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Static crackled in the air, making her think of a thunderstorm rolling in. For a moment she worried that the aggeloi were rushing the pillars again, but the sky was clear and there were no alarms.
The only thing did she notice was Perlica standing a meter behind her, the most strained smile she’d ever worn pasted on her face.
“Welcome back, Endministrator. Did you enjoy your... tour of Wuling?”
She took a moment to consider that question before the spinning vector of energy and intuition known as Chen Qianyu approximated teleportation by arriving on the scene so quickly it was unclear where what direction she’d arrived from.
“Oh hoh? Don’t you mean, did she enjoy her date? The whole city’s talking about it, hah hah hah! Chasing a drone through the streets, laughing it up with the locals, getting a front row seat to that light show — Zhuang Tianshi really went all-in for you!”
She had the worrying feeling that she’d done something wrong, given the way Perlica’s face tightened further with each of Chen’s words.
“Surely there was nothing so grand as a light show being performed in the time it took me and the academy engineers to construct the xiranite compatible AIC components —”
“But there was!”
Though feeling certain it was the wrong answer, she confirmed to Perlica with a nod that, indeed, that had happened.
“...”
“...?”
“...!”
“Ok, wow, hearing myself say it —”
“Chen. It would not do to speak on... perceptions of immaturity of a host while we are their guest.”
“Ah hah hah! That’s the funniest way I’ve ever heard you say ‘I’m mad’.”
“I am no such thing.”
“Yeah? Good, good. Because only kids get mad when they get out-played.”
Perlica was making all sorts of interesting faces today, another first coming in the flat glare she tossed at Chen. Even though Chen looked like she was having a great time, this was getting a bit distressing...
“Endministrator? Apologies, I seem to have made you uncomfortable. You are... optimistic and kind, and as such I think you have a habit of seeing things as they are presented to you. Not that you are likely to be deceived by enemies, only, you can be... slightly taken advantage of by... friends. While I do not intend to sour your opinion of our allies with... ”
“Careful you don’t crack your teeth grinding out words like that, Perly~”
Perlica paused for a few breaths.
“...I find myself at a gridlock of words. Please summarize for me, Chen.”
“Oh? Yeah, sure! Perly’s a little pissed that Zhuang Tianshi craftily isolated you and then took you on a great big date around the city under the guise of diplomatic relations. She’s not mad at you or anything, which you look like you’re a little worried about. In fact, she thinks you did a great job and really wants to congratulate you on handling things so well when left by yourself with a major diplomat who may or may not have unfairly imposed some of her memories and expectations onto you. Honestly, kinda feels like Zhuang Tianshi is eating outta the palm of your hand, so like, really good job, yeah?”
Maybe she’d picked up the mannerism from Chen? She couldn’t remember, already, given how soon after waking they’d been acquainted. But she found herself awkwardly touching her hair or face when being overwhelmed. It didn’t help that Chen and Perlica apparently found it... something, because it made them both deflate like suddenly all was well with the world.
“Thank you, Chen. While colorful in ways I don’t have experience expressing, Chen has interpreted my feelings impeccably, Endministrator.”
“Waow~ Love you too, Perly!”
“Zhuang Tianshi is quite a force of personality, and very adept at... negotiating with others. To put it more bluntly, I have an extremely difficult time speaking with her. Your ability to be earnest while not setting aside your cunning makes you the ideal representative to engage with her.”
“Plus the whole crush thing. She looooooooves you, if it wasn’t clear.”
“Surely it’s more a matter of... idolization.”
“Synonyms, in this case!”
Perlica huffed, and Chen’s posture immediately, visibly simmered down just a bit.
“We are getting carried away. We are also once again leaning on your taciturn nature to speak to our own satisfaction in neglect of your own. How did you feel about your tour —”
Chen whispered, “Date...!”
“— with Zhuang Tianshi, Endministrator?”
It was nice of Perlica to say that, but honestly, a lot of her emotional and intellectual processing of events was done through the chatty back and forth between Perlica and Chen. A lot.
“I think that she has accomplished incredible things under extreme pressures. She reminds me of her city. She is placid and calm as a rule, but that rule exists side by side with the tenuous nature of their situation. Things could snap in a moment. But everyone here refuses to live like that. It’s remarkable, what they have built, and what fortitude of spirit they have maintained.”
Her teammates nodded, but they seemed to be waiting for more, so she tried to think of what else she might have to say.
“...Sometimes I am quiet because I don’t know what to think. Other times it’s because I’m thinking too much and can't make any progress. In both of those situations, I rely very much on your shared insights. And banter.”
“Ba — Who here banters? Speaking of synonyms you must be more careful with your vocabulary, Endministrator.”
“Perly in denial is my second-favorite one!”
“...”
