Agung lifted his head from the table so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash. He blinked, his brain frantically recalibrating the "Family Tree of Chaos" he had been trying to build in his mind.
"Wait, wait, wait," Agung gasped, holding up both hands like he was trying to stop a runaway train. "Chika, you're... **single**? You, You-chan, and Hanamaru? You three aren't part of the... the 'Numbers'?"
Chika gave him a bright, mischievous grin and a playful wink. "Nope! We're the 'Auntie' squad! We're just here for the drama and the Swiss chocolate. So don't worry about my energy rubbing off on your kids—I just drop by to give them sugar and then leave when they start screaming!"
Agung let out a sigh of relief that sounded like a tire deflating. "Oh, thank the heavens. That brings the wife count down to... fourteen? No, wait..."
His eyes slowly drifted toward the end of the table, where Dia Kurosawa was sitting. She hadn't touched her rice in three minutes. Her chopsticks were gripped so tightly they were vibrating, and a dark, ominous aura—the kind usually reserved for when someone suggests a "casual" practice session—was radiating from her.
"And I think Dia is already at boiling point," Chika added in a stage whisper, leaning toward Agung. "Because you didn't just take her sister's childhood away... you took her beloved **Ruby** into your... 'collection.'"
Agung looked at Dia, then back at the "wife list" in his head.
"Ruby...?" he whispered, his voice cracking. "Little, 'Pigii!' Ruby? The shyest girl in the history of Aqours?"
He slowly turned back to Dia, whose forehead was currently displaying a very prominent, pulsing "anger vein."
"Dia-chan," Agung said, his voice reaching a level of gentleness usually reserved for taming wild animals. "In my defense... as a man from Pekalongan who just got here... I had no part in the 'Deadbeat's' decision-making process. If I could go back in time and tell that version of me to leave the Kurosawa sisters alone, I would! I would have stayed in the Batik market and minded my own business!"
"**SHAMELESSNESS!!**" Dia finally erupted, her hand slamming onto the table. "You took my precious, innocent Ruby and turned her into a mother of—" she choked on the words, "—of *multiple* children! And then you have the audacity to sit there in a Mikan apron and talk about Android phones and street sweeping!"
"Technically, the 'other' me did it!" Agung yelped, scooting his chair back. "I'm just the guy who inherited the debt! It's like when someone steals your ID and buys a fleet of sports cars, and then the police knock on *your* door!"
"I don't care about save files or glitches!" Dia fumed, pointing a finger at him. "You are the only Agung we have to yell at! You are going to spend every waking hour making it up to her. Do you understand? If Ruby sheds one tear because you forgot which kid belongs to her, I will personally see to it that your 'infinite stamina' is tested against a thousand practice laps around the Uchiura coast!"
Agung looked at the fourteen women—his "wives"—and the three "aunties" who were currently dying of laughter. He looked at the black credit card in Kanata's hand and the steaming miso soup.
"Fourteen kids," Agung muttered, reaching for a piece of potato. "And one of them is Ruby's. I'm going to need more than a quadrillion dollars. I'm going to need a miracle."
He looked at Dia's furious face and then at the empty seat where Ruby presumably was, back home with the children.
"Fine," Agung said, his "Panda" pride finally kicking in. "I'll do it. I'll be the best damn 'Panda-Dad' Japan has ever seen. But Dia... if I'm going to be Ruby's husband, does that mean I have to call you 'Onee-chan'?"
The sound of Dia's brain short-circuiting was audible throughout the entire ryokan.