Futa Harem System: Infinite Money in Tokyo
Chapter 21: Thirty-Three
Hina’s alarm went off at four-thirty inside her own hand.
She had fallen asleep holding the phone, Lena discovered, so that no one could confiscate it, and when it buzzed against her palm she sat up instantly, eyes wide, like a player hearing the whistle.
“Thursday,” she announced in a whisper.
“Mine.
No one has ever touched my Thursday.”
“I know.”
“Rei tried.” Hina shot a look toward the foot of the bed, where Rei was asleep with her stopwatch on her chest like a medal.
“Rei failed.” She turned back, and her face softened.
“Also, it’s her birthday.
Mizuki’s.
And you’re going to see him today.
Alone.” She bit her lip.
“So I want to give you something good to carry with you.
Can I?”
Lena reached up and touched the sunflower key on its chain.
“Yes, Hina.”
“Good.” Hina kissed her, slow and deep and tasting of sleep.
“Hold still.
I’m not Ayaka.
You can move as much as you want.”
Hina had never been patient in her life, but she tried.
She knelt between Lena’s legs, cupped her in both hands, and kissed her from base to tip, slowly, almost thoughtfully, the way she touched her own belly now, with a kind of wonder.
Then she took her into her mouth and moaned, a deep, satisfied sound that vibrated all the way through her.
The patience lasted about two minutes.
Then the athlete in Hina took over, and she set a rhythm, strong and fast and relentless, one hand pumping in time with her mouth and the other gripping Lena’s hip to anchor her.
Lena gasped and arched and moved, as promised, rolling her hips up to meet her, and Hina growled approval around her and went faster, deeper, her eyes squeezed shut in fierce concentration, like a spike in the final set.
“Hina—Hina, wait, I’m going to—”
Hina opened her eyes and looked up, wicked and loving, and didn’t wait.
Lena came like a ball hitting the floor, sudden and hard, a cry bursting out of her, her hand fisted in Hina’s short hair.
Hina took everything and kept going, slower, softer, until Lena was trembling and laughing and pushing weakly at her shoulder.
Hina sat up, wiping her mouth with the back of her wrist, triumphant.
“There,” she said.
“Take that with you to his office.”
“Fourteen minutes,” said Rei sleepily, clicking her stopwatch.
“Aggressive.
Effective.
Eight point nine.
Points deducted for lack of subtlety.”
“I don’t need subtlety,” said Hina.
“I’m pregnant.”
*Ding.*
[Hina Takeda | Love: 100% — LOCKED]
[Pregnancy: Day 16 — Healthy.]
Mizuki’s mother called at seven exactly.
Through the kitchen wall they heard Mizuki answer in a soft Niigata accent none of them had ever heard her use, laughing, saying *yes, Mama, I’m eating, yes, Mama, I’m well, no, Mama, there’s no one.* A pause.
*…Maybe someone.*
When she came back to the table, five people were pretending very hard to be reading.
“Happy birthday,” said Yuki, and pushed a plate toward her.
On it was a single slice of castella cake with one candle.
Mizuki stared at it.
“How did you know—”
“You told Lena at the pond,” Yuki said.
“Lena told the Committee.
The Committee has a calendar.”
Mizuki blew out the candle.
She didn’t make a wish out loud.
But her eyes, when she looked up, went straight to Lena and stayed there.
Accounting at ten-thirty was a practice problem set, and Nanami arrived with the date of the midterm still on her hand, slightly faded, and a bag of homemade rice crackers.
“Snacks,” she whispered.
“For Sundays.
I did a test batch.
Is that weird?”
“It’s the opposite of weird.”
Nanami solved seven of eight practice problems correctly, and on the eighth she found Lena’s mistake before Lena did.
“You carried the depreciation wrong,” she said, pointing, and then went white.
“Sorry.
I mean.
Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.
You’re right.”
A smile broke across Nanami’s face, astonished and fierce.
“I was right,” she whispered.
“About you.”
[Nanami Okamoto | Attraction: 95% → 96%]
Kurosawa Group headquarters occupied the top twelve floors of a glass tower in Marunouchi, and Genji Kurosawa’s office was on the fifty-first.
Mizuki met Lena in the lobby and rode up beside her without a word.
At the forty-ninth floor, without turning her head, she brushed the back of her hand against Lena’s, once.
The office was enormous and nearly empty: floor-to-ceiling glass, the Imperial Palace gardens far below, a black desk, and Genji at the window with his back to them.
“Thank you, Hayashi,” he said.
“You may go.”
Mizuki bowed and went.
At the door, she looked back once.
Lena gave her the smallest nod.
Genji turned around.
“Sit,” he said.
