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"Can you use that ability... lots of times?"
Marin's voice was barely a whisper. Aside from Kai, who was sitting right next to her, no one else in the room could possibly hear her.
"Ability?"
Kai was taken aback for a second, but then realization dawned on him.
'Good lord... Did my little blast of Byakurai just awaken some kind of deeply suppressed and questionable kink inside Marin Kitagawa?'
Then again, it wasn't entirely surprising. A girl bold enough to rock a tongue piercing and fully embrace the gyaru lifestyle definitely had a rebellious, adventurous streak deeply ingrained in her bones.
"I... I just feel like the residual energy from the Cursed Spirit hasn't been cleansed from my body yet."
Terrified that Kai might think she was weird or disgusting, Marin frantically blurted out the clumsiest, most transparent excuse imaginable.
In truth, even Marin herself hadn't anticipated that the sharp, electrifying sting would feel so inexplicably thrilling.
"Is that so? Then I suppose I really do have a professional obligation to help you thoroughly cleanse it."
Looking at Marin's flushed face and shifting eyes, Kai suddenly let out a low chuckle.
"I'm also curious about that game you mentioned earlier. Think you could teach me how to play it?"
"Absolutely!"
Instantly picking up on the heavy, underlying implications in Kai's words, Marin agreed without a single second of hesitation.
It was almost as if she were terrified he might suddenly change his mind.
————————————————————
Meanwhile, the other three were still deeply immersed in the sheer shock of the supernatural spectacle they had just witnessed. They hadn't snapped out of it yet.
"Excuse me, is it possible for me to officially join the Service Club?" Suddenly, Marin raised her hand and enthusiastically voiced her request. Even putting Kai aside for a moment, Marin was now genuinely highly interested in the Service Club itself.
"Theoretically speaking, yes you can."
Seeing Marin constantly glued to Kai's side... Yukino could logically understand it. The girl had just been severely traumatized by a literal monster, so it was only natural she felt a desperate need to cling to the only person capable of protecting her.
Despite rationalizing it, Yukino still couldn't stop her brows from knitting together in subtle displeasure.
"However—" Before Yukino could finish her sentence or lay down any ground rules, Marin bounded over with a beaming smile and threw her arms tightly around Yukino in a massive hug.
"That's so awesome! Thank you so much!"
"Y-You're too close."
Faced with Marin's overwhelmingly physical, boundary-ignoring, golden retriever personality, Yukino looked very stiff and uncomfortable. The harsh words of rejection died in her throat.
"Hehe!"
Marin giggled happily.
While still clinging tightly to Yukino, she specifically turned her head and shot a highly suggestive, playful wink directly at Kai.
Don't let her bubbly, airheaded exterior fool you. Deep down, Marin Kitagawa was actually sharp and perceptive.
————————————————————
That evening.
After finishing her grueling shift at school, Shizuka Hiratsuka absolutely couldn't hold back anymore and dragged Sonoko Machida out for drinks.
"Seriously, what is your deal lately? Do you literally have nothing better to do all day besides dragging me out to drink?"
If Shizuka wasn't her best friend, Machida genuinely wouldn't have bothered leaving her apartment.
"Well, well, look who's talking! Being thoroughly satisfied by a man really does change a woman, huh? It wasn't that long ago you were the one constantly begging me to come out and drink with you to drown our sorrows."
"..."
Shizuka's sarcastic and passive-aggressive tone left Machida utterly speechless.
She was just about to fire back when Shizuka abruptly cut her off. "Alright, enough of that. I actually called you out here for something serious."
Something serious? Under Machida's highly skeptical gaze, Shizuka suddenly leaned in close, lowered her voice to a dramatic whisper, and stared dead into Machida's eyes with sincerity.
"Do you believe... that the supernatural genuinely exists in this world?"
"..."
'Has a lack of male attention actually caused her brain to literally snap and start hallucinating??'
Meeting Shizuka's intense, borderline manic gaze, Machida took a deep, steadying breath, returning a look of equal, solemn seriousness.
"I understand. Wait here. I'll text you the details shortly."
Having said that, Machida downed her shot of sake, stood up, and briskly marched straight out the door of the izakaya.
"?"
Wait, what the hell kind of reaction is that??
