One Man Band System

That night, in a large house located in the same residential neighborhood as Emma, Priya, Monica, and Heidi, the melody of "Passionate Resonance" recently released by The Empress, echoed inside a second-floor bedroom.

A blonde girl with pigtail braids, wearing just a white t-shirt and denim shorts, was lying on her stomach, holding her smartphone and listening to the music coming from it.

Her blue eyes were glued to The Empress’s stage performance featured in the music video. Her hands gripped the smartphone tightly, and a constant smile brightened her face, highlighting her rosy cheeks and making her look even prettier.

Suddenly, "ding," a notification popped up on her smartphone. She glanced at the bell icon in the upper corner of her screen; her heart nearly skipped a beat, and her mouth dropped open.

She quickly tapped the bell icon with the red badge showing the number 1, seeing a reply from Eric Reed’s account.

"Waaaaaa... Eric actually replied to me... Ever since I saw him perform at the competition with that girl, I wanted so badly to reach out to him, and I only just built up the courage today," she said in her head before opening it.

Her finger went straight to the notification to open the inbox message. As she tapped it, her heart felt like it had been stung by a bee, almost as if she were having a mild heart attack.

"Sorry Tania, joining The Empress won’t be possible since their lineup is already full... but I’m planning to start a new group. If you’re interested, feel free to reach out to me at this number," followed by a string of digits.

Tania’s blue eyes blinked several times as she read the message, but her focus wasn’t on the body of the text, it was on the digits that made up Eric’s phone number. She immediately tapped the number, saved it to her contacts, opened her messaging app, and saw Eric’s profile pop up in her contact list.

"Yes... I got his number... A new group, huh... I definitely want in... but I wonder if it’s really okay... Besides, what’s his deal with Emma anyway? During that last violin and piano show... he really left me with so many questions... I want to call him, but I really don’t want to run into that girl," she muttered in her head.

Then she paused for a moment, but her feet kept kicking up and down against the back of her bed, clearly with no plans of stopping anytime soon. When the track ended, the video automatically restarted, looks like she had set the song on loop and she kept staring at Eric’s photo on his chat profile.

Next, she searched for Eric on social media using his phone number. When she pulled up his profile, she noticed Eric didn’t post much, but six people were constantly tagging him over and over again.

Naturally, the ones tagging him were the members of The Empress and Emma. She instantly gritted her teeth and tightened her jaw. She tapped on the tag and checked Emma’s account, which turned out to be private.

However, the tagged photo was visible: it was a shot of Eric and Emma at the beach before the festival, wearing just t-shirts over their swimwear, just the two of them. Eric had his arm draped around Emma’s shoulder while Emma had her arm wrapped around Eric’s waist, both smiling like complete idiots.

"Grr... so he’s Emma’s boyfriend... I really hate Emma, but I’m no home-wrecker... I’m only interested in Eric because of his music... I don’t intend for it to go beyond that," Tania said in her head, even though her face clearly betrayed her true feelings, which were the exact opposite.

While she was racking her brain and cursing Emma in her head, she accidentally typed "hi" in the chat and tapped send. Not long after—"ding"—a notification popped up. She checked her phone and her eyes widened instantly when she saw the reply on her screen.

"Huh... why on earth did I send him a message... oh gosh... this is all Emma’s fault... if I wasn’t thinking about her... I wouldn’t have sent that," Tania said frantically in her head, tugging at both of her pigtail braids.

"Ding."

Another message came through. She immediately grabbed her phone and read the message underneath the "hello" Eric had sent.

"Is this your number, Tania?" Eric asked in his message.

Tania froze and glanced at her own profile picture, which clearly showed her face, making it obvious how Eric recognized her. Since playing dumb was out of the question and the damage was already done, her fingers began typing a reply, sending it off without a second thought.

"What’s your relationship with Emma?" she asked.

The air went dead quiet for a moment until Tania realized she had asked something completely out of line for a first impression. She instantly deleted the message and replaced it with:

"Yes, I’m Tania. Nice to meet you, Eric."

She let out a breath of relief, but "ding" she glanced at her phone and nearly had an out-of-body experience. Eric had taken a screenshot of Tania’s previous deleted message and sent it right back to her, adding a caption to answer her question:

"Emma and I are just friends. Why do you ask?" Eric wrote in his message.

