Chapter 1
Miyuki was exhausted. She hadn't gotten a solid night's sleep in nearly a month, and while it had been a very pleasurable sleep-deprivation, she was now reaching the point where she could barely see straight. She had fallen asleep in class several times and was starting to bring home notes from her teachers about it.
It was in this state of mental fog that she walked past a place that had been an empty lot the day before, but today contained a home with a low wall around it. Exhausted, she leaned against the gate and found herself falling through it onto the grass inside. Two odd-looking girls charged out shouting "A visitor! A visitor!" They grabbed her arms and dragged her inside, despite her protests.
"Really, I'm too tired. I need sleep. Please leave me alone, girls."
"Watanuki! Watanuki! The visitor arrived, just like you said!" they chorused in a sing-song way.
Miyuki found herself dragged before a boy who appeared to be about a year younger than her, dressed in an old-fashioned yukata decorated with birds. The juvenile delinquent was lounging on a low couch sipping a cup of sake with a large container of it by his side while smoking an elegant pipe. "Well done Maru. Well done Moro. Please fetch our guest a refreshment."
"We will, Watanuki!" they chanted in creepy unison before dashing out the door and trapping her with the odd boy.
"I think there's been a mistake. I didn't mean to fall through the gate. I just need to get home. I'm too young to drink, so please just let me go home," she protested while looking for a means of escape before her clothes disappeared yet again.
"Relax. I have no intention of violating your purity any further," the lush drolled casually. This was far from calming, as she had been working hard to keep the visitations from her family. "Furthermore, the reason you were able to enter was because you wish relief, and I have the ability to grant it to you. You see, this is a wish shop." He took a lazy sip of his sake.
"You can make it stop? You can take away this horrible curse? I can't take it anymore! I would give anything to make it stop! I've barely preserved enough of my purity to get married!" She wasn't sure why she was confessing her desperate state, other than the creepy boy seemed to already know what was happening.
The boy's response was cut off by the strange girls returning with a glass of orange juice. Miyuki sniffed at it cautiously, having been drugged more than once already. She couldn't detect any sign of alcohol or other chemicals. With a sigh, she sipped at it. Whether it was here or at home, she wasn't sure it would matter, now.
"Before we proceed, I believe we should be properly introduced. As you noticed, I am known as Kimihiro Watanuki. And you are?"
"Miyuki," she confessed, sipping at the orange juice.
"Well, Miyuki-chan," she bristled at his rudeness, failing to recognize her seniority, but decided to dismiss it, "tell me about your issue. It seems you are very troubled."
She didn't understand why he was suddenly acting as if he had no idea what her problem was, despite his clear understanding that she had a serious problem earlier. It was annoying that he was playing games with her, but she had nothing to lose. "I've been tormented, nightly, by various women appearing in my bedroom. When they aren't visiting me, I'm getting sucked out of my room to visit them. Regardless of location, they won't leave me alone until they've had their perverted way with me. I just want a solid night's sleep. I'd give anything to make it stop."
"Well that's easy enough," the boy observed, "Simply surrender your soul to me, and it will cease," he said far too casually. "Of course, your body would then be in a coma. I think your family would find it unpleasant, but your visitations would cease."
Miyuki's jaw dropped in horror.
"No, I'm not Satan, and I won't agree to do that to you. But you needed to know what the cost of what you asked for is. What you really want is a decent night's sleep every night, correct?"
She found herself nodding, as weariness ate at the edges of her mind. "Yes, I need sleep so badly," she confessed.
"I think you also want to have control over your visitations. Tell me the details of how you go to other places." He was staring at her a bit too intently as he asked this.
"I've been sucked into movies, video games, and other strange places. Other times they come out of books, magazines, most anything."
He nodded sagely, in contrast to his youthful appearance. "As I thought. I can teach you how to control this while providing you peaceful sleep, but there will be a price."
She had known it was too good to be true. The drunken Yankee wanted her to himself. Trading one set of perverted experiences for this kid's lusts was unlikely to help her situation at all. "What is it?" she asked in a hopeless tone.
"You will be my assistant in running the shop. As part of that, you will receive a bedroom of your own, food and drink, and training. Maru and Moro will leave you alone at night, as will I, unless work comes unexpectedly."
"And if someone wishes for me?" she asked with dread.
"I cannot alter another person's nature or free will, and I am not a slave trader. This would be an after-school job. It will be up to you to explain to your parents why you must sleep here at nights. I don't care how you do it, or if you just choose to run away from home."
Despite her misgivings, she got the impression he was sincere. He had not looked away from her face the entire time they had talked, except to look at the strange girls or to pour himself more sake. She could see no other means of relief. "And if I change my mind?"
"You can start sleeping without the protection of this shop any time you wish, but I cannot promise you will be able to return if you do that. You are not a slave, but an employee, if you accept this agreement."
She nodded her head in resignation. She needed sleep.
