"You have to take me out on a date first, silly!"
The blood that drained from Evan's face slowly came back. His horrified expression morphed to blankness, and his lips formed a small "o."
This caused Eternity to laugh out loud, teasingly.
If Eternity were any other woman, Evan would've felt humiliated, and his manly ego would have been crushed to pieces. But she was not.
𝘚𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘌𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺.
"You said that you wanted to treat me like a real lady," she explained after calming down, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes. "I hope that means I can also demand something similar to a real one."
Evan laughed awkwardly, scratching the back of his head. "You got me there. You're a smart one, aren't you?"
Eternity tilted her head again, her index finger at the side of her chin.
"Would you prefer for me to act dumbly?"
"Gods, no!" Evan laughed again, this time a hearty one. "I don't want you to be a dominatrix, but at the same time, I don't want you to act like a bimbo."
"Dominatrix?" She did it again, the tilting thing. "Bimbo?"
"Oh, are those words not 'programmed' into your system?" Evan joked.
"Sadly, no," Eternity answered honestly.
"What?" Evan looked taken aback. "You have a computer system installed in you?"
"It's not a computer system per se," Eternity clarified. "But I have something inside me that works the same way a brain works for a human."
"How does that work?" He was becoming intrigued by the minute.
"I absorb data from my surroundings." Seeing the confused look on Evan's face, Eternity continued. "Once I get minimally acquainted with something, my knowledge is quickly updated and expanded without further instruction or explanation. It's part of my quirk to adapt to modern society fully."
"I asked something I shouldn't have, and now my head hurts, and I don't understand." Evan facepalmed, shaking his head at his wrong decisions in life.
Eternity giggled.
It was a soft, high-pitched sound that made his stomach feel weird. It was like he was nervous, and something was moving inside his stomach. But he wasn't feeling nauseous—far from that.
He remembered hearing this back when he was in high school. This feeling was called 'butterflies in his stomach.'
God, how low has he fallen to feel like an innocent teenage girl who was deeply infatuated?
"How do I put this in layman's terms..." She looked down, deep in contemplation.
She suddenly perked up, as if an idea had come to her.
"That room!" She pointed to her left with her index finger. "What do you call it?"
"The kitchen?" He answered unsurely.
Not because he was unsure that it was called a kitchen, but rather because he was uncertain where this was going.
Eternity scampered to the kitchen like a small child. As soon as her foot touched the tile in the kitchen, she froze.
She stood there in silence for literally a minute.
"Eternity?" Evan called out, a bit creeped out at his doll's antics.
She finally turned around, a bright glint in her eyes.
"How would you like your eggs?"
"So you know how to cook now?" Evan arched an eyebrow at her. "Also, you do know that this line is a euphemism for wanting to have sex until morning comes, right?"
"The answer to your first question is yes. To the second: really?!" She looked flustered. "No, that's not what I meant! I genuinely want to ask if you like your eggs scrambled, sunny-side up, or boiled!"
"I know," he said, walking towards her and hugging her from behind. He buried his face in her soft, auburn hair and inhaled her scent. God, she was divine. "Wow, you're acing this innocent personality. It's turning me on."
"Ask me out on a date first," she reminded him, pouting.
"Oh, right." Evan just remembered what he said earlier.
Man is a fickle being, letting his head down there to work instead of what was at the top.
It was odd; he had met her less than half an hour ago, yet he'd been acting more aroused in those 30 minutes than his teenage years combined.
She must be made of magic to have this effect on him.
"Eternity," he said, grabbing her shoulders to make her turn around and meet his gaze. "How would you like to go on a date with me this afternoon?"
"What do you have in mind?" She replied shyly, as if their conversation wasn't scripted.
"Let's go to the mall."
"What is a 'mall'?"
"A place where you buy things," Evan explained calmly. "You do know the concept of money, right?"
She shook her head.
"Can you let me hold a sample?" she said. "So I can analyze it."
Evan raised an eyebrow at her mechanical term but fished his wallet from his pockets anyway and handed it to her.
Eternity took it from him eagerly. Too eager that for a moment, Evan got worried that she was a con artist pretending to be a doll, and she'd been waiting for this moment the whole time.
That seems more plausible than a life-like sex doll, to be honest.
But that didn't happen.
When the leathered material touched her fingertips, her moss-green eyes looked dazed for a second, as if her mind were analyzing robotically what she had just felt.
"Money is an important aspect in this capitalistic world." Eternity said monotonously. "Back in the olden times, different nations used minerals like gold as currencies to buy goods and services. It is--"
"Don't tell me you'll cite your sources in APA format?"
"APA format?"
He shook his head, laughing silently at his own joke.
"I think I finally understand how your 'quirk' works," Evan declared. "So when you touch an object relating to a concept like a kitchen tile for cooking and my wallet for money, you gain information and skills about them."
"I also gained the skill of money management," Eternity shared proudly.
"Good girl!" Evan ruffled her hair, chuckling. "Living a frugal life can get you places."
Eternity's cheeks were tinted pink, and so were her ears. She was biting her lips, looking down at the floor.
"Is something wrong?" Evan asked.
"You called me a 'good girl'." She lowered her head, trying to draw a curtain on her face with her hair.
"You don't like it?"
"I do!" She answered rather enthusiastically, meeting his gaze with her moist eyes. "I... I love it."
Evan didn't know how to react.
How adorable can she get?!
Seeing her reaction, his heart started beating fast, and his stomach was again filled with butterflies. But in the end, he gathered his bearings.
He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead.
"How adorable that you have a praise kink." He teased.
She turned a deeper shade of red and pouted.