After putting Lucy in bed, which she fell asleep in pretty quickly after actually being tucked in, Kris’s harem of maids decided to get to work unpacking everything they brought. They were going to be there for a couple of weeks, so they needed to unpack and get everything in proper order! They figured it was best to get that taken care of sooner rather than later so that the rest of the stay afterward could be spent solely spending time with Kris.

Though, about halfway through the women putting away their things and further familiarizing themselves with Kris’s apartment, Kris noticed that Emily was missing.

“Hey, where’d Emily go?” Kris asked. “I didn’t even notice her leave. Or is she hiding or something? Or in the bathroom?”

“She went out for a few,” Iris answered. “Perhaps you should go check on her.”

Rachel’s eyes widened when she heard that, and she was quick to offer an alternative. “Wai-wait! Maybe—maybe she just wants to be alone for a few minutes? I’m sure she’ll be back soon!”

“If Kris is worried about her, then he should go check on her.”

“But—but what if there’s nothing to worry about?!”

Iris narrowed her eyes at Rachel and leaned in to whisper into her ear, “If Kris catches her, maybe she’ll finally stop.”

Rachel whimpered but gave in and nodded. “I guess…”

Iris looked at Kris again and said, “I’m sure she hasn’t gone far.”

Kris nodded and stood up, already heading over toward the door. “I’ll go make sure she’s alright. Make yourself at home and stuff while I’m gone. Well, you were already allowed to do that. But yeah. I’ll go check on her.” And with that, he was out the door.

With the coast clear, Rachel got in front of Iris and asked, “Are you sure that was the right thing to do?”

“It’s for her own good,” Iris answered.

Rachel whimpered again before getting back to work.

Outside of the apartment, Kris searched around his floor before going down to the complex’s lobby. Emily was nowhere to be found… until he looked out through the glass windows at the front of the lobby and saw her sitting on a bench.

Kris didn’t waste any time in rushing out there to see what was going on, only to immediately be met with the scent of smoke.

And when he looked at Emily, he saw that she was the source of said scent as she was in the middle of taking a drag from a cigarette.

“You smoke?” Kris asked, causing Emily to jump, accidentally inhale too much smoke, and then cough.

“Why—why are you out here?!” Emily shouted, quickly putting out her cigarette before tossing it in a nearby trash bin. She then immediately followed up by throwing a mint into her mouth and taking out some perfume to spray herself with.

“You don’t have to do all that. But if you want to smoke, you should do it from my balcony so less people smell it. And because it’s not legal to smoke in public.”

“Ah, crap. So, that’s why people kept glaring at me…”

“I think they’d glare at you even if it was legal.”

“Yeah, but they were really glaring. Wait. I… I mean… I totally wasn’t smoking.”

“You were.”

Emily sighed and slouched forward. “You caught me.”

“You don’t have to lie about it.”

“I know… sorry. It’s just… not exactly ladylike or anything.”

Kris shrugged and asked, “So? You don’t have to be ladylike.”

“That’s a nice sentiment and all, but when you’re a girl surrounded by a bunch of other girls who are all super ladylike and perfect all the time, the ego gets a bit bruised.”

“When you put it that way, I guess I can understand a little.”

Emily blinked, surprised by his response. “You can?”

“Yeah. I guess I wasn’t really surrounded, but just by hanging out Ryou in-game, I always felt like I wasn’t as good as me. He was the one who was way cooler than me, knew how to talk to girls, and everybody liked him. I just kind of felt like an annoying bug who hung around him. Sometimes I thought it’d be better for him and everybody else if I just slipped away and didn’t hang out with them anymore, and probably leave Shogun with them since Shogun liked them, but I couldn’t do it. I liked being with them, and hanging out with my bro, even if it made me feel inferior and stuff.”

“I… had no idea you felt like that. I guess you really can relate.”

“And because I stuck around, I got to meet all of you. And I probably became a better person from it, I think.” Kris looked around for a moment before asking, “Hey, want to check out my favorite place?”

“I’m curious, but… should I go get everybody else?”

Kris shook his head. “It can be just the two of us. Ryou taught me that I should love all of you equally, but I should also have special things I only share with each of you so that you all get to feel unique and special too. Or something like that.”

“Well, it does sound kind of nice.”

“You can smoke there, too.”

“Deal.”

And so, Kris grabbed Emily’s hand, causing her to blush a little, before leading her a few blocks down.

Admittedly, as they walked, Emily couldn’t help but to look at others with suspicion. The neighborhood that Kris lived in didn’t exactly look like the nicest place around. Not to mention that with her assets and the fact that she was in a maid uniform, she expected plenty of lecherous callouts, as that was what would normally happen whenever walking through neighborhoods even half as rough-looking as the one they were in.

But that didn’t happen. Instead, the only looks they got were respectful nods and casual greetings whenever they walked past somebody who they crossed eyes with. Every now and then, they’d even go by some who called out to Kris with a friendlier greeting, earning a response back from Kris.

“Are… are you friends with all of these people who keep calling your name?” Emily couldn’t help but to ask. After just a couple blocks, Kris already replied to five people who called his name with their own names.

