My Taboo Harem!-Chapter 266: That Ordinary Japanese-American Family

But the question still hung there between them like a bad smell nobody wanted to acknowledge first.

What did they actually know about Phei besides the rags-to-riches-to-apocalypse arc? Charity-case-turned-urban-deity was a cute tagline for the obituary, but it didn’t explain shit.

"Apart from Melissa," Maddie said, drawing the words out like she was pulling taffy, "we don’t know a single other soul from his family tree."

"Or his name before Maxton got stapled onto it like a price tag," Sierra added. "What was it again?"

Three pairs of eyes swiveled to Delilah.

She shifted on the log bench, suddenly aware it was digging splinters into her ass and that the discomfort was probably karmic. This was her family’s garbage fire, after all—Maxtons, marriages, dead uncles, mystery nephews, the whole incest-adjacent soap opera.

"Ryujin Tiamat," she said, barely above a whisper. "Birth certificate says Tiamat. Phei Ryujin Tiamat."

Sierra tilted her head. "And the father?"

"Seiryū Tiamat." Delilah frowned, dredging up fragments she’d filed under Things Aunt Monnica Yelled About Once. "Mom’s older brother. Barely showed his face at the Maxton mansion after Dad and Mom’s wedding. Not even after... everything."

She trailed off.

Maddie raised a hand like a kid in class who already knows the answer is going to suck. "Hold up. Your mom’s brother. So Phei’s dad was Legacy-adjacent through marriage?"

"No. Jesus, no." Delilah shook her head so hard a strand of hair whipped her in the eye. "Mom wasn’t Legacy. She married into it. The Maxtons aren’t—you know the drill."

"Right, right, in-laws don’t get the superpower starter kit." Maddie flapped a hand. "So Phei’s dad. What was his vibe?"

Delilah actually tried to remember. Like, properly. Not the half-listening version she usually deployed at family dinners.

"He and Harold were thick as thieves," she said slowly. "High school besties. Business partners for decade maybe? Inseparable, apparently. Like, bromance so intense people probably made jokes about it."

Sierra’s eyebrows climbed. "High school?"

"That’s the lore."

Maddie and Sierra traded one of those looks—the kind that says we’re about to connect dots and they’re going to form a middle finger.

"So, Harold Maxton—pillar of Legacy society, cold-blooded bastard extraordinaire—had a ride-or-die best friend for forty years," Maddie summarized. "Said friend dies. Leaves a kid. Harold takes the kid in... and then spends the next decade treating him like a piñata at a serial-killer birthday party. Letting his own spawns bully and use the boy as sparring practice. Watching broken ribs and black eyes like it’s pay-per-view."

Delilah almost cried, helpless. "I don’t know why too. I am already regretting why I did all that."

It didn’t compute.

Your oldest friend croaks, you inherit his traumatized teenage son, and your response is sustained, creative cruelty? That wasn’t mourning. That wasn’t even apathy. That was personal. Surgical. The kind of hate you have to cultivate like a fucking bonsai.

"Why?" Sierra echoed, soft and dangerous.

Delilah had nothing.

She could only add the obvious coda: "Point is, there was nothing exotically special about Mom’s side. I also know nothing about the Tiamats either more than what I already know. Wealthy? Sure. Old money, new-money-adjacent, whatever? But ordinary. Boringly, aggressively normal. No secret grimoires under the floorboards. No cursed heirlooms. Just an ordinary Japanese-American success story that happened to end in a coffin and a confused teenager." 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Sierra nodded, slow, like she was watching a train wreck in slow motion. "Other relatives?"

"The only other relatives he has are Melissa—who’s his father’s younger sister—and their mythical oldest sister I’ve literally never laid eyes on. Phei’s first aunt. That’s the full census."

Maddie spread her hands. "So... nada. No Legacy juice. No hidden bloodline. Just a normal-ass family."

"Just a normal-ass family," Delilah repeated, tasting how ridiculous the words were when spoken aloud.

They sat with it.

Three Legacy princesses—raised on prophecy, blood rites, and the casual certainty that the universe had hand-picked their DNA—trying to reverse-engineer a miracle from a suburban cul-de-sac origin story.

"An ordinary Japanese-American family," Sierra murmured, almost fond, the way you say serial killer when you’re trying not to laugh. "And their golden boy is spontaneously evolving into a walking WMD god for every woman out there."

"Doesn’t add up," Maddie said.

"No," Delilah agreed. "It really fucking doesn’t."

The light was bleeding out of the afternoon now—gold to amber to bruise-purple. Shadows crawling across the clearing like they were late for their own funeral.

Ordinary Japenese-American family.

That was the verdict they’d reached after every theory had spectacularly self-destructed. No bloodline cheat code. No ancient curse conveniently triggered. Just... normal.

Which dropped them right back into the same existential pothole.

"Maybe we just ask him," Maddie said at last. "When he comes back. Just... ask."

Sierra gave a short, humorless snort. "You think he’ll suddenly develop a truth-telling kink?"

"He might—"

"He hasn’t yet. Why start now when he’s got three naked philosophers doing the emotional labor for him?"

Silence. Again.

"An ordinary American family. Just—Gods, you three are stupid."

The voice sliced through the quiet like a straight razor across a throat.

Sharp. Mocking. Practically orgasmic with contempt.

They spun as one.

Sienna stood at the tree line, arms crossed, hip cocked, wearing that smile—the one that promised she was about to ruin someone’s day and masturbate to the memory later.

"Ordinary Japanese-American family," she repeated, rolling the phrase around her mouth like it was dog shit she wanted to savor. "Is that genuinely the hill y’all dying on?"

Delilah’s heart did a credible impersonation of a crash dummy hitting concrete.

"Sienna, what the—"

"You’re supposed to be the cream of the Legacy crop." Sienna took one slow, deliberate step forward, eyes glittering like broken glass in sunlight. "Best of your generation. And you still haven’t figured out exactly whose cock you’ve been worshipping?"

"Watch your fucking mouth," Sierra snapped.

"Oh honey, did I bruise your delicate sensibilities?" Sienna’s laugh was ice cracking over deep water.

"Here’s a little pop quiz for you, Sis." She locked eyes with Delilah.

"If Phei’s people were so painfully ordinary—so delightfully vanilla—then why did dad nearly beat him to almost todeath almost to cave his skull in the second the Phei said his real name out loud?"

The words didn’t land.

They detonated.

Delilah forgot how lungs worked.

"Ryujin Tiamat," Sienna said, soft now, almost tender. "You don’t have the first fucking clue what that name means, do you? None of you do."

Her ice-robot smile grew wider—beautiful, vicious, ecstatic.

"But I do."