Wait, why is Gabrielle in my bed?
Leonard looked completely bewildered. He even began to wonder whether he had lost part of his memory. Had something happened in the middle that he knew nothing about?
The furious pounding at the door disturbed the two sleeping little girls, but neither of them woke up. They only wriggled unconsciously, their innocent little faces showing the faintest trace of grievance.
Two girls of nearly the same age making exactly the same expression like that would melt anyone's heart no matter where they saw it.
Except when it was on his bed.
Leonard turned pale with shock and immediately tried to jump up, but the two girls were holding on to him far too tightly, and he couldn't pull free at all.
By then, the violent knocking outside had already turned into banging, and Fleur's furious voice came with it.
"Leonard, open the door! Open it right now, do you hear me?!"
"Y you you wait a second!" Leonard panicked.
It was summer. Even though the temperature around Leonard's house was fairly mild, he had gone to sleep wearing nothing but pajama bottoms.
If he opened the door for Fleur and she saw him like this, that would be a disaster.
Gabrielle ending up in his bed was already an unchangeable fact, but at the very least, if he could put some clothes on first, his public humiliation would not be quite so complete.
Unfortunately, Fleur gave Leonard no such chance. Just as he was desperately trying to shake off Gabrielle and Claudia, Fleur's angry chanting sounded from outside the door.
"Open Sesame!"
With a spell that sounded almost like a joke, Leonard's bedroom door exploded open as if it had been smashed apart by a battering ram. Dust and splinters flew everywhere.
Through the cloud of debris, Fleur strode in with a face like frost, and at a glance she saw Leonard tangled up with the two little girls.
"Le on ard!" Fleur roared like an enraged tigress. "You pervert!"
Smack!
A handprint landed squarely on Leonard's face.
Under that point-blank lion's roar, the two little culprits finally woke up, still bleary with sleep.
"Good morning, Leonard." Claudia rubbed her eyes and let out a little yawn.
Even after sleeping all night, Claudia, whose true form was a little Unicorn, had no morning breath at all, no sleep in the corners of her eyes, and hair as smooth as silk. She was still flawlessly adorable from every angle.
She was wearing a white slip nightdress. As she moved, one shoulder strap slipped down, revealing her delicate collarbone.
At the same time, Gabrielle woke up too. Compared with Claudia's perfect, all-angle cuteness, Gabrielle, though she had Veela blood, was still more like an ordinary human girl. Fresh out of sleep, she was obviously not at her prettiest.
Her hair was sticking up, and her eyes were unfocused. But with her natural features, even like this she had a lively, playful sort of charm.
"Good morning, Sister, Claudia, little brother..." Gabrielle greeted obediently, but then she suddenly froze, realizing something, and stared blankly at Leonard's bare upper body.
"Ah!!"
Smack!
...
Early in the morning, at Leonard's house.
In the kitchen, Londo was apologizing profusely to Madame Delacour, who was helping prepare breakfast, saying things like, "Children don't know any better," and, "I'll teach him a lesson later."
Meanwhile, in the living room, Leonard, with two slap marks on his face, one large and one small, narrowed his eyes at Fleur, whose anger still had not fully faded, then at Gabrielle, whose face was red as a ripe apple, and let out a sigh.
What a sin.
Wasn't this just pure disaster out of nowhere?
He looked at Lehende too. The man's expression was strange. He was angry as well, of course. After all, his daughter had somehow ended up in Leonard's bed and apparently spent the whole night hugging him.
But they were both still undeveloped children. Nothing could possibly have happened. More importantly, Lehende trusted that Leonard was not that kind of person.
Even so, he was still upset, and it showed on his face.
"Isn't anyone going to speak up for me?" Leonard said helplessly. "I just went to sleep like normal, and when I woke up this morning, I got slapped twice. No matter how you look at it, I'm the wronged one here."
"What right do you have to feel wronged? Weren't Gabrielle and Claudia lying in your bed this morning? And hugging you that tightly too!" Fleur said. Just bringing up the subject made her face flush slightly.
"Be reasonable here. I'm even more confused than you are, okay? I don't even know what happened." Leonard sighed again.
Just then, Claudia came over carrying breakfast and thoughtfully served Leonard first.
"Thanks, Claudia." Leonard rubbed Claudia's head. Right now, only the well-behaved and adorable Claudia could bring him even a little warmth.
"So what exactly happened last night?" Lehende could not help asking.
"How would I know?" Leonard silently cut into the fried egg on his plate. "You can't seriously say I snuck into the guest room in the middle of the night and carried Claudia and Gabrielle out, can you? That would be way too disrespectful to my dear niece Fleur."
Fleur: ???
Fleur stared blankly for a long moment before finally understanding what Leonard meant.
So he was saying that if he had only carried away Gabrielle and Claudia and not her, that meant he looked down on her looks?
"At a time like this, you're still making jokes? And who's your dear niece?!" Fleur snapped angrily.
"Don't get hung up on the details. The important thing is how Gabrielle and Claudia ended up in my room." Leonard waved a hand dismissively, then tried asking Gabrielle, "Gabrielle, do you remember anything?"
Gabrielle glanced at Leonard. Her little face was still red, and she shook her head.
"Then... Claudia, do you know? How did you get to my room last night?" Leonard asked her too.
Claudia, who had been hesitating over whether to eat the bacon, paused for a moment, then said, "I don't remember very clearly either. I only remember Gabrielle seemed to wake me up last night."
"And then?" Leonard asked.
"She said she wanted to go to the bathroom, so I took her there," Claudia said, trying to recall it. "Then I was too sleepy, so I went back half-asleep and fell asleep again... Ah, I remember now. I think I went back to your room out of habit, and Gabrielle followed me there."
Well, that cleared everything up.
Leonard turned to Fleur with a pained expression and said, "See? I told you I'm not a pervert. What else is there to say now?"
Fleur looked a little embarrassed, but she still refused to give in. "So what? The fact that Claudia has gotten used to going back to your room is perverted enough already, isn't it?"
"I..." Leonard was rendered speechless, unable to think of a response for a moment.
But this was just too unfair. He had been slapped twice without doing anything at all.
Well, even if he had wanted to do something, his body was willing but he was powerless.