Himitsukichi

“…You’ve never been inside this house before?”

Ariel and I are standing in front of the front door to the abandoned house. After spending several minutes in silence together, Ariel said she wanted to go inside for more privacy, and I reluctantly agreed to it. I think it should be fine if she goes in first and deals with all the potential spider risk itself.

“No. Never felt like it.”

That’s a lie of course, but she doesn’t need to know that. With no hesitation, Ariel turns the doorknob and manages to open the door with no difficulty. She practically bolts into the house, apparently not caring about how dusty the house looks. I watch her explore the living room for a few seconds before I decide to cautiously enter as well. There don’t seem to be any spiders in the living room at least. Ariel turns to me once I enter.

“Why were you at the park?”

She has a suspicious look on her face. I can’t say I entirely blame her. It is just a tad too coincidental to see someone you know suddenly come at the right moment with a rock to throw against your attempted molester. I figure that the best way to respond to this is to act like she’s being the weird one.

“I was at the park because I like to hang out at the park sometimes. I don’t know why you’re acting like that’s a problem. Pretty sure that’s an ungrateful way to act towards the person who saved you.”

She doesn’t seem convinced by my reasoning, still looking at me with disapproval.

“But then how did you know we were getting…’intimate’? And you know, I get that Mr. Richards was getting pushy, but you really didn’t need to throw a rock at him, that wasn’t necessary!”

Even after everything that’s happened, she’s still defending the guy. How sad.

“Because I happened to notice a young girl being taken into the woods by a much older man, thought it was weird, and it turns out I was right. And yeah, what I did was necessary. The way things were going, he was going to force himself in you before you could even get your handcuffs out.”

Her disapproving look softens a bit and changes into a mixture of confusion and pity.

“…I think you mean well Gray, but you’re rather violent and that bothers me. I was considering telling my parents about when you shoved me to the ground, but I decided to be nice and keep it a secret, but I still don’t know if that was the right decision.”

I can feel a vein throbbing in my head at her accusation, but if I raise my voice at her, that’ll only encourage her false belief that I’m violent. So, I stay quiet as she keeps talking.

“Everything’s been crap ever since I came here, and Mr. Richards’ been the only person whose ever really understood me…and now I’m pretty sure he hates me.”

She looks dejected. Somehow, despite all the shit she’s pulled against me, I can’t help but feel some pity for her. I’m not delusional enough to think that I can “fix” her or anything like that, but I figure that if this girl’s going to force herself into my life, then I should at least put in some effort in keeping her from doing even more stupid shit.

“Oh, you’re not from here?”

I speak as if I didn’t overhear her classmates talking about it.

“…Y-Yeah…Can you keep a secret?”

She walks towards me with a nervous look on her face.

“Yeah.”

“…Are you sure? You’re not lying to me again, right?”

Is she still mad at me about that? Geez, the only reason I did that was because of her. But fine, I’ll pretend I was the bad guy for now.

“I’m not lying. If I break my promise, you can kill me.”

That response makes her step back.

“K-Kill you!? If you’re suicidal, you should just kill yourself like a normal person!”

“…I’m not suicidal. I’m just trying to emphasize how serious I am. You can decide what you want to do to me if I break my promise.”

Ariel stares at me for another minute before deciding to talk again.

“…You probably don’t know this, but Brenton’s not my real brother and the family who took me in have nothing to do with my real family.”

“That doesn’t shock me. The two of you really don’t resemble each other at all.”

I lean back against the wall of the house as she continues to talk.

“Umm…Out of all the things I need you to keep a secret, I especially need you to keep the jobs of my new parents a secret the most.”

“Sure.”

She’s back to looking unsure.

“…You better be telling the truth, okay!? If word got out about what my new parents do…I-I don’t exactly what would happen, but it would be pretty serious shit, I know that.”

Judging by how distressed she’s acting; I have some good theories as to what her new parents might be doing for a living.

“Well, given how freaked out you seem, I can presume your current parents are involved with the PearlCoin Organization in some way?”

“…Those guys? N-No…It’s um…It’s more like…”

She keeps stammering and it’s getting on my nerves.

“Look, I get that you’re worried about bad things happening to you, but I can’t help you unless you tell me exactly what’s going on.”

She becomes silent for another few minutes before speaking again in an unusually (at least for her) meek tone.

“…I um…My new parents…They’re part of a group…that um…”

I have a pretty good idea of where this is leading, but I decide to not interrupt her and wait for her to finish.

“…I…IwasborninLOVEandmyHyperactiveNarcissismwascausingmymothersalotoftroublesoIwasgon

nagetsenttoamentalhealthcenterbutIdidn’twanttogoandonthedayIhadtoleavethecarthatwassup

posedtotakemetherewaslateandnooneelsewasaroundsoIunzippedmyoutdoorssuitsoIcouldseew

hatwasgoingonandIsawsomepeoplejumpingintoaholeinthestreetand-“

She takes a deep breath in the middle of her rapid fire tangent. I decide to take advantage of the moment to interject.

“Okay, I’m gonna need you to speak more clearly. I’ve only been able to catch maybe four words that have come out of your mouth so far.”

It took about 40 minutes for her to explain everything. Ariel’s story is somewhat unusual, but not all that strange either. She was born and raised in a trauma victim residential tower for women in LOVE. Although she was loved dearly by her two mothers, issues started to arise when a crack was found in the wall in her family’s personal room when she was five years old. It can’t be overemphasized just how strong the propaganda about “the spores” is in LOVE. It’s to the point where there are no windows in residential towers and when a citizen is being transferred from one residential tower to another, they’re required to wear suits that cover their entire bodies including their faces in order to prevent them from ever getting a real glimpse at the outside world. So as you can imagine, a crack in any room in a residential tower, especially a personal room is more than enough to cause a freakout.

According to Ariel, all the residents of the floor had to be quarantined in medical rooms for a week while the entire floor got “fumigated” and the crack in her room got fixed. “Fumigations” are the proper response for incidents like this in LOVE, but of course it’s all fake. According to ex-LOVERS who were involved with higher ups of the government, the “fumigations” consist of nothing more than machines making a fake fog with dry ice. The people on the upper echelons of LOVE’s society and especially the government workers are more than well aware that the entire narrative of the “deadly spores” is bullshit. They just continue to push it either because they like how it benefits them, or they’re terrified of the consequences of trying to speak the truth (those consequences being getting sent to a mental health care center for an immediate lobotomy).

Regardless of the actual truth, this incident led to Ariel being viewed in the same vein as someone with leprosy in the old world. She was banned from leaving her family’s personal room and her mothers were required to get weekly medical checkups. Furthermore, her mothers became victims of severe persecution from other members of the residential tower. Usually, the persecution came in the form of insults, but physical altercations would also occur.

“…The others liked to spray or dump water on my mothers. As a way to ‘rid them of spores’…”

Despite these hardships, life remained as normal as it could be. Since Ariel was barred from ever leaving her family’s personal room, she had to be educated via an online school program and would receive visits from a nurse once a week to check on her vitals. She did well in her education and was praised by her mothers and online teachers for her inquisitiveness and desire to learn more. But the older she got, the less admirable those traits became.

