Chapter 22: ME.

Sarah checked her watch again. "See ya, Chance." She smiled.

"Yep," I said. "Um, thanks for recommending the anime, by the way. Do you have any other suggestions for a newbie like me?"

She shrugged. "I dunno. What kinda stuff are you interested in?"

The stuff that keeps you talking, fucking whore.

"Eh... some fantasy, maybe?" I asked. "I don’t know. I trust your taste."

"Well, if that’s the case," she began. "I can recommend—"

YES!

Hubert’s car entered the street, and he pulled up to park on the side. He got out and locked the vehicle, walking toward us with his eyes locked entirely on me. Sarah looked back, offering a smile to her husband before turning back to me.

"We’ll talk later," she said. "Bye, Chance."

"Uh-huh," I smiled smoothly. "Bye."

"What are you doing here?" Hubert snapped the second he reached us. "Fucking vampire."

"Where did that come fro—"

"I bet it was you the senator was fucking."

"Wha..."

He didn’t even listen. He just pushed right past me and entered the apartment building. Sarah looked at me, scoffing at his rudeness, and then gave me a warm smile and a wave before following her husband inside.

Senator? Was he talking about that one leaked video where that one senator was going to town with another man in his bedroom? This fucking idiot somehow managed to baffle me every single time he opened his idiotic mouth. I was impressed, actually. That had to be counted as a super power or something...

"Now," I muttered, watching as the heavy door swung closed. "Anyway. Go and fight, you two."

The rain finally started to fall, and I looked up at the churning sky. Yeah... this was going to be an incredibly interesting evening. I couldn’t wait.

I just fucking couldn’t.

I walked back inside the apartment building, the heavy click of the main door sealing out the damp courtyard. Slipping into my own flat, I shut the door and finally let the neighborhood persona drop.

I sat back on the chair, kicking my legs up onto the single couch to get comfortable, and fished out my lighter. I struck a flame, lighting up a fresh cigarette, and took a long, deep drag. Exhaling a cloud of gray smoke toward the ceiling, I just waited. The rain outside was starting to lash against the glass in a steady, heavy rhythm.

A few minutes later... right on cue, it came.

"What the fuck, Sarah!" Hubert’s voice boomed from upstairs, easily cutting through the thin ceiling of my bedroom. "You are fucking thirty-one, for fuck’s sake! This is sick! Cartoon porn!"

The raw, self-righteous fury in his shout was loud enough to echo down the stairwell.

I smirked, taking another slow, satisfied drag of my cigarette as I leaned back.

"Fuck yeah," I muttered to myself in the dark.

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

TARGET: Sarah Angi

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ RELATIONSHIP ]

> Partner: [Hubert]

> Loyalty: 37% [▼24%]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ SYSTEM SYNC ]

> Favor: 56%

> Threat: None

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

> GRIEVANCE LOG

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

A few seconds later, another scream from Hubert. "You’re sick! You fucking disgust me!"

Huh. Look at the fucking reward. Seventy EXP and fifty Sinpoints. Nice.

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

TARGET: Sarah Angi

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ RELATIONSHIP ]

> Partner: [Hubert]

> Loyalty: 25% [▼12%]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ SYSTEM SYNC ]

> Favor: 56%

> Threat: None

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

> GRIEVANCE LOG

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

"Don’t!" Hubert screamed. "Fuck. Do not! I need to get out of here or I’m... I’ll tweak!"

Tweak?

Yeah, sure. Tweak all you want buddy.

Soon... your wife would be mine while you tweak.

❤︎‬‪‪❤︎‬‪‪❤︎

I stepped up to her landing and knocked on the door twice. It’d been ten minutes since Hubert had stormed out of the building, his car tires screeching into the rainy night, and he hadn’t been back since. I guess seeing his wife’s private illustrations really made him sick to his stomach. Fucking idiot, reacting to some anime tits like that? Talk about a fragile ego.

"Um... Sarah?" I called out, feigning a soft, worried tone. "Are you okay? I heard... Hubert shouting earlier. I don’t know if you... if you’re alright in there."

A heavy silence hung in the hallway for a moment before I heard a muffled sniff from the other side of the wood. "N-not now, Chance..."

"I’m just here to make sure you’re okay," I pressed, keeping my voice smooth and gentle. "Like the day you ’forcefully’ helped me out, you know? Just returning the favor." I quipped lightly.

At first, there was no answer. Then, the lock clicked. The door swung open, and before she could even look at me properly, she lunged forward, wrapping her arms around my neck and hugging me tightly.

Fuck yeah.

I could instantly feel the warm dampness of her tears sinking into the shoulder of my jacket. She was sobbing, trembling completely against me, just as I’d calculated. And who would she run to when her world crashed down? The closest person who had validated her interests.

Me.

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

MAJOR EXPLOIT SUCCESS

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

> Sarah Favor: [▲45%]

> Sarah Mood: [Grateful]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

REWARD: 120EXP

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