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Chapter 45:​

"Why?"

I asked the question as I sat down, unwilling to waste more time beating around the bush at this point. Following the party a few days ago, we'd agreed to meet up at the Yakiniku Q to hash out the important details of what Satsuki and Yakumo graduating meant. Specifically, our relationship. Although I'd had to keep the anxiety down forcibly with my bodily control, things had progressed to the point where it was more of a relief that the issue was finally being settled.

The three girls looked at each other before Satsuki grunted and nodded towards Tenten. Yakumo pouted slightly, but nodded at the bun-haired girl as well. Tenten mock-scowled at the pair of them and crossed her arms over her chest as she raised an eyebrow. While they played a near-silent game of back and forth between themselves, I busied myself with laying out the meats, vegetables, and rice on the cooktop in the center of the table.

"Seriously? You guys suck," Tenten sighed, rolling her eyes before turning to me. "Okay, so... you want to know why we want to date you, right?"

My lip quirked upwards slightly. "That was the general thrust of the question, yes."

Tenten cleared her throat, a hint of pink on her cheeks and muttered to herself. "I guess that's why we're here right now, isn't it?" She shook her head and continued, her voice stronger. "So you really don't get it?"

My spatulas moved deftly, flipping sections of rice as I cracked an egg and set it to sizzling. "I get parts of it, at least, but I'm not arrogant enough to think I deserve to date three girls at one time. To be perfectly frank, I'd kind of hoped that you'd come to your senses before you graduated. That way we could at least stay friends if nothing else."

Yakumo and Satsuki frowned as the former spoke up, "Is that what you want, Kota?"

I clicked my tongue thoughtfully, my eyes watching the cooking food for a moment before snapping up to meet her gaze. "I want you to be happy." My eyes tracked to Satsuki and Tenten. "All of you."

On cue, they blushed. Even if Satsuki rolled her eyes at me.

"So that brings us back to my question," I stated, sweeping a spatula through. "Why?"

No one spoke for a minute, then Tenten's shoulders slumped as she sighed and swept a hand over her bound hair. Giving the stink eye to the other girls she finally spoke. "Okay, fine. Me first. You saw what kind of future I wanted when the whole... thing happened," she waved at Yakumo vaguely, who blushed and grimaced at being reminded of the incident. "That means I want a dependable guy, someone who's there when I come home from a mission and can mind the store I want to set up and look after any kids while I'm on a mission."

"That checks out," I nodded, beginning to slice the meat in neat little cuts. "Is that the only reason?"

Tenten gave me a deadpan stare as her cheeks heated up a bit more. "You're... also younger than me, but you're better at almost everything even if you aren't in the shinobi corps. That's... I mean, because I'm an orphan and so are you..."

Even as Satsuki and Yakumo looked slightly confused, I raised an eyebrow and snorted. "Not just a house-husband, but a trophy-spouse?" It took Tenten a moment to parse the obviously unfamiliar phrase, but when she did she dropped her head into her hands and groaned.

"Don't put it like that, Kota! Geez..." She whined in a rare moment of embarrassment. "But... yeah, kind of. You're also... mature. I don't want a lot of drama in whatever relationship I have and..." Her eyes flicked to the other two girls warily. "...even if I have to share, you've been pretty quick to crack down on infighting when we were training together."

Satsuki pointedly looked away.

"So, yeah, the fact that you're a great blacksmith is basically oil on the blade for me," Tenten summarized with a sigh. "The only deal-breaker would be if you're really bad at sex or something."

My mouth was half-way open to respond when Yakumo uncharacteristically snorted and attracted attention towards her. Her eyes widened as both Satsuki and Tenten narrowed their gazes suspiciously towards her. Raising her hands, she waved both of them off as she refuted the obvious conclusion they'd come to.

"No, no! We haven't done anything, don't look at me like that!" Yakumo cried.

"Then why'd you think it was funny?" Satsuki asked pointedly, leaning back and crossing her arms.

