(Lou Xia POV)
Watching Raina's ears and tail drop was a good indicator of how she felt because of my words, but it did not change how I felt about all of this, and I walked past her towards Vale's house.
I did not hear anything behind me, and nothing got in my way as I walked, so it was easy for me to make it all the way to Vale's bedroom.
I had never been shown what her bedroom looked like, as she merely stated that it was upstairs when she gave me the tour. So when I walked in and saw the large, almost barren room, I felt like something was wrong.
It was not like I expected her to have much stuff, as she had only been in this world for a few months and seemed to use her large space-ring-like inventory to store most things, but I at least expected more than what amounted to a bed and table. At least there was a small dresser off to the side to help with filling the space a little, but it did not do much on its own.
Placing Vale down on the bed, I checked her body once more to make sure that she was still fine.
Not finding anything wrong once more, I turned to look at the rest of the room.
I wanted to change some things about it and add some stuff, but I had nothing on me, so I could only plan for the future. However, I did not want to impose myself on her either, so I needed to think of how to give her these things as a gift.
I would also need to understand what type of style she would like before buying it for her as well.
So many things to think about when doing this and not enough time spent with her to learn about it. The time part could be fixed, though, so all I needed to figure out was an excuse to stay around her.
Sadly, I would not be able to spend all my time with her as I needed to take some time to meditate and advance my cultivation. However, that took so long, and I did not want to be separated from her for a large amount of time like that.
Thankfully or not, I would have plenty of time to think about this as I sat here and waited for Vale to wake up.
(Vale POV)
Slowly coming to, I felt that my hair and fur had a slightly crusted and matted feeling, akin to when you let salt water dry in your hair without washing it.
In my past life, I would not have cared that much about this, but that was when I did not have that much hair or even any fur to worry about. My skin and body were also not as sensitive then as it is now. This only made the problem worse, and I immediately wanted to go back to my room and take a nice long bath because of this.
It was at this point that I finally realized that I was not feeling the ground beneath my face but a soft fabric beneath my back and my body crushing my two tails.
That last part shocked my brain for a second, and I jumped up from the bed in slight shock before spinning around and trying to look at my new tail.
It was not that hard, unlike when I was first trying to do this, and I controlled my tails to curl around in front of me.
The first thing I noticed was the increased length of my tails. Originally, my first one was only around three feet in length, which shrunk down to about two and a half feet along with the rest of my body. The added length was only about three inches, so it was not much, but it was still something significant.
It was then that I noticed both of my tails were stuck together in one massive lump. This only made it to where I could now feel the sensations I was not aware of and wanted to go dive into the bath even faster now.
Looking up from my tail, scanning the room to get my bearings, I locked eyes with the one person I did not expect to be here.
Seeing Lou Xia sitting on the bed in front of me, I was shocked as I remembered that Mom said I was not allowed to meet with her for the next few days. I then noticed that the bed she was sitting on was mine and that we were somehow in my room.
This scared me slightly as I did not know what mom would do if she found her here. She had made it very clear that I was not supposed be seeing anyone else but the people in the house for the next few days.
I then wanted to say something when Lou Xia beat me to it and asked me with a worried tone, "Are you alright? Is there anything wrong?"
I felt a strange emotion I was not entirely certain of when I heard that, but I quickly threw that thought out of my mind with a shake of my head, which caused Lou Xia to look at me weirdly. However, I spoke up before she could do anything else and said, "Mom said that I was not supposed to see you for the next few days. So you should leave before she finds you here."
I was hoping that she would at least take note of my words when I said that and leave, but for some reason, it caused Lou Xia to get angry instead.
She did not say anything, though, and only stood up from the bed before grabbing me in a tight hug that felt like she was trying to squeeze the air out of me.
This only confused me even more, as I was not expecting something like this.
She held on to me like this for what felt like a moment too long, only letting me go almost a minute later.
She then said, "Raina met me in the shrine when I was carrying you to the house and she has not done anything yet, so I think you're fine."
I was slightly surprised by that and what she was implying, but she did not stop and pointed at the bathroom while saying, "By the way, weren't you getting ready for the day?"
Hearing that, I felt my cheeks heat up slightly before darting into the bathroom behind me to escape from this situation.