Chapter 3

"Why?" I groaned at length, hearing my front doorbell ring a few times.

"It's so early…" Miia whined, wiping her tired eyes as she unlatched herself from me on my bed.

"I'll get it," I declared, rubbing my face in fatigue the kissing her on the lips slowly, "Go back to sleep." Nodding, she rolled over and wrapped her tail around herself, pulling the blanket back up as I trotted downstairs. I opened the door in a tight rage.

"It is six o'clock in the morning!" I shouted, probably looking like a mess with a bedhead and a greasy tee shirt, "What do you… Huh?" I stepped aside as a construction crew marched into my house, fully ignoring me as their foreman came up to me with a grin. I recognized this guy. I recognized the work papers he was handing me even more.

"It's good to see you again, Mr. Ghirahim!" he greeted cheerfully, "I'm glad to see you decided to host another interspecies exchange student!"

"Yeah, good to see you, too," I said groggily, as I perused over the work forms, taking a second in my post-dream state to process the second part of his greeting and looking up at him bemused once I did, "Hold on. Can we back a second?"

"That's right!" the construction leader whose name escaped me said with a loud belly laugh, "Coordinator Smith contacted us saying that you decided to host another student and asked us to begin the renovations to accommodate her right away! We'll get started immediately so we don't disturb your morning too much." Patting my shoulder, he walked off.

I just continued to stand in my place as the situation sunk in, as well as the implications and future complications that hosting another demihuman girl would bring. Briefly, I remembered a conversation I had with Smith recently. A few days after my street fight on my first date with Miia, the hooligan I knocked out seemed to decide on contacting the police for one reason or another, which inevitably got Miss Smith involved, and got her to do a surprise check up on my household. After telling me she talked the guy down from pressing charges, she praised me for bluffing my way through it, then beating him so easily when he decided to fight me anyway. However, what stook out about that whole situation was the evil glint in her eye. After referencing my internet search history, then commending how well I handled that kind of dangerous scenario, she told me she "knew what to do with me," and two days later, this was happening.

"Kyaaaa!" A scream came from upstairs. My shoulders dropped in dread and I ran upstairs, ducking around a construction worker flying over my head and seeing a bunch of scale care products that Miia kept in my room being thrown at some of the others. I ran inside, dodging a few. Her eyes were closed as she defensively tried to usher everyone out until I grabbed her shoulders.

"Miia! Miia, calm down!" I demanded. She stopped screaming just long enough to look at me.

"Darling?! What's going on?!" she shrieked. I gulped down the cotton drying up my mouth as I tried to figure out how to break the news to her. Miia was the jealous type. Another demihuman moving in despite her wishes would not only piss her off, but it would make for a lot of drama down the line.

"So… Smith had an idea…"

(...)

A few hours had passed before the construction crew had finished fixing up the house, opening up the rooms, widening the doors, and paying particular attention to the attic for some reason before heading out. As I ushered them out, the foreman handing me the same paperwork he did when Miia moved in. I wanted to smack him. The first reason was that he woke me up and destroyed my house, the second was how tedious the paperwork was going to be later on, but the primary reason I wanted to rip his head off was his laughter. I had bruises over my face from Miia's reaction to another girl moving in.

I joined her at the table with my third cup of coffee. Miia was still glowering down at her own, which had probably cooled down at this point, unwilling to meet my eyes and probably going to chew me out again if she opened her mouth. I had managed to explain to her, somehow, that it was really Miss Smith who had decided this, but she was still pissed. I decided not to bug her. Unfortunately, after I was halfway through the first stack of papers, she decided that she had to bug me.

"Are we really going to get another roommate, Darling?" she asked sadly. I looked up, a dead look on my face and a stressed smile.

"I don't really think we have a choice at this point," I said, "My house has already been renovated- which is awesome to have, but terrifying to watch -Agent Smith has already filed the paperwork, and from what I've been told, the girl is already on her way to move in. Apparently, that woman can move pretty quick if she wants to."

