My first holiday season (at least as far as I could remember) was over way faster than I expected. Between all the work that came with forming a brand new supernatural power bloc by combining two previously warring factions, two girlfriends' worth of Christmas dates and family dinners, and a whole-ass tournament to doggedly ignore, my days were pretty damn hectic. Thankfully, everything worked out decently smoothly, including the formation of the Draconic Federation, a monumental task that I shamelessly left in the hands of the most competent person I knew, and let Roland wrack his head over the whole ordeal. I had more important things to worry about. Such as my dear assistant's choice of underwear.

"Which one do you like better? The red one, or the black one?" Judy inquired while holding two sets stretched over a pair of swimsuit hangers in each hand, and I couldn't stop myself from groaning even if I tried.

"Dormouse? Care to explain to me why that one doesn't have a crotch part?"

"It's for easy access," she told me without a hint of shame.

"Please take this seriously. We're going on a research trip," I pleaded, but my words fell on deaf ears.

"I'm serious. So? Red, or black?"

Even after broadcasting my severest disapproving glare at her, my girlfriend actively refused to get a clue.

"Just pack them both. We have enough space in your bag."

"That's not the point. I'm collecting data on your preferences." At this point, she put one of the hangers in front of her chest. "Try imagining me wearing this, and please rate it on a scale from one to ten."

"Dormouse, can you please not make me picture you in sexy lingerie while your father's downstairs?"

"Fine," she finally relented and proceeded to pull the clothes off the hangers. "I'll just have to continue with the research on site then."

"I'm okay with that," I compromised and helped her pack the semi-transparent undies into the side of the travel bag sitting on her bed.

With our prior engagements more-or-less resolved, we decided to try something we had been planning for quite a while. As a volcanic island, it turned out Critias had a booming hot springs resort industry, and we already made reservations at the fanciest one I could find after searching the net for one. It had all the trappings of one of those clichéd Japanese hot springs inns you could find in many, many mangas and animes, and we couldn't ask for a better venue to test one of our long-standing hypotheses.

Long story short, the Simulacrum, aka the world we lived in, was obviously running on tropes and clichés common in Japanese media. We bore and battled many such tropes the still nebulous but increasingly plausible Narrative kept throwing our way, but this time, we decided to take the initiative. Going to the hot springs (or onsens, as the Japanese called them) wasn't just a change in scenery, but a huge trope in and of itself.

It was most common in school life harem comedies, which was incidentally my first interpretation of the Simulacrum upon waking up in it. In such scenarios, the eponymous 'onsen episodes' served two purposes: breather episodes to allow the cast to unwind a little, and as a setup for all kinds of risqué, salacious, and oftentimes outright lewd situations. In other words, fanservice.

While the supernatural had long since elbowed its way to the forefront of our lives, we still had vestiges of the harem comedy genre rear its ugly head from time to time, and our 'research trip' was our attempt to purposefully invoke its tropes by creating our very own 'onsen episode'. The whole 'spending several nights together with my girlfriends while bathing, relaxing, and lewding' thing was just the cherry on top of the research sundae.

 As such, the next four days (and three nights) promised to be quite eventful, though hopefully in a more lighthearted and easygoing manner than usual, and Judy was the one looking forward to it the most out of all of us. I hoped it was because of her insatiable desire for studying the narrative laws of the world… but I had a strong suspicion she had ulterior motives. Call it a hunch.

"Chief? Did you see my handcuffs?"

"Your what?" I blinked in surprise, so she looked over and made a circle with her fingers.

"Handcuffs. Around this big. Pink and fluffy. Did you see them?"

"… Okay, putting aside why you have those, where did you even get something like that around here?"

"Congo," she answered flatly while her eyes scanned the room, settling on a bunch of neatly folded towels.

As for what she was talking about, 'Congo' was yet another staple of our very own little dotcom boom, a giant online retailer that sprang up overnight and became the world's biggest e-commerce company. Oh, and I owned six-point-two percent of it. Or rather, dad-in-law invested in the company, following my advice, and then gave me enough shares to buy a small island as a Christmas gift. As usual, my in-laws had no sense of scale or common sense, but I was getting used to it. More importantly, after looking under the towels, my girlfriend let out a triumphant hum and pulled out a pair of fuzzy handcuffs, and showed them off to me.

"I found them, you don't have to look anymore."

"Please tell me you aren't seriously going to take that with us to the trip…"

"Why not? It would be the perfect chance to try them out," she said and tried to twirl them around her finger… only for the cuff to open up and fly across the room. There was a long beat of silence, after which she casually walked over, picked them off the floor, and awkwardly stuffed them into the bag. "Elly might be interested too, so we might as well bring it."

I really didn't want to argue about something this silly, so a sigh and a wave later I said, "Whatever, just don't expect me to wear it. Also, make sure the others won't see it. I don't want any weird rumors."

"Don't worry, Chief. Even if they noticed, they'd only talk about it behind your back."

"Was that supposed to make me feel better?"

Instead of answering, my dear assistant continued to wordlessly pack her bag. Following her example, I also dropped the topic, and walked over to help her.