“I don’t really know if I’d say we’re like, friends, but we’re friendly,” Kris answered. “I grew up with most of the people around here. This isn’t really a place that anybody chooses to move to, and only a few people ever move out. This place is our home. So, we all kind of know each other and help each other out if anybody ever needs help, but I don’t know, I still wouldn’t really say we’re like, friends. Just… a community, I guess.”

“I wish I got to experience something like that growing up. Instead, whenever I walked anywhere, I had to listen to a bunch of annoying punks shouting stupid shit at me.”

“Like, catcalling?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. Some guys still did that when I was younger, but then Mama Croc taught them a lesson.”

“Mama… Croc?”

“Yeah. She’s pretty famous around here. Older, pretty big lady who loves to wear stuff with crocodile patterns. Anytime a guy catcalled a girl, she’d go tell Mama Croc about it, and then she’d track him down and beat him with her cane. And nobody wanted to fight back against an older woman who needs a cane to walk, so we’d all watch while some guy got his ass beat by a big lady with a cane, and it was hilarious. Sometimes I’d feel bad for how far she’d go, but they never catcalled again.”

“On one hand, that’s fucking hilarious and I love her. On the other hand, that’s like, basically vigilante justice.”

“Well, we basically police ourselves here. Cops used to cause a lot of issues here before I was born and nobody trusted them, and there’d be like, shootouts between cops and the people living here every other week. But then all those reforms and stuff happened and they learned to leave us alone. So, they don’t really come and help us even if we do need them, but they don’t cause us problems either and we take care of ourselves. Oh, and I forgot to say, Mama Croc is our neighborhood’s grill goddess. Nobody grills food better than her.” Kris then looked down at Emily’s chest. “Now that I think about it, you’re kind of similar.”

Emily raised and eyebrow and asked, “How’s that?”

“You both have huge boobs. But hers are even bigger. I remember there was one guy who kept on acting up no matter how many times she went after him with her cane, so she pinned him down and suffocated him between her boobs. We thought he was dead when she finally got off him.”

“Damn, she sounds lethal…”

“It’s okay. She always feels bad after she beats somebody, so she makes their favorite food afterward and gives them a whole feast.”

“That just makes it sound like an abusive relationship.”

“I guess it kind of does sound like that. It’s an abusive relationship for the greater good of the community.”

“That’s kind of messed up.”

Kris shrugged. “Maybe, but it works for us. Getting almost killed by boobs and then fed an entire feast including your favorite food is a lot better than getting killed by a cop for a stupid reason.”

“Well, if those are the only two options, I guess it’s the better one.”

Kris nodded before stopping to turn down a dark alley with Emily. “Here.”

“Here?”

Kris pointed forward at a manhole in the middle of the alley. “Right there.”

“There?”

“Yeah. My secret base is down there.”

“Your… secret base?”

“Yep. Come on.”

“Are we… going into the sewer?”

“Yeah.”

Emily blinked a few times. “Seriously?”

“Oh, sorry. If you don’t want to then you don’t have to. Don’t mean to pressure you or—”

Emily brought her free hand up to her mouth to try and hide a laugh, but she failed. “You want to bond with your girlfriend… so you bring her, while she’s wearing a maid uniform, to a sewer…”

“Now that you’ve said it like that… I guess it’s probably a bad id—”

“You’re the best, Kris. Alright, hell yeah. Let’s go.”

“Wait, you’re not mad?”

“Hell no. Why would I be mad? This sounds fun. Let’s do it.”

“You can take your uniform off if you don’t want it to get dirty.”

“Yeah, and go down into the sewer in nothing but my underwear?”

“Oh. That might be a problem.”

“You don’t say. Come on, don’t worry about that and let’s get down there.”

“Alright.” And with that, Kris walked over to the manhole, lifted off its cover, and presented the ladder to Emily. “You can go first. And don’t worry. The ladder might look old, but I’ve fixed it up to make sure it’ll last.”

“What a gentleman, letting the lady go into the sewers first,” Emily teased.

“Oh, am I not supposed to?”

“I’m screwing with you. Thanks.” Emily took up the offer of going down first, and Kris followed. He made sure to slide the cover back on before fully descending the ladder, too.

Then, once both were at the bottom, Emily looked around and saw… nothing but a path with filthy water running down the middle of it.

“Yep,” Emily said. “Smells like shit.”

“Yeah,” Kris replied. “It kinda does. Anyways, down here. My base is around that bend.”

Emily didn’t even wait for him to take the lead. At that point, she had her phone out with the flashlight enabled so she could go on ahead as soon as she knew where to go.

It didn’t take much longer to find out what he was talking about, either. Built into the wall just around the bend was a single, metallic door that looked shockingly new compared to the bricks that the rest of the sewer was made out of.

“This it?” Emily asked, pointing a finger at the door.

“Yeah. You can just go in. It’s not locked or anything,” Kris answered.

Emily nodded and went to open the door. Surely enough, it opened right up with ease.

And as soon as it opened, automatic lights flicked on and revealed what was like a whole other world connected to the sewer. On the side they were standing on, there was just… well, an old city’s sewer. On the other side of the door, though, it looked like a luxury apartment with new furniture, paintings on the walls, a TV and computer, a kitchen—it had everything.

