Making a choice.

One day, after they all finished eating lunch, everyone retired to take care of their own business. Seina had a meeting at the radio station, Lucia was going to Naha, Angela was going to get a haircut and Kaede went to Reiko’s house. It was Valerie’s turn to do the dishes, but for once Leonardo didn’t have much to do, so he decided to help.

“That wasn’t the deal,” the redhead told him. “You cook, we do the dishes.” Despite her words, she was still making space for him at the sink.

“Let me. If I don’t do this I’ll have to work on my summer homework,” he joked.

“Oh, I thought you’d have done it already,” Valerie said, and the two got to work on the dishes.

“It’s only been a few days since vacation started, and there’s a lot,” he sighed. “Still, I don’t want to put it off much longer. Have you started?”

“Do I look like the type to you?” Valerie laughed.

“Yeah, you look like a punk.”

“Hey!” She elbowed him in the ribs. “What do you mean a punk?”

He laughed. “You’re the only person with dyed hair in the whole island.”

“Ha! That’s what you think, but plenty of girls at school dye their hair, only in less flashy colors.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, I see them when I go get my own hair done. The hairdresser told me it’s because most people in Japan have black hair and girls here want to stand out a bit while also being scared to stand out TOO much. They end up dying their hair in light tones of brown and the boldest go blonde.”

“I haven’t seen any blondes at school save Angela though.”

“They’re from the other school.”

“And why do you dye your hair red? Do YOU want to stand out?”

“Kind of,” Valerie said. “Did it on a whim back in middle school to stand out on the soccer field, but I ended up liking it. Looks cool, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” Leo nodded. “I like how you keep strands of black. The dark shade of red also feels less artificial, if that makes sense.”

“Yeah, I didn’t want to go for too bright a color since that just looks bad. I once dyed it on my own with a bad brand of hair dye and it turned into an ugly pink in a couple of days.”

“Oh god,” Leo winced and laughed.

They finished washing the dishes and the two sat down at the table, Leo with a cold can of soda and Valerie with a glass of iced tea generously filled with ice cubes.

“You and Angela went to Naha yesterday, didn’t you?” Leo asked after taking a sip of his drink. “How did that go?”

“Oh, we ate Japanese barbecue!” Valerie said, eyes lighting up. “We went to this restaurant where they brought you slices of raw meat and you had to put them on a small grill on the table yourself. It was soooo good!”

“Wait, why haven’t I heard of this before? That sounds amazing,” Leo said. “The thing I hate about barbecues is that the meat gets cold as you take it from the grill to the table.”

“Exactly! And they were cut in these bite-sized slices that only makes you want to eat more. I think Angela ate like twice as much as I did.”

“I think I’ll have to check that place out. Would you mind showing me?”

“Sure, no problem,” Valerie answered easily. Then she blinked once and asked, “Unless you mean like a date?”

“Would it be a problem if it was a date?” Leo asked, forcefully maintaining the aloof act.

“I suppose not, but…” Valerie sighed. “It’s complicated, alright?”

Leo nodded. “I once said I’d get you to want to go out with me, and I’d still like that. However, thinking back it might have sounded too arrogant of me. Sorry.”

“…Don’t you have enough with all the others?”

“It’s not about having ‘enough’.”

“So you want us all just because you can?”

“That’s not it either.”

“Then it’s all just about the curse?”

“Less than half of it is about the curse at this point,” Leo sighed. “I don’t know if I can, but I want to. I really like you all, that’s it.”

“Even me?”

Leo nodded. “You’re cute, passionate about what you like, strong minded, hard working. What’s not to like about you?”

Valerie blushed, but kept her straight face while she looked at him. “Well, aren’t you sweet?”

“So you’re not willing to give me a chance?”

“…It’s not that. I get that you’re a good and trustworthy guy, but… it’s not that simple.”

“I guess not,” Leo sighed. “I try to put myself in your shoes, but then I just feel like a hypocrite. I’m the one on the winning end of this deal, after all.”

“…It bothered me a lot that you would sleep around with the others like it was nothing, but after all my time here, I guess it’s become normal. No, it’s more than that. The others are no longer fighting or glaring; Lucia’s not nearly as much of a bitch anymore; Kaede is opening up to everyone, if little by little; Angela is in higher spirits. I know this didn’t all magically happen.” Arguable on the magic, there, but hey. “Things wouldn’t be like they are now if you were a selfish bastard, I know that, so it doesn’t bother me anymore. But being a part of it is another thing entirely.”

Leo smiled. “You know, hearing your concerns is a relief, but it also makes me jealous as hell.”

“Ah? What are you talking about?”

“The curse is not affecting you much, is it?”

“I… suppose not,” Valerie said, her blush deepening at the topic. “I don’t have a… huge urge to know what it feels like.”

“I wonder if it’s because of all the exercise you do or if your Gift has anything to do with it. Still, I’m glad you’re not being pushed by it, but at the same time I’m jealous that you’re not feeling it much. Angela, Lucia, Seina, Kaede… even myself. The choices we’ve made have been almost entirely influenced by the curse. I kept telling myself I accepted Mrs. Wisler’s invitation because I wasn’t in a good economic situation, but I know I kept hoping she was telling the truth about the Book of Eros. Lucia was living a life of luxury and willingly came to this island in the middle of nowhere for a chance at experiencing sex. The curse also made Seina’s stress from her job even worse, which is why she came here. It screwed up Kaede’s social life and she came here for an escape. Even Angela, as stubborn as she can be some times, said yes to things she wasn’t completely comfortable with because of how damn infuriating dealing with the curse was. You’ve been lucky, and I’m genuinely happy you haven’t had to go through the bulk of what we did.”

