Grasslands

[Apollymi]

Miki had a moment to gather herself, and it seemed that by the time she'd done that properly, Kou was now in the same sort of embarrassing situation that she'd been before. She took note of his reddened face and tried to look away a bit to spare him too much of this feeling. She felt the need to apologize and ease his mind a bit. She could at least, take responsibility for adding to the awkwardness of such a situation for him. "Gomennasai, I didn't mean to make that awkward for you. Do you need a minute or two?" she apologized for staring and asked willing to give the lad a bit of space to get himself together, also seeming to be a tad bit bashful. She knew he seemed to be pretty uncomfortable with the idea of their closeness and didn't want him to feel bad or super awkward because he'd been pants'ed in front of her. To be honest, she'd only really been embarrassed herself because she'd let her mind wander a bit too much while she stared at his manhood, while knowing about her own past missteps as she tried to navigate the nature of their partnership. She could only hope that something like a beach trip would get everyone back to a more normal pace, as an aside at the very least, time seemed to be passing decently quickly.

As the pair of older teens navigated their way through the awkwardness of the situation created by Karna, Hikari watched those little ears of hers twitching as the lad mentioned that the manhood of boys was something they were insecure about, and beyond that money, power and status also tended to be things, but he claimed it all boiled down to genitals which was sort of weird to the girl, but she understood at least a little. "Sou ka, Dick-sensei, you seem a bit obsessed. We've already established that his... bits aren't actually a problem here right? So...." the girl paused to think about their lives before coming to this world, and wondered if her brother had a hangup related to some combination of the other things. Money, power and status didn't really matter to them, they weren't poor as kids but proved their worth and worked hard every single day. He was an admirable older brother who always did his best and provided for her, especially when she was too sick to take care of herself. She knew for a fact that her brother had a lot to offer anyone, especially a girl in a relationship with him, perhaps... he just didn't really know how to approach it with Miki because of something like that. From what she'd seen of Miki, the girl seemed to have herself together rather easily, she also didn't act like someone who wasn't used to having those things, so she made the assumption that she'd always been that way. 'Hmm... maybe it's something like that...'

[Bloodedge]

Shortly after Kou had his own thoughts about apologizing, Miki chose to do so for the awkward situation. He was a bit taken aback by this, and visually so at that. "Eh.. Iie, iie. Let's just uhh... wait for the egg, yeah?" was all he could muster as a response. He didn't have any other way to attempt saving face, and his plan now was simply to wait out the Filolial egg, hopefully without encountering additional things to trouble him.

Hikari took to assigning a title to Karna - one he didn't seem to be too bothered by, for whatever reason. "It didn't seem to be an issue. If the guy's a grower, even better. Either way... one of those things I listed, if any at all, would be the reason. If that's the case, though..." Karna paused. He was still within the mind of Hikari when she thought something specific could be the trigger, but whether he knew for certain what she thought of or not, he didn't bother. There was one certain path Karna himself had in mind. "There's one easy way a guy like that gets over the hump." With that said, he let his clause hang in the air and looked to Miki, assuming one such as Hikari would follow his train of thought.

[Apollymi]

There was an obvious shift in Kou's face, and Miki couldn't quite place what such a thing meant. For all she could interpret of it, the lad seemed surprised by her offered apology and she could only wonder why. Whatever the case, it was soon stated by him that he was just content to wait for their egg, and that he didn't need a moment alone or anything of the sort. It all seemed to be some sort of mechanism for saving face, but Miki would take him at his word and simply nod, "Hai hai," she took the opportunity to get more comfortable in the moment. Her pillow weapon floated underneath her and she lowered herself to ground level to relax and she took up about half the pillow and left more than enough space for the lad to join her if he wanted to. "I guess there is no reason to stand around the whole time or anything, we might be here for a while..." she stated finding herself in a state of relaxation and leaving enough space for the lad to join her if he wanted, while she stared off in the distance.

While the pair of teens worked on their partnership, Hikari and Karna kept up their plan for pairing the set into a proper relationship. He even mentioned the goodness of one being a 'grower' and if Hikari were to make assumptions she could guess why this was a good thing. "Hai hai, Dick-sensei!" she said locking that away for later. It seemed beyond this though, he had something of an easy work around for Kou's apparent lack of obvious disposition towards Miki and it seemed to be, the blonde lass herself. Hikari's left brow rose gently and her ears twitched. "Hm, you want to use her to get through to him?" she asked almost rhetorically. "I mean, that seems like a decent idea, but she isn't exactly chasing after him or anything... is it possible to make her be obvious enough he can't ignore her?"

