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Gourry straightened his smile just a bit more. "How about...'Honey'?"
"Honey? What, is this some game where we go mess with a beehive or something?"
"No, no, that's Insect Training. We do that to hone our swordsmanship. Makes you scratch a lot, too. No, 'Honey' is something different entirely."
Lina was skeptical, but bored. And, since Reason probably had her reasons for making them wait (but not thinking that bonding might be one of them), she bit. "Okay, how do we play 'Honey'?"
Gourry sat down next to Lina. "First, we need more than just two people - otherwise, it gets a bit boring. Myth?"
"Uh, sure, I guess." Myth walked over, her Talent hinting that whatever was going to happen was going to make for a good scene. Gourry gestured for her to sit in what now was a circle.
Gourry breathed slowly, calming himself. "The idea of this game is not to smile, but, instead, to respond to the person talking to you, "Honey, I love you, but I just can't smile. I'll start." Immediately, before Lina could protest/scream/run/fireball Gourry, he sat down RIGHT ON HER LAP.
Lina ceased all normal motion, instead shaking approximately 3.5 on the Richter scale.
Gourry looked at her, eyes enlarged like they belonged to young, twitterpated deer. He spoke softly, with a touch of whine for effect.
"Honey, I love you. Will you give me a smile?"
Lina hit 6.2 and sweated big time. Slowly, trying to compose herself, she stammered out, "Honey, I...love you...but...I...hehheh...pbbtHAHAHAHA..."
Gourry beamed. "Got ya! Your turn, Lina."
"What?! How DARE you..." A dozen spells of mass destruction floated through Lina's mind, but she remembered Aunt Koirry and kept civil. "Ooh...what am I supposed to do?"
"You sit down on someone's lap and say, 'Honey, I love you. Will you give me a smile?'" Gourry explained. "The idea is to get them to crack a smile before they say, 'Honey, I love you, but I just can't smile.'"
Lina looked at the two sitting down on the ground and weighed the two evils. Sit on a girl's lap and say that. Sit on Gourry's lap and say that. Walk away and be rude as well as bored. She sighed. She threw out three because it just didn't seem right to her, and then tossed number one because people were around and it might not seem right to _them_. She vowed to get Gourry back for this sometime, smiling as cutely as she could manage and sitting down gently on Gourry's lap and resting her head on Gourry's shoulder, eyes wide and shining like only anime could show them. Putting the thought of how much she looked like Amelia at the moment on the far back shelf of her mind, she put enough sugar into her voice to sweeten a water tower full of Kool-Aid. "Honey, I love you." She pause to try and put that thought back with the image of her as Sailor Justice. "Would you give me a smile?" She blinked a few times with emphasis on her eyelashes to give the full effect.
Gourry, calm, straight-faced, and breathing not-quite-as-deeply, spoke. "Honey, I love you...but I just can't smile. But a good try, anyway." He then gave Lina a small peck on the cheek.
Remember the scene at the end of Chapter 5? Gourry's kiss was just enough to cause a relapse.