Ch 34
V 1.0 – See A/N at end. New material starts at line break.
Hinata-sou Dormitory
Mid December
late afternoon
(three months after story start)
"When are we going to eat, Shinobu-chan?" Surprisingly enough Kaolla Su was not the resident asking the question, but it was the second most immature of the residents. Even though Mitsune Konno, known as Kitsune by those close to her, was actually the oldest of the tenants living at the Hinata-sou, you could not really tell by the tone of her voice, which at this point had a whining quality that made her sound more like the young island princess in their midst.
"In just a few more minutes, Kitsune-sempai. Keitaro-sama is bringing a couple of friends to eat with us tonight, and he said they may be delayed by traffic. If they are not here in ten minutes, he said to start eating without them." Shinobu Maehara, second youngest of the tenants yet the most mature and responsible of the lot, had just brought a tray with a pot of steaming tea and cups into the living room, presumably to tide them over for a few more minutes. As soon as she set the tray down on the coffee table, the blunette reached into the pocket on the front of her neat dark green apron and produced a couple of bright yellow bananas and casually tossed the ripened fruit over the coffee table toward the antsy blonde girl sitting on the couch fidgeting. Just as the fruit passed the apogee of its arc, it was snatched in mid-air by the now fully attentive young teen. Tossing one banana up in the air, Su quickly peeled the other fruit and popped it into the air just in time to catch and peel the first one. Holding the two fruits in her hand, Su then semi-calmly broke one banana in half, tossed it into her mouth and started to chew.
Kanako Urashima, on a love seat perpendicular to the sofa where Su, Konno and Naru Narusegawa were sitting, watched as the youngest girl happily ate her snack. While normally she would not have been happy with Shinobu throwing food around or Su's antics, she knew that they were a great improvement on the younger girl's behavior. After just arriving to live at the Sou, she had watched the oblivious girl shove entire bananas into her mouth while in an eating frenzy, sometimes not even pausing to peel them. While not a prude, Kanako had winced at the inappropriate image it produced. Gradually the Urashima was able to convince the island princess to slow down her eating and to do so in a manner that was more proper and dignified. The one habit she had not been able to break had been her eagerness to receive her precious fruit when presented to her; Su had an unfortunate tendency to instinctive try to grab them from the person passing them to her… with her teeth. After a near miss involving Shinobu's fingers, the domestic tenant would toss the bananas at the tropical girl, who would juggle them in the air as she peeled them. Once the fruit was ready to eat Kanako was able to convince Su that her consumption of her favorite food would last longer if she broke the fruit into chunks to eat rather than cramming everything down at once. After timing her once, Kanako was able to show that eating the fruit piecemeal would quadruple the time she would be enjoying it rather than consuming it in a frenzy and then leaving her with a hunger for more.
Turning her eyes toward the next resident, Kanako gave a slight sigh. Even though Mitsune Konno was the oldest of the tenants, she lived up to her nickname's namesake, the trickster fox. While she was not trying to pull scams or come on to Keitaro anymore, that did not preclude her mischievous activities toward the other residents. Naru was used to her friend's antics, so she would shake her head and continue what she was doing before, Su would giggle and join in with the older girl, and Shinobu would just give a longsuffering sigh. However, Kitsune's activities had reduced themselves from physical pranks and mischief to mostly good-natured teasing. It was even less than that for the two youngest girls as the oldest girl had learned the hard way you did not want to annoy the person that washed your clothes (Shinobu was still being paid to do the other tenant's laundry) or was liable to show her appreciation of a joke played on her with either a flying jump kick or a glomp hug that felt like it should belong to a gorilla. The only people Kitsune did not mess with at all was Haruka, who's stoic demeanor was such that Kitsune did not want to provoke a response, and Kanako herself. The trickster girl did not even tried anything with the youngest Urashima, as the glares from the dark haired girl when she had first arrived at the Sou completely cowed her. On the positive side, while Kitsune had never been described as an enthusiastic worker or a punctual bill payer, she was now a diligent worker at the Tea House and had been paying her rent on time at the Sou, even if she came running up at the end of the day to Kanako's or Keitaro's room to do so.
Looking at the last tenant on the couch, Kanako did not really know what to think of Naru Narusegawa. The brown haired girl was certainly dedicated to her studies, to the point that she stood out among other Todai aspirants, but her behavior otherwise was certainly not of the norm. A lot was explainable due to the two assaults she had suffered, but it appeared that Naru had pulled into her shell as a way of dealing with the world. Kanako would not have been surprised to have seen a person who had gone through what she had become hikikomori, suffering from acute social withdrawal to the point of not leaving her room or house, almost like the agoraphobic Westerners that were who were afraid to be out in the open and locked themselves in their home. In this case Kitsune was actually good for her friend, as she kept Naru from withdrawing even more than she did. But even now Naru was wearing her coke-bottle glasses and reading a test prep book while her ash blonde friend sat beside her sipping at a clear beverage that Kanako was sure was not tea.
