Chapter 3

Mana did not disappear during the day.

When I noticed, the sun was already setting. After the initial shock in the morning, and after Mana thoroughly ate her way through my entire snack stash, we just ended up staring at each other awkwardly by the time evening came. We just didn’t have much to talk about—we quickly realized that I knew everything about her, and talking about myself for hours got tiring.

“Hey, how about we play a game together?” I naively suggested.

“Sure! Let’s try it!”

But in the end—

“How can you be so bad at this?!” I cried out, exasperated, not even fifteen minutes in.

“Sorry, sorry! Still trying to understand how these ‘controllers’ work.”

We quickly realized that Mana’s hand-eye coordination was atrocious. She couldn’t hold a controller properly, she was unable to use chopsticks, and she stumbled almost every time she tried to walk.

“Guess I can’t play games then,” she said with a smile, but I could tell she was frustrated about it.

So I did what any responsible parent would, and let her watch anime with me while I drew some pose sketches.

That was the plan, at least.

“Ohh, Ju! Check this out! They were about to get attacked by those blue giants, but then he kissed her, and the world returned to normal! I didn’t expect they were into each other!”

“Woah! The main elf girl just died! Like BAM, stabbed to death! Is the series over?! But there are still a ton of episodes left!”

“Pfff, ah-ah-ah! She used Explosion and just collapsed! After all that bluster, she’s just a weakling!”

She’s… so damn demanding!

Mana fell to the floor, rolling around like this was the most hilarious thing she’d ever seen. I was about to complain about her distracting me, but then it hit me—this really was the most hilarious thing she’d ever experienced in her life, because she had none until a few hours ago.

Kind of a heavy burden to carry around, huh?

Sigh.

“Ju? What’s wrong?” Mana asked as I got up from in front of the TV.

“Everything. Everything is wrong,” I said.

It was fair to say that Mana wasn’t magically going away like she suggested. She was a real person now, and I just couldn’t sit here doodling and ignore the logistics of her existence any longer.

She needed to eat—although she had taken care of that part already.

She needed a place to sleep—I had a spare futon, but still.

And she needed clothes—that was the biggest problem.

All of that cost money. Money I did not have.

And the worst part? She was basically an undocumented alien. How the hell was I going to keep her hidden forever? What if she got sick and needed to go to the hospital?

“…I think I need a beer,” I said, finally giving up.

“Ohh, a beer! Let me join you!” She said happily, her glasses slipping from her nose.

“I… I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Huh?! Why not?! I’m an adult, you know!”

“Yes, an adult that’s twelve hours old.”

The more I thought about it, the more I felt like this was a terrible idea. If she was this much of a menace sober, I could only shudder at the thought of her drunk. But Mana managed to use all the vestiges of girl power she had in her, and threw me irresistible puppy-dog eyes.

“Pewtty pewse?!

“Argh. Fine!” I said, scratching the back of my head. “But don’t blame me for what happens later!”

⬡⬢⬡⬢⬡

“Guess we’re in this for the long run, huh, my guy!? Ah-ah-ah!”

Drunk. She was completely, absolutely smashed.

Not only did she have a particularly low alcohol tolerance, she drank three beers all on her own like they were juice.

What have I done…

“Oh, can I have a fourth one? I think I can! Get it, can! Ah-ah-ah!”

“Nah, you’re stopping here. You’ve already drunk more than enough. I don’t want to clean your puke on top of all the mass destruction you’ve already made in my apartment.”

“Awww… can you blame me? Beer is just so twasty!”

“…You have absolutely no self-control, do you?”

“And you’re no fun, you know?” Mana said as she wobbled slightly. “But fine. I’ll stop.”

Hmm, something’s wrong. She’s being far too nice. Is it the alcohol talking?

“Hey, Ju,” she began saying. “Why was I born? Was I planned or just some accident?”

“Don’t say things in a way that will be misinterpreted if anyone else hears it.”

“Eh-eh. Silly Ju. There’s no one else here! But you know what I mean,” she said with a dumb smile. “Why did you make me?”

It was a bit of a heavy question to answer if I had been sober, but considering I was a bit buzzed myself already, it felt almost impossible to answer. Why did I make Mana?

“I don’t have a great answer to give you, I’m afraid,” I said, leveling my tone. “I just cobbled together a bunch of design elements I liked.”

“So am I like… your ideal girl or somethin’?”

“…I invoke the right to remain silent.”

“Oh, come on! Just tell me!” She said, putting on those puppy-dog eyes again.

“Nope,” I said, gulping down the rest of my beer.

“If-If you aren’t tellin’ me,” she said, “I just have ta prove it with ma body!”

We had been sitting face-to-face, but Mana decided to crawl her way to just a hair's breadth away from me. No, scratch that—she was full on shoved up against me.

So much for not being an easy girl.

“Hey, stop it,” I said, grabbing her arm and pushing her away.

But Mana resisted, sticking to me like glue, and grabbing my arm tightly. “Nuh-uh! Not letting go until you confwess!”

“Argh, fine,” I said, before the situation got too messy to deal with. “Yeah, I designed you to be hot and sexy. Is that enough?”

“Eh-eh-eh. Thanks.”

“Now let me go before I smack you away.”

“You had the opportunity to be touching a hot and sexy girl, and you don’t even take advantage of it.”

“I’ll really smack you…”

“Fine,” Mana said as she let go—fortunately—but she still remained oddly quiet.

“What’s up? Getting sleepy already?”

“Nah, it’s not that. Just… that’s all I am, huh? Just a pretty face and nice body. I don’t have a past, or any talents, or anything like that. My existence feels pretty meaningless, you know?”

Damn it. I really was selfish, huh?

I had never cared one bit about Mana’s backstory, because she was always meant to “just” be a pretty model to train my drawings with. But now she was real, and that decision had some pretty terrible consequences.

“I’m sorry. I should have—”

“No, don’t apologize! You couldn’t have possibly predicted that I’d become real, ah-ah.” Well, she does have a point there. “But still… I guess I’m not going anywhere for a while.”

“That much is true.”

“Hey… I’m sorry too,” Mana said with a low tone.

“You realize how little that narrows it down?”

“Eh-eh. Guess you have a point. But I mean… for showing up out of nowhere.”

She might be drunk, but her face—staring somewhere far in the distance—told me she really meant this.

“You idiot,” I said, flicking her forehead.

“Auch! What was that for?!”

“For being an idiot. You didn’t ask to show up, did you?”

“Nope!”

“It was some supernatural shenanigans. Therefore, it's not your fault. If anything, I was the one who bought that suspicious ramen. So you have nothing to apologize for.”

“I guess… but I ate all your snacks and everything…”

Eh, imagine that. She actually feels sorry about it.

“Well, that’s fine. You just got a bit too excited. It was your first time, after all.”

“Like I said… I’m not such an easy girl! I’m saving my first time!”

“Oh, shove it.”

“Eh-eh-eh.”

Mana wobbled a bit again, and then leaned against me, her head resting against my shoulder.

“Oi, what are you—Ah, guess she fell asleep. Great.”

I should have pushed her away, but she seemed to be far too comfortable, so I let her stay there.

For better or for worse, she was my responsibility now. Even if she was an absolute menace, I couldn’t just throw her out there onto the street to fend for herself.

I was her creator, after all.

I wish that machine at least gave me some money to take care of her.

“I hope we can get along from now on, Mana,” I said softly, not expecting her to listen.

Apparently, she wasn’t actually asleep, and mumbled under her breath.

“Me too, Ju.”