[Eiji’s POV]

It’s just a couple of minutes after the girls go upstairs before the intercom chimes. After I answer the door, I lead a very nervous Ryu back into the living room. Repressing a smile, I gesture for him to take a seat.

Once I sit down beside Haruka, I clear my throat and ask, “Ryu, just what were you thinking? You three are only 13.”

Nervously, he looks back and forth between us. “Uh, I can guess what you’re thinking, but I truly do love Chinatsu and Sora. I was more than willing to wait until we were married, but you know how they are. Once they’ve made their minds up about something,” he shrugs, “well, I stand very little chance of changing their minds. I realize that it sounds like I’m trying to push all of the responsibility for us having sex off on them, but I don’t mean it that way.”

He pauses and seems to be gathering his thoughts for a moment before he continues. “I really am serious about both of them. Me proposing to them wasn’t a joke, I was dead serious when I asked them and it damn sure wasn’t a ploy to have sex with them. I know all too well what you would do to me if I played with their hearts. Yes, I know full well that we are only 13, but I love them both and I want them for my wives and the mothers of my children. I don’t really know what else to say.”

Haruka takes my hand and squeezes it as I look at Ryu. “You said everything you needed to. We just wanted to make sure you are serious about them, but there is one thing I have an issue with. Ryu, don’t you think you should have asked me for permission to marry them first?”

He nods. “You’re right, I should have and I apologize that I didn’t. It’s a little late at this point, but may I ask for their hands in marriage?”

Smiling, I say, “Of course you can, just be sure to protect and take care of them from now on.”

Nodding, he replies, “I promise that I will.”

“Excellent. Ryu, make sure you use a condom when you have sex with them.”

“I can promise you that I will. We are far too young to be having babies.”

“Good and yes, you are far too young. Alright, I’m sure the girls are waiting on you, so go on up.”

After he goes upstairs, I turn to Haruka and say, “Our daughters are going to make my hair go grey before I’m 40.”

　◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇

[Sora’s POV]

Ryu came up to our room while Chinatsu and I were making out. Getting up when he knocks on the door and announces himself, I let him in. I’ll leave it at the three of us made out for a while and then took a short nap until lunch.

After lunch, which Mama and Chiaki made to welcome us all back, we gather everyone up so that we can head to TGR.

I might mention, this is the first time I will be taking Ryu with us to my job. Yes, he went with us for the party, but he has never been inside. For that matter, neither has Mii. We’re going so I can catch up on everything, get Sofi her injection of the fertility treatment, Mii can see her Dad and I can start work on my research idea I had in Okinawa. I don’t want to see anyone who protects us get hurt again and I believe my idea will go a long way to stopping that from happening again.

When everyone is ready, I text Mr. Okami to meet us at the gate. In the SUV we relax as we make our way to TGR. Once we arrive, our security is waiting for us out front. After greeting them, I take out my access card and we make our way up to my office.

Walking in I say, “Hi ladies. How are you today?”

Akari, as usual, answers for everyone when she says, “We’re fine, thank you. Did everyone enjoy the trip to Okinawa?” She pauses when she sees Jason’s arm and asks, “Did something happen?”

I reply, “Yes, we all had a lot of fun, but there was an incident and Jason got hurt during it.”

Jason pipes up and says, “This is nothing. I’ll be fine in a few weeks. Nothing to worry about.”

Akari nods and replies, “Good, I’m glad to hear that.” She looks at Ryu beside me and a smile blossoms. Nodding at him. “You we already know. You’re Ryu and we are very pleased to meet you.”

Smiling, I look up and Ryu and gesture to each of them as I introduce them. “Honey, This is Akari, Sanae and Mai. They’re my assistants.”

He nods to them and says, “Pleased to meet you all.”

Mai quips, “I can see why you chose him as your boyfriend Sora. He’s much more handsome in person.”

We chuckle as he blushes slightly. “Ladies. We never mentioned it, but he isn’t just mine. He’s Chinatsu’s as well.” I hold up my left hand as I continue, “Plus, he’s our fiance, not our boyfriend.”

Mai looks a little surprised as she asks, “Your father agreed to this?”

Ryu speaks up. “Umm, a little belatedly, but yes. I asked them to marry me in Okinawa and they said yes. I asked Eiji for permission to marry them when we returned and he agreed.”

Sanae looks at me and asks, “What would you have done if he didn’t allow it?”

Chinatsu and I laugh and then I reply, “Come on! You know me better than that. Do I take no for an answer when it’s something I really want?” They chuckle for a few moments. “Honestly though, all Dad cares about is that we’re happy and that we’re serious about each other… Okay ladies, I have things to do, so we’ll see you later. Oh, Akari, please call Kotomi and ask her to come to my office.” She nods and we head into my office, Mirai looks up from whatever she is working on and smiles as I say, “Hi Mirai.”

“Hello Sora. I didn’t expect to see you today.”

I wave everyone over to the sofa and loveseat to sit. Looking back to Mirai, I shrug. “Well, Sofi needs her fertility treatment before school starts and I had a nanotechnology research idea I want to get someone started on as soon as possible.”

“Sora, you know as well as I do that all the researchers we have are tied up in projects right now and all the ones we’ve looked at hiring have failed the vetting process for one reason or another.”

