Back home early, after finishing school sooner than expected on account of the pair's record-clearing times, and following a short three-hour soak in the hot spring, Lizu cladded herself in her nighttime onesie once again, checking for any creases and ensuring it was presentingly smooth with a quick, precise pat down. After a few seconds of flight-check worthy preparations and once the girl was thoroughly self-assured her chest wasn't too compressed, Lizu marched her way off the bedroom floor, followed by her making a spindly descent down the appearing-and-disappearing mana staircase.

  "Was doing all that flaunting earlier really necessary?" Inkaro asked as he lounged on the sofa, pressing his body into harder than a sack of potatoes. To Lizu, Inkaro emulated one of those funny cat videos on the W.I.S.N. with how he allowed his head to rest on top of the sofa's back. She wanted to coo in delight, but held her tongue, knowing Inkaro would raise his head if she made such noises while being so far away, two steps from the floor that is.

  "Of course it was, I can't have my rival embarrassing herself by flirting with you while not knowing you're mine. I need to have some chivalry and courtesy or whatev." Following her proclamation to defend her actions, Lizu scaled the back of the sofa, dragging her body over Inkaro before ducking into a roll and landing perfectly on the guy's lap: "Also, I see you're finally wearing those new clothes I made for your last birthday, lucky me~."

  Lizu silently marvelled over, slurping up every drop of pride she could from seeing Inkaro wearing them, and slowly ran a hand over her handywork: an open and zipperless deep pink gradient hoodie with a scale texture. The hoodie has a huge hood with two silver glass-like lenses that resemble the outline of a dragon's eyes. A black long-sleeved shirt with pink claw-like marks around the shoulders and cuffs. Pale beige ankle-low culottes. And, padded black socks.

  With slightly reddened cheeks, Inkaro scoffed affectionately at both of Lizu's vastly different choices in subjects: "Not like I had a choice when you forced me to change and put my usual attire in the wash."

  Lizu gasped aggressively, in an over-the-top way that it was clear it was for show, at the notion she actually had to explain why she stripped Inkaro of his primary outfit configuration.

  "Those ones were contaminated and needed immediate cleansing. What if her pompousness rubbed off on you? I'd have to spend a whole month clinging to you just to counteract her influence," Lizu explained earnestly, barely able to keep a straight face while her tone remained firmly serious. Inkaro could barely keep himself from cracking a smile at having to hear the subtle fluctuations in Lizu's voice. However, the message she projected to him through her eyes was an entirely different beast as the intensity behind them bore right into his soul with ease.

  "Sure they were," Inkaro said cheekily as he raised a hand and scratched the underside of Lizu's chin, creating an ear-pleasing "scritch" sound for all three present to hear. The act served a double purpose: getting a satisfied purr out of Lizu, as her tail swished about to show said satisfaction if her soft smile wasn't enough, but also to get Lizu's attention away from thinking about being jealous. As she felt immense satisfaction from the chin scratching, Lizu subconsiously took control of her tail and ushered it into action by coiling around her own and Inkaro's waists.

  "I am ever so glad you 'understand'," Lizu teased, her words carrying a hidden danger that Inkaro knew he had no chance of defeating should he stoke Lizu's inner monster any further; the memory of Lizu blasting a hole through the ceiling of her bedroom was a good enough deterrent to make him change course.

  "It's hard to tell if you want to learn Air Writing anymore or want me to continue pampering you."

  With such a simple verbal prod, Inkaro broke Lizu back to reality, snapping right out of the lovey-dovey trance she'd placed herself under. Lizu's eyes were renewed with a childlike wonder for the incoming knowledge binge, completely overtaking the haze that once paraded over them.

  "Oh yeah, I almost forgot," Lizu murmured dreamily as she shot Inkaro a half-lidded stare that unquestionably demanded, "Keep scratching my chin so I can think faster."

  But even as she sat there, the dragolyte girl made no meaningful attempt to get any information out of Inkaro; in fact, she actively chose to remain unusually reticent, before ultimately breaking the silence: "...buuuut that can wait, getting unprovoked pampering from you takes priority."

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  She spoke with such confidence, Inkaro almost believed her words made sense, almost. But he wasn't about to burst this bubble of fortune, not when he hadn't made physical and in-depth guides on how Sky-Style Syntax: Air Writing worked, because he knew he'd end up repeating himself and turning Lizu's potential confusion into a full-fledged headache for the both of them. So, he did nothing to provoke Lizu and continued scratching all the sweet spots on her chin for her maximum satisfaction.

