Chapter 19: The Highlight of Your Beauty is Your Massive Puppies

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As the sharp claws of my tigress drew fresh wounds down my back, I started to think our lovemaking wasn’t even about the sex anymore.

Ownership. Possession. Territory. Dominance. I would never say no to an orgasm, but what I wanted out of Saya ran so much deeper than that. Sex with my alpha represented fulfillment of a need, but not a physical one; the surface level of erotic climax couldn’t push back the tide of nothing inside me, the roiling emptiness that churned the dark waters of my soul. Intimacy had come to mean something else entirely, transforming into a promise of security, spoken in words of jealous rage: I was hers, my alpha’s love writ large across my flesh in red, red ink.

Seizing me under my jaw, she held me in a firm grip, forcing my eyeline back to her. “Look at me,” she growled, demanding obedience that she knew I would readily give.

Encircling her forearm with my fingers, I steadied myself under her vigorous assault. “I’m looking,” I gasped, the rhythmic back-and-forth soothing that tortured part of me, setting me adrift on waves of pleasurable pain.

“Only me,” she snarled, her beautiful canines slick with my blood.

“Always,” I purred, encouraging her violent selfishness, her affection threatening to crush my throat.

Crashing together like the tide against the horizon, we sought release in shared passion, exchanging misery for whispered admissions of love.

In the days since our first “date”, Saya and I awoke every morning in her bed, tangled-up in each other. In the absence of our omega, my alpha relentlessly pursued the fantasy that I’d dangled just out of reach, the possibility of a not-so-distant future. Perhaps out of a desire to “get even” with her sister, or maybe even a genuine proposal, my girlfriend chased the ephemeral model of my play-acted domesticity; lacking understanding of the broader world, she nevertheless engineered a facsimile of how she imagined our engagement might be.

Kissing each other goodnight. Waking up together. Eating meals as a “family”. Holding hands. Following the rubric set forth in any of the hundred-thousand omega-alpha romances, my mate pledged to purge my emptiness in the same way Runa had once done, filling my life with an approximation of matrimony. Saya’s promise existed not in words, but in physicality: touch, taste, scent. Committing herself to me, she offered all the wrath of her body, promising a violent reprisal towards any rival.

Possessed of an avarice beyond forgiveness, my alpha claimed redemption in sincerity, breeding me in earnest. Adorably naive, her effort nevertheless stoked a fire in my belly.

Reaching up to stroke her face, I slid my fingers through her hair, taking hold of her; drawing her down against me, I cradled her against my neck, my shoulder ragged with gore. “I love you,” I mewled, speaking aloud that artless phrase, weighed down by a gravitas far too serious for highschool romance.

“You’re mine,” she called back, a vicious laughter burning on her tongue, as much an assurance as a declaration of intent. “You’ll always be mine.”

Thrusting into me with animalistic ferocity, she wrought her claim to my flesh. In these long minutes, whether at dawn or day’s end, or stolen moments in unwatched hallways and empty classrooms, my alpha became the predator that I needed, the lover that I craved. Offering me frenzied adoration, she set fang and claw to the meat of my body, consuming everything that I had to give. Possessed of a panicked devotion, our mutual fear of abandonment fed into itself, expressed in the lash of her violence, and the delirious goading of my self-destructive nature.

I’d coerced her to the edge dozens of times, demanding a permanence for which neither of us was truly prepared. Only one torturous millimeter separated us from an unbreakable promise, a vow far more sacred than one that could be expressed in platinum rings. Stubbornly, repeatedly, I’d tried to slip the grasp of Saya’s love over this last half-year, fleeing into the arms of anyone that offered me safety or debasement, the two vices I found so inescapable. My taunting infidelity had bred unfathomable jealousy, warping the sweet nature of my childhood friend into that of a possessive beast; delighting in dangerous threats, she played the wicked game I’d taught her, driven to achieve victory at any cost.

Seeking to make me well and truly hers, my alpha overwhelmed my senses, destroying all unnecessary knowledge, save the essentials: the taste of her lips, the smell of her pheromones, the strong solidity of her body. Inscribing her marks upon my flesh, she pushed me far beyond my own endurance; we’d only just began the day, but already I longed to collapse, and so indulge in another eight hours of sleep, my nightmares expelled by her fierce embrace. Allowing no rest, my resentful alpha worked out all her lascivious ardor, using me as an object, overfilling me with her enraged adulation and cum.

Desperation bled into the sheets, my scars (both literal and figurative) opening under her wanton consummation, pinpricks of red wet staining our nest. Aching for more, and more, and more, my thirst for my lover’s touch grew far beyond my control, deepening until it drowned us both. Even on the edge of exhaustion, I never wanted her to stop, begging my alpha to carry me past the threshold of annihilation; then, and only then, could I be truly satisfied.

Driving the ante ever forward, Saya gave me everything I wanted, but much too fast and far too brutal. I’d always lost these marathons of stamina, and she knew I’d give up long before her; that, too, was part of the game. Even when she overwhelmed me with another orgasm, the electric sensation exploding in bursts of pink, she refused to stop or even slow her assault; every fiber of my being lit up, scorched by over-stimulation, pleasure and pain running together in delirious parallels. Conscious of everything she had done to me, was doing to me, my alpha would not relent, not until she’d torn every last scream from my lips.

Encouraging her selfishness, I clung to her, seeking shelter from the storm of her passion. The object of her desire, in every sense of the word, I suffered her love, undulating together to the rhythm of her body, until even she was spent.

Collapsing after a herculean effort, my lover pressed against me, holding me down with the weight of her body. Covered in a sheen of sweat and blood, I locked my legs around her waist, preventing her withdrawal. Writhing beneath her, I communicated my need in short, panting breaths, incapable of speech; perfectly attuned to my desires, my alpha required no words.

