Unfortunately, I’m Not A Hero: Roseanne Alternative Part 8: Interlude: Hachiman

Unfortunately, I’m Not A Hero: Roseanne Alternative Part 8: Interlude: Hachiman

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Commissioned by Lastmanstanding

Wordcount: 2500

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Every relationship involves drawing boundaries and making compromises.

I say this as a young man whose only had one relationship, but in my defense, I was taking advice passed down all of human history and desperately doing my best to overcome human physiological reactions during puberty.

Or, in simpler terms, give me a break because I’m trying to push back against having a harem of very attractive women pushed onto me by a very attractive woman that I liked. Not only did I have to contend with the fact that I’m a young man with a libido, but also the fact that the person I wanted to date, get to know better, and possibly spend my life with wanted me to be with other women.

I’m pretty sure that any man who heard about my situation would kill me for being a lucky bastard, or kill me for trying to get out of my situation.

Maybe both.

Probably both.

But I’m trying to avoid the problem with humor again, so I’m going to go ahead and just get back on the train of thought I’m desperately trying to avoid.

Physically, without a semblance of a doubt, I was a normal young man. Thus, my body’s answer to getting a harem of attractive females who wanted me was: yes, please, and thank you very much. My body was my enemy, as Hachiman Jr led a revolt from below, while my sensory system supported him. Even when my muscles groaned, even while I exerted myself to keep up with the carnal tide, and as my brain told me that this wasn’t right… my libido and senses were working in synch as a massive challenge to overcome.

Then, there was the fact that Roseanne was doing this all as a show of love and affection. The thought process was alien to me, but natural for her. While I thought I was lucky as hell to be with her, she thought that she needed to shower with affection to keep my interest. It honestly boggled my mind, and it was difficult to wrap my head around the concept, but in the I had to so that I could muster a proper response to her actions.

Because, even though I’ve failed multiple times in refusing her gifts already, I still wanted to argue and put my foot down.

Yes, even with the fact that Roseanne was doing this all happily, and that everyone involved was ecstatic to be a part of it… including me, I needed to put my foot down.

Too much of anything is terrible, and I was sure that I didn’t have the willpower and determination to not become something that I didn’t want. Staying this current route would lead me down a path that I didn’t want to go down on as a person. I was sure that a lot of men would like to live just fucking, eating, and sleeping every day, with every other need that they had satiated. That was fine for them, but after looking at one of those men living out their lives as a stud, I decided that wasn’t for me.

Even if I liked it now, even if the society that I was in encouraged it, I didn’t want that future for myself and so I had to take a stand for myself.

I wanted to remain myself, so I was going to take the steps to doing that.

…

I’ll admit, initially, I thought up some ludicrous ways to get out of my current situation.

Some of them involved sneaking out of Roseanne’s palace, or doing something equally dangerous in order to make it clear that I was serious. It was the typical, delusional set of impossible plans that my libido came up with as a way to dissuade me from doing something stupid, so that I could keep up my current, comfortable lifestyle. After tearing through those plans with logic, I had to steel myself and think properly, and then force myself towards a more logical path towards solving the problem that wasn’t stupidly dramatic.

Which was sitting Roseanne down, sitting across from her, and laying everything down as plainly, simply, and straightforwardly as possible.

I aired out my concerns, shared my feelings, and laid out the reasons why I felt that way as well as I could, before putting my foot down to make sure that I was heard with the following ultimatum: nothing’s happening between us romantically, until we make our way through the current issue.

The response I received was surprising.

I expected a tantrum, maybe even having to somehow defending myself against a lust-crazed Demon Lord, and Roseanne desperately clinging to me and breaking down my weak defenses after my ultimatum.

Instead, the red-haired Demon Lord’s eyes were wide in surprise at the start and stayed wide in surprise by the end of the conversation.

In fact, she didn’t speak for quite a long time… but even when my nerves started to try get me to talk, I stayed patient, waited, and left the ball in her side of the court. I’d just spent thirty minutes telling her what I thought and felt, so it was her turn to make her own points on the situation, and I was going to listen.

