"This... actually wasn't nearly as bad as I expected," Judy spoke up the moment the credits started rolling. She snuggled a little closer to me under the blanket covering us and added, "I want a refund."

"For what?" I asked while shifting my posture a little to accommodate her. My couch was big, but it was not quite large enough for three people with their legs tucked under them.

"For false advertising," my girlfriend answered with transparently fake indignation. "I was told we would be watching the worst, sappiest romance movie ever made. This obviously wasn't it."

"I don't know. It was bad enough to make Snowy cry," I told her while pointedly rubbing the back of my sniffling, red-eyed mess of a little sister.

"Chief... Romance movies are designed to make you do that."

"Then how come I'm not crying?"

"It's because you're a boy," she answered right away, with a tone that said she was offended because I made her state the obvious.

"In that case, why aren't you crying?"

This time it took her a considerably longer time to answer, and she ultimately settled on, "It's because Judy-bot doesn't have her crying app installed yet. Beep-boop."

I unsubtly rolled my eyes, but before I could properly respond to her, we were abruptly interrupted by a certain Abyssal girl blowing her nose like a trumpet and then placing the used, crumpled up tissue paper onto the steadily growing pile at her side. I decided to use this opportunity to change the direction of the conversation, so I reached for the remote on the table, turned the DVD player off, and on the way back I picked up the empty (and really cheap) jewel case of the movie in question and turned its back to my girlfriend.

"Look! The blurb on the back literally calls this 'Titanic meets Dirty Dancing... IN SPACE!'! In all caps! And here! It says it's 'The Romeo and Juliet of space operas', right under the laughably cheap CGI mecha! I thought this would be hilariously bad; how was I supposed to know that there would be a competently written and executed romance plot hiding under all of that C-movie schlock?"

"That's not an excuse," Judy huffed, but it was obviously just her staying in character. "I expected a one or two out of ten. This was easily a seven."

"Oh please! That's an exaggeration if I've ever heard one! This was, at most, a weak five."

"You think so? How about you, Neige?"

I silently frowned at her shameless attempt to draw my sister into the fray, yet her answer surprised both of us.

"On a ten-point scale?" she asked back while wiping the corners of her eyes, and after Judy nodded, she declared, "It's a three at most."

"Really?" the question slipped through my lips before I even realized it, and my sister grunted in the affirmative.

"Yes. They had a really great screenplay, and there was a lot of chemistry between the lead actors, but then they just had to ruin it with silly giant robots and incomprehensible space battles! These characters deserved a much better movie!"

"So... You think it's a bad movie?"

"Yes," Snowy delivered the coup de grace on my assistant without even realizing it. "It's disgraceful."

I sent a triumphant smirk at Judy, which she grudgingly acknowledged, but I didn't rub it in, as I quickly thought of something amusing. I wondered; just how much would it actually cost to get the IP rights of this movie? Considering how cheap the sets, the CGI, and everything else was, I reckoned that it wasn't much. Maybe I could get Abram to pull a few strings for me. I've been thinking about what to give to my sister for Christmas, and you had to admit, 'a budget movie franchise' was a pretty novel gift idea.

Oh, but I was joking. Well, half-joking. Half-serious, at best. Anyhow, I decided this was as good of a note on which to end our chill-out session as any, so I nimbly slipped out of under the blanket and stretched my back.

I was just a bit sore after sitting in place for so long, but otherwise, I was feeling fairly okay. I still wasn't in my top form, but at the very least this confirmed that just looking at enchantments and magical formations didn't worsen my condition.

I turned the lights on and glanced at Judy over my shoulder, then I said, "The quality of the movie notwithstanding, this was surprisingly enjoyable. We should do this more often."

"Agreed," Judy concurred with a nod, then added, "But the next time, I expect a genuinely terrible movie."

"This was terrible," Snowy cut it a little angrily. "So much wasted potential..."

"Yes. And that's why we should watch a movie without any potential to begin with, so that we could make fun of it without any reservations."

"Oh, I get it now!" my sister exclaimed with a beaming smile, and my girlfriend immediately rewarded her with a head pat. How wholesome...

Unfortunately, as much as it hurt my heart to break up this idyllic scene, I already made some plans for the late evening. I still waited for Judy to finish though, and only then did I call out to her.

"It's getting late," I said and gestured towards the clock on the wall. "How about I see you home before it gets dark?"

"You could do that," she responded without any indication of getting out of under the blanket. "Or I could call home, tell mom that I'm sleeping over at a friend's place, and stay in your room again."