“You have me,” she smiled, petting my hair, praising me like a toy that had well-served its purpose. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Ever?” I whispered, shackling her to my trauma.

“Never,” she agreed, bearing my misery as though it weighed nothing at all.

Softly, soundlessly, I wept into the curtain of her hair. “Thank god,” I mewled, clinging to her with what little strength I had.

“Never again,” she promised, shouldering a burden that was and yet wasn’t her own, an echo from a mirrored past.

 

---

 

The record of the last several days played out on repeat, another chorus of what was becoming our favorite song. Reaching a state of “dressed-enough” for cursory presentation, my lover and I descended the stairwell, beginning our late morning with her parents.

Chatting amiably in the kitchen, the lovey-dovey couple proved that the passage of a few decades wasn’t enough to dull the shine of their marriage. Nursing cups of strongly-brewed coffee, they had an eye to the television, which was somewhat visible across the island; perhaps more for ambience than anything else, they’d turned on a news channel, letting the day’s weather forecast and morning stories play out.

Smiling brightly as they saw us, my lover’s parents welcomed us into their domesticity.

“Should I get the first-aid kit?” laughed Saya’s Mom, happily taking charge of the teasing for once. “I think I can still remember how to stitch a cut.”

“Good morning,” I grumbled, feeling a little less than perfect; my girlfriend had worn me out, of course, but my lethargy felt somehow unrelated to our spirited exercise.

“You want something to eat?” Mama asked, playing “dutiful protector” now that her alpha had decided to swap roles for a moment. “We didn’t know if you girls had plans, or I would’ve woken you.”

“Right,” her wife giggled, “because they were definitely sleeping.”

“No thanks,” I replied, waving away Mama’s concern even as I ignored her alpha’s good-natured teasing.

Taking a seat at the island, I was grateful just to have somewhere to rest; even the twenty or so steps down from the second floor had seemed an exhausting effort, my body complaining under the after-effects of my rough treatment. Saya followed suit, sidling in next to me, putting a possessive arm around my waist as she sat.

“You’ve been turning down breakfast all week,” Mom pointed out, reassuming her mantle the second an issue arose. Eyeing me with a concerned look, she searched my face, studying it for signs of disease or distress. “Are you not feeling well?”

“Just a little nauseous,” I admitted, unwilling to lie so early-on in the day. “The thought of eating something makes my stomach turn.”

“She’ll get her appetite back by lunch time,” Saya asserted, more to reassure herself than anyone else; giving my side a supportive squeeze, she barely reacted as I cuddled in closer, my unusual penchant for affection becoming unremarkable under dedicated repetition.

“Maybe she’d have more room for a meal, if you didn’t stir her guts up the first thing in the morning,” Mama kidded, leaning on her salacious brand of humor; though she’d meant her jovial comment as a joke, there was an amount of truth (and perhaps worry) inside it.

“I’m okay, I promise,” I insisted, pushing back against their motherly fussing. “I’ve just been feeling a little iffy in the mornings is all ⸺ I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have anything to do with your daughter’s, uh, zeal.”

I’d meant to return Mama’s jest with one of my own, resonating in the same vein, but it did little to calm their fretting. Sharing a knowing look with her wife, Mom drew closer to the island, leaning over it to question me inside a conspiratorial distance.

“Have you girls been taking appropriate steps during all your roughhousing?” she asked, broaching a delicate subject with an admirable directness.

“Of course,” Saya smiled, her prominent canines glittering in the light. “I know we stopped buying condoms, but it’s not out of laziness ⸺ Reika told me she’s been rigorously keeping to her prescription.”

“And Yoru-chan, too?” Mama added, helpfully pointing out the oversight, ostensibly after-the-fact though it was.

“Yep!” I lied easily, nodding along. “I get mine from the same place as Reika.”

Or, I will, eventually, probably, I thought to myself, weaseling out of my objective responsibility. Obviously, I understood the risks we were taking, but that was half of the thrill for me; each time the foreplay started, I told myself I’d be better about preventing a possible mistake, but once Saya’s teeth were at my throat, I quickly stopped caring. The odds of anything happening were fairly low, anyway ⸺ or at least, I assumed they were, given how long it took for couples who were “trying” to get pregnant. Anecdotal evidence wasn’t a universal truth, certainly, but I didn’t want to worry myself over a nebulous what-if.

“As much as I’d like to spoil a few grandchildren,” Mama stated sternly, fixing her daughter with a harsh parental glare, “I’d like to hope that it will be sometime after you two graduate.”

“I’m the good daughter, remember?” Saya retorted sullenly, irritating herself with her own mention of her sister, “I don’t know what Onee-san’s plans might be, but I’m not looking for that kind of responsibility until after university.”

“And you, Yoru-chan?” Mama started, the amused tone returning to her voice now that she’d received assurance of our proper behavior. “Are you planning on making my eldest daughter a father? Or are you still only calling her ‘Daddy’ for fun.”

“The latter,” I mumbled, turning a vibrant shade of pink. “At least, as far as I’m aware.”

The uproarious laughter of Saya’s parents rolled over me with little impact, as lost as I became in my own introspection. While it was true that Saya and I were firmly ensconced within the framework of adolescence, our dynamic informed by our status as a JK couple, the same could not be said of me and my husband. Though Saya and I were lovestruck teenagers, Runa was already at the age of maturity, a proper adult, working her way through university. Undoubtedly, extending her immediate family would be a considerable burden under her current circumstances, but it wasn’t entirely unmanageable; my own mother had worked her way through the last year of undergraduate education while in the first months of her pregnancy, stubbornly clinging to both motherhood and her career aspirations, setting the precedent.

