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“Ren!” Mogari shouted as he got dressed. “I’m going to be late again! Why didn’t you wake me up?!”
The cat rolled over into the warm spot on the bed that Mogari had just recently vacated. He curled up, shoving his face into his stomach as if it might muffle Mogari’s noises.
“Urgh!” Mogari shoved his shoes on and dashed out the door. Then he dashed back in and grabbed his book bag, which lay slumped over sadly on the floor next to the door, untouched since he’d come home from school yesterday. “I don’t forgive you for this, by the way!” he hollered at the sleeping cat before he closed the door behind him with a bang.
He was, predictably, late to school. His homeroom teacher made him stand outside in the hall for the remaining ten minutes of the period, which was when Mogari realized he’d forgotten to grab breakfast. His stomach grumbled loudly in protest. He wanted to cry. He was going to wither away by the time lunch rolled around!
He was let back into the classroom once homeroom was over, and greeted with his seatmate’s disapproving frown. “You were late again today, Shishikuno,” Korekishi said.
“Ahhh…” Mogari fidgeted, and then clapped his hands together and bowed apologetically. “Sorry, Koreshiki! I’ll do better tomorrow! I promise!”
“Tomorrow’s the weekend,” Korekishi said. “And that’s what you said yesterday, and the day before that.”
“Eheheh…”
“Your actions reflect poorly on the whole class, and on me especially as your class representative. Also, my name is Korekishi. Korekishi.”
“Give it up, Korekishi,” one of their other classmates said. “There’s no getting through to Shishikuno.”
Mogari resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at him. That would just lead to more scolding from Korekishi for being immature again. Mogari didn’t want to irritate Korekishi — he was the only one in their class who talked to Mogari during breaks, after all, and Mogari wanted Korekishi to actually like him!
The bell rang to signal the start of first period and Korekishi sighed, turning away from him to his open workbook as class began. Mogari rifled through his messy bookbag until he finally found his own workbook and a stray pencil.
Later that day, during lunch, Mogari returned from his run to the school cafeteria with as much food as he could carry to find a crowd around Korekishi’s desk — and, subsequently, his desk as well. “Excuse me!” he said, loudly, forcing himself through his classmates. One of the girls rolled her eyes as she moved away from him.
Korekishi looked over at him, his mouth set into a frown. “Prepackaged food again?” he said.
Mogari dumped his armful of food on his desk. “I’m starving!” he said. “And who has time to make lunch every day, anyway?!”
One of the guys snickered something. Before Mogari could ask him what was so funny, the conversation that they’d been having before he had walked in picked back up again. “Korekishi!” one of their classmates said. “Is it true that you’re going to be one of the judges for the Goto Meat Cooking Contest tomorrow?”
“Oh,” Korekishi smiled modestly. “Yes, that’s right. The rest of the student council will be there to judge as well. Please come out and support us.”
“Kyaaa! If I enter, does that mean Korekishi will try my food?!”
“I suppose so…?”
Mogari, staring down at his mass of prepackaged food, felt divine inspiration strike him. He stood up swiftly, his chair falling behind to the floor with a bang. “Me too!” he declared, raising a half-eaten meat bun into the air triumphantly. “I’m going to enter too!”
“Ew, Shishikuno, don’t eavesdrop on our conversations,” one of the girls said.
”Wha… I’m literally just sitting here…!!”
The next morning, Mogari was up bright and early, attempting to make gyudon. He grabbed Ren, lifting him off the tiny kitchen counter of his apartment to set him on the floor. “Don’t walk all over my cooking area!”
The cat was unbothered. He sat down on the floor and began licking his paws. “You should bake a cake instead,” he said.
“It’s a meat cooking competition,” Mogari said. He wiped his hands on the apron he had found stuffed in the back of a kitchen cabinet earlier, obliquely aware that it probably wouldn’t reflect too well on him if one of the judges had to pull a cat hair out from between their teeth. “Also, sugar is bad for cats. I looked it up.”
Ren flopped backwards, exposing his soft fluffy belly. Mogari ignored him. He had been lured in by that before, and had gotten a set of bloody scratches for his trouble. “Not magical cats,” Ren intoned, voice serious. “I need sugar to live.”
“Anyyyways,” Mogari looked back down at the recipe he had pulled up on his phone. “Top with egg… wait, was that before or after cooking the meat…?” There wasn’t any mention of an egg in this particular recipe, but he was sure he had seen it mentioned in one of the other recipes he had briefly skimmed before settling on this one. “Whatever, food is food!” He cracked the egg over the thin slices of beef and proceeded with the next step.