Lena didn’t sit.
She walked to the window instead and stood beside him, looking down at the palace moat.
“Pretty view,” she said.
“It cost me thirty years.” Genji studied her sideways with those grey eyes, Rei’s eyes, colder.
“My secretary tells me you are a model student.
That you live with several roommates. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
That you eat curry.
That your money comes from a trust in Greece.” He paused.
“My secretary is very efficient.
I don’t believe a word of it.”
“Then why ask her?”
“Because I wanted to see if you would let her write it.” He turned back to the window.
“You did.
Which means you know she’s mine, and you let her stay anyway.
Either you are a fool, or you are very sure of something.”
Lena said nothing.
“Hoshizora,” Genji said quietly.
“Have you heard the name?”
“Your secretary asked me that on Tuesday.”
“And?”
“And I told her the truth,” Lena said.
“I’ve never said that word in front of her.”
Genji almost smiled.
Almost.
“That’s a lawyer’s answer.
My daughter taught you that.”
“Your daughter teaches me a lot of things.”
For a moment something moved in his face, quick, gone.
Then he went to his desk and opened a drawer, and took out a single photograph, and laid it on the black wood.
It was old.
A woman in her thirties, laughing, in a garden, with long dark hair and Rei’s exact jaw.
A small girl with platinum hair was sitting on her shoulders, holding a wooden practice sword.
“My ex-wife,” Genji said.
“She took something from me when she left.
Something that belongs to this family.
She has been holding it for eleven years, and she has never once used it, which is how I know she’s waiting.” His voice was perfectly flat.
“When she finally moves, she will move through my daughter.
She’ll come to her with a letter, or a story, or tears.
And Rei, who has always wanted a mother more than she wanted anything, will give her whatever she asks.”
He looked up at Lena.
“So I’m asking you, as one person who cares about Rei to another: if Haruka contacts you, or contacts her, you tell me.
That’s all.
Do that, and I’ll consider the matter of the engagement…
open to discussion.”
The silence in the office stretched.
Far below, a boat moved along the moat.
“No,” said Lena.
Genji’s eyebrow rose.
“You just said she’s waited eleven years and never used it,” Lena said.
“That’s not how a thief behaves.
That’s how someone behaves who’s afraid of you.” She picked up the photograph and looked at the little girl with the sword.
“Rei will decide what to do about her mother.
Not you.
Not me.
And the engagement isn’t open to discussion.
It’s over.
Kaito told you himself.”
She set the photo down.
Gently.
Genji Kurosawa looked at her for a very long time.
“You remind me of her,” he said finally.
It didn’t sound like a compliment.
It didn’t sound like an insult either.
“Go.
Hayashi will see you out.”
At the door, Lena stopped, and turned.
“Mr.
Kurosawa.
Do you know what day it is?”
He frowned.
“Thursday.”
“It’s your secretary’s birthday.
She’s worked for you for five years.” Lena opened the door.
Mizuki was standing just outside it, very straight, tablet against her chest.
“Happy birthday, Mizuki,” Lena said, loud enough to carry across the empty office.
Behind her, she heard nothing at all.
And then, after a long moment, the sound of Genji Kurosawa sitting down slowly in his chair.
*Ding.*
[Quest “The Queen’s Father” — Phase 2: Progress 35%]
[System Note: The opponent has revealed a weakness.
Two, in fact.]
At six, she sat in Fujiwara’s office and could not concentrate.
The professor noticed in four minutes.
“You went to Marunouchi,” she said.
It wasn’t a question.
“How do you know?”
“You’re sitting like someone who just stood in a very tall room.” Fujiwara closed her laptop.
“We’re not doing Hoshizora tonight.
You’ll make mistakes.” She reached for the reading list for the credit exam and pulled out a single photocopied page.
“Here.
One proof.
The existence of equilibrium.
I’m not helping you.
I’m assigning it to the whole research group.
You happen to be the whole research group.”
Lena laughed despite herself.
“That’s cheating.”
“That’s a loophole,” said Fujiwara primly.
“And it’s someone’s birthday at your house, I think.
You keep looking at your phone.
Go home at eight.
That’s an order from your supervisor.”
The professor flushed.
“Ono from the Registrar’s Office told my committee-chair friend, who told me, that you asked her yesterday where to buy a castella cake at seven in the morning.” She pushed her glasses up.
“This university is a village.
Go home.”
[Sakura Fujiwara | Attraction: 97%]
At nine, Yuki blindfolded Mizuki with a silk scarf from Ayaka’s atelier and led her up four flights of stairs, while Hina walked behind her with her hands out like a spotter and Rei carried a bottle of champagne and Ayaka carried glasses.