If Runa truly desired to play house in the most-complete sense of the game, then the potential was always on the table. She didn’t seem like she was in a rush to have children ⸺ now, or perhaps ever ⸺ but I knew she would probably cave to the demands of her wife, if I was persistent (or reckless) enough. Certainly, the threat of it had stoked the fire of her eros considerably, coaxing her into breeding me the way I had craved. Perhaps the end-result wasn’t as important to her, but the process had excited her all the same.

The only thing I wasn’t sure of, is what it was that I, myself, wanted. Saya had said she’d share me with her sister, and Runa was an agreeable mate ⸺ but would they really feel so cooperative, once one of their offspring was on the way? I had to imagine that one or both of them would force the issue, but maybe that was being too hasty; as possessive as she was, Saya seemed committed to allowing me space for a relationship with her sister, and Runa had tacitly agreed to the same. Was there a way forward, where I could entertain the affections of both sisters?

“My kids having two dads might not be so bad,” I mused, accidentally saying the quiet part out loud, triggering another round of chuckling at my expense.

To my surprise, Saya didn’t seem terribly upset by the idea, focusing instead on the specific appellation. “I don’t know about two dads,” she muttered, expressing a disapproval that I couldn’t quite understand.

“What’s the plan, there?” Mama cackled, overjoyed at having a new way to tease me. “Concurrently? Consecutively?”

“Surely consecutively,” Mom snickered, piling-on. “How would it work otherwise? I’m sure our daughters are quite dedicated, but that’d be a hell of a feat for our little Yoru-chan.”

Recalling the secret fantasy I confessed to Reika, I dared not speak up, lest my shame become known.

“So every-other tyke, then?” Mama mused, chewing on the scenario. “I don’t know how she’ll get them to behave long enough to keep to any kind of order, but maybe she could manage.”

“And what about twins?” Mom shot back, delighting in the game. “Does that mean one of our girls has to skip her next turn?”

“Can we please not talk about me like I’m not in the room?” Saya interjected, practically fuming with irritation.

Surprisingly, the two women listened to their daughter’s complaint, letting their giggling trail off. That was one of the things I appreciated about her moms; even though they were merciless in their teasing, they knew where the limit was, and when to stop.

Though I’d declined breakfast, Saya’s appetite hadn’t declined in the least ⸺ in fact, it was all the greater thanks to my proximity, having drained her of so much energy in the handful of hours prior.

A comfortable silence fell over the room, interrupted only by the sounds of Mom’s cooking, and the steady noise of the television. On-screen, a fairly attractive news anchor read out the hour’s feature story.

“Coming up next: will the memorial performance in honor of former idol Ruriko, the ‘heart and soul’ of Everyday, Gals!, prove to be a farewell concert? One week after her tearful funeral, our panel of experts discuss what her loss may mean, both for fans and for StarBeyond Records parent company, Supra-Pro.”

“Did you hear about that?” Mama said, gesturing to the television. “It’s terrible, what happened to that poor girl.”

I hadn’t really thought that the Ichikawas were fans of idol groups, but perhaps gossip was engaging no matter the topic.

“What happened?” I asked, happy enough to move the conversation along before it could wrap back to me.

“Nobody knows,” Mom chimed in, excited to chew on such a juicy scandal. “Everything was going well for their group, until Ruriko disappeared sometime around the end of January. Eventually, she was pronounced deceased, but I hear there was no encoffining ceremony after her wake.”

“Why not?” Normally, proper preparation of the dead wasn’t something a grieving family skipped before a funeral ⸺ and especially not for a star idol. On the other hand, I could imagine why an open casket might not have played out. “Was it, like, really gruesome or something?”

“It had to have been,” Mom answered, glad that I’d taken the bait. “As I understand it, the body had to be identified by her dental records.”

“That’s horrible!” I gasped, my mind running itself in circles trying to imagine what sick scenario had to have played out. “Was it an accident?”

“It was almost definitely foul play,” Saya interjected; a casual fan of Everyday, Gals!, she’d clearly followed the situation a lot more closely than I’d have thought. “They were talking about it online in some of the fan groups. Apparently there was an entire police investigation, and it turned up all kinds of stuff.”

“The prevailing theory is that Ruriko ran afoul of some criminal elements,” Mom continued, picking up her daughter’s thread. “Her extended family has ties to organized crime in Naniga, and the police believe that she had been kidnapped by the Tanizaki Group.”

“It’s like some kind of yakuza war story,” Saya nodded, adding to the sensationalism. “The Tanizaki Group issued a statement from their legal team denying any involvement, but some of her family have been seen lurking around in Marumaru, asking questions.”

“I didn’t know you liked this kind of thing,” I said, surprised by my girlfriend’s level of knowledge.

“I mean, I wouldn’t say that I like murder,” Saya protested, “but it’s definitely one of the bigger things to happen in Marumaru in a while ⸺ especially after all the anti-yakuza reforms were pushed through like a decade ago.”

“Give it another week, and they’ll be blaming it on the movie industry again,” Mama muttered from the kitchen, as she set about plating a modest breakfast. “Every time something like this happens, the popular news coverage whips itself into a frenzy over whether or not there’s too much violence in modern entertainment.”

Having lived through three decades of media speculation, I was acutely aware of what she was talking about.

“Those poor girls, though,” Mom sighed, expressing concern for the rest of Everyday, Gals! as she helped her wife serve. “It’s one thing to lose a group member over something like an illness or a contract disagreement, but murder? They have to be taking it pretty hard.”

“I guess they would be,” I agreed, not really sure of the correct thing to say. “Maybe that’s why they’re speculating that the group is going to break up.”

