Shion parked on the side of the road in the unfamiliar neighborhood, then turned the key to turn off his car's engine. He unbuckled his seat belt and got out of his car. Making sure to lock the car behind himself, he walked toward the house. Obviously Lucille had been waiting for him, because the door opened as soon as he reached it.

Lucille poked her head out of the door to look at her visitor. "You're Shion, right? You fit the description! Man, you're taller than I thought you'd be. Come on inside, I could make you some tea or coffee." She held the door open for him, stepping out of the way as she did so.

"This late in the day? I'm in." He chuckled as he walked into the house. "Just don't poison me or anything, that wouldn't be very good for my health. Some coffee would be nice."

"Coffee, got it." Lucille closed the door behind Shion and locked it, then disappeared into the kitchen.

Shion went to sit in the living room, deciding to take a glance around. There were several bookshelves absolutely lined with books and papers that had been hastily stuffed between them.

"How's the neighborhood? I've been looking for a new place for a while." He stretched and leaned back on the couch.

"Pretty nice, but there's this absolute psychopath who likes to go in his backyard and fire a few shots off to keep the property values low. He lives a few houses down. Aside from that, there's this really 'nice' lady who's actually a klepto. Tried to grab a few of my books when she visited me."

Shion snickered as Lucille gossiped about her own neighbors. "Seems like they're full of personality, it must be fun to live here. Maybe I'll see if there's any places for rent."

"Make sure it's a nice place. Best you can afford, right?" The demon with a still-unknown name piped up. "Oh, right. I haven't even told you my name, have I? You won't be able to tell anyone if you try, so I guess that it wouldn't hurt to tell you. It's Ladazern."

"Do you have any preference of how you'd like your coffee served?" Lucille called from the kitchen.

"I prefer it iced. I could just come in and-"

"N-no, don't come in here! It's a mess!"

Shion turned his head and squinted toward the kitchen. "You're definitely poisoning me." He got up, then walked into the kitchen. The sight that met him made him stare, then snort. He covered his mouth and started to fully laugh.

Lucille was hastily using a towel to soak up a mess of spilled milk, the half empty quart resting on the counter with the cap off. "I told you not to come in here, that there was a mess." Her tone was almost pouting.

"You want some help there? Don't gotta cry over spilled milk." He snickered again.

"Towels are over there. Stop laughing at me, I'm only clumsy once in a while." She pointed to a cabinet.

Shion walked around the spill and opened the cabinet, which was full of towels. Guess Lucille was as clumsy as she seemed if she needed them this close. However, he refrained from commenting on this for the sake of her pride. He grabbed one towel and knelt down to help her clean up the milk.

"How romantic. Are you gonna try to pretend you like her if she starts liking you?" Ladazern teased. "If you can pull off pretending to love, you might as well pursue a career in acting. I've heard that there's a lot of money to be made from being a fake motherfucker."

Shion's eyes darted up to Lucille, then back down to the spill. Like he'd ever go through the trouble of pretending to love. If she ever made a move, he could just reject her and get on with his life.

The last of the milk cleaned up, Lucille sighed in relief. "Could you take the towels to the laundry? I gotta clean up the residue so ants don't smell it and invade my house. It's in the garage, the door's right there." She pointed to a door next to the fridge.

"I haven't been here for an hour and you're already having me do chores. Fine, hand your towel over." He held his hand out, taking Lucille's towel when she gave it to him. He opened the door to the garage and went in, then closed the door behind himself. However, the sight he was met with made him freeze. The garage walls were lined with strange symbols that Shion had a bizarre repulsion from. They seemed to be painted with an oddly reflective liquid, despite looking dry. "The fuck?" He muttered to himself, then decided to consult his resident demon. "Hey, do you recognize these?"

"I don't, but the fact that you're repulsed by them can't be good news. I'd get your errand done as quickly as possible if I were you." Ladazern paused, then elaborated. "They must be something that repels demons. Try not to get too close to them."

Shion rolled his eyes and walked over to the washer, simply setting the towels on top of it. No need to do more than that, Lucille would probably deal with the rest of it. He would have to ask her about the symbols when they were talking. It was a weird thing to have in one's house, after all. He then left the garage and saw Lucille still wiping down the floor. "Need any more help, or do you have that covered?"

"I'm good! Almost done, too." She looked up at him with an unconvincing smile.

