The day started off for Rao—or rather, Kris, as most days did.

With scratching his balls.

Of course, not literally. No man really scratched his balls. The loose skin made it almost impossible to properly scratch without stretching them out first. Instead, he did what could more accurately be referred to as “pinching and rolling” the skin. To the uninformed eye, it would probably look like scratching, but it was not.

And he spent every morning in bed “scratching” his balls for a couple of minutes before finally getting up and yawning. Then, like a non-insignificant portion of men, he sniffed the hand that he was just using to scratch with and shrugged afterward.

“Wait, forgot I’m supposed to be trying to stop that,” Kris said to himself. “Gotta act more proper.” And that was why he turned around to make his bed right after waking up, making it before he could even go to the bathroom for the morning.

Once he did make his bed and go to the bathroom, he came back out to make sure that everything looked right.

“Dang, things are different now.”

Before he met Ryouta and the rest of the crew, his room was an eternal mess that looked like it was a sloppy teenage boy’s rather than a grown man’s room. Of course, most grown men’s rooms weren’t exactly better than a teenage boy’s, but that didn’t matter. What did matter was that his room was clean. He kept the floor vacuumed, everything dusted, his bed made, and he even washed his bed’s sheets and pillow’s cases every weekend!

That was something everybody struggled with regardless of age and gender.

But Kris? Not anymore. He was a new, improved, and clean man… who still reached down to scratch his balls some more without even noticing that he was doing it. When he did notice, though, he grabbed onto his wrist with his other hand and pulled his guilty hand up in front of his face. “Bro, chill with that,” he said to his hand, scolding it. “What if you do that in front of the ladies? They’re going to hate me and think I’m gross if you do that.” Fortunately, he had been very good about never idly scratching his balls while in-game around the maids. That being said, he sighed and shook his head before letting go of his hand. “At least everything looks clean. If I ever do get to hook up with them… they won’t have anything to clean. Don’t want to be some guy they have to clean up after. Gotta impress them and show them I’ll help out to make their lives easy.”

That was when his phone buzzed with a new text message, and it was from none other than one of the women who he pursued.

Nobody else was aware that they managed to subtly get his phone number out of him instead of simply adding him over Fiscord or anything like that.

Four more buzzes came from his phone right after that.

When he unlocked his phone, he saw that there was one message from each of the maids in the group text chat that they set up.

>Rachel: Morning! Sleep well? I did! I had a really cute dream about bunnies! But then it turned out to not be so cute because they all started murdering each other and then ate me alive. But then I was reborn as a bunny and we all got to be cute bunnies together! Some of them were zombies, but they were you know, like, cute bunny zombies.

Rachel, the orange-haired maid with the freckles, was always the first and most energetic of the girls.

>Iris: What are you going to eat for breakfast today, Kris? You best not forget to eat. I remember you said you skipped breakfast the last few days. I will personally fly over there and force you to eat if you do not make yourself a nutritious breakfast. Your body needs it. Oh, and Rachel… tell me more about those… fluffy bunnies during our breakfast.

Iris, the black-haired chef of the maids who was weak to all things fluffy, always made sure to scold Rao over text messages whenever the truth came out that he was lazy about feeding himself.

>Emily: Brrrr, morning! It’s too cold here! Is it warm where you are, Rao? I wish it was warm here. I really wish I could cuddle up closely to somebody right now and absorb all their body warmth…

Emily, the clumsy and brown-haired maid who just so happened to be extremely well endowed in the chest department, always tried to send messages to Kris in the morning that hinted at wanting to hug or cuddle with him… but they always flew over his head.

>Abigail: “With every morning, I wake from my slumber and wish how I had you by my side. The sun is cold without the warmth of your presence, and the hues of the sky are muddied without the beauty of your eyes to share them with. The longing I feel is not one that can be sated by else but our love—the flower I wish to water every day until it blooms for a lifetime.”

Abigail, the tall, white-haired maid who not only looked like Serra’s big sister, but was also deaf in real life, always started the days with quotes that Kris figured were just random quotes or poems from various things that she must have liked, having no idea about the truth behind them.

As for the fifth and final message, that one came from Anastasia, the maid with the blonde hair who was always either humming or whistling and rarely ever spoke. Rather than send a regular message… if the others could be considered regular messages in the morning, she always sent Kris calm, relaxing songs to start the day off. They almost always lacked any form of vocals but, whenever they did have singing to go with them, the lyrics were always about love and romance.

Now, being a caring, gentle man who wanted to make sure that all the girls knew how much he appreciated them and their daily messages, he knew that it was only the right thing to do to reply to them.

>Kris: k, and morning

And that was it.

After all, he acknowledged their messages and then wished a good morning right back to them. That let them know how appreciative he was, surely!