“I don’t think it has anything to do with the group,” Saya disagreed, shaking her head. “The sentiment online is that Supra-Pro is forcing StarBeyond to pull the plug, before the investigation into her murder can dig up anything they’d rather not have come to light.”

“Where have I heard that name before?” I wondered aloud, trying to put my finger on something. “They’re like some kind of big conglomerate, right?”

“They are,” she nodded, the lines of her mouth creasing into a frown. “They’re a big-name international corporation, with a hand in basically every aspect of media production, distribution, and consumption.”

“That’s a big industry,” I pointed out, trying to keep the conversation from sliding into hyperbolic speculation. “Surely they have a bunch of competitors, right? Like Gisney, and Red Cent.”

“Supra-Pro is just as big,” Saya argued, sweeping away my assumptions. “And that’s not even the worst part, either: you’re never gonna guess who owns it.”

“Who?” I asked, playing boke to my alpha’s tsukkomi.

Giving me a serious look, it seemed like she found the answer quite distasteful. “Kazimir-san. Supra-Pro is owned by Reika’s father.”

 

Songbird

---

After the heavier conversation of our morning, it was nice to have the chance to go do something more or less mindless for the afternoon.

Demanding that we take the Traditional Games Club seriously, Fujiwara-chan had forced everyone to agree to a “team-building” exercise. Reasoning that a group activity would make an excellent ice-breaker and give us a chance to get to know each other, she suggested an unlikely activity that also happened to be a JK staple: karaoke.

Personally, I had no idea what karaoke was supposed to do with traditional games, but if a duck walked up to me with an onion on its back, I wouldn’t question my fortune. Obviously there was nothing wrong with playing mahjong or whatever, but karaoke was very low-impact, despite the implicit agreement of participation; it didn’t take a ton of effort to jingle a tambourine every now and then, and if I was being honest I kind of wanted to hear Reika sing.

It was a weird reason, sure, but my girlfriends had such beautiful voices that I couldn’t help but be a little curious. Saya’s firm tenor and Reika’s gorgeous baritone always seemed to roll languidly off their tongues, hanging in the air like the pleasant vibrations of a cello. Of course, Saya probably wasn’t looking forward to getting up in front of a crowd, but Reika was so committed to being a gyaru’s gyaru that I assumed the spotlight was just a natural place for her to be.

If nothing else, it was a chance to just be ourselves out in a meaningless activity, and perhaps grow our friend circle by a small amount. I loved spending time with my omega and my alpha, and it’d been nearly a week since the three of us had all been together in the same place. The addition of Someki-chan and Fujiwara-chan wasn’t entirely unwelcome, either; I wanted to have a nice school life, and having some friends outside of a romantic context would certainly help that ⸺ though, of course, I’d have to be conscious of Fujiwara-chan’s feelings for me. Still, it was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon, and I wanted desperately to have my girls on either side of me, simply indulging in their presence.

So, to say that I was “shocked” when Reika turned up to karaoke with a woman I’d never seen before would’ve been something of an understatement.

Confusion, hurt, jealousy; a dozen emotions whirled through my mind as I stared at the newcomer. Roughly Saya’s height, it would be easy to describe her as “model pretty”: a cute button nose and long lashes gave off an innocent vibe, making her look a handful of years younger than she had to be, and the shape of her silhouette, hidden though it was under an unassuming outfit, was enough to incite my envy. I was already upset that I hadn’t seen Reika in a while, but to have her casually stroll up to Saya and I with a gorgeous (slightly) older girl on her arm was a slap in the face.

“And who is this?” Saya asked in an even tone, clearly just as irritated as I was; still, she handled the situation slightly better than I did, reigning in her possessive temperament.

“Uh, well,” Reika began, clearly searching for a way to explain the woman’s presence, “her name is Ru ⸺ Yuriko. Yuriko-san.”

Introducing herself with a nervous expression, she tried to follow-up for Reika, with mixed success. “I’m Yama … ⸺ Tanaka Yuriko. Let’s do our best to get along.”

“Yamatanaka?” Saya glared, nonplussed; folding her arms under her bust, she gave Reika an unkind look.

“Reika,” I began, searching for a way to bring up such an awkward question while the woman was still present, “did you perhaps, uh, hire … ⸺ that kind of woman?” Waving away any apprehension preemptively, I felt a little bad about pointing it out. “I mean, like, it’s okay if you have that kind of job, Yamatanaka-san, but maybe you should pick a better working name?”

Returning our stares with a blank look of her own, Reika fumbled for the best explanation. “Look, okay, yes it’s a weird name ⸺ and Rucchan, I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about ⸺ but can you please just go along with it for a few hours?”

Trying to be nice, I gave the girl a second look. She didn’t seem like a bad person, but I wasn’t getting really much of a vibe from her at all; dressed in jeans and a hoodie with the hood actually pulled up, she kind of looked like those photos of celebrities on their days off, slumming it in sweatpants and the like. Which, really, was kind of a shame, given that she had such a pretty face with big, beautiful copper eyes.

“If you’re going to spend a bunch of time rutting with some strange omega,” Saya growled, grinding her teeth together, “I would’ve at least liked a heads-up text that you were bringing her as a date.”

“She’s not a date,” Reika said defensively, pushing back against the jealousy of our possessive alpha, “I’m trying to keep an eye on her for a few hours, alright? That’s the start and end of it.”

“It’s my fault,” the girl said, speaking up in my omega’s defense; apprehension evident in the blissful scent of wisteria, she shuffled nervously on her feet, clearly guilty about intruding. “I’ve just, um, been cooped-up in the house for a long time, and I asked her to help me get some fresh air.” Searching eyes glancing back and forth, it was like she was trying to check to see if anyone was watching us. “I promise I won’t get in anyone’s way, I just … ⸺ I just really needed to get out of there, for a few hours.”