“Go on, ask me!”
“If you think I would in a million years, you know nothing about me, Chen.”
“Wasn’t asking you!”
“What’s your first-favorite Perlica, Chen?”
“Endministrator —!”
“The ones who sighs and gives up the fight because she knows she loves us!”
Unspeakable thoughts stormed behind Perlica’s exasperated expression. Both of them watched her slide toward the sigh of surrender multiple times, only to catch herself paradoxically falling into the precise, predicted —
“Chen, you broke her.”
“I have not been broken.”
“Welp, I guess I’ll have to do something truly ridiculous to give her a good reason to be properly upset with me and get it out of her system, huh.”
“Know that every revelation you make of your self-awareness is catalogued, Chen Qianyu, and that you will never again be able to get away with asserting that you do not have it.”
Chen, giving in to a relatively recent but seemingly quite universally applicable impulse, danced a step forward and gave Perlica a peck on the cheek.
“How’s that? Forgive me?”
“...”
Feeling a bit childishly left out and not bothering to quash it, the Endministrator pointed to herself a bit helplessly. Chen puffed a full-lung wheeze of a laugh, then skipped forward and gave her a much less reserved kiss on the cheek that filled her with a buzzing, lethargic warmth.
Realizing what the solution was to Perlica’s decidedly pouty stance in order to bring her all the way back from kind-of-bullied to confident, the Endministrator stepped up with a smile and only caught of flash of Perlica’s rapidly reddening face before giving her a kiss on the cheek opposite Chen’s.
She lingered there for just a second, and then whispered, “Coming up Wuling’s steps for the first time with you and Chen was much more fun.”
Nailed it.
“Whoa whoa whoa whoa what’d you just say to her?! Endmin, what the — You accused me of breaking her?? You just killed her! Slew her on the spot! Assassination! One-hit-kill! That technique needs a name such that all the residents of Talos-II can fear its utterance —!”
“It may be my strongest technique, but it can only be used on you and Perlica. So... it might be nicer if no one else knows its name, I think. A secret for just the three of us.”
Chen froze, flushed, and finally put her hands to her cheeks while muttering rapidly to herself.
“There we are. As expected, flustered Chen makes me feel much better, no matter the circumstances. Thank you, Endministrator.”
Perlica kept the chain going with a surprise-attack kiss on the cheek opposite Chen’s — wait, since when did left and right cheeks belong to —
“With Chen having been finally humbled, shall we, the victors, take pity on her? While it will no doubt take her another minute to finalize the computations, Chen will eventually realize that, of the six possible directed kisses that can be performed between us, two are missing from this exchange. Rather than wait for her to be insufferable about begging for and then receiving her dues, I recommend we subject her to those final two kisses now while she is weak-kneed and helpless.”
“Perly... you’re a killer...! I never knew you had it in you...!”
Chen’s knees held out for the Double Kiss Disorientor. It was only when they stopped that she slumped to the smooth floor with a whimper.
“Y-You two are deadly.”
“Come along, Chen. We have things to do.”
“We always have things to do!”
“Yes, we do. It’s why moments of revitalization like this are so important.”
Chen sprung to her feet and dashed up to match pace with them.
“So kissing me is revitalizing, mm? Or was it being kissed that really got ya?”
“I feel a sort of affinity with Mi Fu in moments like these. Punks like you and Tang Tang really have no sense of obediently lingering in your defeat, do you?”
“You giving the kiss seemed to make you feel better? Or did you give the kiss because you felt better? Same with getting kissed and being just about knocked stupid. So many kisses were exchanged in such a short time that it’s hard to know which precise ones had which effect... Maybe we need, what do you call it, controlled experiments! Or something like that. That way, we can figure out —”
The thought had been nagging at the Endministrator for a few minutes now, so she mumbled it from her lead position in their triangle walking formation just to give it voice.
“The problem gets simplified dramatically if we remove the directionality of the action. Maybe we should try kissing in some kind of symmetric fashion...? It is possible for two people to kiss each other’s cheeks simultaneously? Hmm, or maybe a chain. Up to reflection there are only two possible kiss configurations. I wonder if... mm? What’s up?”
Something interesting must’ve happened while she was thinking aloud, but unfortunately she’d missed it. Which was too bad. She quite wanted to know while Chen was trembling with her lower lip bit and soft snorts erratically escaping her nose. Or why Perlica had her lips pressed very thin and was staring at the Endministrator with a look that she could not place in the least.
“We’ve gotta get that xiranite forge up and running, right...?”
“Right you are, Endmin! Let’s go! Go go go!”
“Y...Yes. We... Mm. Yes. Let us... P-Please lead the way.”
It didn’t matter too much what she’d missed. She gave her two partners a big smile and turned to march them off to fix more trouble together.