Another message caused Shihono’s phone to buzz, this time accompanied by an emoji of a crying penguin: What do you mean no way?!?!?! Why is my little Sheepo so mean to me lately?! (ToT)
Aoto’s laughter only grew louder after reading the cute pet name Shihono’s sister had for her. She glared at him, her eyes wet with embarrassment.
“Sorry,” he said. “Pft, pffft, ahem. So your name’s Sheepo?”
“Ugh! That’s a nickname I’ve had since I was really little, and it stuck with my sister. I keep telling her to stop calling me that, but she never listens! Oh my gosh, this is why having an older sister sucks!”
Shihono thrust her phone into her bag. Aoto felt guilty for how much he’d teased her, especially since her sister was now getting left on read for something he’d done. As a small form of penance, he made a casual suggestion.
“Your sister’s family and all, so maybe we can just explain what’s going on and have her help us.”
“...Sorry,” Shihono croaked, tears welling in her eyes. “I...don’t want to.”
“Huh?!” Aoto panicked upon seeing her reaction. “Uh, sorry! I wasn’t all that serious about it, so you can completely ignore me if you’re on bad terms with your sister. I’m really sorry if I stuck my nose in too deep into your family business!”
“I don’t hate my sister or anything.” Shihono was clearly dispirited, and her words were broken up by sniffles. “She’s pretty, smart, and I’m proud to call her family—she even lent me the clothes I’m wearing right now. But...I’m sorry. I don’t want to tell her about Liese-tan. Anything else would be fine, but I want to solve this with just the two of us.”
Aoto nodded along fervently while desperately trying to think of something to say. However, before he could come up with anything, the Goddess Lirenna’s voice shattered the awkward atmosphere.
“Excuse me, Lady Kobayashi, Lord Endo! Um, I’ve been trying to stay quiet because I feel like you two sort of hate me, but this is an emergency! Can you please head north from here? I’m sensing Kuon—or at least, something vaguely Kuon-like! Whatever or whoever it is, it’s about five hundred meters northwest!”
“...Should we check it out?”
Shihono’s voice was still choked up, but she wiped away her tears. Aoto breathed a sigh of relief that they managed to escape the terrible mood from before and nodded.
“Yeah, let’s go. Sorry for what I said.”
“Don’t apologize. I should be saying sorry for losing my cool out of nowhere.”
Once the two exchanged apologies, they set off without a word. After months of being in the same class, club, and sharing the role of gods together, Aoto realized that he’d gotten a bit careless. No matter how close they’d grown, he thought, no friend should touch on family matters uninvited. As he reflected on his actions, the pair marched on to the quietest part of the lonely campus.
────
The two of them ended up behind the college’s library. Surrounded by large trees that spoke to the long history of the university they were planted on, the silent grove had a sacred air to it.
There, they came across a sloppily dressed young man. He seemed reserved, both from his clothes and his thick, black-rimmed glasses. A lone white cat was resting by his feet, feverishly wolfing down hard kibble bits on a plate—no doubt items that the man had brought.
“Hey, look how friendly she is now. It took so long to get to this point... Can’t we take her home today?”
The man’s gaze never left the cat while he spoke to no one in particular. Shihono and Aoto had been preparing to call out to him, but exchanged hesitant glances when they saw his strange behavior.
“What do you mean you don’t want a white one? ...Pink? There’s no such thing as a pink cat. Come on, her paws are pink, and her belly is kinda pink. Let’s take her home already.”
Who the heck is he talking to? Aoto thought. Despite his bewilderment, he took a step forward, placing himself slightly in front of Shihono.
“God, you’re so annoying. What’s with—hm?”
The man stopped to look up at Aoto in the middle of his aggravated soliloquy. His expression was listless and his hair unstyled. There were little pills of wool on his casual sweater. Above all else, he was dark and gloomy to the point where no one would ever think him to be an actor.
Yet on closer inspection, the man was incredibly handsome. The facial features suave enough to make his lame glasses look chic belonged to none other than Kuon Kirise himself.