Kanako looked up as Shinobu returned to the living room from the kitchen. Instead of sitting down next to her on the love seat or on one of the single seats around the living room, the blunette instead stayed standing between the two sofas.
"Shinobu-chan, why don't you sit down? We don't know how much longer it will be before Manager-san gets here." Kitsune was looking up at the younger girl.
"It's OK, Kitsune-sempai. I don't want to get right back up again." Shinobu shook her head slightly.
"Right back up? What are you talking about?" Haruka Urashima, who had been silently sipping her tea on one of the single upholstered chairs, finally spoke up.
"Well, I've noticed that if I am waiting for something or someone, if I stay standing and then sit down, what I was waiting for will happen shortly afterwards." Shinobu moved over to the side of the love seat and sat down beside Kanako. "It's actually one of the ways I can make something happen faster."
"You've got to be kidding, Shinobu-chan, there's no way that would actually…" Kitsune's voice trailed off as she heard a car motor approaching the back of the house. "…work?" Shinobu just smiled at the older girl as she stood up and started to walk toward the back door. The other residents, who had been following the exchange, merely stood and followed the young domestic out to the driveway to greet their guest.
Parked in front of them was a older blue Toyota convertible with the top down. There were two young women, a short brown haired girl and a long black haired girl in the front seat, and their erstwhile manager was now carefully climbing out of the back. Once he was out of the car, he stood beside the two young ladies and walked toward the residents of the Sou, who had instinctively formed into a line facing them.
The trio came to a halt two paces in front of the tenants and stayed silent for a moment before Keitaro spoke up. "Good morning, everyone. Sorry we were late, there was a traffic delay." The male Urashima scanned the line of people and while he could see curiosity on the faces of the tenants, there was only Haruka's calm demeanor on hers and a poker face that would put most card sharks to shame on Kanako's. Seta-sensei, Sara and Nyamo were not present, as today they were at the Ministry of Justice arranging for the latter's resident visa.
"Ladies, these are some of the residents and tenants of the Hinata Sou. From that end is Naru Narusegawa, Kitsune Konno, Kaolla Su, Shinobu Maehara, my aunt Haruka Urashima, and my sister Kanako Urashima." As Keitaro introduced each resident, they either smiled and nodded slightly or gave a slight bow for the more traditionally minded.
Turning back to the pair beside him, Keitaro resumed speaking. "These young ladies are Natsumi Tsujimoto and Miyuki Kobayakawa, my good friends." Here Keitaro took a deep breath before speaking the words that froze the tenants in place. "They are both also my girlfriends."
Looking from one end of the line to the other, Keitaro could see that almost everyone was reacting to his revelation as he had expected. Haruka had not changed expression, Kanako's face looked as though it was carved from granite, Su was looking somewhat puzzled, and Shinobu was blushing heavily. Kitsune's eyes were wide open for once instead of being half-closed in her normal fox girl look, and Naru was slowly turning red and was already past her 'bash the pervert' look and rapidly closing on 'kill all degenerate swine NOW!'. Thankfully, he had talked to his 'Lovely Ladies'™ about what could happen following their little revelation and they had planned accordingly.
"Naru-san, I know what you are thinking, and you are mistaken." Miyuki's soft and calm voice nonetheless seized the hot-headed brunette's attention. "The truth of the matter is that Natsumi-chan and I were the ones to ask Keitaro-kun to become our boyfriend at the same time. And we had a very hard time convincing him to do so. We had not seen him for almost a full year before we met again a week ago, and we had both missed him so very much. And rather than having him date only one of us and the other being left out, we decided to both date him at the same time." The trio had decided beforehand that they were not going to mention Granny's little offer, as that would just stir things up even more.
Naru's facial expression was starting to cool down, so Kitsune decided to speak up. "Why do you both want to date him? He can't be that great a guy, can he? No offense, Manager-san." Keitaro nodded in acknowledgement to her apology and therefore everyone missed Kanako's rather visible twitch.
"He is that great a guy." Here it was Natsumi that spoke. "He's smart, good looking, kind, hard-working…" The short haired brunette spaced out for a long moment before mentally shaking it off and continuing. "I don't know how it is for you young people, but there is a shortage of available decent guys to date. When you find one, you grab on and don't let go."
"Young people? How old are you?" Naru spoke next, her face still flushed, which explained her rude question.
"Miyuki-chan is 29 years old and I'm 28," Natsumi replied. "Old enough to know a good thing when we see it. Or in this case, see him." Wrapping an arm around Keitaro's shoulder, she leaned forward and gave him a light kiss on the lips before turning back toward the younger girl and smiling.
