Nayu sat in a chair, admiring herself in a small mirror.

She didn’t often do this, but today was different.

Nayu brushed her blonde hair. It was straight, going down a bit past her shoulders. She left it there, not tying it up.

She didn’t often do this, but today was different.

Nayu wasn’t wearing her usual maid outfit. She was wearing an outfit that her mistress had gifted to her. A beautiful beige dress.

She didn’t often wear this, but today was different.

What made today different? It was her day off. She usually worked and lived every day at the mansion, serving her mistress’s needs. She rarely had time for herself.

She didn’t hate this of course. Actually, if it was her decision, she wouldn’t have any days off.

Serving her mistress was the ultimate pleasure for her but Mrs. Vassauge had required her to at least take one day off a month. She was trying to implement more days off in her contract but Nayu was too stubborn, refusing to sign something that would require her to serve less. Tirany had barely been able to get her to agree to one day off a month.

Her hair gently swayed after lightly shaking her head. She got up out of the seat with a little hop and headed to the door.

She had made it all the way to the entrance of the mansion without seeing anyone else. When she opened the large mansion doors to the outside, she was greeted by Chenwore. He handed her a small basket covered in cloth. He kept track of her days off and would always pack her lunch for the day. She made sure that whenever he had days off that she would pack him a lunch in return.

She graciously took the basket from him, bowing her head as she passed. Every month she had a routine. Every month she would get ready accordingly. Every month she would exit the doors, grabbing a lunch prepared by her coworker. Every month she would hop down the front steps. Every month she would hear the sprinkling water of the fountain in front of the mansion. Ever month she-

“Yu-yu?”

“Nayu?”

Not every month there would be two girls awaiting her outside the mansion.

“Holy wow! I didn’t even recognize you. You look so weird. I didn’t think it was possible for you to not wear a maid uniform.”

Lee lightly jabbed an elbow into Shellorn’s side after her comment.

“I think what she’s trying to say is that you look really nice.”

“Thank you.”

Her smile shined as brightly as the morning sun as she gave them a small nod.

“I must be off now, but I really appreciate you two taking the time out of your schedule to come see me. Have a good day.”

She gave them a wave before walking down the long path towards the exit gate.

“She has no clue, hehe”

She thought she heard some mumbling behind her, but her small ears didn’t quite catch what they said. It was most likely just them saying farewell back to her.

###

“Here you go. Have a nice lunch.”

It was only natural for a girl such as herself to serve others, even on her day off.

Nayu handed another orphan a bowl of stew and with a gentle smile and started filling another. The line was quite long, but nothing out of the ordinary. Her mistress has been putting a lot of funding towards this orphanage in hopes of strengthening the youth of Fangwu. She has high expectations of where the next generation can take both the city and empire in the future.

Like a swaying dance, Nayu continued to fill bowl after bowl and handed off nice warm lunches to orphan after orphan. She was always told by her mistress to do something on her day off to “fill her tank”, and she couldn’t think of anything else that rejuvenated her better than this. The only better feeling is serving her mistress herself, which Tirany banned on her days off. This forced her to serve others once a month.

“Yu-Yu, think you can give Lee-Lee here a double serving?”

“What’s with you and your stupid nicknames.”

Her rhythmic dance of serving stew stumbled, almost spilling some onto herself. Two familiar voices filled her ears in a familiar place, but the voices did not match the place. The people to whom these voices belong shouldn't be here.

Her eyes flicked up as she fluttered her eyelids in confusion.

“Ms. Shellorn? Ms. Lee? What are you two doing here? Did something happen?”

“Nothing happened silly. We just came to say what’s up.”

“No. Well, yes… But we also came to help out. Tirany told us about how you spend your days off, so we wanted to work alongside you. So scratch that double order of stew Shell gave and hand us some ladles.”

Her mistress was too generous, along with these two girls. Nayu was truly blessed to work with such wonderful people.

“Not to be impertinent, but don’t you two have other work to be doing?”

“Of course not! I was just going to mess around with Stron all day.”

“And I took the day off, with Tirany’s permission of course.”

“Oh.”

“So let’s get to it.”

“I have plenty of practice serving rabbit stew to Lee-Lee, so I should be quite good at this.”

“Is serving stew really that much of a skill?”

The two seem to be really set on helping her, and she couldn’t find a reason why they shouldn’t. Plus, the more hands helping, the quicker these orphans got their meals.

###

With the two of them helping Nayu, the long line quickly disappeared. The time it took to serve everyone was a third of what it would’ve been with just her. Which of course made sense since there were now three people serving instead of one.

