"And in today's news, today marks the four year anniversary of the discovery of liminals and the establishment of the laws that allow our cultures to co-exist."
"Yeah, co-existing sounds easy enough when the news guy says it. But try living in a house with seven liminal girls, six of whom all want you to themselves and won't be denied." A young man thought to himself as he watched the news.
The young man stretched his arms high above his head and grunted. He then caught sight of his reflection in a nearby mirror.
"Kimihito, how did you get yourself into this?"
Kurusu Kimihito was you're typical, young Japanese male. He enjoyed video games, late nights watching TV and generally all the freedoms that come with living alone. Then, one day, an agent representing the cultural exchange between species accord arrived at his house. According to the agent, whom to this day he knew only as agent Smith, he was to be the 'host family' for the girl she had with her. The girl was a lamia, a half snake-half human, and was admittedly attractive and rather busty. However, Kimihito tried to tell the agent that she had the wrong house. But she would not listen. And so, his house was soon renovated to accommodate the girl and she moved in with him. The goal of this and all situations like it, was to help liminals, humanoid creatures mankind had thought to be mere fantasy until the big reveal four years ago, to get assimilated into society and teach them how to live in the human world. And so, since he quite literally had no other choice, Kimihito did his best to help the girl, whose name was Miia. Over time, Miia fell for Kimihito, but the laws at the time prevented them from doing anything for fear of imprisonment. Then, as if fate was tempting him, Kimihito became host to more monster girls, one after the other. There was Papi the harpy, Centorea the centaur, Suu the slime, Meron the mermaid, Rachnera the spider-woman and the latest, Lala the dullahan. And, one by one, all of them, except for Lala as far as Kimihito knew, fell for him. To make matters more complicated, agent Smith had dropped a bombshell shortly after Centorea arrived. The laws were up for changes and the question of allowing human-liminal marriages was raised. Wanting a test case to see if such a thing would work, agent Smith basically volunteered Kimihito and the girls. She told him to choose one of the girls and marry her for the sake of the law's future. And so now, each new girl brought not only new challenges to their living conditions but a new bride candidate as well. And so, Kimihito's crazy life became even crazier as the girls would now constantly compete for his affections.
"Man, I always wondered what having a harem would be like, but I never thought my chance would be like this. But, on the other hand, they're all good people in their own rights and this does give me a chance to learn a lot about a lot of things. And speaking of learning things, I'd sure like to know where the girls are. It's been awfully quiet today. I'd better go check on them."
Kimihito walked upstairs and searched each of their rooms. However, he found no one. So, he searched all over the house. Eventually, he tried the basement.
"Girls, are you down here?"
"M-milord! Please, do not come down here!" Centorea shouted in her normal, unusually prim way of speech.
"That's right, Darling! Just stay up there." Miia shouted.
"Um, okay but, what are you doing? I haven't heard a peep out of any of you all day. I was starting to get worried."
"Aw, that is so sweet, beloved. But we're fine. We're just working on something." Came Meron's voice.
"But what exactly? And how did you even get down there, Mero?"
"I carried her down, honey." Rachnera said.
"Well, okay. Just be sure she gets back up here safely. So, now, please tell me, what are you working on?"
"It's a surprise, boss!" Papi shouted.
"It's a surprise, master!" Suu semi-repeated.
"Quite, you two. You'll give it away. And Suu, stop mimicking. We all already know you can communicate just fine without copying. So stop acting dumb." Lala said.
"Acting dumb?" Suu questioned.
"Ugh, never mind. Just focus on your work."
"As you can see, we're quite busy down here, beloved. But, do not worry. We'll be up before long." Meron said.
"Um well, okay. Oh, by the way. Rachnera, do you know where Lilith is?"
Lilith was a devil, literally. She originally appeared to the gang in order to simply cause them trouble for the sake of her own amusement. However, Rachnera had tied her up using her webs and, after some interrogation, Lilith revealed a masochistic side to her personality. She then, for all intents and purposes, became Rachnera's 'pet', ready to do whatever was asked of her.
"Oh, she volunteered to go see that Smith chick and ask her some questions for us about what we're doing down here."
"Ugh, seriously? You know none of you are allowed to just be out and about like that according to the exchange laws. Oh, and why can Smith-san know about this, but not me?"
