Chapter 9
The club activity building at Toyonoki Academy was always the liveliest place after school.
The sounds of the music club's rehearsal drifted down from the third floor. The shouts of the sports clubs echoed from the playground. The literature and art clubs were scattered across various floors, each creating that unique tension of creativity in silence. Eriri stood outside the door of "Club Activity Room 307," her school bag in hand, and took a deep breath.
She really didn't want to be here.
Tomoya Aki's "greatest galgame project in history"—just hearing the name made her want to hold her head in her hands. With her understanding of that hot-headed fool, this was probably just another three-minute whim. The proposal was likely filled with grandiose words like "destiny," "soul," and "industry-changing," but the actual content would be so empty that a horse could race through it.
But… she had still come.
Because it was the right thing to do. Because she owed him too much. Because even if the odds were one in ten thousand, she wanted to see what kind of "destiny" her childhood friend—who could always turn ordinary daily life into an adventure—had found this time.
"I'll just take a look and leave," Eriri quietly hyped herself up, then reached out and opened the door.
Half of her good mood instantly evaporated.
There was already someone in the club room.
By the window, a girl with long black hair sat leaning back in her chair. Her slender legs were crossed, wrapped in black stockings that gleamed softly in the afternoon sun. In her hand, she held a hardcover book with an English title on the cover. A pen rested between her fingers, scribbling something in the margin. When she heard the door open, she looked up—crimson eyes, with a lazy yet sharp light hidden behind long eyelashes.
Utaha Kasumigaoka.
Another great beauty of Toyonoki Academy—the top literary girl of her year, a light novel writer under the pen name "Utaha Kasumigaoka," and, according to Eriri's personal ranking system, the most hateful woman alive.
"Oh my," Utaha Kasumigaoka's lips curled into a smile. "If it isn't Sawamura-san. What a rare guest. Aren't you busy maintaining your 'perfect lady' image today?"
Eriri's expression immediately shifted into battle mode. She straightened her back, her golden twin tails swaying gently with the movement, and a familiar fire ignited in her blue eyes.
"I should be asking you that, you gloomy girl," she deliberately replied in a mocking tone. "Why don't you stay in your literature club? Why come to a commoner's room like ours? Could it be that you can't write your manuscript and want to find inspiration elsewhere?"
"Finding inspiration is not the issue," Utaha closed her book and slowly tucked her pen back into her breast pocket—a movement that made Eriri's eyes involuntarily drop to the other girl's chest before quickly looking away, her cheeks flushing slightly. "It's just quieter here. Better for thinking. But Sawamura-san, you actually showing up at the club room… did a certain boy ask you to come?"
"None of your business!" Eriri exploded, slamming her school bag down on the table across from her. "I have business here! You're the one sitting here taking up space. What if someone wants to have a meeting later?"
"A meeting?" Utaha raised an eyebrow, a knowing glint in her crimson eyes. "Ah… you mean Aki's 'project.' He cornered me in the hallway yesterday too, going on about 'when you meet the voice of destiny, you must gather the strongest creators to make a work that will change the industry'… It's quite cringeworthy, really."
Eriri choked on her words. Tomoya had gone to find even Utaha? How many people did he want to drag into this?
"So… did you agree?" She couldn't help but ask, her voice carrying a nervousness she didn't even notice herself.
"As if," Utaha scoffed, reopening her book. "Do I look like the type of person who would play house making galgames with high school boys?" She paused, looked up at Eriri, and her eyes became slightly more teasing. "But… if it were Sawamura-san, I might consider it. After all, you've always been so responsive to that otaku, haven't you?"
"W-Who's responsive?!" Eriri's face turned completely red. "I just… just because we've known each other for years, I help him out sometimes! And I'm not agreeing so easily this time! If his plan is unreliable, I'll turn around and leave!"
"Is that so?" Utaha smiled skeptically, then lowered her head and continued reading.
A brief silence fell over the club room. The afternoon sun streamed through the window, and dust motes drifted slowly in the column of light. Eriri sat down in a huff and pulled out her sketchbook and pencil from her school bag—since she had to wait, she might as well draw something. She opened the book, and the tip of her pencil raced across the paper, tracing the outline of a girl's profile.
But her attention kept drifting.
In her peripheral vision, Utaha occasionally stopped writing, raised her left hand to massage her right shoulder, and frowned slightly. The movement was very subtle, but Eriri noticed it—after all, even though they didn't like each other, they often ended up alone in the club room together, and she had learned a few of the other girl's habits.
"Your shoulder hurting again?" Eriri couldn't help speaking, her tone still harsh. "I told you, drinking so much milk is a burden. Sitting and writing all day—it would be weird if your spine and shoulders were healthy."
Utaha's hand stopped in mid-air. She looked up, her crimson eyes narrowing, a dangerous smile forming on her lips.
"I'm sorry, Sawamura-san," she said slowly, each word like a knife wrapped in sugar. "For those of us who are 'normally developed,' we do tend to have such 'sweet problems.' Someone as flat as you will probably never experience this kind of pain in your entire life."