After serving lunch, Nayu usually went and did other chores around the orphanage, similar to her work in the mansion, but today was different.

She found herself at a table eating the lunch Chenwore packed her much earlier than usual.

The dynamic duo coerced her to join them for lunch instead of going and doing her usual routine. If she was really true to herself, she was really hungry. She usually didn’t eat lunch and just worked through the hunger pangs until the end of the day. Her stomach was quite grateful to Lee and Shellorn.

It was not only lunch, but entertainment as well. Shellorn and a rough looking boy she seemed to be acquainted with were telling the story about how they met.

“And then Stron held him above his head. Like he was about to slam him over his knee and snap him in two. Hata was balling his eyes out.”

“He didn’t pick me up over his head! And I wasn’t balling my eyes out! You’re a big fat liar and you know it! An assassin such as myself would never cry.”

“I thought Stron made you give up on being an assassin?”

“I gave up being a part of the guild, but being an assassin is in my blood. It would be like trying to tell an elf to not be an elf. It's a part of my identity.”

The boy, Hata, crossed his arms and turned away.

“Yea, Brah-Brah would never cry. He’s too cool. You stupid one eyed liar!”

“Brah-Brah is really strong. I-I don’t think that actually happened. N-nobody is able to defeat my Brah-Brah.”

Hata’s two little sisters were backing him up. Their nickname for their elder brother seemed to be “Brah-Brah.”

This childish bickering between the four continued until Lee finally made Shellorn give up. That’s when another girl came up from behind Hata.

“Hey, we need to make a decision on this today so just give up your silly fantasy already and submit to my idea.”

The fellow orphan spoke to Hata in a demanding manner. She was about the same age as him and she was quite beautiful. Even with limited options for clothing, she made her simple outfit look as if a queen were wearing it. Her features were sharp and defining. Any room she walked into would naturally point the spotlight on her.

“I told you already, nobody wants to do your silly romance play. What people like is action. And a play about a badass assassin is perfect.”

“Yea, Bra-Bra’s play is better than yours, old hag. Now get lost and leave us alone!”

“U-uh Anna, don’t be so mean. B-but I agree, brother’s play is better… and I would like it if you left us alone…”

The girl rolled her eyes.

“You’re really going to make me pull out my trump card?”

“Trump card?” Hata’s eyes widened.

She turned to his sisters.

“Anna. Marrie.You two really really love your big brother, right?”

“Of course!”

“Y-yes.”

“Well if you support my play, I promise the both of you can marry Hata in it, deal?”

“I like Izzy’s play better!”

“M-me too.”

The two sister’s turned on their brother with no hesitation. A ruthless turn of events for Hata.

“What type of screwed up ideas are you giving my sisters!”

“Hold up!”

Shellorn, who was on the far side of the table from where the conversation was happening, stretched out across Lee’s and Nayu’s lap, eavesdropping on the conversation.

Ms. Shellorn doesn’t know much about personal space. But having her across my lap like this… kind of feels… natural?

Nayu felt a sense to start stroking her hair like a cat, but she held back since that would be out of place for her to do.

“W-what’s happening? What’s this about a play? C’mon, fill me in.”

Oh dear, she really has no manners.

After Lee apologized for Shellorn’s behavior, the girl, Izzy, explained the situation.

Every year, the orphanage held some sort of event to help raise money. Whether that be an attraction or performance of some kind. It provided entertainment for the local residents of Fangwu, supplemental funding for the orphanage and activities for the orphans to invest their time and energy in. It was another one of Tirany’s splendid ideas.

This year it was going to be a play that the orphans decided on and performed. They would have complete creative control over it. It made them that much more passionate about it, but with passion comes conflict.

The conflict that was occuring was about what type of play that would be performed. One faction wanted one centered around romance while the other wanted one centered around action. Neither side seemed like they were willing to compromise and meet in the middle.

Being a bit older than most of the other orphans, they took on leadership positions in this confrontation. Izzy was the head of the Romance faction while Hata was the head of the Action. It seemed that she dealt quite the blow, pulling both of Hata’s sisters to her side.

After she quickly explained all of this, they jumped right back into arguing.

“I should be the one to decide anyways, it's a no brainer. I’ve spent my entire life here and it's my last year. You just got her like what… a month ago?” Izzy sneered.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“It doesn’t matter when I got here, all that matters is I’m here now. And plus, there are other people than me who think your idea is stupid.”

“Romance is not stupid! You’re just too immature to appreciate it.”

“Am not!”

Both Hata’s and Izzy’s faces seemed to have a tint of red. It was hard to tell whether it was from their childish bickering or something else.

