《Mini Menace: My Magical Girl Double is a Cheese Addict, So Am I!》


 1) I got scammed into marriage.

    A white ceiling. I stare at it. Staring at it, I feel nothing, I am nothing, and I feel nothing.


    I am in a very dark period of my life, having no idea what I want, if anything.


    It¡¯s not sadness I feel, but numbness, which at times derails into madness.


    I hate everyone, but more than everyone, I hate myself. I can¡¯t be like others.


    They impose morals and principles and wishes and aspirations and live by them.


    Some find hope in fairytales, some in papers, some in hormones, whereas some reject the idea of hope altogether and shut their eyes, living in momentary bliss. But I hope.


    I hope to hope. I hope to find my hope. So I try every day, to escape nihility.


    Hence there are few things in life I haven¡¯t tried, and I¡¯m only eighteen.


    From extreme sports to academics, from drugs to dates, from mundane hobbies to questionable activities, from everything to e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. I try everything. And nothing works.


    It¡¯s not like I lack in any physical or material aspects. I¡¯m fairly handsome, eloquent, smart, and relatively healthy.


    My bank account spans six figures due to my rich parents abroad. Even if I don¡¯t move from my bed till the end of my life, I''m pretty much set for life.


    It¡¯s been a while since I graduated from high school, and I¡¯m about to apply for a university. Technically, most of my classmates have already done just that, but I decided to take a gap year to find my hope, as I have no future to look forward to.


    It¡¯s now April. Rain drizzles on my window. The leaves outside in the park sway as I hear the breeze pluck a weakened branch away from its trunk and feel a young leaf detach from its stem.


    Children still play, unbothered. They shoot a ball; shout; laugh; cry; joy.


    Time passes, and time passes quickly, and time passes slowly.


    My room is just as messy as the outside, smelling funny, smelling of sweet food and sweat, of decay and depravity, and clothes are scattered everywhere wherever. Whatever, I turn to the empty wall and hug my pillow in a fetal position.


    I think. Yet still nothing.


    I continue to think, to read, and to discover every day, yet nothing still.


    Without looking, I sweep my hand across the bed and paw at the blankets, feeling for my phone, finding nothing. Who cares? Why bother? Why am I even looking for it?


    Scroll through the brainrot machine they call social media? Install and waste a day in yet another casino, aka gacha game? Read one more trash-tier web novel they dare call peak fiction? Maybe comics? Perhaps anime? Mayhaps porn?


    My phone vibrates from somewhere, and I grab it, unlocking the screen.


    A black screen, 2 P.M. When did I go to bed, 2 A.M?


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    So I¡¯ve been lying for twelve hours if we discount the visits to the toilet, right?


    Why do I care? Let¡¯s just sleep again.


    Oh, wait, there must be a reason why my phone jiggled even though I¡¯ve turned off almost all my notifications.


    What is it? Who with what which fuck is it?


    Nobody. Not a message from a person I know.


    Right, I must¡¯ve lost all my friends by now by ghosting them.


    Just an email.


    A contract. Wait, a what?


    A contract?


    A contract.


    ¡ªA mysterious contract


    Hello human!


    I am a cadet from the Majic Girl Academi. I want to do a project in some faraway interesting place.


    Will you marri me?


    I like paining. I like books. I like boobs. I like traveling.


    Please ignore this if you are ugli, boring, stupid, or don¡¯t like cheese.


    If I don¡¯t like you, I will divorce you. Basicalli kill you. Thank you!


    Sincereli,


    Michiko ^?^


    Woah. For a spare moment, I smile. I haven¡¯t done so in what? Days? Weeks?


    But I smile through my teeth.


    What a ridiculous prank. It¡¯s so cringy. So cringe it somehow makes it fun? Ha¡­


    Why do I care? It¡¯s probably just a scam. They come up with new tricks every waking moment. Though I¡¯ll give it to them. Pretty creative.


    Will probably get a few desperate guys. I know how it goes.


    After you respond to the message, it¡¯ll say something like¡­


    ¡°Oops. I reaaally want to marry¡ª marri you, but I don¡¯t have enough dollars¡ª dalars. Please send me some moni moni please, insert smiley face,¡± I talk crap in a girlish pitch, which only makes up for a half-baked half-boiled piskey voice.