Still glaring daggers, our alpha chewed on the strangeness of the situation. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” she asked, struggling to place where she thought she’d seen the older girl before.

“No,” Reika answered quickly ⸺ too quickly, in fact.
“I d-don’t think so,” stammered the girl, her equally-fast answer ringing with a clear note of suspicion.

“Reika,” I began, starting to put some of the pieces together, “does this girl have anything to do with why you ran out on our date?”

I had promised myself I’d be understanding about it, but it really hurt to have our omega bail on us, only to continue to blow Saya and I off for the rest of the week. I knew that whatever she was involved-in had to be serious, but it hurt that she wouldn’t come to us for any kind of help.

Granted, I had no idea how much use I would be against people like that rough-looking alpha we’d met, but I wanted to at least try.

“I don’t want to stand around out here talking about it,” Reika said irritably, confirming by way of not confirming anything. “Can we please just go inside before anyone sees us?”

“Fine,” Saya agreed, capitulating to her distressed girlfriend; an aura of lilies burned in the air around us, my alpha reminding everyone exactly who Reika belonged to. “But you’re not wiggling out of this.”

“I promise I’ll explain everything,” Reika agreed reluctantly, “but after we get off the street.”

 

---

 

Weirdly enough, the Traditional Games Club didn’t seem to be too put-out by our guest.

Introducing herself as “Tanaka Yuriko,” which was obviously a much-easier name to say, she received barely any attention from Someki-chan or Fujiwara-chan. Saeko-san did give her a harsh glance, just as Saya had, but otherwise didn’t question why she was there.

Instead, everyone busied themselves with fussing over the room reservation, and deciding how long we actually wanted to be out singing karaoke. For my part, I didn’t really care, not as long as I got to spend any amount of time with my girlfriends, but Someki-chan and Fujiwara-chan had diametrically opposed feelings on exactly what constituted a “marathon session,” and whether or not that would be agreeable for everyone involved.

Eventually, the deciding factor ended up being cost, which was always how these sorts of things tended to go. Opting for a surprisingly-small room, or at least comparatively-so, our party filed into a dimly-lit room with soundproof padding on the walls.

A typical sort of karaoke box, the furniture reminded me of the kind of place you would go for a mixer. Two low couches sat against either wall with a long table between them, just large enough to comfortably fit three people each. With a party of seven, it might have been a little uncomfortable, but since the whole point was to be up and singing, it should've worked out.

There was a little “stage” area with a screen behind it, and another on the wall by the door, designed (of course) to provide us with the music videos and lyrics to all the songs. A couple of tablets rested on the table, featuring an app to let us queue up songs, or to order snacks and drinks from the kitchen.

As far as group activities went, it was honestly pretty nice. The music was loud enough that even if someone was a terrible singer, the noise of the party would mitigate the effect, and we could all have a good laugh about it.

Or, at least, that’s how it was supposed to be.

Sitting between Reika and our unknown guest, Saya radiated her marking pheromones in every direction, immediately bringing the mood down to an awkward level. Wanting to be near my girlfriends, I was perched on the end of the couch, right up next to Reika; it was too crowded for all four of us, so we had to sort of cram together, making everything weird and uncomfortable for everyone. By contrast, the couch on the other side seemed incredibly roomy, as Fujiwara-chan and Someki-chan took their first turns picking songs.

I’d been to some truly awful mixers in my time as an overworked office lady, but this promised to be one of the worst karaoke sessions of either of my lifetimes.

By the time they finished the first numbers, the song queue should have passed from Someki-chan and Fujiwara-chan to literally anyone else; instead, the four of us were embroiled in our private little drama, prompting the student council president to take another turn up on stage.

Growing more and more miserable by the moment, I was glad when I saw my phone vibrate; snatching it off the table, I was relieved to see a text message in the group chat, as Saya decided to force Reika to bring everything out into the open.

 

---

 

Saya: so?

ReikaReika: do we
ReikaReika: have to do
ReikaReika: this now?

Yoru: please, Reika
Yoru: I’m worried
Yoru: about you

ReikaReika: yeah but, like
ReikaReika: everyone is
ReikaReika: looking at us
ReikaReika: on our phones

Yoru: just Someki-chan
Yoru: Fujiwara-chan is
Yoru: weirdly into
Yoru: her solo

ReikaReika: yeah I noticed
ReikaReika: do you think
ReikaReika: like, maybe
ReikaReika: she wants
ReikaReika: to be an idol?

Saya: stop dodging
Saya: the question

Yoru: be nice, Saya

ReikaReika: no, it’s okay
ReikaReika: I deserve it
ReikaReika: …
ReikaReika: I’m sorry
ReikaReika: I can’t, like
ReikaReika: explain all of it
ReikaReika: but my dad
ReikaReika: is looking for her

Saya: so?
Saya: what does that
Saya: have to do
Saya: with you?

ReikaReika: nothing, really
ReikaReika: but,
ReikaReika: if he finds her
ReikaReika: it’ll be really bad

Saya: -how- bad?

ReikaReika: Sayacchi…

Saya: -how- bad, Reika?

ReikaReika: …
ReikaReika: like,
ReikaReika: “evening news”
ReikaReika: kinda bad

Saya: …
Saya: bathroom
Saya: -now-

ReikaReika: Sayacchi …

Saya: NOW

 

---

 

The four of us crammed into the bathroom together, Reika blocking the door with her imposing frame.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” she sighed, regretting that things even got to this point in the first place, “I haven’t been avoiding anyone on purpose. I’ve been looking after Yuriko-chan, here, because she’s been hiding at my apartment.”

