'Why can I never come home and relax?'
Sunny resisted the urge to rub his temples and answered.
"We went out to dinner, and she kissed me on both cheeks,"
Lonesome Howl raised an eyebrow with a wide grin.
"Just the cheeks, huh? Nowhere else? Are you two finally dating now? If that's the case, then I won the bet, Hel."
Deathsinger rapidly shook and looked at Sunny with wide eyes as she spoke in a rushed tone.
"No, you didn't! Sunless, listen to me, you can explore your options before you seal the deal, you know? I'm still single and can be a wonderful girlfriend!"
Sunny held his hands up.
"Wait, wait! One question at a time! Yes, just the cheeks, no, it wasn't anywhere else, and no, we're not dating."
Lonesome Howl gave him a look of outrage while Deathsinger smiled with glee at the information.
"What?! Well, why the hell not?!"
Silent Stalker sighed.
"That's what I asked him earlier, Howl,"
Sunny
"Because I'm taking it slow, I'm taking my time, and I don't want to rush anything,
Lonesome Howl sneered and let out a huff.
"How about I take my time in kicking your ass? Hurry the hell up and do something! I have a lot of money on the line!"
One of the sisters looked at him. He had met her before, Ascended Rhapsody, before the Halloween party. She wore a light magenta tunic, had bright amber eyes, dark hair that fell to her shoulders, fair skin, and a soft, beautiful face. But one of the most notable things about her was the pair of headphones hanging around her neck despite having no electricity in the dream realm. She was also nodding her head to a non-existent tune that no one else could hear.
"Mister, we need to be sure you will not hurt our sister. She is very important to us and should you do anything to her heart, then there will most certainly be a fuss."
Sunny nodded.
"I understand,"
Was he seriously getting a talk from Eunbin's sisters?
Rhaspody smiled at his words and leaned forward.
"I know you won't, ever since we met before the Halloween party, Bin has told me a lot about you. So I know that your respect for her feelings for you is true."
Sunny raised an eyebrow.
"Feelings? For me?"
Silent Stalker palmed her face.
"Damnation, yes, she is developing feelings for you. Good gods, I've been infected, now I'm saying the word too. "
Since when? Why? How? When was someone going to tell him? Sunny's thoughts drifted to his conversation with Ki Song on what flowers to get for Eunbin for her birthday, and a question popped into his mind.
When did Ki Song begin rooting for Sunny and supporting his "relationship" with Eunbin?
Sunny recalled the queen of worms saying that he shouldn't openly flirt with her daughters when Eunbin told Ki Song that she would be recruiting him to be their purveyor. Yet, now Ki Song was actively giving him advice. What changed?
Well, he actually already knew the answers to his last two questions. Ki Song said that she was happy to see Eunbin happy, and Silent Stalker, along with the rest of her sisters, thought that Sunny and Eunbin were already dating. That meant Ki Song thought the same, which was why the queen had changed her view of him over the past few months and was now supporting Sunny and Eunbin's "relationship". Because that's what Eunbin's sisters thought she was in with Sunny.
It all made sense now! Well, at least some of it, Sunny still had no answers for the first three questions.
Meanwhile, as he finished his inner turmoil, Rhaspody gave him a confused look.
"You mean don't know? Every time Bin talks about you, she melts like snow!"
'Ah…'
Sunny resisted the urge to facepalm.
How did he not figure out that Eunbin was developing feelings for him sooner? More importantly, how did Sunny not figure out that Eunbin was taking him to dinner?
He was a complete and utter idiot sometimes.
'Hey Gloomy, did you know about this? And if so, why didn't you say something?'
His eldest shadow turned to stare at him with a blank gaze, then fully turned away from him and glided over to the Silent Stalker shadow with a silent sigh. The sullen woman looked down at gloomy with a raised eyebrow, then turned her attention to Sunny.
"Your shadow can move? Is it sentient?"
Sunny nodded.
"Yeah, he can move, and yes, he's sentient,"
Silent Stalker and the rest of her sisters, who had gathered around her at the new information of his shadow, turned their gazes back at the floor, where gloomy stood by the sullen archer's shadow, before Silent Stalker asked gloomy a question.
"You think he's an idiot, too, huh?"
Gloomy looked at her and nodded at her question as if saying.
'Damn right I do! Finally, someone else understands what I have to deal with every day with my idiot of a master!'
Silent Stalker's lips curled up into a rare smile as she looked down again and saw the action.
"Glad to know I'm not the only one,"
Sunny ignored them both and turned his attention back to Rhaspody, answering her question.
"I do know, actually, I just now figured it out. I'm not the most emotionally intelligent person in the room; I'm fully aware of this."
Silent Stalker snorted in response.
"It doesn't take a lot of brain power to guess that much,"
Sunny would've shot the sullen woman a glare, but instead chose to roll his eyes playfully, keeping in mind that four of her ascended sisters were here as well. The ascended women were the only ones who didn't know Sunny was Lord Shadow.
He turned his attention to Revel and asked.
"Are these the rest of your sisters?"
"No, we have a lot more, but they're still in the waking world as of right now. But I guess I should introduce them to you, huh?"