    ¡°Sure thing, Mademoiselle! I accept it!¡± I respond to myself, extending my arms to the heavens beyond the prison walls. ¡°I feel so lonely and miserable! Your proposal gives me hope in this accursed life!¡±


    And so I type what I just said and send it to her in replies.


    In almost just a moment, my phone judders some more.


    ¡ªA misterious girl


    Hello again, human!


    You made the right choice! I have spent so much mana to send it to hundreds, and you are the first to respond! What is it if not fate? You didn¡¯t even ask ani questions! Just accepted!


    Let me grab mi things, and I will teleport! This is the first time I''ve made a magical contract with someone, so I¡¯m super excited!


    Sincereli,


    Michiko ^?^


    Phah. This can¡¯t be a human responding, right? Has to be some AI.


    Though I have to admit, AI has become so good the entire internet is now trashed by it. Death of the internet, they say. I¡¯m starting to believe. Can¡¯t even read books these days online because of it, tsk tsk.


    So anyway, what next do I send to my AI girlfriend? Ah, no, wife. An AI wife.


    ¡°Phahahahaha!¡± I can¡¯t help but laugh at my predicament. ¡°Life is going good, man. To think that I got married fresh out of high school! What next, a menial job, driving kids to school? I¡¯m so super excited too!¡±


    Suddenly, the walls start to quake.


    An earthquake? Strange. I don¡¯t live in an area where earthquakes frequent the land.


    A small blue circle begins to form atop my head beneath the ceiling.


    Huh? The hell? Hahahaha¡­ no fucking way¡­


    ¡°Helloooooo husbaaaaa-aa-aa-aaaaand!!!¡±


    Before I can react and my heart fills with regret, and before my consciousness leaves me, the portal enlarges and poops out a figure, a bizarre girl with bizarre looks in a bizarre outfit.


    Her face smashes into mine like a torpedo. My first kiss tinges despair.


    ¡°Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!¡±

 2) Will I go to jail if she chokes on pizza?

    It¡¯s cold, it¡¯s fuzzy; it¡¯s pain. My head hurts. Though that¡¯d be an understatement.


    Whole body hurts. But the head especially. It simmers ¡ª shrills ¡ª echoes ¡ª through ¡ª and through.


    I contemplate opening my burning eyes. Maybe the darkness will extinguish the flames. Marriage, really?


    I¡¯m just too lazy for marriage, and I know it¡¯s not a dream since I never see dreams.


    Yeah, right, I¡¯ll just lay here motionlessly and pretend I¡¯m dead asleep, and the problems will wash away from my lone island, from my self-imposed tomb, somewhat. I¡¯ll pretend what I once considered a fantasy remains a fantasy somehow.


    Peace gets disrupted when I hear something. Someone scurrying around my clothes.


    Then I hear the crinkling sound of corrugated cardboard. What can it be but the pizza box I ordered yet was too lazy to even open and preferred to just starve yesterday?


    ¡°Mmm~ mm~ mm~¡± the instigator muses, then munches, gobbles the pepperoni down like a megalosaurus on shrooms.


    Then a gulp.


    Then silence.


    Then:


    ¡°WHAT CHEESE THIS?¡± the perpetrator shouts in all caps, makes sure to follow with a typo, ¡°THIS IS THE BEST! THE BEST I¡¯VE TASTED IN MI LIFE!¡±


    Fuck my life.


    This is not happening for real now, is it? I hope I have gone mad.


    Without a shadow of doubt, it must be that that I¡¯m that mad, and not that what this is!


    She eats like an animal, chirps, croaks and ribbids. Oh but it becomes worse.


    I hear slurps and swallows, the ones one would hear on an orange site.


    I stand. Parting my eyes, I face the windows.


    Me a robot, I open up the curtains and happily let the bare sunlight blind me. What a good day it is today. Only if I could unhear things too.


    I run my eyes through the almost carless road and a few two-three-floor apartments laid across the very street, consumed in forestry. The road curves and descends along the hill, at the bottom of which is a rundown school building.


    There, many children of many colors and varying ages play in student uniforms. Though not that many. After all, this is but a rural area of a rural city. Worcester. Not the Worcester of England, no, but the Worcester of Massachusetts, America.


    I part the double windows and let the breeze wipe the depravity out. It¡¯s kind of cold despite the month. Not jacket weather, but not exactly shirt weather either.


