All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 63

It's been a while since we touched upon the subject of harem logistics. While our earlier lectures were certainly as rigorous and enlightening as the rest of our course has been, they focused on the part of the harem that more readily comes to mind in such studies, that is, its constituents.

Yes, it is essential, and vitally so when yanderes are involved, to analyze the personality types to avoid redundancy and properly choose among the most fitting harem managerial styles (that is: all but the classic school—that way lies chronic traumatic encephalopathy), but no one can claim expertise in the field without having dabbled into one its most seemingly esoteric yet still pedestrian aspects: the furniture.

Yes, certain harem doujins may sideline the issue by bestowing upon the main character a lavish lifestyle that includes the kind of bed that requires a segment of Yggdrasil itself to prepare its round frame, but in more realistic scenarios (those that the harem genre may deem realistic at all, of course), there usually are at least a few non-millionaires involved in (and with) the cast.

So, how does that work? How are such commonplace issues distorted by the reality-altering field that is the actual cause of the main character's inhuman denseness and, often, resilience? How does any proper story deal with this if not through a government agency taking care of refitting a regular house for monstergirl usage?

The answer may surprise you.

As in, there's none.

"This is strictly Platonical," Haruno reassures me, unwittingly (I hope) bringing to mind Zaimokuza-inflicted trauma.

What's 'this,' you say? Well…

There are four barefooted people standing around Shizu's bed. A bed that is certainly big enough to fit all of us as has been previously established through naked apron shenanigans that were born out of a stroke of genius and not through sheer absentmindedness.

A big bed, certainly, and particularly so for a perennially single woman—and I'm strangling that thought and its implications in their shared, overcrowded crib before I get violent with things outside my head.

So. A big bed in which, if we are not too bothered by elbows digging where elbows should not dig without prior provocation, we can all lie side by side.

That is, we four can fit in this bed.

…

The bed that is covered with violet, glossy sheets.

That Shizu prepared for what she thought would be her weekend date with Haruno.

They are… I don't know if her fixation with the color that I have so often seen her wear in her most seductive lingerie and with one other set of bedsheets has anything to do with Haruno. It could be easy to establish that connection, that thread between lavender and violet, two flowers with such similar colors. And, if I wanted to play at what Haruno thinks me suited for, I would guess that Shizu choosing the darker shade for herself reflects her still lingering guilt at both how she handled things back when Haruno first tried to go past their friendship and at Shizu's own feelings that she thought improper and forbidden for years.

Until we forced her to face them.

And, following that line of reasoning? It could easily be deduced that Haruno's entire plan, her way of pushing Shizu and me together, her demand for me to hurt her… It was all leading up to this moment.

Do you know what's the danger of thinking like this?

"Haruno… Let's say there's a detective in a novel that sees a poorly dressed man walking down the street with a subtle limp. Upon further notice, the detective realizes he has a tattoo of an anchor on his left forearm, leathery skin, and a deep tan. Would it be reasonable to deduce he's a former sailor who got into an accident and lost his job?"

Haruno, still wearing her maid cosplay, looks at me with an arched eyebrow as Iroha and Shizu exchange one glance that is pregnant with something that I hope is figurative and not literal because I'm [not] ready for your shenanigans, Iroha.

"Well, after you asked that in such a way, I would think that's a trick question, that the limp is due to a bad fall after getting drunk and that the tattoo is also the product of such love for the finest spirits. The leathery skin and deep tan could be from living at sea but also from farm work and a thousand other things. It is an abstract problem custom-made to have an obvious answer that is seductive enough to inspire a narrative but without anything that excludes other explanations. Why?"

I… smile at her.

Then I look at glossy, violet sheets with embroidered flowers along the trim.

And Haruno looks at me doing so, which allows her to follow my eyes to Shizu in her deep blue dress looking back at me in confusion before I turn back to the color of the sheets, then to Haruno herself.

Whose lips open just a smidge, just a tiny bit.

