Step out, step out of the sun if you keep getting burned

Morgana had an uneasy look on her face. She clung to the wall and hid behind corners as they walked down the hallway, trying to seem as small and insignificant as possible.

Nick found it amusing. She reminded him of a skittish cat more than Dawn ever had.

“Are… are you sure this is the best idea?” She asked wearily. “I mean, can’t I do this tomorrow, instead?”

Nick stared at her. “Morgana, tomorrow is the challenge,” he pointed out. “I thought you were on board with this? Hanging out with the others and getting to know them? You’ve been doing it all week, can’t you try at least for today?”

Morgana swallowed. Yes, she’d been trying her best to make friends with the others, but things had been different then. The last week or so, she hadn’t received a very real reminder that she was in the bottom third in terms of popularity.

“B-but… what if they’re just pretending to like me?” She stammered. “What if their goal was to lull me into a false sense of security so that I’d lower my guard, and then…”

She didn’t even KNOW what would happen then. Nothing too good, she imagined.

Nick sighed. As cute as it was to see her freaking out like this, it also disturbed him quite a bit. With a sigh he shook his head and walked over to Morgana, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“Morgana… even if they don’t like you… that’s still something you can change. Believe me, you’ve gotten to know the girls, right? Sure, you did some stuff to get on their bad side, like with the diary…”

Morgana let out a frightened squeak and her face turned and even paler shade of white. Her eyes widened behind her bangs.

“Th-that…”

“Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have said anything,” Nick sighed, scratching his head. He wasn’t used to stuff like this, after all. “But… look. It’s like this, okay? Morgana… they’re good people. If you make an honest effort to be their friend, I’m sure they’ll reciprocate.”

Morgana looked into his eyes, and he looked back into hers. He saw hope begin to blossom within them, and he smiled. She believed him, and at least, she was going to give his suggestion a chance.

At this point, that was the best he could hope for.

“O-okay,” she said, nodding. “I’ll do my best.”

When Morgana got worked up about something, nothing could stop her! So she just had to **** herself to do the best she could. She stood up straight and narrowed her eyes, and held up a fist of victory. In her mind, she was a triumphant superhero, having overcome the villains.

“That’s the spirit!” Nick said, cracking a smile. “Show those girls what you’re made of!”

Real progress. Morgana had practically made it back to the mental state she’d been in before going on her downward spiral.

Yay?

Nick kept quiet about something important, though. While he hadn’t lied to Morgana, he didn’t tell her the full truth, either. Whether Morgana made friends with the others or not, at the end of the day, or more specifically, by the end of tomorrow, someone was still getting eliminated from the harem. It was unavoidable.

But it’s not like he had to tell her that, right? She should already know that. If she wanted to delude herself into thinking that way, was it really so bad? Nick was afraid that if he reminded her of that little detail, she might start spiraling again, and decide that making friends was too much work with no real benefit.

And he REALLY didn’t want to do that.

Morgana was onboard. Whether it would be effective or not, whether she’d make any deep enough friendships to stay in the harem or not, tomorrow would decide that. But either way, she still needed to give her all today, that was unavoidable.

The only question now was where would they start?

“So, um… who…” Morgana looked anxiously at Nick and bit her lip. “Who should I… talk to? First, I mean… maybe… maybe Carly? And Marley?”

Her expression was full of hope again. That was good. The fact that Morgana had suggested someone herself, instead of just choosing whoever, made Nick more confident in this outcome. He knew that Morgana had gotten closer with the twins, so if she was approaching this for herself and taking the initiative, that was only a good thing.

He just had to hope that the drama between Carly and Dani had leveled off to the point where an actual discussion could be made.

“Good thinking,” he nodded, not wanting to nix Morgana’s idea. “Let’s see if we can track those two down.”

Easier said than done. This was a pretty big hotel, and that was before factoring in all the rooms that seemed to lead to other dimensions. Nick would need some help if he wanted to find where Carly and her twin had gone off to.

“I can think of one of two places,” he said as they doubled back down the hallway and headed for the elevator. “The most likely one is that she’s in her room right now.”

They headed up to Carly’s room, and Nick knocked on the door. Unfortunately, no response.

“She’s not in, huh…” Morgana sighed, hanging her head. “Maybe… the Banquet Hall?”

