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Merlgeim was feeling something she never usually felt; anxiety. Though often spent time with her these days, this was the first time she was ever going on something which was mutually understood between her and Nananori to be a date. Though they had basically been going out for ages now, this was the first time they had ever really acted official about it.
And now she was running late.
Merlgeim bent her leg and tapped her toes impatiently against the ground as she leaned against a nearby wall, drawing the momentary glances of some nearby passersby, but she paid them little attention. With her anxiousness reaching its climax, she instinctively tapped against something else—the linkshell in her ear.
“Are you sure you got this?”
“What do you mean?” The chipper voice on the end of the line asked.
“You know what I mean, Estelle.” Merlgeim grumbled, rubbing an open palm against her temple.
“Come onnnnn, give me a little credit!” The elezen in question giggled through the line. “I'm an expert when it comes to this sort of thing!”
“Right…” The much sterner Roegadyn frowned, sounding rather unconvinced. Though Estelle was quick at times to bill herself as a self-proclaimed “love expert”, as far as Merlgeim was aware, she had never even been on a date herself, at least not in the many years in which they had been friends.
Still…
However inexperienced Estelle might have been when it came to the subject Merlgeim was even worse off. She couldn't exactly bring herself to refuse such eagerly given help.
“Just make sure the apartment is ready for later tonight.” Merlgeim sighed, shaking her head. Though she could be quite ditzy, Estelle could be incredibly reliable at times. Merlgeim just had to put her trust in this being one of those times.
“You got it!” Estelle chirped in a tone which made her smile on the other side of the linkshell obvious. “This date is going to be perfect—just you wait!”
“Right…” Merlgeim frowned, seeming less reassured by the explicit mention of her date. “At least make sure the apartment is clean, okay?”
“Of course, course…” The elezen muttered, nodding on the other end of the line. “You know—it’s a good thing you keep those dorky figures of yours in your room so I don't have to hide them or anything!”
“H-hey!” The Roegadyn yelped into the linkshell. She was surprisingly easy to embarrass if you knew what buttons to press, and Estelle certainly did.
“Oh, unless you were planning to take her to bed on the first date—that's exciting!~”
“Uh…”
Glancing down, Merlgeim nearly jumped out of her skin upon seeing Nananori standing around and sheepishly waiting for her, having arrived without her notice.
“Sorry—gotta go! Bye!” Merlgeim stammered, ignoring the trailing ‘byeeeeeee’ that echoed out from the linkshell as hung up. “Sorry about that.” She chuckled, giving Nananori a dumb grin while reaching up to awkwardly rub the back of her neck
“N-no, it's fine.” Nananori stammered, having, at least as far as her date was concerned, thankfully overheard none of the call. “Sorry for being late.” she blushed, making the source of her own embarrassment rather obvious.
“It's fine, it's fine…” Merlgeim assured her, already forgetting about her former impatience in favor of feeling even worse butterflies in her stomach. Unable to come up with anything else to say, she simply laughed weakly at nothing in particular. Nananori returned the gesture with an equally awkward, momentary silence which she eventually realized that only she could break.
“S-so… dinner?”
“R-right! Of course!”
---
“All right…” Merlgeim muttered, clumsily twisting the key to her apartment. Her heart was pounding in her chest, to the point where she was seriously concerned that Nananori might be able to hear it. “S-so this is my place!” She gestured, opening the door and presenting the apartment to her date in the same gentlemanly way a butler might.
“Uh…” Nananori stared, slightly taken aback.
“Does… does it always look like that?”
Merlgeim could immediately tell that something was wrong. Leaning into the doorway, and accidentally bumping against Nananori as a result of her much broader figure, she began to feel not the overwhelming embarrassment which she might otherwise have expected to feel, but an incredible sense of irritation. Her apartment was still a mess—it usually was—but for whatever reason, the entire space had been decorated, if you could even call it that, with wine bottles. Said bottles were practically everywhere, left laying atop tables, shelves, couches—if it was a surface that was in the apartment, then it likely had at least one bottle left on top of it, and usually more. Some of them had ribbons and bows tied to them—the sloppiness of how they had been fastened varying—while others did not. It was almost enough to distract from the small amount of flower petals that had been scattered throughout the space, a feature which might have truly driven Merlgeim mad with embarrassment if she wasn’t so focused on the bottles.
