I never had that perfect girl, who somehow could see the good part of me

Morgana snatched the bounty poster out of Dakota’s hand before the host could finish talking.

Dakota blinked, surprised by the sudden impulsive move, especially given how hesitant Morgana usually was about basically anything.

“…And sold to the lady with the manic look in her eyes,” Dakota sniggered, suppressing a smirk. “Very good! I hope you enjoy it! That’s one of the biggest BP bounties we’ve put into circulation, and it should be quite easy for you to accomplish as well. …Assuming you’re brave enough, that is.”

The snide tone in Dakota’s voice worried Nick, since it sounded like she was bullying Morgana. But then he saw Dakota’s eyes. Bullying wasn’t quite the word for the fiery look blazing in his old friend’s fierce gaze.

No… she was goading Morgana. Trying to coax her into doing something that the anxious girl may not have under normal circumstances.

Nick wasn’t sure that was better.

“…That’s the look I was hoping to see,” Dakota purred, crinkling her brow. She twirled her cane. “Perfect. It looks like we can get this date started in earnest, then. Have fun, you two…”

And with that she disappeared, wiped away like dirt swept from a window by a cleaning rag.

It was only when Dakota was finally gone that Morgana seemed to come to her senses. With widening eyes she turned and look at Nick, her face turning pale. “What… what did I just do?” She stammered, giving him a pleading gaze.

Nick wished he knew the answer to that question. He blushed, glancing at the bounty sheet in Morgana’s hand.

She jumped, only just now realize what she was holding.

“Th-this-!” The goth girl’s face was aflame as she waved the paper around like it was glued to her hand and she was trying to get it off. “It’s not what you think, I-! I was… I got caught up in-!” Panic swept her up and pulled her down, and she felt like she was drowning; the ocean was slowly dragging her down, and she didn’t know how to stop it.

She wanted to cry.

“Hey, Morgana, it’s fine,” Nick said gently, keeping his voice as low and even as possible. “You don’t have to justify anything to me.”

Morgana shut her mouth and blinked rapidly, giving Nick a confused look. What… what was he trying to tell her? Acting like this was no big deal… keeping so calm… She felt a swooning sensation in her chest, coupled with a feeling of shame at her own actions. Nick was so cool and mature, keeping a cool head even when she was panicking… Morgana didn’t think very much about the age difference between the two of them (she didn’t like dwelling on it) but this was one of those moments where she was starkly reminded of it.

Much to her chagrin.

“…I started panicking again,” she groaned, slumping her shoulders in exasperation. “I’m sorry… I’m supposed to be a new, bolder Morgana… but I completely messed up…”

Nick laughed. He probably shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t help it. It was just so charming how Morgana seemed to think that he would actually have a problem with what just happened.

“I thought it was pretty cool, the way you decisively grabbed that bounty before Dakota could tease you about it any further,” Nick complimented her. “It was really impressive.”

Morgana stared at him, her eyes wide with amazement. “You… you really think so? I was… cool?” The word echoed through her head over and over again. For a moment it was as if Nick was the one with the transformation that aroused whoever heard his voice.

The blush on her face deepened and she gave him a dewy-eyed stare. Now it was Nick’s turn to start blushing.

“Morgana, I think you’re actually coming a long way in terms of being bold,” he honestly told her. “The issue is you don’t follow through with it.”

“Huh?” Morgana cocked her head to the side in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Well, for starters, like I just said, grabbing that bounty like that, it was a really bold move,” Nick explained. “You saw something you wanted and you took it!”

Morgana shook her head fretfully. “That- that was just on impulse,” she stammered, downplaying what had happened. “Dakota was counting down, and I panicked! It’s not…” The shy goth girl lowered her head sheepishly. “It’s not… that impressive…”

Nick disagreed. “I think it is,” he said honestly. “Think about it. You saw the reward, 5000 BP, and you made a snap judgment. That’s a big part of being bold, seizing the opportunity when the moment presents itself!” He held up a triumphant fist in front of his chest, wondering why he was mimicking Dani right now.

