Rudy, Alice, Rias, and Jane left the building and proceeded to the exit. They got into the elevator and teleported to the backside of the island, where they had landed on their arrival.
“Why don’t you come with us too?” Rias asked Alice.
Alice shook her head and hands and said, “I will pass.”
“She is not used to the sky yet. She rarely lets me fly her,” Rudy informed Rias so she wouldn’t feel sad after Alice rejected her offer.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come with me? You can always fly in the city, you know? You just have to fly above the clouds, and everything is fine. That’s how I learned to fly in my early days. Damn, I miss them now.”
“…”
“What? Don’t you two always miss the days when you first sprouted your wings and learned to fly?” Rudy asked them with a judging look on his face.
“I would rather not talk about it,” Jane said while glancing at Rias. “It wasn’t a pleasant experience.”
“Yeah… I completely agree.”
“Now I am curious. I will have to find a way to extort that out from you two,” he muttered while rubbing his hand on his chin.
“We are leaving.”
“Do you even know which way you have to go?” Rudy asked with a judging look on his face.
“We can guess that from the stars. You are not the only one who knows how to read the stars and the sky.”
Rudy shrugged and said, “I learned that on my own.”
Rias and Jane spread their wings and soared into the sky with one flap.
Alice watched them disappear above the sky and mumbled, “So nice.”
“Hmm? Do you want wings too?” Rudy asked with a grin.
“No, please.”
He grabbed her by the waist and teleported directly into her room.
“And we are here.”
Alice sat on the bed and clenched her bedsheet with her hands.
“So it’s finally that time, huh?”
“Hmm?” Rudy raised a brow.
“You finally bought a place where every girl will have their own room. Once you have inspected and restored the castle, I will have my room, and… we will have sex…”
“Don’t tell me you are nervous now of all time.”
“No…” Alice shook her head and quietly said, “It’s just… it’s like the feeling when you know you have performed well in the exams, but you still feel uneasy when it’s the result day.”
“Oh, I get you.”
Alice squinted her eyes and said, “I doubt you ever feel nervous about having sex with a girl.”
“First time is always nerve-wracking.”
“Your first time was with Angelica. Were you nervous?” she asked curiously.
“Technically, that wasn’t my first time if I include my past life experience.”
“Your first time in your past life was with…” Alice smiled awkwardly at Rudy while saying that.
“Yeah… let’s not talk about it.”
Alice looked at the table clock on the table next to her bed and said, “I will see if I can wake up for school.”
“There is no need to. Sleep as much as you want.”
“But you said you are going to check the castle after the party, and that would take a few hours. If so, Janet would be alone.”
“Don’t worry about her. I will handle her.” He pointed his finger at Alice and said, “You focus on your health. As they say, a girl needs three things to have a healthy life. Enough sleep, enough happiness, and enough sex.”
“You just made that up.”
“I did, but hey… I am sure someone had said that before,” he shrugged.
“Go now. Maria and Ruby must be waiting for you.”
Rudy kissed Alice on the lips and said, “Good night.”
He teleported to his room on the island and changed his clothes to the party suit he was given.
He went to Ruby’s room while buttoning his shirt’s sleeves and muttered, “Holy fuck… why are the sleeve buttons always so tough to do.”
Had Rudy applied a little more force, the buttons would have shattered.
“Are you ready?” he asked Maria and Ruby.
“Yes, I was almost ready when you barged into the room earlier,” Ruby responded.
“Maria, help me out with the sleeve button, please.”
“What about the tie? You are not wearing that?”
“Hell no. That’s not for me. I want to remove them from existence. Why would someone even invent that? I am genuinely curious about what the person who invented them was thinking when he designed them.
Like, hey, we need a piece of cloth around the neck that would make someone look cool when they wear a suit or whatever. No offense to those who like wearing them and to the company who makes them.”
He said while looking at Ruby, as he knew Ruby liked wearing them in suits.
“You rarely hate anything. What did the tie do to you?” Maria asked while fixing Rudy’s collars.
“Ugh… past life trauma…”
“I knew it. You always have a reason to hate something.”
“Tell me about it. There are people in the world who hate something just because they don’t like it.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?” Ruby wondered with a puzzled look on her face.
“Not liking something shouldn’t be considered as hating them. They should just stay neutral or not give their opinion at all.”
“Umm…” The guard standing at the doorway knocked on the open door and said, “Master keeps asking about you. Earlier, when I said you left the island, she seemed angry.”
“Let her be. I bet she is currently watching me from the cameras.”
“You look awesome!” Maria clicked a few pictures of Rudy in the suit.
“Come on, don’t take pictures.”
“I will set them as my lock screen wallpaper.”
“What a torture.”
“That makes me curious about your lock screen wallpaper. Give me your phone. I want to check.”
“I gave my phone to Angelica. And I think I have the default lock screen wallpaper. Unless Angelica messes with the settings and changes everything according to her mood. ”
He facepalmed himself and continued, “She once set anime girls— who were almost naked— on my lock screen. I didn’t know about it, and when I took my phone out on the bus, people were staring at me as if I was some kind of criminal.”
“Makes it the best example of what you were talking about liking and hating.”