"Who are you calling flat?!" Eriri shot up, nearly snapping her pencil in half. "I have a standard figure! Healthy! Well-proportioned! And I'm only sixteen—I'm still growing!"
"Oh, still growing?" Utaha pretended to be surprised, covering her mouth. "But I remember Sawamura being that size since middle school. Three years have passed, and nothing seems to have changed."
"You—!"
Eriri was about to explode when she suddenly felt someone lightly tap her on the shoulder.
She froze and turned her head.
Genji had appeared at some point, standing beside her. He was still in his indigo hunting robes, which looked especially stark in the modern club room, but his face wore an expression of "I'm thoroughly enjoying this show."
"Stop arguing," he said in a voice that only Eriri could hear, then pointed toward Utaha. "Look over there."
Eriri followed his finger and looked.
At first, she saw nothing. Utaha was just the same Utaha—black hair, black stockings, crimson eyes, looking at her with that "I just love how you can't stand me but can't do anything about it" expression.
But in the next second, Eriri's vision suddenly changed.
It was as if someone had added a filter in front of her eyes—or rather, as if a gauze veil had been lifted. The club room was still the same club room. The sun was still the same sun. But on Utaha's right shoulder, there was something else.
What… what is that?
Eriri couldn't find the right word to describe it. It was about the size of a palm, with a translucent body that looked like white mist stuck together with low-quality glue. It had no clear facial features, but she could vaguely make out two sunken eye sockets and a mouth that kept opening and closing. Its "hands"—if they could be called hands—were clinging to Utaha's shoulder, its thin "fingers" almost digging into the fabric of her shirt.
The strangest thing was that tiny words kept appearing on the surface of this creature's body. Eriri squinted and could barely make out some fragments:
"I'm going to miss my deadline…"
"My editor is pushing me again…"
"This plot is all wrong…"
"I really want to escape this hole…"
"My shoulders hurt so much, my neck is so stiff…"
The words squirmed like living things, wrapping around the creature like curses. And with each breath, a gray-black aura seeped out of Utaha's shoulder, causing the creature's translucent body to swell slightly.
Eriri's breath stopped.
She wanted to scream, but her voice caught in her throat. She wanted to step back, but her feet felt nailed to the floor. Her brain raced, trying to find a rational explanation for what she was seeing—was she hallucinating? Was this a side effect of staying up late? Or—
"That's a cursed spirit."
Genji's voice sounded in her ear, calm, as if he were explaining a math problem.
"More precisely, it's a Grade 4 cursed spirit. The embodiment of 'creative anxiety.' The pressure of rushing to meet deadlines, self-doubt about your work, the fear of deadlines… when these negative emotions accumulate, they attract cursed spirits to parasitize the host. It feeds on the host's anxiety and fatigue, and in turn, worsens their symptoms. A vicious cycle."
Eriri stiffly turned her head and looked at Genji. Her lips trembled. "Then… Utaha is…"
"She won't die from it," Genji shrugged. "At most, a low-level cursed spirit like this will cause shoulder pain, insomnia, brain fog, and reduced productivity. But over time, it could develop into cervical spondylosis, depression, and so on… Creators in your era are under a lot of pressure."
The thing clinging to Utaha's shoulder was proof of that.
"This… what do we do?" Eriri asked quietly, still staring at the cursed spirit. It seemed to sense something, turning its eye sockets toward Eriri, its mouth opening in a strange, twisted arc.
"Simple," Genji said, taking a step forward.
His movement was very casual, as if he were walking over to brush dust off a friend's shoulder. The sleeve of his hunting robe traced an elegant arc through the air. His slender fingers reached out and, with surgical precision, gripped the "neck" of the cursed spirit.
The cursed spirit began to struggle violently. Gray-white mist surged outward, and the tiny words burst out, emitting a screech like nails on a chalkboard—a sound that only Eriri could hear. But Genji didn't budge. He squeezed a little harder.
Pop.
It was like popping a balloon filled with flour. The cursed spirit's body instantly collapsed, dissolving into countless specks of gray light that flickered twice in the air before disappearing completely.
The whole process took less than three seconds.
Utaha was completely unaware. She had simply stopped rubbing her shoulder, shrugged in confusion, and her eyes widened slightly.
"…Huh?"
She rolled her right shoulder, then turned her neck. Her expression shifted from confusion to surprise.
"My shoulder… doesn't hurt anymore?" She murmured to herself. Then, seeming to come up with an explanation, she looked up at Eriri, who was still frozen in place, and a teasing glint appeared in her crimson eyes. "Oh? Arguing with a golden retriever is that effective? I got so angry that my shoulder stopped hurting."
Eriri opened her mouth to say something, but no sound came out.
Her gaze was still fixed on Utaha's shoulder. It was empty now—just the soft fabric of her shirt and the sunlight streaming through the window. It was as if that strange creature had never existed at all.
But Eriri knew it had existed.
And if not for Genji, it would have continued to exist, draining Utaha's anxiety and fatigue until it dragged her down.
"…Are you okay?" Utaha frowned. She had noticed that Eriri's face was unusually pale, and her blue eyes, which were always burning with fighting spirit, were now frighteningly vacant. "Hey, Sawamura, are you—"