The Simulacrum

~Chapter 144~ Part 3

"Good night, Chief." My lovely assistant said as she faced me under the frame of the front door, and then she rose to her tip-toes and planted a quick peck on my lips before turning to my other girlfriend, currently standing behind me. "Take good care of him. Don't let him overthink things on his own."

"Aye, aye, captain!"

Elly's cheerful response was followed up by a mock salute, and the two of them shared a solemn nod. I didn't get it.

Anyhow, I bid farewell to Judy, who proposed to accompany the class rep home (or at least part of the way). It was already dark outside, and they were going to walk, but I wasn't worried about them. Since the flustercuck a couple of days ago, security around the neighbourhood has been tighter than the lid on a pickle jar. From just a glance at the nearby red dots on the edge of my perception, there was at least one of the Fauns and three hidden ninjas shadowing the two of them. And that was on top of the Squires and Celestials covertly patrolling the area.

That said, the more precautions, the better, so I was planning to have Ichiko resume her bodyguard duties in Judy's shadow one of these days. Just to be safe. Or safer.

Once the girls waved their goodbyes, the princess automatically latched onto my arm she started pulling me back towards the stairs the moment I closed the door.

"Ah, Eleanor. Are you staying for the night?" Morgana asked as we passed by her in the living room, and my draconic girlfriend nodded with gusto.

"Yes! It's my solo time with Leo."

She smiled at us without any pretences, legitimately looking like a doting mother for a second.

"Have fun."

With that, she beelined towards the kitchen. In the meantime, I glanced around and saw that my sisters and Tajana were playing Super Bash Siblings on the TV, while Arnwald was sitting on my favourite comfy chair and reading a newspaper, ignoring the noise the game (and they) made. How very peaceful.

In fact, it was peaceful to the point I felt a bit incredulous. As if I was out of place here. Though again, maybe I was. Family or not (ignoring Tajana for a second), everyone here was normal inhabitants of the Simulacrum, while I was… Honestly, I still wasn't completely clear on that.

I tried my best to explain it to the girls, but it was hard when even I wasn't certain of the nitty-gritty details, and the whole thing was so confusingly esoteric it just made me sound nutty. Like, if someone came to me and told me they were part of a pan-consciousness that was suffused into the very fabric of the world and secretly guided every major event we experience, but then they were severed from it and now it fell on their shoulders to steer history, I would probably nod along and try to keep them talking while sneakily dialling our equivalent of nine-one-one.

Yet, I was precisely in that situation, and I was also somehow related to some post-Lovecraftian out-of-our-known-universe entities, and I could also literally change reality by retconning the past with my own power, so… what the heck was I? And was it right to mingle with the people of the Simulacrum the way I've been—?

"Ah! You're overthinking things right now, aren't you?" Elly interrupted my train of thought, and yanked me towards the stairs. "Judy just warned us about that!"

"No, I wasn't… Well, okay, maybe a little bit, but…"

"No buts," she cut me off with a huff and pulled me upstairs, and into my room.

Once we were inside, she let out a shallow breath and turned to me.

"Leo. This is our alone time, right? Don't just get lost in your thoughts pondering about weird things!"

"It wasn't about…" I tried to deny it but stopped and considered things again. "Actually, you're not entirely wrong. Point taken."

"Good." Nodding, she jumped backwards onto the bed, landing butt-first with her legs extended. Once she stopped bouncing, she patted her thighs, much to my confusion. "Come here. I'll give you a lap pillow."

I wasn't entirely sure what prompted that, but it was an enticing offer I wasn't going to turn down. I climbed onto the bed and laid down on my back with my head resting on her legs. It wasn't the most comfortable position, but any issues with ergonomics were covered up by the cosiness of it all. Once I was relaxed, Elly carefully stroked my forehead.

I'm not going to lie, it felt nice. Really nice.

"Just relax," she whispered to me, and her fingers slowly combed through my hair. "Let's stay like this for a while, and take it easy."

Despite my best efforts, I couldn't stop my lips from twisting into a wry smile.

"I look like I really need a break, huh?"

