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Ch. 46: The melancholic type: Part 2!

"… Hmph… Glug glug glug…"

"… Gulp…"

"… Glug glug…"

"… S-Suika…"

"… Hic! What…?"

"…! Nnnghh… N-Nothing…"

Tatara Kogasa shifted uneasily in her seat. Kogasa had followed Suika indoors into one of the resort's many small and quiet lounge rooms, where for the past half an hour Kogasa had been, at Suika's drunken (read obstinate) insistence, sitting in the Oni's company. And currently, Kogasa was feeling rather uneasy indeed.

This… may have very well been the first time she found herself being uncomfortable sitting next to Suika. For one thing, she was lounging around a customer. Okay, so she had yet to become a true employee of Satori's, nor was Suika really a real customer. But Kogasa intended to take the role playing seriously, lest she disappoint Suika's and everyone else's efforts to get her a livelihood.

But that was not the main reason for her discomfort. The main reason was- Eeek! Kogasa suddenly became wary of an annoyed stare from her two horned companion. Reactively, she averted eyes and looked away, only to find herself just as suddenly confronted with the visage of Ibuki Suika, freshly materialized before her.

"Hiii!" Kogasa jumped backwards into her chair, "S-Suika? ! You surprised me!" she yelped, immediately looking away in another direction- Eek!

Suika was there too.

"S-Suika…" Kogasa's head jerked downwards towards her lap, but this time her eyes managed to stay on Suika's face. Or rather, they were frozen in place by Suika's glare.

For Suika had one heck of a glare right now. Her eyes were narrowed yet wide open, her pupils constricted and her normally brown irises shining a dazzling hazel. Overall, she had the expression of someone being frustrated with something repeatedly but is unable to pinpoint the source of the problem, which only adds on to their frustration. Suika was having that sort of frustration right now.

Plus she was drunk to boot. Slightly. Which is about the most you would want an Oni to be.

"S-Suika? You… I-I'll be honest," Kogasa jerked slightly as Suika leaned in with her most intense glare, "You've been looking angrily in my direction quite a few times, a-and you're kind of scaring me the way you're staring at me right now…" Her eyes… Sh-She's never stared at me like that before… "I-If something's er… bothering you, y-you can tell me, right?" Kogasa smiled nervously, her head still lowered meekly.

Suika stared harder, her nose just shy of Kogasa's, and Kogsa found herself staring back even as she continued to nervously press herself into the back of her seat. Suika's walnut eyes… If only they weren't so angry now… Kogsa thought, her heart getting a weird mix of fear and desire.

"Hmmm…" Suika's face relaxed a little, although her eyes continued to scrutinise every skin cell of Kogasa's face. Then suddenly, with a great toss of her arms upwards and her head back, Suika flung herself away from Kogasa and into the chair she had vacated moments ago. The arm chair groaned as it tipped to within a millimetre of its tipping point, and in it its occupant groaned a great groan too.

"Arrgh…! I-I just…" Suika said agitatedly, her head still thrown backwards as she addressed the ceiling with tightly squeezed eyes. Her right eye opened just a crack towards Kogasa, "It's… It's just that… that something…" Suika's expression screwed up, as if trying to find the words in her drunk mind to describe what was bothering her, "It's just that… something about… Well… Something about you just irks me today," she finished with a frown. Those… were not exactly the words I was looking for… Nnngh…

"M-Me?" Kogasa unconsciously pointed towards herself.

"Err… How do I… hic! How do I put it?" Suika scratched her head, her eyes tightly shut again against an incoming headache. "You err… You keep looking away from me…" she mumbled.

"E-Eh? !" Kogasa gasped in surprise, her cheeks lightly blushing, "E-Excuse me?" Suika was annoyed that I had not been looking at her?

"N-Nnngh… Hic! Arrgghh…! Oh I don't know! It just irks me somehow!" the two-horned Oni opposite her sighed shortly as she slapped a hand on her forehead and pulled it downwards, her hand revealing a long face which had nothing to do with the pulling action. Opening only her right eye again, Suika saw her gourd of sake sitting there and immediately reached for it with her other hand.

"A-Ah! No!"

"Huh?"

In a moment, the scene had reversed. Now it was Suika who was slumped into the back of her chair, and Kogasa who was out of her seat, her body leaned in threateningly towards Suika. Clutched close to her chest with all the might her two arms could muster was Suika's large blue gourd, as if Kogasa was trying to bar Suika with her Oni strength from ever wrestling it from her. But Kogasa did not need to worry about that, because Suika merely reached out an arm feebly for the gourd before letting it slump down in defeat.

When did Suika start simply giving in to Kogasa like that?

"Ahh… Kogasa…" Suika breathed out dejectedly, "I needed that… My head hurts…" she weakly tried to persuade Kogasa to give her the gourd.

"No! It's the alcohol that's making your head hurt! You've been doing nothing but drink the past half and hour!" It was Kogasa's turn to stare at Suika defiantly, her left eye a brilliant ruby and her right eye a piercing azure.

Suika looked Kogasa back in the eye in a tired manner, before closing her eyes again, signalling that she would not try challenge Kogasa any further. In any case, there was another incoming headache again…

"Sigh… Suika…" Kogasa set the gourd down far from Suika's reach and pulled up another chair right next to the Oni.

"I don't like it when you look away like that…" Suika murmured with her eyes buried in her hands, evidently grimacing against the pain in her temples.

"… Ah… Sorry…" Kogasa placed her hands together on her lap as she arched her head upwards towards the ceiling absentmindedly, a smile on her lips. "But erm… Can I er… Can I ask why?" she turned towards Suika with only the slightest of expectation colouring her cheeks, her chest doing its best to restrain her heart from flooding her face with red.