“What the fuck,” Emily said as she stepped inside. “This place is yours?”

“Yeah,” Kris replied, closing the door behind him after entering. “Me and some friends were exploring the sewer like, a decade ago. There were some homeless guys living in here at the time, and it was just like, a collapsed hole in the wall big enough for some furniture. The homeless guys were pretty cool, so we started hanging out with them. Then we came down to hang out with them one day, and I guess they got drunk and fought and killed each other.”

“What the fuck. That came out of nowhere. You just… came down here and found their bodies?”

“Yeah. It was pretty crazy.”

“I feel like ‘crazy’ is underselling it.”

Kris shrugged. “Anyways, we decided to build like, a secret base in their honor.”

“In honor of the two homeless drunks who killed each other.”

“Yeah. Exactly. After the police were done with the scene and everything, the city was supposed to repair the hole in the wall, but they nevre got around to it, so we built our base. We expanded it a bit, made it nice and all that, and stuff like that. But then the one guy I was building it with moved away with his dad, and the other one got a girlfriend who hated how he smelled when he came down here, so I finished it on my own. It was my first ever major solo project. Then when the city eventually got around to coming down here to fill in the wall, they saw what I did with it and arrested me.”

“They arrested you?! Wait, that kind of makes sense.”

“Yeah, it was fair. Anyways, long story short, the mayor heard about it, wanted a tour, then hired me to design a personal loft for him. I told him I’d do it if he let me keep my secret base, and we had a deal. So, yeah. This is my secret base. The mayor even lets me run electricity and internet to it.”

Emily sighed and sat down on the base’s couch. “You’re way too impressive.”

“Nah, I’m just me.” Kris joined her on the couch. “Anyways, you’re welcome to smoke in here. It’ll cover up the smell of sewage.”

Emily didn’t waste any time in pulling out her pack of smokes to light a cigarette up. “Thanks. You ever smoke?”

“Nah. Never even tried. Everybody told me it was unhealthy.”

“Smart choice.” Emily took a drag on her cigarette before holding it away from her face between a couple of fingers. “It’s alright if I don’t always… you know, act feminine and stuff, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then will you let me be a bad girl who does something stupid that she’s always had a weird fantasy of?”

“Go for it.”

Emily leaned forward and flashed Kris a sly smile before holding her cigarette toward him. “Want to form a bad habit with me?”

“Sure.” Kris then took the cigarette from her, causing her eyes to widen in a panic as she waved her hands around, and took a drag from the same cigarette she just used… only to end up coughing right after.

Emily took the cigarette away from him and shouted, “The fuck are you doing?! You weren’t supposed to actually do it! I just always wanted to ask something like that!”

After coughing a few more times, Kris barely managed to say, “I—I thought you wanted me to try it, and I wanted to make you happy.”

“You’re so… ugh. Even when you’re choking on smoke, you still somehow end up being perfect.”

“I—I have to be perfect when I’ve got perfect girlfriends.”

“The others will kill me if I get you into smoking. Never do that again.”

“I won’t. It tasted disgusting.”

“Yeah, it’s not supposed to be enjoyable.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“Because I’m a stupid addict. Don’t be like me.”

“You’re not stupid. And if you’re addicted, I can help you stop.”

Emily sighed and took another drag. “Don’t worry about it. I’m not literally addicted. And I only smoke like, once a week. It’s just a nice stress relief for me that lets me wind down before going back to acting how I usually do.”

“That’s probably fine then.”

Emily blinked a couple of times. “I’m surprised. Everybody else has always tried to make me quit when they hear that.”

“You’re an adult. I trust that you know what you’re doing. And the risks of doing it that infrequently aren’t worth worrying about. As long as you don’t smoke while you’re pregnant, it’s alright.”

Emily ended up blushing again, but this time far more than earlier. “You… you keep bringing that up. And don’t worry. I’ll quit smoking once any of us get… get pregnant. I just want to enjoy it while I can until then.”

“That’s fair.” Kris looped an arm around Emily’s shoulder and brought her against his side. “Spending time alone with you like this is nice. Just don’t blow any smoke my way.”

Emily turned her head away from him for her next drag, and then she held the cigarette as far as she could from him before resting her head against his shoulder. “Deal. By the way, you made this place to honor those homeless guys. What were their names?”

“Killer and Killer.”

“Killer… and Killer?”

“Yeah. They both claimed they killed people before which was why they were homeless and living in the sewers, and they each wanted to be called Killer because they thought it was cool, so they always got into fights about which one of them was the bigger killer.”

“You… you hung out with homeless killers in the sewers?”

“I doubt they ever killed anybody. They didn’t really seem like the types. We just thought all the stories they told us about their crimes were made up so they’d sound cool and scare us.”

“Kris… they killed each other… and you don’t think they ever killed anybody before then?”

“Huh. When you put it that way, maybe they actually were killers.”

Emily took another, longer drag of her cigarette before saying, “I don’t know how you’ve survived up until now.”

“Same.”