That’s where everyone had been this morning, before Morgana had run off. It was a reasonable assumption. But Nick didn’t think the cosplayer would have just hung around there all morning. No, there was somewhere else he suspected. And he really hoped she was there.

If Carly had gone off on a nature hike, then they were probably out of luck. He couldn’t imagine Morgana hiking up a mountain in those tight leather pants of hers. No matter how nicely they clung to her-

Nick had to stop himself. Yes, he’d been a little free when it came to sleeping around recently, and had given into his more bestial urges. But he had drawn a firm line with Morgana earlier, and like he’d said, he didn’t want to come off as some skeevy predator.

“So where next?” Morgana asked curiously.

“Carly’s hobbies are fairly basic,” Nick explained as the elevator descended. “She’ll either be lounging around in her room, or going on a hike. Or rock climbing, that too. But her sister has some hobbies of her own.”

Nick was gambling on the fact that Carly and Marley couldn’t be more than ten feet apart from one another. If you could track down one twin you could track down the other, too.

The elevator opened up and Morgana shielded her eyes from the sun. Nick swore he heard her hiss at it.

“Come on, we’re here,” he said, walking out into the large botanical garden.

“A garden?” Morgana looked around, confused. “Why did you bring us here?”

“Oh, because Marley loves plants,” Nick explained. “Heck, she was studying in school in order to… uh…” His voice trailed off as the timelines got all twisted up in his brain. He’d almost forgotten. “And, um… as Mimi, she… this is an important place for her, let’s go with that.”

Morgana stared at Nick, surprised. “You… wow. You know a lot about those two, huh?”

“Well, I mean, obviously, right?” Nick admitted, blushing a little. The way Morgana was talking, she made it sound like it was a big deal, but it wasn’t, not really. “I mean… I knew Carly for a while, and Marley, well…”

“I thought you only knew Carly for, like, a few months,” Morgana asked, recalling what she’d heard from the others about the cosplayer dropping out of school. “And didn’t you meet Marley for only, like, a day?”

It sounded so strange that he would know so much about them after such a short period of time. Although, being a stalker, it wasn’t like she could really talk. She knew quite a bit more about Nick than he was probably comfortable with her knowing, after all.

Nick shook his head and smiled sheepishly. “I mean, you’re right, a few months isn’t enough to get to know someone super well,” he admitted. “But Carly’s always been pretty straightforward about stuff like this. I can always count on her to be honest… most of the time, anyway.”

She’d kept a secret or two, and they’d been doozies. But on the whole, Carly was pretty straightforward and easy to read. And Marley, well…

Morgana was genuinely impressed. She shook her head and her eyes widened in surprise. “That’s… I just… wow.”

“Hmm?”

She closed her mouth and shook her head. “It’s just… I spent a lot of time with those two on our night together, and I didn’t even thinking about checking the garden…”

Morgana scanned the flowers and plantlife around the walkways with a solemn expression. “I just… I was so focused on my own stuff, I guess I didn’t even think about getting to know those two better, you know?”

A feeling of guilt swelled up in her chest. She’d showed the twins one of her favorite anime, but when it came to learning more about them…

Again, Dawn’s face popped up in Morgana’s mind. The goth girl could see her expression clearly, and her words echoed in her ears.

Morgana sighed again. “I guess if I want to make real friends… I need to put in more of an effort in getting to know people, huh?”

Nick nodded. “That’s a good place to start,” he agreed. “That’s what I’ve been trying to do, honestly. If you understand people, if you know the things they like and dislike, then it becomes easier to get to know them for real, and your relationship becomes closer. It’s something I’ve been trying to work on since coming here.”

At first, Nick didn’t want anything to do with this deranged show. He’d locked himself up in his room out of protest. But now, he was genuinely making an effort. He was honestly trying to get to know the girls in his life, and see how they felt. He believed that if he could do that, get to know them better, then maybe their relationships would get stronger.

It didn’t hurt anyone to try, anyway.

“…Okay,” Morgana said, nodding. “I’ll do my best. I’ll try to see the stuff that they like, too.” Dawn’s advice was reinforced in her head. Morgana was going to be the best friend she could!

Then she stopped and turned to Nick. A shy blush crossed her face.

“Um… Nick… can I ask you something?”

Nick blinked, surprised. “Um… sure, yeah, what is it?”

