"Yep. Make dinner for three, please," Christina called out.
"Any requests? Preferences? Allergies?" her dad inquired.
Christina No. 2 poked her head back into her room to check on us.
"Nope," Christina No. 1 and I chorused in unison.
"We don't care!" Christina No. 2 shouted down the hall.
She closed her room door, walked over to her chair, picked up her flute, sat down, and played us a quick, upbeat dance étude. Once she'd finished, she put the instrument away and asked me to tuck it into the closet.
"Man, this conversation is really dragging," Christina No. 2 grumbled. "Let's tell jokes or something. Okay, two crows are sitting on a fence. Wham! A brick flies out of nowhere and wipes one crow out. The second crow gets super mad and goes, 'I told you, Clara, we shouldn't sit on the fence!'"
It was the dumbest joke in existence, but somehow hilarious. Christina No. 1, however, looked completely blank, unable to figure out what was funny or where she was supposed to laugh.
"Come on, it's obvious," I explained, trying to compose myself. "The surviving crow is scolding the other one for sitting on the fence... while she's sitting on the exact same fence! She could've been hit too!"
"Where did the brick even come from?" Christina No. 1 asked, still genuinely baffled. "If someone were throwing stuff at crows, it'd be a rock."
"That's the point! The whole scenario is completely absurd!"
"You know," Christina No. 2 turned to No. 1, "I get the feeling you don't trust me. But I'm literally your biggest fan and most loyal ally. Fan. As in blower. Just kidding. You guys are like a 3D melodrama to me. I want to witness your happiness, every single kiss, every intimate moment, every drama."
"Why?" No. 1 asked, her voice calm and curious.
"God gives horns to the deer, but not to the doe," No. 2 grinned. "If I were in a relationship, I wouldn't last two minutes. I'd get distracted or say something stupid. I just don't have the patience."
"You could just watch TV."
"Can't do it, zero patience and no 2x speed. That's why I suck at playing in an orchestra. You have to grind the exact same piece for hours. I figured I'd at least not get bored of a handsome husband while he stood there waving his baton. But watching and judging other people? I could do that for hours."
"Then why don't you become a critic or sit on a judging panel?" I pitched my "genius" idea.
"You need to build a reputation for that," Christina No. 2 replied. "Or at least have a few years of experience."
"Why not go solo, then?" No. 1 joined in.
"Besides, I can't drag things out. Like the whole operatic drag thing." Christina No. 2 dramatically extended her arm and said "La-laaa" in a completely ordinary voice, but seemingly in tune.
"La-laaa," I gave it a shot too, turning my gaze toward No. 1.
"Laaa-a-a," No. 1 chimed in, half-hearted and borderline mocking, but her voice came out so deep and effortlessly beautiful that the air in my chest literally vibrated.
"Wait, are you an opera singer?!" No. 2 raised her eyebrows in genuine awe.
"No, I don't even read sheet music," No. 1 blushed, looking down.
"She sings for her little sister," I quickly clarified, knowing No. 2 was about to ask how she'd learned.
Christina No. 1 turned even redder, a sweet flush creeping up her cheeks.
"Folk singing, then," No. 2 declared. "I wanna hear it! I love folk stuff."
"They're just nursery rhymes..." No. 1 tried to back out.
"Doesn't matter! Hand me the flute," No. 2 ordered me, then caught herself and added the magic word, "Please."
Christina No. 1 started singing a folk ditty, an old one my mom used to sing to me when I was little. Christina No. 2 joined in on her flute by the third verse, and the whole room instantly lit up. It felt like we were hosting a live kids' TV show, with the two of them as the musical leads and me just squeezed in the middle purely for gender balance.
Christina's mom finally walked into the kitchen and called us all to the dining table.
"Meet my new friend," Christina No. 2 introduced us, gesturing toward No. 1. "We share the same name! Met through the internet. And, well, you guys already know this handsome devil."
"Wait, isn't she the second wife?" her mom asked, eyeing us over her plate.
"Ugh, Mom! Now you're making me look totally pathetic, like I'm some kind of divorcee," Christina No. 2 whined, looking genuinely offended. "I'd rather you just called me his mistress."
"I fail to follow your logic," her mom replied calmly, shifting her gaze to No. 1.
"Well, if she's the 'second' wife, that implies I was the first one and got dumped. But if she's just his wife, that makes me the mistress on the side. Verstehen now?"
"She'd be offended if you were his side chick."
"Actually, she wanted to meet and hang out with me herself, seeing as we were assigned the exact same husband," No. 2 lied through her teeth.
Truth was, I was the one who'd set up this meeting so No. 1 wouldn't get jealous of my girl friend—literally a girl like a friend. Though calling No. 2 a "friend" felt like an understatement at this point. She was more like a shameless, chaotic sibling.
"So... who did he choose?" her mom asked. Naturally, she had no idea about our little cover-up, or the fact that we'd hidden the duplicate UKARI assignment notification from No. 1.
"Her, obviously," No. 2 blurted out without hesitation. "Her boobs are bigger."
"That's actually not why," I lied. (Though, to be fair, it wasn't completely irrelevant.) "Looks aren't everything."