For one, she started to become curious about those strange creatures known as “men” and started to read up about them. This caused strife with her and her mothers, but because LOVE (surprisingly enough) has no laws against citizens in single sex trauma victim residential towers studying and reading up on the opposite sex, there wasn’t much they could do about it. Ariel wasn’t just curious about men though. She was curious about the outside world, and more importantly, why she never seemed to feel all that ill despite the incident with the crack in her wall.

That’s when she started to break laws. When she started bringing up these questions to her nurse, the LOVE POINTS for her family’s personal room began to drop. Anything that could be even remotely interpreted as “spores denial” will always guarantee a massive drop in LOVE POINTS with no exception. Although her mothers tried to get her to stop, Ariel just couldn’t stop saying things that the government didn’t like.

“…I don’t get what I was doing wrong. If the spores weren’t affecting me, then that could mean a cure for the spores is possible, right? Something better than the medicine treatments? But saying that only got me in trouble…”

Most people would agree with her logic, the problem is that she still doesn’t seem to understand that there was never a “spores problem”. To be fair, Ariel’s attitude is a pretty common one among people who escape LOVE. Most escapees from LOVE were born raised with the idea of “the deadly spores” being so deeply ingrained into them, that when they go through a similar incident, they don’t immediately think “the spores aren’t real”. Rather they become of the belief that they’re immune or that the spores affect people differently. This might sound inoffensive to an outsider, but the problem is that once these citizens start having these beliefs, they start doing things like questioning the monthly medicine treatments, which is a grave sin in the society of LOVE.

Ariel’s behavior started to cause so many problems that her family’s LOVE POINTS were getting to the point where getting evicted and forced into a regular residential tower was becoming a possibility. In desperation, her mothers brought in a psychiatrist to examine Ariel. This led to Ariel being formally diagnosed with “Hyperactive Narcissism” and being told that she would need to be treated at a mental health center. While your average citizen of LOVE may not know the truth of the mental health centers until they get sent there, they do still know it’s something to fear, if only because of the fact that people who go to mental health centers never come back.

Ariel was uncomfortable with the prospect, but she had no choice but to obey. The day she had to leave for the mental health center started normally enough. Her mothers helped dress her in her outdoor suit and some government officials came to lead her outside due to the suit blinding her sight. However, when she was led outside, she heard a sound that she thought was that of a car crash and the government officials ran off leaving her confused.

After waiting for according to her “what felt like forever (probably a few minutes or so in reality), Ariel decided to unzip the top part of her outdoors suit to see what was going on. What she saw was a mess of destroyed vehicles in the street with government officials freaking out. Not too far from that she saw some people crawling into what she didn’t know at the time was a manhole. Due to a mixture of not wanting to go to the mental health care facility and being confused by the chaos going on, Ariel decided to make a run for it and climb down the hole too.

It turns out that on the same day Ariel was meant to go to the mental health care center, the plans of a group from the territories known as LB (LOVE Bombers) were also going off to help someone completely unrelated leave. Although LOVE’s infrastructure is based off highly advanced technology, it still suffers from the fact that most power grids tend to be interconnected.

While the upper class areas of LOVE have backups to their power grids, this isn’t the case for most citizens. Thus, a pretty common tactic for escape assistance groups from the territories and dissidents from LOVE looking to escape is to find a way to hack into the main power grid and cause a power outage in all buildings and vehicles in the current vicinity for long enough that escape is possible. And so Ariel made her way into the sewers. While her appearance wasn’t expected, she was accepted by LB along with the guy who was their main target in helping escape. She then obediently followed them in the sewers for the next seven hours.

“…I didn’t really talk much the whole time, but my mind was racing. I-I mean, for the first time in my life I saw men right in front of me…”

Once they arrived at the LB headquarters, there were some issues that needed to be worked out. Not only was Ariel’s arrival unexpected, she’s also young without any parental guardians with her. Letting a girl like her live on her own in the lawless territories was something that no sane person in the group was going to allow. After a few days of deliberation, a couple involved with the group decided to take her in. That couple obviously being Brenton’s parents. An agreement was made for her to live with the family until adulthood and that’s who’s she’s been with for the past month and a half.

“…You know, I was so amazed by what I saw when I first arrived here. The forest, grass, flowers, bugs and animals…But I think those are the only things that I like about being outside of LOVE.”

After that final sentence, she plops herself down on the nearby tattered couch. I decide to follow along and sit down with her, and I continue the conversation.

“So, what don’t you like about being here?”

“Well, I don’t like my new family for one. My mom and dad are pretty annoying compared to my two mothers and Brenton’s a dweeb! I was excited about going to school at first because I wanted to know what it was like to be around other kids my age, but it turns out they’re all shitheads who hate me for no reason! I just wanna go back home but I know I can’t…”

She looks down for a few seconds before piping back up.

“That’s why I’m looking to get a boyfriend or at least a fuck buddy! That way I can move out from my new family and stop going to school! It’s tough though because a lot of the men around here don’t take me seriously because of my age. But I don’t wanna be with boys my age, they suck! …I was getting so close with Mr. Richards too…”

She gives me a frustrated glance before continuing.

“You know, I did consider you as a possible option for a boyfriend but you’re just too violent and I can’t risk becoming a victim of domestic violence…Well, I-I guess I still wouldn’t mind becoming friends with benefits with you…”

The next glance she gives me is shy yet flirty. I respond to her as honestly as I can.

“There is no way in hell that will ever happen.”

“O-Oh come on, you don’t need to be so harsh about it! Especially after you ruined my relationship with Mr. Richards!”

She really doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation she’s in, does she? I’m finding myself getting increasingly exasperated with her.

“I saved you from getting taken advantage of by an older man. I’m sorry you don’t like kids your age and your new family but pursuing older men like this is only going to end with you getting hurt even more.”

I get up off the couch, leave the abandoned house and start heading back to my apartment. Surprisingly, Ariel didn’t stalk me at all on the way back, I guess she decided to stay at the abandoned house. Whatever the case may be, I don’t care. I’m not interested in helping random teenage girls with their problems. Perhaps it’s morally wrong to think this, but I can’t help but wonder if it would’ve been better to let her get molested.

But then again, she’s not a regular kid, is she? I know from my time reading articles on pursuitspecial and reading forums on PSDS that there’s a bit of a recurring theme among people who were born and raised in LOVE. Kids aren’t allowed to be kids in LOVE. The government treats them like miniature adults the moment they’re out of diapers. Part of indoctrinating the children with the government’s propaganda involves having all the toys and children’s programming be about the same complicated philosophical/political topics that are taught in the education rooms (albeit, with the obvious bias towards LOVE’s own system).

