The True Endgame

It was the moment of truth. After weeks of preparing for the arrival of his girlfriends, Kris was finally waiting at the airport for them to arrive.

Only, there was a problem.

He was so excited that he messed up the times and arrived at the airport not an hour early, not a few hours early… but an entire day early. There were just over twenty-six hours left until his girlfriends arrived. Upon realizing his mistake, the thought of going home crossed his mind, but he needed to be a respectable, mature, competent boyfriend! And a respectable, mature, competent boyfriend wouldn’t waste money by taking an autocar home only to have to take it back again a day later! Besides, what if his girlfriends wanted to go out and eat at expensive restaurants during their stay? He needed to save as much money as possible!

Now, walking home was an option, but then he was worried about being too tired to give his girlfriends energy when they arrived. It was a rather long walk to and from the airport, considering that the airport was outside of the city he lived in and walking home would probably take half a day, so how would he make sure to be properly rested by the time they arrived? It simply wasn’t possible. Besides, by the time he made it home, he would only have a few hours before he had to walk back.

Therefore, Kris was left with only one sensible option.

Live in the airport for the next twenty-six hours.

And so, live in the airport Kris did. He slept in uncomfortable chairs, he ate unhealthy but cheap food, and he got into a conversation with the airport’s legitimate owner about some design changes that could be implemented when the owner recognized him in the middle of eating. Kris wasn’t expecting to help an airport owner design and make plans for the implementation of what could best be described as a grand art exhibit featuring a waterfall and indoor trees.

Such a design would win all manner of awards if entered into a contest, and to purchase the rights to it would cost millions to start, yet Kris came up with it while eating a cheap burger that he dipped into a milkshake and handed rights to the design over for free since he didn’t consider it anything special.

The airport owner didn’t know which was more insane: Kris’s charity or him dipping a burger into a milkshake.

Then came the real moment of truth.

Kris received a text message from his girlfriends letting him know that they just landed, so all he had to do was wait with tired eyes that made him look like he was trying to cosplay as a raccoon. The chairs that he slept in weren’t very comfortable, after all, and it was hard to sleep when anybody with even a slight interest in architectural design asked him for an autograph or opinion on one of their projects.

But no matter how tired he might have looked, he felt full of energy and excitement. If he had a tail, it would have been wagging to the point of lifting him up off the ground as he stood there holding a sign with his name on it. After all, when he looked up how to make sure somebody could find him in the airport, there was plenty of advice that suggested holding up a sign with his name on it. He missed the point that such advice was typically for people who never met the arriving party before.

And while waiting for his girlfriends to arrive… somebody tapped on his shoulder from behind, causing him to jump and spin. He was so focused on looking for his girlfriends that it actually scared him.

Did somebody else want his autograph?

Did somebody else need his opinion on something?

Was it the airport’s owner again?

No. The poker of his shoulder was none of those.

Instead, the poker of his shoulder… was the orange-haired, freckled girlfriend of his, Rachel.

Kris immediately dropped the sign he was holding, wrapped his arms around Rachel’s waist, and lifted her up which caused her to giggle and hug him back. Though, after a couple of seconds, he set her down and said, “Oh, sorry. I was so happy that I couldn’t resist hugging you and didn’t think about it. My bad.”

Rachel blinked a few times when she heard that. “Kris… that’s not something you need to apologize for. If anything, you should be apologizing for letting me down.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Kris grabbed her by her sides and lifted her up again. Though, this time, instead of hugging her… he looked more like he was holding a cat long cat up in the air.

“This… this has its own charm to it, but… it’s kind of embarrassing to be held like this in the middle of an airport. I feel like I’m a baby lion being held up to be shown to the kingdom.”

“You’re not a baby lion, you’re my girlfriend.”

Rachel might have felt a bit embarrassed, but she still held her hands up to her cheeks and giggled even more when she heard him call her his girlfriend. “Geeezz, Krissss, what are you sayyyiiinnnggg in front of everybody like that. Gosh…”

While Rachel giggled to herself some more, Kris looked her over and noticed she was still in her maid uniform. “Why are you still dressed for work?”

“Hmm?” Rachel looked down at herself before looking at him again, still held up in the air for everybody around to see. “Oh. Don’t you know that a maid’s work never ends? I was born in this uniform and I’ll die in it! That is how a maid lives!”

“But this is supposed to be a vacation for you.”

“It is. We’re on vacation away from the mansion and our employer, not from being maids. That would be like expecting a human to go on vacation from being a human. A human doesn’t stop being a human just because they’re on vacation, just as a maid does not stop being a maid just because they are on a vacation!”

“You kind of made it sound humans and maids are different species.”

“Because we are, don’t you know? Maids and humans are two totally different species!”

“But if we’re different species, what happens if we have kids? Would they be a hybrid? Would we even be able to have kids?”

