Nozomu held his laughter and smiled her back, “Pfft! Very well, cute Takanari! So, since it’s so early for you, what do you want to do then? Shall we go see if Taisetsuna has a messy room full of fur and wood balls for her to play?”
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Taisetsuna frowned, “What are you talking about, moron? I don’t have fur! And why would I even have wood balls to play with? Sometimes you say the weirdest things, Nozo!”
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“You don’t play with wood balls? You are the strangest cat I have ever seen, Suna!”
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That answer granted him a slap on his head, making the little girl laugh, “I am a Cat-kind, moron, not a cat! What is a cat, anyway? I bet it’s some weird animal you made up!”
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Nozomu closed his eyes, prepared for another slap and asked, “So if you don’t have anything interesting in there, maybe we should go to my room. I think I can make up a game for us to play.”
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The little girl wide opened her eyes, suddenly interested. Nozomu opened his room door and went to the table. Since he only had two chairs, Taisetsuna went to her room to grab two more, while he searched for some papers and feathers. He put on the table an ink container that was inside the bottom drawer of his bedside table and drew a bunch of lines on each paper.
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Nozomu gave one paper to each girl, and one feather, and explained the rules, “One paper for each player. This is your opponent’s grid, and the bottom one is yours. These two grids represent the ocean. Top of each grid there are letters, the left side has numbers. We draw on the top grid our boats. Three boats with three squares, one boat with four squares, and four boats with one square. We draw our boats without our opponent looking. The idea is one of you says that she is firing a bomb to my grid, position… E4, for instance. If I have a boat there, I say that you hit. If I don’t have a boat, I say you missed. You mark on your bottom grid an X for a hit and an O for a miss. Then, it’s my turn to fire if you miss, but you keep firing if you hit. The idea is to sink all the boats of our opponent. I can play against cute Takanari and Taisetsuna plays against Miss Asadate.”
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The three girls were looking at the grids on the papers, completely amazed by the idea of such an unheard new game that seemed so simple, and yet, so fun. Taisetsuna asked while pointing at the top grid of her paper, “You say that I can draw my boats here? Anywhere, any direction?”
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“Yup, as long as all the parts are inside the grid. The game ends when all ships get hit.”
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Taisetsuna grabbed a feather, put some ink on the tip, and went to the floor to draw her ships. She suddenly raised her head and ran to her room, returning with two more ink containers, “Since you only have two, I got mines. One container for each of us. I go sit in that corner, Asadate, you can sit on the bed, and we are going to play against each other! Cute Takanari, you make that brat regret challenging you!”
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The little Cat-kind girl asked with a big smile, “The winner gets a prize? Because games always have a prize! What is the name of this game?”
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“I think we can call this ‘Battleship’, considering the game is about ships fighting each other. As for the prize, I don’t know. Maybe a cake? Or a bag of sweets?”
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The little girl vigorously nodded, “Yeah! Sweets! A big bag of sweets! I like ‘Ergy’ caramels! Those are so good!”
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Nozomu looked at Taisetsuna and saw her shrug, “You know those, their honey can be dried up and turned into caramels.”
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“Just that? Without anything inside? Not even a roasted 'cracker' from that bush with those explosive blue flowers? Because a roasted ‘cracker’ covered with dried honey would be very good.”
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“What are you saying? No one does that because it’s… I don’t know, weird?”
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Nozomu frowned, “What, no one ever tried to do it? Not even once?”
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“I am not sure, perhaps someone tried it, but because they tasted weird no one makes them?”
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Nozomu answered while covering his sheet with both hands so that the little Takanari didn’t look, “That’s strange because dried fruits are just begging to be covered in chocolate or honey.”
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Taisetsuna lifted her head to look at him with a puzzled look, “Cho- chocolate? What’s that?”
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Nozomu made a quick drawing of a tree with big oval-shaped fruits, and another with those fruits open, with dark seeds inside and showed it to Taisetsuna, “A tree like this makes it and chocolate can be made from the seed inside the fruit.”
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Taisetsuna glanced at it and returned to her drawing, to place the last ships on the grid, “That is a ‘Cocoa Tree’. People use the seeds to make butter. You have that butter in the kitchen, and you even brought it to the Adventurers at breakfast, dumbass. Calling it chocolate… moron…”
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“What, we have these seeds and no one ever made chocolate from it? A dark brown paste, sweeter than ‘Ergy’ honey? No one ever did it?”
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Taisetsuna shook her head while placing the tip of her feather inside the ink container, “Nope, no one did such a thing. Probably because it’s a stupid idea. So, I am ready, what about you, Asadate?”
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“I am ready! And I also want a prize! It can be ‘crackers’ covered in that sweet chocolate that Nozomu talked about!”
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Nozomu smiled while backing up because the little girl kept on glancing at his paper, “I think tomorrow morning I can try to make some, or at least prepare things before we go to the Castle. Stop cheating, you! Play properly or there won’t be a prize for you if you win!”
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The little Cat-girl laughed and put one little hand over her grid with her ships and said, “You first… I am so going to win that sweet chocolate!”
