houseguest

Chapter 4

The next day, after Egor sees Shingen off for work- a habit he didn't notice himself developing- Emilia asks him when he'd like to go out shopping with her. "I've got all day to myself, so I'm really excited to get to spend more time with you!"

"We can go whenever you're ready," he replies with a smile, finding that he's excited to get to spend more time with her as well. After the time he's spent with the couple, all leading up to their "date" the night before, he realizes that he's growing very attached to the two of them. His interactions with humans, though limited, always left him with the impression that growing attached to one was unlikely.

The two of them leave not long after that, with Emilia driving. "I know Shingen was only teasing, but if you want to learn how to drive someday, I'd be happy to teach you!" she says.

"Shouldn't you be teaching him first? He can actually get a license, after all."

"He says he has no need to learn such things," she replies, her tone switching to one more precise, more uppity, but she giggles. "Honestly, I think he's just scared. And the roads in America are even scarier than the ones in Japan, or so he says!"

"I see," replies Egor, smiling a bit at her words. Yes, he can certainly see Shingen avoiding driving simply because he's afraid, and there is something endearing about that that he can't quite put into words.

A grocery store turns out to be just about what he expected after what he's seen on television, and Emilia leads him around the store, reading off of her own list, and asking him to get anything that he thinks he might like. She claims to have learned new recipes just for him, and he's touched. Though he still doesn't know much about the way humans mix and package and process their foods, there are still things he recognizes, and Emilia is ecstatic when he begins filling their cart with some of those things.

"Is it okay if I report this to Shingen later?" she asks. "It's just, he'll be so excited to get this new data!"

"Yes, of course," he says, though he isn't quite sure how valuable little details like this will be to their research.

By the time their cart is full, Emilia is ready to pay and get home, and Egor impresses her with how easily he can carry all the groceries to the house, making only one trip necessary. She praises him for this in the same maternal way she praised him at the restaurant the night before, and he actually feels himself blush a bit. While she makes lunch for the two of them, he begins reading one of the books they bought for him, and is barely able to put it down long enough to eat with her, and listen to stories about her past research projects with other creatures deemed "supernatural".

After lunch, she leaves him to his reading while she does some house cleaning and, whenever he hears her stumble or drop something, she assures him that this is how it always goes, and that she doesn't need any help. Soon enough, he's able to block the sounds out as he immerses himself, and before he knows it, several hours have passed and Shingen has returned, ready for the dinner that Emilia has prepared for them.

Egor still finds it amusing that Shingen does not entirely remove his mask to eat, pushing it up just enough. Tonight, however, he catches himself thinking about the exposed features, and how Shingen must be very handsome with his face fully exposed. Emilia is so beautiful that it only makes sense, he thinks, and then wonders why he is thinking along these lines at all.

Perhaps it is because he has begun reading romance; after dinner, he continues exploring this genre, and he knows, in the back of his mind, that he focuses on this because he is curious about human romance, and, more importantly, some of the things Shingen told him. However, there is nothing about humans not being monogamous in these books, other than a few examples of someone going behind their partner's back, though that was something Shingen told him he should never do.

~X~

He stays up late that night, and he spends most of his time over the next few days reading what he has, but, no matter how he searches for it, he can't find the sort of information that he wants. Eventually, when he is with Emilia one day, he asks her if he can get more books, and she claps, saying, "How about a visit to the library, then? You did want to go to one!"

Once they get there, he isn't sure how he's going to search for what he needs without tipping her off. He isn't sure why he is suddenly so shy, but he knows that he doesn't want her to know that he's curious. For a while, he shuffles around, picking out random books and pretending to study them thoroughly, until Emilia gets distracted by something, sitting down with a book and softly telling him to come find her if he has any questions.

That makes it easier, but still, he doesn't know where to look. It takes him a moment to get up the nerve- and honestly, why is approaching humans so much harder than he expected?- and walk up to a help desk. The woman behind it is wearing a name tag, so she must be one of the librarians, he reasons.

"What do you need?" she asks, her voice low, and he tries to match her tone, remembering that libraries are quiet places.

"There's a certain subject I'm trying to learn about," he says.
"Do you know what section you're looking for?"

"No," he confesses.

"Alright, that's fine. Could you give me some details, so that I can maybe point you in the right direction?"

"I'm interested in monogamy," he says. "Or, rather, the opposite. When hu- people seek out multiple partners."

For a moment, she just looks at him, before clearing her throat. "Alright, so, polygamy, then?"

"Hm, that does make sense as a name," he says. "Yes, exactly that."

She begins looking something up on her computer, saying, "This might take a minute," and he hopes that Emilia remains distracted long enough for him to find what he's looking for. When asked, he tells her he is interested in fiction stories as well as informative books, and that absolutely anything involving the subject will do. After quite a while, she prints out a list for him, saying, "This is what we have here, as well as the section it should be in. There are couple other things we did have in our system, but they're checked out now, so you might want to come back later, if you're still interested."

"Thank you so much, and I'm sorry for wasting so much of your time."

"It's really not a problem," she replies with a smile that he wants to describe as flirtatious, but he still isn't an expert on that subject. "Is this for a research project?"

"Yes, something like that," he says, before he begins his search in earnest. It takes him a moment to understand the different sections and how the books are organized, but he catches on, and soon has his arms full of different books, as well as unrelated ones. He's still feeling somewhat shy about Emilia discovering his latest interest, and wants to cover them as best as he can.

When they're ready to leave, she shows him how to operate the self-checkout counter, and he is able to put the books in the bags she brought for them without her getting a good look at what they all are.

That night, and many nights after that, he is kept up as he tries to learn what he can on the subject. He can't explain what has him so intrigued, but the more he learns, the more his curiosity grows, in a way that he doesn't understand. Most of the books he reads are either about a multitude of subjects, with polyamory and polygamy as parts of them, or fictional with a heavy focus on erotica, and he absorbs each source of information equally.

Still, his curiosity isn't satisfied.