Slamming the door in both of their faces, Merlgeim seemed like she was about to burst a blood vessel—but her anger quickly gave way to a relenting sigh. In her mind, the only possible way out of this situation was to simply tell the truth.
“So… I might have asked a friend of mine who crashes her sometimes to help clean up the apartment for me.” She frowned, easily recalling the many assurances Estelle had given her over the linkshell. “And I guess this is her idea of a joke or something.”
“...Right.” Nananori nodded, though took some lengths to hide her skepticism. Merlgeim was not exactly known for her cleanliness—or sobriety—among adventuring circles, and though this instance might have been a little more extreme than the sights she usually saw or had heard about, it still fell somewhat within the range of her general expectations for her. Still, she seemed surprised by the sight of her apartment’s current state, so…
“We can still go in, if you want.” she shook her head, giving her the benefit of the doubt. It wasn't as if she was unfamiliar with the Roegadyn’s more surly traits by now, in any case.
“Only if you’re okay with that.” Merlgeim blushed, though didn’t stop herself from almost immediately opening up the door again. Nananori nodded in a reply, giving her a vote of confidence before entering. “Just give me a moment to clean the place up.” She muttered, ducking slightly to avoid hitting her head on the doorframe as she entered in from behind and flicked on the secondary set of aetheric lights which Estelle hadn’t left on like the first.
“You know, besides the bottles this is actually pretty nice.” Nananori hummed to her own surprise, looking around the small, but what she assumed to usually be cozy living space. Knowing Merlgeim, she had expected things to be a little more bare. “Great decor.” she nodded, only for her pleasant expression to crease just as her ears visibly twitched.
“Thanks—humphh… gotta spend that Gil on something!” The well-to-do adventure grunted, then laughed, as she picked up a set of bottles that had been strewn about. ‘Maybe this won’t be so bad.’ She thought to herself, though was immediately distracted by the sound of the bottles she was carrying clanging together. “Huh…? Some of these aren’t even full.” She muttered with a sigh, though not without cursing Estelle under her breath. If Nananori had caught it, she certainly didn’t show it.
“Sorry, did yo—did someone leave the water running?” The viera suddenly asked, fixated on an incongruous detail of her own. “You hear that too, right?”
Stopping in her tracks, Merlgeim pursed her lips, then frowned as she found herself honing in on the same sound Nananori was hearing with just a little focus. “I think that might be coming from the bathroom…” she muttered, before turning to walk down the hall. “Just give me a second.”
Nananori nodded, watching as Merlgeim quickly walked away. The creaking of what had to be another door opening soon followed, along with a sudden shout and the loud clanging of bottles. her heart pounding with sudden worry, Nananori quickly jumped up and bounded down the hall, avoiding the bottles she had dropped that were now rolling down the hall as she quickly made her way to Merlgeim’s side.
“Are you okay?” she asked breathlessly, twisting herself around Merlgeim’s back and over towards her side in an attempt to look at whatever had startled her so incredibly. her heart immediately skipped a beat once she was able to properly look into the bathroom and spotted what had to be the fattest elezen which she, or probably anyone, had ever seen—totally filling and overflowing from what was apparently Merlgeim’s bathtub. The bathtub wasn't even insignificant in size, having been installed for the use of a Roegadyn after all; its occupant was simply bigger.