"Not this time, I'm afraid," I responded with a shake of my head. "I already made plans with Brang; we're going to scout the ambush site tonight. I'm also going to have to talk with the exhausting highly visible ninja and her potty-mouthed sword, so I probably won't be back until late in the night."

"I can wait."

"I repeat: late in the night. What do you want to do at that point?"

"There are lots of things a young couple could do in a bedroom after dark," my girlfriend answered as she… repeatedly blinked at me? What was that about?

"… Is there a problem?" I asked as I took a step closer to her and leaned forward for a better look. "Did you get something in your eye?"

When she heard the question, she instantly stopped blinking and, after looking me in the eye for a tick or two, she let out a defeated groan.

"No, Chief. I was fluttering my eyelashes at you."

"Ah, so that's what you were doing!" I straightened my back with a small smile, which immediately turned into a frown as I linked that with her previous sentence. "You really should practice being coy a bit more. Also, if I read your innuendo right, don't you think that would be rushing things a little?"

"I don't think so, Chief," Judy responded as she finally got up as well. "You're the one being too passive."

"I don't think I am. Not to mention, isn't this a topic we should breach when Elly is around as well?"

"We're way ahead of you," Judy stated with just a hint of smugness as she stood in front of me. "I've already discussed this with Eleanor, and she gave me the green light to go ahead and start dropping unsubtle hints about the topic of reproductive activities."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that," she repeated after me, with a small nod for emphasis.

"How?"

All of a sudden the previous hint of smugness rushed to the forefront, my assistant's lips ever so slightly curled upwards in a smirk, and then she declared, "I won the right in rock-paper-scissors."

I gave my girlfriend a flat look, and ultimately asked her, "… You know that by saying that, you just made me take you even less seriously, right?"

"You should anyway. According to my research, physical intimacy is one of the top three most important aspects of a healthy relationship."

"Yes, I'm well aware; I just don't think this is the right time to discuss this. Or place," I added and subtly gestured towards my sister, who was still tucked under the blanked at watched us with a frankly worrying amount of interest.

Judy followed my gaze, and then retorted, "Neige is an Abyssal Seducer. There's no reason to refrain from discussing this topic in front of her; she should have more knowledge of the subject than we do."

"Do you?" I leveled the question at my enraptured little sister, and she instantly blinked in surprise.

"I-I'm well versed in the… um… theoretical aspect of s-sexuality…" she stated with just a bit of stammering, earning her a curiously raised brow in the process, but before I could ask what exactly she meant by that, my attention was grabbed by my girlfriend again.

"You see, Chief? There's no reason why we cannot discuss the topic of—"

"Yes, there is, because it's embarrassing, and no, we are not going to do it, because I have places to be. Can we do it another time?"

Judy looked quite disapproving of my request, but in the end I won our staring contest and she relented with an obviously displeased huff.

"Are you leaving then?" Snowy inquired as she cocked her head to the side, and after a moment of hesitation, Judy responded with a shrug.

"I don't seem to have much of a choice in the matter."

"Then I'll clean up!" my little sister suddenly declared while looking at the empty popcorn bowls and plastic bottles on the table.

"You don't have to, I'll..." 'take care of things once I'm back' is what I wanted to say, but before I could reach the end of the sentence, Snowy already kicked off her blanket and began to tidy up the place. Judy also turned on her heel and headed to the entrance without a word, so I quickly followed after her and left my delightedly humming sister to her odd hobby.

By the time I caught up with my assistant, she already put on her outdoor shoes, so I followed suit and got dressed as well. I wasn't feeling feverish anymore, but I still put on an extra layer, just to be on the safe side. I had no idea for how long I'd be staying out this time, and the nights were getting really chilly as of late. Or rather, even chillier than before, but I digress.

We got ready to go outside without uttering a single word in the process, and I was getting ready to spend the way to her house in awkward silence, yet my expectations were quickly betrayed when Judy immediately addressed me the moment I closed the door behind us.

"We are no longer within earshot of your sister. Can we continue the previous discussion where we left off?"

"Do we really have to?" I half asked and half pleaded, but she was firm as a mountain. An especially sulky one, with a frown and... is that just a play of the light, or does she actually have dimples? That's surprisingly cute, aaaand I totally lost track of my analogy again. Bummer. It was a good one too.

Anyhow, since she didn't seem to budge, I was afraid I had no choice but to accept my fate, so I gestured for her to follow after me with only the barest hint of well-concealed trepidation.