“You have an apartment?” I blurted out, caught entirely off-guard. “Since when have you had an apartment?”

“Since ever,” she replied easily, as though I’d asked something stupid, like why she was wearing shoes. “The only reason I don’t live there full-time is because it takes way too long to get to school every day.”

“Oh,” I mumbled, feeling stupid. “I guess that makes sense.”

“Anyway,” she continued, glancing nervously at Saya, “I didn’t bring it up to either of you because it’s like, y’know, dangerous. I was trying to keep you out of harm’s way.”

“By putting yourself into it?” Saya accused, advancing into her space. Bristling with concerned fury, our alpha had turned her worry into anger, letting it expand outward to fill the small room. “Reika, we’re highschool students. Hiding someone from your father is a job for the police.”

“No, it’s not,” she shot back, the scent of flower candy clashing with the aura of lilies that surrounded us, my omega airing her displeasure. “Like, I can’t get into some of the fine detail, but it would be worse for Yuriko-chan if we took her to the cops.”

“Why?” Saya growled, unwilling to let the matter rest. “That’s supposed to be their job, right? Protecting people?”

“I don’t think they would,” I interjected, coming to Reika’s rescue. “I think that the reason she can’t go to the police is because she’s involved in a crime, somehow.”

Remembering a detail from the other day, where Reika and her rough-looking friend had talked about people from Naniga stirring up trouble, I had put at least one of the pieces together. Certainly, the police might try to guard someone they thought was in immediate danger, but perhaps the issue lay in explaining why she was being targeted in the first place.

“Then you shouldn’t have gotten yourself involved!” Saya hissed, stamping her foot in aggravation. “That makes you an accessory to the crime, Reika!”

“It’s my fault,” Yuriko-chan spoke up, her quiet voice laced with guilt. “I begged Reika-san for her help, and got her involved in this.”

“No shit,” Saya snarled, turning her fury towards the quivering girl.

“Sayacchi,” Reika snapped, interposing herself between the two.

Chest to chest, my omega and my alpha stared each other down; tensing up, the two of them were on the edge of something, like territorial predators about to fight over the same meal.

In the span of about a minute, a powderkeg had formed inside the room, and my girlfriends were waving around matches. Whatever was going on, it had really worked Saya up; her protective nature had twisted around itself, and without a proper outlet, she was on the verge of doing something really rash and stupid. I wanted to stop her, but the more we dug into the problem, the angrier it made her ⸺ and the less-trusting of Yuriko-chan she became.

Reaching out with my weak pheromones, I tried to calm the two of them, filling the tense atmosphere of the room with the gentle hint of petrichor.

“It doesn’t matter how any of this started,” I protested, getting in between them; putting my hand on each of their stomachs, I pushed them away from each other, creating space. “It happened, alright? We can’t go back and undo whatever started this. Right now, this girl is in trouble, and Reika is the one in charge of protecting her.” Glancing at the tall blonde, I sought her confirmation and support. “Right?”

“Right,” she nodded, still simmering in her annoyed irritation. “It’s just for a few more days, until she can be moved somewhere else.”

“Who even is she?” Saya demanded, forcing the issue.

“Riko,” the woman answered, a miserable hesitation swimming in her soft alto. “My name is Watanabe Riko.”

Stunned, Saya whipped around, forgetting her argument with Reika as she struggled to process this new information. “Ruriko?” she gasped, caught entirely off-guard.

“Ruriko?” I echoed, feeling a weird sense of vertigo, an awkward weight sinking into my stomach. “But, she was on the news this morning, wasn’t she?”

Staring at her like she had to be a ghost, Saya’s eyes were wide with shock. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

“She is,” Reika clarified, “or at least legally, she is. In the eyes of the law and the public ⸺ and, most-importantly, my father ⸺ Watanabe Riko has been deceased for months, and her ashes interred in her family’s grave.”

“Oh,” Saya mumbled, putting it all together. “I see.”

“So the reason you’re hiding her from your dad,” I started, beginning to see how my omega had become embroiled in this, “is because he did something wrong, and Ruriko knows about it?”

“More or less,” Reika nodded, impressed with my deduction. “He’s going to shut down Everyday, Gals! and their farewell concert, to try and stop people from looking into her ‘murder,’ and uncovering whatever it is he doesn’t want them to find.”

“You don’t know what it is yourself?” Saya questioned, her ire burning away, becoming consummate consideration once again.

Reika shook her head. “If I did, that would put me in a lot of hot water, too. All I know is that my father tried to buy her silence, and then sent enforcers from the Tanizaki Group to take her out and recover the money.”

“How did you manage to stop them?” I wondered aloud, confused by the way the puzzle was lining up.

Certainly, Kazimir-san seemed like an awful person; while I didn’t really think he’d been involved in any criminal activity, the sudden appearance of an idol-group singer who was supposed to be dead did raise a lot of questions, and implicate Supra-Pro in something. The thing I couldn’t understand, though, was how Reika found out about the plot, but not what engendered it; how could she have known that yakuza thugs were out to silence someone she didn’t even know?

“I got lucky,” Ruriko interrupted; though she sounded earnest in her assessment, she had answered my question just a little too eagerly, as though she were covering for Reika somehow. “Reika-san and her friend helped me escape, and they’ve been keeping me at the apartment all this time.” Shuffling awkwardly from side to side, she stared down at her feet, unable to meet anyone’s eyeline. “Honestly, they’ve been really helpful, and I’m grateful that they put themselves at risk for my sake, but I guess … ⸺ I was starting to go stir-crazy, hiding in a stranger’s apartment with all the blinds drawn, all by myself. Day after day, I waited and waited, jumping at any noise, worried that someone was going to break down the door and find me.”

