Onimaru and I peeped behind the sliding doors, seeing the blue-eyed man preparing a bento while livestreaming. After watching him for while, my stomach began to growl.
Onimaru turned to me and motioned me closer, whispering in my ear. "Ssshh, Altus might hear you."
"Okay..." I placed my hands over my tummy, slowly inching away.
This time, Onimaru led me to their kitchen, where another creature was sitting on a stool, busily monitoring and typing on a laptop.
It looked like a smaller version of Onimaru, only instead of having horns on its head, it had a big shrimp tempura draped over its head, a lone horn sticking out to one side.
"T-that's Ebimaru." Onimaru stuttered.
I placed hand over my mouth, my eyes sparkling.
"It's so cute. That Tempura looks pretty appetizing too."
Ebimaru heard me and it turned to me is surprise and concern, grabbing hold of the shrimp tempura headgear.
"Don't think of eating it! It's mine." Then he grabbed a post-it, handing it to me. I took it and and read it as it scurried back into its stool.
'Respect the mods!' the note said. I noticed that it had a seal at the bottom, and when I removed the seal the bottom part of the note unfurled an accordion of folded paper. I tilted my head and read the fine print.
"Chat rules..?"
Ebimaru nodded. "Yes, read it before thinking of taking away my tempura!"
I sulked and sat on the floor, reading the fine print carefully. After some time had passed, I handed it back to to Ebimaru. "Done."
"Good." Ebimaru returned to watching his laptop quietly. Out of curiosity I sat next to it, watching it mod for a few hours, seeing the Blue Oni create a bento that began to look like Onimaru.
He said he'll share the bento to all the adzenturers, even if it's one grain per adzenturer since they're so many.
At that Onimaru sat next to me, dragging his stash full of snackies, asking me to open them for him. I quietly bagen to open for him bags of potato chips, bringing my focus back on the livestream.
Fifteen minutes later, Onimaru asked me to open the snackies again. "Pretty please?"
Ebimaru glanced at me. "You've started it, now Onimaru will keep asking you to open snacks for him."
I paused and thought about it, thinking about the future times Onimaru might ask me to open things for him, all the while opening another bag of chips for him. "Here you go, Onimaru."
"Omnomnomnom~" the big baby said, munching on the potato chips.
My stomach began to growl once more when the stream ended, and the Blue Oni appeared in the kitchen, his gloved hands and covered arms carrying the bento he made earlier. Hi eyes landed on me. "There you are, little one."
"Me?" I glanced at Ebimaru, who had started packing away the laptop.
"Yes, you." The Blue Oni came closer, placing the bento in front of me. "I heard your tummy all the way in the other room."
I looked at the bento, blushing shyly. "Um..."
"It's yours, little one. You can have it."
"But I thought it's for the adzenturers?"
The Blue Oni smiled. "That's right. You're an adventurer, are you not?"
"Hm, yes."
He sat next to me, sliding a pair of chopsticks to me on the table. "For you. Eat up, Mei."
I opened the bento and sniffed it cautiously, making him laugh.
"It's not poisoned, if that's what you're worried about."
After a minute of hesitation, I made up my mind and started to ea the bento he made. My eyes lit up as I tasted the tuna and the mayo with the rice, taking small bites with the hotdogs.
I got carried away with the bento that I forgot all about him. Soon enough, the bento was empty. "Is there more?"
The Blue Oni smiled, happy to see that I ate everything. "I can make more in the future, little one." He glanced at Onimaru, seeing the empty packets of snacks on the floor.
Onimaru gazed back at him, smiling sheepishly. Altus the Blue Oni gently took the empty bags of chips from him.
"That's enough snackies for today, Onimaru."
"B-but Altus--"
"No 'buts'. You've been asking Mei to open them for you, haven't you?"
Onimaru sighed, defeated. "Yes, Altus. I get-I get-I get so hungry w-when you stream and I have to have snackies."
"Well, Im done streaming now. I can make an onigiri for everyone now. Will you help me make them?"
Onimaru's eyes lit up. "Of course!"
Altus also asked me to assist with the onigiri. I happily obliged, making onigiri out of the extra white and blue rice he had left over. He soon created a substantial amount of onigiri, placing them on a wooden tray...telling me that his modmarus are waiting.
I followed Altus out of the kitchen and saw where the modmarus were, relaxing after the stream. I gave Ebimaru an onigiri and he gobbled it up hastily.
