That was an experience yesterday. First getting turned invisible, then being chased out by the person that invited him there in the first place. If he never stepped foot in that house again, it would be too soon.

It was only two girls, yet he was exhausted with what was happening to him. Getting sick, turning invisible, what’s next? Finding… Actually, he’d rather not think it, or else he might jinx it.

His phone rang, certainly one of the other girls with some odd idea, then inviting him. Though technically, only Teru was the one with a weird idea. All Anastasia wanted to do was cook for him. Too bad it was more like poison than an actual meal.

“Hello?” He answered it, a hint of worry in his voice. What else was someone going to get him into?

“Glad I could catch you.” It was Waa, who would definitely be the last person he’d want after everything that had happened so far. “You’re probably not busy, so I figured you should come over.” Yet another invitation. This was starting to feel like more than just a simple coincidence to him.

“Bold of you to assume I’m not busy.” He replied, acting mighty against her. “What if I was doing something right now?”

“You’re just laying around in your house, just thinking, right?” She hit the nail on the head. Kouji wasn’t really wanting to go to her house. He’s already been there, and of all people, she’s probably got something he probably wouldn’t like. After all, bad things do come in threes. Thought with Kouji’s life, it’s more like fives.

“Maybe I’m just doing what I want.” He countered. “Surely, you would be the last person to force me out of my house.”

“Shame, I just wanted to see if you were up to play some games.” Waa teased out her reasoning. This was her plan all along. She was certain that a boy like him couldn’t resist playing some video games. There had to be some level of interest.

“Not really interested.” Too bad for her, that videos games weren’t an activity he enjoyed in years. “See-”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Her desperation broke through for a second. Kouji thought it was strange coming from her usual demeanor. “You sure you don’t want to give it a shot? I know that you don’t own any, so you gotta be at least a little curious.”

“Fine…” He relented. She wasn’t wrong, it’d be a shame to leave her without doing anything. “But no dumb pranks or jokes, okay? I’ve had enough done to me this past week.” When she heard that, Waa knew that the other girls had failed in their tasks. Only confirming to her that working together was a bad idea.

“I’ll keep it light.” Not the best thing for him to hear, but not much could be worse than what he had been through already. So his decision was made, Kouij was going to visit Waa’s place again.

***

The walk was not long, so Waa wasn’t going to have to wait long for his arrival. When he knocked on her door. He expected her to be the one to answer.

That was far from the truth.

Instead, a man he had never seen before answered it. There were two things that stood out about this person to him. The first being his resemblance to Waa, which was probably obvious given that this should be her father. The other being his short stature. Kouji could feel himself towering over the man.

“Hello?” She was the one that invited him, yet she’s not answering the door? That kind of ticked of Kouji off a little. She was the one that wanted him over after all.

“You are?” Given the man’s response, Kouji only had one thing in mind…

Did she even tell anyone he was coming over?!

“I’m Kouji.” He introduced himself. “I was Waa’s tutor, surely she’s talked about me? Maybe just once?”

“Kouji.” The man’s face appeared to show he had an epiphany about him. Pointing at him and nodding his head. “My wife saw you once.” Kouji was hoping that Waa at least talked about him, but that wasn’t the case at all.

Her dad welcomed him in. He seemed like a nice person, but it was weird that he was here. This person owned and worked at a game company, if he recalled correctly. Worked a lot of hours, considering what she mentioned before.

“Waa should be upstairs.” Before he could leave, Kouji stopped him.

“I just wanted to say… It’s nice to meet you.” It was kind of weird to him how anti-social her parents were. They weren’t mean, but they were very eager to leave him to their daughter without saying anything. “You know, because I didn’t meet you the last time I was here.”

“Right, boy that crunch time really was something.” Her father reminisced on that very stressful time. “Fun times.”

“I’m guessing that everything’s finished now.” Kouji wasn’t certain what this so-called ‘crunch time’ was about. But it didn’t sound like it was easy on him. “So you’re currently off work then?”

“Oh definitely not.” He laughed at what sounded like an absurd statement to him. “But my employees thought I spent too much time in the office, so everyone agreed that I should stay home to take some break.” He put out his hands to put into air quotes around the word, ‘break’. His employees thought he was working too much? How did they have any influence on whether he was here or there? “But I can just use my computer here.”

He pointed over to the room, then slipped into it. This sight was rather familiar to Kouji, seeing as this man’s wife did the same thing. In fact, she was in her very own private artist room at this very moment.

Another odd encounter for Kouji, but he decided to get to why he was here in the first place. He walked up the stairs, going straight to Waa’s room. As much as he didn’t care for the state of the place, she was going to be there.

Or at least she should be there. But the only thing present when he opened the door, was the mess.

That was odd, he thought she’d be here for sure. Probably just went to the bathroom, but that assumption was soon debunked.

“Oh yeah!” A voice cried out to him. Her father cracked open his door to yell out one more thing. “She’s in her other room, just to let you know!” Once again, he heard the telltale sigh of the door closing. A lock clicking sound soon followed.

“She has two rooms? My place doesn’t even have a bedroom.” Kouji commented to himself. Unfortunately, her dad wasn’t specific on which room that was supposed to be. So it was time to get to checking.

The one across from her bedroom wasn’t it. That was just the bathroom. Then the one next to it was just her parent’s room, it appeared. So it had to be the last one at the end of the hall. Not where he’d think a girl’s second room would be. What was inside?

“Hello?” He knocked on the door. This wasn’t her regular room, so he didn’t think she’d have an earpiece for arrivals. He didn’t want to do something stupid like walking in on her changing, as cliché as that sounded. Then again, she wasn’t really the type to care, especially he’d seen her with just underwear on.

“You can just come in.” She replied, so this was the right room after all. “I think you’ll like this.”

Honestly, those words did a good job of filling him with worry. Cautiously he opened the door...