How to Raise a Snake Fiancée

Everyone else walked out of the Matchmaking Center with a curvy bombshell.

My fiancé walked out with me—a freshly hatched female snake who could only go "hsss hsss hsss." This is a postapocalyptic world of genetic modification.

The government assigns partners by mandate, and any creature without an owner is immediately sent for humane disposal.

I looked up at the sixfootthree stranger in front of me, strong and stonefaced, and sized up my situation on the spot.

As fast as I could, I wrapped myself around his wrist, trying my hardest to act sweet and clingy. But his face was full of disgust, and he kept trying to shake me off.

What do I do if my owner doesn't like me? Please reply ASAP. Kind of urgent! Chapter 1 Gage Holden carried me home in a plastic bag, like it was nothing. Heartbreaking to hear.

Tearjerking to see.

In fairness, the Matchmaking Center staff did try to get me at least a pet carrier. "We've prepared a—" But the great Captain Holden, cold of face and colder of heart, simply handed them a garbage bag. "No need.

Put her in here." The whole snake of me was stunned.

The staffer sucked in a sharp breath. "Captain Holden, this is your future wife—" Gage lifted me upside down by the tail and gave them a cold laugh. "Ha.

Wife?" Next door, picking up a wife: curves for days, a total knockout.

Our side, picking up a wife: Hsss hsss hsss hsss— Me: "???" Gage: "…" The staffer hurried to laugh it off and smooth things over. "Take her home and raise her a little.

She'll be fine once she grows up." Gage coldly refused on the spot. "No." Anger flared in my heart. He had the nerve to turn his nose up at me?

Who did he think he was, this piece of— Then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught the giant slogan on the wall. [Anyone without an owner will be sent for immediate humane disposal.] What the fuck— Without a second's hesitation, I wrapped myself around my "fiancé's" wrist, acting as sweet and clingy as I possibly could, flicking my tongue a mile a minute. "Hsss hsss hsss…" Who knew how many of these blind arranged matches the staffer had handled—she had the strangerwithcandy routine down pat. "See?

Look how much she likes you!" Then she sealed the deal! "This is a match made in heaven!" "Made in heaven?" Gage gave a cold laugh and casually went to toss me away. No way!

I pulled myself upright with everything I had and clung to his wrist, rubbing against it and acting cute for dear life.

Save me, save me… Don't throw me away, don't throw me away… Gage held me right behind the head, and I drooped into a hopeless "∩." It's over. Alas, my life is forfeit.

Then, out of nowhere, my body was airborne! He'd actually tossed me into the plastic bag! Me: ?!!! Gage didn't even bother tying it shut.

The staffer was still making a lastditch effort. "…What if she falls out?" Gage: "If she chews through the bag and gets lost, she gets lost." Me: "…" Staffer: "…" Probably because I was just too pitiful, the staffer packed an extra bag of hatchling food and reminded Gage over and over to be sure to feed me when he got home.

Then, at the very end, she whispered to me through the plastic. "Emergency number's 911.

If it gets really bad, call us for help, 'kay—" Tears streamed down my face… She was weirdly nice, huh. Once we got back, Gage grabbed an old, abandoned fish tank and dumped me in.

He didn't even bother giving it a quick wipe—the bottom was caked with dust! Chapter 2 The second I poked my head up, the dust made me sneeze.

Before I could even get a good look around, suddenly—thunk! A dead pinky mouse, eyes still wide open, dropped out of the sky! It nearly landed on my head!

I looked up in horror and saw Gage, with zero manners, carelessly dumping the hatchling food the staffer had packed straight in from midair.

One frozen dead mouse after another smacked against the glass with a bonechilling sound. He grumbled the whole time he poured. "…You eat this stuff?" You eat it, then.

I sure wasn't going to. I quietly scooted over, a little farther from the dead mice.

When I still hadn't moved after a good while, Gage clicked his tongue and roughly grabbed my head and pushed it down onto a mouse. "Eat." The instant my mouth touched the pinky's icecold skin, goosebumps broke out all over me.

Rage rose in my heart, and courage rose with it—I lifted my head, ready to take him on! But the moment I opened my mouth, I saw Gage's cold, flat expression.

I chickened out instantly, pretended I was just yawning, and shrank back, little by little, little by little, coiling myself into a tiny heap.

Seeing that I'd sooner die than eat, Gage picked up his phone and, a little impatiently, sent the Center staff a voice message. "She won't eat." The staffer at the Center was extremely conscientious and called him back right away.

She rattled on through a whole long list of hatchling care tips, then added one last thing at the end. "Little snakes can take a while to adjust to a new environment.

It's normal if she won't eat. Just leave her alone for a bit. "And make sure you interact with her plenty, build a bond with your fiancée—" Click. He hung up.