And then, before the connection fully solidifies, I look at an increasingly annoyed Iroha standing between her two girlfriends, the purple-gray walls behind her seeming to delineate her slender profile, to bring a dash of color that almost bleeds into her white blouse even as her hair gleams in defiance of the subdued tones around her.

I look at Iroha.

Who Haruno couldn't have predicted. Who didn't fit any possible plans she may have hatched before all this started.

At Iroha, who planned our three dates with Haruno before we fully included her, who was instrumental in that blooming relationship bringing as comparatively little heartache as it did. Something just short of a miracle when one considers the years of resentment and hurt that were involved.

At Iroha, who Haruno hasn't done anything at all to exclude from our group.

So, no. This isn't the culmination of Haruno's plan, and Shizu's obsession with this color may be just because of how well it suits her, or how it reminds her of the subtle hues of tobacco smoke drifting up in the air, or maybe about a fashion tip about being a winter, spring, or however those things work, and not due to some hidden meaning about her regrets and still healing wounds.

And I'm sure Haruno sees all this in this silent exchange, much as I'm often certain of how much the inner voice of Iroha in my head resonates with her own thoughts. About how our own silent conversations are as meaningful, and more so, as words can be.

Because words are… inadequate. Often far from genuine.

And I've been blessed with companions for whom they are sometimes unneeded.

"I know you two are doing that weird thing you do, and I hate to interrupt what at any other time I may find disturbingly arousing, but can we [please] take that nap already?" my genuinely annoying girlfriend asks.

I look at her with mild reproach, arch an eyebrow, and adjust the cuff of my right white glove.

The way she blushes is so delicious I may want to cram a bit more of it despite the profiteroles having long conspired to obstruct my esophagus.

"I… may have a confession," Haruno says.

Both Shizu and Iroha groan while battling the throes of their impending food coma and then lean back on the wall behind them, the one in front of the bed, as Haruno takes a sheepish seat at the foot of it.

I readjust my glove, basically to mask my brain attempting to reboot at the unexpected words I'm now fully aware I just prompted from my usually most enigmatic lover, and I nod my head to prompt her to proceed.

Then, my college-aged girlfriend, still wearing an obscene maid cosplay with no sleeves and plenty of cleavage, the black satin fabric wrapping her tightly in deep darkness and glimmering highlights that glide across the shifting weave, looks at each of us in turn.

"This was Hachiman's plan," she starts.

"No. Tell me it isn't so," Shizu interrupts with the most spectacular deadpan I've heard from her since that time she argued with a malcontent teenager about why expressing a heartfelt desire to be a bear didn't quite adhere to the spirit of the essay he had been tasked with.

"Really," Iroha adds, demonstrating that she's a good disciple in ways other than the kunoichi's.

"Correction: it [was] my plan. And then French food got involved," I clarify, more as an act of self-defense than anything else.

Haruno, aikidoka that she is, nods in approval at my redirection of the forces laid against me.

['Sure. That's what that nod means. It certainly didn't promise revenge at a later date.']

I am… pretty sure it didn't?

['Yeah, no, it certainly didn't, but this is heading toward a serious discussion that I'm not sure I'll be able to handle. I'm kinda panicking at the moment.']

Ah. Right. That makes far more sense.

['Which should tell you just how screwed I think we are.']

"You know how he is," Haruno says, her eyes somewhere between her stocking-clad feet on the gray carpet that is a tad darker than the suspicious sofa. "He… He [needs] his plans. Not just because they sometimes work, which is already bewildering enough, but because he can't be straightforward. He has to twist the situation rather than address it. Except… Except not. Not lately. Not with us."

She raises her eyes and meets Iroha and Shizu wearing expressions I don't understand, because they are a mix of far too many things. And many of them I am not familiar with.

"Yukino and Yui—" Iroha starts.

"[Yes]," Haruno cuts her off. "That is the perfect example of both how he used to operate and what he's doing right now. Because he couldn't just talk things out with them, he had to coach them into that… that [challenge], but he did so by baring his heart. By telling them things he would've, months ago, fainted at the mere thought of admitting them to himself. And… And I always found him amusing when he acted like that, when he was a crookedly righteous man, but…"

"But you didn't fall for him until you saw what was underneath," Shizu says.