Exchanging an apologetic glance with Reika, Saya turned to the shivering woman. “I’m sorry,” she muttered, all the fight gone from her voice. “I’m still upset about all this, and I wish Reika hadn’t put herself in harm’s way ⸺ but I’m sorry for blaming you for that. It must have been really hard.”

“It was,” Ruriko agreed, voice cracking, just on the edge of tears. “It was very hard.”

I couldn’t imagine what kind of interminable hell that had to be. Well, I supposed I could imagine something similar-enough, recalling the exhaustive years at my exploitative job, but it was one thing to be passively-drained and another thing entirely to be huddling in fear, waiting for yakuza enforcers to smash into your hiding place and finally find you. For Ruriko’s sake, I hoped that her trial was nearly behind her.

Trying to brighten up the mood, I did what I did best: say something stupid.

“Then it’s a good thing you’re here with us,” I smiled, faking a cheerfulness that I didn’t feel. “You’re an idol, right? So that means you have to be great at karaoke!”

“I guess,” she laughed nervously, grateful for my awkward distraction. “I think I could probably sing one or two songs.”

“Don’t worry about anything,” Saya assured her, enveloping her in a wreath of patient, conciliatory lilies. “Now that we know what’s going on, Yoru and I can help cover for you. No one will know you’re here, so go ahead and relax.”

“Thank you,” Ruriko mewled, damp spots forming at the corners of her eyes. “I really appreciate your help. I just wish I had some way I could pay you back ⸺ all of you, but especially Reika-san.”

“No need,” my omega asserted, shaking her head. “This is just what our polycule is like.”

 

Top 100 Karaoke Duets, for Lovers

---

“It has got to be someone else’s turn to sing,” Someki-chan whined, exhausted from her back-to-back solos. “I’m out of every track I know.”

“Surely not every single one,” I teased, giving her a friendly elbow.

“I’m serious,” she muttered, squirming in her seat next to me. “You were all gone for so long, I burned through like, every anime opening I know the lyrics to ⸺ and then all the endings, too.”

“I bet there’s still got to be something in here you like,” I insisted, scooting closer to her; our hips bumped together, as I held the tablet out for her inspection. “Don’t you wanna give it one more look?”

“I g-guess I could,” she mumbled, gingerly taking hold of the tablet. For only a brief moment, our fingers brushed together, but that was apparently enough for Someki-chan; I didn’t know she was that touchy about her personal space, but she snatched it out of my hands, sliding a handful of centimeters away from me, her cheeks burning a bright red. “M-maybe I can find a duet,” she said hopefully, at odds with her apprehensive expression.

“Ooh, a duet sounds nice,” Reika grinned, flashing her beautiful fangs. “Have we gotten Kuroyama-sensei to sing yet?”

“Nope!” Saya laughed confidently, ganging up on our club advisor with my other tigress. “We’ve all done at least three songs, and she’s been sitting there the whole time.”

“Don’t worry about me,” she scoffed, waving away our childish games, “I’m only here because I have to be; go ahead and sing whatever you like.”

After the awkward start to the outing, things had more or less calmed-down emotionally, and we’d all gotten into the swing of things. Fujiwara-chan turned out to be a surprisingly-talented singer with a sort of operatic vibe, which played well on some of the more complicated songs that the rest of us couldn’t hope to touch. Someki-chan had stuck to songs from her favorite shows and games, which made an amount of sense, but didn’t leave her a very large repertoire; what she lacked in talent, she certainly made up for in volume, at least.

For my part, I stuck to tired old favorites, songs that everyone knew and were impossible to mess-up. Sure, it wasn’t very adventurous, but it had gotten me through enough company parties in my day; though, I didn’t sing as well as I remembered, but that was probably due to the absence of any alcohol.

My ambush of gyaru had performed beautifully, Saya and Reika surpassing all of my hopes. I hadn’t ever known about this side of my childhood friend, and it filled me with a melancholic regret; I’d never been invited to karaoke outings in highschool for … reasons, and so I’d never had a chance to hear her sing. Again, that idle pensiveness blossomed in my chest, as I wondered what it might have been like if the two of us had been able to share a booth together, exposing our hearts in pop song duets.

At least we were finally able to do it now.

“It sets a bad example for the students for the advisor to be unwilling to participate in club activities,” Fujiwara-chan grinned impishly, leveling her officious student council persona at Saeko-san. “I’m afraid this speaks to a lack of interest in student affairs, and I’ll be forced to report this during our next monthly report.”

“Are you threatening me?” Saeko-san huffed incredulously, impressed with Fujiwara-chan’s audacity.

“It’s not a threat if you get up and sing,” I teased, happy to not be the target of all the bullying for once.

“Just one song,” Saya pleaded, offering the microphone to our club advisor. “Sing one song, and we’ll stop pestering you.”

“I don’t have to sing any,” she protested, rolling her eyes at our theatrics. “This is my day off, alright? I just want to sit, and relax, and drink nine-hundred-yen juice.”

“C’mon, Kuroyama-sensei,” Reika begged, flashing one of her thousand-megawatt smiles. “I’ll make it easy on you. If you get up right now, we can make it a duet, so you only have to sing half a song.”

A dark cloud seemed to pass in front of Saeko-san’s face, as her annoyed expression became crestfallen, the corners of her mouth dipping down into a worried frown. “A duet?” she asked softly, a strange hesitation in her quiet tenor.

“I’ll even pick the track for us,” Reika beamed, nodding enthusiastic encouragement. “Deal?”