Ren rolled back upright, and then jumped back up onto the counter despite Mogari’s previous complaining. He peered into the bowl. “That looks bad,” he announced.
“How would you know?” Mogari huffed as he stirred everything together. It did look a little weird, but Mogari was pretty sure that was just because everything was still raw. “Trust the process.”
Ren grumbled, a little mraw sound from the back of his throat. “You should just buy it. From a store or a restaurant or something.”
Ren was obsessed with buying stuff. That, and social media. Apparently, they didn’t have either of those back in the magical cat dimension he came from or whatever (Mogari hadn’t bothered to ask too many questions about that). The cat had just hit a million followers on Instagram from doing nothing but posting his face and the amount of online shopping he did with his ill-gotten influencer money was getting concerning. Mogari knew the delivery guy on a first name basis at this point.
“I can’t bring premade gyudon to the competition,” Mogari said. “I want to impress Koreshiki with my cooking skills.”
“So it’s about Koreshiki again…”
“He’s so nice! Sort of! And handsome! And smart!” Mogari flailed around in excitement and accidentally knocked the salt shaker over into his mixing bowl. He quickly removed it and checked the time. The cooking competition was in the afternoon, so he still had a couple of hours before he had to be there. Waking up early on a Saturday wasn’t so bad with the promise of seeing Korekishi! And hey, he’d actually kept his promise from yesterday morning for once!
Mogari dumped the contents of the mixing bowl — meat, rice, egg, and all — into a pot, then covered it with the lid and timed it to cook on the stove for an hour.
“Alright!” he said. “I’m gonna shower and get ready. Ren, watch the stove!”
“Why me…?”
An hour later, after Mogari had showered and anxiously tried on about five different outfits before finally settling on his usual pair of shorts and a plain t-shirt, the timer went off.
“Finally!” Mogari said, abandoning the sword stances that Ren had passive-aggressively pressured him into practicing in the living room. He rushed over to the kitchen, turned off the stove, and took the pot off the heat.
Mogari grabbed the lid and held his breath. Ren leaped onto the counter to watch. Moment of truth!
He lifted the lid and peered into the pot.
“Yay!” Mogari said. “It looks great! See, Ren, I told you! And you doubted me!”
“…What…?” Ren stared blankly into the pot for a long moment. Inside was a perfectly cooked and plated dish of gyudon, toppings and all. “But… how…? I don’t understand…”
“Never underestimate the power of a magical boy in love!” Mogari said, placing the lid back onto the pot decisively. He carefully wrapped the pot so that it wouldn’t fall apart while he biked to Goto Meat, the local restaurant that was hosting the cooking competition.
The perturbed cat followed him out the door. “Why are you coming?” Mogari said.
Ren’s ears flicked, and then he leaped onto Mogari’s shoulders. “Eek!” Mogari gripped tighter onto the pot. “Watch it!”
Ren’s claws prickled into his skin. “It is my responsibility to watch over you,” the cat said shortly.
Mogari rolled his eyes, carefully securing his precious cargo in the front basket of his bike before he mounted it. He had to go slow and careful, with the pot in the basket and Ren riding on his shoulders, but he managed to make it to the restaurant with time to spare.
In preparation for the competition, the restaurant had turned their parking lot into a small outdoor market area, with a set of stalls set up where people could try samples from Goto Meat’s menu, buy the restaurant's branded merch, or play typical festival games. There was a currently empty judges’ table at the front, lined with a series of anonymously numbered food submissions, and even a cameraman from the local paper wandering around taking shots of the crowd.
Mogari handed his pot off to one of the staff members at the front when he arrived, who stuck a number on it and made him write his name on a card with a matching number on it so that they would know which dish was his after the competition was over. First place would win a premium cooking knife set, their picture in the local paper, and a cash prize. Second and third place would win smaller cash prizes.
Mogari didn’t actually care that much about placing. Mostly he just wanted to see Korekishi, and talk to him, and maybe, like, hang out? It was nearly impossible to get the other boy’s attention at school, considering how busy and popular he was, but Mogari was determined!
Mogari ended up wandering around the place a bit before the judging started. It was fun and the food was good, though he kind of wished he was here with somebody other than a cat. Right around noon, the judging started. The crowd, which had grown considerably as the day had progressed, surged together as the student council made their way to their seats.