"Make sure to dry it, or you'll probably slip." He walked out of the kitchen and sat back down on the couch. Closing his eyes and crossing his arms, he leaned his head back. He wondered when Ladazern would speak up again, but he didn't have to wait for very long.

"Hey, I'm starting to think that I shouldn't have let you come here. What's stopping me from making you leave? This is sketchier than some of the casinos I've been summoned to. Think about that. A casino that had a demon of greed summoned to it."

The smell of coffee filled the living room, making a small smile appear on Shion's face. It was one of the few things that brought him a fair amount of what he assumed was happiness, even though he'd long forgotten what true happiness felt like. At least he was lucky enough to not be able to feel any sadness about this fact. At least he wouldn't have to deal with any bullshit like that. Lucille came into the room with a glass of iced coffee which had some milk added to it.

"Sorry, I just decided to guess what you wanted. I hope you like it!" Lucille sat next to him and offered him the glass.

Shion took it, then sipped it curiously. "Huh. It's just like what I make. You were lucky as hell, or you're a really persistent stalker. I wouldn't put that second option past you." He teased.

"Oh, haha." Lucille laughed dryly. "You're mad at me about that family check thing? I didn't think that you'd still be pissed." She then looked away. "Call it intuition. That's just what I thought you'd like."

"Hmph. Now I think you're a stalker even more now. I have a thing to ask you now, though. What was with those weird symbols in your garage?"

She immediately looked back at him with a grimace on her face. "I forgot about those. Well, this man who called himself an exorcist came by. He wanted to know more about your disease, too. What exactly it could deteriorate, he had this insane theory that it could even get stuff that we couldn't measure. Stuff like souls. Before he left, he painted them onto my garage. I just haven't gotten around to washing them off since I'm not in there much. It'd be a massive hassle, too."

Shion squinted at her. "Then why'd you let him paint them on in the first place if it'd be such a hassle? Do you have trouble telling people to stop, or something?"

Lucille quickly shook her head. "I'm normally good at doing stuff like that, but he was just too driven for me to stop him. Was almost like he was possessed himself, how quickly he got out that paint and started slapping the brush onto the walls. Pretty ironic, isn't it?"

"Heh. Pretty funny to describe an exorcist of all things as possessed. I'm glad it wasn't you who put those symbols up, I'd think you were some sort of crazy." His finger twitched as a tingle of pain prickled through it. He took another sip of his drink, then set it on the coffee table.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"I knew those symbols were fishy. You'd better cut ties with Lucille, this exorcist will prove to be trouble. Never know when he'll stop by again. What if he visits her while you're also visiting? He'd probably see right through us. Wouldn't want that, would ya?" Ladazern's tone was slightly panicked, which was rather unexpected for Shion. The most that could happen to a big scary demon was just getting sent back to hell, right? "And before you point out that getting exorcised would only be a mild inconvenience for me, keep in mind that it'd be excruciatingly painful. I'd be out of commission for a couple decades at least."

Shion checked his phone and frowned. "Ah, shit. An emergency came up, so I gotta go. Thanks for inviting me over, though." He got up from the couch.

Lucille's mouth fell open from shock. "Hey, wait a minute! I hadn't even asked you anything about the disease!"

"Another time, maybe. Seeya." Just as he started walking to the door, three knocks sounded from it.

Lucille got up quickly and brushed past him to the door. "Coming!" When she opened it, a man who looked like he was wearing a uniform was on the other side.

"Hello again, Lucille. I trust you haven't taken off those runes yet?"

Shion's red-ochre eyes widened in feigned surprise. Man, this was some shit timing.

Shion lowered his eyes and walked forward to simply pass the man, only to be stopped when his shoulder was grabbed. He threw a glance upward to the presumed exorcist, frowning. "Please let me go, I have a family emergency."

The taller man leaned down to mutter something to Shion. "Like you'd know what a family is, you demon. Sit back down and explain yourself before I stir up some trouble in front of a civilian." He then let go of Shion's shoulder, obviously waiting for him to make his decision.

With a sigh, Shion stepped away and walked back to the couch. He sat down again and pulled out his phone, pretending to text. "I'm sure someone else will be able to handle it, so I'll stay for a while longer. Maybe your friend here will have some more insights about the disease. You are?"

"Alois Bernstein, this area's representative of the Exorcist Corps. Pleased to meet you, you must be Sean White?" Alois walked around the couch to take a seat on one of the living chairs.