Close bonds between children and their parents are also generally discouraged, to the point where once a citizen reaches a certain age (that varies from province to province), they’re required to move out of the personal room they grew up in and move into a new one. The government states that this is to encourage individual independence and prevent parents from treating their children like property, but the truth is that kids not being close to their parents makes it easier for them to see the government as their parents and thus much easier to indoctrinate. Come to think of it, the way she was talking, Ariel did seem to have a strong bond with her mothers despite growing up in such a culture, didn’t she? She really is an odd kid.

The rest of the evening and night went by without anything else of note happening. The next morning also went by without any issue. I decided to go make a visit to the abandoned house before work. To look over Marisa’s grave of course. When I arrive, I see the same ginger girl whose been bothering me for the past week come out the front door.

“Oh, you’re here!”

That’s right, it’s Saturday. Somehow despite our last interaction ending on a sour note, she still seems excited to see me. She’s also carrying around a piece of paper.

“…What’re you doing here?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I came to hang out.”

While talking, she hands me the piece of paper.

“I took what you said to me yesterday into consideration, and I think you do have a point. I grew up not knowing anything about men, and while I’ve been studying them as much as I could for the past year, I’ve only been living among them for a month and a half. If I’m to get a proper, loving boyfriend who treats me the way I deserve to be treated, then I need to get a better understanding of men. So, I wrote out some questions I have regarding men’s behavior, thoughts, physiology, and…their anatomy.”

She blushes a little while saying the final bit of her tangent. Looking at the paper, there are about fifty questions or so written down. Some of them are basic things that you’d expect a girl ignorant about men to be curious about, others are about overly specific things that few men have ever thought about in their entire lives. The fact that each question is highly detailed, and many use medical/scientific terminology that no one uses in daily life leaves me both disturbed and impressed by how much effort she’s put into researching men. After a few minutes of going over the questions in my mind, I figure I should give her something resembling a response.

“…Look, I know you weren’t around men for most of your life, but you can’t learn everything from just asking me random questions or reading stuff on the internet. If you want to understand the opposite sex, then you need to spend more time around them. But you also shouldn’t be wasting your time with random older men either.”

She eyes me suspiciously.

“…Are you telling me to hang out with the boys from school? Because I’m not doing that! On my first day in school, this asshole boy tricked me into going into the boy’s changing room after gym class! Ever since then, all the boys do is say really mean and gross shit to me and treat me like a slut!”

There are tears welling up in her eyes as she spits her words at me. It’s clear at this point there’s no way my message is going to get through to her. So I relent.

“…Fine, do what you want. I don’t have time to argue. I have to leave for work soon.”

She immediately flashes back to looking happy.

“Oh! I’ll come hang out with you there too!”

I give up. I can’t stop her from following me.

“We haven’t got any new releases since the last time you were there, you’d be bored.”

“…I don’t think I’ll be bored. Besides it’s better than going home. I really can’t go home right now.”

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

“Well, I got into an argument with Brenton because even though I’ve told him a million god damn times not too, he always hogs the living room TV even when it’s my turn to use it. So as revenge, I deleted the save data on one of his video games. He got really pissed, and I ran out of the house and came here.”

My brother would’ve murdered me if I did something like that to him as a kid.

“…Yeah, it’d be good for you two to make up.”

“Well, we can make up once Brenton apologies as I have nothing to apologize for!”

This is what my life’s become, huh? Being forced to become friends with a random bratty teenage girl. Still, for as annoying as she is, there is something oddly pitiful about her that makes me feel something resembling guilt about abandoning her. I guess I’m just that spineless.

Author’s Note: The last of the backlogged chapters of LOVE for now. Which means I need to get back into writing for real. There’s a lot that caused me to stop writing. Part of it was feeling like the group I was a part of wasn’t achieving any real progress, part of it was nerves because the next arc is going to be a bit different from the previous arcs (flashback arc, not from Gray’s POV), and part of it was distraction and general laziness. I can’t honestly give a good time frame of when I’ll be starting up on the next arc, but I hope I can at least get some more of this story out before the end of the year at the very least.

Friday has rolled around, and I still haven’t been able to think of a real plan. It’s currently 11 AM, so there’s still a few hours before any of the schools lets out for the day. It’s not too out there to think that Ariel’s not the rebellious type who plays hooky, right? After all, she told me straight up that she follows a curfew that her parents have set up for her. But then again, just how did she manage to meet that guy and get so close to him in just a week?

…I need to gather more information if I want to be able to do something. It would be best to try and figure out who that guy Ariel was with is, but I have no idea where to even start on getting that information. Back in the old world, governments would use things such as social security numbers in order to keep track of citizens, but that really isn’t the case anymore unless you live in LOVE, and even then, they can no longer keep track of you if you manage to escape.

I hate to say it, but I may want to try looking at one of those child molester vigilante websites. As much as those groups fail far more often than they succeed, there’s still a chance I could potentially find the information I need from them. What these websites do is create profiles of people they suspect to be child predators and dox them in the hopes of delivering justice. Not only do these websites suffer from the same problems that already plague general vigilante communities, but after these websites managed to garner something resembling successes, the smarter child predators began to put in more effort in disguising themselves and keeping their information online more private.

In short, if I’m to get any useful information from these websites, not only does the guy that’s hitting on Ariel need to be dumb enough to be public about his intentions, someone from the local area not only needs to be aware of it, but also needs to be the type of person who posts to these sorts of vigilante websites. Well, I did see him kissing her at the park, so I guess the “he’s dumb enough to be public about it” qualification can be safely checked off.

I decide to go to the most well known of the vigilante websites, pedowatch.xyz. It’s been around for longer than I’ve been alive and has gone through many controversies throughout its existence. The most notable of these controversies was “The Gunweeb War”. It started when members of pedowatch were basically accusing any and all otaku of being predators due to them enjoying “pedo shit”. This led to a lot of innocent people being harassed, if not outright assaulted and killed for no other reason than their hobbies. Eventually, members of the otaku community decided that enough was enough, proceeded to dox the members of Pedowatch, and after the first revenge killing of a particularly abrasive member, war was declared by both sides.

Now it’s not like the Pedowatchers weren’t armed themselves, but there are several reasons why this conflict isn’t referred to as “The Pedowatch War”. Although the war started off with both sides on equal footing and having an equal amount of supporters, it turns out the members of Pedowatch had underestimated the Gunweebs greatly and the Gunweebs were slowly, but steadily winning more battles. You see, “Gunweebs” also known as “Military otaku”, are a group of people who’d strongly embraced the anarchistic nature of the territories after the fall of the old world due to the fact that they could own and use any weapons they wanted whatsoever. Compare this to your average member of Pedowatch, who was more unlikely to be knowledgeable about warfare tactics nor even so much as own a gun.

Then there was the fact that due to the doxing, it was discovered that the admin of Pedowatch was a thirty year old woman in a relationship with a thirteen year old boy she had met via Pedowatch. This revelation caused Pedowatch to bleed followers and lose support in the war. Although she tried to go into hiding, the Gunweebs eventually sniffed her out and killed her, ending the war. After the war, Pedowatch got a new admin who erased all the current profiles on the website, made new rules that forbade minors from joining the website and required users to have better arguments for why a profile should be up beyond “they like anime porn”.