"It's not like you can't call and cancel before she gets here…" Miia said dejectedly. I raised my eyebrow at her. She wasn't willing to say it, but I could tell what was really on her mind, and yet, I didn't want to bring it up. I didn't think anything I could have said could have eased her mind on that front, so I figured it was best to let her bring it up first and just work from there.

"Miia, please don't put me in that situation," I said, unintentionally placing the blame on her, "This girl already believes that she's going to be moving in once she gets here, and is hoping that we'd welcome her, and if I cancel, it would completely crush her spirits, and if she's anywhere close to the same thing you worried about when you got here, being half snake, then she would probably blame all humans for being afraid of her. I can't do that to her." Miia pouted, crossing her arms. I think I somewhat got through to her when I brought the innate human fear over snakes and other creepers, knowing that a person's empathy outweighed their anxiety. Miia would probably see herself as a big sister in that regard.

"You know Smith is taking advantage of you, right?" Miia demanded.

"First of all, how dare you," I joked, "Second, you are entirely correct. That woman is more manipulative than I could ever hope to be." Miia glowered over at me for a few seconds, trying to keep her threatening stare, but ended up rolling her eyes.

"Fine, I'll give her a try," she agreed, but then looked down sadly, grabbing my hands from across the table, "But… what are we going to do?" I glanced up at her and sighed.

"I… I don't know just yet," I admitted, then kissed her fingers and nibbled on them a little bit, "But you know me. I'll figure something out as soon as I have enough information to work with, and it's not like you're going to move out of my bed anyway." She returned my smirk and giggled at me.

"I had better not!" she shot gleefully.

About an hour later, I had finished all of the paperwork and was making out with Miia on the couch, her tail wrapped around my ribs and legs while my hands found their way up her shirt and through her hair, her boobs the greatest things I had ever touched. She was so calm it was surreal. Honestly, I knew the reason for her still mind was because she was still kind of upset, so I made sure not to do anything she wasn't comfortable with, which to be fair, wasn't much. If I had been comfortable with it, she probably would have wanted to go further.

My phone buzzed. Pulling myself away from Miia as best I could, her lips continuing to trail up my neck, I answered it and grumbled. Patting her thigh, or rather, where her thigh would have been on her serpentine tail, she let me up. Grouchily, she knew what was happening. Whoever this girl was, whatever species she represented, the new girl was almost here, and Agent Smith was asking us to step outside to wait for her. Putting on a jacket, straightening our hair, we took our places out on the front step and waited for her, but then we looked over at one another nervously when we saw an armored truck pull up. Miia had shown up in a sedan. Sure, it wasn't the most comfortable fit for her, but she was able to keep her entire body in the back seat and partially in the passenger seat up front. How big was this new girl that she needed a truck? And why an armored one?! Agent Smith stepped out of the same sedan she dropped Miia off in which had been leading the other car.

"Good to see you both," she greeted, "I trust everything is going well and that you haven't been engaging in any prohibited activities." Something about the way she said that made me think she already assumed Miia and I were together, but that she didn't have any solid proof.

"Oh my god, Miss Smith!" Miia moaned, "I'm fine! You don't have to bring up mattress polo literally every time you visit us! Darling treats me just fine, and I am perfectly happy here, and if we were beard splitting, then you would just have to deal with it because it would be my decision that I would be perfectly happy with. Besides, I am never going to leave my Darling even if you bring the military to rescue me, so you can drop that subject at the door and save it for another family."

"I'm sorry," we all heard a playful, sultry tone come from the front yard, "You call him Darling? My, my. Isn't that interesting." Glancing up to the source of the voice, my jaw dropped.

The first thing that processed through my mind, having become desensitized to the more monstrous features of demihumans so I didn't see her lower half, was this woman's skimpy attire. I say "attire" knowing that that description is a bit generous. To be honest, I didn't know whether or not she had dressed up for this occasion, but I knew the less than professional outfit had been intentional by the way her exposed violet and black lace bra had matched the ornate loin cloth draped between her legs. Overtop the majority of her torso was a simple white blouse. This is what made me realize that she liked dressing slutty- not that there's anything wrong with that style -because instead of buttoning it up all the way, or rolling up the french cuffs, she decided that it was only necessary to use the bottom button on the shirt to keep it together.