Iroha bites her lip, not looking at any of us, and Haruno and her former teacher look at one another, exchanging things I dare not guess at.

"You know all too well how this was for me," the younger woman says, something raw in her voice, something fragile in her smile.

And Shizu kneels in front of her, the blue dress pooling over her thighs as she grabs one of Haruno's hands.

"I do," she whispers before kissing fingertips covered by thin, white lace.

I… I feel like an intruder. Like I am stealing something precious just by remaining here, in front of them, as Haruno lowers her mask.

More.

As she lowers it more than she already did when she served us a meal that I'm sure was layered with more meaning than flavor.

Lavender eyes meet steel, and, yet again, I'm drawn to Shizu's profile, to the way the light plays with the edges of her skin, to how utterly cinematic she looks.

Iroha, head tilted down, looks at me, and, as always since we first did, we understand one another.

But she shakes her head, and so I stay.

"I told you that you were special, but that it wasn't special that you were. I told you that you had something unique to offer the world," Shizu says, something tender and far away in both her tone and the gentle curve of her lips.

"You didn't tell him, did you?" Haruno answers, her eyes seeming to shimmer with the light reflected off Shizu.

"No. No, I didn't. Because that's not what he needed to hear, much as you seem to have confused the two of you," she answers, her smile turning into something wry that is mirrored in the other girl.

Haruno finally looks up at Iroha.

Then at me.

"You are stupid," she says. Utterly unfairly.

['I mean…']

Self-deprecation doesn't suit you, Brain-chan.

"Care to elaborate?" I ask with a meticulously bland tone.

"Yes. Yes, I care very much, and it's all your fault. Because I… Because you called me to plan an [orgy]," she says, momentarily ignoring Iroha's spluttering. "You asked me to help in setting things up so that the four of us would have our first time together, so that [Iroha and I] would finally do what every other permutation of this quartet has already done. And I know you didn't even do it because you're a horny man eager to share his three girlfriends at once. I know that wasn't even a distant concern in that twisted head of yours, and that's what makes me [angry]."

"You… seemed pretty onboard with the plan?" I tell her, trying not to look at the butler uniform she brought me.

Her maid cosplay is extremely helpful in my struggles.

"I was! That's the worse part of it, you moron! Do you know how many times I've looked at people as predictable things that I can nudge into action? How many times I played at being so above it all, untouchable by the concerns of my lessers? And here I was, given yet another chance to plan so that my lovers would act a carefully laid out scenario [for their own good.] Because that's what you do: you decide what's best for everyone and then take the choice away from them!"

Shizu's hands are tight against Haruno's, and I expect to see concern in her eyes, but…

There's [pride].

I open my mouth to reply, to maybe defend myself, or to—

"I don't want that!" a furiously blinking Haruno tells me. "I don't—I want to be surprised! I want to be surrounded by unique, wonderfully messed-up people who keep throwing off my predictions! I want to be foolishly in love with three other fools whose only thing… whose only… I…"

I am in front of her, bending down, my eyes burning in hers.

Her chin in my gloved fingers.

Her lips almost brushing mine.

"Something genuine," I whisper.

And I kiss her.

Unplanned, with our mouths still tasting of a meal with far too much garlic, with the usually composed girl melting against me as she's held by the one who gave us that word.

And while, I hope, Iroha films us.

***

"This is strictly Platonic," Haruno repeats, though with a grumbling note that she didn't hold earlier.

"I know," I tell her, lying by her side, to her right, almost falling off the edge of the big bed that can fit us four, but only if we don't mind a few misplaced elbows, and carelessly drape an arm across her waist.

"I am too full to do anything," Iroha mutters before kissing her short hair and lying back down with a groan of effort between Haruno and an equally unresponsive Shizu.

"For somebody who was set on derailing plans, you sure got us caught in yours," Shizu adds, the back of her hand covering her eyes.

"I just…" Haruno drifts off.