“Is this the leak?” Mizuki asked, climbing blind.
“Is it a very big leak?”
“Enormous,” said Yuki.
On the roof, the night was cold and clear.
The tarp was gone.
In the north corner, where nothing had stood on Monday, rose a white dome, three meters high, its shutter open to the sky.
Inside, on a heavy black mount, a twelve-inch telescope pointed upward.
Around it, a ring of soft red lights.
Heaters glowing.
Two reclining chairs and a stack of blankets.
And on a little table by the eyepiece, a star atlas and a small velvet box.
Yuki untied the scarf.
Mizuki stood absolutely still.
“The light shields block the city to the east,” Lena said quietly.
“It’s not Niigata.
But on a night like this you can see Saturn’s rings.
I checked.
There’s a club at the university that helped me pick the telescope.
Their president was very rude about the Student Council.”
Mizuki turned in a slow circle, looking at the dome, the telescope, the sky.
When she faced Lena again, the tears were already running down her face, and she wasn’t standing straight at all.
“Nobody,” she said, and couldn’t finish.
Hina walked up to her, put her hands on Mizuki’s shoulders, and looked at her face.
Not for a minute this time.
Just for a second.
“Now,” Hina said softly.
“Now you’re choosing.
I can tell.”
Mizuki nodded, wordless.
“Then choose,” said Hina, and stepped back, and gathered up Yuki and Ayaka and Rei with her arms like a mother hen, and herded them down the stairs.
“Champagne in the kitchen,” she called back.
“Birthday girl stays on the roof.”
The door closed.
*Ding.*
[Mizuki Hayashi | Attraction: 99% → 100%]
[Mizuki Hayashi has chosen, on a day that is hers.]
[Talent to acquire: “Perfect Secretary” — Eidetic memory for documents and schedules, flawless organization, the ability to handle five tasks at once without error.]
Mizuki wiped her face with both hands.
Then she pulled the pins from her bun, one by one, and her hair fell loose around her shoulders.
“I want to come home,” she said.
“Not the guest room.
Not embedded.
Home.
Your bed.
Your house.
I want to belong here.” Her voice shook.
“May I?”
“You’re already home,” Lena said.
They made love under the open dome, on the blankets, beside the heaters, the cold night air pouring in through the shutter and the stars burning overhead.
Mizuki undressed slowly, every piece of the black suit folded and set aside, until she knelt on the blankets in nothing at all, pale and trembling in the red light.
She was slender, soft, with small high breasts and a dancer’s waist and a constellation of tiny moles across her collarbone that Lena traced, one by one, with her lips.
“Cassiopeia,” Mizuki whispered, laughing through tears.
“You found Cassiopeia.”
They went slowly.
Mizuki had been with one man, years ago, in Niigata, a boy from her high school, and it had been short and awkward and she had never wanted it again.
She told Lena this with her face hidden in Lena’s neck.
Lena kissed her until she stopped hiding.
She touched her until she arched off the blankets, gasping, her hands clutching at the fabric.
She used her mouth until Mizuki came the first time, her thighs shaking, her cry rising straight up through the open shutter into the sky.
Then Mizuki pulled her up and looked into her eyes and said, “Now.
Please.
I choose.”
Lena sank into her slowly, and Mizuki’s head fell back on the blankets, and above her, framed in the dome’s open shutter, Saturn hung bright and small and steady in the black.
They moved together under it, slow and deep, Mizuki’s legs wrapped around her, her nails pressing crescents into Lena’s shoulders, her breath coming in shorter and shorter gasps, until she came apart with Lena’s name on her lips, and Lena followed her, buried deep, the cold night on her back and the warmth of Mizuki all around her.
*Ding.*
[Mizuki Hayashi has given herself to you, by her own choice.]
[The bond is sealed.]
[Mizuki Hayashi | Love: 100% — LOCKED]
[Once Mizuki Hayashi officially moves into your home, you will acquire: “Perfect Secretary.”]
They lay wrapped in blankets for a long time, looking up.
“Lena,” Mizuki said eventually.
“I need to tell you something.
About this afternoon.”
“Tell me.”
“After you left, he called me into the office.
He didn’t say happy birthday.
He’s not capable of it.” Mizuki was quiet for a moment.
“But he gave me an envelope.
He said, *Take tomorrow off.* He’s never given anyone a day off in thirty years.”
“That’s…
good?”
“There was something else in the envelope.” Mizuki turned her head on the blanket and looked at her.
“A key.
An old one.
Brass.
With a label in his handwriting: *Hoshizora — Kamakura.*”
She swallowed.
“He said: *You’ll know what to do with it, Hayashi.
You always do.*”
[End of Chapter 21]