The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable, but it was still charged with a static electricity that had nothing to do with Lohan’s mana.
Lisa could feel every inch of his Slime body covering hers. The position was, technically, functional for the massage and the Sacred Light injection, but now that the initial stress of the meeting was fading, her awareness began to register the compromising nature of that closeness.
Whether she wanted it or not, Halon normally stuck to her body during combat, and even knowing he was a man, Lisa had never sensed any trace of ulterior motives or malice on his part in doing so.
But now, in a situation like this where he was actively massaging her after they’d shared such pleasant moments together a few days earlier, Lisa felt her cheeks grow warm.
Even though she was a magical fox and he was a slime, at their core, they were still a young man and a young woman feeling a growing, dangerous attraction.
Isabella’s skin beneath her white fur began to heat up, and it wasn’t because of her Spirit Fire. She felt a blush rise up her neck, and her tails, which had been relaxed until then, gave a small, involuntary jolt.
"Halon... don’t you think your ’Relaxation Armor’ is... a little too close for comfort?" Lisa asked, trying to reclaim her cold tone of authority, but failing miserably. Her voice came out shaky and full of an embarrassment that made her want to bury her head under her paws. "If Alice or Dylan walked in here right now and saw the Vice President literally lying on top of the President... I’d never be able to give an order again without them starting to laugh."
Lohan noticed the shift in her mood and, instead of backing off, felt a wave of boldness run through his core.
Even knowing there were risks, from the signs Lisa had shown, Lohan also sensed she was giving him enough leeway to understand there was desire in her tone of voice too, so he smiled. "Really, Lisa? You’re worried about what your subordinates will think? To be honest, I think they’d be impressed by our ’leadership synchronization.’ Besides, I doubt Dylan would have the guts to interrupt a level 11 Sacred Light purification process being used in such an important mental healing process for his boss. They value you too much not to see this in a positive light, right?"
He moved a small extension of his biomass to the top of her head, massaging the base of Lisa’s ears with a deliberate gentleness. From that moment he felt her body shudder and a small sound, almost like a muffled purr, escape the fox’s throat.
"You’re a shameless scoundrel, Halon," Lisa whispered, but she made no move to push him away. On the contrary, she settled in even further under his cool, comfortable weight.
This was something completely new to her, someone who had once practically hated men who approached her with ulterior motives... maybe because Halon had always shown so much truth in what he said, given her so much trust in so many important moments, and treated her like a real friend, not just a stepping stone to professional success, this kind of advance from him strangely wasn’t bothering her in the slightest, unlike what had happened in the past with other people.
"You’re taking advantage of my exhausted state to gain ground, Halon. That’s a pretty low war tactic, even for someone like you."
"Someone like me?" Lohan asked with a teasing smile. "What do you mean by ’someone like me’?"
She looked at him with half closed eyes, and rolled them before answering. "In the battles we fight against monsters or other Players, you always come up with some outlandish idea to beat our enemies in a completely unexpected way, using a bunch of different evolutions to win fights in ways nobody sees coming... it’s obvious I have to keep my guard up against you."
Despite saying that, she showed no physical sign of resistance to anything he did.
"I prefer to call it ’affective resource optimization,’ Bella," Lohan replied, his tone now openly teasing. "Normal girls get massages from their best friends when they’re stressed, right? At least that’s what I’ve seen in movies online."
Isabella opened one golden eye and looked at the blue mass covering her. "So you watch movies like that, Halon? Ouch, that explains a lot about your erratic behavior. Who knew our tactical genius had a heart trained by cheap internet soap operas."
Lohan laughed, a vibrant sound that echoed in her mind. "Hey, the movies I watched carry an emotional weight you have no idea about! I actually think you needed a bit of that intensity in your life, Bella, like, for example, that delicious barbecue we’re having such a hard time making happen."
Lisa fell silent for a long moment, processing his words.
The Sacred Light kept flowing, washing away her exhaustion and bringing a clarity that frightened her.
