A small, isolated room.

Concrete walls lined with wooden boards and dense cloth. A lengthy hall right outside the door. And no other rooms in the vicinity.

That’s where we found ourselves.

A safe room of sorts.

The square table in front of me, which looked fancier than any table I had ever owned, was covered with enough food to feed a family. A collection of meats, greens, and breads, among other things, nearly glistened under the simple light hanging overhead.

Of course, this wasn’t all for me.

No.

And although I had the twins with me, who looked about ready to ravage every last item on that table at the drop of a hat, that wasn’t the only person with us.

“So…Kasey…about earlier.”

Across from me, glancing back and forth between the girls before finally settling on me, was the beast man, Kasey. His ears weren’t as droopy as always and even had a bit of a sharpness to them. Even his tail moved in a more agitated manner than usual.

“What about earlier…?”

Damn. I had never heard him sound so cold before.

Did he already figure out the relationship between us? I mean, it only made sense. Why else would I guy like me suddenly have two cute girls hanging off his arms?

“This food all looks so yummy!”

“Is it all for us, master, is it?”

Hikari threw her hands over Shiari’s mouth in a panic. “Dummy! We’re not supposed to call master, master, did you forget!”

Shiari’s eyes widened. “Dfft rmfft mff dfft!” She let out some muffled sounds which I was unable to decipher. She only spoke normally once Hikari removed her hands. “I’m sorry, maste—Starlin, I am. It slipped my mind, it did.”

Well, if Kasey didn’t know before he definitely knows now. They’d really done so well up until now. Guess it was my fault for distracting the girls with this plentiful food. Oh well. A lesson for the future.

Kasey’s face paled.

I could only imagine his fears were being confirmed. Now he’d see me as a pervert who buys slaves for his own sexual satisfaction (Which I didn’t do, but who would believe me?).

“You…You…” Kasey spoke. “You’re dating two girls…and you’re making them call you master…” His eyes glossed over. “You’re…”

Huh?

Dating?

I don’t know if that’s the first conclusion I would’ve reached. I guess in a way it wasn’t entirely out of the picture. The only reason I was self-conscious about it was because I knew they were slaves, but that wasn’t necessarily true for everyone else, right?

But no.

If no one had ever seen me with a girl before and then I suddenly had two, what else would—no, what could they think? That doesn’t just happen to someone…

…or does it?

Right.

Like before, back when I met him, I used my status for something similar, to portray myself as something I wasn’t. Maybe once again... Yeah, that probably wasn’t entirely off base. There’d been a few times that girls I had never even met had asked me out. Of course, I had rejected them, but that’s not the point.

It happens.

Maybe not to everyone, but it definitely does, and has, to me.

If I roll along with this, it may look better on me.

Still not great, but at least better than the truth.

Switching gears, I began my new story. “Trust me. I was not the one that decided they should call me master.” I leaned back and crossed my arms.

“…huh? You weren’t?” Kasey snapped out of his little trance.

“Why do you sound so surprised?”

“Well, it’s just that…it’s nothing.”

Breaking my gaze away from Kasey, glad that he seemed to be buying this new improvised story, I gave the go-ahead to the twins to eat, prompting them to start shoveling handfuls of food down their throats.

Geez.

You really wouldn’t expect that kind of ferocity from girls like those.

Having this much freedom must really be letting them let loose.

“When did you meet?” Kasey asked. “I’ve never seen you with them.”

Damn it.

I can only improvise so much!

“Um…” I quickly tried coming up with something. “You know how I told you I used to travel with my family?”

I remember telling him that once.

Although we’d never moved, we did spend some time traveling every so often. It was mostly business-related, but that still made this scenario possible.

“Oh…yeah.”

“Well, I met these two over where we used to stay.” Yeah, that sounds possible. “We’ve known each other for years, but only recently got together.”

I glanced at the girls, but they were still busy chowing down.

Honestly, I wouldn’t mind having people see those two as my girlfriends. There was nothing inherently stopping me from dating multiple girls, the only thing that could be an obstacle is the girls’ feelings, but something tells me these two wouldn’t mind being classified as such.

I’d probably have to do the same for the other two then.

I doubt they’d have much issue with that.

“But didn’t you say you weren’t looking for a girlfriend?” Kasey took a piece of bread from directly in front of him and nibbled at it. “What made you change your mind?”

Shit. I definitely had said that at some point.

That much had been the truth. Being in the position I was in, it was hard to know when a girl actually wanted to date you for you and not for the position you were in. Instead of trying to figure out who was being genuine or not, I decided just not to date anyone at all.

I had confided that to Kasey, now it was biting me in the ass.

But…

“…Well…” I felt it was a little of a low blow, but in a way, it wasn’t entirely wrong, so it wouldn’t hurt to say it. “I was thinking…after my father died, I realized I didn’t have many people around me. It wasn’t a problem when he was alive, but now…apart from you, Kasey, I didn’t really have anyone to talk to, or that I could even call close.”

