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We Won't Give Up On Love [Harem / Slice-of-Life]
Chapter 30: Cal Walks Home Alone At Night

Chapter 30: Cal Walks Home Alone At Night

[October 31, 2042]

Four minutes ago, Halloween crept into the universe. The night was long, the air was cool and had a scent of mystery, and the moon was big and white in the sky — like a porthole to a brighter and gentler world. It was quiet in Extremis City, as it always was after midnight, it was a city that slept and waited and then burst into action. Simply put, not enough people lived there to truly maintain an autonomous cycle of events. Therefore, it was nights like this, when the clean streets held their breath and the wind whistled, that something extraordinary was allowed to happen.

Cal walked through this quiet expanse, the sounds of his footsteps reverberating eerily. At some point, between cooking every day and watching movies with Mel and getting up early to chat with Bridget and making sure to buy fresh hay to lay upon for the two giant golden sheep that refused to move, Cal found that he had unsuspectingly begun to fall behind in his studies. Aghast at this realization, he had taken a day for himself to study at the university library: no distractions, no texts, no ghost girls following him around to poke him roughly in the back of the head. Now, he returned to Otter Manor under the cover of night, his dark coat pushed against his neck, his dark eyes shimmering in the semi-light. His mind strayed. He remembered a dark room, void of luminance, smelling of urine and dust.

The light changed, accented with green and purple. Cal had passed in front of a convenience store with a flickering sign: the last building before the gate that led to the hill upon which sat his home. Here, it was the only building, brightly lit in the night. Through the windows the entire menagerie could be seen: soda cans and lined bottles of alcohol and e-cigarettes and ramen packets and bags of chips and little sugary treats and sticks of gum-flavored things like “Big Berry Blast” or “Powerful Pink”. Before the convenience store was a carved semi-circle of asphalt, the rough contours of which gave the chroma glaring against it a strange, surreal aspect.

The lights flickered. The sign perched on top of the convenience store read “T-Mart” and was clearly broken. The “T” was green and the “Mart” was purple, crafted with twisting filaments of neon. These colors rested against Cal’s cheek and seeped into the fabric of his dark coat. To an outside observer, he was a strange figure in the night, dark but glowing with faint luminance, a figure alone in the city.

The lights flickered again. Cal was not alone.

It happened in a second, in less than a second; the instant where the neon lights spasmed, died, and were rebirthed. The figure leaned against the concrete wall of the convenience store, not in the light but standing just beyond the border it carved. A figure that could be seen, but was not illuminated.

It was a young woman.

“Hey,” she said in a deep, somewhat hoarse voice. Her eyes glowed.

Cal stopped. He turned his head slowly to look at the woman, trying to study her face. They were perhaps a dozen feet apart, bisected by the rim of light. A moment passed.

He studied her: young, beautiful, skin paler than the moon, long pure white hair despite her youth (it must be dyed), a face with an aspect of hunger and curiosity. Dangerous.

She studied him: young, dark-haired, tall but not very tall, a cute face, sure, but one with an unmistakable coldness to it. Fascinating.

A moment passed. “Hey,” said Cal. He didn’t know what else to say.

The woman tilted her head, her hip-length hair brushing against the wall of the convenience store. Behind her was a corridor of pure darkness: between the side of the convenience store and a kind of auxiliary container of dark-green aluminum. No light rested there, and not a thing could be seen.

“Come over here,” the woman said invitingly, extending her hand in a bizarre way, as if presenting something. In the hand was a cylindrical soda, slightly indented from the force of her fingers. “Let’s share a drink.”

Cal didn’t move. “I don’t drink soda.”

The woman laughed, her white teeth glistening. “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me. I’m Roxy, by the way.” She stepped forward a little. Her clothes could now be seen. A tight, low-cut black shirt that revealed the outline of the woman’s modest breasts, black skirt, fishnet stockings with holes in them, bulky black boots. She wasn’t wearing anything to protect from the cool October evening, but she wasn’t shivering in the slightest. “Come over here anyway, I want to talk.”

Cal shrugged. “We can talk where we’re currently standing.”

He wondered if he should run, but somehow that seemed to be an extremely stupid idea.

An expression of slight annoyance passed over the woman’s face, but it was gone immediately. She jutted with her chin. “You live on the hill just up there, right?”

Cal didn’t say anything and the woman laughed again.

“Don't be shy!” she said. “I’m not stalking you or anything. I live near here, and I see you come back and forth through the gate. That’s all. It’s an old student accommodation, right? I’ve seen the others, too. That really pretty girl, and the one with the big hair.”

