“Fight me!” the girl at the head of the Judo Club demanded.
Keiko said, “I’m not fighting you. I only signed up for training newcomers.”
“Come on! You’re much more approachable now, so it should be alright to challenge you to a match.”
“You can challenge me, but I’m not going to accept, Mitsuzuri.”
The Judo Club head asked, “Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to have any matches,” Keiko answered. “I just want to spend time with Haru-kun, but I was roped into this whole thing.”
Mitsuzuri stated, “Then if I help you spent more time with that coward, you’ll fight me?”
“No! Just…I did what I agreed to, so I’m going now.”
“Come on! Don’t be that way! I bet you could flip me over your head,” the Judo Club leader told her.
Keiko walked out of the room.
“What the hell? Is everyone like this today?” she thought. “All the club heads wanted to fight me. Well, I’m going into the Tea Ceremony Club next. I should get some peace there.”
At the Tea Ceremony Club…
“Why do you guys want to fight me too?” Keiko shouted.
“It seemed like fun,” the club head told her.
She groaned, “You’re a Tea Ceremony Club. You’ve never even arm wrestled here before, and you want to fight me?”
Another club member nodded, “That about sums it up.”
“I know!” she said. “This has to be a curse of some sort. Someone must have decided to curse me so that everyone wants to fight me. Was it Baba Yaga? She’s the most likely suspect.”
“Curses? What are you talking about?”
“Magic, witches, that sort of thing.”
The club head chuckled, “Do you really believe in that sort of thing?”
“I…” Keiko sighed.
She knew that they wouldn’t believe her, and that they might do something stupid if they did. Haru’s curse might mean they’d assume the worst about him if they found out that he was a witch. Keiko decided what she needed to say to get them off her back.
“I’ve watched too much anime recently.”
“That’ll do it,” the club head nodded. “I’m not even surprised that you’re talking about curses and witches.”
Keiko said, “I’m not fighting you guys. Just accept that. Now, what do you need me to do in exchange for you giving Jirogame an interview?”
He stated, “We need you to get new teacups. If we’re going to have a stall at a festival, we need to prepare for a lot of people showing up.”
“Fine. I’ll get you some of those,” she promised.
Keiko jumped up and ran out of the room, eager to get this over with.
She ran outside of the school and into a nearby store.
“Excuse me!” Keiko said. “I need a bunch of teacups.”
The shopkeep stated, “Sorry, but we just ran out.”
“Just ran out? Did the Tea Ceremony Club already buy them? Are they messing with me?”
“No. It wasn’t them.”
Keiko asked, “Then who was it?”
“It was a student named Date Kenji,” the shopkeeper answered.
“Erik?” she thought. “Why would he want a bunch of teacups?”
Elsewhere, Haru and Erik were standing in front of a table filled with teacups.
“Why do we need these teacups?” Haru wondered.
Erik said, “It’s simple, really. We’re going to lure Watanabe into watching a certain anime where the main character says that he likes a woman who can kick his ass.”
“You mean Cowboy Be…”
“Be quiet!” the vampire stated. “We might get in trouble.”
Haru was surprised, “You think we’ll get in trouble just for saying the name of an anime? We’re not writing it in a series or anything.”
“Hey! I don’t know copyright law, so I’m not taking chances!” Erik declared.
“Okay, but that still doesn’t explain why we need all these teacups,” the witch pointed out.
“We lure Watanabe by telling her that we’re having a tea ceremony and she’s invited.”
Haru replied, “If she doesn’t like tea, you’ve just wasted a bunch of money on a plethora of teacups.”
Erik rubbed his chin, “That’s a good point. I have no clue if Watanabe likes tea or not. That means we need a plan B.”
“Any ideas for that?”
“We could show her illustrations of warrior women in Tabletop RPGs.”
“I don’t think that’ll help Watanabe. That’s pretty different than what she likes,” Haru said.
“Fair enough,” Erik admitted.
The witch asked, “Can’t you use your over a millennium of experience to come up with a better plan?”
“Possibly; however, I’ve never encountered a problem like this before. My knowledge of Japanese culture primarily comes from video games and anime, so I doubt it’s accurate.”
Haru’s eyes widened in shock, “What? You’re living in Japan.”
Erik replied, “I don’t leave my house often, and you and Keiko are the only humans I hang out with.”
“So you’re a shut-in NEET?”
“Hey! I’m technically in education since I go to school! And I have invested in several companies, so that counts as employment, right?”
“Wait, that gave me an idea!” Haru said. “Watanabe’s in the Journalism Club, but she’s never had a job as a journalist as far as I know. There are female martial artists and pro wrestlers, so we could convince her to go to an event with them and interview some of the men there. It could be an article for this club.”
“There is a flaw to that,” Erik stated. “In the case of female pro wrestlers, they aren’t wearing skimpy outfits to make it easier to move in, if you get what I mean.”
“That actually helps our plan.”
“How so?” the vampire asked.
Haru answered, “Watanabe’s worried about getting a boyfriend. So, if she finds out that a lot of men like female wrestlers for their sex appeal…”
“I think I get it. We’ll use that plan and make the tea plan a plan C,” Erik nodded.
All of a sudden, Haru’s phone rang.
He picked it up, “Hello?”
“Hey, Haru-kun,” Keiko said. “Do you know where any teacups are?”
“Erik has a lot of them. We probably won’t use any, so he might let you borrow some.”
“Why did Erik buy all those teacups anyway?”
Haru explained, “It’s part of a plan he came up with to help Watanabe. We’re calling it plan C.”
“How many plans do you have?” Keiko asked.
He answered, “A plan A and a plan C. We don’t have a plan B.”
“It sounds like you’ve had a rough day too,” she sighed.
“Not really,” Haru said. “We’re just trying to solve a new problem. What happened to you?”
“Everyone wants to fight me for some reason!”
Erik wondered, “How is that a problem?”
“You’re listening in?” Haru’s eyes shot to Erik.
“I’m a vampire. I have enhanced senses. Even if I didn’t want to, I’d be listening in.”
Keiko said, “I’m worried that it’s a curse, Haru-kun.”
“I’ll look into it, Keiko-chan,” he assured her. “Where are you? I’ll come over right away.”
“Right now, I’m just outside the convenience store a block down from the school.”
“Wait for me there. I’m coming.”
Haru hung up the phone.
“Erik,” he said. “You’ve heard the talk.”
“Yes, we have a few problems we need to solve now. You work on Keiko’s, and I’ll try to figure out how to solve Watanabe’s,” the vampire replied.
“Thank you,” Haru nodded.
And with that, he turned into a raven and blasted out of the school building.
Ved'ma Story 