"I don't know why you are so hell-bent about this, but fine, let's get this over with."

"I don't like your attitude," she griped, but then a moment later she followed after me and explained, "Eleanor and I are concerned with your lack of initiative. We have been alone with you on a number of occasions, yet you show no signs of trying to move our relationship forward. In a physical sense of the word."

"I don't think I'm keeping any distance," I denied her accusation as I recalled all the times we spent together as of late. "Aren't we cuddling enough as is?"

"Yes, but you avoid going any further than that."

I sent a skeptical glance her way, but she didn't seem to receive it, so I voiced the same sentiment by telling her, "Dormouse, we've only been going out for two weeks. We didn't even do any of the slurpy, mouth-sucky tongue stuff yet. Don't you think that jumping right into pillow-wrestling would be rushing things just a wee bit too much?"

"That's the problem," Judy abruptly raised her voice and pointed at my face. "Boys are supposed to be rushing these things. You're too reserved."

"Am I?" I asked, yet even I had to admit it was a rhetorical question at best. "Well, fine. Maybe I am a little reserved, but considering how much we have to deal with already, can you blame me? The last thing we need right now is a teen pregnancy subplot to complicate things."

"Contraceptives exist," Judy objected, but I overruled her with a shrug.

"Even so, I don't think it's worth the risk right now."

My girlfriend fell silent for a couple of long seconds, and I almost entertained the vain hope that I convinced her... but then she threw me a curveball right out of the left field.

"Chief? How often do you watch porn?"

I was glad I wasn't drinking anything at the moment, because otherwise this would've been a perfect example of the clichéd spit take scene.

"... Come again?"

"I asked how often do you watch porn movies. Or read porno magazines, if that's your thing."

"It's not, and I don't."

"No need to be embarrassed about it. Everybody does it, and I only want to know for scientific reasons."

"Uh-huh. In that case, why don't you tell me first?" I challenged her by throwing the ball back into her court, and while that gave her a short pause (along with turning her ears to such a bright shade of red they were visible even in the evening twilight), she still gave me an answer, much to my surprise.

"About twice a week."

"... Seriously?"

"Um," she grunted as she nodded, then after that, she added in a slightly lower voice, "If we count the times I do it without supporting material, it's closer to four times a week." At this point she paused again to gauge my reaction, and then she further explained, "I do it when I feel pent up or frustrated."

"Isn't that a lot?"

This time she shook her head and told me, "No. According to what I read online, it's well within the range of the statistical average for our age group. So? What about you?"

I had to admit, she cornered me quite magnificently. After she said all that, there was no way left for me to weasel out of the conversation, so I ultimately had to give up and just say it.

"I don't really do that."

"You do it without porn?"

"No, I mean, I don't do it, period."

My dear assistant gave me a look as if she just saw a white raven landing on a black sheep.

"Chief, I don't want to be rude, but... How should I ask this tactfully?"

She honest to goodness seemed like she was genuinely looking at me for advice, so I hastily told her, "I can't help you, because I have no idea what you're trying to say."

"In that case, I think I have no choice but to rely on the tried and tested WWJD method," she suddenly declared with a serious expression.

"WWJD?" I echoed after her, and before I knew it, my brows already set themselves into a curiously raised arch. "Are you talking about one of those wristbands?"

"Don't be silly, Chief. What would my 'What Would Judy-bot Do?' slogan do on a wristband?"

With that, my brows immediately returned to their resting deadpan position. So much for that.

"I'm about ninety-eight percent sure the 'J' is supposed to stand in for Jesus in that acronym," I told her, yet she just shook her head with unusual irreverence.

"But it doesn't, because it stands for 'Judy-bot'. Speaking of which, beep-boop, I know what to say now," she declared as she raised her hand up and did a twisting motion with her wrist. I had no idea what that was supposed to be, even after she repeated the gesture a couple more times. At last, her shoulders drooped just a tiny bit and she muttered something along the lines of, "I'm sorry, but it appears Judy-bot's finger-snapping app crashed."

"... You have an awful lot of missing or broken features, don't you?"

"It can't be helped. Judy-bot is in early access."

"How original. I've never heard that one before." I paused for a while, mainly just to let her soak in the bucket of industrial-strength sarcasm I dumped on her, but then I asked, "What were we talking about before this sidetrack again?"

"About whether or not your lack of interest is due to," at this point, she raised her fingers for an air quote and finished with, "... 'hardware failure'."

