"Address."
On the other end of the line, Natsume's voice was as flat as ever, without the slightest ripple, as if Eriri's desperate, near hysterical plea for help had been nothing more than a casual greeting.
Yet that calmness felt like a steady hand gripping her spiraling fear, gradually forcing it to slow down.
With a trembling voice, Eriri rattled off her home address. She barely finished before he replied with a short, decisive "Wait there," and cut the call.
Waiting made every second feel like torture in a space that felt completely suffocating.
Outside the window, that warped, featureless face pressed against the glass had not vanished. It stuck there like something sticky and malicious that refused to peel away from the glass. The eerie popping noise, pop, pop, pop, kept going like the most precise metronome in existence, hammering relentlessly against her already shredded nerves.
She did not dare look at the window again. She could only curl up in the corner of her room, arms wrapped tightly around her legs, head buried against her knees like a terrified ostrich.
She did not know how much time had passed.
Just when she thought that maddening sound might finally drive her insane, the doorbell rang downstairs, followed by her mother Sayuri's slightly surprised greeting.
I am saved...
The instant that thought appeared, the tension in Eriri's body dissolved. Her legs almost gave out beneath her. She pressed a hand against the wall, forcing her shaking body to stand, and stumbled out of the room.
By the time she reached the top of the stairs, she saw her mother leading a figure into the living room.
Natsume.
He was still in his Sobu High uniform, bag slung over one shoulder, expression unchanged, calm and indifferent. He did not look like someone here to deal with a lethal curse at all, more like a classmate casually dropping by.
The moment she saw him, the heart that had been hanging dangerously over a cliff finally dropped back into her chest. An unprecedented sense of safety swept through her like warm tidewater, thawing her frozen limbs.
"Eriri, this is...?" Sayuri looked from her pale, shaken daughter to the absurdly handsome boy standing in the entryway. Her green eyes were full of curiosity, with a trace of subtle amusement hidden deep within.
"H... he is my classmate..." Eriri's lips trembled. For once, she did not even know where to start explaining.
"I am here to exorcise a curse," Natsume said instead, answering for her. His blunt declaration made both mother and daughter freeze.
He did not bother with their stunned expressions. Those pale blue Six Eyes swept around the room, then finally settled on the second floor.
That heavy, disgusting cluster of cursed energy was coiled up there, clinging to the space like a smear of ink that would not dissolve.
"Come with me. It is upstairs", he said.
Sayuri had a thousand questions, but her daughter's hollow, terrified state, paired with the quiet authority radiating from the boy in front of her, left her with little room to argue. She nodded, worrying, tightening her grip on Eriri's cold hand as she followed him up.
The three of them went back into Eriri's bedroom.
The moment they stepped inside, Natsume headed straight for the closed window.
"Don't go over there!" Eriri cried out, her voice cracking.
He did not stop.
He walked up to the window and calmly studied the blurred face on the glass. Under Eriri's horrified stare, he reached out and yanked it open.
Whoosh.
Evening wind gusted into the room, sending the white curtains billowing outward.
Outside... there was nothing.
No monstrous face, no towering figure, no deathly popping sound. The moment the window opened, all of it vanished without a trace, as if someone had wiped a painting clean.
"Eh?" Eriri stared, dumbfounded.
"It sensed I was coming and hid," Natsume said as he shut the window again and pulled the curtains closed. He turned back to the still-stunned mother and daughter. "Now we talk about the rules of this curse."
...
The air in the living room was heavy.
"When you say 'it,' you mean Hachishaku-sama?" Sayuri, who had seen her share of strange things in life, recovered from her shock faster than most. She frowned, digging through her memory for the familiar name.
"It is merely a cursed spirit that has been given the title 'Hachishaku-sama.' In essence, it is a curse born from fear, urban legends, and grudges from unnatural deaths." Natsume sat on the sofa, speaking with the composed tone of someone giving a lecture.
"Cursed spirits like this tend to operate according to fixed rules. It will randomly choose a target to mark, then spend three days gradually corroding that person's mind.
On the first day, you will only occasionally hear its voice or catch glimpses of it.
On the second day, the frequency increases to the point that you cannot ignore it.
On the third day, like tonight, it fully manifests... and kills you."
There was no emotion in his words, but they still made Eriri's body start trembling all over again.
"T... then what do we do? Call the police? Or... contact a shrine?" Sayuri's face was etched with worry. She squeezed her daughter's icy hand as if that was the only way to keep it from slipping away.
"It will not help," Natsume shook his head. "Ordinary people cannot see it, and modern technology does nothing to it. This curse targets only its marked victim. Until it kills the target, it will not lay a finger on anyone else."
