Getting Stronger By Marrying And Investing In Abandoned Villainesses

Theo returned to his apartment and grabbed his own suit. It was a gift his dad had gotten him for his college graduation, a year ago now. Wearing it reminded him too much of the last picture he had taken with his father, the two of them squinting into the sun in stiff collars. It hadn’t even been two months after that day when the man lost his life.

His fingers rested on the lapel a moment longer than they needed to. Theo glared at his own reflection with resolve, trying not to let the grief pull him under. Then he got into the suit and looked himself over in the mirror.

It was a bit loose at the legs and the arms, bunching where it shouldn’t, but it was something he could manage.

Afterwards, he ordered a timed taxi for them. Once he had given the driver his address, he went back up to the rooftop to fetch the three ladies.

When Theo stood at the door waiting for the three of them, he tapped his foot against the floor, breathing nervously.

However, when they began to come out, his heart felt like it might burst clean out of his chest.

The three of them wore wedding dresses. Thaleria was fussing over Estea’s pose, tugging the fabric straight; Estea kept glaring at Theo the whole time, while Thaleria herself gave only a small smile. Sesan wore a blank, unreadable expression.

The three of them looked like angels fallen straight from paradise onto the rooftop. Something squirmed inside him as he took in their uncanny beauty. A bum like him, marrying women like these? He felt like he had hit the jackpot.

’Where in the world would a bum like me even meet women like these, let alone marry them.’

Theo smiled.

’I feel lucky.’

When they reached the edge of the stairs, Theo spoke politely to Estea.

”Is it okay if I carry you? It would be stressful for Thal to push you all the way down.”

Estea looked at Thaleria, then back at Theo. For a moment the look in her eyes could scare off a cat. But eventually she nodded.

His pulse pounded in his ears the whole time, right up until she finally gave him that answer, and only then did his shoulders come down.

He gently gathered her into his arms. He was not very strong himself, so by the fourth floor his legs were already shaking, but he gritted his teeth and made it the whole way down, all ten floors of it.

By the time they reached the bottom he was sweating profusely, but he still tried to look strong about it.

’I need to take the gym serious after this.’

The taxi was waiting for them by the time they got down to the first floor.

Thaleria paused as her gaze fell on it. The car had been decorated with flowers at the front and back, and across the bottom someone had written, To Be Married.

She covered her mouth with both hands and looked at Theo, shocked.

”Theo...”

Theo stared at the ground.

”This is the least I can do.”

Estea rolled her eyes while Sesan stayed cold and impassive through it all.

Then they all got in. Theo helped Estea first, folding her wheelchair into the trunk, and after that Thaleria and Sesan sat in the back while he sat up front.

The driver stayed silent the whole journey, though he wouldn’t stop glancing at Theo, and at the three women, at intervals.

They reached the church twenty minutes later, and everything was ready. Thaleria had made the arrangements. All they had needed was a man to anchor the wedding, and a little piano to keep the atmosphere from turning awkward.

The man wore white pope robes, with a half-collar and white hair that was bald in the middle.

Theo entered first and stood at the altar. Then the three ladies came in together, Thal pushing Estea, Sesan walking slightly behind them with an impassive expression.

When the three of them stood opposite Theo.

”Dearly beloved,” the man began, and then stopped.

His gaze drifted from Theo, to Thaleria, to Estea in her chair, to Sesan standing a little apart, and then back to Theo again. He did the arithmetic once, silently. The arithmetic did not change. He cleared his throat and started over.

”Dearly beloved... and beloved, and beloved. We are gathered here today, in the sight of heaven and this very lovely piano, to join this young man to these three women in the bond of holy matrimony.”

The pianist, who had clearly not been told the exact shape of the day either, missed a key.

”It is a sacred thing, marriage,” the anchor went on, folding his hands over his white robe as if that would steady him. ”A promise. A door that shuts behind two people and locks from the inside.” He glanced at the total again. ”Or four people. The scripture, in my experience, is flexible on the number, so long as the intent is pure.”

Theo nodded very seriously.

”Now.” The man produced a small worn book, licked his thumb, and turned to no page in particular, because he was clearly making this up as devoutly as he could. ”Do you, young man—”

”Theo,” Theo supplied.

”Do you, Theo, take these women — all of them, jointly, and I want to be very clear I mean all three — to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, in wealth and in whatever this is,” he gestured gently at the flower-taped taxi still idling outside the window, ”for as long as you all shall live?”

”I do,” Theo said, and he said it so earnestly, with such a full and honest heart, that the anchor forgot for a moment that he was marrying a man to a small nation of women, and simply believed him.

”...Yes. I can see that you do.” The old man dabbed at his eye. Then he turned to the brides, and his professionalism nearly held. ”And do you three ladies take this man to be your—”

Estea glared.

”—to be your husband,” he finished, a touch faster.

Thaleria answered first, her voice cracking around the word. ”I do.”

Sesan said nothing. Her expression did not move. But after a silence long enough to make the pianist consider his life choices, she gave a single, cold nod, which the anchor gratefully chose to interpret as a yes.

Estea was last. She looked at Thaleria, who was crying now, and at the wheelchair Theo had carried down ten floors on shaking legs, and at the ridiculous man himself standing at the altar in a suit that didn’t quite fit, sweat still drying at his collar. Her mouth thinned.

”...Fine,” she muttered.

”I will accept that,” the anchor said quickly, before she could reconsider, ”as an enthusiastic and unconditional yes.”

He snapped the little book shut.

”Then by the authority vested in me by whoever it is that vests these things, and by this piano, I now pronounce you... married. All of you. Congratulations. You may—” he hesitated, ran the numbers one final time, and gave up entirely— ”you may sort out amongst yourselves who is kissed.”

At the same time, a loud clap suddenly resounded across the hall.

”Wow, wow. I can’t believe this sight. Three terrifying women, marrying some bum from the countryside.”

The moment the three women heard that voice, the atmosphere around them changed. Estea gritted her teeth, her lips pressed thin. Thaleria’s tears had stopped, her eyes now burning with rage. And Sesan... frost was spreading beneath her feet.

But the women weren’t the only ones. Theo had gone red as well.

’That voice... is... is that not that bastard’s voice? The villain with Jupiter Lady that night?’