Shion narrowed his eyes at him. "No, it's Shion. Shi-on. Not Sean." He leaned forward to take his glass, then drank some of his coffee. How would he even explain his situation in front of Lucille? She'd probably think he was crazy with nothing to back him up.

Just then, she turned to walk to another room. "I'll be back, I gotta get some stuff. Don't kill each other while I'm gone!" She teased.

Alois stared down Shion as soon as she left the room. "Well? Are you going to explain anything to me, or should I just prepare to exorcise you?"

Shion frowned and returned the gaze.

"Don't you fucking dare tell him-" Ladazern interjected, to no avail.

"That theory of yours that you told to Lucille? It's true. It can wither away souls as well, and that happened with me. I'm just an empty shell, so a demon decided that it'd attach to me. Exorcising it would kill me as well." Just for now, Shion didn't bother putting any feigned emotion into his voice. It'd probably make the story about his lost soul more believable.

Alois stared into his eyes and his disbelief visibly melted away. "Your very soul? My god, do I feel sorry for you." He shifted into a more relaxed sitting position and intertwined his fingers. "However, there's no telling what the demon could do with your body. I can't just let you walk around freely. But at the same time, I can't justify killing you." His eyes wandered down to the floor as he went into thought. "Perhaps I could take you to one of the academies, with your consent of course. It would be unfair for me to do anything against your wishes."

Shion went to talk, but then Lucille entered the room with a small stack of books and a notepad. A pen was rolling around the top of the stack, just barely hanging onto its balance.

"Alright, ready to ask some questions. You two getting along?" She sat down next to Shion again and took the notepad and pen off of the stack. "Do you want me to start, or do you have some questions?" She looked over at Alois.

Alois shook his head. "You can go first, ask away."

Lucille smiled. "Right, ladies first. How polite of you." She turned her attention back to Shion. "Now, how old were you when you first noticed symptoms, and what were they? Did anything happen beforehand? Any sort of stressful event?"

Shion sat up and placed his hands in his lap. "I was ten, and the first thing that alerted me was the coughing. I had a sudden coughing fit, and I coughed up a small amount of a black liquid. It almost looked like crude oil." He scowled as he tried to think of anything that would have triggered it. "My parents had a particularly bad fight that day. One of them threw a vase at me when I tried to get them to stop, and then I ran away. I'm used to them fighting, so I'm not sure if it'd be enough to trigger it."

Lucille nodded slowly as she listened, writing notes down as she did so. "You might not think it was very stressful, but it might've just been a thing that you never stopped to think about. Maybe it was a breaking point for you, if they didn't do anything to directly involve you a lot. Next question, did you have any symptoms other than the coughing? Mental or physical."

He tapped his fingers on his leg. "I started to notice that I felt detached from myself. After about four years, I'd have days where it felt like I was just dreaming. That stopped after a year, though. And then I stopped dreaming completely, even though I always had wild and bizarre dreams as a kid. Bit of a shame, huh?"

She pursed her lips. "Yeah. This doesn't help me figure out what it could've gotten at all, though. If it was a part of your brain, which seems the most likely, then it would be obvious. Plus, your entire brain would've deteriorated." Shion noticed her take a shaky breath before she continued. "Though, if I'm willing to listen to superstition, the answer of what it took from you is pretty obvious. I have another question, just to confirm my suspicions: did you ever lose touch with your emotions, and when did this happen?"

Shion watched her for a few moments before he decided to speak. At the very least, she probably wouldn't react poorly to knowing the truth. "Yeah, I gradually stopped feeling three years in. It was only a year ago when I realized that I had completely lost my emotions. It's a good thing that the sadness went as well."

Lucille's eyes seemed to sparkle as another thought crossed her mind. "It's also possible that you never had the disease in the first place. Perhaps a turbulent childhood led to all of your mental symptoms. Have you ever talked to a psychologist?"

Shion chuckled. "You're starting to sound like an actual doctor. No, I never talked to a psychologist. I didn't think I needed to, and I kept my symptoms a secret from my parents. All I told them about was the coughing."

She watched him, then looked back down at her notepad with a sly smile. "You must be a great actor. I can barely see through you, even though I know the truth now. Do you pretend to spare the feelings of people around you, or is it for another reason?"

