Easy Love

“OKAY…” Teri muttered, his voice swimming in the now warm, heavy air. He closed the door in front of him and reluctantly faced his friends. “I know it looks weird. What we just saw… And I know I’m not saying it because of this weird mood over us right now… or anything else. It’s just pure chance, okay?”

Something was wrong.

Teri had to admit that going out of that shitty fountain room without checking for traps or monsters was incredibly risky. But what could he do? Two of his friends were acting weird, and he was starting to enjoy the curious look Yayoi was giving him. Maybe it was because of the suspicious fountain water or… Teri shook his head. Then again, who wouldn’t enjoy being looked at by Yayoi like he was a piece of half-price savory and meaty bento box in a convenience store. This was him blissfully ignoring the fact that Taku was looking at them in the same way—his answer to that was, of course, violence.

To make matters worse, they didn’t get to walk it off. Teri hoped they would encounter a long-ass corridor. That would give them enough time to put their mind elsewhere and maybe reflect on their actions. Something that would basically sober them up. But no. The door he recklessly opened had led him on a short walk eastward and a couple more steps to the north.

And why he opened another door despite their group being in this state wasn’t really a million-dollar question.

The corridor was weird. To start, the golden warmth of the flat windows was now ridden with glitters, neon flowers, and hot pink to start. The air also reeked of candies and other sweets instead of flesh, so much so that it felt like they had chocolate bars stuck up their noses. He found comfort in the ikemen graffiti that seemed offended and angry about being betrayed; some of the drawings even featured dialogue bubbles that told Teri to bite his tongue and die.

The situation itself was starting to get funny, but Taku brought him back to reality by gingerly poking his shoulder with the tip of his finger, saying “ehe” every single fucking time. Yayoi kept clearing her throat every five to six seconds, or every time she failed to call Teri’s name as playfully as she could.

To be fair, Yayoi’s schtick was tolerable. And it was all downhill from there. So, the promise of getting another equally interesting room filled Teri’s squirming brain. It was also the hope of getting another room that the other two might find more interesting than bothering him.

But oh boy. Teri was wrong.

“I understand—” Taku punched himself in the face. “But my… you didn’t have to take me to a place… so vulgar—” He punched himself again. “Okay…” He raised his voice. “We need to find a way to get that charm out of your system as soon as possible.”

“Yeah. And considering how the spell worked…” Yayoi glared at Teri, her face flushing red as she stopped herself from moving toward him. “Cutting him up and turning him into a skeleton might cancel the spell—”

“Please don’t cancel my life.” Teri put up a tight smile, pressing his back against the door. He pretended that there wasn't a cacophony of suggestive moans coming from the room behind him.

“Wait, that’s it!” Taku said, almost screaming like a girl. He punched himself again and expelled it out of his system immediately, before he could say something even more heinous. “You drank some water from the fountain, right? Maybe the effect will be gone once you piss it out?”

“That’s… a good idea…” Yayoi cupped her chin, eyeing Teri up and down while impishly biting her middle finger. “Can I hold it while you pee?”

Yayoi faced the nearest wall and smashed her head against it.

Teri winced.

“The voices…” Yayoi braced herself for another attack, grunting. “They’re… getting louder!”

“Okay, you need to stop…” Teri grabbed Yayoi’s shoulder before she got to bash her head a second time. “We’re making progress. We’re getting some ideas. We got the piss part… But let’s forget that happened. Maybe the charm has a timer and it isn’t permanent? And maybe instead of waiting—”

Yayoi elbowed Teri’s stomach and pushed him against the wall. With her leg between his thighs and the entirety of his attention drawn to her domineering gaze, Yayoi grabbed Teri’s hand and guided it to hold the back of her hair. “Not my shoulder. This… you fucking pussy.”

Teri opened his mouth. The sequel didn’t bother coming out. Yayoi snapped awake the very next moment, her eyes softening before going dead at the thought of what she just said. “The voices… Teri… they’re getting louder.”