[Bloodedge]

"Hai," Kou said when it was mentioned how much time they had to pass. Miki had taken to floating atop her pillow. Kou paid no heed to the amount of space left on said pillow, instead sliding onto the ground against the nearest wall. He crossed his left leg underneath his elevated right leg, then he leaned himself over his right knee.

Karna sighed, beginning to realize this didn't lack as much difficulty as he thought. Sure, Kou made himself a very difficult end to work from when pairing with the blonde female, but Hikari's assertion made Karna realize that if Miki herself were less of a problem, his new plan would have completed itself without Hikari and himself doing anything to progress it. "Kuso," he muttered while placing a hand on his chin. "I didn't think about it until just now, but... what could her hangups be? If they're both interested, and we've determined something's up with him... why hasn't she done something?"

[Apollymi]

Both of them were content to wait, apparently separately. Though this wasn't really what Miki wanted at all, there wasn't much to be done about it. She'd noticed these fits from Kou came and went with every adventure, she had no desire to force him into contact with her if he didn't wish to have it. As such she sat in thought on her pillow legs crossed gently just a few inches off the ground, leaving a very interesting spectacle to be seen.

As the pair of adventurers ended up slightly more apart than they had been while geeking over the potential of their bird, Hikari had posed a question which apparently made Karna think about this plan a bit more. He hadn't yet realized that Miki had to have her own hangups as well. Hikari was a girl herself and she had a bit of insight into this, and given the girl's current positioning atop her pillow, and the distance between Miki and Kou she had some observations to make. "Well, I did mention the normal visual things... but she obviously doesn't have those kinds of problems. I mean... look at her," the girl said, knowing that a girl who was at all self conscious wouldn't be sitting atop a pillow in the middle of a field like a model. "Nii-san refers to her as his partner, and she didn't leave after seeing his junk... they are past the sketchy gamer girl phase too..." she concluded based on the nature of their relationship and knowing that her brother hadn't referred to anyone as his partner before. "Unless..." she stared at the girl atop her pillow and saw it for the first time and thought back again. She'd joined the lass on her pillow in Eonis as well and the same amount of space had been there. "She's confident in her own abilities, and her looks... but for some reason, she doesn't want to deal with the potential of getting turned down. So, she's not being very direct... that's a weird problem for an attractive girl to have, but I've seen it before," she said calmly. "A girl in middle school was a classic overachiever, because of this she became really scared of interacting in ways that she couldn't dominate..." Hikari gave her hypothesis but she didn't have a whole lot to go on. By all accounts the girl named Miki was pretty well-rounded, the idea that she had rejection or abandonment issues was a bit outlandish, and there wasn't any apparent cause for such a thing to exist.

[Bloodedge]

Karna could give much insight to issues from the male perspective, but he could only make assumptions about the opposite sex. Luckily, this partnership had Hikari to offer her insight as a young woman. She managed to debunk the potential self-image issue, as well as the chance of being 'creeped out' by the potential suitor that was Kou. She did, however, have an idea for what the cause might be. She'd seen the type of overachiever, likened to Miki in this case, who suffered from a fear of rejection. This notion was nothing new to Karna, but it was very odd to hear of a girl having this problem. "Really? You're serious? That's the problem every guy has, ever. All of those hangups I mentioned boil down to the same thing: fear of being turned down. Poor Oujo-san and her man problems. Who'd have thought the rich idol would be afraid of being told 'no'?"

[Apollymi]

It seemed that Hikari's insight seemed to bring a very specific revelation from Karna. Hikari thought about this and nodded. She understood how guys could fear rejection. They were faced with it often, because of this they had to put it aside and keep trying, that was sensible. But for a girl to develop such a fear of rejection meant she had to have been rejected in a way that was exceedingly formative. "She's a rich idol, but she's out here trying her hardest. If she was typical in that 'rich idol' outlook, she and my brother wouldn't even get along. He can't stand that sort of entitlement. She doesn't seem to have any at all, not even enough to assert herself with the boy she very obviously likes. If it wasn't bred into her as a rich kid, then it had to have been beaten out of her... metaphorically speaking," she said becoming more sure by the second. In this moment, Hikari would consider how she would try approaching a shier boy if she liked and wanted to talk to him. She'd be straightforward and open, because that is who she was. Her brother was always honest with her and accepted her feelings, she had no reason to assume no one else wouldn't hear her out. Miki was obviously a girl who makes herself available but had no expectation of said availability being acknowledged. "And as a girl, it's not the 'no', so much as it is everything else that comes with it..." said Hikari. "They've been adventuring together, and he's accepted her as his partner. Her hard work in that case, has already been rewarded. Pushing at it for more, isn't really worth the risk of losing what she's already built, and maybe she knows its possible to lose and doesn't want to go through it as such. So, regardless of her own feelings... she'll leave it alone because she'd rather have something than nothing..." Hikari concluded. "You know, like the girls in the rom-com who help their best friend get hooked up with someone else even though they like them..." she finished. She'd seen something like this before, perhaps that still did make Miki the easier push, if she knew her actions would be rewarded she might be willing to take the risk.

