"Sorry I'm late!"

Calypso pushed open the front door to Switch & Ecstasy. The wooden hinge creaked as the proprietress of the establishment announced her arrival.

It was after hours on a Tuesday morning, but the lobby to the brothel was quite busy. In fact, it was more crowded than it typically was on weekday nights, and there were easily at least a dozen people mingling in a relatively small space. Even in her absence, a bunch of people had already pulled out some folding tables, and groups of friends were chattering away.

Someone had even brought a small platter of baked goods (now empty), and it was a basically a small party.

"Where've you been, Calypso? You missed most of the tea party, and I'm not sure if there's any snacks left..."

"Yeah! We missed you! Jeslin wanted to challenge you to a game of Tsumego!"

Calypso looked down at a table set against the stairwell, and sure enough there was a small lemurkin with their brows furrowed over a wooden board with black and white stones. They looked extraordinarily frustrated and oblivious to the surrounding noise, as if lost in a parallel dimension where only a particularly difficult strategy puzzle existed.

"I was busy with some morning errands," Calypso said cheerfully as she hung up her heavy cloak.

"Eeeh? Was it really that important that you had to do it now?"

"Well, it was hard to find my friend at any other time. They're a bit evasive."

"Oho... I smell something juicy! Could it be that you're seeing someone 'special' and not telling us~?"

"Hm? Sort of?"

The black-haired witch hesitated, but kept the expression on her face neutral. Although Calypso felt that everyone in the room was trustworthy, they weren't exactly the same as close friends. Most of them had been clients that Calypso had served over the years, and nearly everyone present today were open to genderbending in one fashion or other. A number of them were transgender.

Out of popular demand, Tuesday mornings of every week were "Tea Parties". Originally, it was a time and place where like-minded people could come and mingle, and people would often drink their potions and just socialize while transformed. Calypso would open up the entire brothel, and people were allowed to wander the premises. One of the main rules was that NSFW was not allowed, and everything had to stay family-friendly.

In a sense, it was sort of a LGBT gathering in an isekai world. It was very popular with guests on the transgender-leaning spectrum, and it could get quite crowded depending on the season. Very rapidly, the number of attendees had ballooned to the point where Calypso wasn't quite familiar with everyone who showed up, especially as people often brought their friends. At a certain point, Calypso was beginning to worry that they were attracting too much conspicuous foot traffic through the front door at such an odd time of day. Fortunately, someone set up a short-range portkey¹Portkey: A teleportation object. See Harry Potter., which allowed guests to discreetly teleport into the brothel from a nearby alleyway without attracting too much attention to themselves.

"I guess that's one way you could put it," Calypso said. "We do have a little bit of history."

"Hold on! What did Calypso just say?"

"Whaaat? Wait, I didn't know Calypso had a dating life!"

"A special someone? That kind of 'special' someone?! I need to hear this!"

The black-haired witch pulled out a chair opposite of the lemurkin sitting at the Tsumego board, and sat down at the board game table. Her movements were smooth and relaxed. There was a slight wry smile on her face, but she was honestly okay with this sort of misunderstanding. It deflected everyone's attention onto a red herring, which was a convenient diversion from her other affairs. She'd prefer it if the guests weren't familiar with the other problems she was dealing with.

"Well, it's neither right nor wrong."

"..."

"I sort of think of him as my ex- from back when we were in school, so he's sort of special to me yet also not."

"You have an ex-boyfriend?? And you never told us?"

"Again... it's sort of complicated..."

"Ahhhh! Wait, I need to know now! What's he like? Was he nice? I need details! Did he 'know' about your situation? Or was in he in the dark?? Who asked who out???? What did you say? How did he react? Did you go past second base? What happened in the end?! Are you still friends?"

"Lilian, that's rude!!"

"It's fine, Cristen. It was a long time ago, and I'm not really bothered now. Truthfully, we were only really together for a week."

Calypso stared intently at the Tsumego board, picked up on a black stone piece, and placed it on the board.

"Gah! My vital point!" Jeslin exclaimed, interrupting the gossip. The lemurkin clutched their head in distress.

They seemed entirely oblivious to the entire conversation. Tsumego was a board game that required intense concentration, and the tiny lemur had been too busy staring at the board to spare any attention to the gossip floating over their heads. It made them seem rather spacey and vacant, which was absolutely adorable in their own unique way, especially as there were so many bystanders practically shouting past their ear.

"Jeslin, I just want to let you know that you're perfect," Calypso suddenly said out of the blue.

"Huh? Did you say something?" The non-binary lemur looked up befuddled, blinking in confusion.

"It's nothing. It's your turn to move."

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