"No Lina, I'm telling you, I know tea and that is not tea."
"It can't be coffee. He is way too calm to be drinking coffee as often as that."
Lina and Filia continued their argument as they walked into the room at the inn. Already in the room getting ready for bed was Amelia.
"Hello Lina-san, Filia-san, what are you two talking about?"
"We are trying to figure out what Zel is drinking all the time. I was telling Filia here that it has to be some kind of tea. If he was drinking coffee that often he would be bouncing off the walls."
"And as I was telling Lina, it is not tea. I know tea and that is not like any tea I have ever seen."
"Well why don't we just go and ask Zelgadis-san what he's drinking?"
"No way Amelia. We can't do that."
"Can't do what?" The man of the hour had just entered the room.
"Well, Lina-san and Filia-san were trying to figure out what--mmphh"
"What our little princess here was trying to say is that it's not important and you don't need to know about it." That was close. At least I'm not really lying to him.
"Are you sure I can't help? You always came to me before if you were having trouble sorting something."
"Oh that's alright Zelgadis-san," Filia intervened, "we have it all under control. You wouldn't be interested anyway. Girl stuff."
Having a pretty good idea of what the term 'girl stuff' meant, he quickly found an excuse to leave the room. "If you have everything under control, then it's .. okay. I just have this .. uh .. thing that I forgot to .. uhm .. do. Bye." As many men before him, he knew better than to stick around when the girls were talking 'girl stuff.'
"Phew. That was close. Amelia, we can't just go and ask him what he's drinking."
"Why not?" Her adorable, innocent expression turned upwards to her role model.
"Why not? What do you mean by 'why not'? Isn't it perfectly obvious?" She waits for an answer and gets only a shake of the sugar filled head. "Well, the reason is... I mean, it's just that... You take it Filia."
"It's actually very simple. We .. uhm .. I don't know. Lina, why can't we just ask him?"
"Sheesh you people. Can't you see the problem here?" Now she recieved two heads shaking at her. "Oh forget it. Let's go and ask him."
The three girls walk out of the room and down the stairs to the common area. There they see Zelgadis once again sipping on his .. whatever. He looks up from his drink just in time to see the three surround him.
"Ne Zel," Lina asked, since she was in front of him, "we have a question for you. It's about what we were talking about up stairs. I seem to recall you saying it was okay to ask you."
Zelgadis also remembered something about what was going on upstairs. He remembered Filia mentioning 'girl stuff' and he remembered that he didn't want to be involved with the conversation after that. "I don't know if I'm the right person to be asking about that. So if you'll excuse me." He tries to get up but the three girls still had him surrounded. Even after politely asking to be excused none of them moved to give him space to leave in. He was starting to get a little bit nervous.
"Of course you're the right person Zel. All we wanted to know was..." A tense silence fell over the table with a thump. You see silence is quite clumsy when it is tense, so it wasn't so silent .. but I digress. Zelgadis was dripping with sweat as he looked around himself to see that all three of them were staring intensly at him. "Zel, what are you always drinking?"
"What?!" He would have facefaulted out of his seat if there had been enough room around him to do that without hitting Amelia or Filia. Instead he had to settle for briefly going into shock.
"Ahh! Zelgadis-san, are you okay?" Amelia quickly climbed into his lap to have better access to see what was wrong with him.
"Lina, what did you do to Zelgadis-san?!"
"All I did was ask about his drink. It's what the two of you both wanted me to do; remember?"
At about that time, Zelgadis chose to wake up from his stupor. He saw that Lina was still sitting in front of him, Filia was standing beside her, and Amelia .. was .. sitting on his lap with her head against his chest!! "AH!" His sudden outburst caused the less than graceful princess to less than gracefully remove herself from his lap. As she got up, he noticed that he had the groups undivided attention once again. "Uhm, what was your question again Lina?"
"We just wanted to know what it is you're always drinking. You see, Filia thinks that it is coffee and I know that it's tea. So we thought you could settle it once and for all."
"Oh, that's all? Here why don't you see for yourself." He hands his drink over to Lina and she hesitantly takes a sip from it. And .. it was .....
"Disgusting!! What the hell is this stuff?!" she most forcefully inquisited.
"It's my own special blend. It helps me deal with the day to day travel with all of you." The three girls continue to look at him expectedly. Well, actually Lina is still a little woozy from her little taste test. "It is.. coffee."
Filia looks over at Lina with a look as smug as the cat with the cream. "I told you, I know tea and there is no way that was tea. I was right."
"Zel, what else is in that. That is not like any coffee I have ever had."
"Oh, just a couple of shots of Tequila. Like I said, it makes being with this group much more bearable."
Now we know the answer to the age old question: coffee and tequila. Also another question was answered today. Now we know how he can keep his cool around Lina. What an insightful story this was. Thank you for reading. Ja ne.