"Um… Honestly, yes." Elly continued to stroke my head with soft, delicate motions. "You've been running yourself ragged for a while, so I promised Judy I would look after you tonight and make sure you relax." When I didn't respond right away, she let out a soft giggle, as if recalling a funny story. "She said she's not good at that, because she wouldn't be able to stop herself from discussing the Simulacrum with you."

"To be fair, it's kind of important," I pointed out, and her smile was immediately replaced with a contemplative expression.

"Yes, but we've been talking about it non-stop lately. We need variety. And not just about that." Her hand stopped and rested on my forehead. It was warm. Or was my forehead cold? A rhetorical question, if there ever was one. "You've been doing nothing but working day and night ever since… Now that I think about it, ever since that time you've got the letter from the government."

"Thet child protective services."

"Yes, that one. You really need a break."

"Of course I do, but I can't." My reply made her frown, so my tone probably wasn't right. Let's try again. "I meant to say that I'm aware that I'm burning both ends of the candle right now, but I don't have much of an choice. As much as I wish things would sort themselves out in my absence, I have to be present in the Draconic Council to show that my allegiances belong there, I have to keep a close eye on the Directorate to make sure they don't get up to any funny business, and I have to regularly visit Amadeus in the School as a representative to ease diplomatic relations. And that's on top of all existential concerns about the Simulacrum and the Emergents." It was impossible to stifle the groan clawing at my throat, so I rubbed my face and added, "You see? This is the reason why I tried to shake off all of those leadership positions the Narrative tried to shoehorn me into. What was I thinking? I mean, what was Narrative-me thinking?"

"Don't worry about that," Elly chided me and grabbed the hand still in front of my face. "You see, this is the problem. You're focusing on the things you can't do anything about, instead of the things you can."

"Such as?"

"Well, since you asked, you could try delegating more."

"Please, princess. Do you think I didn't try?" I wanted to roll my eyes, but I didn't want to make her mad, so I just closed them for a second and then stared at the ceiling. "I told you that we're under a soft time limit already. Sure, Roland and Naoren would probably keep the Draconic Federation running whether I was there or not, and the Reformists of the Elysium have been stumbling over themselves to push through any proposed legislations I bring up. I grant you that. But if I wasn't there personally, things would move much slower, and we need to resolve all of these governmental and diplomatic ass-pains so that we can focus on creating a new Plot."

"Hold your horses, please," she interjected and squeezed my hand for extra emphasis. "You said we have about a month for that, right?"

"It's the high-end of my estimates, yes."

"Whatever. Doesn't that mean we have a lot of time? There's no need to push yourself so much to rush things."

"No, a month is not a long time at all, and I just told you it's the most optimistic of my pessimistic guesstimates."

"You see, this is the problem." She suddenly let go of my hand and poked my nose. "You're too pessimistic."

"Don't pick on pessimism. Pessimism is why we're all alive today," I objected and, for extra emphasis, I poked her nose back. "You know my motto: expect the worst, prepare for worse."

"Since when's that your motto?"

"Since forever," I responded with a shrug. "And so far, it worked. If it's not broken, don't fix it."

"But at this rate, you're going to break first," she insisted and poked my nose harder. "You don't sleep, so you just keep ruminating over these worst-case-scenarios of yours, and it shows on your face."

"Does it?"

"Yes." This time, she poked my cheek. "You have bags under your eyes, and your face is always sullen and just… less handsome than it used to be."

"But still handsome."

"Yes, but that's beside the point," my girlfriend fumed at my attempt to steer the discussion into a more comedic one, and she grabbed my head with both of her hands. "We are worried about you."

Ouch. That's one of those lines that's impossible to argue against. I still had to try though, because… erm… Okay, so maybe I didn't have to, but I felt obliged to put up at least a token resistance.

"Elly, love. I already explained this. I can't afford to take a break now and dump… pardon, delegate, everything to others. Not yet."

"Then don't take a big break, take lots of small ones. Like this one," she argued back. "Or pick up a hobby."

"Like what? Knitting?" I joked, but she nodded with the utmost seriousness.