I left the tray of tea along with Altus' onigiri and exited the modmaru's quarters, pausing along the corridors as I saw that the moon had begun to shine on the horizon. Altus's footsteps stopped beside me, glancing at the moon as well.
"It's almost the full moon, Mei."
"Yeah, it is."
"By the way, Mei...have you taken your pet fishy for a walk?"
I shook my head, frowning in puzzlement. "No, I placed it in the fish pond."
"In the zen garden?"
"Yes."
Altus aked me to wait for him in the garden by the pond, walking back into his room. I went to the fish pond and noticed something glowing under the water...glowing a golden hue, swimming towards me. It was my pet fishy!
I dipped my hand into the water, and it touched my fingers gently with its mouth. Before I knew it, I was playing with the goldfish when I hear Altus' voice approaching me.
"I see you've been enjoying its company. Have you named it yet?"
"Hm...not yet. I was thinking of naming it Goldie."
I glanced at his hands and noticed that he was holding a glass globe secured with ropes and a wooden pole.
"What's that, Altus?"
"Oh, this? You'll see, little one." With that, Altus crouched down to the edge of the fish pond and set the empty glass globe into the water, and my pet goldfish swam gently inside. The Blue Oni carefully raised the globe again and secured it with the rope and the stick.
"Here you go, little one. Hold it nicely, like so..." he handed it to me, his large hands guiding my smaller ones.
I felt the weight of the lantern, making me alert. My eyes grew wide and I tightly held on to the pole. "It's a bit heavy."
"For you it is, but not for me." Altus said with mirthful smirk. He slowly released his hold on my hands, and I immediately felt the absence of his warmth.
"So, where are we going?"
Altus looked around him, taking in the view of the zen garden. "We're touring Ba Zen Se tonight."
"Your wish is my command." A mysterious man in a brown tattered hood said as he sat on the Persian rug/carpet.
I clasped my hands fervently as the long-awaited fantasy eventually turns into reality. 'Am I really this crazy and that desperate?'
"Wait! What if I don't want to stay there and want to go back?"
The hooded man paused and smiled. "You're quite the cunning one, aren't you? In that case...all you have to do is to recall your memories and it will lead you back to the way you came from."
I frowned. "Isn't that a bit vague? Can you be more specific about it?"
The hooded mangave me a mischievous grin. "Give me your hand, you curious bunny." I reached out and he took it gently, placing a bracelet of pearl-white, white with a dangling green tassel with a gradient of burgundy at the bottom.
"What is this for?" I asked.
"Your memories are the key to unlocking the portal back into the human world and this bracelet is the gateway between the fantasy and reality. You must not lose this bracelet no matter what happens."
"Hmm...still vague, but okay." I said, wearing the bracelet and admiring the jade tassel.
The hooded man glanced at my wrist, and his golden, cat-like eyes shone in fascination. "It fits you."
"Thanks! I've always wanted to buy this merch, but thanks to you, I don't have buy one anymore. This looks really expensive...where did you get it?" I looked up and just like a mirage, he was gone.
"Eh? Where did he go?" I looked at the ground, and even his Persian rug was nowhere to be seen.
After searching around the back of the building for thirty minutes, I was about to convince myself that it was all a trick of the mind...if it weren't for the fact that I had seen him sitting there for the past three days.
Seeing him either standing or sitting leisurely, he seemed like a suspicious man begging for alms when his Persian rug looked so expensive.
Many had offered him money to buy his old, dusty rug, but each and every time he refused.
Whenever I passed by he kept complaining at how hard it was to be human again, even if it was what he wanted all along.
I used to give him food and drink whenever I passed by, instead of giving him money. And on the third day...he asked me about it.
"I just wanted to help people, that's all." I said with a smile.
He kept asking me questions, and before I knew it I had basically told him my whole life story. He seemed to express a desire to reciprocate, to do something in return to the kindness I have shown him, and these were his exact words:
"Whatever you wish...your wish is my command."
Later in the evening, I returned to my small apartment, wearily changing out of my office clothes into a more comfortable set of pajamas.
I cooked rice and prepped some Onigiri for dinner and fed my goldfish pet at the dining table, admiring it before brushing my teeth and laying in bed ready to call it a day, pulling out my phone to watch my favorite Vtuber streaming...until I fell asleep.