The empty bottles Merlgeim had mentioned immediately came to make sense, as said occupant had clearly recently passed out from drunkenness. She was loudly snoring, her massively swollen chest bobbing up and down with each loud exhale. Each breast was individually larger than the entirety of Nananori’s abdomen, though were thankfully kept modest by a jet black tank top which at least concealed the most sensitive bits. Said tank top was stretched to the point of being drum tight as it clung on to her frame for dear life, with at least a few small tears having formed here and there. Her chest was framed by the enormously bloated upper arms which jutted out like wings, much too fat to rest normally at her sides. Her forearms were smaller, but still appeared similarly inflated with fat, while her pudgy hands were not much better. All of this rested atop a wobbling mountain of bronze belly fat, which although rolled, oozed out uniformly and covered the entirety of the tub’s surface beneath its thick cover. It seeped forward and was crowned by a naval which seemed almost ominously deep and was the source of a cleft which was etched into the lower most remainder of her gut’s amorphous surface as it sagged heavily over the tub’s lip. Her stomach was wobbling—clearly unable to reach a point of being fully settled with how she was positioned —and letting out a low, but audible sloshing sound with every jiggle as it shook like the gelatinous slimes she and Merlgeim had so often seen on their adventures.
It was impossible to tell if said sound was the result of the sheer amount of adipose her stomach was made up of, its contents, or both, but it quickly became obvious that this was the sound that Nananori and Merlgeim had heard. They both stood there for a moment, completely dumbstruck and partially stunned into silence, but likely for very different reasons. This time it was Merlgeim who finally broke the silence, causing Nananori—who had still been spun around her back—to stumble as she angrily strode forward.
“Estelle! You dumbass!” Merlgeim shouted, forgetting her present company and settling into her usual crude manner of speaking as she grabbed ahold of one of the enornous elezen’s massive ham hock arms and began shaking. If she was surprised by how deep her hands sunk into their surface, she certainly didn’t show it. “What the HELL happened to helping me get the apartment ready for my date!” She continued, causing Nananori to break out in a sudden blush.
“Snrrrk! Muhherl…? Ish that yuhh?” The elezen—Estelle, apparently—muttered as she was roused from her slumber. Whether her slurred speech was caused by her drunkenness, fatigue, or the sheer amount of flab which seemed to cling to her face was impossible to tell. Despite her drunken state, she suddenly smiled, her sudden shift in mood indicating an ability to grasp the particulars of her current situation quickly, if rather tactlessly.
“Oohhhh… Shoorwwy!” Estelle apologized with a sudden giggle, causing her body to slosh with a groaning sound more ominous than even the one it had made when Merl was angrily shaking her. “I waaass shetting shumm shhttuff uhhp for youhhh, buuhhhht… Ihh gouhht ahh lihhtle dihhstracted.~”
“A little?” Merlgeim fumed, both unsure of how to deal with the mountain of lard overflowing from her bathroom and now properly upset. “You’re bigger than a chocobo carriage!” If Estelle was upset by her insult, or even registered it, she definitely didn’t show it.
“Ishhh… ngghh…. Issshh thaahht thuhh—HIC! Ishh thahht thuh guhhhy?” Merlgeim’s not-so-welcome house guest sputtered as she leaned over slightly from her beached position to get a better look at Nananori, causing both the bathtub and the floor to shudder ominously from her doing so. “Wuhh… she reahhlly ihhs cuhhte!” Estelle couldn’t help but beam earnestly, her swollen cheeks greatly emphasizing the expression as they sagged around its curve. Nananori, for her part, said nothing, all while the veil of scarlet which had fully enveloped her face continued to redden even more.
“That’s it!” The fed up Roegadyn began to shout. “Get out! Now!!!” She bellowed, again beginning to pull at Estelle’s overly ample amounts of flab in a futile attempt to wrestle her out from the tub.