"You just wanted to share with us something that's meaningful to you, likely because you despise Japanese culture after a lifetime of being stifled by it, and that made you enamored with [France], out of all countries. So you had to wear a French maid outfit, cook an elaborate French dish that was nonetheless suited for aggressively Japanese palates, and then made sure we would all be in no condition to do anything other than take a nap and share intimacy that wasn't sexual in nature because you wanted the unstated message to come across to me, yet you instead ended up getting swept up in our dynamic and revealing your true feelings, your own plot derailed in a way that you find profoundly satisfying and meaningful," I say.

For some reason, that makes both Iroha and Shizu incorporate themselves just far enough that they can look at me over Haruno.

"What," Iroha eloquently states.

"Oh gods, there are two of them. I will be in the psychiatric ward in two months. I [should] be in the psychiatric ward, given I'm willingly sharing a bed with [two of them]," Shizu rants in a disjointed, possibly clinically insane manner.

"Well, that was obvious," Haruno answers with an eye roll.

This brings a moment of silence to Shizu's almost entirely dark bedroom.

A silence that's broken by Iroha's aggressive poke at Haruno's side and the immediate yelp that causes.

"Hey! I am too full to fight back, but don't think I won't retaliate as soon as I'm able," Haruno says with a dark tone full of the kind of promise that would make forty-seven aggressively Japanese ronin nod with approval.

"I am counting on it," the [actual] Number One Surprising Ninja states.

And then she grabs Haruno's hair, twists her head toward her, and, if my past experiences with Iroha are any indication, shoves her tongue far enough down Haruno's throat that they now legally count as conjoined twins of the non-blood related variety.

The anime industry would be proud. And frantically taking notes about a rare, untapped fetish.

"We don't have the history you have with Shizu, and I'm definitely not going to turn into another clone of you like the selfishly selfless martyr on your other side. But you aren't going to [predict me], Haruno. I won't be a piece for you to move across the board. I will be by your side, and sometimes right behind you, and you'll never know when I'll jump right on top of you to make you feel loved when you least expect it. So. Prepare to be cared for. This is non-negotiable," Iroha says.

And Haruno, maidly headpiece askew, looks up into the luminous honey eyes of the girl in this bed most likely to act like a brat just to get our attention, processes the sheer contradiction between her actions, words, and past behavior…

And smiles.

"It won't stop me from trying," she says.

"Good. It wouldn't be any fun if you did," Iroha answers.

And then she leans back down with yet another groan.

My arm is still across Haruno's belly.

But now there's a sneaky, thin hand lying on top of mine, fingers playing with the slight give of the fabric of my gloves as Iroha pretends to sink into her shared pillow with Shizu without communicating with me.

The message?

'You'd better take responsibility, Senpai.'

'As if I ever planned not to,' I answer by turning my hand over and grasping hers.

==================

This work is a repost of my second oldest fic on QQ (https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/all-right-fine-ill-take-you-oregairu.15676/), where it can be found up to date except for the latest two chapters that are currently only available on on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Agrippa?fan_landing=true)—as an added perk, both those sites have italicized and bolded text. I'll be posting the chapters here twice weekly, on Wednesday and Friday, until we're caught up. Unless something drastic happens, it will be updated at a daily rate until it catches up to the currently written 90 chapters (or my brain is consumed by the overwhelming amounts of snark, whichever happens first).

Speaking of Italics, this story's original format relied on conveying Brain-chan's intrusions into Hachiman's inner monologue through the use of italics. I'm using square brackets ([]) to portray that same effect, but the work is more than 300k words at the moment, so I have to resort to the use of macros to make that light edit and the process may not be perfect. My apologies in advance

Also, I'd like to thank my credited supporters on Patreon: aj0413, Niklarus, Tinkerware, Varosch, and Xalgeon. If you feel like maybe giving me a hand and help me keep writing snarky, maladjusted teenagers and their cake buffets, consider joining them or buying one of my books on https://www.amazon.com/stores/Terry-Lavere/author/B0BL7LSX2S. Thank you for reading!