The True Endgame

For the woman behind the avatar of Tabitha, this means rummaging through her cabinets for some food, accidentally hitting her head on the doorframes of her small abode, and then sitting down at her workdesk to put together some more model kits of giant robots while listening to a podcast about conspiracy theories and aliens. Whether or not she actually believes such theories, n.o.body knows. It does make her laugh often, though.

As far as Azalabulia is concerned, the woman in control of her has lesson plans to prepare for cla.s.s, grapes to munch on, and a heart to try and calm down as her mind can"t go more than five seconds without flashing back to what she was doing with her new boyfriend earlier! She can"t even believe that she"s actually got a boyfriend herself, and that"s not even taking into consideration the fact that she"s also technically got three girlfriends now.

That"s when it hits her.

She has no idea how romance works between girls.

Is she supposed to kiss girls the same way that she kisses guys? It seemed like Serra kissed both her and Fenrir the same way earlier, so at least she has that to go off of. But what about presents? Do girls like to hold hands with girls in the same way that boys and girls enjoy holding hands? Do they want her to be romantic and flirty with them, too, or are all they all just supposed to only flirt with the womanizer that is her new boyfriend? She still can"t even believe that she"s dating a womanizer! Though, when she thinks about it, she has never heard of nor seen Fenrir doing anything with anybody else other than his girlfriends. Sure, he was kissing her before they were dating, but that was because of herself! Does this mean that she"s a manizer? Is she actually some sort of dirty woman who just uses men for casual kissing?

"He – he"s going to hate me if he finds out!" Azalabulia"s creator whines and slams her forehead against her desk just a bit too hard, resulting in knocking over her gla.s.s of water onto her keyboard.

She slowly lifts her head up to look down at her fizzling keyboard.

If it weren"t for the fact that she"s finally gotten into her first relationship after twenty-six years, then she"d want to jump off her balcony! She wouldn"t, of course, but she"d think about thinking about it!

"It"s taken so long," she whines to herself, looking as if she"s about to cry from happiness. "Even all the other girls in kindergarten got to hold hands with boys!"

Azalabulia"s virgin of an owner can finally make progress in life now that she"s not single. No longer will she have to explain to people how she"s never even held hands before! Now she gets to tell everybody about how she"s dating a guy she met on the internet in some game who already has multiple girlfriends!

A smug smirk spreads across her lips. She can"t wait to tell the next person who invites her to another would-be-failed night of speed dating about how she"s totally in a relationship now!

Speaking of which, she pulls out her phone and texts her mom to let her know! After all, her mom is the one who"s been hara.s.sing her the most about it.

It takes several minutes for Azalabulia to get a response from her mother, but she does get a, "That"s nice," message with a smiley face emoji attached!

Tonight, Azalabulia can go to sleep without the crushing despair of loneliness!

Tonight, Azalabulia"s mom opens a new bottle of wine.

The poor mother can"t believe that her beloved daughter is actually dating somebody that she met on the internet. Where did she go wrong?

Where did the mother go so wrong that her daughter with zero seduction skills has managed to get a boyfriend before she could find a new husband?

Her mother might have to try out online games if they apparently work for even her daughter.

Then there is Rao.

"I"m hungry!" the young and girly voice of his little sister shouts out as soon as she realizes that her big brother is finally done playing around in games.

"Give me a minute," Rao tells her, rubbing his eyes as his body readjusts to reality.
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"I want food nooowww!"

"Alright, I have a deal. We"ll play hide n" seek. If I can"t find you, I"ll give you food right now."

"Deal!"

"Alright, go hide."

His little sister runs off to hide as Rao counts loudly enough for her to hear.

"Alright, I"m coming!" Rao shouts, still lying in bed. "Where are you?!"

That"s when another woman walks into his room.

"Really?" the woman asks.

"Give me a minute," Rao tells her. "How come you didn"t feed her?"

"I told her to go hide. I was busy working on a deadline."

"Really?" Rao asks.

"Little brothers should know their place and not steal tactics from their big sister."

"I just want to know how she keeps falling for it."

Rao and his older sister both shrug before heading into the kitchen together, preparing food for themselves as their youngest sister hides in a closet and wonders when she"ll be found.

In the packed house that has already doubled its population with the addition of ferrets, Ryouta and Serra take their headsets off and immediately regret coming back to reality albeit for entirely different reasons.

Ryouta just hurts still. Everything from his legs to his shoulders is sore from all the lifting and moving he was doing, and pulled muscles take far longer to heal than he"d like them to.

Serra just doesn"t want to do ch.o.r.es which she knows she"ll have to. While she is happily willing to help out to make things fair around the house, that doesn"t mean she wants to do the ch.o.r.es themselves. She just wants to make her lovers happy! Maybe she should try convincing Alice to buy and have people install those fancy, countertop robot arms that can do dishes and fold clothes, and to buy some that take the trash out and can vacuum the floors.

Though, when Serra thinks about those vacuuming robots, she imagines the ferrets teaming up to fight against them.

Now she wants to see ferrets trying to kill a robot.

"Wonderful timing!" Alice says as she notices that both her boyfriend and girlfriend are back from virtual reality and staring up at the ceiling. Serra"s just giggling to herself at this point while Ryouta thinks about replacing all of his limbs with robotic ones. Robotic limbs can"t get pulled muscles.

"Smells like dinner is already done," Ryouta says.

"Well, my hero, that would be because it is!"

"Isn"t it pretty early? I mean, when you and Ca.s.s woke, you thought we"d be in-game for a couple more hours still."

"Ah, I realized that would likely not be the case when I remembered how late it was in the game. I a.s.sumed that you would both be returning earlier than planned once it was too dark to do much! Unless you decided to do each other some more, of course."

"Yeah, speaking of doing each other, you"re looking pretty bruised there," Ryouta says, pointing at Alice"s neck.

"ah. Yes. That is from when Serra had me pinned down and was leaving marks all over me while you and Ca.s.sandra were in-game."

"She really likes biting us and leaving marks all over us, doesn"t she?"

"It would appear so, my hero! Now, please bring Serra with you to come and eat."

And so, they eat.

Ryouta makes sure to tell Ca.s.sandra and Alice about how they"ve technically brought Azalabulia officially into the harem, and then the others realize that they still know nothing about her in reality. While Ca.s.sandra and Ryouta are concerned about that, Serra figures that it"ll all work out on its own in one way or another, and Alice fantasizes about what sort of secretive life Azalabulia might be living!

"What if she is truly a middle-woman who also happens to run a mercenary organization that is fighting wars in third-world countries?" Alice asks. "What if she wishes to blackmail us into fighting for her? I have never fired a gun before, but that sounds like it could be exciting! And to imagine my dearest hero in combat as bullets fly all around him as I wait at him praying for his safety – oh, are secrets not just so exciting? We have no idea what she might truly be like until we know! Anything could happen! She could be anybody!"

Ryouta, Ca.s.sandra, and Serra focus on their food while letting Alice rant and rave about all the possibilities as her food goes cold.