Despite those changes, the damage done to Pedowatch’s reputation from this conflict was catastrophic. To put it into perspective: This war occurred only a year before I was born, and even as an adult I can still easily find people online who refer to Pedowatch as “the group that gets mad about people jerking off to Bomba-chan as a way to cover up their own child molestation”. It doesn’t help that even with the current administration, there still have been cases every now and then of false accusations from the website ruining a person’s life. Still, it’s been a long time since the war and defenders of the current Pedowatch have started to make their voices heard. And I guess those defenders are why I decided to go with the website compared to all the other vigilante websites.

The website has a somewhat bland looking interface, which I guess makes sense given that the goal is to resemble sex offender registries of the old world. It would seem to be that despite the negative reputation it garnered after the war, Pedowatch has an active userbase (even if that userbase is only 5,000 people). A quick glimpse at the database shows that it has many entries and is still being updated as recent as the current hour. There’s also a forum on the website where users discuss database entries and if/how they should be edited, not too unlike something you’d see on a wiki.

Of course, I can’t just spend all day (or week, given by how many entries there are) looking up individual profiles if I’m to stop something bad from happening. Thankfully, the website has a rather versatile system to help locate profiles of people in your area. Although the concept of “states/provinces/governates/etc.” are no longer a thing in the territories, the old world concept of area codes still are and they’re incredibly useful for ordering stuff online. Turns out area codes are also useful for helping me get a listing of all suspected child predators on Pedowatch.

After typing in the area code to where I live, three profiles popped up. While I didn’t recognize the first two profiles, the third profile was immediately recognizable as the guy from the park. His name is Dick Richards and he’s an English teacher at the local middle school. I don’t recognize him from my time in school, but according to the profile he only started working there two years ago. The profile itself is recent, only having been made five months ago and with the top of the page having a box reading “All information on this profile is just rumors. If confirmed to be false, this profile will be deleted”.

The profile goes on to detail about how there are rumors from the families of young girls concerned that this new English teacher is doing unsavory things with their daughters. The main point of contention raised is how he sometimes takes “problem” female students (and only the female ones) out on “counseling sessions”, with claims of students referring to it as his “harem”. However, no one’s been able to get any concrete proof of him doing anything yet. I mean…I guess I got some concrete proof when I saw him kissing one of his students. But I’m pretty sure me logging in to make a post about it would just be seen as another rumor since I don’t have photographic evidence of the incident. At least I know who the guy is now.

The question now is what I should do with the information I have. Again, I can’t talk to Ariel, because I highly doubt she’s going to listen to me and I have no interest in becoming a member of Pedowatch and turning into a child predator vigilante. Maybe I could try warning her family? She and her brother do seem to be regulars at the store, so maybe I could talk to Mildred and have her say something to the brother. It could work…Unless Ariel’s brother hates her. That’s a possibility. Once the time for school to get out comes, I decide to head to the park. If nothing else, I’d like to prevent anything bad happening in the park.

When I arrive at the park, I can see a homeless woman passed out on one of the benches. I myself go ahead and take a seat on another bench far away from not only the woman, but also from general human sight. I didn’t bring anything with me, so outside of spacing out, staring at nature, and daydreaming, there’s not much for me to do. A shame that phones in the Territories don’t have the same fancy games and internet features on them like the phones in LOVE do. I could at least be doing something on my phone if that were the case. Since school’s out for the day, I can hear random kids walking by the park and chatting. Most of it goes through one ear and out the other, but a conversation between some girls catches my attention.

“…Hey, did you hear what happened with Ariel?”

“Oh god, what’d she do this time?”

“During gym class, she took Elizabeth’s clothes out of her locker and dumped them in a mud puddle outside!”

“What a freak, I always knew there was something wrong with her when she transferred here last month.”

“My sister knows her ‘brother’. You know he was an only child until last month. Wonder what happened to her real family?”

“…I bet she ran away to go suck dick. Why else did she go wander into the boy’s changing room on her first day here?”

“I share English class with her. She’s become a member of Mr. Richards’ harem. Guess even whores gotta start from somewhere.”

“You think she’s fucking her new ‘brother’?”

“Totally.”

The group of girls laugh loudly as they talk. There’s a lot to be taken from their conversation. That Ariel is adopted, doesn’t seem to be liked all that much by her peers, and the fact that middle school kids are just as awful today as they were when I was in middle school. Something tells me that it’s going to be a while before Ariel passes by the park, and even then, there’s still a chance she might not come around. At least not without that guy. Let’s see, when I saw them at the park before it was around 3:30 PM, and it’s currently 2:20 PM…So I still have about an hour to wait before considering giving up.

The more I learn about Ariel, the more I question the rabbit hole I’ve found myself crawling through. I thought she was just some random obnoxious kid at first, but the more I learn about her, the more I feel as if I’m stepping into a minefield by getting involved with this. But then again, it’s not like I’m really doing anything with my life, so fuck it. Why not spend time on helping out a girl who may end up killing me as a way of saying “thanks”. I probably won’t get anything out of it, but it’ll help stave off thoughts about being miserable.

It takes about a half hour or so before the sounds of students chatting and walking diminish. I see the homeless woman wake up not too long after. She seems dazed and is shaking, most likely suffering from some sort of drug withdrawal. She stands still for a few seconds before stumbling out of the park and leaving me all alone. While checking the time on my phone, I finally hear familiar voices.

“…I heard you caused a commotion in gym class today, what’s that about?”

It’s him.

“Well, there’s this girl Elizabeth, who’s a total cunt! She put itching powder in my uniform, so I returned the favor by throwing her clothes into the mud!”

And of course, she’s also there.

“You shouldn’t swear so much Ariel, men don’t like that.”

“R-Right, sorry.”

I keep my focus on my phone, making sure to not turn around to the voices. Confronting the two of them when they’re just talking is a bad idea, and I can’t risk having Ariel recognize me. I need to wait until things get really bad before I step in.

“Well, it’s not like the teachers can do anything about it, but that girl may try getting back at you, so watch out.”

Depends on the school and territory really, but yes, the school staff around here really don’t give a shit about interpersonal drama between students unless said drama leads to a student trying to murder others at school. The only real “punishment” I recall ever occurring during my time in school is that teachers would kick you out of class if you were being too noisy. This really wasn’t much of a punishment though and many students would purposefully get loud in class just so they could play hooky or skip a period they didn’t like. I myself purposefully got kicked out of class once because I really needed to pee, and I had a teacher who was strict about bathroom breaks.

“Everybody at this whole damn school has been against me since my first day when they tricked me into going into the boy’s changing room!”

Listening to this conversation is making me uncomfortable, but I know that I can’t just leave either.

“Listen, Ariel. You’re a beautiful and smart young lady. The other kids know that and are jealous. You can’t let them get to you. Come here…”

Silence overcomes the park. Even though I’m still not looking their way, I have the strong feeling that they’re kissing again. After a minute of silence, I can hear more talking. However, their voices are so low I can’t make out what they’re saying. After a minute or so, I can hear footsteps walking…into the forest. I think now would be a good time to get up and do something.