Honestly, I thought her arguments were going to blow right through mine somehow and the night would end in another foursome, but when Roseanne spoke… the first thing on her lips was an apology.

“I… I’m sorry, Hachiman. I didn’t understand that you felt that way. I thought that you merely didn’t feel yourself worthy of so many lovers, so I pressed them upon you to show my affection.” Roseanne fidgeted and looked incredibly uncomfortable as she spoke. She struggled with her words, and didn’t look the part of a Demon Lord at all. She was stressed and lacked any of her usual imperial composure as she wrestled with the issue. “I should’ve known and pressed you to take others. That was wrong of me.”

I was unprepared for the remorse Roseanne showed. I’d thought that she’d insist that she was right, use her body to her advantage, and win decidedly against me. The Hachiman-type was 4x weak against the Roseanne-type, so my argument would’ve been blown the window, if she put any serious amount of effort convincing me.

But that wasn’t the case.

Roseanne, after hearing what I said and listening to what I felt, drew back instantly.

In fact, she drew back so quickly and looked so sad that I felt like a complete asshole for bringing this up and making her listen.

Holy shit.

Even when she backed down and became reasonable, I was still in danger of falling straight into harem hell.

I really, really didn’t understand why Roseanne thought I needed anyone besides her.

Anyway, after recovering from the blistering amount of care and attentiveness I was receiving, I made sure that I wasn’t going to say the wrong thing and made sure that Roseanne didn’t beat herself up over the situation anymore.

“I should’ve made it clear from the start. It’s not just your fault, Roseanne. You can’t read minds and I didn’t tell you how I felt until now.” Roseanne set the set the situation up, while I partook in it after mounting a defense based around lies. If I’d said what I’d truly felt, relayed my fears about becoming someone else and losing my sense of self, then I was sure that Roseanne would’ve backed off that first night she offered me another woman. I hadn’t done that and so she worked off of incorrect assumptions and thought that I needed my ego boosted, when it was plenty engorged already. “So, let’s work on moving past this together. I’m at fault. You’re at fault. Now, let’s fix things, move on, and continue enjoying our time with each other.”

I’d intended for my pep-talk to just cheer Roseanne up.

However, once again, I underestimated my Demon Lord girlfriend as her eyes grew steely with resolve and she stood up with decisiveness pouring out of every single pore in her body.

I’d laid out the situation, talked about the problem, and clearly outlined our goal.

Naturally, of course, she was going to do something about the situation as quickly as possible.

“I’ll speak on your behalf to everyone I involved. You needn’t concern yourself with them. Just stay here, I’ll handle everything.” Roseanne stood up, clad in her tracksuit, and practically radiated magic as she came up with the solution to solve the situation. Given the fact that she juggled Kindred nobles, constant war with the Empire, and introducing sci-fi elements to a fantasy world daily, I should’ve known a little relationship issue was something that she’d steamroll if properly brought up. “Rest for tonight and be assured that there will be no problems concerning this come morning, Hachiman.”

I could’ve stayed sitting down and let her handle everything, but that was the sort of life I didn’t want.

“Are you kidding? I just said that I didn’t want to be kept waiting around just to fuck. I’m coming along to help you handle things, too.” Everyone involved in this deserved an apology. Hell, if there was a way to get the other Kindred in this situation husbands of their own, I was all for it. “I’m coming along to fix things to, no matter what you say, Roseanne.”

That statement earned me more defensiveness from Roseanne than when I bared my heart and soul.

“No. Absolutely not. Kindred do not take well to rejection. I won’t have you endanger yourself for my mistakes.”

“Woman, I just said they’re my mistakes too. We wouldn’t be here if I just said the right things in the first place, remember?”

“Regardless, you’ll be safer and the situation would be solved, if you did not come along.”

“Blah, blah. Regardless this. Regardless that. I want to apologize properly, and I’m doing it with you or alone, so which do you want to happen?”