“Do you… do you have anything you like? Not, like, hobbies, or anything, but just… something you really like?”

That was a question Nick hadn’t expected from her. While it made sense to ask given the context of the conversation they’d been having, this was Morgana. Morgana, the girl who seemed to know everything about him. The girl who had practically written his Wikipedia entry, as far as he knew.

So for her to ask a question like that caught him off-guard.

He smiled good-naturedly, and tried his hand at some teasing. “Oh, you’re asking me that?” He grinned. “And here I thought you would already know all about my likes and dislikes, Morgana.”

“That… the stuff I know… it’s just… superficial details and stuff,” Morgana admitted. She thought she was the leading expert on Nick Reynolds, but the truth was, everything she knew about him was just trivia.

She hadn’t gotten to know the real him at all. And if she wanted to change herself and improve, if she wanted to make real friends, then she needed to change that.

Impressed with the resolve Nick saw in her eyes, he was happy to oblige her request. “I guess… hmm. If I had to say, then something I really like… fish,” he said finally. “I like fish quite a bit. In fact, the aquarium is one of my favorite date spots!”

He laughed sheepishly after admitting that. “Sorry… that’s not exactly the coolest thing, huh?”

“No,” Morgana said, shaking her head. Then she gasped. “Wait, not like, ‘no’ it’s not cool, I mean, ‘no’ as in, you shouldn’t think that way!” She frantically corrected herself. “I think that if that’s something you like, then you should… you should do it. It’s not wrong or weird.”

Nick smiled. A feeling of relief washed over him. “Well… thank you for that,” he said. He’d always thought his fondness for fish and oceanlife was a little strange, frankly.

Hopefully Sylvia wouldn’t introduce any mermaids as auditionees. That would make things kind of awkward.

“To tell you the truth, I’ve never been to an aquarium before,” Morgana admitted, looking down. “When I was younger, my parents… err… I mean, parental units, they wanted to take me to an aquarium, but I thought it sounded stupid and boring, so… I just stayed home watching anime instead.”

“You should have gone,” Nick said, then he winced. The words had just slipped out, but it might have sounded like he was judging Morgana and looking down on her.

Hopefully she didn’t take it that way.

She looked up at him curiously, and he didn’t see any pain in her expression. That was a good thing, at least.

“Yeah,” she murmured. “Maybe… maybe I should have…”

Morgana had spent most of her life at home behind a computer screen. But maybe Nick was right. Aquariums could be fun… maybe.

“Hey, let’s go to one later,” Nick said. “You know, if you want.”

He couldn’t contain the eagerness in his voice. But he quickly tamped down on that. This wasn’t about him. He was trying to help Morgana make connections with the other girls. Going to an aquarium just the two of them wouldn’t help with that.

She smiled anyway. “Sure…” She agreed, but he doubted that soft smile. It was clear that she was starting to have second thoughts about whether or not she’d make it to the next round.

They shared a tense look for a moment.

“I’m serious,” Nick urged her. “There’s a lot of fun stuff here. It’s kind of awful, in a ton of ways, but still. Other than the transformations and the crazy challenges and the psycho blonde with a cane, this could almost be a good vacation. Oh, and the fact that we’re being monitored 24/7…”

Was he really out here talking about the greatness of Harem Hotel? That made him feel a little sick to his stomach, frankly.

Morgana couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah…” She agreed thoughtfully. “Maybe… maybe you’re right, Nick,” she nodded. She looked around the garden again. This time, she wasn’t looking for Carly. She was just enjoying it for what it was.

“There’re so many plants I’ve never seen before,” she breathed, taking a step closer to the railing. She ran her fingers across the leaves of a flowering bush. “I never would have come out here and seen something like this… you know… not on my own, anyway.”

She turned back to Nick, and smiled shyly. “I probably would have stayed cooped up in the Master’s Suite again,” she laughed.

Nick shrugged. “Hey, I mean, hanging out in the Master’s Suite can be fun, take it from me. I’ve spent more time in there than anyone.”

Frankly, Nick had always thought that it was counterproductive to make the Master’s Suite such a luxurious place, if Sylvia’s goal was to get him to leave it in order to interact with the other girls. Did a bathroom REALLY need a heated gold toilet? No, right?