I get up from the bench and walk towards the trees by the park while making sure to stay as quiet as possible. It would seem to be that they didn’t go too far out into the forest, because their voices are audible as soon as I approach the trees.

“…It’s okay just lie down on the grass.”

Has this seduction of Ariel been going on since she started school here, or just this week? Either way, this guy’s disturbingly good at seducing young girls.

“A-Are we really doing it here? We don’t have any birth control, what if I get pregnant?”

“It’s okay, they sell abortion pills at the pharmacy.”

He responds to her concerns nonchalantly, as if this isn’t the first time he’s had this conversation. There’s a silence before he talks again.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of if you’re nervous. A girl’s first time is always difficult. How about we get you relaxed?”

This is followed by the sound of ruffling clothes. I can’t tell who’s getting undressed, but I have the strong feeling that I should start getting ready to intervene. I look around for something I could use as an improvised weapon. There are small rocks scattered all over, with a particularly large one a few inches away. I decide to go ahead and try to pick up the larger rock. The conversation between Ariel and the teacher continues.

“Umm…I-I think I just don’t want to do it here. I want my first time to happen somewhere more romantic.”

“Nonsense. It doesn’t matter where you make love, it’s always romantic by the nature of the act.”

It takes some difficulty, but I manage to pick up the large rock and carry it in both arms.

“…If you’re too nervous about sex, we can just do something lighter for now. How about giving me a blowjob?”

I quickly mentally prepare myself. Then I force myself through the trees and pop out on the other side, seeing Ariel and the shirtless teacher together. I have no time to pause, so I throw the rock in my arms at the teacher, which managed to land on his left foot.

“Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

He falls down to the ground to hold his foot. Ariel looks at me confused. I walk up to her and offer my hand.

“Let’s get out of here.”

She nervously takes my head and we run out of the forest and park. After a few minutes of running, I decide to stop simply because I can already tell that this is too much physical exertion for me today. Ariel’s still holding onto my hand.

“…Let’s go to that abandoned house. And you don’t need to hold my hand anymore.”

She timidly lets go of my hand. While we walk to the house, I can feel her grabbing onto my jacket. I decide to not say anything about it, even though I know it’ll look weird to strangers who come across us. The walk to the abandoned house is done in complete silence, with neither of us saying anything to each other. Once we get there, the both of us sit on top of Marisa’s grave and the silence continues for a few more minutes while Ariel still keeps clinging to me until she finally breaks the silence.

“…I knew that was you at the park.”

Author’s Note: Just one more chapter before this arc is done. Something I’m hoping to achieve with this series is to be able to discuss serious subject manner without coming off as preachy or miserable. Am I succeeding in that? Who knows?

It would seem to be that Mildred was right about Ariel. The next few days have been far more peaceful for me. An annoying brat she may be, she’s still a kid with kid responsibilities to attend to. I still have no idea why the hell she latched onto me so hard, but I guess if she’s not bothering me anymore, then it doesn’t really matter if I don’t know. Kind of like when my computer acts up for no reason and becomes fine again after restarting it. I decided to tell the story of my sordid weekend to Blanche during her daily morning visit. I didn’t explain every little detail, but enough for her to get the general gist of it.

“…Well now…”

She seems lost in thought, trying to find something to say, but nothing’s coming out.

“I thought maybe you’d find the girl relatable. She seems to be as pushy as you were.”

I said that in jest, but Blanche is annoyed with me.

“I could’ve sworn we made up, but if you’re still bothered by me helping you, so be it.…Speaking of which, how have you been doing on food?”

I’m confused.

“…What do you mean? I’ve been eating the food you’ve been giving me.”

She sighs, seemingly frustrated with me.

“…Please tell me you’re not just eating the meals I make for you and nothing else.”

“Not every day, but some days, yeah…What, is that a problem?”

I didn’t need to ask that question because I already know the answer, but it’s too late to take it back.

“The whole point of me coming over has been to help you improve your eating habits! Haven’t you felt the need to eat more ever since we started doing this?”

Geez, she’s really riding my ass on this.

“I’ve been eating the food you’ve been making me, isn’t that enough?”

Blanche takes a deep breath before answering me again.

“…No, that’s not enough. While it’s good that you’re at least eating enough to not be starving yourself, my food isn’t enough to get you all the calories you need in one day. I was hoping that by cooking for you, you’d feel the desire to eat more in general, or make your own food.”

…It might’ve been a mistake to accept Blanche’s help.

“Like I keep telling you, I don’t get hungry often and even if I did, I wouldn’t eat much more than snacks and microwave meals.”

“You can’t cook?”

“I can cook, I just find it to be a pain in the ass.”

The look that Blanche is giving me is hard to decipher. She looks exasperated but with all sense of anger or annoyance completely drained from her face.

“…How long have you been living alone Gray?”

“Three years.”

She gives me a look of disbelief.

“Really?”

She’s getting on my nerves. I decide to stay silent while she continues on.

“…I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be rude, but I’m just baffled at how you haven’t already died yet.”

It’s at this point that I decide to speak up.

“Okay, you’re being overly dramatic. I can take care of myself just fine. Sure, I’m not great at cooking, but I’ve managed to survive just fine before you forced your way into my life.”

There’s a pause between the two of us. To think we’d been getting along so well for the past few weeks. After a few moments, Blanche speaks again.

“Look Gray, can you at least promise me that you’ll eat more than what I give you every day?”

Given how I got roped into this whole “getting food from her thing”, I really have no choice but to promise her.

“…Fine, alright. I’ll do it.”

And thus, I was able to avoid any further confrontation and the rest of our meeting went fine. After which, I go to put away the food she gave me in the refrigerator and…outside of some water bottles, it’s empty. In short, I’m going to have to visit the grocery store today in order to keep my promise. What a pain.

The local grocery store is pretty well stocked for a store in a territory. The PearlCoin Organization has strong connections with nearby farms and not so nearby factories. Along with local businesses, they’ve even managed to get a decent trade deal going with nearby states of HOME. Although HOME hates modern technology, they also understand the threat they’re under if LOVE ever decides to invade them, and thus it’s pretty common for state governments of HOME to trade goods with cryptocurrency groups in exchange for protection.

Speaking of LOVE, I’ve heard rumors that some high-ranking PearlCoin members are involved with an underground black market that deals with smuggling food from the more elite residential towers of LOVE. Honestly, I believe it if only because despite this territory being nowhere near any ocean of any kind, I’ve seen the likes of lobster and scallops occasionally being sold here. Of course, regardless of how likely true these rumors might be, the PearlCoin Organization can never confess that they’re true due to the inevitable shitstorm it’d cause.

