My Taboo Harem!

Chapter 861: Phei’s Heartstrings

Phei was a man of women.

Beautiful women, especially:

That much had never been some sacred secret hidden beneath layers of noble denial. Anyone with eyes, a pulse, and the tragic burden of basic pattern recognition could see it; whenever a woman beautiful enough managed to quiet the constant noise inside his skull long enough for him to truly notice her, properly notice her, Phei pursued her...

Shamelessly.

Life was already tangled, violent, expensive, and spiritually exhausting enough without adding fake restraint to the list of human inventions that needed to be dragged into a public square and questioned under bright lights.

If a beauty appeared before him dressed like temptation personally handcrafted by bored gods with too much imagination and not enough supervision, Phei saw no reason to pretend he was suddenly blind for the sake of social theater.

Still, despite what people around him probably assumed, it was never only beauty.

If beauty alone had been enough, his harem would have reached a number capable of destabilizing small governments by now.

There were too many gorgeous women in the world, too many faces sharp enough to cut attention in half, too many bodies built like luxury sins wearing perfume.

Beauty could make him look, appreciate and make him smile.

But beauty alone did not make his blood move differently.

That was the truth of it, strange and inconvenient as hell.

There was always something else threaded between instinct and emotion, between the body and the soul, too subtle to call hunger and too intimate to call curiosity.

Phei had stopped trying to explain it weeks ago, mostly because every possible explanation made him sound like a man one bad dream away from founding a cult in the mountains.

It felt like strings.

Invisible ones, tied somewhere beneath his ribs, somewhere deeper than thought, tugging gently whenever he encountered a woman who was meant to matter to him beyond passing attraction.

At first, the feeling was almost harmless. Easy to mistake for curiosity, appetite, or the ordinary magnetism of a pretty face moving through the room with unfair confidence. But once the tug registered, once his soul seemed to recognize what his mind had not yet named, it became impossible to ignore.

Like hearing his name whispered inside a deafening room and knowing, with irrational certainty, that the voice had meant him.

Ms. Patricia Bloom had carried that pull.

Valentina too.

Lucienne.

Elena.

Amber.

Yuki.

Even Sierra and Maddie, before the others came afterward.

Each of them had arrived wrapped in that same quiet gravity, that same invisible command that made something inside him lean closer before his conscious mind had the decency to examine it despite their history between him and the said woman.

And somehow, it had never been wrong. Not once. Phei knew who belonged near him and who would eventually become woven into the fabric of his life so thoroughly that removing them would leave a wound shaped exactly like their absence.

More importantly, he knew who did not.

Cherry was proof enough.

Cherry was gorgeous and not politely, either...

...Cherry was the sort of woman who made ordinary men suddenly remember posture existed, as if their spines had been waiting for beauty to issue an official command. Put her beside Valentina or Patricia Bloom and the gap would not become hierarchy, only preference.

Three different flavors of devastation, all lethal, all complete, each one ruining the room in her own language.

And unlike and like many women who orbited near him, Cherry had initiated interest in him herself openly and comfortably just like Maddie, Valentina, Victoria.

Yet despite all of that, despite her beauty, charm, confidence, and the kind of emotional maturity most people her age had not even located on a map, Phei had known within that instant of speaking to her before the boys arrived... that Cherry was not his kind of woman.

Not because she lacked anything.

’Our souls simply moved to different rhythms.’

Two exquisite songs could be beautiful alone and still sound wrong when forced into the same key. Neither song was broken; the pairing was.

Thankfully, nothing between them had curdled into awkwardness. Cherry had recognized his lack of interest almost frighteningly fast. There had been no wounded pride, no dramatic campaign to change his mind, no emotional hostage negotiation disguised as romance.

Then Landon had arrived.

Or perhaps fate had matched Cherry and Landon.

Whichever version fate wanted to brag about, the result was obvious. They fit. Naturally. Seamlessly and so correctly that imagining Cherry beside Phei instead became mildly embarrassing in hindsight, not tragic, not poisonous, just wrong in the quietest possible way.

Like wearing shoes made perfectly for someone else and spending years calling the pain character development.

Beside Landon, Cherry softened, her shoulders settled, her laugh came easier. while her restless energy found a shape it could rest inside without fidgeting. She looked right there, like her soul had been standing in line for years and had finally reached the window.

Was that what people called soulmates?

’Who knows.’

Phei was not especially fluent in universal laws, ancient romantic proverbs, or whatever philosophical nonsense poets invented after being emotionally destroyed near rivers.

He left that territory to people with more patience and fewer supernatural problems.

Right now, though—

As soft footsteps echoed behind him through the rooftop silence, the strings beneath his ribs tugged sharply enough to tear him out of his thoughts.