Second, were her features. If you ask me, the structure of her face made her look soft and fair. Her eyes were gentle, her brows sharp but refined, and her smile something that I could call absolutely sunny, the combination of which striking the word "angelic" into my mind on the backdrop of her fair skin. Her eyes, however, were unnerving, and not because they were a dark, pupil-less pink and that she had six of them. What set me off was that they all worked in sync with one another. I couldn't even begin to guess how the muscular physiology of her face made the extra two row on her forehead crinkle and fold the same way her main pair did, but when I saw that all three pairs were trained right on me, I got the best and the worst shiver down my spine. She looked like she wanted to eat me up, and given my experience with demihumans, I wasn't ready to rule that out. I had just met her.

That's when I noticed what species she was. When she stepped out of the armored truck and turned to us, it processed a little late that she was standing at least five feet above myself, Smith, and Miia, but the reason for that were her legs. That's right. "Legs." She had eight of them, all leading up to a behemoth sized carapace behind her that served as her butt. They weren't thick and hairy, and I wouldn't really say they were long and spindly either, but I could still see the strength behind the chitinous exoskeleton no matter how thin and short they were for her kind.

I had met her species once before, actually, when I volunteered to help set up for a meet and greet at the community center. The only girl I got to meet there was another coordinator like Smith and was the same species as the girl standing before me, only her eight legs were twice as long as my body, and her much smaller thorax closer to the ground. (I don't know if thorax is the right body part for this species, though.) If I had to compare that one to an non-sentient creature, I'd call her a water spider. This arachne, however, shared a similar body type to a black widow, and judging by the skull emblazoning her backside, I could only guess that that was what she was. At the distance we were at, I measured her legs to be about chin height for me, and her thorax about a third of the size of my ford F150.

Having been one of only two people in the group of ten that had helped this woman move into my house that wasn't afraid of her, I gasped like a hot tea kettle. However, unlike Smith who had to keep things professional, I had already fallen head over heels with this girl. To be more precise, I fell in love with the idea of her. For a terrifying second, a long enough second for me to mess up judging by the first words she heard come out of my mouth, I forgot she was a sentient, demihuman girl and not just a very attractive spider.

"She's beautiful!" I squealed. I didn't realize how bad that sounded until the words had already left my mouth. Smith glanced over to me, her sunglasses falling right off of her face and her jaw dropped as she began planning my funeral. Miia's tail began rattling as she glared daggers into the back of my skull, her hair probably having combusted from anger alone. As for this new girl, she barely had any noticeable reaction. Her face contorted for one second, her eyes going wide and her smile dropping ever so slightly, before bringing her violet claws up to her face, brushing her lavender hair out of flattery.

"That was quite the introduction, Mr. Ghirahim," she shot slyly, a grin plastering her face, "At least, now I know you aren't afraid of spiders. If that sort of treatment keeps up, then I think I'm going to like it here!"

With the best kind of twist crawling its way from my stomach to my throat, a sign of being pleasantly creeped out, she skittered past myself and Miia into the house where the moving crew was already bringing her bags. Standing in the doorway, she braced herself against the frame comfortably as she looked over her shoulder. She was smiling directly at Agent Smith. Unfortunately, I couldn't tell if that smile was one of kindness, or if she was planning on snapping the woman's neck for no other reason than that she was still there.

"Thank you for dropping me off, Miss Smith, but your services are no longer required," she said confidently as if she was royalty instead of a client, "As you can see, there will be no problems here in this household. Although, I will tell you that I already like it here more than the other place you were going to send me to."

That finished, she stepped inside my house while I closed the door behind her. The last thing I saw was her arms crossed as she examined every single nook and cranny in the building, an adventurous look in her eyes. Slowly, I turned to Smith and Miia. The latter looked like she was about ready to explode me, her pupils thinning so much in fury that they may not have even been there in the first place, and her hands tensely breaking open as if she was going to claw my chest open. Smith, on the other hand, was rubbing her temples, groaning under her breath.

