"Can you hear me?" Matsu... well, didn't say but thought at me, loudly enough to hear.

"You're a telepath?" I thought very hard, while I watched her computer-green holographic wings slowly fade.

"I did say Sekirei were psychic, didn't I?" Matsu said.

"Yeah, but..." I frowned, thinking. "...Am I going to have Musubi's running commentary on everything I do?"

"Nope!" Matsu said. "I'm a Brain-type Sekirei. Telepathy is my specialty. Musubi is a Fist-type, so her psychic abilities mostly manifest as point-blank telekinesis, presenting as extreme strength and toughness, plus a bit of precognition that looks like good reflexes."

"Fair enough," I said. "Uh... Question. Are these psychic abilities something that can be learned, or..."

"Kind of," Matsu said. "We can do that later, though. Turn around."

I turned to look at Musubi, and blinked a few times. "You, uh, doin' alright, champ?"

Her face was flushed, and she was breathing heavily- which Matsu wanted to be very sure I knew was doing interesting things to her boobs.

"My body," Musubi said. "It's reacting... I'm heating up..."

"I see..." I said carefully. "Matsu, why is she doing this now, and not, say, ten minutes ago?"

"She wouldn't react to just you," Matsu said. "But now you're not just you. You're you with me, and that, she's reacting to."

"So Musubi either wants a threesome or a redheaded nerd," I said. "Well. Only really one thing to do about it, I suppose."

"So, Musubi," I said out loud. "I take it you want in on this too?"

Musubi nodded wordlessly.

"Together as one?" I asked.

"Together as one," she said, leaning in and kissing me.

Her wings were eight 'feathers' of vibrant pink light, four spread to either side of her. Her lips were very soft and warm. But more than what the more physical senses could tell me, my newly-awakened psychic awareness let me feel something happening between the two of us. Something that was, in all likelihood, probably the psychic bond forming between the two of us.

I pulled away, breathing a little heavily. "Hey, Musubi, can you hear me?" I thought at her.

I could feel something coming back from her, but... it mostly seemed to be a fuzzy feeling of confusion, rising above a sea of hope and lust- what I had to assume would be her general emotional background radiation.

"Matsu, why can't I talk to Musubi telepathically?" I asked.

"Because Musubi isn't a telepath, and neither are you," Matsu said. "You can only talk to me because I am."

I sighed out loud. "Right. Well! We should... probably make arrangements for where we're going to sleep..." I trailed off, remembering that Akitsu was in the room, and had just watched two other Sekirei get winged. Which... might have been unpleasant for her. "...Akitsu, would you like a kiss too?" Fuck it, might as well ask. Make her feel included. After all, Matsu does seem to have a plan, and has been pretty clear that this plan would work better with more Sekirei, and... well, Akitsu is very much a Sekirei. A rather powerful one, if memory serves. Getting her onside has benefits...

...and, admittedly, I did feel bad for her. She was pretty clearly not having a good time.

Also? Can't be winged. Actually a good thing! If she doesn't like what I'm doing, she can say so!

Akitsu blushed, and looked away, before nodding, silently and nervously.

"Sorry, I couldn't hear that," I said. "Could you speak up, please?"

"...Yes," Akitsu said quietly. "I... would like a kiss."

"Thank you," I said. "Don't be afraid to ask for anything else you might want, Akitsu." I scooted over to her, and gently placed my hand on top of hers. "When you're ready, angel." There was something funny to me about calling a Sekirei 'angel.' Wings, most obviously, but sekirei-the-ordinary-birds-that-really-do-exist are also religious iconography in Shinto.

Akitsu leaned in, red as a tomato, and I met her halfway in a kiss that still, somehow, managed to take her by surprise. As though she, like most people under 40 these days, couldn't believe that something nice was happening to her.

There were no metaphysical fireworks this time. Just two girls kissing. There was, I think, something I could almost feel... but maybe I was just imagining it. Or maybe it was just part and parcel with kissing an attractive woman, and the other two times I didn't notice because I was distracted.

Or maybe it was something, and as I developed my own psychic stuff like Matsu alluded to, I'd get a better sense of what it was.

Only time would tell. Well, and more kissing, which...

I pulled back after a few seconds, and Akitsu whimpered a tiny bit, so I pulled her into a hug, her face resting in my own soft chest- being as I was six feet tall, I didn't look unreasonably endowed, but from an objective standpoint, my tits were actually a bit bigger than Matsu's.

I sighed quietly, and thought 'out loud,' as it were.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"On the one hand," I said, "everyone deserves to feel loved and to experience emotional intimacy. Those are just, like, basic requirements to be healthy as a social animal. And, I'm going to be honest, it is very easy for me to want to give those things to Akitsu, because, well, look at her, she is intensely desirable. However, I can't help but feel like I might not be doing the right thing here."

"Because she's traumatized and you're the only one who's really shown her any affection so far, right?" Matsu supplied. "And so you worry that you're doing the second half of a cult indoctrination where you make her think the only source of love is you?"

"More or less, yeah," I confirmed. "Which... hrm. I think I have an idea for fixing that? But it's going to require us to go outside and talk to people, so..."

"It will be your Everest," Matsu said solemnly, before speaking out loud. "Oh, by the way, dinner should be ready, soon enough. Who's hungry?"