"Because..." Yakumo trailed off and flicked a look back to me as I began to cut the fried rice into parts and dole it out to each of them. I shrugged, curious where they were going with this. Yakumo swallowed and nodded. "You remember when you found out that the training Kota gave me to control my condition let me control my monthly bleeding?"

Tenten and Satsuki nodded, each a tad jealous and I rolled my eyes as their glares twitched towards me. In all honesty I just hadn't realized that implication of Prana Bindu. I maintained that it wasn't my fault I didn't have a vagina and didn't understand I should have instructed them on that front from the beginning. Also, given that I'd instantly agreed to train them up to a level where they could control their periods, they didn't actually have grounds to hold a grudge.

"Don't you think, if he can teach us to do that, then he knows his way around there?" Yakumo asked, making the other two hesitate in their consideration. "And that he can do something similar for himself?"

Their gazes drifted back to me even as I refused to blush under their gazes. A flick of my wrist saw steak, chicken, and shrimp slide onto their plates as well as my own. Then, because every now and then I'm unable to help myself, "Special occasion, so there's extra meat."

Yakumo choked, her eyes going wide as she grabbed for her cup. Clearing her throat, she looked back at me with a pout, "That was mean."

Satsuki grinned as I replied. "You're the one who made my dick a topic of conversation."

Tenten snorted before digging in. "Anyway, that's my part said."

"So you'd be okay if I were involved with Satsuki and Yakumo?" I asked bluntly, dumping the last of the food on my own plate.

Tenten shrugged, looking at the other two girls. "I mean... as long as it wasn't anyone else, I guess? We'd have to see how it worked out, but that would probably keep you from looking for other girls if one or two of us were away for a while... some kunoichi are cool with that, but I'd rather know who's taking my place ahead of time if it has to happen."

"Same," Satsuki interjected, picking at her food with a pair of chopsticks. "Had a talk with my mom. She said it's better to set rules and make sure your man knows what he can and can't do if he expects a warm welcome home."

"That does bring up a good point..." I trailed off, as I chewed and swallowed, then added a bit more soy sauce. "I feel like it's unreasonable of me to ask for loyalty given I'm not providing you with the same. I've heard that some shinobi and kunoichi agree with their significant others that, 'what happens on missions stays on missions.' Would you want something like that?"

Vegas Rules, in other words, even if that phrase wouldn't mean anything to anyone locally.

There was an awkward pause before Satsuki shook her head. "Probably not. I don't..." She flushed and looked frustrated as she speared a shrimp like an irritated child while she worked out the words. "Doing stuff like that on missions is... unprofessional. To me, at least. Sloppy."

Yakumo nodded, a bit of a grimace on her face as she flushed brightly. "It doesn't do anything if I'm not thinking about someone I like."

I could respect that and it made me relax a bit. Even if I didn't necessarily want to admit it, some of my modern sensibilities lingered in regards to sexual mores.

"Same as Satsuki," Tenten nodded after a moment. "The only way it would happen is if it was part of a mission and... well, Team Guy is a heavy combat team. Even after that, since I'm a weapons user and know seals and stuff, I'd have to argue to be put into a position like that."

Mentally, I translated that as a judgment on the relative value of her skills to the village. Honeypot-style missions weren't all that common, the bulk of their work being performed by genjutsu-users, but sometimes situations popped up where there just wasn't a good alternative. Those missions that required a more old-school seduction approach, for whatever reason, were handed out on a volunteer basis initially. If no one came forward, the team leader was expected to make a call based on a complex and unofficial metric that took into account seniority, political connections, rank, experience, and whether or not any of the individuals in question possessed valuable skills.

Oh, and obviously the preferred sex and looks the target was biased towards.

Hence, while it was possible, if extremely unlikely that Tenten would be forced to 'take one for the village' given that she was relatively young, low-ranking, and pretty; the fact that her main competency was in front-line combat, also had fuuinjutsu training, and was attached to a team specialized in the former meant the practical chance of such a thing occurring were near-zero.

