Collide Gamer

It was the evening and activities were beginning to settle. Festival grounds, private and public, shut down, until only a few places serving alcohol remained. People poured fuel onto their inner fire in his honour outside. A sympathetic warmth flowed through John’s own belly. It was nice to see those dancing lights in the distance.

He himself was sitting on the catwalk surrounding the torch of Lady Liberty. The crystal was active, creating a bit of flame that heated his back further. Uncomfortable but bearable in the early night heat of a Rave’s day.

John’s feet dangled above the drop. It was a decent descent, easily lethal to a normal person. He had fallen greater distances and made it out fine. Though, even if he could survive, he did not care for the crunch in his joints and jaw. It was the kind of pain he could taste and he did not like it one bit.

What he did like was sitting there. Dramatics would have demanded he had a beer or other drink in hand himself. John was not a fan of drinking alone. The common conception that a man sitting by a lake without a beer and a fishing rod was weird was not one he shared.

‘Though I wonder how many Sylphs I would catch if I dangled a gummy bear out here… actually a gummy worm would be more appropriate.’

John chuckled at his own joke. He kicked the air. He was up there for no particular reason. Usually this was the part of the evening where he would have spent time with his haremettes. It wasn’t that he couldn’t do that without sex involved, plenty of gaming and chatting to do with them anyhow, it was that he enjoyed the break from the routine.

The week of abstinence continued to be remarkably easy for him. He appreciated whatever function of his body was letting his blue-ball system know that he was saving up for the one shot that mattered.

He liked to believe that the break from the norm was good for the harem too. They had their regular meetings without him, but this was a special time. Longing was good for the heart, at times, and perhaps not banging each other consistently for a whole week and just talking was equally important to deepen their relationships.

John sort of doubted it. He was of the, perhaps self-serving, belief that sex was an instrumental part of a proper relationship. At the same time, permanent indulgence wasn’t proper either. It was the typical duality of extremes that had to be avoided.

“5 more days,” John muttered to himself. He could hardly wait. As satisfying as the festivities had been so far, they were all just a public preamble to a private affair.

“Yeah, about time!”

Panic he did not, but John was caught off-guard by the sudden interjection of a second voice. He turned his head to the side. Of all the things he expected to see seated besides him, an animated teddy bear was not it.

The Fluffsider mimicked the Gamer’s pose. Unlike John, the teddy bear could not rely on the middle segment of the railing to support his chest. Sitting unguarded above the drop, Kyonchi all the same waved his stubby legs. What fear of falling would a plushie have?

“Can’t believe it took you that long. You better be thinking about chocolate cakes!” the Fluffsider continued.

“Why would I be thinking about chocolate cakes?” John asked, confused. “Do you mean Ehtra’s ass? Because I think about that at least once an hour.”

“Lewd!” Kyonchi let out a chastising cry. “No, idiot, you have to think about the perfect chocolate cake that Eliana should get on her wedding!”

“First off, I think it’d be rude to think about future weddings while this one is still going…”

“Oh, please, like your super, mega, stupid fast brain can’t appreciate this and think about the next one!”

“…secondly, Eliana doesn’t want a wedding.”

“Wha- That’s illegal!” Kyonchi jumped to his feet and gestured at John with a fluffy paw. “You can’t not marry someone that adorable! She deserves hugs and kisses and chocolate cake! Put a ring on her, asshole!”

“I am going to put a ring on her, but she doesn’t want a wedding ceremony. To quote her: ‘the only fucking thing I am going to take an oath of loyalty to is you and myself!’.” John shrugged. “If you want to convince her otherwise…”

“No… that’s fine… I guess!” Aggressively, arms crossed, Kyonchi plopped back down. “Seriously though, good job on finally tying the knot.”

“Why thank you.” John let silence settle between them for a bit. When he was certain the Fluffsider didn’t have any other demands to get out of the way, he continued, “So… what are you?” he wanted to know. “I keep asking myself that and it bothers me.”

“I am me,” Kyonchi gave a thoroughly unhelpful response.

“Yeah, sure, but what is it that you are?”

“Adorable.”

“Eh, 6 out of 10.”

“You petty little bitch.”

John snorted at the casual obscenity of the animated plushie. A teddy bear talking like a sassy adult was innately funny. After the laughter had faded, he stared out into the Guild Hall once more. “I have learned about humans, titans, elementals, gods, and all manner of fantastical races in my time. At the same time, just a few weeks ago, I learned about a Throthaxen…” His gaze flicked over to Kyonchi for a moment.

“No clue what that is,” the Fluffsider read his intentions.

John was too paranoid to believe that and too trusting to doubt it. “…I suppose my point is that I like to have answers.”

“The answer is that I, Kyonchi, am the Fluffsider. If you need some bigger conspiracy theory… maybe I am you from the future?”

An eyebrow shot sharply up at the suggestion. “How would that work?”

“Dunno, you figure it out.”

“Possession plus some time bullshit maybe?” John shook his head. “I am not even entertaining that idea. Gaia forbids time magic on that scale and I am quite happy about that. I get headaches enough contemplating what happens to the other timelines whenever Beatrice uses her Skills.”

