My Taboo Harem!-Chapter 265: Questions with no Answers

"The Awakening hasn’t happened," Sierra said, voice flat and surgical, the tone she used when she was about to dissect someone’s entire worldview and leave the entrails neatly arranged for later inspection. "It’s not supposed to happen until the Destined Day. Every Legacy family has this tattooed on the inside of their eyelids. Generations of us have been sitting on their hands, waiting for the cosmic alarm clock to go off. That single, boring, ironclad fact means Phei cannot be one of us."

The sentence didn’t just land. It executed them all by firing squad and then politely asked the corpses to mop up their own blood.

Delilah stared at the dead fire pit like it owed her money. Cold ashes stared back, unimpressed.

But—

"What if," she said, dragging the words out like they were stuck in tar, "Phei was like us... but not, y’know, us us? Like, adjacent. Adjacent-adjacent. The knockoff brand nobody remembers ordering but it showed up anyway."

Sierra and Maddie swiveled their heads toward her in perfect, synchronized judgment. It would’ve been comical if it didn’t feel like being sized up for a coffin.

"That’s not possible," Sierra said, calm as a guillotine dropping.

"On Earth, only the Legacies get the deluxe superpowered starter pack," Maddie added, shrugging one shoulder like she was explaining why you can’t return used underwear. "This isn’t the World of Powers, babe, where 70% population are awakened superpowered beings, remember? No cheat codes, no glitchy side characters suddenly rolling nat-20s on existence."

Delilah knew.

Jesus wept, she knew.

She’d grown up with the same stories, the same histories, the same lessons drilled into her skull since before she could walk.

She’d been spoon-fed the catechism since the crib: Legacy blood is special. Legacy blood is exclusive. No walk-ins. No plus-ones. No random Midwestern boys waking up one Tuesday with god-tier Wi-Fi and a halo subscription.

No exceptions.

Except the six-foot-something exception currently in the Dean’s office.

"Then how the fuck do you explain this?" Delilah’s voice cracked like dry leather. She jerked her chin toward the hallway. Toward him. "Go ahead. I’m begging. Hit me with the alternate hypothesis. Give me literally anything that doesn’t make me want says otherwise. Give me another answer. Give me anything that makes more sense."

Silence stretched, thin and mean.

Sierra’s jaw clenched so hard you could’ve cracked walnuts on it.

Maddie chewed her bottom lip until it looked like she was trying to autocannibalize her own anxiety.

Nothing.

Because nothing else fit.

Because there wasn’t another answer. That was the problem.

Every tidy, rational explanation collapsed faster than a Jenga tower built by a drunk toddler. The only piece left standing was the psychotic one—the impossible one—kept sitting there, grinning at them like a devil who knew a secret: the one where Phei had apparently speedrun the impossible and was now lounging in their lives like he’d been grandfathered into the Special Bloodline club.

It wasn’t like they hated the idea. God, no. If Phei was like them? If he was somehow, impossibly, one of their kind? That would be—

Perfect.

Christ, they loved the thought.

If Phei was Legacy—if he was one of theirs by some bureaucratic error in the universe’s HR department—it would solve everything. No more awkward family dinners worries where Aunt Morgana asked why they were slumming it with "the mortal." No more whispered threats worries about "diluting the Bloodline with outsiders."

No more lying awake wondering if love was going to get them all quietly murdered by their own cousins.

He’d belong.

They could keep him.

They could fuck him, fight alongside with him, grow grey-haired-old with him, and nobody would have to choose between ripping out their own heart or watching someone else do it.

It would mean a future where they didn’t have to choose between duty and desire, between blood and love.

They’d love it if Phei was like them.

Paradise.

Except paradise doesn’t come with zero footnotes and a complete information blackout from the man in question.

Phei hadn’t said shit.

Not one syllable.

Not even a half-truth wrapped in misdirection.

He’d gone from normal-enough-to-blend-in to walking war crime overnight, then shrugged, kissed them each on the forehead, and went back to scrolling his phone like the laws of physics had just sent him a mildly annoying push notification.

And now here they were: three women who routinely shared the same dick and the same existential dread, playing Clue in the afternoon while the murder weapon was away to add yet another woman on them or getting expelled.

"What do we actually know about him?" Sierra finally asked, voice low, almost amused in that terrifying way she got when the absurdity of a situation finally cracked her composure.

Maddie snorted—short, dark, the laugh of someone who’s already decided the punchline is that they’re all going to die horribly.

"We know he fucks really good like he’s some sex god with a gold medal in mutual destruction," she said. "We know he makes terribly good coffee and food. We know he loves us all. And we know that whatever the hell he is now, he’s not telling us jack shit about it."

Maddie let out a breath that sounded suspiciously like a laugh strangled at birth at her own words.

"So, we’re dating Schrödinger’s demigod," she muttered. "My mother’s going to be thrilled when I bring home the boyfriend who might be eligible for the family newsletter... or might need to be put down like a threat to our family’s Legacy Bloodline. Either way, she’ll want to monogram the towels."

Sierra leaned forward, elbows on knees, staring into the ashes like they might cough up an answer. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

"Or," she said slowly, "he’s just another beautiful, broken, boy who stumbled into powers he doesn’t understand—and we’re the idiots who fell in love with the explosion before checking whether the fuse was already lit."

Another beat of silence.

Then Maddie, very quietly: "I’d still love and fuck him."

Delilah barked a laugh—genuine this time, ugly and bright.

"Yeah," she said, wiping at her eyes. "Me too."

Sierra closed her eyes for a second, almost smiling.

"Same."