Shizuka didn't have to sit there in sheer confusion for very long. A few minutes later, Machida marched right back inside and slammed her phone down on the table.
"IT'S ALL SET UP. I'VE OFFICIALLY BOOKED HIM. YOU'RE COMING WITH ME TOMORROW NIGHT."
"Coming with you? To go where??"
Shizuka was still utterly lost.
"Didn't you just clearly imply you were desperate for a man? I already texted him and made the arrangements. Tomorrow night, we're going together."
"?"
'What the actual hell are you talking about?' If Shizuka hadn't already swallowed her sake, she would have undoubtedly spat it right in Machida's face.
"When did I ever say I was desperate for a man? What the hell did you just arrange??"
'I'm trying to have a serious, terrifying conversation about literal ghosts and monsters, and you immediately run outside to book us a threesome?'
"Oh, please! Weren't you literally just spouting insane, delusional nonsense about the supernatural because your sexual frustration finally caused you to snap?"
Ghosts and monsters?
To an ordinary, normal civilian like Sonoko Machida, the concept of the supernatural was nothing more than a ridiculous fairy tale. How could something like that possibly exist in their modern, scientifically grounded reality?
"..."
Shizuka realized she was the idiot here.
Why on earth had she thought confiding in Machida about this was a good idea? Thinking about it rationally, if someone had randomly come up to her yesterday and started ranting about Cursed Spirits, she would have assumed they belonged in a psychiatric ward too.
"I... you know what, forget it. You'll understand whenever you finally see one for yourself. And for the record, my brain isn't broken from a lack of men!"
After struggling to find the right words for several agonizing minutes, Shizuka eventually just waved her hands in total defeat. She honestly had no idea how to explain it to her without sounding insane.
It wasn't like she could just casually summon a Cursed Spirit right there in the izakaya to prove her point.
"..." Machida eyed Shizuka with intense suspicion. However, she still firmly refused to believe a single word about the supernatural. Her tone shifted, becoming slightly uncertain.
"So... does this mean you aren't coming tomorrow night?"
"I'm coming! Why the hell wouldn't I??"
Perfect.
The mind-shattering events at school today had left Shizuka feeling stressed and suffocated, and deeply unsettled. Furthermore, Machida's mysterious "partner" had supposedly been "unavailable" the past few times she had tried to orchestrate this. Now that she finally had a guaranteed opening, there was no way she was backing out.
Shizuka was fully determined to see for herself exactly what kind of man possessed the stamina to supposedly make her best friend "float on cloud nine."
"Just to be clear: if I'm not thoroughly satisfied with his performance tomorrow, do not blame me if I end up physically beating him up!"
Feeling her face flush bright red, Shizuka stubbornly stuck her neck out and delivered the threat.
Regardless of the sheer panic currently doing backflips in her stomach, on the surface, Shizuka Hiratsuka maintained her facade of fearless aggression.
"Yeah, yeah, I hear you!"
They had been best friends for years.
Did Shizuka honestly think Machida didn't know exactly how she operated?
Machida waved her off dismissively.
"I'm just worried that by the time he's done with you, you won't even have the physical strength left to lift a single finger, let alone throw a punch."
"Tch. Is he really that incredible?"
Shizuka remained highly skeptical. She was a seasoned veteran of adult videos—she had never seen a performance as exaggerated and stamina-defying as the one Machida had described.
"He's exactly that incredible!"
Machida didn't bother trying to explain it any further.
Tomorrow night, Shizuka would get to experience the sheer, terrifying reality of it firsthand anyway.
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"Tomorrow night?"
Meanwhile, in his apartment, having just set down his phone, Kai looked highly suspicious.
Out of absolutely nowhere, Sonoko Machida had called him, aggressively insisting that he had to come out tomorrow night because she had a "massive surprise" waiting for him. Honestly, Kai didn't care in the slightest about whatever surprise she had planned.
However, he couldn't exactly refuse when Machida had quite literally called him "Goshujin-sama" over the phone in a highly desperate tone.
What else could he possibly do?
He obviously had no choice but to show up and properly "discipline" his editor.
"H-How do I look?"
The absolute second he put his phone down, Marin Kitagawa's voice echoed nervously from the hallway.
Looking up, he saw Marin stepping out of his bedroom, now fully dressed in the meticulously crafted Shizuku Kuroe cosplay outfit.
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