Gage looked like he'd just completed a monumental mission. "Fine. If she won't eat, she won't eat." Unbelievable.

She'd talked for five minutes, and all he heard was "leave her alone." And then? And then he actually just left.

When I hadn't heard a sound for a good while, I got curious and carefully poked my head out for a look. !!! —Drool came gushing helplessly out of the corners of my mouth!

Gage was taking off his clothes to shower. Broad shoulders, narrow waist, an eightpack, and plenty of old scars on his body… He looked so daddy, so hot!

I just stared, dumbstruck. —So this was the husband the government assigned me? Thank you, government! Then, out of nowhere, everything went dark!

A man's Tshirt dropped out of the sky and covered me, glass tank and all, completely.

Gage's impatient voice came from above. "Quit gawking." Jerk. … The pinky carcasses and I spent half the night coexisting like a polite old married couple, and the thaw water was about to run all the way over to me!

I was so hungry I couldn't take it anymore.

With a rustle, I climbed up his shirt and squeezed out of the tank, crawled painstakingly to Gage's bed, and took every ounce of strength I had to haul myself up onto it.

I tentatively opened my mouth. Damn it. I couldn't talk. I'd barely poked my head out when a big hand like an iron clamp pinned me right behind the head with dead accuracy.

It squeezed so hard my tongue shot straight out. "What the hell?!" I was being choked so hard my eyes rolled back.

I desperately hooked my tail around his hand, my heart full of panic. Thank god the light came on before Gage flung me.

When he saw it was me, Gage went silent. "How did you get out??" His tone was fierce, but his hands weren't rough.

He set me down on the floor. "No pets on the bed." I coiled up right there, puffed up with anger, glaring at him, and opened my mouth wide at him. He finally got it.

Chapter 3 "Hungry?" With zero class, Gage carried me back to the glass tank by the back of my head and pointed at the wideeyed dead pinkies for me to see. "Didn't I leave you food?" I rolled my eyes at him as hard as I could and flicked my tongue furiously.

Who wants to eat mice?! We stared each other down for ages. In the end, it was Gage who gave in. He took a deep breath, clicked his tongue in irritation, and pulled out his phone.

I looked closer and saw he was searching something. [Hatchling snake care guide.] He read for a while, then suddenly got up and opened the fridge.

Before I knew what was happening, he'd pulled me out of the tank, pinched my neck, pried my jaws open, and forced a whole egg down my throat.

Then he closed my mouth and smoothed me down once, from neck to tail. Natural, practiced, all in one smooth motion.

Finally he put the lid back on, still with that same impatient look. "You've eaten. Now go to sleep." It wasn't until he'd tossed me back that it finally sank in.

I was so mad my whole body reared up and I rammed the tank—bang, bang! Jerk! Ugh! Gage was busy. At least he had enough conscience to leave the TV on for me when he went out.

After half a month of watching TV, I finally understood my situation.

The world I'd been transported into was a postapocalypse rebuilding after a war, with lethal radiation and savage mutant beasts.

Everyone had to undergo genetic modification just to survive. Conditions were brutal.

Because of the modifications, having children had become extremely difficult, with a huge risk of genetic degradation on top of that.

So genetic compatibility had become especially important.

To deal with it, the government had rolled out an assignedpartner system, and finding a suitable match cost a huge number of credits.

Gage had spent a fortune in credits to get matched— And he got matched with me. Not only did he not get a wife, he had to go through hell raising me.

It sounded like something you'd report as a scam. I'd snuck a peek at the ID in his jacket, wanting to know what genes he'd been spliced with. Too bad it didn't say.

But I found out soon enough. It didn't need to say! Because he was a total animal!!!

A week later, the Matchmaking Center staff came for a followup visit and were stunned by the miserable state I was in. "Captain Holden… she's your fiancée, not a pet snake. "How could you actually keep her in a fish tank this whole time?" When she said that, I was in the fish tank locked in a lifeordeath battle with a little white mouse scurrying all over the place.

Don't get the wrong idea. I was running; the mouse was chasing. Because Gage was a devout believer in the wolfpack school of tough love.

He was firmly convinced that I had to build up alertness and fighting skills from a young age, so that when I grew up, I'd be better at surviving in the wild.

I heard the staff talking trash about him under their breath. "No wonder he has such a bad reputation out there.

A man his age and nobody likes him, so he had to rely on matching in the end." "He doesn't do a single thing a human being would do…" "Who treats their wife like this!" I had my ears pricked, eavesdropping and nodding like crazy in my head, when suddenly pain shot through my tail—the little white mouse had crept up at some point and bitten me hard!