I don’t know what to buy. See, this is my problem with cooking, I never know what the hell I want to cook. I think of random foods that might sound good independently but would be terrible put together. After some deliberation I decided to buy some pasta, spinach, and butter. That’ll make for a good dinner, right? I guess I should also buy some blueberry packets for snacking as well. I purchased all my items with little issue and left the store. While walking back home, I found myself walking by the park before stopping due to seeing someone familiar.

“…So, there was this barrel, right? This stupid goddamn barrel that I couldn’t get past at all no matter how hard I jumped! After spending hours on it, my brother came in and was all ‘See, what you gotta do is just go up and down on the control stick without jumping, that’s it’ and I was just like ‘What!?’, and then he showed me. And seeing how the game did nothing but lie to me about how to beat the fucking level, I threw the controller against the wall…I thought my brother would understand my pain, but he got mad, told on me to mom and dad, and now I have to buy him a new controller.”

It’s none other than Ariel, having an animated conversation with an unfamiliar man on one of the park benches. Is this a joke? What is with her and wanting to hang out with random adult men? The guy sitting by her looks to be in his 30s, with messy chin length hair and scruffy chin stubble on his face. He doesn’t seem to care too much about what she’s talking about but is doing a good enough job at feigning interest that she’s not noticing. She does seem to take notice of him not saying anything though.

“…Umm, you can talk too if you want. It feels kind of weird doing all the talking myself.”

The way she’s blushing and rocking her legs back and forth while talking makes it abundantly clear that Ariel has a thing for this guy. And judging by how the guy’s response is to put his arm on her shoulder tells me that he has a thing for her too. He leans his face in and speaks gently.

“…It’s fine. I’m just a quiet guy in general.”

Ariel responds to him by resting her head on his chest. What’s going on here clearly isn’t good. Anybody who isn’t a kid can tell that this guy is bad news. But what the hell can I do? “Law enforcement” isn’t a thing around here, and I don’t have the physical strength to risk interference. I have no real choice but to walk back home while feeling sick to my stomach.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Ariel for the rest of the day, not even while I was at work. I don’t know what makes that damn kid so adverse to hanging out with others her age. Honestly, there’s a part of me that feels as if I should just let her go get molested so that she’ll actually learn a lesson for once in her life. But you know, I would in fact be betraying myself a bit if I did that. I’ve never been molested for the record, but I did have a close call.

It happened when I was 12. This was when I was just starting to question the behavior of my parents. I got into an argument with my parents about plasma donation. Usually, there’s no real need to donate organs, blood, or anything like that in the Territories. The clinic usually has plenty of that stuff available from the various people who’ve been murdered by members of the PearlCoin Organization. But either this was a more peaceful time for PearlCoin goons, or more likely, the murder victims as of late just didn’t have good enough blood to be used for plasma donation. So, the clinic at this time was running a special donation campaign where they’d give you money for donating plasma.

My brother took notice of this campaign and decided to start donating for extra money. Due to his muscular body, he could donate more plasma than the average person (and thus make even more money). Even though he was only doing it for financial gain, classmates at school and neighbors started to see him as a good guy for doing it. My parents especially approved of how his actions made them look good. It didn’t matter that he was still his same violent and abrasive self, he donated plasma, so therefore was a good person.

My parents started to donate plasma themselves and then proceeded to pressure my sister and I into donating plasma as well and we were both uncomfortable with it. For my sister, it was due to the fact that she had a weak constitution and was concerned about the effects donating plasma could have on her. For me, I just didn’t want to do it. While to normal people that is an acceptable line of reasoning, to LOVERS and Outside LOVERS, it is not. Much like how not following the laws of LOVE results in the loss of livelihood for someone, going against the desires and requests of an Outside LOVER means they will do whatever they can to force you too.

So, my parents started to guilt trip and punish me and my sister for going against their wishes. You’d think that I’d end up bonding with my sister over this, but that didn’t happen. She told me that unlike her, I had no legitimate reason to reject donating plasma, I was just being selfish, and that it was my fault that mom and dad were going after the both of us. Indeed, she had managed to convince our parents to completely side against me. This led to a massive argument the day it was time for me to go donate, which led to me running away from my family.

I remember first going to a couple of friends’ houses, and while they were sympathetic, they also couldn’t let me stay over. Mostly due to the fact I’d have to get permission from their parents, and I knew it was far more likely they’d just call my parents and have me sent back home anyways. After that failed plan, I decided to just go hide out in the park for a bit. There were a lot of homeless people there that day and I hung out with them in order to stave off boredom. I didn’t really talk much though, mostly because I didn’t understand the severe mental psychosis and drug addictions that the people there all struggled with.

However, one of the homeless people did take an interest in me. He was the kind of homeless person that you could tell had been living that way for decades just by looking at him. His hair and beard were a disgusting greasy mess of tangles, his teeth were either black or missing, and he had a vile stench that I can only really describe as “every bodily fluid covered in rotten cheese and then dunked in alcohol”. As much as I didn’t like being around this guy, he would always make an effort to sit as close to me as possible. I wanted to push him away, I also felt like I had no choice but to put up with it.

I tried to get away from him by going to hide in the restroom, but I forgot that trick only works if you and your pursuer are of the opposite sex. Honestly though, I have a strong feeling the creep would’ve still followed me to the restroom even if I was a girl. He followed me inside the restroom and when I tried to get away from him, that’s when he grabbed me and attempted to force me into a stall. Luckily for me, not only was there someone else in the restroom, that person also really hated the nasty man and started a physical altercation with him that ended with the attempted molester stabbed and bleeding on the restroom floor. Watching this event and then seeing the man who saved me immediately go snort a line of cocaine at the sinks made me realize that being homeless was way too much for me and I decided to bite the bullet and head back home.

It turns out while I was gone and my family was in the midst of donating, my mother suffered from something called “reflex syncope”. Which is basically a fancy medical term for “getting sick and passing out from blood loss”, and it can sometimes happen during blood/plasma donation. This incident basically killed all interest my parents had in having the family donate plasma, and even if it didn’t, the next day the clinic ended the campaign due to now having the amount of plasma they needed. I remember sometime later on reading up about plasma donation in the old world, and it turns out what my folks tried to do would’ve been illegal since you had to be at least 17 to donate plasma then. Well, I guess that means that my brother donating his plasma would’ve been illegal too given that he was 16 at the time.

I’ve never told anyone about the attempted molestation, mostly because…well, it was just an attempt. It’s not like I was actually molested, you know? It’s not like I stay up at night crying to myself about the incident, and even trying to equate that incident with an actual molestation just feels insulting to real victims of child molestation. It’s just an unpleasant experience I had that taught me that I should avoid becoming homeless as much as possible. Of course, it’s not as if child molestation is exclusive to the homeless, given the guy who’s clearly grooming Ariel.

“…Is your stomach bothering you, or is something on your mind?”

Mildred approaches the front desk of the store and talks to me. I guess I was making a weird face while thinking about all this stuff. It’d probably be a good idea to at least mention my concerns with her.

“You know that annoying girl from Sunday who was following me around? I saw her at the park getting close to an older man.”

Mildred grimaces a bit when I respond to her.

