[Spirit of Lust 2] Chapters 649 & 650.

Chapter 649: What Grace’s been up to.

As we walked around the mall with the girls, browsing more than actually shopping, Mila, Noelle and I briefed the others on what happened with Eric.

“So… A nothing-burger?” Grace asked.

“I wouldn’t say that,” I told her. “But… kind of.”

“Honestly, I still don’t fully blame the guy,” Sarah said, walking beside me and holding my hand with interlocked fingers. “Dating IS fucking nerve wracking. When you open up yourself to care about someone, you also open up to be hurt, and there are way too many people who don’t give a shit about hurting you.”

“Yeah…” Alice sighed and shook her head. “Some are more malicious than others, but…”

“I’d put those in a different category,” Noelle said. “Or I’d put them in prison if I had my way.”

Alice chuckled, pulled Noelle closer and kissed her on the top of her head.

“I do know people who are still single years after a bad break up,” Grace said. “Even if you recover, you never really forget. It fucks you up.”

I groaned. “My sister might be going down that path. She says she’s sick of dating and is focusing on her own stuff.”

“I’m not saying staying single is a bad thing in itself, though,” Grace clarified. “Isabelle has her own circumstances and priorities, and it’s not like people NEED to be dating to be happy. I’m just saying… Sometimes you’re trying to fall asleep, remember that one thing he said or that one thing he did and you just want to get out of bed to burn the world. Or is that just me?”

“Who did what to you?” I asked, scowling.

Grace laughed. “Nothing that bad. I told you, I had good relationships and bad relationships.”

“Sucks to be you. I’m gonna make beautiful memories with my one and only boyfriend until death do us apart,” Mila said, hugging me from behind.

“Come on, don’t rub it in,” Sarah said. “You and Noelle are lucky Oliver was your first.”

“And only,” Mila clarified again.

“Please don’t try to jinx it,” Noelle told her. “I’ve had the same thought before, but I’ve kept quiet.”

“Hey, who knows? Maybe one day you’ll break up with me and curse me as that manipulative asshole who tricked you into a poly relationship.” I got five smacks on the back of the head for that one. “It was a joke…” I said.

“You’re not funny,” Sarah told me, hugging my arm closer.

“Ah, speaking of not being funny,” Grace began. “Fernanda sent me a rough draft for a story she’s working on.”

“...I’m afraid to ask why that’s related to not being funny,” Alice said.

“Because she wrote a joke that was super forced and fell flat. I already told her as much.”

“You’re cruel,” Noelle told her.

“No, you don’t give that girl enough credit. She’s actually been sending a couple for drafts every week since we last saw each other at the hotel. That’s commitment and grit.”

“Seriously? Two drafts?” I asked.

“Not particularly long or detailed, but yeah. She’s working on writing dialogue right now, even while she’s still working on her art. In fact… Look at this.”

Grace pulled out her phone and showed us all a picture. It was a sketch, if a very detailed one. Instead of being a landscape, as Fernanda liked to draw, this was instead a sketch of a female character. And it was… Um…

“Holy shit, that’s sexy,” Mila said.

Yeah, that’s definitely the word. It was a sketch of a woman, a mage of some kind, holding a fireball over her index finger. Long, straight hair draped over exposed shoulders; a slender and curvaceous figure with a large chest; a sexy outfit consisting of a low-cut, shoulderless blouse with long sleeves, a corset to push her chest up, a long skirt that reached her ankles and traveling boots. Honestly, aside from the generous cleavage shown, what made it sexy was the way the clothes stuck to her figure, the folds of it, the way her thigh was barely noticeable as it pushed against the skirt. 

“She said she’s been reading the books I recommended and that they’ve… inspired her against her will.”

“Against her will?” Alice asked.

Grace grinned. “I bet she liked them and now wants to add some fan-service into her drawings. I approve. It’s a good tactic.”

“How are the stories themselves coming along, though?” Sarah asked her.

Grace sighed. “Better, but still not great, which is why I told her to work on her dialogue. Her characters are too flat to care about them. It’s also why I suggested she write the same story starting in different ways. She needs a good hook.”

I smiled. “Sounds like she’s been working hard.”

“You haven’t talked to her?” Sarah asked me, raising an eyebrow. “Not even texted her?”

“I… I’ve wanted to, but every time I try I can’t come up with anything to say and end up convincing myself that it’s a bad idea anyway.”

“...How did you ever get the courage to ask us out?” Mila asked.

“I’ll be the one defending Oliver this time,” Grace said. “I believe not thinking about him is doing her some good. It comes back to what we were saying. It’s better for some people to set aside romantic relationships and focus on their own thing. Fernanda sounds genuinely excited in her texts instead of… Well, you know, totally fucking depressed.”

“Has your dad told you anything?” Noelle asked Sarah.

“I only asked if it seems like she’s doing better, and he said she’s making progress. He won’t tell me more and I won’t ask more. Out of respect for her and my dad, not because I’m not super curious.”