“Whoa, who are—what? Huh? Your wife? What do you mean these kids smell like your wife? You mean the girlfriend you’re always going on about? ...No? Huh? That doesn’t make sense. Hello? Why’d you shut up, Kuon?”
Being confronted by unexpected visitors caused Kirise to fire off a volley of questions, but none of them were directed at the high schoolers. Unfortunately, his conversational partner refused to respond, and he was left in total confusion.
“Kuon’s presence grew weaker. Um, which means the person controlling Kirise’s body is Kirise himself. As for my husband...ugh! How in the world did he weasel his way that deep into his soul?”
The goddess’s exasperated tone was enough for Aoto and Shihono to get the gist. Apparently, Kirise wasn’t completely possessed, and currently had full control of his body. The evil god had turned tail and fled as soon as he sensed Lirenna’s blessing on the two young souls.
The pair discussed amongst themselves via eye contact, sharing a single message: what do we do now?
“Kuon’s spirit is hidden away deep inside Kirise’s soul,” Lirenna said, sounding remorseful. “What’s worse, their existences are far more interlinked than I’d originally imagined. Kuon is probably clinging on for dear life. Do you think the two of you could, I don’t know, upset Kuon on your end somehow? If you don’t destabilize him, I don’t think I’ll be able to peel him away...”
“Easier said than done...”
Aoto was stumped, but not nearly as utterly dazed as Kirise. Taking note of the latter’s confusion, Shihono offered a helping hand.
“Um, how about we start by filling in Mr. Kirise—can I call you that?”
“That’d be great,” Kirise said, still fighting his bewilderment. “Oh, and call me whatever you want. At this point, I’m used to strangers coming up to talk to me like I’m their best friend, so anything works.”
The young man’s candid honesty gave off a starkly different impression from the evil god of legend, the famous actor inside the television, and even the sunglasses-wearing Kirise the pair had previously crossed paths with.
────
Aoto and Shihono spent a long while explaining all the details to Kirise. The whole time, he sat with his legs crossed, petting the white cat sleeping on his lap.
“Uh-huh, gotcha. Okay. Take him away.” Kirise was nothing if not frank. “Kuon’s caused me a ton of grief too. I’m a major introvert, but he took my body and turned me into a movie star, and used all of the money he earned to develop an otome game! What the heck is with that?! Plus, he only gives me my body back once a week, he loses himself to fits of madness, and when I found this cute kitty—look, see?—he wouldn’t let me take her home! I’ve seriously been looking for a way to kick him out. Come on, Kuon, your wife’s here to take you home. Hey, Kuon? Hellooo?”
By the end of Kirise’s long rant, he was speaking directly to the parasite buried inside of him. Now that Aoto and Shihono had Kirise’s consent, they joined in to berate the evil god.
“Kuon, your plan has already failed,” Aoto said. “Kobayashi and I stole your spot as the Voices of the Gods, and all the people in the other world are alive and happy.”
“Both Liese-tan and Bal managed to avoid death, and Lirenna regained her divinity,” Shihono said. “And most importantly, Fiene’s head over heels for Bal! You don’t have a chance of pushing your way in!”
Alas, their efforts to shake Kuon’s spirit were met with zero response. With no way of telling if their words were working, they looked at each other for help. Seeing the two youngsters stuck, Kirise used the lull in the conversation to speak his own mind.
“You know, for all the ‘girlfriend this’ and ‘girlfriend that’ Kuon always talked about, it’s super freaky that she’s not actually his girlfriend. She doesn’t even know who he is, right? That just makes him a full-blown stalker. That’s nasty—argh!”
Kirise’s rambling was the final straw for the god of evil. The actor’s head swayed, and when he looked back up, his expression was wholly different.
“Why is it that not a single one of these mortals reveres me for my divinity?”
The man rose with a spiteful tone, causing the cat on his lap to roll off with a pitiful squeak. It landed on its paws and promptly ran off. The pure malice oozing out of the man’s every pore had frightened the cat out of its wits.