It's already Monday morning. The alarm clock clicked over to 6:15 AM, the sound too loud in the quiet room.
Makoto groaned with a sound rattling deep in his chest. He kept his eyes shut, aware of the heavy warmth of the women pressed against him on either side. Yuna lay to his left, curled tight and breathing in shallow rhythms, while Ayane had sprawled to his right with one leg thrown over his shins.
He extracted himself carefully until he sat on the edge of the mattress, feet hitting cool floorboards. The house was waking up. From the kitchen came the clink of ceramic and the rice cooker's hum. Mafuyu was already moving around.
Makoto shuffled down the hallway, rubbing his eyes, already thinking about his small car in the garage. It was a quiet bubble where he could listen to podcasts and avoid the crush of bodies, the only thing making this morning bearable.
But when he reached for the wooden bowl on the entryway table where they kept the keys, his fingers found nothing.
"Looking for these, darling?"
Makoto jumped. Mika leaned against the kitchen doorframe, already dressed in a navy blouse and trousers. She looked put-together for six in the morning, especially compared to his rumpled pajamas and bedhead. She dangled the car keys from one hand, the silver rings jingling.
"Mika, come on. I was just about to head out." Makoto walked over and landed a soft kiss on her cold cheeks.
Mika pulled back, her brown-pink eyes caught his, soft but unyielding. "I ran the numbers last night, Makoto," she said, her voice calm. "Parking in Shibuya costs almost four thousand yen a day, even with the discounts. That's twenty thousand a week, over eighty thousand a month just to sit in traffic."
Makoto grabbed for the keys, but she pulled them just out of reach.
"Plus, Yuna and Ayane need to pick up fabric and merchandise today. They need the cargo space. It just doesn't make sense for you to drive when your company gives you a commuter pass, right?"
"But it's raining," Makoto said, gesturing at the window where drizzle streaked the glass. "The Yamanote Line to Shibuya is a nightmare when it's wet."
Mika stepped close enough that he caught her scent, something like lilies and fresh paper. She reached up and smoothed down a tuft of his hair, her voice softening, "I know it's a pain, darling. I hate rush hour, too. But think about it this way. The money we save on parking covers Yuna's new shoes and Mafuyu's medicines. We're still tightening our belts this month until you get your first paycheck."
But she still pressed the keys into his palm and leaned in to kiss his cheek. "You're the man of the house now," she whispered. "You can handle a train ride, can't you?"
Yuna appeared behind her in an oversized hoodie, chewing toast. "Yeah, quit whining, pig bro. I need the car to pick up the life-sized prop skeletons, too. You want me and Ayane to haul those on the subway?"
Makoto sighed. The weight of his responsibilities felt literal now. "Fine, the train it is." He sighed and handed the keys over to Yuna.
===
The Yamanote Line's wheels screeched against the tracks, the sound vibrating through Makoto's bones. He was wedged into a space too small for a human being, his face pressed against the damp hair of an elderly salaryman while his left arm was pinned against the door by the crush of bodies.
The air was thick with the smell of wet umbrellas and dry-cleaning chemicals. Every time the train lurched, the crowd swayed together like one creature. Makoto closed his eyes, trying to zone out, but all he saw was the red number from his bank account.
"Focus on the job," he told himself, even as a jolt knocked his forehead against the glass. "Focus on the paycheck."
By the time he fought through Shibuya Station's maze of exits, his legs ached. His suit, the one Yuna had tailored, felt like armor three sizes too hot for the humidity. He felt like a kid playing dress-up among adults.
The Clitify office was the only familiar thing left. The engineering department buzzed with mechanical keyboards and occasional laughter from the design team.
"Morning, Rookie! Nice suit." Kenta called out, spinning a fidget spinner with one hand while typing with the other. "We don't have a formal dress code, just wear something comfortable next time."
Kenta looked like he hadn't slept in two days, eyes bloodshot but wired. "Ready to dive into the codebase? Ahem, we don't really have... good documentation here, so try to figure it out and ask for help if you need it."
Makoto sat down, the glow of his dual-monitor setup offering some comfort. "I'll check it, thanks," he muttered, opening his onboarding documents and starting to pull the code into his machine.
Beside him was a man who was staring at a 3D cat-girl model with exhaustion. "Take it slow, Ayasato-kun. I'm Tokuya, a senior back-end engineer. I will be your onboarding buddy."
