Election Year
Mastema closed the door behind him as he entered his presidential suite in the Shangri-La Tokyo Hotel. His pressed suit notwithstanding the damage done to his pride.
He spent the last two days in a speed dating gauntlet, trying to find a good companion to settle down with. A haughty priest, a giggly terrorist, an impeccably well dressed man who made sinful deals with mere mortals. All of whom gave good conversation, had reasonably good taste in food, and were perfectly fine for spending time with.
But none were so interesting to Mastema than–
“Eyes up, yoga pants.”
Mastema looked straight up to see a figure standing on the ceiling, laptop carefully positioned behind her.
“Xana – ah, Lady Cassiel!”
“Took you a bit to notice, old man.” observed Cassiel, as she carefully floated down to squat on the gigantic couch in the middle of the 2,200+ square foot space.
“So it did.” Mastema replied. “I wasn’t expecting to see you in my top secret government-appointed crawl space. The Lord works in interesting ways.”
Cassiel looked about the space with a finger on her mouth, trying to square the idea that this extremely opulent hotel room could be considered a bunker. “Would you care to guess why I’m here?”
“Moral support?” guessed Mastema.
“Not quite…” relayed Cassiel.
“Then to pass judgement upon my misfortune?”
“Oh, absolutely not.” affirmed Cassiel.
“Well, it was you who put forth the challenge to find somebody to spend time with,” observed Mastema, “as a possible life-long partner.”
“Yeah, you could say that I had a bit of a contingency plan for that.” Cassiel lied her head back on the head of the couch, donning the same dark green cropped hoodie with the hood down and bike shorts from their first date together.
She continued, “Gabby wants to start a political career, and I’m on a very special mission to help out.”
Mastema considered the situation carefully, slowly sitting down on the other side of the giant couch until his Mappara spell gave some signal that it was safe as he wasn’t completely certain that it wasn’t booby-trapped.
“Does this mean that we’re have to duel?” inquired Mastema.
“Maybe!” declared Cassiel, eyes sharp as a hawk.
“But it’s not mandatory…?”
“No…”
“Then what else did you have in mind, Child of God?”
“Hmm.” Cassiel replied in an unconvincingly serious manner. “We could give the Party Ethics Committee a reason to make a suspension, with a hasty replacement.”
“Suspensions are paid for!” declared Mastema with glee.
“Yes, and it seems hasty replacements are all the rage in politics these days.”
“But Lady Xana, how could I possibly agree to let go of my post for–”
Cassiel snapped her fingers and everybody’s clothes blew off in a comical gust of wind by way of a convenient Magaru, leaving both in their underwear.
“Whoops.” dead panned Cassiel, as she snatched Mastema’s cell phone out of his pants in the air.
Mastema blushed and stared blankly for a moment, missing his mask and menswear, before the question popped his mind.
“My dear Cassiel, do you still miss Hayate?”
Cassiel pressed a finger to Mastema’s blue lips as if to say, shush.
“Mastema… if you want to prove that you’re as good as Hayate, you’ve got three days cooped up in this room with me.” Cassiel pointed straight at Mastema as if really pushing forward the point.
“If you leave before then,” Cassiel craned her head to make as much of a creepy face as she was capable of and brought her voice to a whisper, “you’ll never see me again.”
“As usual, you drive a hard bargain, my dear Cassiel.” Mastema mused, considering if the girl was worth taking a break from a position of power and honor, at least as much honor as a greasy politician could acquire. “Will you accept room service?”
“And the Wi-Fi, cat hotel service, SUBSTANTIAL hours invested in Fortnite, in person yoga classes, generously tipping all service staff, cooking at least one meal a day for me, keep the room extremely cold when we’re sleeping, have me answer all of your phone calls, keep a steady stream of bottled drinks coming into the room, and don’t let any other guests in!”
“Alright… is there any downside?” smiled Mastema.
Cassiel sighed, wondering if she should be demanding more from a third date. “Just don’t be a piece of shit. If anyone asks, it’s only business.”
“Only business!” winked Mastema, as he proceeded to conveniently vanish from very important politics for the next six months.
Gabriel became the next appointed Prime Minister of Japan, as Mastema and Cassiel’s whereabouts were unknown. Rumors abounded on 2ch as to what might have become of them. However, any evidence was brushed off by one intensely involved anonymous user as AI-generated slop.