“Rachel’s dream sounded pretty crazy. I wonder what kind of bunnies they were,” Kris said to himself. “I wonder what zombie bunnies even look like. Wait, food. I have to eat something or else Iris will be mad. Uh… alright, let’s see what’s in the kitchen. Oh, I think I have some eggs and frozen steak. I can probably do something with that. Ah… too bad she’s not here to actually cook for me. Man, that’d be awesome. I’d love if she was here to make me breakfast every day. Wait, no. I can’t think like that. I don’t want her to think I’m some lazy guy who needs a woman to feed me every day.”

Once he reached the kitchen, he pulled out a large enough pot to fill with water and bring to a boil… to… to… put his frozen steak into. At the same time, he dropped a couple of eggs—still in their shells—into the pot alongside the steak.

Lovers of steak everywhere felt great unease that morning for a reason they were best off never discovering.

“I should look up some warm blankets online and check their reviews for Emily,” Kris continued. “She sounds like she really needs some new blankets. Maybe a heated one? Oh, crap, wait.” He pulled out his phone and opened up the link to the song that Anastasia sent him. Listening to the songs she sent was how he started off every single day… even if he never made it clear that he actually listened to them. “Dang, every single song she sends is amazing. Her taste is god tier.”

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While stirring around the eggs and steak in the boiling water, occasionally adding in some things like salt, pepper… and ketchup, then mayonnaise, and finally some mustard, he let his gourmet meal boil as he picked up his phone again to reread the quote that Abigail sent him. “I wonder where she gets this stuff from. It all sounds like, some of that super fancy, beautiful poetry you’d read getting a bunch of rewards and stuff. Probably. I don’t actually know. Wait, wouldn’t a flower drown or die or something if it gets watered every day? Isn’t that too much? Wait, maybe that’s the point. Maybe the poem is supposed to sound nice, but is actually about killing flowers? That would be uh… what’s the word… subversive? Dang… it’s even deeper than I thought. I’ll have to analyze all the poems she sends me for their real meanings now.”

Just as it was best for steak lovers everywhere to never learn about how Kris prepared steak at home, it was also probably a good thing that the maids had no idea how he talked to himself about their morning messages. Even so… all of the maids felt a little bit frustrated that morning, save for Rachel who was as bubbly as ever.

“Dang, that was good,” Kris said after finishing his plate of food. “I wonder if I should have taken a picture of it to send to them. Maybe they’d be proud of me for cooking myself such a great breakfast. Too late anyways. Maybe I’ll get to make that for them in real life someday… I wish.”

After cleaning up after himself, he heard his phone buzz again and unlocked it to see who it was.

>Rachel: Hey! Um, do you think that… you could come online and meet us by the beach? We have something for you! Kind of. But we can’t tell you what it is because it’s a surprise! I mean, umm, I should probably delete this and start over. Wait, why am I typing my thoughts out loud? I’m so

>Rachel: I DIDN’T MEAN TO SEND THAT

>Rachel: CURSE MY FAT THUMB

>Rachel: AHHHHHHHH STOP

>Rachel: Umm, hi, just ignore everything above this message. Anyways, you should totally come online and meet us down at the beach! Preferably within the hour. We’re going to be busy after that, so… umm, come online really quick, please! I hope we see you soon!

As for Kris’s reply…

>Kris: k

Meanwhile, Kris’s heart began to race in his chest, pounding against him as if trying to break free. Why?

“Oh man… I get to see them again today. Even though I see them almost every day, it feels awesome every single time,” Kris said. To himself, and only himself, of course. “I can’t wait to see them. Wait, what if something’s wrong? They never need to see me this early. And they usually just ask when I’m going to be online instead of asking me to actually come online. Something’s not right.” The excitement he felt was replaced by fear and anxiety instead. “I need to hurry up.”

Immersing into virtual reality, Kris was greeted by what everybody was greeted by when immersing: his virtual assistant.

“Good morning, sweetheart!” his virtual assistant, an older woman wearing an apron with her hair tied in a single braid, said.

“Sorry, mom, but I have to hurry up,” Kris replied.

“Is something the matter?”

“I think. Wait, here.” He wrapped his arms around his virtual assistant for a big, but gentle, hug. “Morning. We can talk more later. Can you immerse me now, please?”

“Of course, darling. I hope that everything is alright.”

“Same. And thanks. Sorry for rushing you.”

“Oh, don’t be. You know that I will always be here for my precious boy.”

The last thing Kris felt before being immersed into his avatar—before becoming Rao once more, was the gentle stroking of a mother running her fingers through the hair on the back of his head.

Rao then found himself exactly where he left his avatar. That meant in the bed of the new house he had within the town of Nameless. Though, unlike when he woke from virtual reality, he felt something warm and heavy on top of him.

And that was Shogun.

The only time that Shogun ever slept with him was whenever Rock wanted to sleep with Fenrir. The two canids figured that it was good to still spend time with their owners every now and then.

