No, Wait, Why Is There Another Chapter? There Was Literally A Chapter Titled 'The End'!

Kyle woke up the next morning very confused.

Not about the four women sharing a bed with him, no. With them in various states of dress, and clinging to him – or in Kari and Abagail’s case, somehow clinging to each other – no, that had become shockingly normal.

Not about the fact that he had a house again after it was blown into smithereens by magical bombardment. Magic has a funny way of fixing things.

What was confusing was that the story was still going.

He took a shower to clear his mind, trying to think. The plot was resolved. There was no room for a final surprise or a last-minute confrontation. 

At first, he chalked it up to life not being as clean as a story. Stories had clean endings. Life always went past those defined end points. They were messy and hard to digest. A hero’s journey almost always ended with their final victory, not with the aftermath. Not with showing all the things left unfinished and the mistakes seeded for the future.

He pulled a fresh loaf of bread out of his bread machine and cut himself a few slices. The confusion was gnawing at him.

Office Kyle tried putting it into words. “We sure we got the genre right, yeah? It's definitely an isekai story.”

Peasant Kyle frowned. “No one’s ever explained what an isekai is to us. We almost explained it to Metis but we stopped.”

Real Kyle finished his current bite and answered. “It’s a story where you’re transported from your world to a new one. It's like a time travel story, where you find yourself in a strange new world. But instead it being weird because it's the future or the past, you’ve travelled through space – literally a new setting and history. It’s a whole thing in Japan, but there’s some other examples. Like ‘The Wizard of Oz’, or 'The Chronicles of Narnia'.”

“Oh,” Peasant Kyle realized. “Can it be a part of other types of stories?”

Office Kyle nodded. “There’s usually some action or adventure elements involved. We lived through all of those. Honestly, we hit all the usual plot beats for an isekai. Divine intervention, fighting an evildoer… even the powers we got. They’re nowhere near as potent as the stories we read, but they got the job done.”

“I remember us complaining about the ‘wrong genre’ a bunch. What was that about?”

Real Kyle poured himself some water. “We hit a lot of weird plot points that we shouldn’t see. Fiona’s the big, well ‘red flag’ here. If there’s a childhood friend involved it’s normally from the previous life.”

“And to the best we’re aware,” Office Kyle added, “no one else we know has come here. We should be fine. We think.”

Peasant Kyle leaned back in an imaginary chair. “Ok. So we’re now living with a witch who we thought was holding us up for money, but is definitely living here of her own free will.”

Real Kyle nodded, sipping his water.

“…A princess from a far-off kingdom who we rescued and could probably live in any court of nobles and get any guy she wants, but chose to live here with us.”

Office Kyle tilted his head, trying to put the pieces together.

“…An oni who is our childhood friend and has made clear that we’re going to marry her.”

Office Kyle’s eye twitched. “Yeah, that’s the one where I get confused…”

“…And some mad scientist-magician shortstack who’s volunteered us to be her experimental guinea pig. All of whom are trying to get our attention, insist on living with us, and refuse to accept having private bedrooms.”

Real Kyle slowly rose from his chair, a tremble in his hand. It couldn’t be. It must not. “No…”

He rushed back up the stairs, staring at the four women still resting in his bed. Women with black, blue, white, and rainbow-colored hair all sharing the same bed, now tightly snuggled together like nothing was wrong.

Except something was wrong. Deathly wrong. And it had only taken until now for the Kyles to realize what it was.

Real Kyle fell down the stairs, flipping over himself as he scrambled to open the front door. “We’ve gotta go. Now.”

Office Kyle was making a show of packing an imaginary suitcase. “We are so boned. So dead. This is the worst case scenario.”

Peasant Kyle stepped in front of the door, holding out a hand to tell the other Kyles to stop. “We’re not making any sense. Why are we panicking?”

“Because,” said Real Kyle, “we just realized what kind of story we’re in. The parts of the plot that didn’t fit. Forget about the Prince and him coming back for revenge, those are what’s going to kill us!” He pointed upstairs.

“The women? Can you please speak plainly!” begged Peasant Kyle. “What are you talking about?!”

“A harem comedy,” Office Kyle hissed. “We’ve been in a harem comedy this whole time and we never bothered trying to figure out how to resolve it!”

Peasant Kyle shook his head. “We can’t just leave though! What about the village? Or the women?”

Office Kyle grimaced. “We’ve got a point. Two magicians and a princess who’s probably got cash to burn. They’ll find us. Running isn’t an option.”

Real Kyle felt faint. “Are we sure?”

“There’s no other way.”

With a heavy sigh, Real Kyle stepped away from the door. “Gentle-me-s. We have a new goal. Apart from preparing for Demerius looking for some way to get his revenge. Harems are inherently unstable. We need to navigate our way through it and pick one. Which means we need to figure out how we feel about them.”

Office Kyle grunted. “We were not good at romance in our past life. That’s not the easiest ask in the world.”

“Suck it up,” commanded Real Kyle. “Because unless Demerius kills us, there’s only two ways this ends. One, we confess our feelings to one of the women upstairs. Or two, we screw around long enough that we accidentally turn one of them into a yandere and get turned into a knife pincushion. And we have to find a way to resolve this, because this is the last chapter! We’re running out of pages!”

"...Yandere?"

"It's a whole thing, we don't time to explain. Just nod your head and accept it's bad."

“Or,” Peasant Kyle pointed out, “and hear me out, maybe we just be a supportive and open partner that communicates effectively with them. Be honest with our emotions.”

Real Kyle and Office Kyle stared at Peasant Kyle as if he’d gone mad.

"Have you met us?" asked Office Kyle. "We're not the kind of guy who people will go to that trouble for! We're not worth it! We're doomed!"

Peasant Kyle rolled his eyes. “Whatever we decide, how are we going to know if we’re successful? You said it yourself. We’re out of chapters.”

“That’s easy,” said Real Kyle.

He stares out from the page and looks to you, the reader.

“Did anyone write a second volume to this story?”