"So do you guys just share Manager-san? Or do you *share* him?" Kitsune's suggestive question was asked just to tease the trio, she did not expect the response she got.
"Oh yes. Some of the best times of our relationship have been when the three of us are together." Miyuki gave a smile that was so innocent, blissful and yet *naughty*, that there was no way for it to be misunderstood. Which explained why the next question came up.
"Does Manager-san taste good?" Here everyone slowly turned and looked at Su, who was smiling innocently while rocking back and forth on her heels. "You both are going to be his wives, yes?"
"Why are you saying that, Su-chan?" It was everything Keitaro could do to not have winced at the young blonde islander girl's question.
"In my country nobles take up to three wives. To make sure that his family line continues the lord and the girls who want to marry him do snu-snu until the girl gets pregnant, then they get married." Here Su frowned. "There were bad lords that would not marry girls until babies were born, and then sometimes they didn't marry if they were girl babies. My Momma and Poppa got really angry at one lord who kept doing that, since all the babies were girl babies, so they took his title and money away, split it up among the girls and babies. Since then everyone gets married as soon as girl is pregnant."
"And why do you think we are going to be Keitaro-kun's wives?" Miyuki's question was carefully non-committal
"Manager-san is a lord, is he not? Part of a noble family here in Japan?" Su looked from the two girlfriends and Keitaro to the two female Urashima standing off to the side.
"Keitaro-kun is the heir to his family clan, that is true, but he's not quite a lord yet. Right now Granny Hina is the head and lord of the Urashima clan." Haruka replied. "Besides, having more than one wife is illegal in Japan."
"Pff." Su made a hand gesture that looked remarkably Italian. "You can't make love illegal. If man loves more than one woman, and they love him back, that is from heart. Words on paper no change that." Then Su did something they were not used to - she smirked. "If more than one wife illegal, why does Japan have saishoudoukin?"
Everyone paused at that. Saishoudoukin, which literally translated meant 'sleeping with one's wife and mistress in the same bedding,' was the custom of having both a wife and a mistress living in the same house at the same time. While it had taken place mostly in feudal era Japan, there was still some talk of some current time well-to-do men continuing the custom, although it was probably more to produce children when the wife could not and not just for gratification. But then the fact that Su knew about saishoudoukin was what was so surprising, although it should not have been. People kept underestimating Su due to her weak spoken Japanese, and they would forget that that this was the girl that had built a giant hovering turtle mech in her room.
"Su-chan, how do you know about saishoudoukin?" Kitsune asked, glancing at Keitaro and his girlfriends while trying to covertly wipe the trickle of crimson leaking from her nose.
"Read about it in comic book I found at school." Su explained. "Magic girls all chasing after one boy, one of girls ask magical book what to do, book says saishoudoukin. Book shows girl and boy and girlfriend in bed together for snu-snu. Book not good after that, no show snu-snu. Had to go on Internet and find other comic books showing snu-snu." Su looked disgusted for a moment, then brightened. "But then discovered American website, stores many snu-snu books on-line. Have almost five terabytes downloaded," the high school girl announced happily. "Don't read books with tentacles, too icky."
By this time, both Natsumi and Miyuki were wide-eyed, Shinobu was almost glowing red in embarrassment, Kitsune had blood trickling from both nostrils, and Naru had a rather visible tic in one eye. Haruka had raised an eyebrow, Kanako had an even more severe look on her face, and Keitaro was trying not to cringe.
"Su-chan… you read… hentai manga?" Naru was obviously trying not to lose her temper and doing a bad job of it.
"Read snu-snu. Hentai is bad, when show people being hurt. Snu-snu is normal part of life. People who don't snu-snu angry, mean. Act like you and Motoko-chan, sometimes," the young blonde girl explained, oblivious to the implied insult which brought Naru to a halt. "So I help pay to make more snu-snu books, make people happy."
"Wait a second, you help make manga? How?" This time the question came from Haruka.
"Contact writers of comic books, good artists who want to do books but no have official jobs." Su replied. "Help them with money to produce books, arrange for books to be sold in Akihabara and online. Sometimes writers who already do comic books want to do snu-snu books, but bosses don't allow. I help them write under different names. Also give money to websites to pay for server space and bandwidth and to translate books to different languages."
"How can you afford to do all this?" Haruka asked in wonder. "And how long have you been doing this?"
"Use lunch money. Shinobu-chan make tasty food, so I bring from here and no need to buy food at school." Su grinned as she threw her arm around the shoulder of a still blushing Shinobu. Of the group present, only the Urashima knew that what Su received as weekly 'lunch money', and what she considered pocket change, most people would consider a *very* decent monthly paycheck. "Started doing this when I first arrive here from Mol-mol, can't work in lab on Mecha-Tama all the time. Have Internet group that help, we called Team Vanilla. Wanted to call it Team Banana, but others no agree, call it 'risque.'" Su looked sad at that.