Morgana looked even more confused than he felt. “That sounds pretty reckless,” she mumbled, remembering at least to keep her voice low in order to not derail the conversation into a more arousing direction.

“Reckless and boldness are usually the same thing, from what I’ve seen,” Nick bluntly replied. “Think about it. Dakota showed up her specifically to blindside you. Yeah, you made a snap judgment, but it wasn’t necessarily the wrong one. Getting 5000 BP back after what you spent, that’s really good! You realized that subconsciously and took the bounty, yeah?”

Morgana paused, hesitating for a second, and then nodded slowly. “Y-yeah, I guess,” she conceded.

Nick grinned. “And I think it’ll work out great for you. I’ll help you earn the money and everything, don’t worry.”

The goth girl’s face turned bright red. “I… that is… um…”

Nick realized what he was promising too, and felt a little self-conscious about it. Not nearly as much as Morgana did, though. She’d grabbed the bounty impulsively- and now here she was, committing to… anal sex?!

Well, at least… w-with my Like a Virgin transformation, it won’t be so bad… right? But even though Morgana would recover from what happened, it would still be pretty uncomfortable. Especially with her bony, scrawny figure.

If only I could have picked up this bounty when I had my usual body, it would be way easier to do it! Morgana bemoaned. But then, that was the whole reason Dakota had offered it when she did, obviously.

Nick could see that Morgana was still feeling anxious about the whole thing. And they’d already wasted a lot of time on their date together as it was. He didn’t know what Morgana had planned for them today, but he wanted her to fulfill as much of her date schedule as they could. Which meant moving forward from this crippling conversation, which seemed to have the goth girl paralyzed with indecision and doubt.

It felt like they’d been standing here on the curb forever, and Dakota wasn’t wrong, the audience was probably getting impatient for them to start moving.

“…Okay, think about it like this,” Nick said, coming up with the perfect solution to getting Morgana to see things from his point of view. “You’d consider Rose to be a pretty bold person, right?”

Morgana blinked, reengaging with Nick. Her surprise at him mentioning the haughty blonde was enough to get her back into the conversation.

“Um… yeah, she is,” Morgana said, picturing Rose’s brash, confident expression. “She’s one of the boldest people I know.”

Nick nodded. He definitely agreed with that. “Right, of course. But most of the time she has absolutely no idea what she’s doing.”

Somewhere on the island, Rose took mental damage without knowing why.

Morgana stared at Nick, furiously trying to figure out what he meant by that. “Um… uh… wh-what do you…?”

“If I’ve learned anything from watching Rose it’s that being bold and confident is all about how you carry yourself,” Nick explained. “Rose acts without thinking all the time, and makes a ton of mistakes because of her recklessness.”

More mental damage to Rose. Nick was going to make it up to her somehow.

“…But since she acts with absolute surety, it comes across as boldness,” Nick said, scratching his head. “I thought you were really bold when you grabbed that poster. But then you started panicking because you got into your own head about it and started to second-guess your decision. And that’s a good thing! Thinking twice about impulsive actions, that’s important. It keeps you honest. But Rose, I imagine, would act like she had planned to do that from the start. She’s stubborn to a fault, that girl…”

Morgana had to laugh at that. “Yeah… she really is,” the goth girl admitted with a chuckle. She was starting to understand where Nick was going with this. “I, I think… I think I get what you mean…”

“Do you?” Nick sighed in relief. “That’s good… I just… I’m not telling you to be more like Rose or something, one Rose is more than enough. But… if you second guess and third guess and fourth guess every decision you ever make, then you’re sabotaging yourself. A big part of being bold means following through with what you do and confidently standing behind your decisions. And that’s something anybody can do, even you.”

Morgana looked at Nick with wide eyes. “You really think so?” She asked hopefully.

Nick nodded. “Just look at you,” he said, gesturing to her. Morgana glanced down at herself. “You made the decision to spend a huge amount of Bonus Points just to temporarily suppress three transformations, because you wanted to prove a point to yourself. That’s an incredibly bold play on your part. It’s really impressive, Morgana.”

