Having fulfilled her end of Inkaro's demand, for her choice of wardrobe during the impending festival, the guy was beholden to the terms of his own making, meaning he had to indulge Lizu and allow her to fufil her desire of sating her sweet tooth; however, he knew letting her have any of the treats intended for the festival was a no go, soley because the little Lizu would unquestionably be tempted to ask for more of them, should she get so much as a crumb from any of them. So instead of taking such a risk, Inkaro went out of his way to make a quadro of treats, ones which didn't match any of the others he'd made for the festival stands.

  So, with her treats balanced on her chonky tail and Inkaro's sudden departure from the house forcing her to carry those treats herself, Lizu took it upon herself to be responsible and be pragmatic in where she'd situate herself for the best eating experience, which wasn't that hard of a choice. Because the chance of her risking the floor being the one to taste her snacks first, should she try to ascend the staircase or fly, was absolutely off the table. She wasn't about to share it with anything, not even if a second her appeared.

  Ultimately, she decided on the sofa being her choice, her only rational one at that, because the bee girls would be attracted to the food if she went outside.

  Steadily and in no way rushing herself, Lizu placed each of the plates carrying her snacks on top of the coffee table, one by one, before plopping her butt on the sofa. Taking a second to breathe in pheromon-worthy fumes of the treats, Little Lizu apprecatively clapped her hands together as she gazed upon the sizeable assortment of treats: a cake-sized blueberry muffin, a lemon-flavoured pudding that had been sized up to match a pumpkin pie in scale, a pumpkin pie, and a fruit cake that looked like a banana.

  But before she could even dream of disturbing the form of her tasty treats, Lizu's phone buzzed from somewhere within her onesie. So after pulling an arm through its sleeve and a bit of rumaging about, Lizu fished out her buzzing phone from wherever it had been stored within the onesie and held it up to her face, before pressing accept at seeing it was Nuenala.

  The call went through, and Lizu could guess where her friend was, most likely in the metalwork section of her cousin's workshop, given the background behind her.

  As Lizu held up her touchscreen phone with a plain, pale violet to silver gradient fold-up phone case to her face, holding it at such an angle that an upshot of her chin was the only thing Nuenala could see on her phone screen, she waved to Nuenala.

  "Hey, Lizu, I've got a qu... I would make a comment on your shrunken state..., but that feels too much of a self-jab for me to risk," Nuenala cheekily remarked over the phone, finding a modicum of amusement from the upward angled shot. But somehow, the short yukachuo had inadvertently allowed a small amount of that usual attitude of hers to sneak through her tone alone, which Lizu picked up on in an instant and just as instantly grinned at, ominously so.

  "Is that why you decided to have Inkaro collect the last part from your cousin's place instead of bringing it here yourself, like every other time: just so little ol' me wouldn't be able to tempt you with my youthful face?" Lizu's playful remark, twisting her head at such an angle as to invoke even further omens out of her ominous grin, "Because we both know why you ham up your 'anger' for being stuck as a kid~"

  Nuenala shot her head to her left, pouting faintly, with her eyes firmly shut in feigned displeasure.

  "Say what you want, you're the one with the old person angle, so who's really acting in a belying way, huh?" Nuenala followed up her words with a haughty but playful scoff, lacking even the tiniest bit of shame or offence for being so blatantly exposed. Well, it was in Lizu's subtle way where only the person she was talking about would know they were being called out.

  Just loving the cocky expression on her friend, who she now also matched in physical age, Lizu happily clapped her hands in earnest; however, given her child-like giggling only added to the mental image for Nuenala, Lizu came off as a genuine kid, one without a single burden from the woes of adulthood. But that mental image was discriminately shattered by the dragolyte's abrupt shift from playful giggles to contentious chuckling, and the donning twisted grin that she soon wore, one which almost bordered on dementedly cute.

  Speaking with a snarky tone, Lizu smugly retorted, "At least you can see my full face with this angle right now, normally you'd only get-"

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  There was a metal roar that blasted out through Lizu's phone, silencing and interrupting Lizu in the middle of her teasing as Nuenala remained perfectly unfazed by the sound of overbearing metalworking going on around her. Lizu might've been impressed by the other girl's resilience, had the dragolyte not been on the cusp of having her eardrums join a heavy metal band with how heavily they were drumming up a storm in her head.