Chewing on her lip, Saeko-san didn’t seem entirely pleased with the offer, as though something were holding her back from saying yes, a worrying detail that the rest of us couldn’t see. Indecision warred inside her, playing out in the barest hints on her face, as her eyes darted from the stage, to Reika, and back, several times.

“A duet?” she asked again, a lingering something in her tone.

“Yeah,” Reika repeated, her smile dimming slightly, concerned by the nurse’s uncomfortable expression. “Do you not want to?”

“That’s not it,” she muttered, almost too quietly for any of us to hear. Coming to a decision, she finally relented, taking the mic from Saya and getting up from the couch. “Just the one song,” she insisted as she padded towards the stage.

“That’s all I’m asking,” Reika agreed, a gentle consideration in her grateful baritone.

Though we all knew it was going to be a duet, and we also knew that most duets fell into one specific genre, the Traditional Games Club was still slightly taken aback when the pink hearts began to scroll up the screen, heralding the beginning of a love song.

To their credit, Reika and Saeko-san put their hearts into it, even though listening to a student and teacher performing this type of duet had to be slightly awkward for Someki-chan and Fujiwara-chan to hear. Even Saya looked slightly displeased, but impressed, the latter sentiment shared with Ruriko as they clapped along appreciatively, keeping the beat.

Hitting every note regardless of the difficult register, the two didn’t even need to discuss which part to take, or how to break up the chorus; they didn’t even look at the screen, apparently having committed the words to heart. In a fascinating display of what I had to assume was serendipity, the two of them danced gracefully through the piece, the emotion of the song drifting brightly through the room; if I didn’t know any better, and perhaps had seen the scene out of context, I might actually believe there was something going on between the two.

But that would be ridiculous, right? Reika’s memories were all scrambled-up, her emotions tangling themselves in knots when it came to Saeko-san ⸺ and the nurse definitely knew better than to encourage that kind of feeling, if my conversations with TallDrkBeauty had been any indication. She had a girlfriend of her own, too, and one that I assumed she had to be fairly loyal to, if she was willing to put-up with a long distance romance.

Even still, as the lights came back up and the song came to an end, I wasn’t expecting her to cry.

Pushing away drops of wet from under her glasses, Saeko-san fled the room, dropping the microphone unceremoniously onto the couch.

 

---

 

I knew I shouldn’t have peeked in on them, but I couldn’t stop my curiosity from getting the better of me.

Under the pretext of visiting the vending machines for some cheaper drinks, Reika had followed Saeko-san out into the hallway. Of course, they really did go to the little vending-machine area, a place where people could get some cheaper (and lower-quality) snacks without having to bother any of the staff. A relatively-unused area, it was more or less private.

Or, at least it could’ve been, if I hadn’t been waiting around the corner, listening in on their conversation.

“I’m sorry,” Reika said for the fifth time, incapable of understanding what she’d done to upset the nurse. “I didn’t mean it.”

“Mean what?” Saeko-san snapped in a harsh voice, hiding her feelings in contentious hostility. “What didn’t you mean?”

“It was just a duet,” the tall blonde said placatively, missing the hidden undercurrent to the nurse’s lashing-out. “I wasn’t trying to rile you up or anything ⸺ I just thought you’d like it.”

“You thought I’d like it,” the nurse repeated, crossing her arms under her chest becoming guarded. “What would make you think that? How could you possibly think I’d like that?”

“I don’t know!” Reika muttered in exasperation, confused as to why she was getting the fifth degree. “It’s just, I don’t know ⸺ I thought it was a song you liked. Like, I remember you really enjoying it, so I figured ⸺”

“When?” Saeko-san interrupted, a strangely-desperate bent to her question. “When, and where, have you ever heard me enjoying that song?”

“You used to sing it, didn’t you?” Reika mumbled, working her way through something she couldn’t fully comprehend; sabotaged again by her miserable memory, she fought to stay afloat, to keep from being swallowed by the growing anxiety it caused. “I can remember you singing it, somewhere. An apartment, maybe … ⸺ I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

Sighing loudly, Saeko-san centered herself; even still, a weight had settled on her shoulders, and its gravity broke the composure of her voice, as well.

“Why that song, Reika?” she demanded, an errant tear racing down her cheek, the single drop to escape the tight prison of her eyes, where she had locked-away her true feelings. “Of all the duets ⸺ hell, of all the romance songs, why that one?”

Hanging her head, the tall blonde cast her gaze to the side, unable to meet the other woman’s eyeline. “The last time I heard you sing it,” she explained, her voice cracking under the strain, “I thought you looked … ⸺ I thought you looked really beautiful. You were smiling, and happy, and I just thought ….” Trailing off, she pushed her fingers through her hair, sweeping her bangs away from her face; I couldn’t see it from where I was, but I assumed she had to be a mess in her own right. “I wanted to see you make that face, I guess. I wanted to see you smile.”

Showing a surprising intimacy, Saeko-san reached up, setting her hand against Reika’s cheek; gently, tenderly, she wiped away the damp of Reika’s eyes, even as she refused her own.

“That’s our song,” she said quietly, her voice suffused with a sad contrition. “Mine, and my girlfriend’s.”

“I didn’t know,” she murmured, struggling to bury her self-loathing, angry with herself for making a mistake. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was your song.”

“No, Reika,” Saeko-san returned, shaking her head; sighing despondently, she pushed her fingers through the blonde’s hair, pulling her down until their foreheads pressed together, displaying a surprising tenderness. “I think you did know. I’m not going to make you tell me about it, not until you’re ready, but … ⸺ I need to know.”

“Need to know what?” Reika sniffled, crushed by her misstep.

“Please, little tiger,” Saeko-san pleaded, a comforting haze of vanilla filling the space around them, “don’t play that game with me.”

“I need you to tell me about your other life.”