“…That’s…really concerning. I guess you want to help her?”

“You really think I wanna help that brat? She’s just forced her way into my life so now I have to care about her possibly getting molested because she’s an idiot who likes to flirt with older men.”

Mildred sighs and stares at me with an irritated look on her face.

“…I get it, it’s not like you want to help her or anything like that, but this is still clearly bothering you for some unknown reason. I will say that you have Friday and Saturday off, so if you want to talk to her, those would be good days to do so.”

Her sarcastic tone is getting on my nerves, but I don’t bother starting anything with her about it and the shift continues normally. When I get home after work, I’m left feeling confused as to how the hell I can properly address this problem. I’m not physically strong at all, so trying to confront the guy would end badly for me. I could try talking to Ariel about it…but let’s be real, she’d most likely reject my advice. And honestly, I can kind of see her point of view. If I had been in a similar situation when I was fourteen, I’d also reject the advice of any adult telling me it was a bad idea.

Also, where the hell would I even find her again? I know I saw her together with the man at the park, but does that really mean they hang out there often? I could track her at the local schools, but there’s no way in hell that I, a grown ass man, can just hang around a school without getting labeled as the creep instead. She did mention in her conversation that she needed to buy her brother a new controller, but we don’t really sell game controllers at the store. If Mildred comes upon a retro game console that happens to have controllers with it, that’s one thing, but we don’t sell game controllers on their own, which would be what she’s looking for. She’s most likely just going to order one online.

Well, she did come across me while I was at Marisa’s grave, right? But I doubt that left any real impact on her memory, it’s not like I told her why I was there. She most likely just registered the place as a random abandoned house I was hanging out at and nothing more. I did show her the secret forest pathway from when I was a kid…which is a pretty secluded place…but she and the guy were out in public in the park, so it’s not like she cares that much about privacy. My mind keeps swirling with thoughts of various places I could potentially locate Ariel at, but the most I’m able to come up with by the time I go to bed is “I guess I’ll just loiter around the park until I can do something”.

Author’s Note: I apologize for the delay in posting this chapter, I’m having some issues in real life. I also wonder if SEGA fans will appreciate or cringe at the reference I made to the infamous Barrel of Doom.

After the ridiculous crap I went through yesterday, I’d like it if I could spend all day today inside my apartment. Unfortunately, I have work today, so that can’t happen. But I can at least spend most of the day inside. I’ve been in kind of a porno mood, so I decided to watch more of those this morning. The first one I watched was a real stand out, Phimosis Jones. It was a half-animated, half-live action story about a sperm cell trying to find a way to defeat a nasty STD contracted by the incredibly promiscuous man he resides in. The reception is a bit mixed, with some not liking it for its gross out humor involving STDS, but eh, I loved it personally. The script was witty, the animation was impressively done for something so low budget, and I felt invested in what is admittedly a rather shallow story.

Outside of that masterpiece, I also watched a film about Satan possessing the bodies of various students and teachers at a Catholic school. The concept was neat, but the orgy scenes went on for too long. The last eroticism centered film I put on before getting bored featured a black guy with a small penis and an Asian guy with a big penis. It was supposed to be a “comedy”, but since it was just the same “joke” over and over again, I turned it off about 40 minutes in. I then headed to my room and played a random restaurant business simulator game on my computer before it was time for me to go to work. When I reached the halfway point on my route to Mildred’s store, I started to hear footsteps behind me. Looking behind me, I can see that once again, an annoying ginger kid is stalking me.

“What the hell are you doing?”

I ask her a simple question.

“Following you.”

Her response is just as simple.

“…And why are you doing that? I’m pretty sure I made my desire to not be around you abundantly clear yesterday.”

She gives me a bitter grin and points towards me.

“…Cause I’m not gonna let you win, that’s why! I’m gonna get back at you for what you did to me yesterday!”

You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me. This girl is the human personification of burs. I guess I have to put up with her once again.

“All I did was figure out a way to get away from you after you handcuffed me because I didn’t want you following me around. In the old world, I could easily get you arrested for multiple crimes.”

“I only did that because you didn’t want me to hang out with you!”

“Yeah, that’s life. There’s going to be people who don’t want to hang out with you. Rational human beings understand that and don’t try to force companionship on those who don’t want it. Look, I don’t have time for this nonsense, I have to get to work.”

I continue to walk to work, with the knowledge that Ariel is right behind me. I wonder, has she been looking for me all day? It’s not like she knows my work schedule or where I live. She may have all the qualities of an insane stalker, but surely this has to be coincidence, right? I refuse to get paranoid about a girl as small as her. If anything, she’s probably the type who craves attention and the best course of action would be to ignore her from this point on. I can see Mildred’s motorbike parked out front, meaning I’m having my shift with her today. Perhaps she can help me out with my stalker problem.

Walking into the store, I see that Liam is also on shift. He looks at me with a mildly disgusted look on his face, I can’t tell if it’s because he’s still mad about the prank I pulled a few nights ago, he’s getting the wrong idea from seeing a young girl trailing me, or both. Mildred walks up to greet me. There’s something about her that seems “off”, but I can’t tell what specifically.

“Well, hey there Gray! I wasn’t aware you had a daughter!”

She speaks in a joking manner. At the very least, Mildred knows me well enough to not immediately assume ill intent about the situation.

“Nice joke, but no, she’s not my daughter. Just a random pipsqueak stalker who tried to hold me hostage yesterday.”

I suppose I could also count the bit where she tried to goad me into groping her chest as sexual harassment, but seeing as she didn’t push it, I won’t mention it.

“I wasn’t holding you hostage!”

The pipsqueak stalker pipes up.

“Well, you had me forcefully handcuffed to you, what else would you call that?”

She starts stamping her feet and getting more heated.

“I just wanted to hang out with you. Yes, you were handcuffed, but I let you lead the way and go wherever you wanted to go! I even unlocked the cuffs when you lied about having to go to the bathroom!”

“Fine, I’ll concede that you didn’t hold me hostage. But you’re still a stalker. Look Mildred, can you help me? I’ve had to deal with this brat since yesterday and I don’t know what’s wrong with her.”

Mildred examines the young girl and puts her hand to her chin, assessing the situation. After what feels like a minute or so, she turns to me.

“Well, there’s not a whole lot I can do. True, the whole ‘following you around’ thing is concerning, but I don’t kick people out of the store unless they’re actively causing trouble. Given that she has school tomorrow, it’s doubtful she’s going to stay here the whole shift anyways. She’ll probably forget about you by the end of the week.”

That’s not very reassuring.

“So, you’re telling me I gotta deal with it.”


“Sure, but only for a little while longer. If it turns out I’m wrong and she’s still following you around after today, I’ll start figuring something out.”

She smiles at me, but something is also “off” about that smile. Ariel starts exploring the store and I go to start my shift. Nothing too interesting happens for the first hour or so. Some people come in, but their purchases aren’t anything interesting. Surprisingly enough, Ariel isn’t being too much of a pain in the ass to anyone and has just been minding her own business. I can even see her talking to Mildred.

