Chapter 3: Signals

Namjoon watched his mistress hightail it to her room, she confused him. Everything she did confused him, she had chosen a defective male which wasn't rare if the mistress wanted a punching bag or loyal slave based on their boundless mercy to forgive such a stain. But she used his name, she greeted him which was not congruent with the just a punching bag path. Why put that much care into something that would break in a couple of months?

The only other option is that she wanted higher loyalty from him and decided to create a false sense of equality, to be taken away when he inevitably messed up, but the act wasn't long if that was the case. She still enforced the male etiquette and the promised talks didn't come in fact after the "choosing" it's like she lost all interest.

If loyalty was her end game then she was making idiotic moves, but he wasn't convinced she was stupid. Some sixth sense told him that she was a threat or at least could be. And she was excited when she saw his IQ, visibly excited.

Nothing added up. It wasn't like she was super difficult to read or emotionless, he could see her excitement, disinterest, and even some panic. She was giving off signals, but what the signals meant, or even if they were radio or microwave was up for interpretation.

He needed more time, more data, and more observation. This is someone he would be serving for the rest of his life if he couldn't use his god-given intelligence to his advantage then the Fates had screwed him over more than he thought.

Sighing he looked at his new housemates, most returned his gaze at least momentarily before dodging the gaze, he had been told he had a very feminine gaze. One full of confidence and leadership, it disgusted him to some degree to be associated with the arrogant sex who had tore away his freedom of choice, but ultimately he had more important matters to occupy his mind. How were they going to choose rooms?

"We should check out the rooms, and then discuss our preferences and needs. We are all adults I'm sure we can figure out how to make this as painless as possible." This evaluation came from the shorter male that had been huffing and glaring at their mistress the whole time. Despite the lack of foresight in his previous deeds of misconduct, he seems to be a rational and caring man. Albeit his last remark was more of a challenge than an observation.

With the agreement of the other men, they headed upstairs to check out the bedrooms. walking up the stairs the hallway was on your left proceeding to the back of the house. There was a total of ten bedrooms, nine available with the absence of their mistress' bedroom. The bedrooms were pretty uniform in size, but they still had some defining features. The boys toured each and then reconvened to discuss the rooms they wanted.

Luckily with the two extra rooms, the men ended up with a room at least second on their list.

Jin choose the room across the hall from their mistress, it had at least six windows and he beat down any opposition with fervent rants about they couldn't possibly let his beautiful face not have the natural light. He had done so in such a seriously comical way that Taehyung and Jimin were in stitches. Jungkook was barely suppressing his laughter and Hoseok had a wide smile on his face.

Yoongi, choose the first room on the left close to the stairs, it had the fewest windows. He claimed it was best for his sleep, the sun least likely to break through the curtains, but Namjoon saw his glance at the stairs. He wanted to be closest to the nearest exit.

Taehyung convinced Jimin and Jungkook that since they were best friends they had to have rooms next to each other, starting with his room next to Yoongi. Which was promptly shut down with Yoongi's insistence that they did not want to meet him when he hadn't gotten his sleep. Everyone could already tell what would happen if those three were that close to each other on a regular basis. So they decided to move one bedroom over leaving a buffer of one room between Yoongi on one end and one room between their mistress on the other.

Namjoon, choose the room next to Jin's. It had a massive bookshelf pre-filled. He was sure that his mistress would remove them or at least forbid him from touching them without her explicit permission but just looking at them made him feel a form of comfort.

That left Haseok with the choice of either one of the "buffer" rooms or the last room left on Namjoon's left. Obviously, he chose the latter. It wasn't a bad room either, it was slightly larger than the other rooms, and the theme seemed to be more minimalist since there wasn't much furniture.

It had been an eventful day for the boys. It wasn't every day that a man was chosen to be an everlasting servant to his female. They had been warned over and over again about the need to watch their step around their mistress, the need to please them. So their bodies had been in a constant state of attention and needed time to unwind?

Some attempted to relax, Namjoon by mapping out contingencies in his mind, Hoseok doing some stretches taught by his dance instructor, Taehyung by smothering his two new friends in physical contact, and Jin by fussing with the placement of his belongings.

Unfortunately, none of the men that Teddy chose were idiots. There was no way that they would relax in this delicate situation. Their minds were constantly running an evaluation of their mistress, their own actions, and how that would affect the view of their mistress. Stewing in their minds was the promise of a talk in a couple of hours. How was that going to go?