We were teleported without warning and I was immediately greeted by a cold blast of air against my face. Despite how dark it was outside, cheers, screams, and laughter could be heard mixed in with the noises made from all of the amusement park’s rides.

Window teleported us straight into a parking lot right outside the park.

Going by how cold it was, and the fact that the nearby trees looked like they lost most of their leaves already, it must have been fall. That was a little bit concerning when considering the fact that it wasn’t like that the other day when me and Window went on our date.

That was why I looked at Window and asked, “Has the weather seriously changed this much in just a couple of days?”

Window, in her humanoid form, sighed and shook her head. “You know we’re not in the same place, right? This isn’t even the same country we were in before.”

“Oh. Good point. I assumed we were. By the way,” I paused to look her and our daughter over, “I didn’t know you were coming for the date.”

“We didn’t. We’re going to go do our own thing while you have fun with the others. Do you really think she would have let you go to an amusement park without her?”

I looked at Luca. Honestly…

“Yeah,” me and Luca said at the same time.

“You’re the reason I’m here, Mama,” Lucca said. “You wanted to ride the rolly coasters!”

“That sounds more believable,” I joined in. “Luca is precious and pure and wouldn’t mind me going to an amusement park without her. You, on the other hand, would feel jealous and left out.”

Window’s cheeks turned red as she realized we both saw through her. Fortunately for her, she had a good excuse to end the teasing there. “You’re supposed to be on a date with the others! I’m only here for Luca!” With Luca’s hand held by her own, Window marched off toward the entrance as Luca waved to the rest of us.

I felt a tugging on my sweater sleeve. When I looked to see who it was, it was none other than Cami staring straight up at me. “Papa,” she said.

“Cami… why are you calling me that?” I asked.

“I wanted to try it out. Papa.”

There was something incredibly adorable about her saying that in her usual, monotone voice. But at the same time, it was wrong. Maybe if she tried calling me that before Luca did, I wouldn’t have minded. I might have even liked it. But now? After hearing Luca call me that? “Please don’t.”

“Dang. I should have thought of it sooner. Luca wins this time.”

“Why would you want to call me that anyways?”

A rare sight appeared before my eyes, and that sight was Cami blushing a little as she looked away. “It’s nothing.”

“Sus! Cami is sus!” Delphi shouted. “Hey, hey, Lavi! Did I use it right? Sus?!”

Lavi crossed her arms over her chest and nodded. “Good job. You finally used it properly.”

“And what are you two going on about?” I asked them.

“Don’t worry, Master. It’s from a game we started playing recently.”

Delphi nodded. “It’s really fun! You get to kill people and then blame it on somebody else!”

A family of four walking by us looked our way before picking up their pace toward the park’s entrance.

“Maybe… maybe don’t get yourselves labeled as wanted criminals, too. I’ve already got that covered,” I said before looking over to the two most quiet members of the group: the honey badger and the cat. The former looked shy and was trying to minimize her presence while the latter pouted while pretending that she wasn’t staring at me and waiting for attention.

I didn’t want either of them to feel left out, and I knew the others wouldn’t mind, so I placed myself between them and grabbed their hands.

“Wha-wh-what do you think you’re doing?!” Clawdia asked. “I—I don’t have any gloves on! Thi-this is… this is unprotected handholding! I-in public! Are—are you trying to get me pregnant?!”

“You can’t get pregnant from unprotected handholding, you degenerate cat!” I shouted.

“Ny-nya… raising your voice against me in public… wha-what else are you going to make me do in front of everybody?”

I forgot just how easy it was to flip that masochistic switch in Clawdia’s head. Because any attempts at unflipping it would have backfired, I turned my attention to the other girl whose hand I was holding. “You know, we still don’t have a name for you.”

Miss Honey Badger’s cheeks turned a light shade of red as she looked away from me, bringing one hand up to scratch her cheek. “I-it doesn’t matter. You can call me whatever you want. I don’t really care…”

“You don’t have a name?”

She shook her head.

“Master!” Delphi shouted. “Don’t forget, you have to name us. We’re your pets—err, towers! Err, that’s not right either. Umm… we’re your soldiers! Well, kind of… uh… oh! We’re your girlfriends! That’s why you have to name us!”