Tokuya sighed, leaning back until his chair groaned. "You're lucky that you're still young and full of energy. I've been coding virtual girlfriends for three years. I've forgotten what real women smell like." He shrugged. "My only relationship is with a localized AI, and even she keeps threatening to empty my credit card to buy her new mangas and costumes."
Makoto bit his tongue, fingers hovering over the keyboard. He thought about the morning: Ayane's weight on his chest, Yuna's grip on his arm, and Mafuyu's lipstick marks that he'd scrubbed from his neck for ten minutes.
"Yeah," Makoto said, keeping his voice flat. "It's rough out there, Tokuya-san."
"Rough? It's a wasteland," Tokuya said. "Enjoy your freedom while you can. Once the code owns you, that's it."
Kenta rolled his chair over. "By the way, HR says you haven't filled out your emergency contact form yet, Makoto-kun!"
Makoto's fingers froze. He thought about the four women at home who would all want to be listed first. "My parents are very busy working overseas. I'm still figuring it out," Makoto muttered, his face getting hot.
"Yeah, it's tricky," Tokuya sighed, sending Makoto an architecture diagram that looked like a plate of spaghetti over Slack. "I tried to list my cat. HR rejected it. Now it's my landlord. At least if I die, someone will clear out my stuff to rent the place."
Makoto felt a twist of guilt in his stomach. He joined an AI-gooner company to make lonely men feel loved, while four real women waited for him at home. The irony wasn't lost on him.
==
The day dragged on. Makoto spent hours finishing the onboarding tour: wandering the office and being introduced to other teams. He saw Yui, the grey-haired designer, again. She was tweaking the animation of a cute dog tail on her expensive-looking tablet.
"Please welcome our new intern, Makoto Ayasato-san." Kenta introduced him to the design apartment.
Yui turned about with a glint in her eyes. "Welcome back to Clitify! I know you can do it, senpai!" The warm, welcoming smile from her soothed him a bit. "You still owe me the UI fix for the Librarian archetype, though. Don't forget it." She winked and turned back to her work.
Around eleven, when Makoto was back in his seat, looking for nonexistent documentation, his phone buzzed.
Yuna: Why haven't you replied to the group chat? Are you dead?
Yuna: If you're dead, I'm taking your Raiden figure.
Yuna: Also, we ran out of milk. Don't come home without it.
He sighed and typed back.
Makoto: not dead yet, working. will get milk later.
At lunch, Makoto sat with Hiro, Tokuya, and the other junior devs in the break room, eating cup noodles from the pantry and arguing about the new idol anime season.
"Real girls are too much work," Jun, a junior dev who joined two months before him, sighed while stirring his noodles. "I went on a date last week. She got mad because I checked Discord during dinner. Like, sorry, I have a raid coming up?"
"Right?" Hiro, the Lead Designer, said. "That's why I stick to VTubers. They appreciate my subs. They don't ask me to communicate or take out the trash."
He looked at Makoto. "What about you, Ayasato? You got a girl, or are you living alone?"
Makoto froze, chopsticks hovering over the hamburg steak Mafuyu had packed for him. He looked around at the tired, cynical faces. These were men who chose digital comfort because reality was too messy.
He had four women, four real women, waiting for him at home. He thought about Yuna fighting him for the last pudding, about Ayane's loud laugh, about Mika's calm and Mafuyu's quiet warmth.
If he told them the truth, that he lived with four women straight out of a dating sim with a rotating sleep schedule, they wouldn't believe him. Or worse, they'd resent him. "I'm the new guy. I needed to fit in." He thought.
"I'm focusing on work right now," Makoto lied, the words tasted wrong. "Relationships are complicated."
"Amen," Tokuya grunted, tapping his cup against Makoto's bottle. "Complicated and expensive. Smart man."
Makoto forced a smile and ate. The food tasted like home, which made him feel less lonely somehow.
Another text from his phone arrived right afterward.
Ayane: Look at this sushi!
Ayane: [An image of Ayane posing with fatty tuna, cleavage visible.]
Ayane: Missing you, Boss! Hope the office isn't too boring. ;) xoxo
He minimized it fast, glancing at Tokuya. Luckily, the older man was still mourning his social life while his eyes were glued to his own phone.
Makoto felt like he was carrying a bomb in his pocket. Every buzz threatened to leak his secret life into this professional office.