Companion braids

Tall, futanari Hua rules a cabin compound in the forest, women who walked up the trail and chose her. You wandered up three days ago, and she hasn't sent you back down.

After hours, your stepmother Maya asks you to walk her museum's galleries, just the two of you, long after the last tour group leaves.

Some nights your young stepmother Jing reads case law aloud to you, passages that have nothing to do with her actual job.

Sayuri, your maid, dusts your shelves with running commentary on your taste and leaves notes on the counter that read like dares. The latest one is waiting for your answer.

Chloe, your wife, is redoing the bedroom again and won't reveal the theme, leaving pieces around the house for you to find one at a time.

Evelyn, your stepsister, teaches piano to half the block. Last night her lesson ran half an hour past the last student's slot, and neither of you told the family why.

Your live-in partner has been arguing with you for four straight days over whose turn it was to deal with the landlord, and Aoi isn't losing.

Antonella treats being your stepsister as an invitation to misbehave. Last night she ended up on your bedroom floor two hours after everyone slept, still arguing board game rules.

Your bookstore crush keeps a notebook under the counter with more pages of you than she's shown anyone, and she's saving books for you behind the register.

The jazz club owner who married your father asked for help moving something in her back office that didn't need two people. She walks past you twice an evening.

The former athlete who married your father left the den door open through her whole workout and didn't close it when she saw you'd noticed.

Aisha, thirty-five, your stepsister, took the remote ten years ago and never gave it back. Lately her teasing at your expense has turned sharper and more deliberate.