  However, his chin scratching might've been a little too polished, to the point he managed to pinpoint Lizu's most sensitive scale on practised instinct. So, with a single, unintentional itch to that very scale, Lizu went fully slack in an instant as the weight of her body dramatically increased, forcing Inkaro to sink into the cushiony embrace of the sofa's pillows and cushions.

  "I bee-seech thee, has your dexterity with your hands expanded from just creating nick-nacks to more handsy operations, Imperator?" a conflicting, calm and bratty voice remarked from overhead, her childish voice just gushing a teasing accent. Inkaro didn't even so much as jump at the voice, not that he could've with Lizu pressing down on him. Instead, he lightly sighed, having already known of the beeing's presence in the room long before Lizu finished her long self-care routine.

  Resting the back of his head on the back of the sofa once again, Inkaro exhaustedly gazed upwards and was greeted by the self-assured smile of Queen Bee Enulatina as she clung to the back of the sofa whilst scraping some royal jelly-infused honey from her fangs.

  [Queen Bee Enulatina is a modified thornolyine bee with a mostly humanoid appearance, as compared to her worker bees, and in particular, a short eleven-year-old girl; she has slightly long, ultra curly silver and golden hair with two small deep pink ahoges that function like antennae. Deep pink eyes with a glowing beige hourglass-shaped rune in her left iris. Five small, crystal-like compound eyes around the outer side of her humanoid eyes, with the left ones being silver and the right ones being golden. Light tanned skin. She has golden fur with silver ends on her body(entirety of both feet up to her knees, entirety of upper torso, and forearms). Four thirty-foot-long pale golden bee wings covered in glowing beige hourglass-shaped runes. A football-sized silver and golden striped tail that resembled a bee's abdomen with a smooth-tipped, deep pink metalic stinger on the end. And, she has thin, retractable, deep pink metalic spikes hidden within her fur]

  [Enulatina is wearing the lower half of a white qipao that reaches down to her knees and has a hole on the back with a hoop-like clip at the top. The qipao has slits on both sides that go from the bottom up to around eighty percent upwards. The qipao is also covered in various splat-like flower detailings of various colours. And, she is wearing a thick, dark purple fur sash that she wears around her waist like a belt for her qipao and is tied at the back in an hourglass-shaped bow tie]

  :Attributes:

  [Base]

  [Mana Capacity: U]

  [Mana Control: U]

  [Mana Tolerance: U]

  [Advanced]

  [Affinity: Honey]

  [Proficiency: Infusement]

  Watching the trickles of honey emerge from the corners of her lips and knowing what the beegirl was thinking without a shadow of a doubt, Inkaro lightly sighed, giving up the last of his strength when Lizu pressed even more firmly against him, searching for his muscles, in her slumberish state: "Can you not try to force me to eat honey right now?"

  Enulatina pouted, exactly like how Lizu does, her ahoges flippantly swiping at the air as she gulped down her own honey.

  Following a mini burp of a sigh, the queen bee grumbled, "Very well, I'll just wait for Inquisitor to awaken so I can give her your portion."

  "Hoeny...," Lizu murmured sleepily, her nose twitching, detecting the nearby honey generator as she limply waved her arms in an attempt to grab Enulatina but ending up smushing her hands into Inkaro's face instead.

  If things couldn't get any more bizarre for his face, Inkaro felt a cold but, more importantly, sticky substance drop onto his cheeks.

  "What are you up to now?"

  Sporting a playful flutter in her relaxed, cape-positioned wings, Enulatina licked her honey-coated tongue across her lips in anticipation of the chaos she was about to cause for Inkaro.

  "I never stated I'd wait for her to wake up to give her her portion," Enulatina declared with a cutely imposing grin as honey continuously flowed in globs from her mouth. Inkaro mentally groaned in defeat as the sleepy Lizu wasted no time in nibbling his honey-glazed cheeks.

  With a deadpanned stare, broken by the occasional wince as Lizu full-on bit him intentionally, Inkaro relented, finally accepting he wouldn't be getting any magic research done until nighttime rolled around. "At this rate, I'll end up losing that bet to Nuenala and have to go to that entertainment complex... um... what was it called again-aah?! Mind the non-honey things, Lizu."