“I’m actually gonna meet her tomorrow,” Grace said. “It’s hard to talk about this stuff through text.”

I smiled, noticing the hint of excitement in Grace’s voice. “Are you having fun?”

“I am, surprisingly.” Grace smiled back at me. “I’m not an artist. I’m better with numbers and cold facts than anything creative, but I’ve always loved stories. Getting to be a small part of someone else’s creative process is… unexpectedly fulfilling.”

“Oh! Oh! That’s it! That’s it!” Mila suddenly got all excited, leaving us all very confused.

“W-What, what is it!?” Alice asked her.

Mila pointed at the display of a shop we’d just walked past. “I’m gonna get my dad a new wallet! His current one is super old and torn!”

“...” We all went quiet.

But I mean, she did come here with that objective in mind.

“Let me see. Maybe I can find something for him, too.”

************

Chapter 650: Intermission - Grace and Fernanda.

One of the few issues Grace had with summer vacation was that it got her used to having her Mondays free. It felt too good, and then having to go back to a busy week was just annoying. Long vacations in general felt amazing and got her out of her working mindset, so she eyed the calendar with a modicum of dread as she watched their summer slowly coming to an end.

Anyway. She was meeting Fernanda that Monday, at a family restaurant she recommended. Grace wanted to go to the coffee shop, but she knew it’d be awkward for her to be a customer at the same place she worked. It was for Oliver, too. The great thing about this restaurant, though, was that it had booths. It would give them just a little bit of privacy to talk. Mila was complaining just yesterday that they’d been overheard talking about… sensitive stuff. Twice.

Grace sat down at a booth and waited. She was only five minutes early, but she didn’t expect Fernanda to arrive at the exact time. Rarely anyone she knew ever did, aside from Oliver, Noelle, Alice and Diana. She ordered a lemonade and got out her phone, going back to reading the stuff Fernanda sent her.

It was an interesting thing. Fernanda was clearly passionate and diligent about this, so Grace felt like she couldn’t half-ass her own contributions. She’d agreed to help, and answering dedication with laziness would leave her with an awful taste in her mouth. 

And speaking of taste, the lemonade was surprisingly good, holy shit.

Fernanda ended up arriving 10 after the agreed time. Not awful, but the girl still apologized.

“I’m so sorry. I missed my first bus and had the wait for the next,” Fernanda said, leaving her bag beside her as she sat down across from Grace.

“Don’t worry. You don’t drive?” Grace asked her.

“It… kind of scares me. I don’t think I’d react well behind the wheel and under pressure,” Fernanda admitted with a wry smile.

Grace nodded. “That’s fair. It’s useful and I think you should give it a shot, but I also think it’s wiser to avoid driving if you don’t think you can do it well.”

Fernanda smiled. “So… How’ve you been? How’s your summer treating you?”

“Ugh, I was just thinking about how we only have a couple of weeks left. Are you going back to university this semester?”

Fernanda sighed. “Yeah. It was already selfish to freeze my previous semester. I can’t do that again.”

“You’ll be fine. Just do things one at a time.”

Fernanda chuckled. “That’s… just what I’ve been trying to do.”

“Hm?”

“Um… It was Dr. West’s advice. I’ve been changing my habits at home, one at a time. Just… simple stuff. Things like… doing the dishes instead of letting my mom do it. Or properly cleaning my bedroom once a week.”

Grace smirked. “And just like that you already do more than my good friend Mila. And I’m not joking.”

Fernanda chuckled awkwardly, clearly unsure if that was something she should laugh at or not. Grace wasn’t sure, either.

“Anyway, let’s start.” Grace brought out a small notebook from her purse and set it on the table. “I took some notes so I wouldn’t forget what I had to say, but you can take it with you if you want.”

“Wait, notes? Can I see?”

“Sure.”

Fernanda took Grace’s notebook and flipped through the pages. As she did, Grace began to feel… guilty. Some of the things she wrote were harsh criticism, written with the idea of trying to make a story better and sort of… forgetting a person wrote it. Indeed, she saw Fernanda grimace as she read through her comments.

“...I really suck at this, don’t I?” Fernanda said with a wry, pained smile.

“I’m… making it look worse than it is,” Grace said, groaning into her own hands. “I’m sorry, I got carried away.”

“What do you mean by ‘the protagonist doesn’t feel like a real person’?” Fernanda asked, eyes still on the notebook.

“She’s… Miss Perfect,” Grace said, thinking her next words carefully. “You see a lot of characters like that in fan fiction and even Young Adult books. The type that can do no wrong and whose only ‘flaw’ is that ‘they care too much.’ I can give you examples, but…” Grace sighed. “Look, I read a lot, but that doesn’t mean I know how to write a book or a story. I know it’s really hard, and if all I do is point out problems…”

Fernanda set the notebook down and rested her head on her hand with a soft groan. “I don’t get it. Or more, I do get what you’re saying, but I can’t write a good character. I’m looking to the series I like for inspiration, but I always end up falling flat.”

