They both get back home on the time for dinner.

"Senpai, do you want to get dinner at my place?"

"Sure, I'll meet Kaede too, it's been a few days since I've met her."

Masashi and Sakuta walk to Sakuta's apartment and Sakuta opens the door with his keys.

"I'm home!"

"Welcome home, Onii-chan."

Kaede jumps out wearing her usual panda pajamas.

When she notices Masashi she says, "Hello, Masashi-nii-san."

"How's my favorite little imouto doing?" Masashi says scooping Kaede into a hug.

"I'm fine Nii-san. What about you?"

"I'm good too. I'll call Mai here. We can all have dinner together, okay?"

"Great, I love Mai-san's cooking."

"Hmm, even since you convinced Mai to cook for you, you've basically forgotten your Nii-san's cooking." Masashi fake sighs.

Kaede gets flustered and says, "No. No, you've got it wrong. I love your cooking too, Nii-san."

"He's just pulling your leg Kaede," Sakuta says from behind.

Kaede notices the smile on Masashi's face and pouts at him, "Masashi-nii-san is a meanie."

Masashi just smiles wider and rubs Kaede's head a little before walking away to call Mai.

"Mai?"

"Hey Masashi, it's pretty late. Where are you?"

"Were you worried about me?"

"You? Of course not. If anything, I should be worried about the poor bloke that tries to assault you."

"Touché. Anyway, that's not what I called you for. I'm downstairs at Sakuta's place. He asked me to come over for dinner."

"I see…"

"What's wrong?"

"I already prepared dinner for the two of us. I wanted us to have dinner together. Just the two of us."

"You're really spoiled, you know that?" Masashi says in a joking tone.

"It's your fault too. You should've told me that you were going to have dinner with Sakuta and Kaede." Mai raises her voice, getting a little agitated.

"Mai. Calm down first, okay? I'll come up, we'll talk face to face. Then we'll decide what to do. Is that fine?" Masashi says, trying to calm down Mai.

"Fine," Mai says and hangs up the phone.

Masashi takes a deep breath, calming down a little, and goes over to Sakuta.

"Hey, I'll be back in a little bit. Couple problems." Masashi says to him while walking out of the door.

Masashi walks up to his apartment and opens it with his key.

Walking into the apartment, he sees the whole place dimly lit with candles and the dining table covered in a white cloth with a candle placed at the center.

He also sees Mai sitting on the couch looking down, with her hands clenched on her knees.

At this point Masashi realizes the effort Mai put in for a romantic dinner and he just ruined it by making other plans without telling her.

That's even after they have a telepathic connection.

Masashi walks over to Mai and kneels in front of her, holding onto her hands that were on her knees.

She struggles a little, but he just holds onto her hands tightly until she gives up struggling.

Masashi says to her in a soft voice, "Hey, bunny."

"You can just leave if you want."

"Now why would I do that? You prepared so much for a romantic dinner for just the two of us."

"I'm not in the mood anymore."

Masashi doesn't say anything but hugs her and holds onto her while taking a seat on the couch.

She feigns struggle but settles into his hug after a few seconds.

"I'm sorry for not telling you before making plans with Sakuta. I didn't know that you were planning a surprise for me."

"We have a literal telepathic connection that transcends space and time. You just had to think about letting me know."

"I understand. I made a mistake. I took your presence for granted. Sakuta was going through some rough stuff, I thought that you wouldn't mind."

"No, it's fine. I reacted poorly too. I shouldn't have gotten mad at you so quickly. I've been a little irritable these days and when you told me that we'd be having dinner with Sakuta and Kaede, I got annoyed. I thought that all my effort was going to be wasted for today."

Masashi asks with a concerned voice, "That time?"

"Yeah."

"Are you in pain?"

"No, it just affects my mood a little, but that's it."

"I see," Masashi says and brings out a box of cupcakes from his inventory.

"Here, I got you cupcakes."

"How long have they been in there?"

"Time's frozen inside the inventory. They've been there for basically an instant." Masashi says, avoiding the question.

'Can't really tell her that I've got so many things inside my inventory that I need my eidetic memory to just keep track of the stuff inside.'

"I see," Mai says giving Masashi a look that says, 'I know what you're up to.'

Then she just picks up one of them and starts munching.

"This is good."

"You're not mad at me anymore?"

"I'm still a little mad."

"I'll do one thing for you, no matter what. It can be anything."

"That's not that useful, no?"

"Not really, all you have to do is ask and I wouldn't hesitate to destroy the world."

"I think I'll keep that in the bag for later," Mai says and gives Masashi a light kiss on his lips.

She smiles after pulling back from the kiss and says, "We don't fight each other…"

"…we fight the problem, together." Masashi finishes her sentence.

"Is having dinner with Sakuta really important?"

"Not as important as my wife. Nothing even comes close to your importance for me."

"What about Kaede?"

"You will always come first, okay?" Masashi says apologising to Kaede in his heart.

Mai says, "Let's go to their place with the food and eat with them. You said Sakuta's going through something and needs someone to talk to."