"How long until then?" I asked. "Because we do still have to have that talk about boundaries, after all."

"Ah, you remember that," Matsu said, wilting.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Matsu," I said. "Would you rather have your mind in the hands of someone who forgets to check boundaries?"

"As someone with a hypno kink," Matsu began.

"What I'm about to say should not be interpreted as a strict order so much as just a thing I'm saying to make conversation," I said. "Got it? Great. Do not finish that sentence, or I will throw myself into the harbor."

Matsu folded her arms and stuck out her tongue at me.

"Now... let's negotiate."

----------------------------------------

"-but, pursuant to the previous clause," I said, typing out everything on my phone at alarming speeds.

"Oh my god," Matsu said. "Rose!"

"Matsu," I said.

"It's been an hour!" she continued. "Can you please stop writing a lifestyle BDSM contract already?"

"We can take a break to eat, but-"

"Nope," Matsu said firmly. "Done. Now."

"Matsu, the contract-"

"Look me in the eyes," Matsu said. "Rose. I am psychic. I don't need seventeen pages of legalese to know what you mean."

"Yeah, but-"

"Also," Matsu continued, "those contracts are solely for laying things out clearly, which isn't necessary here, because they're wholly unenforceable."

I pouted, then sighed.

"Alright, well," I said, saving the draft and pocketing my phone. "You did also tell me to stop doing what I'm doing, so... I guess it'd be hypocritical of me to not listen to you, after all that."

"Musubi, wake up," Matsu said. "She's done talking now. Let's go eat."

----------------------------------------

"You're pretty good with those chopsticks, for an American," Uzume remarked as I popped another gyoza into my mouth.

"I mean, we have chopsticks in America too," I said after I swallowed. "In fact, the part of Texas I'm specifically from actually had a weirdly large Asian population. There were Chinese and Vietnamese and Indian restaurants all over."

Dinner was a fairly simple affair tonight- some gyoza, some inarizushi, a big bowl of sticky rice, and a smaller bowl of the sweet-and-savory sauce the inarizushi had been cooked in, reduced down and thickened with some corn starch. To my left sat Akitsu, who I currently didn't feel comfortable showing any sort of disfavor whatsoever if I could help it, and to my right sat Matsu, who in turn was sat between me and Uzume- who I would guess was a good friend of hers. Between Akitsu and Miya sat Musubi, who inhaled her food voraciously, and as the one person not sitting next to a member of my new polycule, Homura- no, Kagari, it's Kagari until he says otherwise- sat diagonally across the table from me.

"Any Japanese restaurants?" Kagari asked.

"Probably, yeah," I said, shrugging. "The only one I remember was called Michi Ramen, but... no, wait, there were also a ton of sushi places. I just didn't go to any of 'em because I didn't care for seafood, and I was under the impression sushi was always seafood."

"It is not," Miya said calmly. "Sushi is defined by the rice, in fact."

"I was informed of that somewhat recently, yes," I said. "By the way, the inarizushi is really good. Thank you for feeding us on such short notice."

"Oh, it's nothing," Miya said, waving me off. "Simple hospitality. Miss Matsu's guests are my guests, after all."

I picked up a chunk of rice- stickier and more liable to clump than the rice we cooked back in America, but then, that just made it easier to do this- with chopsticks, then dipped it into the sauce dish I'd been given and popped it in my mouth.

"Now," Miya continued, "if you do intend to stay here long-term like I suspect, there are a few things that need to be discussed."

"Rent payments and house rules," I guessed. "I'll try my best to stay on top of my hygiene, but I should note that there's a legitimate genetic difference between East Asia and the rest of the world that leaves foreigners far more prone to body odor than East Asian people, and there may not be much I can do about that."

"Much appreciated," Miya said, nodding. "We do have a very well-maintained bath house here, but as part of living here, you will be responsible for a number of household chores, including maintaining that bath house. And, furthermore, while we are willing to help you out while you find your feet... you are going to need to learn to speak Japanese yourself."

That, for some fairly stupid reasons, caught me off-guard.

See, I was a Jumpchain protagonist, and for some unaccountable reason, I was under the impression that, when you Jumped into a setting where the dominant language wasn't English, then Jumpchain Magic would make it so it basically was English. And, uh... well, clearly, that hadn't happened here.

And, you know what, now that I'm thinking about it...

...Fuck it. Might as well come clean.

"Hopefully shouldn't be too onerous," I said, setting my chopsticks down. "I've already learned a language as an adult before, so repeating that feat with the help of some bilingual native speakers should be eminently doable."

"I mean," Uzume said. "It might still take you a little while before you can buy groceries without help, let alone pass the JLPT. Japanese and English aren't nearly as similar as English and... what, French? German?"

"Spanish," I said. "I learned Spanish because I worked in a community where there were a lot of native Spanish speakers. And, well... I have some advantages." I stood up, and sighed. "So, I am aware that everyone in this house, myself excluded, is a Sekirei. I am aware of this because I am a different sort of supernatural bullshit: a dimensional traveler, who's here in this world for precisely one calendar year, on the dot, starting today." I pulled out a key fob that hadn't been in my pocket until I reached for it, and summoned a portal to my Warehouse. "And that right there is my own pocket reality, where the rules are more flexible, and where I can show you the story of your world and your lives, as either anime or manga. So... who's interested?"