Rachel’s cheeks turned bright red as she failed to give him an answer.

“Different species usually can’t have kids unless they’re similar enough. Are humans and maids similar enough to have kids?”

Rachel’s lips quivered as she tried to stutter out a response but failed.

“What would a half-human, half-maid kid be like?”

At that point, Rachel’s face looked closer to being the color of a tomato rather than the color of a human or maid.

“Or maybe—”

“Bullying her already, are you?” Iris, the tall and black-haired maid among Kris’s girlfriends, asked.

Kris immediately tried to go and hug her… but then realized he had a problem.

“Is something wrong?” Iris asked upon seeing the genuine worry on his face.

“I… really want to hug you, but Rachel wants me to hold her, and I don’t know how to hold her and hug you at the same time.” The way that he looked back and forth between Rachel and Iris with those genuinely sad eyes of his immediately triggered the motherly instincts of both women. Those instincts were even strong enough to bring Rachel back to reality.

“You’re so sweet that it should be illegal,” Rachel said before wiggling out from Kris’s hands, gracefully landing on her feet. Of course, she immediately straightened out her uniform once she landed. “Go hug her. I can’t be the only one getting hugs.”

Kris nodded and then rushed over to Iris, tightly wrapping his arms around her to hug and lift her up just like he originally did with Rachel.

“Goodness, such an intense hug right away… do you plan on making me never want to leave?” Iris asked, gently wrapping her arms around him in return. She might have been tall, but Kris was still taller and could easily lift her up off the ground.

“I wouldn’t plan that,” Kris said. “I know you have to go back eventually no matter how much it’s going to hurt to say goodbye. I wouldn’t want to make it harder for you to leave, even if it means probably crying and feeling lonely once you’re gone.”

There wasn’t a single ounce of intentional manipulation within Kris’s words… and yet both women felt like they just had daggers thrust into their hearts when they heard his words.

“Wait,” Kris said, letting Iris down. “Rachel… how’d you sneak up behind me?”

“You were looking the wrong way, silly,” Rachel answered before looking at the sign he dropped. “You were advertising yourself to everybody going to get on a plane, not getting off of a plane.”

“Oh. How’d you recognize me from behind?”

“I’m a maid and your girlfriend! It is my duty to know everything about you! Not a single other man in the world could ever deceive me! Your height, shoulder width, hair style and color, and freckle behind your left ear are all permanently etched into my memory!”

Kris blinked and touched behind his left ear. “I have a freckle back there? Wait, how’d you even know that?”

“I noticed it when we first met you. It is a maid’s duty to know everything about the guests she must serve.”

“Also,” Iris joined in, “she had a crush on you from the moment she first saw you.”

“I-Iris! Don’t—don’t tell him about that!”

“You are aware that we are dating him now, yes?”

“But—but still! It’s embarrassing!”

“Don’t worry,” Kris said. “I had a crush on all of you, too.”

And thus, Rachel went back to giggling while holding her hands over her cheeks. She was not the only one who felt embarrassed from Kris’s confessions, though. Even Iris, the cool and mature maid… blushed at his confession of having had a crush on her, despite how extremely obvious and minor that should have been by that point.

Some of the random passersby of the airport could only cringe or curse them out of jealousy over how incandescently pure the three of them were. There they were, three grown adults, lovers, who were in a relationship… getting flustered over having crushes on each other.

“I wonder how many other freckles I have that I don’t know about,” Kris said. “You’ll have to check me out since there are a bunch of spots I can’t see by myself.”

And just like that, Kris managed to make both of his present girlfriends blush even more at the implication of what he said.

Of course, when Kris said that, he didn’t mean anything even slightly perverse. He was genuinely curious about what sort of other freckles might have been on his body that he didn’t know about. But, to his girlfriends and those casual passersby… it was hard not to imagine lewder situations than what he had in mind.

But even the lewdest of imagined fantasies from Rachel and Iris were tame in comparison to those of the random people around them, which was really rather something when considering that they previously lived and worked for Alice. Then again, if it wasn’t for Alice, it was entirely possible that they might have ended up even more innocent and dense than Kris.

“Wait,” Kris said again, realizing there was something else that he didn’t understand. “Where are the others? There are only two of you.”

Iris cleared the horribly lewd thoughts, such as those where she gently parted Kris’s hair to check for freckles along his scalp, from her head and said, “They are gathering our luggage. The two of us were sent to look for you while they waited.”

Rachel also cleared those lewd ideas, such as those where she lifted Kris’s shirt up to check his back for freckles, from her mind so that she could say, “Ye-yeah! What Iris said. This airport is a lot bigger than the ones we’re used to… so we weren’t sure if only one of us would be enough to find you as soon as possible, so me and Iris came looking for you together.”