“So…” Teri took a few more seconds to find his next words after Yayoi respectfully backed away. “Instead of waiting for me to piss it out… Let’s just get inside the room. The room looks weird, but who the fuck cares, right? We’re gonna distract ourselves. Good ol’ dungeon crawling fun. A five-minute adventure. I don’t know what I’m saying. But the plan is… we’ll let out some steam and revisit whatever this is. Hopefully we’ll be fine by then. How’s that for a plan?”

Both Taku and Yayoi didn’t say anything.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

Knowing full well that both his friends would follow him into the deepest parts of hell to watch him pee and before Yayoi could smash her head into a wall, Teri kicked the door open and entered the room with his shield and bar mace ready. He knew he wouldn’t care for the room, but the room minded them.

The first thought that came to his mind was that they didn’t belong here—that they should not be here. The room was surrounded by dark pink walls. There were no ikemen graffiti in sight. The room’s light was pink too. There was a scent of roses in the room but it was drowned by the smell of sweat and paper, becoming more potent as the dolls’ confused moans grew louder. The highlight, however, was ten tables laid out evenly in the room; each table having a doll bound to it by rusty metallic chains.

Teri resisted the temptation to even describe their provocative positions. And other than the dolls essentially naked, all of them had braided twin tails. Though one doll was free. It was wearing a dominatrix outfit that seemed a bit too large for its frame. It looked at them, curious. It didn’t move. It remained silent.

“Zone…” Taku sighed and pointed his staff at the dominatrix doll. His aura surged, spreading a slow rain of pink, glowing cherry blossoms all over the room. “Bind.”

Strings of light sprang from the ground and pinned the monster in place. Half of the threads grabbed the doll by the neck. It moaned, as if it had realized that it was going to die. But it was too late. The strings started to contract, crushing its porcelain skin as its head twisted until it snapped. The doll’s knees buckled and it fell backwards, dead.

“You think the rest will get out of their chains and jump us?” Taku said, his tone a bit annoyed. “Fucking hell… Activate your zones, both of you. Had a guess and it worked… You can resist its effects better that way… you can even force it out if you’re strong enough. Won’t get the disgusting feeling out of your system though.”

“Zone… You make it sound like I have a choice to half-ass it.” Yayoi let out a breath of relief as she walked into the middle of the room, her aura expanding until it pressed against the area’s four walls. She waved her hand. “Hack—” It took a second. In that span of time, the moans were cut short and were replaced by the sound of gurgling breaths, followed by the sound of ten heads falling to the floor one by one.

Taku whistled.

“Oh, by the way…” Yayoi combed her hair with her fingers and glared at Teri. Her face carried the same sweet and curious smile, but her eyes remained vicious. “Good. I find you disgusting again.”

Teri smiled back, glad to have both of them back. “Yeah?”

“Forget everything you saw,” Yayoi continued sweetly as she stared miles deep into his soul. “Or else…”

“Right,” Teri replied, finding the calm in his heart after flushing the fear out by activating his zone. “Nothing happened in the past thirty minutes. Did I get that right?”

“What? What are we talking about again?” Taku exclaimed with his usual energy and brightness. His forehead was bleeding and there was a crack on a nearby wall. “I hope it’s not important, haha!”

“Good enough.” Yayoi smiled at them both. “If it really was important, then we wouldn’t have forgotten about it. Right?”

Taku chuckled. “Pretty much.”

Teri moved forward, readying his shield and positioning himself between the door on the southern side of the room and his party. Something was coming. “You guys still have plenty of stress to let out right?”

The doorknob turned with a small click. The air moved without Yayoi’s command, filling the room and overtaking its scent of sweat and paper with that of blood and melted crayon. The door creaked open.

Another set of clicks resounded, the unfortunate gasps of wood snapping and grating against wood, as the monster cast its shadow over them. It started walking. It was a white knight in shining armor; instead of metal, it was clad in thick layers of paper held together by blood-red yarn. It picked up its pace and started its triumphant march, its erratic movements forced to become graceful by a set of unseen strings. Then, it drew its weapon slowly, its head tilting to the side, its button eyes gleaming—smiling—and begging for its new victims for a dance.

That was just perfect. Teri needed to vent too.