My name is Kazuki Yamada, and I am going to die.
Not from a truck. Not from a disease. But from suffocation—buried face-first in what a connoisseur like myself would rate as a solid 98 out of 100.
"Kazuki-darling, are you awake yet?" Sakura's peppy voice echoed across the room, as her knee pressed into my spine by mistake. "I brought you breakfast in bed!"
The problem? Sakura's idea of "breakfast in bed" had her athletically launching herself onto the mattress with all the grace of a freight train, which had led to my current predicament of motorboating her chest while she was utterly oblivious.
"Mmph!" I tried to say, but heaven had temporarily revoked my breathing privileges.
"Oh! You're mumbling something! Are you saying your morning prayers?" Sakura asked innocently, shifting position and somehow making things worse. Or better. My oxygen-deprived brain couldn't decide.
Just as my vision began to tunnel, a flat voice cut through the chaos.
"He is suffocating. Idiot!"
Miyuki stood in the doorway, her silver hair perfectly coiffed despite the hour, her cold eyes regarding us with all the enthusiasm of someone watching paint dry. She was wearing a silk robe that—and I mean this in the most scientific possible sense of the word—defied at least three laws of physics in how it clung to her curves.
"Eh?" Sakura looked down. Our eyes met. Her face turned crimson. "KYAAAA! PERVERT!!!"
The punch sent me flying through the bedroom wall.
I landed in the hallway, making a Kazuki-shaped hole in the drywall. My back was screaming, but my mind was already racing to the silver lining: I had three whole seconds of paradise before the pain kicked in.
Worth it.
"Good morning to you, too," I groaned, pulling myself from the rubble.
"Ara ara, Kazuki-kun made another glory hole in the wall," Yuki's teasing voice echoed from somewhere close by. "That's the third one this week. Should I take measurements for a commemorative plaque?"
The purple-haired menace materialised, carrying a measuring tape and that scheming smile that always meant some sort of trouble. She was wearing an apron. ONLY an apron.
"Yuki, that's not what a glory hole—" I started, but then saw her phone camera pointed at me. "Are you recording this?"
"Evidence for the group chat," she said, still upbeat. "The girls at the supermarket gave me 500 yen for the last video of you getting launched into the koi pond."
"You SOLD footage of my suffering?
"Capitalism waits for no one, darling." She winked, managing to make the gesture at once cute and threatening.
I pulled myself up, brushing drywall dust from my hair. My back would need ice, but at least my morning was starting normally. And by normally, I meant my daily routine of getting physically assaulted while enjoying the finer things in life.
"Breakfast is ready!" a sweet voice called from downstairs.
Hana. The angel. The goddess. The woman whose measurements could make grown men weep and whose IQ could make those same men weep for entirely different reasons.
I stumbled down the stairs, still recovering from Sakura's "good morning punch," to find Hana at the kitchen table, her blonde hair tied in a messy bun, wearing an apron that was somehow even more dangerous than Yuki's because she filled it out like a Renaissance painting.
"Kazuki-kun!I made your favourite!" she beamed, presenting me with a plate.
I looked down. On the plate sat what could only be described as a crime against food. Something purple and gelatinous wiggled ominously, topped with what appeared to be fish heads in a pentagram pattern.
"It's. beautiful," I lied, my perverted nature fighting my survival instincts. On one hand, staring at Hana was a religious experience. On the other hand, eating her cooking was an ACTUAL religious experience-you'd meet God personally.
"Really?" Her eyes shone bright with happiness, and her body leaned forward with eagerness. The apron strained, and my resolve weakened. "You always say the sweetest things! This is my new recipe: Jellyfish Surprise!"
"What's the surprise?" I asked, immediately regretting it.
"I don't know! I forgot what I put in it!"
Behind me, Miyuki materialised like a pretty spectre of bad tidings. "The poison control center has your number on speed dial."
"It's not poison!" Hana protested. "Probably."
"'Probably' is not reassuring!" I shouted.
Sakura burst into the kitchen, all embarrassment forgotten in the face of more mayhem, now changed into her workout gear: sleek athletic wear that outlined every curve of her hard-earned martial arts training.