Satsuki and Yakumo, on the other hand, both had similar skill sets in addition to being high-ranking clan ninja with powerful bloodlines. Their chances of being forced to take a 'bedroom mission' were significantly less than even Tenten's by virtue of their political connections alone. It was a brutal and unfortunate truth that low-ranking orphans without significant skills were almost always the ones to soak that kunai.

"You're fine with sharing, Satsuki?" I nodded at her.

She swallowed and grimaced as she looked between Tenten and Yakumo on either side. "I'd prefer... not to, but..." She sighed. "I guess it's okay if it's with them. Tenten's got skills and Yakumo takes things seriously. It'd be irritating if I had to share with someone like Naruko."

The more things change...

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Tenten remarked, playful derision in her voice.

Satsuki shrugged in her own vaguely unapologetic way. "It is what it is. Kota doesn't like us fighting and doesn't want to make any of us unhappy. All the other guys are either brats like Kiba who make too much noise or stone cold like Shino who barely says anything. Kota knows his shit and even my brother likes him, so that's that."

"Does that mean that, if I have Yakumo and Tenten over, you'll want me to make time for you another night?" I asked, a hint of playfulness in my own tone.

"Hng," Satsuki grunted as she narrowed her eyes at me. That particular noise was Uchiha for 'internal conflict.' For all that Satsuki might profess irritation at the arrangement, I knew she wasn't as dissatisfied as she pretended to be. For some reason. Well, no, I suspected the reason as well...

"Oh, think you can take all three of us at once?" Tenten asked with a smirk. "I thought you didn't have an ego, Kota."

"I'm more than confident enough in my ability to cook dinner for all three of you at the same time," I stated, gesturing with my chopsticks to the hibachi I'd just made. "Or did you mean something else?"

Tenten choked, clearing her throat as she looked away. "Ack-no, nothing!"

Yakumo hummed contemplatively. "That does bring up another question, though. Who goes first?"

Tenten and Satsuki shot each other a competitive stare, opening their mouths to no-doubt stake a claim before I cleared my throat pointedly and stared them both down. "Let it happen naturally, I think everyone's happy that way. If you rush it, you'll just regret it. Whenever it happens, it happens."

Even with my ultimatum, I could see that the girls were still exchanging unspoken challenges and sighed internally. I was about to push the subject further, but Tenten distracted the conversation by chuckling.

"I guess we don't need to ask if you're okay with sharing, Yakumo." The bun-haired girl teased with a thrust of her chopsticks.

Yakumo blushed and looked down at what little remained of her food. "Please don't bring that up again."

"Hnn." Satsuki grunted, draining her cup. "Yakumo should have to tell Kota. Tenten and I did it." Tenten smirked, nodding in agreement.

"I... guess that's fair. I, um... Kotaro believed in me. He's one of the only people," the Kurama heiress stated bashfully. "He's spent so much time training me, it's because of him that I'm going to be a genin, so... well, and other girls, they're, um... fine, too."

Distantly, a quote I couldn't place echoed from the back of my mind.

Hello, hot character trait!

Even if they'd called her out, Satsuki and Tenten blushed at the blunt admission. Still, with the groundwork laid, we spent the last part of the dinner discussing more of the 'nuts and bolts' side of the relationship we were getting into. No one exactly pulled out a calendar, but there were talks about when dates would happen, if missions interrupted things, and make-up occasions. Holidays and birthdays were also briefly touched on, even if they were a few months away at this point.

Finally, as my three newly-minted girlfriends and I were exiting the restaurant, we nearly collided with another pair of girls, both with blank white eyes.

"Uchiha, Kurama, and... genin-san," Hyuuga Hinata nodded, clearly not placing Tenten by name before her eyes lingered on me. "You are-?"

Her younger sister tugged at her pants discreetly. "Kotaro."

The older sibling's eyes metaphorically lit up. She smiled invitingly. "I've heard a great deal about you, actually. Could I interest you in an after-dinner spar?"

I narrowed my gaze, my eyes sweeping over the placidly-smiling young woman even as Satsuki's interest was piqued at the new development while Tenten and Yakumo both seemed surprised. As for my own opinion...

There was something wrong with this girl.