Cal nodded. “Yeah, I live up there. And you?”

The woman grimaced and took another sip of soda. She then crumbled it in one hand and tossed it away. It hit the neon-tinted asphalt and made a loud noise. “Oh, you know. Here and there.”

Cal’s eyes followed the arc of the soda can. Lying on the ground, all crumpled, it looked like the mangled corpse of some animal.

“But you know-” The woman continued, “I’ve never seen you out so late at night. You’re at the university, right? Back from some all-day study session? I admire your dedication-”

“You should pick it up,” Cal interrupted.

Roxy blinked. “What?”

“The soda,” Cal said, not an indication of levity in his voice. “You should pick it up. It’s bad to litter.”

She laughed again. “My, what a stick in the mud you are.” She leaned forward, sticking out her chest, and grinned. Her voice changed, taking on a higher, girly register. “How about you come over here? I promise to do what you want then.”

Cal still didn’t move an inch. His mind was racing. “Why do you want me to come over to you?”

“Don’t make me say it aloud.” Her finger, the nail painted red, traced the thin line of her cleavage, tugging slightly on the thin black material of her shirt. Her eyes glowed red — behind her the corridor of shadow seemed to swell like an incoming wave. “Let’s have some fun.”

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Cal held his breath. The lights flickered, and the image of the street and store abstracted for a moment, taking on the dimensions of some sort of anxiety-inducing dream. And then he grinned, widely, in a strange way that made Roxy pause her seductive movements and frown.

“Sorry, not interested,” Cal said flatly.

Roxy didn’t move a moment, and then leaned back her pale neck and laughed a third time. “Oh, what the hell? This is different. What are you, some sort of ascetic? No soda, no littering, no fun, is that it?” She snorted through her nostrils, shook her head and took a step forward into the light proper— all seductive gestures forgotten. “Geez, what a dork. But I knew that. I could tell even from afar. A true, proper dork who takes things way too seriously.”

She extended her hand. “I’m Roxy,” she said again. “Nice to meet you, Cal.”

Cal looked at her hand for a moment, and then stepped forward to shake her hand uneasily. He still felt extremely apprehensive, but something told him that any possible danger had passed for now. “Nice to meet you.”

“So!” Roxy said with alacrity, shaking Cal’s hand up and down roughly, her strong fingers squeezing his palm and wrist. “What’s up? What was my misstep?”

Cal released her hand and tenderly stroked his aching wrist. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on.” Roxy skipped backward and thrust out her chest again. “I’m looking hella cute, don’t pretend like you didn’t notice. So what is it? You got a girlfriend already? Are you exclusively into guys? What’s up?”

Cal watched her carefully. “Nothing like that. I’m just not in the habit of following strangers into a dark alley.”

“Even cute ones?”

“Even cute ones.”

Roxy blew air through her lips exaggeratedly and straightened the line of her back. Somehow her eyes seem to have returned to normal luminance, though they still maintained a red glint that refracted off her narrow eyes. “Well, at least I got you to admit that much.”

Cal watched her playful mannerisms, plunging his hands into the depths of his dark coat as the wind blew and scattered leaves and litter throughout the pavement. “So…” He stared at the black horizon for a moment, then let his dark eyes rest upon Roxy’s face. “I’ve gotten used to this sort of thing, recently. I take it… you’re not a normal person?”

Roxy’s red eyes narrowed playfully. “I’m normal as you are. As normal as anything with a soul. I’m sad, and happy, and contradictory.”

“You know what I mean,” Cal said. His forehead turned purple with neon light. “What are you?”

She fiddled absentmindedly with the holes in her stockings, then raised her eyes again. “Let’s call me a complex and unsated animal.”

“Do you intend to harm me?”

“What do you think?”

Cal didn’t say anything in response, to which Roxy broke the silence with a completely unexpected injection. “Want some chips?”

Cal blinked. “What?”

“Wow,” Roxy smiled loosely, crossing the asphalt towards the convenience store as she called over her shoulder. Her long white hair swung with the movements. “That’s the first time you’ve looked legitimately surprised. Chips. I’m going in to buy some stuff. You want some chips?”

She grinned when she saw his suspicious gaze. Her teeth were strangely sharp. “Chill, I’m not going to like, poison them.”

Cal’s first instinct was to reject her offer, but then his stomach moved in protest. While he had cooked dinner for Bridget to heat up for everyone later, he hadn’t consumed anything today besides a smoothie in the morning. “Okay.”

“Cool.”