"It'd be a massive hassle if people constantly asked me what it was like to feel nothing, so I pretend to save time. Plus, people would think I was pretty weird if they knew. It's a lot more convenient if I can just blend in." He sighed and leaned back. "It is pretty nice to be able to drop the act around some people, though. It's hard to describe, but 'refreshing' might be a good word for it. Similar to what it's like to wake up after a full night's rest."

"I see. So the only way you can come close to relating to peoples' emotions is through physical sensations? I wonder if there's a way to reverse it." She tapped the pen against her lips. "If it's only in your head, then I'm sure that a psychologist would be able to help you."

Shion reached into his jacket and pulled out a black cloth. "I kept this on me in case I had another coughing fit. It was better than staining my sleeve, and I could hide the fact that I had coughed up a horrible-looking liquid because of its color. I doubt that it was just in my head."

At that point, Alois finally decided to speak up. "I think the answer to what was taken from him is obvious. In fact, I might be able to help him."

Lucille frowned. "But if his soul's completely gone, how are you supposed to help him? I'm assuming that they're not something that grows on trees, or anything like that."

"I can't talk about the specifics with a civilian, so I'd have to speak to Sean privately about it. Plus, it'd be his decision." Alois then offered a smile to Shion. "Don't worry, I won't force you to do anything you don't want to do. That's the last thing I want."

"Man, I didn't know an exorcist could be this nice, or this stupidly trusting. Does he seriously think I won't do anything?" Ladazern chuckled. "Not like I'd do much in the way of harming humans, maybe just ruin them financially. At least I'm not a demon of wrath, those fuckers can be annoying to deal with."

Lucille set her pen down. "Well, that's pretty much all I wanted to ask for today. Maybe we could meet up again another day, when I have more to ask. The more we learn about this disease, the better."

Shion nodded, then turned his attention to Alois. "Maybe we could meet up today to chat. We could talk more about what to do then."

"Yeah. I'm free today, so we could go now. How does that sound to you?" Alois got up and brushed his uniform off, then walked to the door. "I'll even pay for food, if we go to a place to eat."

"You better not turn down free food." Ladazern interjected.

Shion got up as well, tucking the black cloth back into his jacket. "Yeah, sure. Free food's not something I'll turn down."

Alois opened the door and walked out of the house. Shion followed after him, shutting the door behind himself. He quickly noticed that there wasn't another car parked anywhere nearby, no way for Alois to have gotten there quickly. This made him narrow his eyes at the man before him. "Hey, how'd you even get here? I don't see another car. And how'd you even know I was here?"

"Trade secret. It may or may have something to do with those runes, though." Alois stated with a laugh. "Will we be taking your car? I'd rather not have to walk somewhere."

"No, I was hoping to get some extra exercise in today. Of course we're taking my car." Shion took his keys out of his pocket and unlocked the car.

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A young blonde girl ran home from school, giggling all the while. She held up a length of paper that was decorated in bright colors with sparkles and flowers attached to it, letting it glide in the wind like a kite. Flying up the steps to her home, she opened the unlocked door and called for her mom.

"I'm home! Guess what we did in school!" She waited for a reply, taking off her shoes by the door before she continued inside.

Her mom was in the living room, sitting on a chair with a book in her lap. "What did you do? Was it something fun, Luci?"

Lucille walked into the room and presented the paper. "We made these! Ms. Bailey said that I made the flowers really pretty." When she was done talking, she walked around the couch to sit down. "Whatcha reading today?"

Brushing some hair behind her ear and adjusting her reading glasses, Lucille's mom looked over the paper. "It looks very nice, I might just be raising a little artist. And I'm reading a mystery novel. It's a bit scary, though, so I'm not sure if you'd like it very much." She brought a hand up to her chin. "Do you have any homework today? I'll help you with it, if you want me to."

Lucille shook her head. "It's Friday, so I didn't get any. Ms. Bailey isn't mean enough to do that. The book probably won't be as scary if you read it to me! Pleeease?"

Her mom laughed quietly. "Alright, alright. I'll let you know if a scary part is coming up, deal? I can skip over it if you want me to." Just then, she started to cough. She buried her mouth in her sleeve, though her eyes widened in shock as soon as she looked at it. "Oh, I must be getting a cold. I'll be right back." She got up quickly and walked toward her room, though Lucille caught a glimpse of the black stain on her sleeve.

Lucille gasped, lifting her head quickly from her desk. She yawned and rubbed her eyes, displacing the glasses that she'd left on. "What an annoying thing to remember." She muttered to herself.