Episode Seven

I forced my eyes shut as I admitted this. Oh, this is bad. This is totally bad! But I let out a huge sigh afterward, a relieved sigh it was, and it felt it was okay - but it wasn’t. I just admitted something incredibly strange to Chloe and my feelings of anxiety came back when I heard her laugh.

“W-what?” She snickered behind what sounded like her hand. But she couldn’t hold it in anymore. Her laughter was cute as it was light and refreshing but it also lets me know that even I could get annoyed at her. After all, Chloe is human - she’s not perfect and it felt rather rude that she laughed at me.

I opened my eyes to look at her and she’s trying her best not to double over with her laughter. The sight was pretty funny and it did sound a little strange so maybe I shouldn’t be so harsh on her. But it’s still pretty annoying - it’s pretty serious! It’s probably taking my life energy or something equally disturbing!

“H-hey, it’s not funny!” I couldn’t stop my own laughs from escaping and honestly, it was pretty strange. A possessed body pillow… it sounds ridiculous on its own but I swear! I tried to calm my own laughter but Chloe’s laughter tries to drown my objections out. “Chloe! It’s not funny!”

“Yeah, sure, next you’re going to tell me that it’s the actual reason that you’ve been out for two straight days. You’ve been sick, right?” She still laughed in between breaths and when she could but I just pouted. I decided to stay silent on that - that’s right, I did just tell her that I was ‘sick’ and my lie was already about to come undone.

Then again, if someone had been sick for two whole days, would they really be okay enough to jog? Even a disgusting NEET like me? And then willing to jog on top of that? No way - Chloe is not stupid. She knew that was a lie. She had to know it was a lie.

However, when the seemingly appropriate amount of time passed and her laughter did eventually die down, it seemed the gears in her head turned and then it seemed to finally got to her.

She gasped suddenly. “No way! Really? That’s the real reason why you were asleep in your room for two straight days?!” She brought up her hands to her face to clutch to her cheeks in a dramatic fashion.

She really did thought I was sick in bed for two whole days, huh.

I just stared at her and chuckled nervously. I didn’t know how she was going to react - maybe laughter - I did expect that, but I never took it into account that she believed me when I said that. As a matter of fact, I always pegged her as someone who was super aware of her surroundings but now that I think about it, she really isn’t. Maybe that’s why she never wanted me to help her cook - she was probably worried she might get distracted.

I didn’t say anything, I was afraid to, but Chloe immediately stopped her laughter when she started to piece it together more.

“B-but, how?? When did you get it? Who sent it??”

The days started to blur together for me since having the cursed body pillow so I couldn’t really answer her so I just shrugged. Honestly, I don’t know how. I don’t know when I got it and I especially didn’t know who sent it.

“Probably a demon,” I finally said, with a more serious tone. Chloe then got more serious with me. There was a cool wind that blew through our hair and I just couldn’t help but remember what happened in my room. I shook a little bit and I tried to hide it, even though there’s no sense why I should anymore. I just told her and she just accepted it. Even though she had a good laugh earlier, at the mere mention of demons, I could see Chloe flinch. I watched her as she struggled to find the words to say - maybe translate - in her head to Japanese.

“I…” She started but shook her head. “I don’t know how to take that. Why would a demon go after you?”

I shrugged. I explained to her how I just found it one day after I went grocery shopping and I stupidly dragged the body pillow in my room. And thankfully, it seemed to have taken up residence in my room.

“How would it get close to you?”

I sighed. I didn’t want to admit that she took the form of my favorite mobage character so instead, I said that the demon took the form of someone I deeply cared about. I felt embarrassed admitting it was Sakura-chan but she might’ve gotten the wrong message. I honestly don’t know how truly deep my feelings are for Chloe but since she said she’s not interested in a relationship right now, I must’ve internally decided to let it go and accept this. There’s no sense of forcing someone in a relationship with someone, especially with someone like me - who doesn’t and who couldn’t identify with any gender.

But I continued on. She understood as best she could - this must’ve sounded so ridiculous. It sounded more and more ridiculous the more I explained - it was a hologram, kind of, and just before we left, it was so desperate to be with me. It needed to be with me. It bragged about bringing something extraordinary for me but what was that - the opportunity to forever be with a body pillow like the more extreme NEETs?

Oh, the more I explained to Chloe, the more clearly frightened she got as I tried to leave out the scarier details but even with this, she was still clearly frightened.

Finally, when I reached my conclusion, she was terrified and bit her nails nervously during the course of my explanation. She brought her knees up to her and shook worse than I did and I’m the one directly involved with a demon. All this reminded me of how I was right to never bring this up to her in the first place.

However, at this point, I don’t regret it anymore. Being able to share this with another person oddly made me feel a lot better - it made me feel that this situation is more real; that I’m not delusional. But it’s such a fantastic story, isn’t it? If this happened in a fictional world, or if this happened in anime, it’s not a big deal, but this is my reality. This is the reality that I thought I would have to face alone.

