Chapter Eighteen – Home

Chapter Eighteen – Home

“You want to buy a house? In this market? Are you delusional?”

— Someone, 2023

***

“A favour,” I repeated. “What is it? You need dating help?”

“Dating help?” Delilah shook her head. “No, why would I ask you for dating advice?”

Well, that was rude. “Hey, why wouldn’t you ask me for dating advice? Lucy and I have been steady for years. You think it was easy to convince her to date me?”

Delilah blinked, then looked away across the city. “Okay, I hadn’t thought of that. I guess I just figured you two somehow skipped the dating phase entirely.”

“Well, we are both very horny,” I admitted.

Delilah sighed. “I don’t want to hear it, please. I just know Lucy’s putting ideas in Franny’s head right now.”

I laughed, then swept some hair out of my face. I needed a haircut one of these days. Also, my hair was humid as fuck. It wasn’t even raining yet the city managed to make it feel like it was. “So, what’s this favour?” I asked.

“It’s a little awkward,” she said.

“I was already down to helping you with dating stuff, so I think we’re past the ‘a little awkward’ phase.”

Delilah poked me in the short ribs with a knuckle. “Don’t be an ass,” she said. “I’ve got… domestic problems.”

“With Franny?”

“No, not with Franny, she’s… nevermind my relationship, it’s complicated, but not in a bad way. It’s the rest that’s a problem.”

“You mean with where you’re living?” I walked over to one of the legs of the mech then sat down on it. The cat-like mech was sitting like a sphinx at the moment, so there was plenty of room to use it as a bench. A rather uncomfortable one, but still.

Delilah looked around for a place to sit, then hopped backwards onto the head of my repair drone. The poor thing just sat there, frozen. “It’s the nuns,” she said.

“The… oh, right, you live in a nunhouse.”

“It’s not called a nunhouse,” Delilah said. “It’s a convent. And an orphanage and school and a few other things all rolled into one. I didn’t mind staying in the dorms a few months ago, before… all of this.” She gestured vaguely at the mecha and the house and the two of us.

I took it to mean she was talking about all the samurai stuff. She became one a bit before me.

“But now it’s getting to be a bit much. The head of the convent is insisting that I get their rooms, the others are either fawning over me or tip-toeing around and… and Franny and I can’t get a private moment anywhere. I don’t mind the attention, and it’s nice to be treated well, but I grew up with these women.”

“Wait, are you an orphan? I don’t recall that.”

“Me? No, my parents are… I don’t really want to talk about them, to be honest. They’d send me to the convent for nine months out of the year, so I feel better there than at home. But it’s still getting to be a bit much.”

“So, you want me to put the fear of Lucifer in the nuns so that they leave you alone?”

Delilah snorted. “No. God no. They’d like you. As weird as that is to say. You’re like the embodiment of the ideal samurai, and they practically worship that idea.”

I blinked. I was the what? There was no way that I was the ideal anything. Hell, Gomorrah was better at this job than I was. She had the whole calm and collected thing going. Or maybe someone like Deus Ex or Longbow or… well, not Grasshopper, she was cool but also clearly insane.

“You need a place to stay, then?” I asked, because I really didn’t feel like opening that can of worms before dinner.

“Exactly,” she said. “I was planning on asking you what you were doing with the rest of the space in your building.”

“Huh? Wait, you mean this building?” I tapped the ground with a foot.

“Yes, obviously,” she said.

“You know, I only own the top floor, right? I mean, we added to it, obviously, but that’s all I own. If you want to live below, then… I guess, buy a floor.”

“You don’t own the entire building?” Gomorrah asked. “Really? Aren’t you worried that someone might move in below and cause trouble?”

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“They’d have to be really loud to bother me. And any more… violent trouble can be handled with violence in turn.”