"If that's what you want to do, then sure. So long as it's something you like."

"Hm. I don't think you and Judy count as hobbies, right?"

"Leo, I'm serious," she insisted, leaning over to look me directly in the eye. "Answer me honestly; do you have any proper hobbies?"

Since she was so earnest, I put some thought into my answer, but it still came out as a somewhat lame, "Does beating up Duncan during sparring matches count?"

"Leo…"

"O-Okay, hold on. What about watching cat videos?"

"That's not a hobby. It's something everyone does," she denied my answer with narrowed eyes. "I'm talking about a proper hobby. Like how Neige likes to draw. Or how Penelope is playing video games. Or how I practice singing. Or how Judy reads novels about—"

"I get it, I get it." I put my hands on hers, still clasped on my cheeks, and carefully pulled them away. "Fine. I admit you caught me flat-footed with that."

The closest thing I could think of was theory crafting about the Simulacrum, but with the recent developments, that had already become another unofficial 'job', so it was out. What else? I joked about Judy and Elly being my hobby, and it was true that the time spent with them was probably the most relaxed I've ever been, but I would hardly count that as a 'proper hobby' by the Princess's definition. Other than that, I had… scheming? I doubted it would pass the definition check, and with the whole 'filling in for the Narrative' situation going on, it was also edging uncomfortably close to 'job' territory.

Damn. I really didn't have any hobbies, did I? That was just plain depressing, but in retrospect, understandable. Even before all my official duties fell on me like a ton of bricks, I was always too busy with one thing or another to even consider doing something comparatively 'useless' with any regularity. No wonder I was feeling shaky as of late; I've been bottled up since forever, and the pressure on my shoulders has only ever been increasing over time.

"Okay, it's clear I'm guilty as charged. What now?"

"Now, we'll find you a hobby!" Elly declared with a smug yet silly little smirk. The kind I loved the most.

"Right now?"

"Um, no. For now, you just relax, okay?" She paused, and after a few seconds of odd silence, a different kind of expression settled on her face. "Unless you want to do something… ummm… n-naughty?"

"… Princess, my love. I'm sorry to say, but you're terrible at being coy."

"S-Shut up! I'm trying!" She pinched my nose and let out an indignant huff to further drive home her displeasure with me.

"Sorry, I'm just saying as it is. Seduction just isn't in your character."

"Oh, really?" Triggering her competitive instincts, she flashed a daredevil grin, and with a single motion, she pulled her sweater over her head and threw it next to the bed, revealing her frilly pink bra and her toned tummy. "What about now?"

"A… valiant effort, but… Considering how many people we have in the house right now, I'm not sure this is a good idea."

"Hah!" Elly laughing out like that made me fall into a startled silence, and it quickly shifted into a baffled one when she poked my nose again with a triumphant grin and added, "I won the bet!"

"… What bet?"

"Ammy put a sound-dampening spell on the room before you came home," she explained and vaguely gestured at the walls around us. "We made a bet with Judy whether you'll notice it or not! You didn't, so I won."

"You bet against me?"

"Because I knew how exhausted you are."

She put her hands on her hips as she proudly declared that, and tearing my eyes away from the mounds hanging over my head, I glanced around. She was… right, actually. Now that I knew what to look for, I quickly recognized the telltale signs of an active spell around the room, with all the colourless swirling lights and everything. Most other times I would've noticed them right away, but I just skimmed over them because they didn't seem dangerous.

"I can't argue with that," I admitted glancing up at her, and the sexy bits in front of my eyes bounced and quivered as she leaned forward again to look directly at me.

"The spell should last all night. You know what that means?"

"Yes."

"Are you in the mood?"

"I would be lying if I said I wasn't, but I would like to point out that putting your goods on display like that to prove that you can be seductive is kind of cheating."

"Everything's fair in love and war." She stuck out her tongue and reached behind her back, probably to unhook her bra. "The important part is that you focus on something else other than work."

To be fair, while I admit that my libido still wasn't up to the national standard, it was kind of hard to focus on anything else other than her when she was undressed like that. Not that I was against spending some quality time with my princess like this, and I was just about to initiate some advanced-cuddling techniques when the air in the room froze.