Morgana blushed, and flashed him a wry smile. “Th-thank you,” she murmured, nodding slowly. “That… that really means a lot…”

She hadn’t thought about it that way. But Nick was right. Taking a risk like that and undoing her transformation… it was a bold decision that she hadn’t expected to follow through with until she actually did it.

So maybe… maybe she could be bold after all!

She clutched the bounty to her chest and smiled. “Okay… yeah, you’re right!”

Nick smiled as he heard the confidence return to her voice. “Great. If you ask me, then, I’d say we’ve spent enough time here talking in circles. I’m really excited to hear what you have planned for today, if you don’t mind?”

Morgana nodded sheepishly. “Yeah,” she agreed. “We… we kind of wasted a lot of time… but it’s alright… really. We’re not that far behind schedule… not at all, in fact…”

That was surprising to hear.

“We’re not?” Nick asked as Morgana started to head down the street.

Morgana shook her head. A look of shame blossomed across her face and she scratched her cheek. “To tell you the truth, um… we… we actually budgeted a bit of time into the schedule for… that.”

Nick stared at her. “For… what? Talking?”

Morgana couldn’t meet his eyes. “…Something like talking… I suppose…” She awkwardly coughed. “The technical term in the schedule was ‘Budgeted Time for Morgana to be Self-Conscious and Stall’… technically…”

Nick would have laughed if he didn’t know for a fact that would hurt Morgana’s feelings. So the three of them had actually accounted for the fact that Morgana would have moments during their date where she’d get embarrassed and need to cool down and stammer her way through a conversation where Nick would have to reassure her… and they budgeted time for it into the date schedule?!

That had to be the work of Dawn and Holly. Holly’s straightforward judgmental personality mixed with Dawn’s sense of scheduling and ruthless efficiency.

Nick could admire the foresight while also feeling bad for Morgana having her concerns validated so bluntly like that.

“So what’s first on our date schedule, then?” Nick asked, eager to brush that awkwardness aside and actually move things along.

Morgana glanced at him, and he saw her look even more embarrassed. Like she was hesitant to actually officially start the date.

For the first time Nick began to wonder if the previous conversation topics were actually an intentional tactic on Morgana’s part to put off the uncomfortable start of the date. He wouldn’t put it past her to try and avoid conflict like that.

“Morgana?”

“S-sorry!” Morgana jumped, the light returning to her eyes. She shook her head quickly. “It’s just, um… really… really embarrassing,” she stammered. “The first part of the date is… g-going to the hot springs for a bath…”

The goth girl looked down at the ground and fidgeted while Nick processed what he was hearing.

After spending all morning putting off taking a shower, it turned out… that was actually part of the schedule?

Either Morgana’s book of spells had given her another avenue for seeing the future, or…

“…This was Holly’s idea, wasn’t it?” Nick asked, sensing the truth.

Morgana gulped and nodded. “B-but, it wasn’t just her!” She said, shaking her head. Her eyes flickered down the street. They really did need to get going. So Nick decided that the best thing to do was keep walking, and let Morgana explain herself.

It took her a couple minutes to open her mouth again. When she did, it was to let out a defeated sigh and a couple grumbles.

Only after she got out all her emotions did she finally start talking. “…The truth is, um… I was… really nervous,” she mumbled out. “For… obvious reasons.”

Nick nodded. They’d gone over this enough times in the last half-hour, there was no need to open that can of worms again.

“I thought… um… look, this may seem contradictory, given I said I didn’t want today to be about sex, but…” Why was it so hard for Morgana to just come clean?! She’d spent so much time with Amelia this round it seemed, that she had inherited some of the teacher’s worst habits.

…No, that was just passing the buck. She’d always had these issues in the past.

Sighing again, Morgana continued, “…I wanted to show you what I look like… n-naked… like… like this,” she confessed. “I thought… I thought it was important to… to get it out of the way at the start.”

Nick had already exceeded her expectations when he first laid eyes on her, much to Morgana’s relief. She’d been afraid that he would look at her and be all judgmental and critical about her, and it filled her with joy that just the opposite had happened- he was honest and open about how attractive he found her transformed self, but also expressed that her original body was plenty cute, too.