It hurt so much I curled into a ball on the spot! Then, faster than you could blink! Gage's hand struck like lightning.

He snatched the white mouse out of the tank, clamped its head between his thumb and forefinger, and twisted. The mouse, so cocky a second ago, went limp and was dead for good.

Chapter 4 Gage took me out of the fish tank, his brows knitted into a deep furrow. "Didn't I teach you?

You don't let your guard down until your opponent's dead." He lectured me while he put medicine on my wound, his hands gentle and practiced.

When he was done, he stuck a meat strip in my mouth, patted my head, and put me back.

The Center staff watched, jaws on the floor, and by the end they were all beaming like proud aunties.

When they put me on the scale and found I weighed way more than a normal snake, their smiles got even more sincere. "You two are getting along great. All right, that's that.

We'll be going now." I raised myself up, a little lost, looked at the wound on my tail, and felt like the whole world had lied to me. Getting along great? How is this great?

Could somebody first deal with the fact that I have to catch every single meal myself? This is abuse, right? Is there no Child Protective Services for underage snakes?!!

Once he was sure I'd grown a bit and wouldn't get stomped to death even if I roamed all over the house, Gage stopped keeping me locked up so much.

Okay, okay— Mostly it was that he'd gotten used to having me around. He knew there was another living thing in the house, so he wasn't going to take my worthless life on reflex.

But the glass tank was just too hard. I woke up with my bones aching every day. So I made a patrol of the whole place. Ha. Was there anywhere in this house a snake couldn't go?

So I marched proudly up onto his bed and stretched myself out straight alongside his body, looking forward to him seeing it when he woke up the next morning.

You've all heard that urban legend, right? A pet python stretches out straight and sleeps next to its owner every night. The owner thinks the python just likes him.

Until the vet warns him: "When a snake sleeps next to you every night, it's using its body length to measure your height.

It wants to swallow you whole, you know." Heh heh heh heh heh heh— I'd scare him to death! What I didn't count on was waking up later than Gage.

The next morning, what jolted me awake was him flicking me on the head.

I sprang upright like a coil spring and found I'd turned into a stiff "L." "Who said you could come up here?" Gage asked, frowning.

He tried to straighten me out with his hands. "Why are you… this shape?" It hurt so much I was grimacing, but I still had to play it cool—thank god he couldn't read a snake's expression. "Tank's too hard, can't sleep?" Gage studied me thoughtfully for a moment. "Got it." After he left, I lay there a long time before I recovered.

Every time I wriggled, I could feel my bones creaking under the strain—crack, crack. Damn it. After a whole night stretched out straight, I was numb all over. … Day two.

Gage pulled back the covers. I was lying stiff and straight on the bed, and we stared at each other.

Gage: "…" He pulled out his phone, snapped a picture of me, and sent it to the Center. [Can hatchlings sleep in the bed?] [She keeps crawling into my bed lately.

I bought her a pet cooling pad and she won't sleep on it either.

She won't get crushed, will she?] A long while later, someone at the Center sent back a voice message that sounded guilty as hell. "Oh… That must mean she really likes you." Day three.

He rolled over onto my tail, and in a panic I bit down on that little spot on his chest. Gage: "…" Day four. Gage, expressionless, fished my sleeping self out of his pant leg.

Day five, day six… Chapter 5 Gage's dark circles were darker than a panda's. —On day seven, I found a small cotton nest at the head of Gage's bed. "Sleep here." He coiled me up like a cinnamon roll, tucked me in just so, and gave me a pat, his voice full of weary resignation. "Good for you, good for me." … When it was time for my routine checkup, Gage casually asked the vet something. "She's been wanting to sleep with me a lot lately.

Is that because she likes me?" At that, the vet paused. He gave me a meaningful look, then gave Gage one.

The vet's mouth twitched. "If you believe that old urban myth, she's measuring you so she can swallow you.

More likely, she just likes your body heat." Me: "…" Gage: "…" That very night he put me back in the glass tank—and made a point of putting the lid on! How could he!

Can't take a joke?! Gage's birthday came around soon. That day, when he got home, he stared at me for a long time with no expression. Then he held out his hand to me. Me: ?

Was it because I didn't greet him at the door today? I thought about it and gave him a lick with my tongue.

Gage froze for a second, then jerked his hand back as if something had burned it. He lectured me. "Girls should have a little more modesty!" I rolled my eyes. Ha.

When you had me in a fish tank fighting survival matches against a white mouse, you sure didn't treat me like a "girl." "My squad's got a team dinner tonight. "Everyone has to bring their wife." Confused, I raised myself up and pointed at myself with my tail.

Gage was silent for a while. When he spoke, his tone had a doordie edge. "Yes. You're coming too." My gut told me this couldn't be good