I was pretty sure that I understood Delphi’s point even if she failed to properly explain it. If anything, she was closest the first time by calling herself and the others my “pets.” Back when Delphi, Cami, and Lavi were just dogs, I gave them names. Clawdia came with a name, but that was because she was already humanoid and the queen of our enemies. It would have been weird if she needed a name despite being the enemy leader. As for all of the girls on our side who evolved into being actual, humanoid women, they needed names.

“Alright,” I said. “If that’s how it is, then I’ll name you Honey.”

“H-Honey?” Miss Honey Badger, now Honey, asked in response.

“That’s right. I figure it’s based off of your species and works as… you know, one of those cutesy pet names that people give each other in relationships. Honey, darling, sweetheart—those. So, you’re Honey. Honey the honey badger.”

Honey’s cheeks developed an even brighter shade of red as a happy smile crept onto her face that she tried to hide. “I… like it. B-but!” She turned to face me with an expression full of resolve. “What—what do I call you?”

“Well, I’m Drake, so you can just call me that.”

Honey shook her head. “That’s what Vala and Window call you! Then Luca calls you Papa and the others call you Master! I… I want something to call you, too.”

“Well, you can call me whatever you want. Wait.” I looked at Clawdia. “Have you ever called me anything?”

“You’re the demonic tyrant king who nukes castles,” Clawdia answered.

“Oh! That’s so cool!” Lavi shouted. “Can I start calling you that, Master?!”

“That’s way too long!” I shouted back. “… and that’s what she said.”

Vala and Window weren’t there to say it which meant I had to.

Clawdia was the only one who was unamused.

“But seriously,” I said. “I can’t remember if I’ve ever even heard you say my name before.”

“Your name… calling you by it would be too much,” Clawdia said. “What about… Piggy?”

“Is this supposed to be some weird fetish thing where you’re trying to degrade me?”

It was Clawdia’s turn to blush, apparently, as she looked away with a guilty expression.

“If you can’t even own it then you don’t deserve to call me something like that. If anything, I should be calling you that. Don’t think that I haven’t seen you demanding some of your servants’ food.”

“Wha-wha?! You—you saw that?!”

“For a queen, I didn’t think you would lower yourself to eating kibble.”

“I-it’s nutritionally balanced! And I was hungry!”

“Alright. When we grab some unhealthy amusement park food, I’ll let them know you want deep-fried kibble.”

“That’s—that’s… does that exist?”

“There’s no such thing as deep-fried kibble!”

“Then why’d you get my hopes up for it?!”

“Why are you getting your hopes up for it is the real question!”

“Hmph, nya!” Even without Window or Vala, there was still somebody to be utterly outrageous. And that somebody, apparently, was Clawdia. “Anyways! I-it’s not like I need to call you anything specific! You’re… you. Maybe I’ll call you something special sometimes, b-but… that depends on the mood.”

“Fair enough. It’s not like you need to call me something.”

“I’ll call you a horrible person for getting my hopes up about deep-fried kibble.”

“I’d flick you if you didn’t look too delicate to flick.”

“T-too delicate?! I—I… n-nya…”

And just like that, she was back to squirming around with flushed cheeks.

Meanwhile, Honey’s voice spoke up from my other side. “I know what I want to call you!”

I looked and asked, “Yeah?”

Honey nodded, her eyes full of determination, before announcing the name she had for me. “Muffin!”

“M-Muffin?”

The other girls joined in as well, asking “Muffin?” in unison.

Honey looked even more embarrassed, but she seemed adamant about her decision. “Muffin! Because… muffins are my favorite food, and you’re my favorite person, so…”

If Vala was there then she would have teased Honey about the potentially lewd implications of naming me after her favorite food. I was tempted to do it in Vala’s absence. But, seeing how embarrassed and cute Honey was deterred me from doing so. “I’ll be the muffin to your honey. People put honey inside and on top of muffins sometimes, right?”

Honey stared at me as her cheeks slowly but steadily increased in brightness. Meanwhile, Cami said, “Lewd, Master.”

“What? How? I deliberately avoided being lewd there.”

“Wait… Master,” Lavi spoke up, “that wasn’t intentional?”

“What? People combine honey and muffins, don’t they? What’s so bad about that?”

“Master is more innocent than we thought,” Delphi said.

“I seriously don’t see what’s—”

Oh.

Oh.

“I—I swear I meant it innocently! I was thinking of baking!” I shouted in a desperate attempt to explain myself.

“Muffin wants to bake in Honey’s oven,” Cami said.

“That’s way too obvious now!”