“You know what always helps make a decision?”

Shellorn jumped right back into the conversion without hesitation.

““What?””

“A competition! Winner takes all. No room for arguments. A clean cut!”

Both of them seemed intrigued at her idea.

“That would help make a decision… plus we can finally start practicing if everyone accepts the outcome.”

“A competition you say? Well I know I’ll win. An assassin like me won’t ever lose.”

“So do you guys have any games in mind for the factions to go head to head?”

Both of them looked at Shellorn a bit dumbfounded.

“It won’t just be us playing?”

“Of course not, everyone gets a say, so everyone should get to play.”

Each faction had approximately twenty kids. Finding a game where everyone participated could pose a problem.

“What about Capture the Flag?”

All heads turned down the table towards Lee, all saying “What’s that?”. She didn’t pick up on their confusion though and stared blankly back at them.

“Uh Ms. Lee, what is ‘Capture the Flag’? I don’t believe any of us are acquainted with it.” Nayu asked.

“Oh uh…”

Her eyes dashed around the room, seeming to be surprised at the simple follow up question.

“I-I uh… read about it in a book. It's a game often played by a large group of kids. All you really need is a playing field, people and two flags. The field is split in two…”

Lee continued her explanation of the game. Although it was quite simple, Nayu found it hard to envision it since it was so novel to her.

Izzy and Hata seemed satisfied with the game after the explanation. So it was decided.

The game, capture the flag. The date, today. The time, now.

###

Nayu found herself standing on the side of a large field of grass behind the orphanage. She opted to not participate, but Lee told her they needed a referee. She asked why Lee wasn’t the referee, since she was the one who knows the game the best.

Apparently Shellorn really wanted to play and decided to join Hata’s team. Lee tried her best to stop her, but there was no convincing her. To even out the teams a bit, she had to join Izzy’s team. This led to no one being left to referee except Nayu.

Since she was worried about her performance as the referee, Lee came up with a solution to help ease her duties. Instead of tagging people, the players each had rags tucked into their waistband on either side. Once a player goes onto the other side, the opposing team would have to pull one of these rags out from their waistband for them to be out.

This made it easier for Nayu to call people out. The evidence of someone holding a rag was a lot more convincing than someone just yelling out they tagged someone else.

She knew the orphans were good kids and wouldn’t cheat, but this still helped her comprehend the game as a referee a bit better.

The field was set, each team was on their side. On Nayu’s left was Izzy’s team. She was currently talking with Lee. Their team had a large red flag at the back of their zone and red rags in their waistbands. On the right was Hata and Shellorn. They seemed to have already come up with a game plan and were just staring down the other team. Their color was blue.

Even though she wasn’t playing, Nayu felt her heartbeat increase a bit. The edges of her small mouth curled up into a soft smile.

###

Each team was given a little time to organize their teams and come up with a general gameplan.

“Alright, I got the perfect game plan. An all out attack. We show no signs of weakness and go for the kill, like a true assassin.”

Hata had a bunch of younger orphans surrounding him. They were all enamored by his cool ruffian attitude.

“We’ll have a group attack the right flank and the middle. Using that as a distraction, we’ll send an elite squad in from the left side to land the killing blow.”

“But who will be on that elite squad?”

“Well obviously me…”

Hata looked around. He was just now realizing how young his faction was. Although they were predominantly boys, so they should have the physical advantage, he felt it could be pretty even with the age discrepancy. Maybe that was why Izzy agreed to physical competition rather than an intellectual one.

It didn’t matter anyways, they were going to win whether his teammates were a bit premature or not.

His eyes turned to his new ally. An intimidating looking, yet goofy girl with an eyepatch. She looked quite formidable. He would usually send just himself, but he was humble enough to know that this task could potentially be too big, even for him.

“Shellorn, you mind attacking the left side with me?”

“Sure! But I call dibs on Lee-Lee.”

He tilted his head, not quite sure what she meant by that. Hata presumed she knew more about the game than him, since it was her friend that explained it to everyone.

Even with the small difference in age, he was still confident his side would come out on top.

###

Over on the other side, Izzy rubbed her temples with a concerned look on her face.

Hata, why did you have to make this into such a mess? Can’t you just listen to me? Sometimes it's like you don’t even see me, even though you’re looking right at me…

“So, what’s the plan captain?”

A beautiful girl interrupted her train of thought.

Izzy was renowned at the orphanage for her beauty. She knew she was a beautiful girl, but tried her best to not let it go to her head. It made it hard when all of her peers were constantly complimenting her looks and her clothes. She didn’t even wear anything special, but apparently no matter what she wore, it always gained plenty of compliments.

