Peter groaned. “Another Monty Python reference?”

“Next thing you know, she’ll be talking about the Inquisition,” Bayani said.

“Hey, that’s supposed to be unexpected!” Cerys complained.

“The number of times you’ve had us watching that, and you want it to still be unexpected?”

Peter gave a genuine smile at that remark.

“Are you saying you don’t like the show?”

“No,” Bayani said, “but a couple of my other friends think it’s funny that a Pinoy like me knows British comedy.”

“And then I tell then that he knows you,” Peter added, looking right at his sister, “and most of them instantly understand why.”

“Awww, I have a reputation,” Cerys said with a grin. Then she looked to Himeko. “What will be really interesting is when he knows all the shows that I watch with you.”

“We tried that before, remember?” Himeko replied. “When we were watching ‘Freeter, Ie wo Kau’, he made up all the excuses he could to walk out of the room.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want a show where the plot is to buy a house,” Cerys said thoughtfully. “Saiyuuki might be more his taste.”

“Sigh-what?” Bayani asked. He nudged Peter’s shoulder and said, “Can I teach you Tagalog so that I can talk to you in mysterious words that they don’t understand?”

“What’s in it for me?” Peter asked. He glanced over towards the kitchen, and was relieved to see that the barmaid was finally walking over with their drinks.

“Name your price,” Bayani replied. He thanked the barmaid, and hoped that she would be back quickly with their food; his stomach was starting to growl.

“Sing me all of ‘Black Number One’,” Peter told him. Then he added, “In Tagalog. In your deepest voice.”

“Should I grow my hair out, too?”

Peter laid a hand on Bayani’s head, admiring the short ponytail that he had. “Definitely. What you have now is nice when you let it down, but this way is looks like you’re trying for a surfer look.”

Cerys eyed her brother for several moments. It took him glaring back and asking what she was looking at before she said, “You’re not trying to turn him into a Filipino version of Peter Steele, are you?”

Peter blinked, then looked up at his boyfriend with innocent eyes. “Why would I ever do a thing like that?”

It made Bayani chuckle, which made Peter very satisfied with himself.

The food came by only a couple minutes later. The cook in the back had put together a few varieties of cut fruit, plus some bread and cheese slices, and a few thin pieces of meat. Following that there was a bowl of steaming grilled vegetables, served on top of a hill of grain that looked like it was something between quinoa and rice. They enjoyed it, as different as it was, and Bayani looked especially satisfied. Peter, as usual, ate like a mouse, but seeing as he made no complaints, neither did anyone else.

Their joking around ceased while they ate, for all of them were famished from the day’s riding, and felt even moreso now that there was food in front of them. It was not there for long, in fact, and nobody left anything uneaten. They contemplated ordering more, but Himeko talked some sense into them.

“We should not spend more than what our budget allows,” she reminded them, hoping that they would catch the hint and know that she really meant that they should not be flaunting the fact that they had money.