Hanako Appeared

“Shoutarou! There you are!”

An angry older sister was waiting for me as I crossed the finish line back to my apartment. She usually didn’t get off for another 6 hours, either.

Which meant the school must have given her a call.

“I was about ready to call the police and have them go find you! What the hell were you thinking, saying something vulgar and then just bolting out of the school like that?”

Well, I knew this would happen. I had to pretend it wouldn’t though, or else I would have had a lot more mental blocks when trying to escape the earlier situation.

This annoying sister. All she seemed to know how to do was scold me. It was like she got a high out of being the breadwinner of the house or something.

“Don’t you know how much I pay to get you such a high-spec education? The blood, sweat, and tears that it takes to keep you there? Why is it that all you seem to want to do is ruin your own reputation at school? This is just like- like–”

There it was. She was going to say it too; make the implication that me having to change schools to begin with was entirely my fault.

I could see it in her face immediately. That she had said something she regretted. But those were her real thoughts, right?

“No, Shou, that’s not-”

“You’re not my mom!”

I couldn’t help raising my voice. I was angry. Frustrated. Upset.

Of course I was. Was it so wrong for me to be in this situation?

“So stop trying to act like it.”

Even I didn’t mean to be so rude. But what could I do? When my own sister thought of me that way…

How else was I supposed to react?

I quickly shuffled into my room and locked the door. I didn’t like any of it. How I acted, or how she treated me.

I just had to get away from the situation.

Curling up into a little ball against my door, as if blockading myself inside, I could hear her approaching through the creaky floorboards of our cheap apartment.

But she stopped in front of the door without so much as a breath. She never did trespass into my room.

We both knew she couldn't.

Anything that came of us interacting with each other could only make things ever so slightly worse between us. So it was better if we didn’t see each other at all.

Things were always like this between us.

Although, honestly, I had other things to worry about for the moment. This wasn’t my highest priority. If I just shut it to the back of my mind, things would be fine again.

But with that out of the way, how in the unholy hell was I supposed to get a sex testimony by tomorrow?

Obviously I didn’t know any girls, let alone anybody who would let me go that far with them.

I guess my only choice would be to search it up online and mimic somebody else’s explanation. I could worry about actually convincing somebody to fake being my girlfriend another time. Not that there was any chance of even arranging something like that to begin with, but again, I just needed to get to tomorrow.

My room was still a mess, too. I could only pray that my sister didn’t see the sloppily drawn demon summoning circle in the middle of my room and wonder if I had gone completely insane.

Actually, considering she had been looking for me, there’s about a zero percent chance that she didn’t see it.

Well, another thing to push to the back of my mind.

Actually, wait a minute…

Waitwaitwaitwait.

Wait.

The summoning circle.

How much… did I actually have to lose by trying it?

If I really did manage to summon a succubus, it sure would solve most of my problems… Actually, I probably wouldn’t even need to bother with this whole Saito ordeal to begin with if I had a succubus as a friend.

Then again, I wouldn’t exactly want to put all of my eggs into that basket, either. I suppose it was worth a try.

Though, drawing blood didn’t really feel like a sane option anymore.

Actually, there was an alternative I could use.

Maybe.

And so I re-prepped everything, and began the whole ritual up once again.

“I wish for a succubus who will have s- sex with me.”

And then just for good measure, I threw in an extra “please work” as well.

Yeah, I was desperate. I could admit that much at this point.

With the ritual set, and the wish made, all I needed to do now was “seal the contract”, Just like in the tutorial.

Well, sort of.

A sweet lavender scent surrounded me as I ripped the hot sauce packet from yesterday’s bento open, and began to squeeze out a drop’s worth above the center of the circle.

The situation became tense.

What if I really did summon a succubus? Would I be okay? I managed to use just about all of the wrong supplies, so could something go wrong? Could I really be damned to the eternal flames, like the post claimed?

The situation began to feel a lot more real.

Was it too late to back out?

That was my last, panicked thought before hearing the slightest plop on the ground in front of me.

DANGER. That was the kind of fight or flight response that washed over my entire body, all at once. I jumped back in a flinch expecting the worst, but after a few seconds, there was only silence.

…

There was nothing there. It didn’t work, obviously.

No, wait.

Actually, there was something.

A fluffy, white flower stood, proudly protruding out from presumably where the hot-sauce had dropped, right at the center of the summoning circle.

Something strange bloomed in the center of my room...

Part of my mind yelled out “something actually happened!” while another part seemed to be even louder with a “that’s it?”

Perhaps I had expected some sort of “poof” or maybe a pink cloud of smoke with some bright little particles scattering about. At the very least, a fantasy-esque magical portal could have opened up. Something a bit flashier would have been nice to see.

But this was something, right? A really good sign, if nothing else. Maybe with a few more tries, I could actually summon the real thing.

Actually, nobody ever said a succubus had to be in human form, did they? I guess that was just some religious interpretation. For all I knew, this little flower was the succubus.

I suppose I shouldn’t pluck it, in that case.

“Hello…?”

No response from the little bloom.

Was I overthinking it? Surely, any onlookers would have thought I was losing my mind, talking to a flower.

They’d probably be right, too. It really had been a long day… and that was a big statement, considering it was barely past noon.

“What kind of flower is this, anyway?”

“A Carnation.”

Again, I jumped back. For at least half a reason this time too. Although once my initial shock subsided, I realized that the voice actually seemed to draw me in more than anything else.

Following the response to my question, a little black tendril popped out from the center of the flower, starkly contrasting against its creamy white petals.

Or I called it a tendril, but after revealing more of itself, it turned out to be a finger. And then a whole hand. And suddenly, the petals stretched and contorted in strange ways, as a wildly tall, voluptuous figure casually drew itself out into my room, limb by limb. As if pulling itself through the flower, the being became more and more visible before me. Like they were playing a game of interdimensional Twister.

And before I could even process the situation, there she was, in all her glory. Donning stylishly skimpy black lingerie which seemed to indicate hearts all over her body, it contrasted against her smooth, pale skin. Her figure was a harmony of round and rigid, crowning at a thin, fragile neck. Bright burgundy, shoulder length locks loosely fell from her pale face and weaved around her shoulders into a tie, which stopped at a cartoonishly oversized heart lock and collar.

A pair of horns crowned her poofy bangs, curving in at the center to form, well, another heart.

There was certainly a theme going here…

She leaned down, slowly and elegantly, to pluck the very flower that she had just seemed to appear out of, before holding it towards me with a wide and wonderful smile, and an intoxicating gaze.

It was so warm, and so human, yet unlike any expression a human was capable of. There was no other way I could even attempt to describe it.

“Greetings, I am called Hanako. It’s a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.”