"Well, first of all, Lilith's not officially one of your charges. She's more of a squatter here than anything else. So, if she gets dragged in, hey, no skin off of anybody's noses, right? And secondly, it's a surprise and I'm not saying anything more."
"Oh, fine. I'm gonna go watch some more TV. Give me a shout if any of you need anything."
Just then, the phone rang.
"Hello?" Kimihito said as he answered the phone.
"Why hello there, Darling-kun."
"Oh, hi, Smith-san. Listen, if this about Lilith, I can explain."
"Oh, don't worry about her. Devils are notorious for this kind of thing. In fact, there's a special addendum in the laws just to cover hosts who receive them into their care. And, as far as I understand, she's not technically one of yours anyway. She's just sort of crashing the party so speak."
"Oh, okay. So, what is it you need, then? You didn't discover another D letter, did you?"
D was a mysterious letter writer that had sent two 'death threat' letters to Kimihito on account of his impending marriage to one of the girls. Both times they ended up being false alarms. One was sent by a liminal girl named Doppel, who was part of agent Smith's special government team. Her intention was to make Kimihito get closer to one of the girls and make his choice for marriage easier. Her plan back fired when he ended up getting closer to all of the girls, including some of Doppel's own team mates. The second letter ended up being from Lala herself. As Lala's people act as grim reapers sometimes, she merely sent the letter to warn Kimihito that a marriage to one of the girls could kill him. Considering how wickedly strong they all were and seemingly didn't realize it, he had to admit that she had a point.
"No. So far, we're in the clear on that one. I'm still keeping an eye on that, just in case a third, more deadly D shows up. But, I think we're okay on that one."
"Okay, good."
"Yes, it is. Now, the reason I called is because I wanted to tell you that I have a special case for you. A very special one."
"Oh, no, Smith-san. I know what that means. Listen, while I enjoy having the girls here, I just can't take anymore. I mean, if you count Lilith, I have eight living here. I just can't handle anymore monster girls."
"Who said anything about a girl?"
"What?"
"Listen, I gotta go. I'll be there in an hour. See you then, Darling-kun."
"Wait, Smith-san! Crap! She already hung up. I swear, sometimes, I wanna smack that woman. Oh, well, might as well get ready. Hmm, I wonder what she meant by that 'girl' line."
One hour later, the doorbell rang.
"I got it!" Kimihito shouted.
"Wait, Darling!" Miia shouted, as all the monster girls rushed up stairs. They were carrying a large banner.
Kimihito opened the door to reveal agent smith on the door step, just as the girls unfurled the banner.
"Oh, wow. You really went all out, girls." Agent smith said.
Kimihito looked at the banner. It read 'happy anniversary day' and was signed by all the girls. It looked as though it was made from Rachnera's webs and had been painted all over in the girls' favorite colors.
"So, this is it? This is what I couldn't see?" Kimihito asked.
"Well, this is the first cultural exchange anniversary day we've had with us altogether. So, we wanted to do something special. Do you like it, Beloved?" Meron asked.
"Oh, yeah. It's really nice. You did a knockout job on it, girls. Oh, and happy anniversary day to all of you too."
"Yes, happy anniversary day to everyone. And to celebrate, I've brought you all the gift of a new housemate." Agent Smith chuckled.
"Oh no! There's too much competition here as it is. We can't have another girl added to the ring." Miia said.
"I agree with her. The competition level is too great amongst us to allow another contender, Madam Smith." Centorea said.
"Here we go with assuming it's a girl again." Agent Smith said.
"It's not a girl?" Papi questioned.
"Why don't we just get the big reveal out of the way? Hey, Kyumaru-san, come introduce yourself." Agent Smith yelled to the car.
The rear passenger door opened to reveal a young liminal man. He wore a black coat over top a red shirt, with black pants and a pair of red and black shoes. He had pointy, dog like ears sticking out of the top of his head. His fur acted like hair on the top of his head. Patches of fur could be seen on the backs of his hands, which had sharp black claws on the fingers. All of this fur was a brilliant golden color. But what really stood out was his tail. Or rather, the three of them. Each tail was covered in the same golden fur, except right at the tip, where the fur turned snow white.