I wasn't being metaphorical there. It seriously felt like temperatures dropped to freezing point for a moment, followed by a strange, quivering sensation. It was as if space itself was shaking before an eerie, orange hole appeared at the end of the bed. It was a two-dimensional flat plane floating in place, pitch black and completely unmoving. At least at first. Until a pig-tailed girl stuck her head through the hole.

"Ah, sorry for being late!" she exclaimed in a high-pitched voice, looking towards the door. "Ah, wait."

She squirmed around for a bit and the whole black spot on the fabric of reality turned one hundred and eighty degrees so that her face and upper body were facing us. It was unmistakably The Girl, yet her appearance felt more defined than before. She had delicate features, sandy blonde hair in pigtails with bright, practically glowing tips, and from what I could see of her, she seemed to be wearing a bright pink dress.

"Sorry ***************. I was in a hurry, and didn't lock in the coordinates proper—" She fell silent the moment she laid eyes on us, and after lingering on Elly for a while, she turned to me with a bright grin. "Ah. I see you're in the middle of something."

"Yes. You can say that," I answered with a mounting sense of trepidation.

"My bad, my bad. I only checked that you were at home, and forgot to check if you were alone. Oopsie?"

Seeing that Elly was gradually turning as red as a tomato, I let out an exasperated sigh and sat up on the bed.

"You picked a terrible time to show up."

"Sorry, sorry. I had to convince the others there was nothing out of the ordinary, and sneakily inserting yourself into the right spot on a linear timeline is tricky." She glanced at Elly and then flashed an even wider grin at me. Oddly her expression was less over-the-top than when I last saw her in the not-black-not-room. Did it have anything to do with this 'manifestation' she spoke of? I imagined I would have to ask later, and she must've read my expression and added, "Ah, don't mind me. I'll wait until you're finished."

"Okay." I thought that was the end of it, but she continued to stare at me expectantly. "What?"

"Can I watch?"

Blinking, I answered with an immediate, "No."

"I'll be just in the corner. Don't mind me."

"I do," I hissed, and instinctively reached out with a phantom limb.

When it met her forehead, there was a solid, tactile sensation, different from when I interacted with objects within the Simulacrum, and when I pushed, two small, white hands reached out and grabbed onto the edges of the hole.

"H-Hey! Don't be like that!"

Running out of patience, I brought all my other phantom limbs to bear.

"Go away!"

With that, I pushed her back into the hole, and the moment I pulled my extra appendages back, it popped out of existence. Following that, a strange silence settled in the room.

"What was that?"

"The Girl," I answered off-handedly as I turned back to the princess. "One of the Emergents I talked about."

"Really?" Her eyes kept jumping between me and where the hole in reality used to be. "I… didn't expect her to look like that."

"Why? What did she look like to you?"

"… Normal? Or rather, for a moment I felt like I was staring at a planet. Not like one of those big photos from space probes, but an actual planet, but then that impression completely disappeared, and she was just a girl."

"Yeah, they do that. The way you perceive them is wacky." With a sigh, I crossed my legs under me. "I guess I'd better go and talk with her."

"No," the princess stopped me by literally grabbing onto my shoulder. "You're on a break now, remember?"

"Yeah, but… I'm sure you're not in the mood after what just happened."

Elly didn't respond right away. She uncertainly glanced around the room, and after a long beat, she looked me in the eye.

"Is she still watching?"

"I… can't say for sure, but I don't think so, no."

"Good."

Before I could get a word in, she reached behind her back again, and a second later, my vision was obstructed by a pair of still-warm bras thrown over my head.

"This is a matter of pride now," she declared and literally pulled me on top of herself. "I promised Judy you won't be working tonight, so you won't be. End of story."

"I'm not sure that's the most important thing right—" I tried to object, but she was too fired up and sealed my mouth with hers. My joke about her prowess as a seductress probably hit a nerve much harder than expected.

Oh well. The Girl made me wait, so she could wait for me too. It's only fair, am I right?