"Waaaaaa.... waaaaa," sheer embarrassment hit Tania like a wave. She pulled on both her braids tightly, her face turning beet red. Then, another message popped up on her phone.

"I have a proposal for you. If you’re open to hearing it out, how about we meet up tomorrow?" Eric asked in the message.

"Tomorrow? What time? Where?" Tania replied, her face still burning up.

Tania let out a breath, trying her best to put the embarrassment behind her, even if she couldn’t completely shake it off. She then set up an appointment to meet Eric tomorrow, agreeing on a time and place. After that, they kept chatting over text until Eric eventually mentioned they’d pick things up tomorrow since he still had work to finish, taking his leave.

Afterward, Tania collapsed back onto her bed and kept listening to the song. She stared blankly at the ceiling, lost in space. She raised her phone to re-read her chat history with Eric, then rested the phone back on her chest. The expression on her face looked as though she couldn’t believe what had just happened, still processing the whole thing.

***

Meanwhile, back at the apartment, Eric was lying in his dark bedroom with the lights turned off. He set his smartphone aside, then raised his head and looked down at his chest.

"That’s enough, Heidi. What if the others catch us?" Eric asked.

Heidi, who was sucking on Eric’s, released it and turned to look at him. She then offered a wide smile and immediately moved on top of him, guiding Eric’s weapon straight toward her socket.

"Ah... okay... relax... they’re all asleep. I’m going to start moving," Heidi said.

"Ugh... this is really risky," Eric muttered.

"Don’t worry, we’re safe... ah... it feels so good, dear," Heidi said, starting to enjoy herself.

But suddenly, a sound came from outside the door. Eric immediately pulled Heidi down and hid her under the blanket. He raised his head and watched as the door opened slowly.

Laura then peeked inside, looking around. She slipped inside quietly and shut the door behind her, then walked over to Eric’s bed while stripping off her top before crawling under Eric’s blanket.

"Hi," Laura said.

Before Eric could even reply, Laura kissed him right away and guided Eric’s hand over to her breast. Meanwhile, Heidi, who was on the other side, pulled Eric’s arm down and placed his hand right between her legs.

Eric could only surrender to the situation, his heart pounding wildly because Laura had no idea Heidi was right next to her in the dark room. But a moment later, Eric pulled both his hands back and pulled the two of them close once more as he caught another sound outside his bedroom.

"Click."

The bedroom door opened again. Eric raised his head slightly, his eyes widening. This time, the one stepping into his room was Chloe. Slowly, Chloe came inside, shut the door, and locked it. She then crept toward the bed while unbuttoning her pajamas, but she suddenly froze when she looked at the bed.

She turned around and "click" switched on the light, her eyes going wide as she spotted Heidi and Laura under Eric’s blanket. When Laura turned and saw Heidi, she was equally stunned, completely caught off guard by Heidi’s presence beside Eric.

Taking in the scene in front of her, Chloe buttoned her pajamas back up and unlocked the door, preparing to step out of the room.

"See, we got caught. Come on, let me just call it a night, please head back to your own rooms," Eric said.

"Ugh... and I was really in the mood tonight," Heidi said sluggishly.

"Same here... how did you even get here first anyway? When I walked out earlier, I thought you were in your room," Laura said.

"That was just my bolster wrapped in a blanket. No need to bring it up anyway Chloe showed up here too, so basically everyone who was in our room ended up right here," Heidi replied.

Suddenly "click" Chloe came back inside, the look on her face resembling someone about to close a deal at a board meeting. In her hands, she carried a folder as she walked over to the bed and sat on the edge.

Naturally, Eric was utterly baffled watching this, while Heidi and Laura just giggled as they looked at Chloe. Chloe then flipped open the folder.

"Here, take a look at this. Have you guys already forgotten the contract we signed with legal?" Chloe asked.

"Contract? What contract?" Eric asked, confused.

"Um... an agreement between us, tee-hee," Laura answered.

"And this," Chloe said.

She opened a spreadsheet outlining a schedule for how they were supposed to take turns according to the contract, complete with duration, tracking when they were on their periods, and various other details.

Unfazed, Chloe pointed at the spreadsheet showing that today was supposed to be her turn. Heidi and Laura merely giggled, while Eric was completely lost looking at the situation.

"What on earth is all this?" Eric asked, completely out of the loop as he looked at the three girls, two completely naked and one half-naked, standing before him.