On one hand, I didn’t want them to embarrass Honey even more because she was already she enough by default. On the other hand, we were acting normal around her and I wanted her to feel included as if she were just another member of our fun. I didn’t want her feeling left out or like she was treated differently or anything.

Then a baseball flew right into Honey’s face. It was fast, too, going by the loud noise it made when it smacked into her.

When I looked in the direction it came from, I saw a mother scolding two young boys while the father ran over to us with a mortified expression.

“Are you alright?!” I asked Honey, holding onto her shoulders to get a good look at her.

“I—I don’t know,” Honey answered, her eyes shaking and her lips quivering. She looked as if she was about to cry. “I… I’m only good at yaoi. I don’t have any experience… between men and women.”

“Huh?”

“Th-the baking!”

“I’m talking about the baseball that just hit you in the face!”

“Huh?”

“Why are you looking at me like you have no idea what I’m talking about?!”

“A baseball hit me?”

“Did it give you brain damage or something?!”

“I… felt something touch me, but I thought it was more wind.”

“There’s a massive difference between a gentle breeze and a baseball!”

While I worried over whether or not Honey’s brain was damaged, the father of the kids arrived and tried his best to apologize. He even bowed and everything.

“I-it’s okay,” Honey said to the father. “I didn’t even feel it. Don’t wor—”

I grabbed the father by the collar of his shirt, bringing his head up so that it was right in front of me. “What kind of parent are you to let your kids throw a baseball around in a packed parking lot?! Even if they didn’t hit my girlfriend in the face, they could have broken a window on one of the cars! Is that how you’ve raised your children?! To disrespect people’s property?!”

“Pro-property?!” Clawdia shouted, clearly taking something else out of what I said.

“Which of those brats was it?! If they want to hit somebody in the face, they need to learn what it’s like themselves!”

“Mu-Muffin!” Honey spoke up. “It’s alright! I—I didn’t even feel it!”

“It doesn’t matter if you didn’t feel it. They hit you, so now I need to hit them.”

“But it was probably an accident!”

“Then I’ll accidentally practice kickboxing in the direction of their faces.”

I thought Honey might try to stop me, but she smiled and chuckled instead while covering up her mouth. Meanwhile, Lavi, Cami, and Delphi all stood off to the side and whistled to pretend they had no idea what was happening. Then there was Clawdia who was enjoying the scene way too much as she rubbed her thighs together and watched with her hands over her face, her fingers parted for her eyes to look between.

That was when the father said something along the lines of, “If you want to hit somebody, hit me!” I wasn’t paying much attention to him, so I wasn’t sure exactly what he said.

What I was sure of was that my fist slammed into his face and sent him to the ground. That was satisfying enough, though I wished that it was the brat’s face who hit her instead.

His wife and kids ran up to him after that.

“Touch one of my girls again and I’ll knock the rest of you down, too,” I warned the group before returning my attention to the girls, grabbing Honey’s and Clawdia’s hands again. “Let’s go.”

There wasn’t even a hint of red or anything where Honey was hit, so I might have overreacted… but if that baseball hit any normal person’s face, it would have caused some damage. Just because Honey didn’t give a fuck didn’t mean that she didn’t deserve to have somebody stand up for her.

Right after we reached the park’s entrance and got tickets for the remainder of the night until it shut down, Honey said, “You… you called us your girls.”

The rest of them looked at me while waiting for my response. “I—I didn’t mean to. It was a heat of the moment thing,” I explained. “It was short for my girlfriends, or something.” Having it pointed out was embarrassing for some reason. I didn’t want to sound controlling or possessive of them or anything.

But I didn’t need to worry about that.

“I… liked it,” Honey said.

Cami nodded as Delphi said, “I’m Master’s girl! Master’s good girl!”

“That was pretty cool of you, Master,” Lavi said. “Even if you were trying to punch a little kid in the face.”

And then there was Clawdia who still looked too excited. “Wh-what a brute… I—I hope you never treat me so roughly… like by throwing me to the ground while ripping my clothes o—”

I let go of Clawdia’s hand to put my own over her mouth. “There are kids here. I might not have a problem with punching them in the face, but let’s try not to corrupt their innocence.”

From what I could still see of Clawdia’s face, she seemed to be enjoying my hand over her mouth like that, but it was fine as long as the nearby youth couldn’t hear her.

I imagined getting a gag for Clawdia, but then I remembered that would only excite her even more.