Though even with her with me, even if it’s just explaining the situation, I felt a tremendous weight off my shoulders but oh, I broke my promise. I promised her that I wouldn’t involve her behind her back…

I shook my head when I realized what awaited us back home. She was going to get hurt, isn’t she? It’s all gonna be my fault, won’t it? She’s even more in danger's limelight because of my big mouth. I should’ve kept my mouth shut.

“...You know what, this sounds like maybe I read this in a light novel or something.” I tried to force a laugh. “Don’t worry about all this… this is my problem, probably. I’m too tired. I haven’t been feeling well since the weather change.”

Chloe stared at me with her dark eyes and she reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Hey, no, don’t think that. I’m scared that this has been happening under our roof but I’m glad you told me.”

I could feel my eyes go wide. “Why are you glad? Now we can’t go home. I probably put you in more danger… I-I wanted to avoid this and here I am spilling my guts to you about a stupid demon that I brought in.”

Chloe was confused for a split moment but she gave me a reassuring smile. “No worries. I’m Catholic so I guess that means I’m especially equipped to deal with demons exclusively.”

“Ca-tho-lice?”

“Oh, uhh,” she tried to find the words once again to explain what that is but once she did, she did her best. “It’s like Christianity but uhh, it’s more like there’s a focus on the Virgin Mother and the Saints that followed Jesus. Oh, and it’s Cath-o-lic! It’ll take time to practice but,” she laughed nervously, “they deal with a lot of exorcisms. I can see if there’s a Catholic church around here and--”

I stood up and waved my hands. I probably don’t quite understand whatever this thing she’s a part of but I certainly don’t want to deal with strange priests coming into my home!

“W-wait! We don’t need to involve others!”

“They’ve probably seen worse!”

“N-no… I don’t want to involve others! Th-this demon must be more like… a pest in our apartment… a big feisty roach trying to take residence in our home and it grew arrogant thinking it could be like us!”

“Hm, I don’t think the demon-chan would be too happy being compared to a roach.” Chloe crossed her arms and gave me another annoyed glance. Maybe her idea could’ve been better but I really don’t want to explain to the nosy neighbors about the strange Western men coming to our building, much less the landlord.

“Chloe-san!” I usually don’t say her name in this way unless she’s starting to annoy me. “Please understand!! I don’t want to involve anyone else! This demon is a menace and is threatening you--our safety in our own apartment! I’ll think of it however I want!”

I was annoyed with myself and this conversation. How could be joking like this when there’s a demon threatening especially Chloe lurks around? We probably seem like a couple of drunk college kids by the way we’re dressed and acting. If nobody reported to the police for noise disturbances, we should be okay, right? But I just wish Chloe would understand the situation more!

Her facial expression didn’t change but she did watch me.

“L-look, I’m sorry, but I really don’t want to involve others. This demon - and could you stop calling it demon-chan - is threatening us and is very scary.”

“I’m not mad and I am being serious. I’m trying to give you viable ideas to get rid of it easily though I imagine Japanese Catholic priests probably don’t have much practice with demons…”

“Why not suggest a Shinto priest then? They deal with several yokai and demon-like creatures, don’t they? Augh, seriously, Chloe-san! Stop trying to distract me! This is something we have to deal with on our own!”

She finally uncrossed her arms. “Fine, fine, you may be right.” She brought her phone up and brought up the search engine. “Let's see if Google can solve our demon problem.”

“Why would Google even have that sort of information?”

Chloe ignored me and went ahead and typed in some terms - I don’t know what she typed in but soon she’s scrolling up and down. She’s making faces to see if they were legit or not. It was clear when they weren’t, she made a scowling face and when something seemed credible, and end up not being so, her face returned to her scowl.

So what can I do? Apparently nothing since my own phone is still trapped with the demon. I looked up at the night sky as Chloe looked through her phone and saw the lights of the city still blocking the stars from shining down. Was I really so stupid to bring it in? But it had my name on it. Why would it target me?

Then I realized that it might be something called a succubus - but even though I still preferred women, why did it take the form of Sakura-chan? Why wouldn’t it take the form of a game character? I had no desire to become intimate with her since she’s a typical teenaged main character - that’s just creepy. I’m not that extreme! I’m not that degenerate! I prefer types like Chloe - kind of a disaster but very well-meaning. She’s the genki type so why did it attach itself to Sakura-chan?

And then it hit me. It really hit me right square in the forehead.

“It’s because I was playing the game.” This grabbed Chloe’s attention.

“What game?” she turned back to her phone. It didn’t seem that she found anything that could help.

I ignored her question - I had to as there’s no way I was going to explain that to her. “Oh. Oh! Chloe! Look up succubus!” The demand was sudden but she did it anyway.

I grabbed her phone and at first, Chloe was about to protest when I put the phone in between us - there it was; the definition for succubus.

succubus

noun

a female demon believed to have sexual intercourse with sleeping men.

To Be Continued