"So…" I tried, although keeping my mouth shut probably would have been better, "She's an Arachne… neat." They could probably hear the fear in my voice. If my first statement was anything to go off of, they could probably also tell that the tone wasn't because of the new girl's species. I guessed as much when Miia's tail wrapped around my neck and pushed me against the door.

"What was that filth?!" Miia demanded, "'She's beautiful.' Are you trying to make me jealous or something? Because it's working and I don't like it!"

"Miia, Miia!" Smith said pleasantly, tapping the lamia's shoulder, "Relax, it's understandable that someone like Kayo, someone who is into spider trivia, would find Rachnera attractive. He obviously forgot that the girl was a girl, and treated her like an animal instead. Right?" The last word was accompanied by the deadliest of looks I had ever seen on someone.

There was no way I could answer that and win. I had to find someway to avoid answering the question while still giving them a satisfying distraction. Perhaps I was a little too mean in my bluff.

"M-Miia! You're ch-choking me!" I gagged, clawing at her tail and making my eyes look like they were bulging out of my skull. I was faking it, of course, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. The only problem was that this couldn't be a small issue. If I was going to make them forget the question they had asked me, then by Athena and her almighty loom, I was going to have to sell this.

Miia panicked and dropped me on the ground where I fell to my knees in a coughing fit. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see both of their worry. Smith knelt down to make sure I was OK, and with just enough peripheral vision to her, I caught Miia covering her mouth with both of her hands, her eyes filled with fear and remorse. I stayed down there for little over half a minute. I knew that if I stayed down there too long, it would have looked suspicious, but Miia gave me a good excuse to change scenes when she bent over to try to help me up.

"Darling, I-" she tried, but stopped when I put my hand up.

"I'm good," I said, panting, "Just… give me a second."

At that point, I stood up and coughed a few more times lightly, ready for the final act. Miia tried to apologize. She reached over to put her hand on my shoulder, but retracted it when I not only stepped away from her touch, but that I recoiled and placed my hands out in front of me in the universal "stay away" gesture.

"I'm sorry, but…" I said, "I'll be fine later. I just don't want to be touched right now, OK?" I kicked myself. Miia looked like she was about ready to cry.

"OK…" she said quietly, "I'm… I'm sorry for… I'm sorry I hurt you. I didn't mean it…" I smiled at her kindly.

"I know," I said warmly, "I did kind of deserve it, didn't I? Why don't you go inside and meet our new family member? I'm sure Smith has some stuff she wants to go over with me since it is this girl's first day." When Miia tried to slither past me, I reached out and wrapped my arm very loosely around hers, just tight enough to let her know she and I were fine, but without enough strength to lose the illusion of not wanting to be touched. It seemed to cheer her up. As soon as the door had closed again, I turned to Agent Smith.

"That was a fabulous bit of theatrics, Kayo," she said with mock applause, "Well, done." I crossed my eyes and looked her over with an expert poker face. When I was met with the same expression, I shrugged and admitted my defeat like the honorable person I was.

"I can't hide anything from you, can I?" I said, knowing she knew I was faking that tension.

"As long as you don't give anyone else a reason to suspect you, there's nothing I can do," Smith shot back, flipping through the spider girl's file.

I knit my brow. Most people may not have been able to pick up on the subtle nuance of that statement, but most people weren't me. Smith's double meaning was obvious. I wasn't sure how she figured it out, but she knew that Miia and I were already together, and she was playing dumb for our sakes. That's what that statement was referring to. Although, there was a second part to her accusation that I needed to pay attention to, and that was her telling me not to give anyone a reason to suspect us. Essentially, she was saying don't leave evidence. No phone calls, no text messages, no emails, no dirty pictures, no public displays of affection, and even though Smith both knew about the relationship and condoned it, no being romantic in front of her, either. She was a government employee, after all. There was only so much stuff she could turn a blind eye to, but if we ended up giving her cold hard evidence that Miia and I were in a relationship, let's say kissing each other at the dinner table while she's visiting, then Smith wouldn't have any other choice than to turn us in.