His eyes widened.

Before he could say anything, I continued. “I’d work for so long that I neglected any sort of relationship, pushing everyone away. But these two were always there. Even when I pushed them away, they kept pushing forward, until they finally broke through. And with nothing else to lose, I thought…it wouldn’t hurt to make a change.”

“I-I see…” he awkwardly let out. He lowered his head and his ears flattened. “I’m…I’m sorry for being so insensitive. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, no, you’re all good, man. I don’t mind telling you.”

Good, that seemed to have worked.

Kasey looked uncomfortable, even his ears and tails had begun drooping again. An awkward silence came between us. Only the sound of the twins eating next to me filled the room.

After a few seconds of that, Kasey shook his head. “A-Anyway…” he tried to change the subject. “Do you come to this place often?”

Not the smoothest transition, but I’d be an idiot if I didn’t take it.

“Oh, not really.” I shook my head. “Usually I only come here when I meet with someone privately—or I want some time alone.”

The private rooms underneath the Hash Tavern weren’t accessible to just anyone. In fact, most people didn’t even know this place existed. With the connections I had, and with my father being who he was, I tended to come here often when meeting with clients.

I became friends with the owners of this place, so they began lending me this place whenever I wanted—unless there were specific reasons I couldn’t.

Using it for something like this wasn’t something I was proud of, but I felt it had to be done. At least, it would’ve been if I had pulled off my original plan of just coming clean to Kasey, but with things turning to the way they are, this wasn’t really needed.

“I see…” He looked around. “We really do live in different worlds, huh.”

“Different worlds?” I asked. “Why do you say that?”

Kasey shuffled in his seat.

“It’s just…places like these, this amount of food, it’s not something I’m used to.” He smiled weakly. “If I was, I wouldn’t be in the position I’m in.”

In a flash, I recalled Kasey’s predicament.

“Right, has Morgana come back yet?”

He flinched. “…no, but I’m sure she will any day now…”

“And I guess there’s still no plan, right?”

“…No…”

I expected as much.

I’d been a bit busy with my own things this past week, but it wasn’t like I hadn’t given his situation any thought. Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of any way to deal with it without going against Kasey’s wishes.

That one thing was the biggest issue.

“Are you certain that you can’t call it off?” I asked again, knowing the answer full well.

Kasey shook his head. “If anything, I’ve dug a deeper pit for myself recently.”

“And how did you accomplish that, young Kasey?”

His ears drooped again. “I kind of thought that maybe by telling my parents about how she really was they’d think she was too weird and they’d think twice about wanting me to marry her.”

“Ah, so you told them how she’s a pervert.”

“Y-Yeah…”

“And how did that lead to said pit?”

“Well…” He blushed. “They didn’t think it was weird. They were actually overjoyed that she wanted to…um…”

“Have sex with you?”

With another blush, he nodded. “They even said that having a child with her should be my main priority…”

“Quite the parents.”

“I just…” He sighed. “…I really don’t know what to do.”

We really were just going in circles.

But honestly, going in circles was all we could do in this situation. Without doing anything extremely drastic, there was no real way I could think of to fix this problem. It was either doing the simplest things, like talking it out with his parents, or going overboard and having…

…having…

Wait a minute…

“Wait, is there a specific reason why they want you to marry her?”

I didn’t want to make any assumptions, and while he did give me a little bit of insight before, it wasn’t enough to fully explain it.

“All they’ve told me is that they’ve always thought we’d look cute together…but I know better.” He glanced at me a few times, mulling over his words. Licking his lips, he continued. “I know that all they really want is for me to marry into their family for the money. That much is pretty clear to me.”

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

There’s no reason why parents would be that adamant about something like that if there wasn’t something going on behind the scenes.

Of course, arranged marriages weren’t anything out of the ordinary. Most people preferred getting to choose their own partner, but if it had to be it had to be.

And when it came down to it, money was king.

In that case though…

“Heh, I see.” I stood from my seat. “Then how about we do this, Kasey.”

“D-Do what?” He said with concern.

“How about you marry into my family?”

“W-What?!”

 

 

***Oh look, another Author's Note***

 

This one really took a while to release, huh. That really wasn't my intention, but oh well.

Anyway, so I don't repeat the same excuses I've said time and time again (Just take one of my past excuses and apply it to this occasion and that will probably not be far from the truth), I wanted to talk about other stuff. First, some art. I've been planning on getting some art done for each of the character, so you can get a better feel for the girls (and maybe even Starlin). I haven't gotten to that since life hasn't allowed me the freedom for that, but that's something I want to get to sooner rather than later, maybe within the next month or two. Second, my work on the other stories I wanted to write are coming along nicely, and I feel like they have some potential. Again, they won't be releasing any time soon, but just wanted to give an update.

With all that being said, for those still chugging along with me in this slow train moving...somewhere, thanks, and I hope you enjoy what's to come.