Roxy waved a pale hand in farewell and entered the convenience store, picking up her discarded soda can and tossing it into a small recycling bin as she did. Cal watched her through the translucent front-facing glass. The strangeness of her demeanor, that which had first given him pause and caution, appeared to have completely disappeared. Besides the white hair, Roxy looked completely normal as she dug out some consumables from the shelves and glowing walk-in coolers, greeted the tired-looking cashier with a smile, and paid with her phone.

“Catch, dork,” she said as she exited the store, tossing a plastic chip bag across the clearing of asphalt.

He caught it.

“Damn, you actually caught it, nice.”

They sat together on a concrete wheel-stop. Roxy stretched out her long legs, making no effort to hide her pale inner thighs visible with the fishnets. Then she popped open the soda can she had bought, and took a sip. “Ah, I’ve reached nirvana. Perfect. Just what I would expect from-” She examined the label. “Cherry Meteor.”

Cal watched her, holding the unopened chip bag between his hands as the wind stirred his dark hair. “You really shouldn’t drink so much soda at night.”

“Thanks for the input, mom.”

He sighed, suddenly annoyed at her. “Are you going to tell me what you are and why you’re here or not? Otherwise, I’d rather just get home so I can sleep.”

“You know, you ought to show a little more deference towards the supernatural and extraordinary,” said Roxy, wiping a string of saliva colored by the soda from her red lips. “You can’t just be so casual and dismissive all the time. It’s serious shit.”

“Is this a warning?”

“Frankly, yes.” Roxy rested a finger against Cal’s chin. “You’re much too easy-going, cutie. This stuff clings to you. It accumulates, draws more of itself in — a self-fulfilling prophecy, dontcha know.” For the briefest instant, Roxy’s sharp and scarlet eyes flashed towards Cal’s transparent shadow laying across the chromatic asphalt, and then returned to his face, to which she had leaned her own towards. “You’re a skandha, a heap of weird things all tied together, clinging to you, making you visible to all the other weird things. And when that happens, it isn’t long before things like me start noticing.”

He leaned his body back away from her casual touch, his eyes flashing. “What are you?”

Roxy studied him curiously for a moment and then looked at her fingers. “Eh, I don’t really feel like explaining right now. It would take too long, and I don’t want to hang out around here in case we get noticed. I just want you to understand that walking around after dark probably isn’t the best idea for someone like you.”

Cal crumpled the bag of chips between his hands, but still didn’t open them. “If you’re trying to frighten me, it’s not going to work.”

“Oh, of course not.” For the first time, a tone of exasperation entered Roxy’s deep voice. “Because you’re not scared of anything, are you? — with your awesome coat and cool personality. Yeah, you’re an obsidian column, the unmovable mountain that stands tall among the eastern peaks, fuck off. ”

She chugged the Cherry Meteor. “Go on as you’ve been if you want, it’s no skin off my tits. But if you want to stay alive-” Here she rested her finger on his chin again. “I encourage you to heed my advice. Don’t go anywhere after midnight, cutie, especially not alone. Be wary of any beautiful and mysterious girls like yours truly who try to insert themselves into your life. Remember, you’re preternaturally volatile. Once one domino falls, the rest go over more easily.”

She traced the line of his jaw, her red nail gently scraping the stubble on Cal’s chin — she smelled like the soda, like sugar. “And from what I can tell, the first domino fell for you a long time ago. Honestly, cutie, how are you even still alive? Something should have swallowed and spit you out a long time ago.”

Cal’s eyes darkened, like the light as curtains fall. “Something did.”

Roxy smirked. “Want to talk about it?”

“Not particularly.”

“Want to make out?”

“Not particularly.”

“Pfft. Well, I tried.” Roxy laid her hands on his chest for a moment, and then pushed him away from her. “Get out of here, Cal. Make sure we never see each other again.”

She stood up, stretching her long legs. Her lithe form was illuminated from behind by the light of the convenience store.

“Why help me?” Cal asked, sincere curiosity in his voice as he crouched on the wheel-stop, looking up at her.

Roxy stayed quiet for a long moment, her white hair swaying in the subtle breeze. She seemed to be really considering the question, the brow of her pale face curling and her hands gripping the breast of her black shirt.

“The same reason that I do horrible things.” She replied at last, scarlet dripping from the lights in her eyes. “Boredom.”

The neon flickered, and she was gone.

Cal was alone in the lot of asphalt.

He held the bag of chips between his hands for a long moment, peeled open the film of plastic, and took a bite from a chip. Salt and vinegar. Sweetness and sourness.