“Fihhnne…” Estelle muttered, letting out a pout that hardly had made mpact on Merlgeim, but somehow managed to make Nananori feel somewhat bad for her. Wobbling around in place for a moment, she did her best to move her impossibly large stomach out of the way of her arms, then grabbed a hold of as much of the tub’s edge as she could with her overly pudgy hands while it was uncovered. Having done so, she began to pound her hands against the porcelain while grunt loudly. It seemed like she was at least attempting to lift herself out from the tub, but appeared to be making very little if no progress. Merlgeim busying herself with angrily josling her around while pulling her out all on her own instead of working with her was hardly helping matters. Nananori thought about looking away—her sensitive ears could hardly stand the thunderous cacophony of groaning and sloshing that was now coming from the tub—but just couldn’t stop herself from staring. This fruitless endeavor went on for a moment or two, only for it to finally end in the only way that it could have possibly been expected to end.
PLOP!
Whether it was the result of Merlgeim’s meddling or Estelle flailing around, the elezen's undersized tank top suddenly came to be pushed upward, resulting in her left most, elephantine teet slipping out from the shirt and slapping against her stomach with a loud and thunderous slap. It was left fully exposed, sunken nipple and all, the sight of which was enough to cause even Merlgeim to abandon her anger in response to the overwhelming flood of embarrassment that followed. Within an instant she had let go of Estelle and was already backing away, effectively erasing any movement either of them had managed to achieve and leaving the cartoonishly obese elezen sliding back into the tub with a dull slosh. Another thud soon followed, along with a sudden swoon from Estelle who had almost immediately passed back out into her stupor as her flab came to press up heavily against the bottom of the tub once more. Overwhelmed and not sure what to do, rather than attempt to wake her back up, Merlgeim simply looked around the room in a panic. The fact that Nananori seemed to have already decided to vacate the bathroom on her own as soon as Estelle indecently exposed herself gave at least some small modicum of relief. She took a few steps backwards, unable to take her eyes off Estelle as she inched out of the room, then slammed the door as soon as she was able to. Now reunited with a similarly embarrassed Nananori, another awkward silence soon followed. This time Merlgeim thought might swallow her whole, though it was eventually broken by a nervous, and then eventually very genuine fit of laughter from Nananori. Merlgeim stood there for a moment, very much still embarrassed, but found herself unable to stop from eventually joining in. This went on for a minute or two, until they were both finally able to settle down.
“I’m really sorry about all that.” Merlgeim apologized, sounding only half serious as she wiped a tear from her eye. “I really wasn’t expecting all that, you know.”
“I wasn’t either.” Nananori added with a giggle, not entirely sure if she was acting appropriately, but unable to really ignore the absurdity of the situation.
“You know, she’s a little chubby, but she usually really isn’t that big…” Merlgeim muttered to herself, glancing back at the bathroom door. “I wonder what happened to her.”
“Maybe it was the wine?” Nananori shrugged, being just as confused about the actual mechanics of whatever it was that just happened as well. Though she had heard of her before, she had never met Estelle until today.
“Hmm…” The apartment’s owner muttered to herself, bending down to pick up one of the bottles she had dropped earlier. Taking a closer look, she saw that the bottle didn’t have your typical label that a store bought bottle of wine might have, but instead a handwritten list of ingredients. Reading it, she saw in addition to the usual ingredients included in wine, there were certain… alchemical properties to the drink that shouldn’t normally be present. She knew that Estelle dabbled in such things, sometimes, and always seemed rather mischievous while doing so—maybe the wine was some kind of concoction of her own? To her own relief, the list was concluded with a simple note that read ‘TEMPORARY,” written in large, red ink.
“Still, it’s a good thing we didn’t drink any then…” Merlgeim thought aloud, only for an aetheric lightbulb to go off in her head. She and Estelle had gotten drunk together a number of times in the past, and she had accidentally revealed certain… preferences of hers when she had. Preferences that she was sure by now that Nananori probably knew too, given the time they spent together and their relationship. It dawned on her that maybe Estelle had been trying to help her out more than she realized, in her own weird little way anyway.
“Say…” Merlgeim spoke, standing back up. With a mischievous smile, she presented one of the still opened bottles to her favorite viera in a way which made sure she was able to read the label. “What do you say we salvage what we can of tonight, rent a room at an inn, and test that little theory of yours?”
Nananori swallowed hard, then blushed—but she hardly refused.