…
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After nearly an hour, Nozomu had lost two times, and Taisetsuna won three against her opponent. Nozomu was looking at little Takanari’s paper and checking the hits for the second time, wondering how she managed to defeat him again, while the little girl was fighting to keep her eyes open “How in the world this happened? You must have cheated, it’s not possible-”
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He then noticed that the little Cat-kind girl was making a weird smile while yawning, and Nozomu gently picked her up, signalling her older sister to follow them. In the corridor, Asadate slowly opened the door of their shared room and helped Nozomu to lay the little girl on the bed, doing their best not to wake her up. Nozomu carefully took off her shoes and left after smiling at the older girl that was covering the young one with the sheet. She waved at Nozomu and closed the door, getting ready to sleep as well.
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Nozomu returned to his room, and Taisetsuna was still there, grabbing the papers into a pile and gathering the used feathers. She made a slight smile and sat at the table, signalling him to join her, “Nozo, thanks for everything you did today. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be here.”
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“No thank you, drop the panties.”
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Taisetsuna blinked, completely dumbfounded by the smiling boy in front of her, “You… want me to… take off… my panties…?”
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Nozomu shook his head while smiling, “No silly, it’s a joke! You don’t know that one?”
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Taisetsuna slowly shook her head, suddenly feeling her cheeks getting hotter by the second, “No… what weird… joke is that?”
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“Do you know what a crocodile, a hippopotamus and an ant are?”
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Taisetsuna slowly shook her head, still nervous with the direction of that talk, “Croc… no, and hippo no. Ants I know. Six-legged insects with one meter long that spit acid and like to eat meat.”
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“An ant with one meter long? Okay, that won’t work… Let me try like this. An ‘Ergy’ without wings wants to cross a river, and a Cat-kind man is there, taking a bath. She asks for a ride, he takes the ‘Ergy’ over his shoulder and swims to the other margin. After reaching it, the ant jumps to the edge and says ‘thank you’. The Cat-kind man grins and says, ‘no thanks, drop the panties’. The ‘Ergy’ thought it was a weird request, and asked ‘what?’, and the Cat-kind answered, "you heard me, drop the panties!". Understood so far?”
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“Kind of… Why did the ‘Ergy’ lost her wings? And why the Cat-kind man said… Oh!”
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Taisetsuna covered her mouth with her hand, and Nozomu continued, “Next day, the ‘Ergy’ reaches the river again and needs to get back home. The same Cat-kind man is there, taking a bath. She remembers what happened, but has no choice. New ride, and when she jumps to the other margin, she stutters, "t-thank you…", already fearing the answer. The Cat-kind man grinned and says, ‘no thanks, drop the panties!’. So far so good, right?”
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Taisetsuna was covering her face with both hands, nodded, and Nozomu continued, “So, next day, the ‘Ergy’ needs to cross again, and a Bovine-kind man is taking a bath in the river. The ‘Ergy’ asks for a ride and he says, ‘sure, hop on!’. They reach the other margin, the ‘Ergy’ jumps to the edge and says with a slight smile, "thank you". The Bovine-kind man nodded and said, ‘sure, no problem’. The ‘Ergy’ blinked in surprise and repeats, ‘I said.... thank you!. The Bovine-kind shrugs, ‘again, no problem!. The ‘Erfy frowns, visibly annoyed, and mumbles ‘moron, stupid gay, doesn’t want to…’ This is the ‘drop the panties’ joke. Cool, right?"
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Taisetsuna couldn’t hold it any more, and exploded, “Ahahah! Now I get it! That’s so funny! She has to pay with her body! And she is so tiny! Ahahah! And she finds out she enjoys it! Ahahah!”
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“Yup. Now you know what to say when someone thanks you, right?”
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“Yeah! Drop the panties and lay down! Ahahah!”
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Nozomu put his index finger over his lips and pointed to the open door, “Shush! Do you want to wake up everyone?”
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Taisetsuna covered her mouth with both hands to muffle her laughter and Nozomu smiled as he cleaned the tip of the feathers they used to play and closed the ink containers. As he was placing the containers on his bedside table again, Taisetsuna asked, “Nozo, where did you learn this ‘Battleship’ game? And that choco thing?”
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“I thought of a game we could all play, just that. The chocolate was an idea I got when I was reading a book with plants, but I may have read the tree name wrong because I thought it was called chocolate when it’s the ‘Cocoa Tree’. Kind of an appropriate name, though.”
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Taisetsuna bit her lower lip to stop her from asking more. She knew very well that the old Nozomu was never that smart to get new ideas just by reading a book, or worse, he never read a book! That new version was becoming more interesting each day, and Taisetsuna was getting worried because she was starting to realize she was often uncomfortable near him. Not because his treatment towards her changed because he was kind like he always was while they were growing up, but his seriousness was making him look cool.
She excused herself with a slight smile, and went to her room, trying to hide her nervousness and the redness on her face.
Nozomu closed the door and wondered as he was taking off his clothes, “Something I said? She looked nervous… Nah, probably my impression.”
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