"… Mmmm… Well…" Suika scratched her head, "It would trouble me if you hated me… Or if you were afraid of me…" Suika looked up at Kogasa almost dolefully, "You… did seem to keep your distance today…"

"A-Aha… W-Well, you were rather irritated today…" Kogasa heart was drumming itself against the floodgates. "So I was rather cautious- Hyah!" Kogasa's chest all but remained in control as she found herself suddenly looped in by Suika's arm around her shoulders. Blood surged through her vessels to every patch of skin available; her heart was joyously painting Kogasa a conspicuous shade of scarlet embarrassment.

"S-Suika!" Kogasa gasped, the initial shock of Suika's action freezing her up, and the touch of Suika's warm skin making her body reluctant to defrost.

"Ahhhaaahhh! ! ! See, see? That won't do!" Suika, drunkenly unaware of Kogasa's plight, chuckled heartily, "Hahaha… See… That's why I'm annoyed…" she said more to herself than to Kogasa, mellowing out just as suddenly as she had grabbed the poor umbrella youkai. "I'm… not usually like this… I don't think I've ever been like this before…" she lamented.

"E-Eh?"

"I mean… I'm supposed to be festive and such when I'm drinking, right?" Suika's large, warm brown eyes turned to meet Kogasa's mismatched ones, and Kogasa found herself being lost in them. "Heh… Now look at me," continued Suika, looking down sadly, "Sulking and being all wet like this… I don't like it at all… Being like this definitely isn't how one should be…"

"What… What do you mean?" Kogasa asked softly.

Suika turned away, "Being all sad like this affects others negatively, like how it's made you feel uneasy… I don't like the idea that me drinking can make others feel that way… I don't like that it can make my friends sad…"

"A-Ah…" Something like disappointment escaped Kogasa's parted lips, but at the same time she could not help but smile. Heh… Suika, you…

"And… And that is why!" Suika suddenly turned back towards Kogasa, a large cheeky smile on her lips, "That is why I love merry making! Why I love festive joy!" she gave Kogasa a playful squeeze by the shoulders. "T-To tell you the truth," Suika blushed a little, "What I love best is to see people smile…"

"Ahh… Th-Then… Then!" Kogsaa blushed as well as she looked down at her hands on her lap. "Would you like it if… if I smiled?" Kogasa asked her lap.

"A-Ah… Of course!" Suika grinned, "I mean, it's got to be better than you quivering in a corner, right?"

"Hah!" Kogasa looked up with a big smile, then immediately recoiled with embarrassment. Suika seeing the cuteness displayed by Kogasa, grinned even more widely, which Kogasa found herself returning.

For awhile, the two remained like this, Suika, drunk (slightly) with an arm around Kogasa, and Kogasa with a most picturesque and gentle smile, herself a little intoxicated with affection for the grinning Oni.

"N-Nnngh…" Suika suddenly released Kogasa from her arm as she touched herself on the forehead. "Ahhh… I guess this is the part where I doze off, huh…? I… hope you don't mind…" the alcohol finally bested the Oni as Suika's head, horns, ribbons and all slumped forward and came to a rest against Kogasa's neck.

"Ah…!" Kogasa jumped a little, but then instinctively cradled the head of ginger brown hair in her arms, "I… I definitely don't mind…" she whispered to herself shyly. Her face grew redder as she felt Suika's heated breath against the base of her neck, a guilty little shudder making its way up her spine.

"E-Ermm… Just a little while is fine, I guess…" Kogasa said to herself sheepishly, and rested her head atop of Suika's.

"They've gone awfully quiet, haven't they?"

"… Hmmm…"

"I say that's enough waiting, let's just go busting in now!"

"H-Hang on-"

"One! Two! Heeellooo ladies!" the door to the lounge room burst open as a large but well shaped frame came into full view. Hoshiguma Yuugi, followed by a Mizuhashi Parsee and one Komeji Satori, came marching into the room in the most intrusive manner possible.

"Heh! We hope we're not disturbing… you… Eh?" Yuugi came to a stop. Before her lay Suika and Kogasa in separate chairs, yet leaned across in each other's arms, sleeping.

Wait a minute… That's not right… That's not how it's supposed to be…

"Ah…" Even Parsee was a little thrown off, as she could only stare at the two sleeping youkai.

"Hmm… This is sort of like digging for gold and finding diamonds instead, isn't it?" Satori commented pleasantly.

"De…finitely…" Parsee's lips started to curl mischieviously as Yuugi had an awkward grin on her's. "You have the camera, don't you?" Parsee asked Yuugi.

"Riiight here!" Yuugi pulled out the instrument with a flash of her pearly whites.

As Yuugi and Parsee busied themselves with gathering incriminating evidence, Satori could only stand at the side with a smile. She had indulged herself with a small peek into the dreams of Kogasa and Suika, and respectfully, voluntarily shut herself out of them after that.

"Come on," she said to Yuugi and Parsee, "We've messed up the timing already…" Pulling Kogasa gently away from Suika with a guilty "Sorry", Satori made to move the karaksa out of her seat, "Help me move these lovebirds upstairs, it would do this resort a great injustice to let guests sleep in chairs like this."

"Ah, alright!" Yuugi pocketed the camera with all the photos taken and began to hoist Suika unceremoniously onto her shoulders.

And so the night ended, unexpectedly, peacefully.

Yes! I made this one in time before New Year's! Happy New Year's, everyone!

Stay safe! Stay healthy! Don't binge drink unless you're an Oni!