“Maybe we need to understand what you’re looking at,” Grace said. “The characters we love, even those who are cool and capable, still have problems getting what they want. That’s where a story is born, I think. In the journey to get what the characters want. It doesn't always have to be about saving the world.”

As soon as Grace said that, she saw Fernanda’s eyes slowly widening. The girl was quiet, her eyes glancing down at the table yet not looking at it. She was looking beyond it, at something deep in her mind. Grace kept quiet and let her think, but soon a waitress came to take their order, breaking Fernanda’s concentration.

After ordering, Grace looked at Fernanda again. “Did you figure something out?”

“I don’t know, maybe. At least it makes more sense to me now. I was, um… Thinking about the… romance books you recommended.”

“Yeah, romance,” Grace said, smirking.

Fernanda giggled. “I was thinking about how… I kept wanting to turn the page, to see what would happen next, even though no one is really in danger. And even while knowing that they’ll get together in the end. I was trying to analyze why that is.”

The conversation then took an even more interesting turn. Instead of talking about storytelling theory, they started geeking out about the parts they liked the most about the books they were reading.

“Did you get to the part where she thinks he’s seeing another girl?” Grace asked with a huge smirk.

“Yes! Oh my God! I thought it’d be frustrating, and it was, but it was so funny, too! She’s totally in her own head while all he was doing was buying new shoes!”

“And she thinks this ‘other girl’ got him those new shoes but he literally comes with the receipt.”

“And then she realizes that he was buying her new shoes, too.” Fernanda giggled. “Tell me, do you think he was justified in being mad?”

“It’s strange because they weren’t dating at that point, but they clearly had something going on. Still, if my boyfriend accused me of cheating, especially yelling at me, while I was trying to do something nice for him, I’d be pissed, so I get it.”

“...Would Oliver do that?” Fernanda asked.

Grace laughed loudly. “Not in a million years! If he believed I was cheating on him, it’s far more likely he’d sulk on his own than yell at me. Then again, he’d never have to suspect anything. He’d know for sure in an instant.”

“You’d tell him?”

“That’s not what I mean, and I’m not ever cheating on him. I mean that… Well, I told you, remember? He’s… special. He has a sixth sense for this stuff.”

“...” Fernanda bit her lip. “Grace… How is it having a boyfriend?”

“Never had one?” Grace asked softly.

Fernanda shook her head. “Not properly. I tried, I went out with a couple of guys, but… It was only in name. It never went anywhere before they broke up with me.”

“...” Grace sighed. “It’s not like in the books,” she began. “In both good and bad ways. If you have some common sense, there’s far less dumb drama. But also… You open yourself up for heartbreak, which is awful. It’s difficult, too. Managing time, caring for another person’s feelings and hoping they’ll care for yours… I might sound weird coming from me, but relationships are overrated. And I mean that in the pure sense of the word. A good relationship is great, but a lot of people think that should be their end goal, that finding a lover will fix their life. No, I think a relationship should be about finding a partner to tackle life’s hardships together, theirs and yours.” She chuckled. “Some books have gotten that right, which is why those are my favorites.”

“And… that’s what Oliver is to you?”

Grace nodded without hesitation. “Again, Oliver is something of a special case. With him, I have all of the good and barely anything of the bad. I like seeing him with other girls, so I don’t have to worry about cheating. Hell, I didn’t have to worry about it before I started encouraging it. And I don’t have to hope he reciprocates my feelings. It’s almost the other way around. I have to work harder to make him understand I love him just as much as he loves me.”

Fernanda grinned. “Come on… You’re gonna make me jealous. I want something like that for myself.”

Grace laughed. “Oh? Would you really be okay with letting your boyfriend be with other girls?” she teased.

“That’s… not what I meant. But…”

“But…?”

“N-Never mind!”

Dammit. If only Grace could read minds like Oliver could. Not that she really needed to. Poor Fernanda was an open book. Still, she wouldn’t push further. Not today, anyway.

“Hey, why don’t you write that?”

“Hm?”

“Write a romance.”

“But… I just said I have no experience.”

“You have some,” Grace said. “You have the experience of someone breaking up with you. That’s one of the most relatable things ever. You could start from there, then have the heroine find just the right guy. I think Noelle told me there’s an entire genre of Japanese comic about that.”

“You mean Shojo manga? I… never considered it.”

“Look, just go wild and write your biggest fantasies. Make them spicy if you want! I’ll read through and we’ll trip whatever feels TOO out there or too unrealistic.”

Fernanda pursed her lips. “I mean… I do have some ideas, but…”

“You want to work on writing characters, right? Romance stories are carried by their characters! Forget about plot for a while, forget about world-ending threats or magic systems. Try writing a story about a girl who likes a guy. What do you say?”

“...” Fernanda took a deep breath. “You don’t think making it spicy would be in bad taste?”

“Girl, you’ve definitely missed some mainstream books. Add your art to it, and you’ll have a hit on your hands.”

“...” Fernanda smiled hesitantly. “Alright. I think I’ll give it a shot.”

Oh, Grace was looking forward to this.