“Oh.” Kris nodded a couple of times. “Makes sense. So, I guess we should go find—”

“Ah, Kris!” an older man wearing a rather nice suit shouted as he ran up to Kris from behind, prompting both Rachel and Iris to immediately place themselves between their boyfriend and the stranger shouting for him. Admittedly, the man stopped in his tracks when he saw the two maids seriously look him over as if they were Kris’s bodyguards. “Ex-excuse me?” He wasn’t even sure of what to say in that situation.

“Oh, hey again,” Kris replied, recognizing him as the airport’s owner from before.

Rachel and Iris stepped aside as soon as they understood that Kris knew the man.

“What’s up?” Kris asked.

The owner still wasn’t sure of what to make of the maids, but he focused his attention onto Kris. “I wanted to try and ask you for your help with this project again. You already gave me the design, and I am incredibly thankful, but I would love to have you personally work on this for us. Name your price and we’ll have it taken care of. Anything you need, whoever you need—just let me know and and I’ll handle it.”

Neither Rachel nor Iris had any idea what was going on, but they did look a bit surprised and even blinked a few times just in time for Kris to say, “Nah.” He then wrapped his arms around each of his girlfriends to pull them next to his sides. “My girlfriends are more important.”

The owner almost looked shocked to hear that the maids were his girlfriends. “My—my apologies! I had no idea.” He even bowed to each of the maids, something that neither of them were used to. “Please, forgive me. I meant no disrespect.” He looked at Kris again. “If not soon, perhaps in the future? I would rather wait until you are ready, even if it takes months or years, to do this with your help than without you.”

Kris shrugged. “I’ll pass. By the way, where’s the baggage claim place?”

The owner couldn’t help but to let out a disappointed sigh. “What they say about you is true. Well, I understand that even having these plans from you is a golden egg I never could have hoped for, so I will not press my luck. As for the baggage,” he paused, turning to point down one of the nearby halls.

“Alright. Thanks. Good luck with the airport stuff.”

Before Kris and his girlfriends could leave, the owner looked Rachel and Iris over one more time and said, “What I and many others would give to be in your shoes.”

Neither Rachel nor Iris were used to having somebody bow to them… and they never could have expected to have an older man over twice their age, wearing a professional suit, with a bald head, telling them that he was jealous of them. And before either of them could even really process what just happened, Kris walked away with them still held to his sides.

But then.

After just a few steps.

Kris stopped, took his arms away from them… and picked up Rachel again just like he did earlier, hanging her in the air in front of him. “Sorry, I forgot that you wanted to be held.”

“That’s—that’s not what I meant earlier!” Rachel whined. “Not that I’m complaining, but… you—you’re not really going to walk around while carrying me like this, are you? Don’t you—don’t you think we look kind of silly?”

Iris chimed in to say, “I think you look rather adorable. Like a long cat being stretched out. All you are missing is going ‘meow.’”

“I’m… I’m not going meow.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“N-no…”

“I don’t get it,” Kris said. “Meow?”

Rachel and Iris felt their hearts throb when Kris went “meow.”

“Kris… would you please repeat that?” Iris asked.

Kris tilted his head. “Meow?”

Rachel, still being held up by Kris, looked at Iris and said, “We can’t abuse this power, no matter how tempting it might be.”

Iris closed her eyes for a few moments to think it over before opening them with fiery determination. “Kris, would you please go, ‘baa?’”

“Like a sheep?” Kris asked.

“Yes. Like a pristine, fluffy, wonderful sheep.”

“Got it. Baa? Like that? Baa?”

Iris clutched at her heart over her chest. “The fluff… it is—it is powerful. I will never imagine sheep when trying to sleep again. I will only imagine you. Ah… I should create a sheep costume for you. Then you can wear it and—”

“Iris!” Rachel shouted. “Snap out of it! Don’t get lost in the fluff! Come back!”

Iris, realizing what was happening, shook her head and cleared her throat. “My apologies. The fluff is a tempting path that must not be so carelessly tread. To think that I even considered converting my own boyfriend into walking, sentient… beautiful… fluffy fluff… ah…”

“Iris!”

Iris slapped herself across the face loudly enough to draw the attention of everybody nearby. “My apologies. It will not happen again.” At the same time, she pinched her thigh over her uniform hard enough to use the pain as a distraction against her fluffy fantasies.

So, there the three were.

Kris was standing there with the expression of a deer about to get run over by a truck, Rachel was being hung in the air like a cat by her boyfriend while she shouted at her friend, and Iris had to slap herself across the face to make herself stop thinking about fluff.

The airport’s owner could only take notes as he observed the enigma that was Kris for any potential sign that might reveal how he became so incredible. Perhaps he, too, needed a couple of girlfriends who dressed up as maids? His wife probably wouldn’t approve of that, but his wife also probably wouldn’t approve of him telling a couple of girls half his age that he wished he was in their place at the side of a younger man.