Sunny nodded with a polite smile.
"If you wouldn't mind,"
Revel sighed and waved over some of the beautiful women who were still staring at the gloomy shadow with interested expressions.
"Alright then, sisters, come stand by me for a bit,"
Five of them moved away from Silent Stalker, Moonveil, Deathsinger, Lonesome Howl, and Seishan to stand beside Revel, who had moved to stand in front of Sunny. Revel waited until the women were standing on the right side of her and in front of the table they had previously occupied.
Revel then pointed to the closest young woman with curly brown hair and bright blue eyes, wearing a green dress and earrings. She wore a crooked, yet somehow gorgeous, smile on her beautiful face.
"This is Nyx,"
The brown-haired woman gave a flirtatious wave.
"Hey there, handsome,"
Sunny bowed.
"Hello,"
Revel then pointed to the second closest woman with auburn hair and grey eyes.
"This is Divinity,"
She pointed to the third woman.
"This is Whisper. Despite her name, she doesn't speak at all because of her aspect."
The fourth woman had dark hair and violet eyes, with a huge smile plastered on her beautiful face, as if ready to laugh at a joke. She was wearing a pair of mundane jeans and had a book full of jokes in her hand as Revel pointed to her.
"This is Comedic Timing, no, I'm not joking, that is her true name. Don't be surprised if you hear a terrible joke from her all of a sudden. Her real name is Jade."
Just then, the woman met Sunny's eyes with an amused stare and raised an eyebrow at him.
"You wanna hear a joke, gorgeous?"
Moonveil stepped forward and shook her head at Sunny.
"Tell her no,"
Sunny stared at her for a while before nodding.
"Yes, I do,"
Moonveil sighed.
"Goddamnit, Sunless, you don't even realize what you just did."
Jade smiled widely and laughed, then opened her book, turned a few pages, read for a few seconds, and closed it.
"Okay, okay, what do you call- no wait, hang on, hang on, I got it. Did you hear the rumor about butter?"
"No?"
"Never mind, I shouldn't spread it. You get it? Spreading butter?"
Sunny forced a smile as the woman slapped her leg and burst out with laughter at her own joke.
"Yes, I get it,"
'Good gods, that was terrible,'
All of the women groaned in unison, and a litany of boos filled the cafe.
"Good gods, that was awful."
"Boo, get out!"
"Master Sunless, bring us some tomatoes to throw at Jade."
Revel frowned at her sister, who was still laughing, and looked at Sunny again, then pointed to Rhapsody.
"Anyway, moving on from that, this is our sister Rhapsody, the one who said that you two already met before the Halloween party."
Lonesome Howl, who had sat back down, looked over at Sunny with a smile.
"So when are you going to wipe Bin's lipstick off your face? Unless you plan on going back to her to get more?"
Sunny remained unfazed and shook his head calmly.
"Whenever I get ready for bed, and no, I don't, not at the moment,"
Just as those words left his mouth, Eunbin burst through the door, looking annoyed, then closed it behind her and stalked towards her sisters.
"What are you all doing here?"
Lonesome Howl met her gaze with a shrug.
"We wanted to see how your date went."
"So you came here?"
Howl pointed to the ceiling.
"His floating assistant let us in, then went upstairs,"
Eunbin put her hand to her forehead.
"Damnation,"
Sunny smiled.
"Eunbin told me that she was in Bastion at one point because she was friends with Morgan as a child. I assume that you all go to Bastion at one point as well?"
Deathsinger nodded.
"When we were children, yeah, we were friends with Morgan, and our mother took us to Bastion often to hang out with her. I miss those times,"
The rest of the sisters nodded in agreement, and Lonesome Howl's face scrunched in confusion as she seemed to remember something.
"I do too, speaking of friends, hey Bin, who are those two people living in our castle now? Is that man a friend of yours? Is that woman your biological sister? Did you find out you have a long-lost sister?"
Eunbin turned to face the handsome woman and shrugged.
"Oh, them? No, that woman is my birth mother and the man is my birth father."
The entire room went silent before Eunbin fell back with a surprised yelp as she was tackled to the ground by her sisters. Silent Stalker was surprisingly with them.
"That's amazing!"
"We're happy for Bin."
"You need to introduce us!"
'Ki Song did say that Eunbin's sisters were busy scouting, so they wouldn't be able to meet them yet.'
Deathsinger smiled sweetly.
"So I can steal Sunless from you?"
Eunbin frowned at her sister's question.
"What? Where did that even come from? And get off me, you're all crushing my ribs."
…
A young woman with a delicate face, blond hair, and a blindfold over her eyes sat in an office chair behind her desk, holding a popcorn bucket. The young woman shook her head in the open air, then dug her hand into the bucket and put a handful of popcorn in her mouth again, then chewed for a while before speaking.
"I can't believe she just said that. Does Deathsinger have no shame?"
One of the main reasons this chapter took so long was that I struggled to make names for the ascended Sisters. Not at all because I was being lazy. :) Anyway, you can probably guess whose pov is going to be in the next chapter.