"Ooh!" A spark lit up in No. 2's eyes. "Idea time! What's the single most important quality in a woman? No repeating answers allowed! Dad, you start."
"Character," her dad offered. "I would say 'soul,' but that sounds cliché."
"Mom?" No. 2 passed the torch.
"Cunning," her mom shot back instantly.
"Mom!" No. 2 pouted. "Name a good quality!"
"Fine. The ability to forgive someone's flaws."
"Your turn, Alex."
"UKARI," I answered smoothly.
"That's not a quality."
"You asked what was most important," I grumbled. "Fine, faith in UKARI. The most important thing is for a girl to believe that her assigned husband is her absolute best option."
Both girls instantly looked uncomfortable. I'd basically just hit a raw nerve for both of them: No. 1 had already been burned by her first assignment, and No. 2's assignment to me was a literal system glitch.
"But if UKARI didn't exist," I quickly scrambled to fix my blunder, "I'd choose a smart girl. You can always negotiate with someone who has a brain."
"Christina, your turn." No. 2 looked at No. 1.
"Probably... responsiveness. Being caring."
"Well, I think it's laziness," No. 2 closed the loop proudly. "Laziness is the bedrock of traditional family values."
"How do you figure that?" her dad chuckled, intrigued.
"Because if people weren't so lazy, they'd have invented some other kind of family model by now."
"Like what?" her mom smirked, throwing out a bait.
"Aha, new topic unlocked! I'll start: Threesome Marriage, Foursome Marriage, Fivesome Marriage... basically, the Open Contract Marriage."
"That just sounds like a group dynamic with extra steps," her dad commented, which immediately caused both me and Christina No. 1 to turn red. And she was up next!
"Hey, we're just spitballing here," No. 2 defended herself. "Some Japanese writer came up with UKARI out of nowhere, too. Christina?"
"I... I don't know."
"UKARI 2.0," I chimed in to save her.
"And what would that do?" No. 2 asked, genuinely curious.
"Assign spouses at birth."
"A neural network interface," her mom offered as an exotic option.
"Aww, you stole my answer," her dad smiled. "Though with a neural connection, you could do total skill-sharing. Like, Neural Network 2.0, where everyone in the family can do everyone else's job."
"Oh, hell yeah!" No. 2 jumped on it. "Whoever is closest does the work, because we'd share a hive mind of knowledge and skills! Plus, skills wouldn't be lost when someone dies. Burying your great-grandmother wouldn't be quite as tragic."
"Then my UKARI 2.0 needs an upgrade too," I got caught up in the hype. "It shouldn't just match similar people. It should match complete opposites."
Automatically, all of us turned to look at Christina No. 1.
"I really don't know," she murmured softly, shrinking back slightly. "My imagination isn't that great. Honestly, I'm fine with the way things are, as long as we can just eliminate the problems."
"Ooh, perfect transition!" No. 2 cheered. "Let's ask the most experienced people at the table: what kind of problems actually happen in a marriage? Because everyone only ever talks about the good stuff with UKARI."
"Not everyone," I corrected her. "There's an entire official brochure on resolving marital conflicts."
"Yeah, but what about the unresolvable ones? Do people just ignore them because they're rare?"
"Well, you could fall in love with someone else and suffer in silence," her mom suggested.
"The FAQ says that cures itself with age," I recalled from my reading.
"Infidelity happens too," her dad added, before hastily clarifying for his wife, "Not that I've tried, obviously! But working at a restaurant, you see married couples coming in with people who aren't their spouses. After a few years, you learn to spot who's ordering for their spouse and who's ordering for a secret date."
"You could become disabled," Christina No. 2 threw out. "Like, you still love them, but they divorce you because it's too hard."
"UKARI can make a technical error," I offered, unable to come up with anything other than subtly referencing my own situation.
"Even a perfect family can break," Christina No. 1 spoke up, her voice quiet but heavy. "Because there are other relationships in life too: parents, friends, classmates. Even a total stranger could bump into you on a bad day, you lose control for a second, snap... and the whole house of cards collapses. No UKARI coordinator can fix it after that."
"That's a very serious way to look at it," her mom said gently, trying to lighten the mood, completely unaware that No. 1 was essentially describing her own past trauma. "UKARI took away many people's right to make safe, harmless mistakes by handing them the best possible spouse on the very first try. Of course it's scary to make a mistake and lose them. But life is long. Even if your house of cards falls down, you can always start building a new one, even with the exact same deck of cards, with the exact same person. The important thing is wanting to build, not just chasing the final result."
"Relatable," Christina No. 2 agreed quietly.
"And disabled people adapt just fine," her dad chimed in, addressing his daughter. "You get a prosthesis, or an electric wheelchair. The key is not to view yourself as a victim. If you don't act like a victim, people won't abandon you."
I looked at her dad, then at her mom. Okay, cool... but who's gonna give ME a solution to my problem? Or are guys just expected to figure their own mess out?
"Everyone has a head on their shoulders for a reason, sweetheart," her mom replied, as if reading my mind.
"You shouldn't always rely blindly on authority, even if that authority is UKARI," her dad added. "Mistakes are a part of life. They aren't just problems. They're opportunities. That's how Tarte Tatin was invented, after all: someone forgot the pastry base and just threw it on top of the baked apples after the fact."