This girl that visited the orphanage today was stunning. Izzy would say she was even more beautiful than her, or at least equal. It was a different type of beauty. Izzy’s was a bright and loud beauty that attracted the attention of everyone around her like a blazing fire. Lee seemed to be easily overshadowed by her surroundings, but would snare the eyes that did happen pass by. She was like a shining gem, hidden in the shadows of a cave.

“A plan? Hmm… You’re the one who came up with this game, so do you have any ideas?”

She was used to taking leadership roles and an important aspect of being a leader is knowing when someone else is more knowledgeable about a subject. Lee should definitely take the initiative of planning.

“This game really favors defense. You can’t be too passive though, otherwise you’ll never win. Plus, I told Nayu to make jailbreaks frequent to encourage people to attack and not just wait around. I don’t want this game lasting forever.

“But we should definitely have a strong defense. The obvious threat is Shell. She’s quite agile, so we really need to be careful of her. Hata seems decently athletic as well, so we should keep an eye on him as well. Maybe you and I mirror those two. Shell is really impatient so I’m sure she’ll come over and go for the flag right away.

“When she does that, we’ll converge on her and get her out. I won’t be able to take her out solo. After that, their ace will be disposed of and then we can start focusing on counter attacking.”

Izzy agreed with Lee’s plan. In fact, she was quite impressed with her quick breakdown of their opponents.

“So it's settled, you’ll stick with Shellorn and I’ll keep my eyes on Hata- or I-I mean mirror Hata. hehe”

Her ears tinged red as she quickly corrected herself.

“Just make sure when Shell makes her move that you come over and help me. I definitely can’t handle her by myself.”

“Got it. I won’t lose. Especially to Hata.”

And then maybe, he’ll finally see me.

###

“Everybody ready?”

Nayu lifted her voice over the field as much as she could. Everyone still had a hard time hearing her, but the random side conversations had diminished, so it worked anyway.

“On the count of three we will begin. One. Two. Three-ee!”

Her voice cracked on the last number. She wasn’t used to raising her voice like this. In fact, she even felt her vocal cords pleading for rest after just this short amount of yelling.

On the final word that ended in more of a half screech, everyone started moving.

The red team on the left seemed to be carefully positioning themselves on their own side, evenly spacing out their players to fortify their defenses.

The blue team seemed to send almost everyone forward at once.

The legs of some of the smaller girls started to shake. Even with being on the sideline, Nayu felt a bit intimidated by this many people rushing forward at one.

It seemed that the blue team was heavily attacking the far side from Nayu and the middle of the field. Naturally every red player started to shift there.

Just as she noticed this happening, a green cloak zipped by her along the close edge of the field. A whoosh of air followed, almost blowing Nayu off her feet.

“I’m coming for you Lee-Lee!”

“Don’t announce the sneak attack!”

Hata was following Shellorn from behind.

As if expecting it, Izzy and Lee were on the near side. They spread out enough to cover some space, but not enough to let someone split in between them.

Even with a blockade right in front of her, Shellorn kept sprinting at full speed.

“Here I come!”

“Uh Sh-Shell? Wha-? Aagh!”

THUD!

Shellorn leapt right into Lee, tackling her into the ground.

Is that against the rules? I don’t remember Lee mentioning players tackling other players.

“The hell was that for?” Lee wheezed from beneath.

Tears started to form in her eyes and her face was bright red. She must’ve gotten the wind knocked out of her.

The only response she got was incessant giggling from Shellorn.

“G-get off!”

“I got her rag, don’t worry.”

Izzy swooped in and snatched one of the blue flags. Shellorn made it quite easy, since she didn’t show any signs of moving off of Lee.

“This game is so fun Lee-Lee. heeheehee”

“Tackling people isn’t a part of the game!”

“Well it should be.”

Shellorn couldn’t stop smiling and laughing.

“Crap! I lost track of him!”

Izzy twirled around, looking for where Hata went. Shellorn made for quite the distraction and she fell for it.

Just then, a black smear raced up the sidelines with a trailing line of red.

It was Hata holding the opposing team's flag and he was already far out of Izzy’s range.

“Dammit no! Somebody-”

““Brah-Brah!!””

Two white streaks raced up behind Hata at unimaginable speeds. Both Anna and Marrie simultaneously grabbed each of his rags, rendering him out just before he crossed to his own side.

“Wha-!”

Hata collapsed to his knees, dropping the flag. His eyes looked to the sky in despair.

A second later two girls converged on him.

They hugged either side of him. It almost looked as if it was two sweet sisters consoling their older brother, but they were much too happy for it to be that.