“…So, you go around collecting this stuff?”

I guess she’s curious about the store.

“Yes somedays. I have a place for storage where I keep my findings. I also like to upload digital copies of rarer items I find online and occasionally visit a guy who helps out with bypassing old copyright restrictions in some products. Some older video games really suffer from this.”

Mildred’s dusting off some shelves as she talks with the young girl.

“How come you started all this?”

The question makes Mildred think for a little before answering.

“…Well, it’s not like it was a lifelong dream of mine or anything like that. I just had a fascination with old media and decided I wanted to profit from it.”

She goes back to dusting and more people come into the store for me to attend to. A few more hours pass, and the sun starts to set. Ariel stomps up to me and slams her hands on the counter.

“Listen up! …I have to go home now, ‘cause it’s getting near the curfew that my parents have set for me. But don’t think this is the last you’ve seen of me! I’ll see you again…Your name’s Gray, right? Yeah, that’s what she called you…Anyway, I’ll see you again Gray!”

She marches out of the store with conviction. You know, for as much of a hassle she was yesterday, Ariel ended up being pretty tolerable today. I guess because there were other people around.

 A few more hours later, after the sun has set and there are significantly fewer customers coming in, I see Mildred take Liam into the backroom. I guess she has inventory management she wants him to help her out with. A few minutes later, only Mildred comes back with a box and heads towards me.

“Hey Gray, you mind helping me sort out these CDs?”

She’s back to seeming “off” again. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s like she’s been badly suppressing the urge to give me “the look” for whatever reason. Which is weird, she’s really not one to hide things when she’s upset with me.

“Uh, sure. Alright.”

I have a bad feeling about this, but I obviously can’t reject a request from my boss either, so I follow her to the CD section of the store. There doesn’t seem to be any real theme in this box, but judging by some of the rather odd album covers and names such as “StomaCunt” and “The Shivs”, I assume that this is a collection of various obscure indie alternative bands from back in the day. After a few minutes of putting CDs on shelves, Mildred leaves me.

“I’ll be right back.”

She walks back to the backroom, and I continue to focus on my current task at hand. The only sound that can be heard in the store is the soft jazz music playing from the vinyl player near the front. It’s not uncommon for the store’s atmosphere to be like this during later hours…well, the music is different depending on whatever Mildred threw in. I can’t tell if she has a system for it, or if it’s completely random. It might just be a mix of both. All I know is that I once had to work a shift where the majority of the time crunkcore was being played, and I honestly believe that shift gave me a taste of what being in Hell is like.

I hear the door to the backroom open up again after a few minutes. I guess Mildred got whatever she needed from there. I keep focusing on putting the CDs on the shelf without shifting my attention to anywhere else. While doing so, my hand touches something soft. Looking at it I see…a tarantula.

“Fuck!!”

I instinctively drop the CDs in my hand, jump back, and hit my back on another shelf, causing some merchandise to fall off. The shelf I jumped away from also has some merchandise falling off…including the tarantula…which bounced on the ground for a bit.

“…”

I crouch down by the “tarantula” and while grimacing, reach my hand out to it…it’s a plush stuffed toy. I hear Mildred’s voice to the left side of me soon enough.

“Well now, doesn’t feel so good to be picked on, doesn’t it?”

Looking to my left, I see Mildred and Liam approaching me. Liam is as blank faced as usual, but Mildred has “the look”. I knew she was acting weirder than usual. My heart’s still beating a mile a minute, but I at least have enough composure to hold a conversation.

“…What are you talking about?”

“The look” is no longer on her face and Mildred’s displeasure is now much more obvious. She makes her way towards me and picks up the toy.

“Liam told me what you did to him a few nights ago. I thought this was already obvious to you, but I’m trying to run this store in such a way that all my employees get along easily and trust each other when need be. Actions like that prank of yours do not help with that whatsoever.”

I see. This whole thing with the fake tarantula was just some dumb retribution for the prank I did. Despite that, Mildred doesn’t seem satisfied. I get up from the floor and respond to her.

“I don’t know why you’re so mad, it was just a dumb prank. Yeah, it’s not the most professional thing to do on shift, but no one else was around and it’s not like you’re one for professionalism.”

I might’ve gotten too mouthy because she’s even more mad at me now.

“It’s important to understand what may be appropriate for one person, isn’t necessarily appropriate for another one. Liam’s sensitive you know!”

“…I didn’t know that. Maybe I could’ve known that if he actually talked more.”

“So, he’s a little on the quiet side, so what!? If he doesn’t want to talk much, then he doesn’t have too!”

There’s more I want to say, but honestly there’s really no way to make myself look like the good guy here. I played a prank on a co-worker whose evidently on the softer side of things. If Liam had a different personality, he most likely wouldn’t give a shit and this situation wouldn’t be happening right now. It would be best for me to relent.

“…Alright, I’m sorry. I went too far. I won’t do it again.”

I speak in the sincerest tone of voice I can muster. I still have my personal misgivings on the matter, but I’m already on thin ice, so it’d be best to not push things further.

“Sigh…It’s good of you to apologize Gray, but this is concerning. I need everyone working here to get along, I can’t have a calming atmosphere in the store if my employees are having problems with each other.”

I’ve noticed that Liam hasn’t said a single word during this entire discussion. I suppose that’s just Liam being Liam, but it’s more annoying than usual given the current circumstance. The fact that he still has the same emotionless expression on his face is driving me nuts. You’d think he’d show some signs of giving a shit considering this conversation is all about him. I decide to try and bring him into the conversation.

“Hey, Liam. Do you accept my apology? It’s fine if you don’t.”

He’s startled by me calling out to him. I don’t get it, did he really think no one was going to talk to him during this entire conversation all about him? He ends up stammering a bit before replying back to me.

“Uh…Um…Y-Yeah, sure…Just don’t do it again.”

With that, Mildred was able to calm down and the rest of the shift went on as normal. I guess it’s good that things ended nicely, but how did Mildred learn about my…”thing” with spiders? I’ve put in as much effort as possible to make sure no one ever learned of that. Given that Mildred’s not the kind of person who picks up on subtle hints, there must’ve been a time when I fucked up and she noticed. I want to ask her, but thinking about my spider problem does nothing but fill me with shame. While she’s locking up the store I figure it’s as good of a time as any to ask her.

“Hey uh…How, how did you know that I…don’t like spiders?”

Her response to that question is to look at me as if I’m joking around.

“…That was something you were hiding? I’ll never forget the first shift you worked here, and you had trouble dusting the backroom due to a spider’s web that was there. Honestly, that’s why I never have you dust there, because I know how stressful it can be for you…Hey, are you alright?”

“…I-I’m fine.”

I’m not fine. At all.

Author’s Note: I’d apologize for the long time between the release of this chapter and the last one but…Do I even have anyone who likes my actual writing outside of my AI bots? I’m not sure. But anyways, this is another chapter with not a whole lot to talk about. I do hope that I’m developing the characters in a way that works for people.