"Morning everyone! Sorry about the wall, Kazuki!" She smiled brightly, completely missing the point. "I'll help you fix it after breakfast!"
"Your 'help' last time somehow managed to make the hole bigger AND set the toolshed on fire," Miyuki noted emotionlessly.
"That was an accident!"
"You were holding a hammer. The fire began in an altogether different building."
I sat at the table, surrounded by four impossibly gorgeous women, each of whom was insane in her own special way. Before me, Hana's toxic cooking sat, a challenge from the gods. Yuki continued filming, probably running a betting pool on whether I would make it through breakfast. Sakura was doing stretches that no straight man could ignore, while Miyuki watched my obvious staring with judgmental, ice-cold eyes.
This was my life. My beautiful, chaotic, potentially fatal life.
I picked up my chopsticks and stared at the purple gelatinous mass.
"Itadakimasu," I muttered, ready to meet my maker.
"Wait!" Yuki said suddenly. "Before Kazuki-kun dies, I have an announcement!
The others all turned to her.
She beamed as bright as a cat that caught a canary. "I signed us all up for the Neighbourhood Couple's Competition! Today it starts!"
Silence.
"The WHAT?" I dropped my chopsticks.
"It's the competition where couples participate in various challenges! The winning couple gets to go on an all-expenses-paid hot springs resort trip!" Yuki's eyes sparkled mischievously. "I may have told them we're all married to you."
More silence.
"IS THAT EVEN LEGAL?" I shouted.
"In this economy? Who's checking?" Yuki shrugged.
Sakura brightened up. "A competition? I love competitions! I'm definitely going to win!
"Your overconfidence is statistically correlated with property damage," Miyuki pointed out.
"Hot springs!" Hana clapped her hands together, an action that caused a jiggle effect which managed briefly to shut down higher brain functions. "We can all bathe together!"
My nose started bleeding.
"And there it is," said Miyuki flatly, passing me a tissue without even looking in my direction. "Thirty seconds. That's a new record for breakfast table nosebleeds."
"Can you blame me?" I protested through the tissue. "Look at what I'm working with here!"
"We ARE standing right here," Miyuki said.
"I know, right?That's what makes it so great!" I said, grinning shamelessly.
She stared at me with those cold, beautiful eyes. "You're disgusting."
"Thank you!"
"That wasn't a compliment."
"I'm choosing to interpret it as one!"
Yuki clapped her hands together. "So it's settled! The first competition event is this afternoon at the community center. Everyone needs to dress nicely!"
"Define 'nicely, '" I said suspiciously.
"Oh, you know." Yuki's grin turned predatory. "Formal wear. I already picked out everyone's outfits. Yours is a tuxedo."
"That doesn't sound so bad—
"The girls are wearing evening gowns. Backless. Low-cut. High slits."
My soul left my body.
"Kazuki-kun fainted," Hana said, poking my collapsed form with her chopstick.
"Leave him," Miyuki said coldly. "He will resurrect himself once his perverse imagination finishes loading.
She was right. Three seconds later, I sat up, like a vampire rising from a coffin, eyes ablaze with determination.
"I'LL DO IT! I'LL WIN EVERY COMPETITION! I'LL BECOME THE NEIGHBORHOOD COUPLE CHAMPION!
"There he is," Yuki said, laughing. "Our hopeless pervert."
"Shameless pervert," Miyuki corrected.
"Lovable pervert!" Sakura added cheerily.
"I don't know what 'pervert' means, but Kazuki-kun is the best one!" Hana said, smiling innocently.
I glanced at my four wives-these gorgeous, insane, comedy genius disasters that somehow came into my life. My harem full of comedians, wherein I was the straight man, always suffering, yet somehow the happiest man alive.
"Alright," I said, rising from my seat and striking a dramatic pose. "Let's win this thing! For glory! For honour! For the hot springs resort where I can see you all in—"
Sakura's fist met my face before I could finish.
I crashed through another wall.
"STOP PUTTING HOLES IN MY HOUSE!" I yelled from amidst the rubble.
"It's OUR house, darling," Yuki corrected, still filming.
Yeah. This was my life.
And I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Even if it killed me.
Which, with Hana's cooking and Sakura's strength, wasn't beyond the realm of possibility.