“Yay! We’re going to marry Brah-Brah!”

“Mhm! Mhm!”

Anna and Marrie both snuggled themselves against their brother while his emotional state started to slowly crumble.

Although the two sisters declared victory a bit prematurely, they weren’t wrong. After the initial barrage from blue that almost led to them to a quick win, their forces were too depleted and the well organized red team swiftly counter attacked and won before Nayu called for a jailbreak.

###

After the game, everyone found themselves gathered around Hata and his two sisters. Ever since getting him out, they didn’t release him from their grasp. He just sat on the grass and accepted defeat with tears forming in his eyes.

“Not surprisingly, we won and we’ll be doing my play. I can’t believe you made us waste so much time over an inevitable outcome. You’re so dumb Hata.”

Izzy sauntered over not being shy to boast her win.

He just looked back at her with empty eyes.

“You’re not going to say anything?” Izzy snorted.

“Why… Why did you promise them they’ll be married to me? Why’d you fill their heads with such a crazy idea? Did you plan on torturing me? Do you hate me?”

It seemed Hata got over the fact that they weren’t going to perform his play and was worrying about the more pressing problem, the promise Izzy made to his little sisters.

“Oh…”

Flustered, a tinge of sympathy seeped into her voice. She didn’t plan on Anna and Marrie taking her promise to heart. It didn’t even seem like they could differentiate between the play and real life.

“Brothers and sisters shouldn’t be married, it's just wrong. Even if it's just a play…”

“But we love Brah-Brah!”

“Y-yea, w-we’ll be married happily ever after.”

His eyes pleaded for help like a lost puppy while his sister’s tormented him with their love.

Izzy’s ears tinged red and she looked away.

“Fine, I’ll help. You better thank me.”

She knelt down and got the attention of the two sisters.

“Hey Anna, Marrie. How would you feel if you guys didn’t get to marry Hata in the play?”

“No! We want to marry Brah-Brah!”

“Mhm, mhm.”

Izzy smiled uneasily and tried negotiating.

“But nothing is like a sister’s love. And if you were to play his wives, you wouldn’t be able to show that unrivaled sisterly love.”

“Then we’ll just play as his sisters and his wives!”

“Mhm, Mhm.”

Izzy smacked her palm against her face. She seemed to have realized just how grave of a mistake she made.

“Well, you see, it's just not right for a sister and brother to be married.”

““Why not?””

“You see!” Shellorn walked over, “When two people love each other very much, they do this thing called se- mmph”

“SHELL YOU IDIOT!”

Just as Shellorn was about to explain a topic much too vulgar for their innocent ears, Lee got her revenge and tackled her from behind, gagging her.

After a lot more convincing, Izzy was able to get the two girls to agree to some terms.

They would still get to be married to Hata in the play, but it would be a secret from the audience. In the audience's perspective, they would just be his sisters.

This was truly the best she could do in terms of convincing them. They were just as stubborn as their brother and still had a hard time differentiating between fiction and reality.

They still believed they were getting married to their brother.

“Well the main heroine still needs a love interest and since you’re the only guy around my age, it seems like I’ll have to settle for you to play him.”

Izzy’s nose went up, but her eyes peered down searching for Hata’s reaction.

“Is that so?” he replied lifelessly.

“Y-you’re not against it?”

“Just please don’t fill my sister’s heads with any more of your twisted ideas.”

“I-I didn’t mean to! My ideas aren’t twisted! You’re just too dumb to realize their brilliance.”

“What could be brilliant about incest!”

“It was solely strategic. I knew Ann and Marrie would come in handy during the game so I needed to get them on my side.”

“We didn’t even know we were playing a game at that point.”

“Well, shut up! You didn’t either.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Nayu smiled. Even though they were arguing once again, she could tell that they were having fun doing so. Or at least Izzy was. Hata seemed to still be a bit depressed.

They seem like they go well together. They’ll make a nice couple some day.

She turned around to face a different argument that was occurring simultaneously.

“You really have to work on your social skills. Learn when to sit and wait. You can’t just jump into other people’s conversation. Especially talking about certain topics. What were you thinking? They are way too young to learn about that sort of stuff.”

“How am I supposed to know if they’re too young to learn about sex?”

“Quiet down! They are kids around. This is what I’m talking about!”

Hehe. They already seem like an old married couple.

Nayu looked up into the great blue sky that was slowly fading to a rustic orange.

I wonder if there is someone out there for me. Someone who I could get along with like them. My missing link. If there is, I bet he’s very proper and well groomed. Someone who is humble and caring of the weak. Maybe, I’ll meet him one day…