Shawn O'Pry was certain that the ultimate goal of this succubus system was not to have him conquer Eric Dane, but to torture him to death in a manner that was both creative and humiliating.
"Wear his clothes? Where am I supposed to get them? Steal them?" he roared at the empty air, throwing his pillow against the wall. "And the penalty is stuffing myself into a locker?! My bones will be broken!"
Leo, who was eating chips nearby, stopped and his mouth formed an "O." "Dude, who are you talking to again? And who's going to stuff you into a locker?"
Shawn couldn't explain. He could only grab his hair in despair. He needed a helper, an accomplice to be his lookout. His gaze fell on Leo.
"Leo, I need you to do me a favor," Shawn's tone was more serious than ever before.
"No deal!" Leo hugged the bag of chips even tighter.
Shawn took a deep breath. He knew he had to play his trump card. "Leo, do you remember freshman year..."
Leo's expression changed instantly.
Shawn continued slowly, "...when you accidentally 'referenced' some code from a Russian master online and even forgot to delete the comments. If I hadn't stayed up all night rewriting it for you, you might have been expelled for academic plagiarism by now."
Leo's face went from white to green. "...What are you trying to say?"
"I'm not asking you to repay a favor," Shawn said, looking at him with a terrifyingly sincere gaze. "I'm truly at my wit's end. Help me this one time, just this once. I promise, this is the last time."
Leo stared at Shawn for a full minute before finally deflating like a popped balloon and collapsing into his chair. "...Fine, what do you need me to do? But let's get this straight, I'm not doing anything like murder or arson."
And so the plan was set. The target wasn't a T-shirt, which would be hard to hide, but something smaller and more intimate: the smelly socks Eric Dane took off after practice.
During the football team's practice time, the two of them once again snuck over to the gym's locker room.
"I'm only responsible for counting to three hundred at the door. After three hundred seconds, I'm running, whether you're out or not," Leo said, sweating nervously, looking like a turkey on a rotisserie.
"That's enough." Shawn took a deep breath and pushed open the heavy locker room door.
The locker room was empty, the air thick with a complex smell—a mixture of sweat, body wash, and male hormones. Shawn held his breath, crouched low, and quickly found the locker with the nameplate "Eric Dane."
Luckily, the locker was unlocked. Eric seemed to be careless with his used gear. Shawn quickly pulled the door open and found a pair of socks, balled up at the bottom, emitting an indescribable odor. He pinched them with two fingers and stuffed them into a pre-prepared plastic bag as fast as he could.
Just as he was about to make his escape, he heard voices and footsteps outside the door.
It was Eric and his teammates! They were back early!
Shawn's heart leaped into his throat. He looked around; the lockers were too small to hide him! That traitor Leo must have already started his countdown to run! In his panic, he saw a huge laundry cart in the corner, filled with dirty towels. Without a second thought, he dove in and, a second before Eric entered, covered himself with a few damp towels.
Hiding in the pile of sweaty towels, Shawn felt like he was suffocating. He could only see what was happening outside through the gaps in the towels.
Eric walked in with a tall teammate named Ben.
"Are you really not pissed off? About that 'KissGate' thing?" Ben yelled as he took off his shirt. "That kid was publicly humiliating you. If it were me, I would've beaten him to a pulp."
Shawn's heart, in the pile of towels, tensed up.
"Pissed off? Over a clown like that?" Eric's voice was full of disdain and disgust. He took a towel from his locker and said contemptuously, "He's just a pathetic loser trying to get attention by being outrageous, as disgusting as a buzzing fly. The more you pay attention to him, the more he acts up. God knows if he's got something wrong with his head, or some special kind of sexual fetish."
Ben burst out laughing, his voice echoing in the locker room. "I think he's just a total perverted homosexual, fantasizing all day about how to climb into your bed. People like that should be sent to a mental hospital—"
"Don't worry," Eric sneered, his voice piercing Shawn's eardrums like ice. "If he dares to stick to me like a piece of gum again, I don't mind personally beating him until he pisses his pants."
Hiding in the pile of towels, Shawn felt anger burn in his chest like a fire. He bit his lip so hard he didn't cry out.
He cursed the damned system, why did it have to make him go through this!
Eric and Ben walked into the showers, laughing and talking. Shawn waited a few minutes before crawling out of the towel pile like a ghost. He looked calm on the surface, but deep inside, a certain place hurt with an inexplicable, sharp pain.
He walked back to the dorm in silence. Leo was already on the verge of tears from fear.
"You're finally back! I thought you got caught!"
Shawn ignored him. He locked the door, took the foul-smelling socks out of the plastic bag, and then, with a blank expression, took off his own shoes and put them on.
The clammy feeling on his feet, carrying someone else's warmth, made his stomach turn, but it was nothing compared to the ache in his heart.
[Ding!]
[Mission 3 has been completed.]
[System Analysis: Emotional damage has been received. This is a key step in breaking the host's unnecessary pride. Keep it up, you moron.]
Shawn looked at the mocking text and, for the first time, didn't roar back in his mind. He just sat there quietly, wearing that asshole's smelly socks, feeling like a complete and utter fool.