His entire attention pivoted toward the approaching woman before he saw her properly. Instinctively; involuntarily like a compass correcting itself when it found north, not as a decision, but as obedience to something older than thought.

Dangerous.

That was always dangerous.

Without meaning to, Phei’s senses stretched outward, soft and reflexive, like a hand reaching for a wall in the dark.

He felt the warmth of her bodymoving through the cold rooftop air, the cadence of her breathing, the strange emotional weather surrounding her presence, and—

He yanked his senses back so violently he nearly gave himself spiritual whiplash.

"...Jesus Christ," he muttered under his breath, rubbing his forehead. "That was intrusive as fuck."

The woman had not spoken a syllable, and he was already spiritually rummaging around her existence like some emotionally compromised dragon with attachment issues and supernatural boundary problems.

If his senses were hands, he had basically patted down a stranger before even saying hello.

Deeply embarrassing and not something right to do!

To distract himself from his own nonsense, Phei lazily swirled the wine in his glass and deliberately refused to turn around, even when her footsteps slowed behind him:

The appearance of being a man minding his own business on a rooftop, and not experiencing a minor spiritual crisis because a woman he had not yet seen had made his soul sit up like a dog hearing a whistle, mattered very much.

Who even was she?

The boutique had been closed off tonight. Only his people, designers and the few staff were supposed to be here, and he had already met the owner along with most of the employees earlier.

So unless somebody had spontaneously materialized onto the rooftop like a side character entering halfway through a season finale—

She walked past him.

’Interesting.’

She simply moved past, her warmth trailing through the cold air beside him for one brief second, and continued toward the self-service bar along the eastern edge.

Phei remained facing the city.

Listening.

Within moments, the rooftop’s peaceful atmosphere became significantly, entertainingly less peaceful.

Glass clinked awkwardly.

Something wobbled.

Something else nearly tipped over.

Then came frustrated muttering, low and sharp, aimed at inanimate objects with the personal hatred of a woman who believed glassware had wronged her.

"...Where the hell is the lighter?"

More fumbling followed, hands patting surfaces. One drawer opened and closed. Another drawer opened and closed harder, because apparently the first drawer had failed to understand the emotional stakes.

A small metallic object skittered across the bar top and fell off the edge.

Then cursing.

Then more cursing.

Phei’s lips twitched. He kept his back to her, eyes on the glittering city below, and allowed the wine glass to hide the grin trying to betray him.

She sounded like a woman losing a deeply personal war against basic objects.

A bottle knocked against something metallic with a dull, accusing thunk.

Another curse followed, this one somehow directed vaguely at him; despite the fact that he stood fifteen feet away doing absolutely nothing except existing in her general vicinity.

The audacity was magnificent. Breathtaking, even:

A lesser man might have been offended. Phei was mostly impressed.

He drank from his glass for the first time all evening.

Because he needed something in his mouth to keep himself from laughing and ruining whatever fragile treaty this woman had negotiated with the bar.

A few moments later, the lighter finally clicked.

"Aha," she whispered to herself, soft and victorious.

Phei had to physically clamp his jaw shut.

Eventually, carrying her drink with the bone-deep confidence that only genuinely attractive women and financially catastrophic people possessed naturally, the stranger moved away from the bar and settled onto one of the nearby couches.

A cigarette rested between her fingers now, smoke curling upward in thin lazy ribbons before the cold wind stole it apart.

And finally, she saw his face properly.

Silence followed.

A dangerous amount of silence that filled the rooftop slowly, steadily, leaving no room for anything else.

Phei could feel her looking at him and the weight of her attention arrive, settle, and stay. The assessment behind her eyes lasted far longer than casual curiosity required.

Then the woman narrowed her eyes slightly around the cigarette between her fingers and asked, with complete seriousness;

"You’re not one of my stalkers, are you? Because as far as I know, you’re definitely not staff, and the boutique was closed off for me."

Phei nearly choked on oxygen.

The accusation arrived with such shameless confidence that his brain stalled for a second, as if even his thoughts needed to sit down and process the disrespect. She had just, on a rooftop she did not own, inside a boutique she had not reserved; accused him of being a stalker.

With a straight face; the nerve was so pure it almost deserved framing.

He turned toward her fully.

And the moment his eyes landed on her—

There it was again.

The pull.

Those invisible strings inside his chest tightened softly, drawing taut with the unmistakable certainty of recognition; his soul looked across the rooftop, found her sitting there with her cigarette, her stolen drink, and her outrageous accusation, and said simply:

"Oh... there you are."

Phei stared at her for a second longer than society recommended, long enough that any woman paying attention would have noticed, and this woman was very clearly paying attention.

Then he muttered quietly, half to himself and half to whatever ancient thing inside him had just made the identification;

"...Yeah. My heartstrings have never been wrong."