Leo sighed and looked up to the ceiling. Putting it into words made him realize it. Valerie really was lucky. Out of all of them, she was the only one who still had a shot at living a normal life... Relatively speaking, of course. She was a great girl, and Leo did want to be with her if possible, but all things considered, maybe it was unfair of him to try to drag her into their mess of a relationship.

“In a little under a year, everything will be fixed,” he said, nodding to himself. “You won’t have to deal with any of this crap and you’ll be free to choose whoever you want for your first time, whenever you want, whenever you feel ready. Asking you to give that up really is unfair, huh? Haha. I really am jealous,” he chuckled.

“W-Wait, what are you talking about?” Valerie asked.

“I take back what I said before, Valerie,” Leo said, sighing and still looking at the ceiling. “I think it’s better if you stay like you are. The way things are going, you’ll probably be the one least affected by the curse. I easily would’ve given away my Gift for a chance at a normal life if I could. Was I really trying to drag you into this mess? It’s like I was forgetting myself. It’s one thing to pursue what you want, and another to step on other’s feelings to get it.”

“Y-You mean…”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I was so caught up in wanting to get you to like me that I didn’t stop to think if it was better that you didn’t. I won’t bother you anymore about that. I still think you’re cool though, and I still want you to show me that barbecue place. Just as friends, though.”

“W-Wait a min-!”

“Leo? Are you here?”

They heard Kaede’s voice coming from the hallway, along with two sets of footsteps. The door to the dining room slid open and Reiko and Kaede carefully peeked to check if anyone was inside.

“Oh, sorry! Did we interrupt something?” Reiko asked.

“Kind of,” Leo chuckled to prevent the two girls from getting too worried about it. “What did you need?”

“Um… We wanted to show you something, but it’s not urgent,” Kaede said. “It can wait.”

“Thanks,” Leo told them, and the two girls went to Kaede’s room, he believed. “Sorry, you were saying?”

“…” Valerie pursed her lips, and her eyes revealed an inner conflict. What about, Leo was still not good enough to guess and doubted he ever would be. “You know what? It’s fine for now,” she said, shaking her head. “Thanks for worrying about me.”

“So long as I don’t sound patronizing,” Leo said with a small smile. “Did I bother you?”

“N-Not exactly. I do think I’m lucky to not feel the full effects of the curse.”

Leo nodded. “Then, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go see what Reiko and Kaede want to show me. I’m hoping it’ll be something about their little project.”

The moment he was out of the dining room and Valerie couldn’t see his face, he grimaced. An odd pressure assaulted his chest. He had told her and told himself he’d get her to like him, and now he had just told her he wouldn’t pursue the matter anymore. Had he made the right choice? He wanted to consider her feelings, of course, but he also felt like he had just given up on something without trying as hard as he could have. Was he making excuses for himself or was he truly acting on what he thought was Valerie’s best interest?

He couldn’t tell.

He took a deep breath to reset his mindset before he knocked on Kaede’s door and was allowed in. The two girls were looking over Kaede’s desk at something when Reiko turned to him.

“Leo! Come check this out! We need feedback!” his girlfriend said, dragging him to the desk by the arm.

Kaede handed him a sketchbook with shaking hands. “B-Be as honest as you can, okay? D-Don’t worry about our feelings!”

“What she said!” Reiko nodded in fervent agreement.

Leo raised an eyebrow and opened the sketchbook. It looked like Kaede’s storyboard, only with Reiko’s sketches and thus ten times more detailed. Leo blinked and found himself turning the pages rather quickly. When he got to the last one, he sat down on Kaede’s bed and started reading again.

“Holy crap,” he muttered. “You made it even better than when I first saw it.”

The two friends smiled at each other, trembling with nerves and giddiness. “Reiko helped me revise the story,” Kaede admitted.

“And Kaede showed me reference pictures for how she imagined the characters. Look at the last few pages. The character designs are there,” Reiko urged him.

Leo did as told and saw the full-body sketches for the characters, all of which had more detail than Leo believed sketches should have. Then there was the male protagonist.

“…” He looked at the girls with an unamused gaze, and the two innocently looked away from him. The main character looked like Leo. Not exactly like him, but an anime version of him. “How did it come to this?” he asked.

“W-Well, who else was I supposed to draw?” Reiko asked, crossing her arms and puffing her cheeks. “Name me a guy hotter than you!”

“Yeah! We couldn’t think of anyone else!” Kaede added.

His heart skipped a beat. That seriously hit him out of nowhere. “I’m not that attractive.”

“Have you looked in a mirror?” Reiko asked him, raising an eyebrow.

That was when Leo remembered he had a weak version of Seina’s Gift. It was easy to forget because he paid enough attention to his appearance to look presentable but didn’t go out of his way to make himself look better. As such, he decided to change the topic.

“Anyway,” he cleared his throat. “I think this is amazing. You could probably turn it into the final product now,” he told them, flipping through the pages. “The story is compelling enough to make it memorable, the dialogue is interesting so reading through the first sex-less pages won’t be an issue for those looking to quickly get off and I’ve already seen how Reiko’s finished artwork can look like. Still…” He hummed. “I’m not an expert by any means, but there are a few things I think you could improve on.”

“Tell us!” Kaede said, her expression intense and her face very close to Leo’s.

“If we can change something to make it better, we will!” Reiko insisted with just as much passion.

“…Alright. But remember, this is your project. I can only mention a few things that caught my attention while reading.”

For the rest of the afternoon, the three went over the story board, bouncing ideas off each other. It really was their project, but Leo was happy they trusted him enough to include him like this.

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