  "Careful! Can't you lot see the gremlin is on the phone right now? Have some patience," Nuenala's cousin bellowed out from somewhere just out of sight from Lizu's view on her phone, but Nuenala's deadpanned expression at her cousin's choice of nickname was on full display for Lizu to lap up. Lizu responded to Nuenala's annoyance by matching the yukachuo's expression, naturally, in a form of teasing.

  Knowing how fruitless trying combat Lizu on the battlefield of words was, Nuenala elected to ignore the efforts made by her friend to annoy her, and instead asked any sort of question to redirect the focus of the conversation back to Lizu.

  "I've been meaning to ask you two things: the first being, what do you even need all these parts for? These designs would suggest it's designed for demon magic, so I doubt it's for either of you two. So who is it for then, if it isn't you?" Nuenala asked wordily as she tried to frame her inquisitive question in such a way so that it didn't sound judgmental. That question caused Lizu to pause every instance of motion she was presently employing.

  Keeping herself from taking a bite out of the pumpkin pie slice she had dangled in front of her face, Lizu attempted to show she had some existing self-control by not eating it before answering Nuenala. But the little dragolyte just couldn't help herself and devoured the slice of pie in one go, before finally answering with a single name.

  "Louailanye," Lizu stated sharply, speaking with a professional tone, but an attempt at professionalism that she tried to portray was completely overshadowed by her kiddy tone, making it hard for anyone, especially Nuenala of all people, to take her seriously. Such a lack of outward seriousness wasn't lost on her, and her accent not having the punch or impact she'd wanted didn't help; it left Lizu to defeatedly slouch in her seat, followed by a munching noise as she was momentarily out of frame, before unslouching back into view with blueberry frosting on her cheek.

  "And what was the other?"

  "Oh yeah, why is your hair so short? It wasn't like that at any point in the past when I've seen you, "Nuenala commented as she watched Lizu twirl her fingers through her significantly shorter hair that now only reached down to her neck. Lizu didn't answer straight away, giving Nuenala the wrong impression. The slow and methodical movement of her fingers would've suggested a sense of disheartened acceptance at the sudden loss of something someone once cherished, but the almost bordering on miniacale with how satisfied of a look she had plastered on her face made it hard for Nuenala to even consider that Lizu was upset about the short hair.

  "Huh? Oh, that... maybe it regressed as well, and since you can't uncut hair, it created the illusion I had shorter hair as a kid, you know?" Lizu stated, speaking somewhat in a hastened tempo before stuffing her face with some pumpkin pie as she averted her eyes from the phone screen.

  At seeing Lizu's oddly bashful reaction, and briefly wondering if the length and speed of hair growth had some effect on the age-altering curse/spell herself, Nuenala raised an eyebrow when she almost accepted Lizu at her word before finally flinching as something hit her: "But Inkaro's didn't change when he de-aged; are you sure that's the case?"

  For a moment, Lizu defensively squirmed in place on the sofa, letting her tail weakly flop beside her as she allowed her mental control of it to wander over to the task of struggling to think of any sort of cover-up instead of silly motor controls.

  She was running on mental fumes, and it showed.

  "Well... you see... okay fine, I wanted to cater a certain look, while I look like this, okay, and having long hair totally messed up the vibe of it."

  "Otaku!" Nuenala uttered bluntly and ever-so-coldly that it almost seemed to be judgmental, which wasn't helped by the sharp glare she employed all of a sudden. That tone and shameful crown were the last thing she wanted to hear, for the soul-crushing reason being it was the exclusive way her sisters used to instigate their shared teasing of her.

  "Hey!" Lizu called out in unquestionable shame, made all the more true by her suddenly squeaky voice and the childishly cute way she flailed her limbs about, swatting at the air with a vengeance to try and defend herself. "This way, that Navoxel prune won't recognise me! Okay!"

  "That and she wanted me to make new clothing using her hair," Inkaro stated informatively as he teleported right behind Lizu, with a hand-sized box in hand.

  "Aro!" a very pink-cheeked Lizu squeeled at the top of her lungs in pure embarrassment, inadvertently shooting her voice straight into her phone and Nuenala in particular. Luckily, or unluckily, her cute outburst was at such a high octave, not even super hearing had any hope of picking up on it, so only G.Galore got the pleasure of experiencing such a lovely sound.