Now, back to the trip in question: If the previous exchange didn't make it obvious, we weren't going by ourselves. While that would've been a much more relaxing vacation, half the point of the so-called 'onsen episodes' was the fanservice tropes. Accidental walk-ins and nudity, pranks, suggestive and titillating party games, peeping… more-or-less innocent, occasionally juvenile things I obviously wasn't going to do.

I mean, come on, let us be honest here for a second. If anyone was in danger of being on the receiving end of those tropes in this relationship, it was me.

As such, we agreed to invite some extra test subjects. Rinne and Ichiko were more or less a given, as they were not only serving as our bodyguards, but as bona fide Japanese, they had invaluable insights into hot springs bathing culture. I couldn't quite leave my sisters out of this, so they were naturally coming along as well, and since this kind of scenario was the bread-and-butter of the average harem protagonist, Josh also received an invitation, along with Angie.

Now, we couldn't exactly have most of those fanservice situations without more guys around, so I threw out a couple of feelers, and reeled in the Knights, under the pretext of a 'team building exercise'. Well, except for Raven-boy, who was still on my shit-list, so he had to stay at the base and do the paperwork in place of Roland. I also tried to invite Naoren, but he was busy, so he said he might show up for a visit, but won't stay. Last, but not least, I roped in Fred and Galatea, to round out the male population. Of course, I could've tried to invite Mike and Ammy as well, but they were kind of lost in their own little world, while Pascal was still glued to Sahi, who was currently under house arrest after what happened at the tournament.

Still, we had quite the cast, with lots of opportunities for various clichéd scenarios, and if push came to shove, the girls and I were ready and willing to prod things along. While all of this sounded silly on the surface, if this small experiment was a success, it would mean we could once and for all establish that the Narrative was willing to play along so long as it received the right stimuli, which could open up brand new vistas for us when it came to 'encouraging' other arcs and plot devices.

"I think I packed everything I'll need," Judy noted, standing in front of the open bag. "It's a shame winter break ends soon. I would've liked to stay the whole week."

"Having almost three weeks off is already pretty generous, if you ask me," I said in response and offered a hand in compressing the contents of the bag so that she could close the zippers.

"Can't you tell the principal to extend the break?"

"Considering Lord Grandpa's been working himself haggard ever since he got caught between the Assembly and the Draconic Federation, I think the last thing he wants is to see my face."

"I suppose you aren't wrong about that," she agreed, and with a stifled groan, she finally closed up the bag.

"Alrighty. We got everything, right?" She nodded, so I rolled my shoulders and pointed at the door. "Should we head down then? I think dinner should be ready soon?"

"Let's, but first…" She gestured for me to lean over. I figured she wanted a kiss, but instead when I got closer, she put her mouth next to my ear and whispered, "If dad asks, we haven't done any lewding. If he presses the issue, change the topic."

Blinking, I turned to face her.

"Why?"

"Because he doesn't know I'm not a virgin anymore."

"No, I mean… Why is that an issue? We're not only both past the age of consent, but we're also literally engaged to each other."

"I still don't want to hear dad talk about the topic. It's awkward."

"… You're finding the topic of lewding awkward. You." My dear assistant was honest-to-goodness pouting at my remark, so I couldn't help but tease her a little. "Actually, now that you mention it, maybe I should discuss this thing with him after all. I mean, we're men, so we should have a manly talk about this. In a manly way."

"Don't you dare," she hissed, but it only made her expression even funnier, and while as a boyfriend, it was my solemn duty to tease her, I didn't want to make her sulk. We still had a long evening ahead of us, after all.

"Fine, fine. I'll be a gentleman, and will carefully deflect any inquiries in regards to reproductive activities." I paused for a beat, but in the end, couldn't hold back, and added, "Can I at least have a few innuendos?"

"Only one, and mother can't be in the room when you say it," she told me sternly, and I nodded.

"A fair deal, my fair lady." Since she was still leaning over, I used the opportunity to plant a peck on her forehead, and then offered my arm to her. "Shall I lead your downstairs?"

She glanced at me, then at my arm, and said, even as she intertwined hers with mine, "You know, Chief, gentlemen aren't supposed to tease their lady."

"Maybe, but ladies aren't supposed to have fuzzy handcuffs, now are they?"

"Fair enough," she said with a shrug, and I couldn't help but chuckle.

"We would make a terrible Victorian couple, wouldn't we?"

"Speak for yourself. I'll let you know, Victorian ladies were actually surprisingly kinky."

"Were they? How?"

My girlfriend sent me a clumsy and not-at-all seductive, yet strangely cute wink, and said, "I'll demonstrate it for you in private later."

"Oof. I walked into that one, didn't I?"

Instead of answering, Judy only smiled mysteriously, in that minimalist way only she could pull off, and rested her head against my shoulder. Like that, we headed downstairs, where her dad was already sitting by the coffee table and reading his newspaper as usual, still surrounded by Christmas decorations all around.

Before the day was over, we had four courses, three thinly veiled inquiries into my sex life, two very inspired innuendos, and one mortified Dormouse. All things considered, I'd call that a nice, relaxing evening.