“Uh-huh,” the Fluffsider indicated that he was listening with a simple sound.

“Okay, so no answer on what you are… then do tell me what you’re doing here?”

“I was invited.”

John’s forehead was put into wrinkles. He scanned through his crystal clear memory, summoning pictures of the lists to the forefront of his mind. “I don’t remember inviting you. No offence, but we only interact for an hour or two on Christmas.”

“All of the offence taken, dick! I bring to you the greatest gift of all: braided hair on all of your women!”

“Except for Jane.”

“Except for her, yeah!” Kyonchi sounded more than a little upset about that. “Stupidly messy hair, refuses to hold a braid! Bah! Bah, I say!” In his wild gestures, the Fluffsider did not respect the edge of the platform. Shouting the Wilhelm scream, he dropped into the night below. “Anyhow!” John turned his head to the left, where the Fluffsider had suddenly appeared, once more seated. “I totally got invited. I can get the envelope if you want to.”

“…No, I’ll trust you on this one,” John said. “Either you’re lying and just wanted to be around or you were and my women don’t want me to know why. In any case, I don’t think you’re here to harm me.”

“Words of deep trust!”

“I suppose you could put it like that.”

“You know what else I could put? My fist up your ass!” Kyonchi declared. “Spend more quality time with your women! Fluff time! They deserve all of the cuddles.”

“I hear you and I agree, but-“

“No buts!”

“…” John sighed. ‘I am trying to have a serious conversation with an embodiment of demanding cute things,’ he reminded himself. ‘That’s not going to end in anything productive… let’s meet him on his level.’ “You are very wise when it comes to romance and cute things, right?”

“The wisest, you should listen to everything I say.”

“What would be the reasonable limit for the size of my harem?”

Appalled, Kyonchi croaked out a singular word, “Limit?”

“Yeah, you know, like an end to expanding my harem?”

“What? Why would you do that? Are you going to stop making women happy? Monster!” Kyonchi pointed at him repeatedly. “Lazy! Fluff-depriving! Monster! Never deny, only add! You exist to make women happy and to gather them up so I can braid their hair once a year! Keep doing that!”

‘Yeah, that’s on me, I went into another serious topic…’ John scratched the back of his head. “Any date suggestions for the women I currently have?”

“Take Lee to New Atlantis already, you butt!” Kyonchi declared. “She needs to see her sister!”

Stefanie Magus had not managed to get time off on such short notice and, to be further fair to her, it wasn’t like she was close to the people marrying. Besides Lee, no one in the harem had spent more than 30 minutes in a room with the woman and never alone. She was one of the many family members attached to the harem that they rarely dealt with, while having adequate relations.

“And Jane to her grandparents!”

“I don’t need to take Jane to her grandparents, her grandparents are coming here.”

It was one of the parts of the event that he was excited about. Rave had little positive to say about her mother and her relationship with her father had become a little bit strained due to Regan’s initial disagreement with the harem life. Regan still held some of that attitude, but he recognized there was no use harping on about it.

Her grandparents, however, Rave had never said a bad word about. John hadn’t had the time to meet them, since they lived in Japan and that was quite out of the way. Deliberately, Rave had kept him out of video calls with them as well. She wanted their first meeting to be in person.

“You should still visit them!”

“And I will, sometime,” John answered cryptically.

“And take Eliana to a chocolate factory.”

“You are really insistent about Eliana getting chocolate.”

“The weird thing is that you aren’t insistent about Eliana getting chocolate!”

“Touche,” John relented. “She does love her chocolate.”

“So, give her more of it! Also, more kisses for Nia! More kisses for everyone!”

“That was my plan anyway.”

“Also, you should plan for Layla ending up pregnant immediately.”

That suggestion had John raise an eyebrow again. “That’s a sharp conversation change. Layla is not even in the harem yet.”

The Fluffsider scoffed. “Yeah, she is. Didn’t you hear me? Only add.”

“I did hear that, I just-“ John breathed in slowly, then sighed. “Wise Fluffsider, please tell me what you mean?”

“I’m just saying you got a rare chance to knock up a yandere on her first date. That would be, as the kids say, poggers.” Kyonchi stopped for a moment, then shook his head. “Nope, never using that word ever again. That felt stupid coming out of my fuzzy mouth.”

Lingual crisis ignored, John contemplated that idea. There was a truth to it. Layla had been quite open about her previous relationship – a lesbian relationship. “It did not work out… but we’ll work out, right?!” she had declared.

In other words, she was experienced on the sapphic side and a virgin on the hetero side. It was borderline perfect as far as John’s preferences went.

He did have the chance to take her on a first date, deflower her and knock her up all in the same day… provided he got the agreement of the harem to that plan and she ended up joining. Which was still not certain and wouldn’t be until he could talk to her for at least 10 minutes face to face without her collapsing from multi-orgasmic bliss.

“So do that, you space elevator!” Kyonchi declared. “Girls deserve everything they want!”

With those words, the teddy jumped off the platform.