Unfortunately, Rao had to cut the cuddling short this time.

“Sorry, bro, but I’ve gotta get up,” Rao said, giving Shogun a few strokes along the top of his head and the back of his neck.

Shogun lifted his head up and let out a long, sleepy yawn before rolling off of Rao, landing on his back with his legs up in the air to continue sleeping atop the soft bed with or without Rao.

Had the situation not felt serious to Rao, Shogun would have whined and forced some more cuddles out of him… but it was easy for Shogun to figure out how Rao felt.

“Dang it, you look so cute… but I can’t. Sorry. Later, promise,” Rao said in a rush before heading outdoors.

Rao ran down to the beach and looked around to see if he could spot where the maids were. Fortunately, it wasn’t too hard to spot them considering that they were—well, five maids in a group. There weren’t any other groups of maids around nor anybody else dressed up like a maid in general. There was another girl in Nameless who sometimes dressed up as a maid, but she changed her outfit every single day and wasn’t a real maid, so she didn’t count.

As for the maids, he saw that they set up what looked like a picnic down at the beach with a blanket and umbrella and everything.

Maybe there was something wrong with the picnic? Maybe they forgot something and needed him to go and get it for them? He didn’t know. Regardless, he ran up to where they were and, with a panting breath, asked, “What’s wrong?”

The maids looked at each other and then looked at him. “No-nothing?” Rachel replied.

“You asked me to come over really quick, didn’t you?” Rao asked.

“Well—well, yes, but nothing is wrong.”

“Then… why’d you ask me to come here?”

The tone of Rao’s voice sent a dagger through Rachel’s heart, as well as the hearts of the others, as he sounded disappointed—bothered, even.

But the truth was not that he was disappointed nor bothered. The truth was that he had worked himself up with so much anxiety over what might be wrong that he genuinely couldn’t think of any other reason that they might have asked him to come to the beach and was simply confused.

Emily tried to take over next. “Umm! Well, we thought we would have a picnic, and… Iris made too much food! So, we thought you might want to have some!”

Eating some of Iris’s cooking, even in-game, sounded absolutely incredible to Rao. But, that wasn’t what he said. “I’m fine. There are some kid NPCs who would appreciate it more than me, anyways.”

Once more, a dagger was thrust through the hearts of the maids, especially Iris’s.

Rao really, really wanted to eat the food… but when he thought about virtual spares with the knowledge that he didn’t need to really eat in-game to survive, he figured that the spare food would best be given to some of the children of NPCs running around the village. It was the only food they could ever eat, after all, and they actually needed it unlike him. What kind of man would take food away from children like that? They wouldn’t like a man who put his own selfish desires before children!

At that point, the mood was already ruined. The high spirits that the girls had despite that mysterious frustration they felt in the morning were already deflated.

But, one maid decided to take a chance and bring out the ultimate card that they had prepared specifically for this picnic. It was supposed to only be pulled out once they ate and talked for a bit… but it was now or never.

“Rao?” Abigail spoke up.

Rao’s eyes went wide when he heard her. “Woah, you almost never talk.”

“A-ah, well, I am… not very used to it. Anyways… one of our yearly, two-week vacations is coming up. Next week, in fact. We are considering taking a trip, perhaps overseas.”

Iris took over next. “We found a few different places we would like to visit in your city. A zoo, museum, some places to eat—that sort of stuff.”

Anastasia, the other silent member of the group, finished off their proposal. “We were wondering if… you would be free to take us on a tour? Perhaps even… spend it with us?”

Rao’s heart, once more, pounded against his chest as he fantasized about the simple act of getting to spend a whole week with the maids in real life taking them around his home city.

But.

“My city’s boring,” Rao said, shaking his head. “You shouldn’t waste your money coming here, honestly. If you’re going to go on a vacation, there are so many cooler places you can go visit.” He really, really wanted to be selfish and ask them to come to his city even so, but… “And wouldn’t you like to go see Nell? They have a pretty big house from what I know, so you could probably even crash there.”

Every single word that left his lips hurt him on a deep level as he genuinely wanted to see them, but he just could not justify them wasting their money on his boring, sleepy city for a vacation. That was a complete waste of money as far as he was concerned. Now, if they were dating, he would absolutely want them to come over, but they weren’t. As far as he was aware, they were just asking for a tour guide so that they wouldn’t need to spend money on hiring one.

Now, sitting before Fenrir and Corwin, Rao said, “And they’ve looked super depressed ever since then, and run away whenever they see me.”

“Fenrir,” Corwin said.

“Yeah?” Fenrir said after a sigh.

“Please kill me.”

“We’ll kill each other, alright? But only after we kill this dense harem anime protagonist in front of us.”

“Agreed.”

Fenrir and Corwin stood up with death glares directed at Rao.

“Br-bros?” Rao asked, having never felt more fear for his life before.