"I just said that you're the most important to me. I'll text Sakuta that we'll be an hour late and we'll have our romantic candlelight dinner. After that, we'll go downstairs. What do you think?"

"I'd like that but are you sure it's not a problem."

"Of course, it's not a problem. We'll still go there, we'll just be a little late."

"Great! I love you." Masashi says, giving Mai a kiss and pulling her hand toward the table.

Masashi pulls back a chair for Mai to sit but Mai refuses, "You made me mad, you'll be feeding me today."

"Anything for my spoiled wife."

Masashi takes a seat with Mai in his lap as he fills up the plate with the food.

He feeds the first bite to Mai who just chews on it while taking the chopsticks from his hand.

She feeds him next and asks, "How is it?"

Masashi eats it and says after finishing, "Phenomenal. Just so much better than me. You should cook more."

"If I do that then you'll lose the appreciation for my cooking."

"That's impossible and you know it."

Masashi and Mai feed each other as Mai makes herself comfortable on Masashi's lap.

"You know, if you keep rubbing your ass on me like that, I'll get hard."

"That's the plan."

"It's a good plan, but there's a little hiccup. We have to go meet the problem child Sakuta downstairs. The guy has had even more run-ins with Puberty Syndrome than you."

Mai just pouts and stops, understanding that they have to go down later.

They continue to feed each other for a while more before Masashi brings up the topic of the [Soul Connection].

"Do you think that we should stop suppressing the soul connection when we're away from each other?"

"I don't think that it's necessary."

"Why?"

"We agreed to suppress it when we're far away from each other so that we talk to each other more. All that the suppression does is stop the automatic sharing of each other's feelings at all times.

"If we can feel each other all the time, it'll make natural communication difficult for us. We should be able to understand each other without some supernatural soul connection."

"Yeah, I know. It's just that I don't want to fuck up and make you mad. I would hate myself if I make you cry, ever."

Mai just smirks and says, "Then don't rely on some supernatural connection to communicate with me. Do it yourself.'

Masashi begrudgingly accepts, "Yeah, yeah."

…

When they're done with dinner, they go to Sakuta's apartment and spent some time coaxing Kaede into forgiving Masashi since he promised that they're gonna have dinner together but he refused.

It took some effort but Kaede accepted both of their apologies with the big tub of ice cream that Masashi got for her.

When everyone's done eating the ice cream, Sakuta cleans up while Mai, Masashi, and Kaede sit on the couch.

Kaede turns to Sakuta and says. "Onii-chan. If Shouko-chan calls again, can I answer it?"

"Sure, I guess."

"You want to answer the phone?"

"Shouko called?"

Mai and Masashi ask together and look at each other before giggling a little.

Masashi lets Mai go first.

"You want to answer the phone?"

"Yes, it's one of my goals," Kaede says while showing them her book of goals that she wants to do before the end of the year.

"You seem pretty motivated, is there any reason for this change?" Masashi says.

"I just realized that I should become a little independent. I don't want to burden Onii-chan all the time."

Masashi quickly interjects, "You're never a burden Kaede. If anyone ever says that to you, just tell me. I'll beat them up."

Masashi gives Sakuta a dirty look with the last sentence.

Mai ignores Masashi and just rubs Kaede's head, "He's right you know. You'll never be a burden, but becoming independent is a good thing. Would you like to practice answering the phone with me right now?"

"Yeah, let's do it."

Mai then takes Masashi's phone and walks outside. She doesn't have Sakuta's home phone number.

Kaede walks in front of the phone and prepares herself.

Suddenly the phone rings and Kaede gets startled.

"Don't worry, it's just Mai" Masashi says to her, encouraging her.

Kaede hesitantly picks up the phone. Masashi and Sakuta are paying attention to Kaede.

"A-Azusagawa residence!" Kaede stutters a little but successfully picks up the phone.

On the other end, Mai says, "Well done, Kaede-chan. Congratulations.

"I guess that you'll be able to answer my calls from now on."

"Great job, Kaede." Sakuta praises her.

Suddenly Kaede collapses

"Kaede!" Sakuta and Masashi both shout out as Sakuta holds on to Kaede in his arms.

"I'm fine," Kaede says in a weak voice.

Masashi acts quickly and takes out a bottle of health potion and brings it close to Kaede's mouth.

"What's that?" Sakuta asks.

"Just trust me, it's medicine." Masashi doesn't let Sakuta say anything more and feeds Kaede the potion.

The effect is seen within seconds and Kaede's temperature goes back down and she recovers almost completely except for the mental fatigue.

By this time Mai is back in the apartment and kneeling beside Kaede, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pushed you so much."

"No, it's okay. If I keep this up, I might be able to go outside tomorrow." Kaede says.

"Yeah," Sakuta says.

"I could go see the pandas too!"

After saying that, Kaede falls asleep due to the mental burden.

Sakuta takes Kaede to her room and tucks her in before saying good night to Mai and Masashi.

They both go back to their apartment.