Study session and an invitation.

Leonardo would always easily admit that studying was important, useful, and necessary, if for no other reason it taught habits. He didn’t think he’d ever pursue a career that needed him to solve equations on the fly, but he didn’t think knowing how to solve one at all was a completely useless skill. However, he would never argue studying was either easy or fun in the slightest. He was not very good at school because, even if he recognized the importance of studying, he just wasn’t fond of it and only did it as much as it was necessary for him to get a passing grade. But at this moment, Leonardo had his full focus on the books in front of him, gratefully welcoming the boring distraction.

Reiko had come back home with them after school, and they sat at the table in the dining room and got right to work as promised. Kaede was there to answer questions, but had her attention mainly on the manga Reiko had lent her. Valerie was studying as well, as the teachers had decided to simply run the test through a machine translator and the questions would mostly be multiple choice. Angela was now mostly capable of reading a textbook by herself, though she still needed help for some characters, just like him. And Leo was fully immersed in solving math problems, as it kept him from getting lost in complicated thoughts as usual.

It wasn’t the time to think about what had happened that morning with Sasaki-san and Seina. It wasn’t the time to worry about what Reiko and Angela might think of it. It also wasn’t the time to remember that he had a date with Lucia tonight and one with Victoria tomorrow. It was time for numbers, and in that, Leo found some peace. It didn’t make math any less difficult and annoying, though.

“Kaede-san, can you check my answers?” he asked his classmate.

“Mm?” she looked up from her manga to him. She met his eyes for a moment, before instinctively turning away. Leo sighed internally. So far, out of all the people in the house, Kaede was the only one who was acting different towards him now that he had Seina’s Gift of Charm, at least visibly. Thankfully, that only amounted to her having small troubles looking at him directly. “Umm, yes, sure,” she nodded to his request, setting the book aside for a moment and taking Leo’s notebook. She glanced at it and then frowned at what she saw, puzzled. “What on earth did you do?”

“I don’t know,” Leo sighed. “I can get the simple ones, but when they start piling formulas on top of formulas, my brain just can’t process it.”

“Oh, now I see,” she nodded and scooted closer to him as she pointed with her finger at the issue. No, it wasn’t the time to notice that her hair smelled of… was that pomegranate? “You got this fraction wrong, so of course the rest is a mess.”

Leo clicked his tongue. “It just had to be at the beginning, right? But at least I know now, thanks.”

“Kaede, check please!” Angela asked, passing her mock test to the younger girl. She and Reiko were focusing on history at the moment.

Kaede skimmed through the test before handing it back to the blonde.

“The Sengoku period ended in 1615, not on 1600. That year was the battle of Sekigahara. Also, the one in power after that battle was Tokugawa Ieyasu, not Toyotomi Hideyoshi.”

“I don’t want to sound racist, but all these names sound the same to me,” Angela groaned. Leo kept silent, but he had to agree that Japanese historical names were hard to remember, yes. “And the portraits in the textbooks don’t help either.” Again, Leo had to agree. Said portraits were stylized paintings that had all important characters in very similar clothing and poses. It was difficult to distinguish them.

“Help,” Valerie said to Kaede in Japanese, showing her her notebook. Leo took a peek, and saw that the redhead was focusing on English. Thankfully, that was a subject Leo, Angela, Reiko and Valerie all had covered. Problem was Valerie only spoke Spanish.

“Mmm…” Kaede took Valerie’s pencil and underlined the spelling mistakes in her answers. “Dictionary,” she said in Japanese, holding it up and looking through it together to find the correct spellings.

Leo smiled to himself and refocused on the stupid math problems.

After a long afternoon of studying, the group finally finished their session. It was about time he started getting dinner ready, so he walked over to the kitchen. But before he could open the fridge to get what he needed, Lucia came into the dining room.

“I see you’re all done,” she said to the group. She then turned to Leo and walked up to him. “You didn’t forget about tonight, did you?”

“Of course not.” Leo gently shook his head.

“Then go prepare a change of clothes. We’re spending the night out.”

“Huh? Out?” He blinked.

Lucia grinned. “I could tell you, but wouldn’t you like a surprise a bit more?”

If it was like before, Leo imagined she had something fancy prepared. But this time it didn’t feel ill-natured. Leo had explicitly arranged for them to spend Saturday night together, and Lucia had seriously apologized to Kaede. Maybe this was just the way Lucia was used to doing things. In fact, she looked like she was holding back her own excitement.

“Okay then. I’ll get dinner ready for everyone and then we can go.”

There was a loud, drawn out sigh in the room. Angela looked at him with unamused eyes from her spot at the table. “We’re not helpless little girls, Leo. We can make dinner by ourselves. You promised to spend tonight with Lucia, right? Then go.”

It was obvious Angela wasn’t particularly happy with it, but she wasn’t trying to hold anything back, either. This was just how she believed he should act, all things considered. It was just a hunch, but maybe now that she had a clearer personal goal, she felt more at ease. Leo certainly hoped so.

He went back to his room to pack, and on the way bumped into Seina in the hallway. She gave him a small, gentle smile. “I overheard,” she said. “You’ll be going out?”

“Apparently,” Leo answered with a smile of his own.

“I’ve done some thinking, and… though I never agreed with her methods, I can understand why Lucia-san would do the things she did. She’s older than us, so she’s had to deal with the curse for longer, right?” Seina sighed. “Give her a chance, okay? Like you did me.”

“…It still bothers you that I’m going with her,” he stated, reading it in her eyes.

“Why would it?” she denied with a soft, humorless chuckle. “It’s not like there’s anything that special between us.” She gestured goodbye with her fingers and walked past him to his room as he watched her walk away.

“…” Leo groaned and went to finally pack a change of clothes. He walked out of the house, and Lucia was already waiting there with a cab. He eyed her with curiosity, and the blonde answered.

“The place we’re going is a little out of the way.”

Author's Note: Chapters 108 to 111 available at my Patreon.