"Wait, you were twelve years old when you first came to Japan!" Naru almost shouted her question.
"I know about snu-snu since I was ten years old, when I start womanly time every month. Momma and Big Sister explain." Su looked up at the fuming long haired brunette. "When have womanly feelings, you need to know why and what to do and not do. Great honor in Mol-mol to reach womanhood early, show that gods trust and bless you. Also sign that you are part of royal family." Su turned to Shinobu, who looked to be in shock that her younger friend had started puberty so early. "Shinobu-chan, I'm really hungry, when do we eat?" There was a pleading note in the Molmolese girl's voice.
"Now, actually, since everyone is here." Shinobu shook off her feelings and looked toward Keitaro, who nodded his approval. "Let's all go inside, the food is ready to serve." With that everyone turned and started walking into the house, first the younger girls, then the older tenants. The two guests followed them up, with the Urashima bring up the rear.
A/N – Finally finished the full chapter. Sorry it took so long to do so.
While I enjoyed my time at Anime Expo 2012, it was not quite as good as years past, as I missed out on some panels I had wanted to attend, one of them being Fakku, the largest English language ecchi manga and anime website. For their big 'Hentai Worth Watching' panel, the convention put them in the biggest meeting room, with room for 500+ people, and they still filled it! I was not able to attend that one since I was number 600 and change, but it can be seen on YouTube. I did give them a partial shout out in this chapter as a means of thanks to Jacob and Mike for their fine work archiving ecchi manga and doujishi, and to Team Vanilla for their great work translating the same.
A new (to me at least) series I watched at the AX was Ghost in the Shell – Stand Alone Complex. The opening title song 'Inner Universe' alone is worth watching the series for; Major Motoko Kusanagi, the leader of a futuristic counter-terrorism/counter-cyber-terrorism team is the other reason. Imagine a combination of Misato Katsuragi and Rei Ayanami from Evangelion in sexy cyborg techno-ninja form and you will have the Major. In fact, if you want to read a Ghost in the Shell/Evangelion crossover with Motoko and Rei, read 'The Recruit' by A. Amishi on FFN.
As to the contest regarding the reasons for my delay in posting the last chapter, I made a list of possible reason for not doing so, with five actual reasons, and none of the above and an all of the above answers. So in the end, the answer is… ALL of the above reasons! Yes, that month I was sick, shooting at the range, playing video games, dealing with city inspectors and trying not to fall sleep before I write (not all at the same time, natch). BTW, I found that chocolate covered espresso beans actually work to keep me awake if I eat enough of them – not recommended to people without an extreme caffeine tolerance like I have. However, little baggies of choco-espresso beans go to Chaosweaver6139 (I put poor Wrex in the ME pink armor as well since it had a high rating, at least until I scrounged up better armor), and Lazruth (while I shoot a lot compared to most people, I don't shoot THAT much - finances limit me).
New question – while I was at AX I had a drawing done to go with the story (there was an Artist Alley in the dealer hall, and various amateur artists were selling their work). The drawing can be found under my name (GreydonCreed) at photo()bucket (dotcom)(foward slash) ContractLaborFic (take the spaces and parenthesis out of that link to make it work) and it is of Motoko alone in her room after leaving the Hinata Sou. What I want to know is if you guys like it and if so should I post it as the cover art for this story? (To all the Motoko lovers out there, the next chapter is going to be mostly about her.) Also, should I commission more work? I don't think I can order anything too fancy from the artist, but I may be able to get one done of Keitaro, Miyuki, and Natsumi together (not like that, perverts!).
As I just said, the next chapter will be Motoko-centric. The chapter after that will be the start of the Thailand/Roanapur flashbacks.
Thanks again to AZ MII and PCH for their help in beta-ing this chapter.
Winner for the most unusual place to read my story this month goes to the lonely soul in Cuba. Runner up is Singapore, which is kinda surprising given its moral reputation, but hey, at least 13 different people read the early version of this chapter, and 137 people read the story in the last couple months (early June to mid July).
As of 0300 15Jul2012 this story had 253,825 hits, 448 Reviews,51 C2 Listings, 638 Favorite Listings, and 570 Story Alerts.
As you may have noticed, besides the FFN Lemon Scare of 2012 (I remember the Great Lemon Purge of '02, where some of my Adult-rated fics were dropped from the site) you can now see how many reviews, favorites and alerts a story has on its category page on FFN. My new goal is to pass one thousand on each of those before too long, and I am confident that I will do so thanks to you fine readers.
One last thing. *clears throat, starts singing slightly off key*. Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday Contract Labor, Happy Birthday to you. Yes, this story is now one year old.
Thanks again for reading, guys.*victory sign*