Maybe they didn’t have to go this far… but Morgana needed to be sure.

So even though presenting herself naked in front of him was a special kind of terrifying, especially when she looked like this, Morgana was determined to go through with it.

That’s what it meant to be bold, after all. Nick had said so!

This time, Morgana was going to follow through with what she set out to do!

“…And Holly said it was also important to, um, get a sexy mood going, too…” Morgana added with a mutter.

Nick expected as much. Holly may not have been the primary culprit, but he was fairly certain that her encouragement and support had given Morgana the courage to go through with this wild plan of hers that she otherwise might have decided against.

He could be critical… but he decided not to say anything. It was important that Morgana see things through for herself.

“Well, I could definitely use a dip in the hot springs,” Nick agreed, though he was a little apprehensive about being naked and alone with Morgana considering how long it had been since he’d last had a proper sexual release. “I’m a little sweaty from this morning…”

Morgana nodded. “That was the other part Holly said, she said that you would probably benefit from a shower…”

Nick was surprised to hear that. He doubted Holly would have expected him to go work out with Dani in the morning…

…Wait…

“…She meant, um, because you were probably going to be really sweaty from all the steamy sex she expected you to have last night,” Morgana clarified. “Dawn and I said there was no way since you were with Ella, but…”

“But Holly is going to be Holly,” Nick chuckled, shaking his head in resigned amusement. “She probably said that more for herself than for you.”

Morgana chuckled, and nodded. “Yeah, she probably did,” the goth girl agreed. She raised her head and gasped. “O-oh! There… there we are! We’re here!”

They’d already made it to the spa. Talking had made the trip go faster! Or maybe that was Dakota lending a helping hand- Nick still didn’t have a firm grasp on the ever-changing layout of the Shopping District.

What he did know, though, was that they were finally starting the date for real!

Nick and Morgana went their separate ways, since the showers were segregated. Another trick of the spa, to build anticipation. It gave him a much-needed break.

He liked Morgana’s company, he really did, even though she didn’t seem to understand why. She only saw the bad parts of herself, after all.

Nick wished he could help her see herself the way he saw her, sweet and caring, passionate, and very easy to excite. Not to mention rather cute in the way she overreacted and fretted all the time, it really fired up his protective instincts.

…

Maybe that wasn’t the best thing to focus on.

Regardless, as much fun as he was having with Morgana today (even if most of that involved keeping her from being completely neurotic) he really needed a break. And a cold shower.

Her Sotto Voce transformation was doing a lot of damage. If she didn’t want him to see her as just a sex object today, she probably should have suppressed that transformation as well.

Luckily, the cleaning water of the shower did a lot to soothe his erection and get him feeling like himself again. And by the time he dried off and stepped out into the hot spring, he was ready to enjoy a dip in the water with his date without having to worry about things turning sexual.

Then he saw who was waiting in the water and that all turned on its head immediately.

Dani was staring back at him in wide-eyed surprise, and she wasn’t alone. Lounging beside the feathered tomboy in the steamy water was a stark naked Vivian Carrington. And this time, there wasn’t any careful maneuvering or planning or trickery to keep her body from view to tease or tempt him. All three of them were surprised by their collective presence in the hot spring, and Vivian in particular looked positively mortified.

Showed Naked Body to the Master! +3 VP

She screamed. She actually screamed. Vivian Carrington, of all people, screamed. And he didn’t even get why at first; it wasn’t like she had anything to be ashamed of. The brief image he caught of her body before she covered herself revealed her figure to be immaculate. And yet, the heiress immediately hugged her knees to her chest and sank deeper into the spring to keep him from peeping at her.

Nick spun around immediately and covered his crotch, even though a towel was already doing that. His mind raced in confusion as he tried to understand what the heck was going on here. He hadn’t even considered that other girls could be using the hot spring right now!

Evidently that hadn’t occurred to Morgana, because when she stepped out of her side of the changing rooms, she froze in place, a mortified expression plastered across her face.

She screamed too.