[ExD] - 6.0.14

“We’re having this conversation again?” I asked. “Yeah, Deen and I are straight. I’ve dated guys, though that was years back. And Deen’s dating Adrian. Right, Deen? Are you still—?”

“Went out on a few dates with him,” Deen said. “But it doesn’t mean that we’re dating. In fact, I haven’t gone on a date with Adrian or any guy this semester.” She displayed some lawyering with wording instead of choosing to outright lie. “Erind and I are both straight.”

“Have you tried exploring with other women?” Myra asked.

“No…” Deen slowly said, giving me a side-eye.

I wanted to smack her head. She was making us look suspicious. Instead, I nonchalantly sipped my chocolate smoothie, glancing at the other tables to show that I didn’t care much about the topic. It sounded like Deen had something more to say, so I kept quiet. And what was Myra’s angle here? Was Myra chatting us up to be friendly, or was she confirming suspicious noises that she might have heard earlier?

“Why would I explore with other women,” Deen continued, “when I’m certainly straight?”

“Well, you can’t say you don’t like spicy foods if you haven’t tried them, right?” Myra raised her cup. “A lot of people also say that they can’t take the bitterness of black coffee, but some of them actually can. Uh, I’m not saying being in a relationship with another woman is bitterness.”

“You make a good point there,” I said. “So… have you tried it, Myra? Like, have you made out with another woman or something?” I nudged my head at the door, referring to the couple who had just left. There, I threw the ball back into her court.

Myra laughed. “Yeah, I have. A couple of years ago, I was at a college party. We were playing truth or dare. I picked the latter and got dared into kissing my close friend. A peck on the lips would’ve counted, but I was drunk, and so was she. We really got into it and did waaay more than the dare. Crazy times…”

“Did you like it?” Deen asked before taking a sip from her drink, some bullshit coffee with oat milk. Milk that didn’t come from tits should be illegal.

Myra shrugged. “It was okay. Kind of nice. There’s really not much of a difference between making out with a girl and a guy. Same mouth, tongue, body parts.”

As Myra said the word ‘tongue’, Deen glanced at me again. I thought of trying to change the topic, but that’d make us look more suspicious. I’d talk with Deen later about how she should stop this shit.

Myra continued, “Essentially, there’s no difference between a guy and a girl when it comes to making out. The question is just whether I like said person or not. Straight people only like specific people of the opposite sex anyway. Not all of them. You’re going to point out—what about the bits between the legs?”

“That’s kind of the major thing,” I said with a light chuckle. We just had to keep answering Myra until the conversation sputtered, and then, I could swerve to a different topic.

“Well… If you really like somebody,” Myra said, “You’ll make do with what bits they have, right?”

“I suppose so,” Deen said. “But I won’t like a woman because my sexual preference is men. For example, Erind—I love her so much as my best friend. Given that I don’t have a boyfriend right now, Erind is receiving all my love and affection. But it doesn’t mean that I want to have a romantic relationship with her no matter how cute she is.”

Fucking shut up, Deen. Was she pretending to be straight while trying to ‘protect my feelings’ from being hurt that she was denying our relationship? I had no idea how people were supposed to act in this situation. I hadn’t seen this in any movie before, much less observed this in real life. I couldn’t really say Deen was making the wrong move, but it felt to me that she was inadvertently outing us in her efforts to hide our secrets.

“You should really get a boyfriend, Deen,” I said with a smile, though my eyes stared daggers at her. Hopefully, she got my message. To switch things up, I said to Myra, “What’s with you and Johann, then? Come on, tell us. We’re talking about relationships anyway.”

And that made Myra change the topic to stuff about our university. After we finished our drinks, we returned to my condo. Myra said that she had to meet with her friends. She’d be back by dinner time so that we could talk about Red Island.

“I’m giving you two some privacy,” Myra said, laughing as she closed the door after exiting the unit.

“She definitely knows what we’re up to,” I said. Deen and I were sitting on the sofa, watching some random show. Deen had been feeling me up while Myra was preparing to leave. At this point, I just let Deen do whatever she wanted. I liked it anyway.

“What we are up to?” Deen pecked at my cheek as she slipped her arms around my waist, pulling my body against hers. “Two best friends being close with each other. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“You know what I mean,” I said, leaning my head away from Deen as she started licking my neck. “Myra heard you earlier. I told you that you were too loud, but you didn’t listen.”

“How can I keep myself quiet,” Deen mumbled, her lips mashed against my skin, “while your tongue was exploring my—?”

“Now, Myra knows about us,” I interjected. “Which isn’t a bad thing, is it? I’ve been thinking… why don’t we just tell her?”

Deen disentangled from me as she sat straight. “I’ve been thinking the same. As long as she keeps it a secret from my family, then there’s no problem. I want people to know about us. At least, some people. Myra doesn’t have any motive to gossip about us. Moreover, she wants our help in saving her sister.”

“It’s more freeing this way,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean we’ll have public displays of affection in front of Myra, got it? It’s more about keeping no secrets anymore.”

“Secrets…” Deen looked me in the eye. “I’ve been wanting to ask for some time but couldn’t find the opportunity—do you have other secrets about being an Adumbrae? Things that I should know? That I’d want to know?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, wondering where the hell Deen was heading with this.

I didn’t want to tell her about Spooky Erind because she’d freak out that an Adumbrae talked to me in my head. Deen would go on a crusade to find a cure, testing everything like a crazed aunt believing the next weight-loss fad. And I didn’t want Deen to fuss over me and be suspicious if I was still me.

“If we’re going to live together for a long time,” Deen said, making me shiver with that frightening future, “I should know about your secrets. Surely, you have more. It’s a proof of trust and love if you reveal them to me… don’t you agree?”

For a moment, I thought of jumping out of the window and falling to my death. Not sure if my superhuman body could survive falling from the twenty-second floor. I had accepted that I was in a relationship with Deen. I had accepted that this would go on for some time. A year. Maybe a couple of years was as far along as I could envision. The picture of us growing old together never crossed my mind until now.

Would that even happen? Being an Adumbrae stopped my aging. I assumed that the artificial Core would do the same to Deen. Technically, we were an immortal lesbian couple. My mind couldn’t process being tied to a person for a century or something. I knew that many people wanted that kind of ‘happy ending’, but I wasn’t like other people. I wasn’t even sure if our relationship could survive a couple of years because of my… differentness.

“You are thinking of your secrets,” Deen said. “I know that look. Out with it.”

I had to give her something, I thought. She’d pester me the whole night. She wouldn’t change her mind once she thought something should be this or that way. Fine. I held out my right hand. Gold liquid flowed out of the crystals and floated upward.

“Are you going to turn into Blanchette?” Deen asked. “Don’t worry. I’ll accept anything you’d show—wait, what? Is that a different mask?”

Instead of turning into the red of Blanchette’s mask, the gold turned silver. The blob solidified into Pino’s mask. And I put it on.

(Author’s Notes: I was supposed to write this yesterday and then start the next REND chapter. Unfortunately, we had almost an entire day of blackout. Utilities in my country are crappy as hell. Anyway, back to writing today, and I thought of including Pino in ExD since that’s what’s happening in the main story. I’m sure Deen could think of something to do with Pino.)