Seeing you like this, I think I finally get how Ruby must feel.
"You too, Audrey?"
"Hey, look at this one."
I glanced over. She was holding a sleek black dress against her body. "...It suits you."
"This one’s decent?" she asked, a playful spark in her eyes. "Great. We’ll take it."
Honestly, with her build—tall, with curves exactly where they should be—pretty much anything looked good on her. Audrey was the same. But Ruby was selecting clothes one by one, her gaze fixed on my face, reading every tiny shift in my expression. It was unsettling. Wasn’t this a skill beyond mind reading?
"More importantly," I sighed, "why are you using my face as a fashion guide? Buy what you think looks pretty."
"Because this is more fun," she chirped, already skipping back toward the fitting room.
"It’s fun to dress for my taste?"
She came out a moment later, back in her original outfit—a crop top and shorts that left very little to the imagination. She straightened the pile of discarded clothes and winked. "Because if I wear these, it seems you’ll make a lot more interesting faces."
Her voice was low and deliberate, and it sent a direct shock through my system. "...Go put those back. Now."
"Hm-hmm, no fun" she sang, plucking the credit card from my loose fingers before I could stop her. She hurried toward the register, her hips swaying in an exaggerated rhythm meant just for me.
I let out a long, weary sigh. She was this self-absorbed from the moment we met. What on earth would happen if she ever decided we were actually close?
A quiet voice spoke beside me. "Starting to feel how difficult she’s made my life?"
I looked at Audrey. Her face was neutral, but her eyes held years of thinly-veiled irritation. "...You’ve really been through it."
"In that case," she said, her tone dropping to a deadly flatline, "please grant permission for firearm use next time."
"Denied."
Her lips pressed into a hard line. "...Tch."
So much for her famous restraint.
◆ ◆ ◆
"Now, let’s go buy underwear!" Ruby announced, reappearing to seize my wrist with impressive force. "I’m going to get a whole bunch of sexy ones that fit your taste!"
"Don’t say that so loud...," I muttered, but the damage was done. Heads turned. I was dragged, powerless, into the women’s lingerie section—a dazzling, intimidating world of lace and silk and very little fabric. Follow the newest chapters on novelping.com.
Having likely only worn rough prison issue, both of them visibly perked up. Audrey’s stoic expression softened a fraction as her fingers grazed a simple black lace set. Ruby, of course, went straight for the pieces that were mostly artistic strings.
They each collected an armful and vanished into neighboring fitting rooms.
...Embarrassing wasn’t the word. I had no choice but to stand rooted in front of the curtained stalls, pretending a deep fascination with a display of ankle socks.
A moment later, Ruby’s voice, sweetened to a pleading whine, drifted from behind her curtain. "Hey...? My chest is too BIG, the hook won’t catch right. Could you come in and help?"
My face went hot. "I’ll have Audrey bring you a bigger size."
"Oh, come on," she cooed, "I want your personal help~"
"Hey, Audrey?" I called, desperate. "Ruby’s—"
"No fun at all...," she huffed, the curtain rustling. "Fine! Forget it. I’ll just come out like this, then."
The mental image that provided was enough to fry my nerves.
From the other stall, Audrey’s voice, cold and clean, sliced through. "If you wish for her nonsense to cease, you need only say the word." The unspoken I will silence her hung in the air.
"I said forget it," Ruby grumbled. "So you hurry up and try yours on too...."
I wanted the floor to swallow me. Or better yet, to just leave them here and go home. I felt like I was losing my hair during the shopping phase alone. How was I supposed to survive future monster battles when I was already spiritually broken by a lingerie department?
Praying that choosing these two hadn’t just doomed humanity in the most absurd way possible, I leaned against the wall and squeezed my eyes shut.
◆ ◆ ◆
"Sir... would you like me to help with the payment...?"
I opened my eyes. A store clerk, looking profoundly awkward, was staring at Ruby, who was now enthroned in a shopping cart like a giant, overly-enthusiastic child.
"...Sorry," I mumbled, the apology utterly useless.
"Okay, ring it up, ring it up~" Ruby cheered, marking the grand finale of our endless shopping trip. We were at the grocery checkout now, gathering dinner supplies.
Every eye in the place was on us. I was perishing from sheer social exposure. Ruby, completely unaffected, piled ingredients from her lap onto the conveyor belt. "Hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm-hmm"
Her pale legs dangled from the cart, swinging restlessly. Every time she reached for something, her chest shifted noticeably against her thin top—a spectacle that was, in every meaning of the word, spectacular. Visit NovelPing for the full chapter.
Beside this display, Audrey stood at perfect attention, her face utterly blank, as if she’d mentally checked out of this dimension. I did notice she was maintaining a very slight, deliberate gap between herself and the cart.
"Are you seriously planning to ride that all the way to the car?" I asked, my voice empty.
Ruby tilted her head back to look at me upside down, a wide, mischievous grin spreading across her face. That expression plainly said she had zero intention of getting out.
"Haa...." The sigh came from my soul.
"Sighing scares away good fortune," she teased.
"You’re the one making me sigh."
"...This is humiliating," Audrey stated, her eyes fixed on a distant point. "Let us return. Quickly."
With Ruby, who had already unwrapped a pilfered ice cream and was happily eating it, still holding court in the cart, we processed toward the underground parking. We looked exactly like a completely drained man, his stoic partner, and their utterly uncontrollable, hypersexual adult ward.
To feel this level of soul-deep exhaustion after a single day. It was like watching my will to live evaporate in real time.
"Okay, all the bags are in...," I grunted, heaving the last grocery bag into the trunk. "Anyway, why don’t you two sit in the back together? Consider it teamwork training. ...Audrey?"
When I turned, all I saw was the back of Audrey’s head as she swiftly opened the passenger door and slid into the front seat the instant the suggestion left my mouth.
"Training failure," Ruby declared, finally hopping out of the cart. She patted my shoulder a couple of times, her expression one of exaggerated pity. "Better luck next time." Then she giggled, a light, sparkling sound, and slipped into the back.
Even before any discussion of clearing Gates or fighting monsters, getting them to cooperate already seemed like an impossible mission. Was this really going to work? The urge to just abandon these two beautiful, exhausting forces of chaos and run away simmered quietly in my chest as I slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
"You know, though," Ruby mused from the back, propping her feet up on the center console, "walking around shopping for the first time in ages, I feel like my body’s getting healthier. I even broke a light sweat without noticing."
"That is only natural," Audrey replied, not turning around, "as we were compelled to traverse every clothing section in the entire department store due to your whims."
"Ohohot! To discover raiments of ’beauty,’ infused with profound ’aesthetic sense,’ such tribulations are a necessary ordeal!" Ruby proclaimed, affecting a haughty, refined tone.
A moment of silence. Audrey’s head turned slowly toward the back. "...Was that an imitation of my speech pattern just now?"
"I wonder, could it be" Ruby sang. Then she yelped, "Ah! She’s drawing her gun again!"
And so, even on the drive back to the inn, the car was filled with the sounds of bickering, squabbling, and the distinct, chilling click of a safety being switched off.