Nodding, I reply, “I know. Trust me I know and I don’t want to loosen up the vetting to hire some either. There’s no way I want to hire moles or whatever to replace the ones we just got rid of… I suppose we’ll just have to look outside of Japan to hire more.”

“We’d already talked about that, but you said to wait because you wanted to be there. We did do the background checks on the people we agreed to make offers to though, so if you want to talk to them then we at least have that done.”

“Thanks Mirai. You really make things a lot easier on me. Can you pull up the list for me and we’ll…”

I don’t get to finish my statement because the intercom chimes interrupts me. Pressing the button Mirai says, “Yes?”

Akari announces, “Kotomi is here.”

Mirai looks at me and I nod. Mirai tells her, “Thank you. Please send her in.”

A few moments later she knocks on the door and enters after Mirai says, “Come in.”

I smile as I tell her, “Hi Kotomi. Come on in and take a seat. Good to see you. How’s everything going?”

She sits down in the other seat in front of Mirai’s desk and replies, “Everything is great. I really appreciate you sending Maki to me. She works as hard as two people and picks things up really quickly.”

Ryu asks, “Are you talking about Maki Ueno?”

Kotomi looks at him as she says, “One and the same.” Turning back to me, she continues, “Sora, she’s smart enough to be a senior research assistant.”

“Kotomi, we aren’t going to tell you how to run your department. If you think she deserves to be promoted, then do it… Anyway, I asked you to come up here for two reasons: Sofi’s treatment, and I have an idea I’d like to discuss.”

Kotomi nods.”I assumed as much about Sofi. Do you want me to give her the treatment first and then we’ll talk?”

“Please. I need to do a couple of things first and then we can talk about if my idea is even viable.”

Standing up, she replies, “Okay. We should be back in a few minutes.” Turning to Sofi, she says, “If you’ll come with me.”

Sofi stands and they head out of the office. I look at Mii and ask, “Would you like to visit your father?”

Smiling, she asks, “Can I?”

“Of course.” I look at Shiori and ask, “Shiori, would you mind taking Mii down to Hiro’s office?”

“Not at all.”

After they head out of the office, I look back to Mirai. “I have a few things I need to pull up on my tablet before Kotomi comes back.”

She nods and I move over to my desk, and pull up the programming for my nanites. With Hestia’s help, I copy the section for healing out of the code as well as the adaptability code. Look, there are literally almost a million lines of code for my nanites, so Hestia’s help is necessary to do it in a timely manner. If I had more time, and the inclination, I could do it myself, but it would take hours for me to find the relevant sections

Making a new file I copy them over into it with notes on what they do and write a long summary of what I want the nanites to be able to do. A few minutes later, Kotomi comes back with Sofi and sits down in front of my desk. I move to sit beside her and Mirai joins us. Showing them my tablet and telling Hestia I want her input as well, I explain what I want to do.

Once I finish, Hestia says, “Sora, the military already uses muscle and bone reinforcement, so we might be able to borrow the code for doing that. The thing is, what they do takes regular dosing to keep it active, otherwise it breaks down in their bodies.”

Nodding to myself, I say, “I can see that. I’m sure the government doesn’t want a large number of super-soldiers running the streets that can easily kill people with their hands.” I look over at Kotomi as I continue, “Do you think the government will have a problem with what I want to do here?”

She shrugs and says, “It’s hard to say. They can be picky about the strangest of things. Oh, Sora, before I forget, we got approval to begin testing of the fertility treatment. They want a thousand volunteers tested and even after we told them the success rate, they are demanding a success rate of 55% to gain approval for it.”

Sighing, I silently wonder why the government has to make things so darn complicated. Shrugging mentally, I tell her, “If it weren’t for the fact that this can be used up to three times, I doubt we could meet their requirements… Whatever though, do you need more staff for it?”

She shakes her head. “No, they’ve already been hired.”

“Okay. Well, let’s just cross our fingers and hope that everything goes well. Anyway, we need to find out if they are okay with us proceeding with this.” Looking at Mirai, I ask, “Can you ask about this?” She nods. “Thank you. I’d like to make this a priority. I don’t want to see the people who protect me get hurt again.”

Mirai nods. “Okay, now about the list of researcher candidates. Do you want me to reach out and set up a few appointments for Monday afternoon?”

I think about it for a few moments because I still have to reschedule my and Mii’s appointment with Airi, but I think I should be able to get morning appointments for both of us. However, we’ll have to change all that up when school starts back up in a couple of weeks.

“That works. Please make the first time at 1:00 though, so we can have time to eat lunch.”

“Sure. Not an issue. You do realize the times are going to be all over the place after the ones I set for Friday?”

“I know. If need be, we can conference call the interviews while I’m at home.”

“I assumed you would say that. Okay, that’s everything from my end. Kotomi?”

Kotomi shakes her head. “I’m good, other than to say, I’ll be promoting Maki when I get back to the department. There may be some backlash since she hasn’t worked here as long as others. I’ll deal with it though.” Mirai and I nod in reply.

Mirai says, “Hestia, do you have anything else?”

“No, Mirai, I have nothing further at this time. Although, if you’d rather, I can reach out to the candidates for you.”

“Thank you Hestia. Please do that.”

I stand up and say, “Now that that’s settled, we’re going to head home. Call me if you need me.”

Walking over, I collect everyone and we make our way down to Hiro’s office to get Mii and head home.