Despair crept back into the room, dark and suffocating.
"But," Natsume changed tack, "it is not unbeatable. As long as you endure tonight, or more accurately, survive until sunrise, the curse's power will temporarily weaken. It will leave you and search for a new target."
"Really?!"
Eriri clung to those words as if they were her only chance to survive the night. Hope flickered back to life in her eyes.
"Yes," Natsume nodded, then calmly added a sentence that made the atmosphere twist into something far more complicated.
"So to ensure your safety, I need to stay here tonight."
"Ha...?"
Her face went red in an instant, color surging from her cheeks all the way to her ears. She jumped up from the sofa as if it had shocked her, pointing at him and stammering.
"W... what are you even saying! Letting a boy stay over at a girl's house, in my room no less... absolutely not!"
Watching her daughter's classic tsundere reaction, Sayuri's worry eased a little, replaced with outright amusement. Propping her chin in her hand, she smiled at Natsume.
"My, my, is Natsume-kun going to be Eriri's knightly bodyguard tonight? That sounds very reassuring."
"Mooom!" Eriri squeaked, torn between shame and panic.
"This is the most reliable option," Natsume said, paying no mind to Eriri's protest. He spoke calmly to Sayuri. "I will set up a barrier in her room. As long as she stays inside, the cursed spirit cannot get close."
"A barrier?" Sayuri blinked. The word made her feel like she had stepped into a movie.
"Then I will leave it to you, Natsume-kun," she said, barely hesitating before deciding. Nothing mattered more than her daughter's life.
"Mom! How can you just agree like that?!" Eriri's resistance had gone from fierce to feeble.
"Alright, alright, Eriri," Sayuri patted her daughter's shoulder, the teasing smile never leaving her face. "You should feel honored to have such a handsome classmate personally guarding you. I will not get in the way of you youngsters and your little two person night."
With that, she even winked at Natsume, then hummed a tune as she left the living room. On her way out, she very thoughtfully closed the door behind her.
In the suddenly quiet living room, only Natsume and Eriri remained, one calmly composed, the other flushed and flustered.
In the end, faced with death itself, a girl's pride and tsundere front did not stand a chance.
With her head lowered, she whispered, almost too softly to hear, "Th... then I will be in your care..."
...
Eriri's bedroom was filled with that faint, sweet scent unique to a girl's private space.
The room was tastefully decorated, but traces of her other identity were everywhere. The shelves were packed with manga and art books. Several popular anime posters lined the walls. The desk was littered with professional drawing tools and half-finished lineart.
Natsume ignored all of it. He stepped inside and began inspecting the room.
"H-hey, do not just look wherever you want! A... and do not touch my stuff!" Eriri trailed behind him, hands clasped tensely behind her back like a watchdog, mumbling one last round of feeble resistance.
Natsume did not bother responding.
He walked to the window and lifted his index finger. A faint cluster of cursed energy gathered at the tip, barely visible. Starting from the window frame, he traced a subtle, intricate path along the four walls, the ceiling, and the floor.
He did not use any tools. He did not chant so much as a single word. Even so, as his fingertip moved, Eriri could feel it.
The air in the room seemed to grow... thicker.
It was as if a warm, invisible film had settled over the room, wrapping it completely and severing it from the world outside. Even that distant, ghostly popping noise seemed to fade, growing thin and unreal, like something heard through several walls.
The process took about ten minutes.
When Natsume finally lowered his hand, a simple barrier made of cursed energy, invisible to normal eyes, had taken shape around the room.
"Done."
He dusted his hands off and turned to Eriri. "Stay in this room tonight and do not go out. As long as you do not step past this door before sunrise, you will be safe."
Looking into his calm, unwavering eyes, Eriri felt the frantic pounding in her chest ease at last. She nodded, softly answering, "Okay..."
Natsume made no move to leave. He naturally pulled out the chair by her desk and sat down in a corner of the room, closing his eyes to rest.
One boy. One girl. Alone in the same room.
The atmosphere instantly turned delicate, wrapped in an awkward, fluttery silence.
Eriri stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, not knowing what to do with her hands or feet. She sneaked a glance at the boy resting in the corner. His profile, in the soft glow of the desk lamp, was sharply defined, almost too perfect.
By all logic, this should have been a situation that made her heart race and her face burn.
And it did.
Yet beneath the embarrassment, something else filled her chest, something warm and solid... a sense of security stronger than anything she had ever known.
Outside the window, the curse lurked and watched.
Inside the barrier, for the first time in her life, Eriri had found the safest refuge she could imagine.