"Hey, Smith, is he what I think he is?" Rachnera asked.
"Yes, indeed, he is. Kyumaru-san here is a kitsune. Say hello, Kyumaru-san."
"Hello, everybody. My name is Kyumaru. It's nice to meet you." The fox boy said with a polite bow.
The others just nodded.
"So, are we having a party to celebrate the anniversary?" Kyumaru asked as he rose up from his bow.
"Well, we were planning on it. We were going to ask to go out to dinner." Miia said.
"When were you going to tell me this?" Kimihito asked.
Miia just chuckled nervously in response.
"Go out? Why? Now that I'm here, you'll never need to go out again. Which way is the kitchen?" Kyumaru said.
Kimihito pointed it out to him and Kyumaru headed inside. The others headed for the living room.
"Give me two hours and we should be in business." The fox boy called as he headed into the kitchen.
"Um, he can cook, right?" Kimihito asked.
"It's one of his specialties. Kitsune are people of many skills. The talents vary from fox to fox, and Kyumaru happens to have cooking as one of his. And let me tell you, he's a bonafide chef. I've eaten some of his cooking and it was better than anything I've gotten at a restaurant. You're in for treat, every one. Now, as for his lodging, kitsune are to have large rooms, so as to make them feel important." Smith said.
"Um, why?" Miia asked.
"You haven't heard? Kitsune are an endangered species."
"Dost thou speak the truth, Madam Smith? Sir Kyumaru is of an endangered species?" Centorea asked.
"I do speak the truth. As of the last census on the population, there are a total of twenty thousand Kitsune in the world. Literally, there is just enough to fill a small town."
"How come there's so few?" Meron asked.
"Poachers."
"Poachers?" Papi asked.
"Yes. You've all heard the term 'lucky rabbit's foot' before, right? A good luck charm made from the severed foot of some poor rabbit?"
Everyone nodded.
"Well, some time ago, a rumor got started that said that the tails of kitsune were a thousand times more potent in giving luck to their carrier. The demand got so high for authentic fox tails that it gave rise to poachers. These poachers are usually humans who view kitsune not as people with fox like features, but as foxes using magic to look like humans. And so, they don't feel bad about putting high powered rifle rounds into the poor folks. Then they harvest their tails and sell them. What doesn't get sold for good luck charms gets made into fur coats. I once saw a kitsune fur coat go for well over a hundred thousand when I was on a sting operation. And, worst of all, they don't even bury the corpse in some cases. Eventually, all of this grew so wildly out of control that it began to strain the fox population. It even began to affect kitsune birth rates. The stress of living a life where you know at any given moment you could be shot and worrying about their unborn pups often led pregnant foxes to miscarry completely and loose the entire litter or at least loose some of them. Eventually, this all combined to wittle the kitsune population to what it is now. Needless to say, this is one thing the culture exchange focuses on quite heavily. So much so that one rule a host family is given when receiving a kitsune is to give them the biggest room in the house, so as to help them feel cared about and important. So, since we've remodeled the house everywhere else for all the girls, I figured we'd give a 'man-cave' to Kyumaru-san down in the basement. The remodelers should be here tomorrow."
"You know, normally it's kinda annoying to have all that chaos and racket, but this is different. I mean, I never really minded it for any of the girls, but with a story like that, it really makes it different." Kimihito said.
Kimihito then turned to the girls.
"Girls, no matter what, we have to make Kyumaru-san feel welcome."
"You have my word, Milord. I will see to it that sir Kyumaru is treated like a king." Centorea proclaimed.
"Oh, you don't have to go that far. Kyumaru-san is actually quite humble. If you try to overindulge him, he'll probably shoot you down. Just show him you understand and care about him. Actually, now that I think about it, I remember that you regard each other as some sort of family. So just treat him like a brother. That should be more than enough to make him happy." Smith said.
"You got it, Smith lady. Papi's gonna be a great big sister to Kyumaru." Papi said.
"Actually, Papi-chan, Kyumaru-san is older than you. All of you girls are around eighteen if I remember correctly. Well, Kyumaru, despite how he looks, is actually twenty."
"Well, regardless, we shall do everything possible to show a familial level of affection." Meron said.
"That's all I can ask of you. Do your best everybody."