[Bloodedge]

"Well, that explains the bad blood with the other princess," Karna said in light of Kou's demeanor toward the stereotypical rich types. Knowing Miki didn't fit this criteria, and that being true enough for their partnership to work in the first place, made this a bit more solid and a bit more simple. Of course, with that simplicity... came a bit of complexity as well. The fear of rejection was associated with a fear of loss for the existing dynamic between the pair, and such was a problem Karna and every other male he'd ever seen feared. "Sou desu ka... That's the Friendzone Conundrum..." he said as if this were some unspeakable evil. "It usually takes some sort of event to overcome that. Those types don't like to make moves themselves, but they're always doing little things that'll hopefully be noticed. So... what exactly can we do? I think the best way is to make a big thing happen, but what, if anything? You know him, but I don't think that helps nearly as much if we're trying to find her breakdown point."

[Apollymi]

"Yeah, it was pretty obvious him and that other princess weren't going to get along. I knew that before I even properly met her, given the attitude of the kingdom," the girl said seeming unsurprised about her brother's dislike of Princess Madoka. As they moved right along, it seemed that Karna could mention something known as the 'Friendzone Conundrum' which was spoken of with much disdain. "Scared of being stuck as friends, don't want to lose friendship... understood Dick-sensei!~" the girl said, picking up all necessary information in his sentences and locking it away for later usage. As they conversed it seemed that an event was needed to make this whole thing work out for the pair and while she knew her brother, apparently none of them knew the individual story of Miki enough to be able to pinpoint exactly the kind of event that might be. "Hm, it might take a little while, there are two things we have to do if we want a large event to help them overcome the 'friendzone'," she said thinking about it as a logical undertaking. "We have to find out enough about her to figure out what it will take to make her do something which is undeniably a romantic gesture," she said with a nod. "We also have to make sure my idiot brother doesn't do anything stupid like reject it," she said with a nod. "So, we spend time getting to know her, and nudge him into whatever comfort-zone he needs to find to be open to the obvious romantic gestures she puts out. We are all traveling together now, it would be easy to chat her up, and find out more about her, it would be easiest if we had someone on hand who knew the type of person she actually was to start with, but maybe, existing events can be exploited a bit until we know enough about both of them?" she said.

It'd been about two hours since the two birds had entered the honeymoon suite, and in that time, after an easy hour of silence between Kou and Miki, and the continued plotting of Karna and Hikari, the little side door on the bottom of the wall beside the lad opened up. And within it, would be seen an egg of the Filolial. Miki's eyes shifted as she heard the sound of the hatch opening and then widened as her excitement returned. 'It's here!~' she thought, with a shortness of memory to completely forget the earlier embarrassment of their time here.

[Bloodedge]

"It'll definitely take time," Karna agreed. At the very least though, they were working through a plan. Karna found this to be the only proper source of entertainment he had until the others were ready for more challenging tasks than their current Avatar levels allowed. As such, he was more than willing to commit. He nodded through Hikari's plan, taking it as an acceptable path while also seeing in-betweens to possibly make leaps and bounds toward their goal. "Right. We learn, we take precautions, we jump at any extra opportunities the world throws our way. It'd be great if they would just turn into Dragons again, as long as nothing interrupted them or made them change back again..."

Two hours into the Filolial breeding process, an egg was produced from within the suite. Kou happened to be sitting next to the hatch, still in silence, yet his eyes widened the moment the egg arrived. He took a few moments to look at the egg, using his magical sense to confirm the potency of the Filolial within. "Jackpot!" he exclaimed aloud. Kou even rose from his seated position to reach out and touch the egg, finding it to be exactly the quality he wished to have.