    I¡¯m fine, I guess. It¡¯s kind of easy to get used to shitty weather when everything else is shitty also. And so I wait till the starving abomination finishes on her delicacy.


    And she does, with a last monstrous gulp and a long ahh of relief, surprisingly fast at that.


    At the time it¡¯d take me to eat half of the half, she''s devoured it all. Like all all, hasn¡¯t she?


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    Hella impressive, considering her short frame from my vague memories.


    Then she burps, belches, burps. She¡¯s not going to throw up in my room, is she?


    Anything but that. I am not a picky person. So please.


    ¡­I watch the birds loiter in the cloudy skies. An eagle passes above the faraway hills and mountains carpeted in maples, pines, oaks, and hemlocks, beyond which a city lies.


    Water falls like a waterfall.


    Right. No shit. Water does that.


    The drops are large and drizzly, the drips relaxing on the mind, dizzying.


    I lift my black pants up and fix the sleeves of my black shirt. I sigh. Then again.


    Then again, the time to face reality has come.


    I turn, forcing a kind smile, my best attempt at concealing the fact that I¡¯m dead inside.


    I gaze at her dead figure lying on the swarm of tissues I¡¯ve accumulated through weeks.


    The first thing catching my attention are her menacingly red eyes with an orange tint.


    They, her wide eyes, stare at my favorite ceiling, focusless.


    Saliva drools down from her small mouth to her pointy chin.


    I can¡¯t believe with that gigantic head of hers, she couldn¡¯t predict so much cheese at once would impale her.


    Judging from her ginormous roundy ears with pink centers and white corners and her talent for stealing my food and dying in my room, she seems to be a half-mouse half-human?


    A ratgirl? A rat? A rat.


    Stepping closer, I bend and brush the silvery strands away, checking her pulse on her thin, pale little neck.


    She breathes shallowly through her celestial nose. Alive, somewhat.


    If she dies, she dies. There¡¯s no saving a person who chokes on pizza like it¡¯s a sacrament. How ridiculous.


    Speaking of¡­ it¡¯d be pretty awkward if she wakes up to this whole mess. A general cleaning, huh.


    Let¡¯s make the best possible first impression on my ratwife.


    Since, well, I remember divorce means death. Though I doubt this shorty can as much as lift a finger on me.


    However, looking at the pendant with a pinkish heart crystal hanging above her flat chest and at her bizarre white uniform with golden paddings, she is as magical as one can imagine.


    So I imagine she can pretty much turn me into an insect and eat me like the rat she is.


    Finally, I glance at her exposed, shuddering legs, sighing to myself. I grasp my giant cottony blanket and lay it on her after rolling her up with a light push like wrapping a burrito.


    Then I begin with cleaning. Wraps, tissues, socks, wear, underwear, cartons, food, containers, hair, receipts, bottles, notes; crumbs, lint, whatever.


    About ten minutes later, my small room is cleaned well enough.


    It still stinks. But I did my best. What¡¯s left is vacuuming and some mopping.


    I sit on my bed, waiting for her to wake so I can negotiate a divorce.


    While at that, I glimpse at my working desk, at many books on the shelves and the dusted notebook. My room is just that simple.


    Some people idolize celebrities or nonexistent anime characters and plaster their images on the walls. I lack any of that grandeur.


    Of any peculiarities, there¡¯s a guitar beside my dresser that I haven¡¯t touched in a while.


    By its side is a stained mirror. My dark bearishly brownish-blackish hair is just as messy as always, the strands flinging everywhere dancing dancing in the mellow breeze fluting in from out the wild.


    The face is flat and somewhat fat. Though the chin is sharp and the hazel eyes are handsome, or at least that¡¯s what I¡¯ve been told.


    Body''s in okay shape, albeit the muscles are gone from all the passivity.


    I breathe deeply, in and out. Have a grab at my glasses lying on the stool beside the bed.


    ¡°I know you¡¯re awake,¡± I say. I poke her tummy with a toe. ¡°What¡¯s the point?¡±


    She flinches, winces, widens her eyes, smiling motherfuckingly.


    She points at me sharp from under my feet. ¡°I¡¯ll give you a seventi!¡±


    The fuck that supposed to mean? Did she just¡­ Amazing.


    Amazing how I¡¯m getting reviews after twenti minutes of marriage.