Morgana laughed and nodded. “I guess so…” She murmured, turning back to the flowers. She didn’t recognize them, but they looked really cool.

“You know, Marley probably knows every plant in this place,” Nick pointed out. “If you asked her, I’m sure she’d be happy to tell you all you want to know.”

Morgana smiled at that thought, and remembered Marley’s look of concern as she reached out to her that morning. She’d blown the other woman off, but… that was a mistake, wasn’t it?

“Yeah,” she nodded, turning back to Nick. “You’re right. That would be nice.”

Only problem was that Marley wasn’t the girl she was supposed to be bonding with. Her sister was. And Carly didn’t know the first thing about flowers.

Morgana wasn’t discouraged, though.

“We need to find Carly and Marley,” she said, refocusing on the mission at hand. “I’m sure they’re having fun here, and I want to join them!”

Morgana was through being selfish and only thinking about herself. She wanted to make friends, for real. She wanted to know the things that the twins were interested in.

Nick watched her run off down the path, following after her at a safe distance. A few minutes later, the two of them stumbled across the twins. Marley was relaxing in the sun while Carly sat back on the bench and let her sister lean on her while thumbing through a book.

“You can read?” Nick called out to her.

Carly jumped, surprised. Her eyes shot up to Nick and widened like saucers. She quickly slammed the book shut. “Oh, um, this… I was just trying to pass the time,” she stammered, shaking her sister awake. Marley may have been a normal human, but to Nick’s eye it almost seemed like she was in the process of photosynthesizing.

Nick caught a glimpse of the title of the book as Carly slipped it into her bag. Just a few words, but it was enough to get the general gist.

ART THEO-

“Hi! Hi there!” Carly straightened out, pretending like the two of them had just run into her, and hadn’t caught her reading. “What’s up? You two enjoying your date together or something? It’s your night with him, right, Morgana?”

Morgana swallowed audibly but didn’t give any verbal reply. She just awkwardly nodded her head.

“It’s… something like that,” Nick said, lightly patting Morgana on the back. “Morgana actually had something she wanted to talk to you about.”

Morgana froze, terrified from being put on the spot like that. She felt Carly’s blue eyeballs bore into hers.

“I… um…” She stammered.

“Yeah? What is it?” Carly asked, leaning in closer, her eyes filled with curiosity. Morgana didn’t see any scorn or rejection from her, which made it easier to get her next words out.

“What’s your favorite anime?!” She exclaimed loudly, fully waking up Marley with her volume.

“Yow, what? Ugh, this is a garden…” Marley mumbled, picking herself up off the bench. “It’s day out, the plants are sleeping right now…”

“Aren’t they eating?” Nick asked, raising his eyebrow.

Marley yawned. “If you could eat in your sleep, wouldn’t you?”

Fair point.

Meanwhile, Morgana was as still as a statue. She’d managed to get out her words, but she was frozen in place, waiting for a response from the other woman.

Carly just offered and awkward smile.

“My… favorite anime?” She asked, tilting her head to the side.

“Or video game!” Morgana nodded rapidly. “That works too!”

“Um… I don’t…” Carly looked at Nick, confused. “Nick, what’s going on here?”

Nick sighed. It seemed like he needed to come to Morgana’s aid after all. “Morgana’s trying to get to know everyone better,” he explained. “She wanted to spend some time with you today getting to know you, that’s all.”

“Oh, is that it?” Carly laughed. “Well, that’s fine then. Tell you what! Morgana, if you want to hang with Marley and me for a little, that works out great! We were about to go do some fun activities in a little while.”

“I was already doing a fun activity,” Marley mumbled under her breath. Her sister ignored her.

“Come, come!” Carly took Morgana by the hand, and led her back to the elevator.

Morgana stared up in muted shock at Carly’s proposal for a “fun” activity. She felt sick to her stomach.

“What… what is this?” She asked meekly.

“A climbing wall, you’ve never seen one before?” Carly patted her on the back, and gestured up at the large wall covered in plastic rocks. It took up an entire side of the gym. “Come on, it’s a blast. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it!”

Morgana looked desperately back at Nick, having second thoughts about this whole thing. She wanted new experiences and to do things the other girls liked, but this was way too much!

Nick nodded and gave her a thumbs up.

Morgana hung her head and sighed. He was no help at all…