THE HERO'S SON IS A MONSTER-Chapter 88: Link

"*loud moaning*"

"..."

"..."

"*even louder moaning*"

"How lively."

"Hmhm."

"..."

"*inhale deeply*"

So...

The name is Dawn Riftwalker. Sixteen. First-year students at Eve’s Anathema and a socially awkward teenage girl. As a normal person living in a normal city in a normal time period called ’nowadays’, I know about those things called, huh, adult sites. As a healthy teenager, I sometimes visit them out of curiosity. Only out of curiosity.

What? I am not lying! I am on the doujin team. I like all kinds of plots. Anyhow, I do enjoy reading all kinds of things, those included.

The question you are asking yourself has an obvious answer: it happens... sometimes.

Anyway, it is not the kind of thing I would want someone to find out about. Especially not the teasing vampire that comes to my room every night. That is why I kept my history clean and hid my ’collection’ in hidden folders on my phone. As far as I knew, I couldn’t be found out by a person randomly searching my phone.

The vampire girl could tease me about a lot of things, but not that, I thought. Weird jokes about weird things would surely kill me, I thought.

But here’s the thing.

As a normal person living in a normal city in a normal period of time called ’nowadays’, I have that thing called a neighbor. What about him, you ask? Well, he, huh, ’breathes loudly’. Often. With another person. A woman. Who breathes louder? Oh boy, why am I even trying to talk about that?

Anyway, he kept silent recently – don’t ask me why – but ever since yesterday, he went back to business. And ever since yesterday, my conversations with that girl have been awkward. We were in front of a horror movie in the dark but I was more embarrassed than afraid.

What? You think she was embarrassed? No! Does she even know that word?! I think not! All she has been doing is grinning and making remarks about how lively the neighbors were! It was arguably more embarrassing than her finding my collection! How come?! I wasn’t even doing anything!

"Curiosity. How often do you do that?"

"..."

Oh. Of course. She had to go there.

"... Do what?"

"Cruelty. You want a maiden to utter those words?"

"What about you is maiden-like? Aren’t you too old and impure to pass for one? (Also, don’t smile while saying that if you want me to believe you)."

"How horrible. I am actually quite young, you know?"

"So you admit being impure?"

"I can drink holy water just fine."

"Well, yes. You aren’t evil, are you?"

The girl looked at me with widened eyes, "Surprise. Not evil you say? Why would you think that?"

"Huh? Well..."

Why indeed? On Mikipedia is it said that vampires are generally ’evil’ by nature and she even explained to me what kind of evil she was following a while back. However, what is an evil person actually? I wasn’t sure how to answer that but...

"I guess you are... somewhat nice? Maybe...?" I said barely above a whisper. Why was it so embarrassing to praise her?

However, the girl took an uncharacteristically serious expression and looked at the screen.

"I am not nice," she said curtly.

Her affirmation sounded way too powerful. It was as if she was clearly telling me not to even try to start a discussion on that topic. I guess that is what people call being cold. At least it froze me for sure.

However, a bad habit of mine surfaced.

You see, there’s a not-so-funny reason I like to think of myself as a woman of few words. As a socially awkward teenage girl, I often get flustered when being around other people. I have a hard time talking to someone if I don’t have to and even when I do, I need to think about what to say a lot. And you know the best part? I am bad at explaining things verbally so I end up saying things out of order, panicking, trying to correct myself on parts I don’t need to, making my sentences too long, repeating myself, and, of course, panicking even more. The result is that I am usually afraid of saying anything, and the lack of experience makes me even less likely to succeed.

Oh, and I often talk too softly. Just imagine how it works with the rest. Like what the vampire girl would say: sadness. Well, let’s look at the good side – at least I know my problem, right?

*Sigh* I feel like dying.

Anyway, another thing linked to that is my restlessness around people I feel relatively close to. When we stay at the same place without saying anything, I feel like I should, you know, start a conversation. But I don’t, because I have nothing to say. That would be fine on its own if I didn’t start talking anyway.

"It possessed a doll? Hahaha, that’s a lame reference to Robert! Or maybe not? Who would want a doll so creepy?"

"True."

"And those kids who don’t run away only after, no, I mean, those kids who don’t run away before seeing the danger. Are they stupid or what?"

"They are curious."

"Oh come on! This movie was made when paranormal things didn’t yet exist! They should know that... Ah yes, that is a movie. Then, they should run if they know something is wrong!"

"They are in an almost deserted region without a functioning car. Where should they go?"

"Ah! That is true! But come on, that is way too convenient! Unrealistic! Couldn’t they make a better scenario? Too classic! Look, after this, the possessed child will just kill them one by one and the supervisor will be revealed to be a religious person who will..."

I stopped.

You see, I just remembered – when the vampire girl came with that movie, she said she wanted to watch it with me.

"It is a so-called slasher movie! I have never watched one, so I am kind of excited! Don’t you want to hold my hand in the dark as we make our hearts race?" she said with her usual excitement.

"Wrong! The way you present it is wrong! Who even uses CDs nowadays?!"

"It is a Blu-ray!"

"It is the same thing!"

"So, is that a yes?"

"...*sigh* Whatever. I am stuck on that elf guy in Penultimate Fantasy X. I need a break. Besides, we were supposed to watch a movie together, right?"

"So, is that a yes?!"

"...I guess."

"Yay! I have always wanted to watch a new movie with a friend!"

She looked much more excited than usual, smiling while holding that disc – any more and she would probably jump to the ceiling. I think my heart skipped a beat there. Vampires sure are dangerous.

"B-But... I already saw that film, you know? Is it really okay? Seeing it with me, I mean..."

"Yeah! I wouldn’t want to watch it with anyone but you!"

"... O-Okay."

The name is Dawn Riftwalker. Sixteen. First-year student at Eve’s Anathema and a total pushover. Blushing for a few words even though I knew that what she actually meant was that she couldn’t watch it anywhere else, since she had no other friends.

But I still felt happy.

Kinda.

So glad I bought that Blu-ray disc reader!

Huh, ahem, I saw that movie something like two times and I remembered them perfectly. I have a good memory after all. I knew it would be boring, but if she was going to smile like that, I could bear with it. I wanted her to enjoy the watch so I was angry at my neighbor who chose that day to get ’lively’.

But now, I realized I did something worse just because the silence between us was too heavy on me. My mind was too weak. I started making pointless commentary, acting as if I didn’t know what would happen. I forced myself to laugh and make fun of the scenario. Worse still, I spoiled the movie for her. Sure, it was a slasher, and slashers are slashers, but it was her first, right? I just spoiled her experience with my thoughtless comments.

It wasn’t me being overly conscious. A bit before I stopped talking, I noticed she was actually staring at me while holding her knees. With her mouth hidden by them, I couldn’t tell exactly what her expression was, but it was as if she was saying something along the lines of "Since you are going to make comments during the whole film anyway, let’s gain time by just watching you instead" in a sarcastic way. I will be honest, the thought hurt me. Words would just get stuck in my throat. Heavy. Painful. Dry.

I couldn’t even apologize.

We continued watching the film in silence. Well, as silent as it can be with people moaning next door.

"... don’t they ever get tired?" I whispered my mouth on my knees. I wasn’t even embarrassed anymore, just really pissed off. I wished they could just shut up.