"So, in all sense of urgency so I put out a fire before it starts, what am I dealing with here?" I asked the coordinator pressingly, my urge to slap her rising fast despite not being what one would call a violent person.

"Her name is Rachnera Arachnera," Smith began, handing me her file so I could flip through it, "She's an arachne, as you've already seen, which just so you're aware, is one of the most dangerous demi human species that have made themselves known to the human governments. I've compiled an RPG stat sheet just to make it easier for you."

"Her speed, dexterity, durability, trick, and endurance are all nines," I noticed the measurement, impressed that this was on a scale of ten, "Why is her strength only a seven?" When I didn't get an answer, I glanced back up to Smith who had her arms crossed and was smiling at me slyly.

"Really?" she asked flatly, "You're dealing with one of the most dangerous beings in existence, and you to ask me why her strength is so low?"

"I'm just making the assumption that she's not going to kill me," I said with a cocky grin, "What would you expect me to ask? How would she hide my body?"

"Oh, she wouldn't hide your body," Smith said all too casually, "She would eat you completely after draining all of your blood from your stomach."

I stared at the agent blankly.

"You must be very fun at parties," I deadpanned.

"What can I say? I'm a hoot," she said, "In any case, the only thing I can really tell you to watch out for are her webs, and to respect her privacy. She likes to keep to herself, so if you do happen to go into the room she chooses for any reason while she's in there, she won't hesitate to tie you up, and even if she isn't there, she'll most likely have traps set for any intruders. Anything else that you should watch for would come standard with hosting multiple girls."

Smith stepped up to me and tapped my chest with her pen.

"As the host family, you have a responsibility to make sure those two get along, both for the prosperity of your own household, your personal well being, and for the improvement of relations between all species; not just monsters and humans," Smith implored in a deeper, more serious tone than before, "I know I threw this on you without warning, and without asking you, but I expect you to handle this to the best of your ability."

I nodded grimly. That statement sounded like a finisher, so I was surprised when Miss Smith stepped back and let out a nervous breath she had been holding in, taking off her glasses.

"So, what are you going to do about…" Agent Smith gestured vaguely.

"Um…" I gulped, "Pray. After that, it only becomes a matter of hiding it from Rachnera properly and not be too suspicious about it, but if worse comes to worst, I'm hoping that she wouldn't be too… upset about it."

"Knowing her, she'd probably have your back and hide it from me," Smith said, then clarified, "Well, from agents who actually care about their jobs, that is." I scoffed gratefully and fist bumped her.

"Thanks, Smith," I said, then I made sure she got to her car safely and waved her off before stepping back inside. It was both satisfying and surprising how we managed to have that conversation, no matter how brief, without once actually stating clearly what we were talking about. Lazy as she was with actual work, the woman was surprisingly intelligent. That mental praise was lost on me, however, when I walked back into the house to see just what Smith had meant she said Rachnera liked to tie people up.

"Oh, hello Honey!" Rachnera greeted me with an innocent smile, holding a strand of her webs in her hands like a whip, "We were just playing a little game. Don't mind us."

I could see that, but their game was less of something you do at highschool parties, and more what you do in the dungeon of a sex fiend. Also, I just so happened to be the sex fiend that would like to play this game.

My shirt quickly dyed itself red when my nose gushed blood at the sight before me, my pants tightening uncomfortably. Miia was tied up. The webbing was tied in a such a way that perked up her breasts as they circled them tightly, the rope then going down her abdomen in a diamond pattern and cupping her snake butt. Being a snake, Rachnera had to alter the knot to create a kind of outline for her crotch instead of looping the rope in between her legs, but that was just as alluring to me as the alternative, and yet the best part was up top where Miia had her hands tied above her head and a gag around her mouth. Fortunately, Rachnera had the decency to know blindfolding her would be going too far. Despite the deadly and panic glare that Miia was shooting my way, or maybe because of it, I wasn't sure if Miia was enjoying this scenario or too freaked out by it to do break out of it since her tail wasn't bound.

"Hey, Rachnera?" I asked tightly.

"Yes?" she returned without at all being perturbed by her game.

"You are just a treat."