Roseanne glared at me, not for the issue hanging over our relationship for days that I lost sleep over, but for the fact the I was endangering myself in HER palace and at HER side.

Again.

How the fuck did she think I needed more women than her?

“…You’re staying right next to me and behind me, and if you are threatened in any way you are going back here and you will have no say in how I punish those who would try to force themselves on you. Are you willing to take that risk, Hachiman?”

Seriously, where was this intimidation when I literally almost had an emotional breakdown opening up to you fifteen minutes ago? You’re putting up a major argument against me tagging along to help you apologize, but you folded immediately when I challenged your literal worldview with my own? I’m halfway convinced that I’m dreaming, because I’m sure that people like you aren’t supposed to exist.

Practically all affection and with all the aggression in the right place.

“You know that’s not going to happen. You and I both know them. They won’t do that, Roseanne.” I argued and walked ahead of her. Roseanne strode forward and got ahead of me to the door. Upon opening it, I was met with the miserable sight of my Kikimora maid. She was utterly dejected and obviously heard everything through the door. I felt like a piece of shit looking at her, since I was practically tossing her aside after having sex with her. Yep. Apologizing in person and not relying on Roseanne in this situation was the only way to remain a human being, because otherwise I’d just be a sentient piece of shit. “See? Look at what I’ve caused. Do you think I can stand by and let you apologize for me with this happening?”

Roseanne was about to say something that dismissed one of her loyal and honest citizens for my sake, but bit her tongue before glaring at me once again.

“Stay right beside me. At all times. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, yeah. I will. Now let me apologize properly.”

Roseanne crossed her arms and kept her stare at me as I moved forward do my part in fixing what happened because of our mutual misunderstanding.

It was going to be hard as hell to do it, but I wasn’t going to back down now.

If I was going to back down, I’d basically be admitting that I should’ve just let myself go into a sea of lust and debauchery.

Yeah.

That wasn’t happening.

…

I fell on my sofa’s cushions face-first and cursed my sense of morality as it crushed me with the memory of three nice girls suffering from my mistakes.

I don’t know how playboys do it.

Rejecting two crying girls who I had sex with for the girl that I liked made me feel like utter garbage.

The first rejection was bad, in fact I almost cried and took everything back. The moment Joanna started whimpering made me question whether I was allowed to continue existing as a person and not call myself a monster. With the second rejection, Kaede tried to be strong having heard about what was coming… but then she broke down right when we were leaving and tried to bargain everything she had. Both of them turned down the offer to get husbands of their own, and wanted desperately to stay, and I very, very nearly wavered both times to their pleas.

I groaned at the memories, while my stomach did enough twists and turns to convince me that it was trying to go up my throat, travel up my skull, and constrict around my brain until it was mush.

I felt like the most absolute worst person in the world for putting those two through that… especially as Roseanne took a seat next to me and dragged my head over to rest on her thighs.

“I really don’t deserve this after breaking two girl’s hearts.” I tried to roll away and be miserable only for Roseanne to keep me where I was. “Would you mind dumping me and leaving me depressed for a few years, until I feel like I deserve to be happy again?”

Roseanne’s answer was definitive.

“I refuse.” She glared at me again for the umpteenth time in the evening. She was angry at me for every little thing I did after the argument, but nothing after. I had a feeling that it was going to be this way for a while. “As you said so yourself, we’re moving from this together, Hachiman.”

Roseanne threw my words back at me and I couldn’t help but sigh, as I once again let myself wonder about crazy this situation was.

Roseanne somehow thought I needed anyone else besides her, while I somehow thought it was okay to partake in what she offered. Both things shouldn’t have happened, this outcome should’ve never occurred, and by both our respective world’s logics, we should be split up. In her eyes, I rejected her gifts and her, while in my eyes I didn’t deserve her after cheating on her.

But here we both were… somehow still together.

I didn’t know what lay ahead of us, but I had to admit: if we managed to get through this, it was likely that we were going to be able to handle just about anything else life threw our way.