infatuation with flowers..." Aria raised one brow, lifting her wooden bowl to her lips.

She tilted it slowly, deliberately, catching the last pool of soup at the bottom and letting it slide into her mouth with a soft slurping sound.

"What do you mean by that?!" Erica’s voice shot up.

The color that rushed to her cheeks was almost immediate, a faint pink that spread from the bridge of her nose outward to her long ears.

She balled her hands into little fists at her sides, but the gesture was more cute than aggressive.

It made one feel like she wanted to pinch someone’s cheeks rather than blow up in wrath.

"Flowers are the embodiment of nature and beauty!" she declared, her voice filling the space. "Every living thing should worship them by now!"

"You see...? This is why he doesn’t have any girlfriend."

Sapphire’s words slipped out quiet and clear; he had turned his head away as he spoke, his eyes fixed on some distant point near the wall, but his voice went just far enough to reach every ear at the table.

"What?!"

Erica’s head whipped around so fast that her short green hair fanned out and then settled again.