She realized Lohan was right. With him, she didn’t need to calculate every word or keep her guard up against corporate spies. Under his touch, she was just Lisa. And Lisa was starting to like the Lohan hiding beneath Halon’s blue gelatin terribly.
"You know... Alice asked me this morning how your whole reaction had been about my real world identity," Lisa said, changing the subject to something safer, even though the physical closeness still made her nervous. "So I told her about our dates and our recent adventures... I don’t know if you noticed, but it’s such a pain dealing with the constant suggestive looks she keeps giving whenever we’re together..."
Lohan paused the massage for a split second before resuming with even more energy as he laughed. "Hahahaha, so that’s why she was acting like that?! Holy shit, I really did notice she was acting differently, but I had no idea why until now... now it all makes sense!! Hahaha."
Lisa let out a small laugh, also finding the situation funny, and also relieved by the lighthearted way he handled it, not getting mad at her for telling her best friend about something personal between them, making the atmosphere in the office even more pleasant. "Yeah... Alice is usually pretty intense, especially when it comes to things like this... but watch out, because just as she’s a sweet, understanding, excited soul when people treat me well, she turns into a beast the moment she senses malicious intentions that shouldn’t be there... you’re in danger, boy."
But to her surprise, the two small, cute eyes on the Slime’s face suddenly focused completely on hers, and with a seriousness she hadn’t even known was possible to convey through eyes like those, he replied in a low voice with a confidence that made the girl’s heart race even faster. "I’d happily take that risk."
He slid his mass up a bit further, so that his core ended up almost in direct contact with the spot where Lisa’s heart beat in her chest.
He didn’t even need synaptic synchronization to feel her racing pulse, physical confirmation that Isabella was far from being as indifferent as she was trying to appear.
Lohan felt a deep fondness for Isabella, who had been one of the few people in this world who hadn’t treated him unfairly, even when he was just a weak, useless slime, and a weak, unprotected boy in college. Never taking advantage of her status, both as a resident of the Upper Zone and as heiress to the largest financial group in the world, to control him.
"Dylan sent me the final list of recruits who passed the second round of interviews," Lisa said, trying to focus on work to ignore the addictive feeling of Lohan’s touch. "We’re going to have some excellent new members, Halon. With such an excellent group coming together under us, I wonder if I’ll be able to be as good a leader for them as you’re proving to be..."
At first, when the Guild was just her and Halon, or even with the arrival of Alice’s group, Lisa still felt like a great leader for the group, but with the arrival of Dylan’s group, and then the arrival of the Silver Lotus group, that confidence of hers had dropped quite a bit, especially when comparing her leadership to Halon’s, who seemed born for it.
He had so many outlandish, great ideas for everyone in the guild, to the point that it seemed like he’d already lived through a game like this before.
Lohan vibrated his membrane, conveying as much reassurance as he could. "You’re going to be amazing, Lisa. Even if for now you’re still not sure about a lot of things coming our way at Astralis, isn’t it exactly for moments like these that we should have trustworthy people under us? I’m terrible at handling the business side of our guild, but that’s what you, Alice, and Dylan are amazing at."
Lisa closed her eyes again, feeling the Sacred Light reach the peak of its effectiveness. The stress from the family meeting completely wiped away, replaced by a fullness and comfort that made her feel invincible. "Thank you, Halon. Really. For everything."
"Don’t mention it, little fox," Lohan replied, his mental voice now whispered and intimate. He kept massaging her, feeling the connection between them solidify into something greater than a simple game friendship.
The conversation continued in an ambiguous way for the next few hours, with teasing exchanged and veiled confessions under the pulse of the Astralis tree.
Lohan savored every second of that compromising position, growing closer to Isabella in a way the human Lohan would have found very difficult to do in the real world.
And Isabella, protected by Lisa’s facade and the comfort of the blue jelly, allowed herself to be cared for, allowed herself to be vulnerable, and, for the first time in many years, allowed herself to simply be happy.
There, on that pedestal at the top of Elysium’s firmament, Lohan Hayes and Isabella Vance proved that not even the vacuum of space or the barriers of social class could keep two stars from meeting and shining together in the darkness.