I had no idea how to react to that. In fact, I had no idea how to even interpret her words, and it took me several seconds to link all the stray parts of our conversation together and figure out what she was getting at.

"Aaah... You are alluding to ED, aren't you?" I asked with the kind of mixed enthusiasm you get when you solved a hard problem, only to wish you didn't.

"Yes, Chief," Judy responded just a tad morosely. "Thanks for wasting all my tact."

"You're welcome," I responded with a forced, upbeat grin as my next move in our emotional chess game. Or was it checkers? It was hard to keep track of what we were doing at this point…

She gave me an odd look, and then said, "If you can grin like that, I suppose you don't have it."

"I can't say I do, no," I answered with a shrug, finally dropping the happy-go-lucky act. "In fact, I'm kind of having the opposite problem as of late, and it's pretty annoying; I just don't have a strong urge to do anything about it, and then it eventually goes away."

And now she looked like the black sheep suddenly turned into an honest politician, with the raven being its campaign advisor when running for the presidency. Did I really say something weird? No, wait… even if I did, I would probably recognize it if it was that weird.

Anyhow, Judy soon jolted me out of my thoughts by asking "Are you trying to tell me you have no sex drive?"

"I wouldn't go that far, but at the very least I don't consider it a high priority in my life," I answered with the utmost sincerity, yet it only seemed to make her even more worried.

"That's troubling. I have to consult Eleanor, and we have to do something about it post-haste."

"Is it really that big of a deal?" I asked, half-jokingly, yet she gave me an honest to goodness glare in return.

"Yes, Chief. This is extremely serious."

"Errr... Okay, if you say so... Also, we arrived."

My comment made Judy freeze up for a moment and she hastily glanced around, only to visibly deflate when she noticed we were standing right in front of her house.

"Let's continue this conversation tomorrow," she proclaimed, and I could barely stop my exasperation from showing on my face. However, before I could say my goodbyes, she raised her face and even extended her hands in an obvious display of requesting a goodbye kiss.

I, of course, had no reason to decline, so I leaned forward a little and planted a peck on her lips... Or at least that was the plan, except I didn't expect that she would clamp her hands around my head. My initial surprise was then raised by a notch by the touch of her warm, wet tongue prying my lips open and entering my mouth. My first instinct was to clamp down, but I was afraid that I would bite her, so I endured the urge and let her clumsily explore the inside of my mouth at her leisure.

The kiss lasted for a good fifteen or so seconds, and once we separated, I actually felt that my face was burning a little. That said, compared to my girlfriend, who was currently gasping and red as a lobster, I think I did fairly well.

Once she caught her breath, Judy gave me an unusually awkward glance, and stated, "You have no cavities. That's good."

"Thanks for the compliment?" I responded a little uncertainly, and then added, "And you tasted like popcorn."

"I see. So, how was it? Did that get you excited?"

"Well... I would be lying if I said it didn't," I admitted just a tiny bit more sheepishly than I intended.

"Enough to make you change your mind and make you want me to stay with you for the night?"

"I... wouldn't quite go that far."

My dear assistant clicked her tongue in a mixture of frustration and disappointment, but then she looked me in the eye again and declared, "There's still hope. Also, now that we have done a tongue-kissing, you cannot use that as an excuse anymore."

"I wasn't. Also, I'm not sure that fully qualified."

"Then we just have to practice every day until we get it right," she stated with unusual intensity... which she then immediately ruined by doing that blinking thing again.

"Dormouse... I love you, I really do, so don't take this the wrong way, but you're terrible at playing coy. Please, stop."

She did just that, but only to declare, "I'll have to practice even more."

"If you really want to..." I muttered in resignation, and then I gestured towards the entrance in front of us. "Let's call it a day. You are going to catch a cold by standing around like this."

"Fine," she relented after a short while, but instead of going inside, she first held my hand, stood on her tiptoes, and planted a small peck on my cheek. "Stay safe," she told me with an earnest look as she stepped away, but she only let go of my hand when she was out of arms reach, and she even sent me a small, demure glance before she disappeared behind the door.

I didn't stand still for long; after waving her goodbye I quickly turned around and headed to the closest hidden crook in the area.

I prepared myself for Phasing away, yet as I did so, I couldn't help but touch the spot on my cheek and wonder, "Maybe I was wrong and she does have a talent for coyness?"

And with those words, and an inexplicable smile on my lips, I promptly disappeared.