“Thank you all for coming!” Goto Rinri announced into the crackling mic, smiling beatifically at the crowd. “We are so excited for the opportunity to taste everybody’s hard work! Please be sure to come by again and visit us for breakfast, lunch, or dinner in the future! And we cater! Goto Meat, always ready to meat you whenever, wherever!”
Hoping to catch Korekishi’s eye, Mogari took this time as an opportunity to start jumping up and down, waving frenetically. “I’m going to hurl up a hairball,” Ren deadpanned into his ear, digging his claws into Mogari’s shoulder as he bounced up and down.
“Don’t ruin this for me!” Mogari whispered loudly back at him. A couple of the people standing near him glanced at him, and then shifted away. Korekishi finally noticed him, stiffening in his seat as his face turned red. Mogari beamed at him and Korekishi quickly looked away, focusing his attention on Goto as she wrapped up her speech and took her own seat at the table.
There were thirty-one entries, and Mogari was number 19. He watched anxiously as the student council members began trying the various dishes and giving their feedback, discussing everything from taste to presentation.
It wasn’t until around dish 12 that Mogari realized something was wrong. The student council had started off by appropriately praising the dishes as they were presented, and their feedback had been positive and constructive. Now, though… Their evaluations were becoming increasingly crueler, and the crowd was responding appropriately. The atmosphere was quickly getting darker and gloomier. The air felt almost oppressive. “Ren,” Mogari said under his breath. “This is weird, right?”
The normally lackadaisical cat was tense, his fur prickling against Mogari’s neck. “Yes,” he hissed. “Get out of here, now.”
“Ugh, why does this kind of thing always happen?” Mogari muttered. He began fighting against the crowd. Even though it was a bright, warm day out, somehow the temperature had dropped enough that he found himself shivering. He ran his fingers across the broad golden band of the choker that was hidden under his shirt’s collar anxiously. He had to deal with this quickly.
Before he could escape the crowd, however, the situation took a sharp turn for the worse.
“Disgusting filth!” came the shrill ringing cry from behind him in Goto’s voice, and the crowd gasped. Mogari whipped back around just in time to witness her stand up and throw a plate of food at the crowd.
The gasps quickly turned into screams as the plate of meat, which had landed sadly on the ground, began to pulse with a dark energy. The crowd began pushing and shoving, everyone fighting to get away from where the dark energy had begun to grow and amalgamate — until before them all there stood a Phantom, giant and terrible, a grotesque slopping beast composed of rotting meat.
There was no time anymore. Lost in the midst of the crowd’s panic, Mogari ducked behind one of the abandoned stalls. He pressed his finger against the kanji that rested against his throat, engraved deep into heavy gold.
“Eat.”
The transformation always felt startlingly bright, like fire licking up his throat. A golden light engulfed him, accompanied by a cascade of sounds — the gentle chimes of a bell, the silk strings of a shamisen, the whisper of steel that was a sword being pulled from its sheath. The whole process only took a moment, but for Mogari, it always felt much longer.
When he opened his eyes, he was ready for battle. Instead of his usual nondescript shirt-and-shorts combo, he was wearing something like a mix between a shrine maiden uniform and samurai armor, if shrine maidens wore flowy red short-shorts and samurai barely wore any armor at all. A black cloth mask covered the lower half of his face, and the crest on his samurai helmet curled into a pair of ostentatious red horns. Dark armored gloves climbed up from his fingertips to his elbows, and his black boots came up to his thighs.
There was also the weight of the sword that Ren was always making him practice with on his back. Bleh.
The looming Meat Phantom hadn’t noticed him yet. Its interest had swung from the screaming crowd to the six members of the student council, who were still seated at the judges’ table, staring up at the monster in front of them like shocked statues.
“What’s wrong with them?!” Mogari took off running towards the Phantom.
“They’re under its trance,” Ren bounded behind him, though it was difficult for the little cat to keep up with Mogari’s long strides. “If this goes on for much longer, it’ll possess their souls!”
“Are you serious?! I didn’t know these things could do that!”
“They're getting stronger!”
Mogari pulled his sword from where it was slung across his back and jumped at the Phantom, swinging wildly, sword stances be damned. The thing moaned in pain as he sliced through it, but its wound almost immediately disappeared into the rolling mass of meat before his eyes as if nothing had happened. Slowly, it turned its attention towards him instead. It stunk like roadkill, and Mogari was doubly grateful for the fact that his mask covered his nose and mouth.
Behind him, the student council members finally began to wake from the trance. “Run!” he called out to them, keeping his eyes on the Phantom. It lunged at him, but it was slow and sluggish. He fell back, stepping just out of its reach, hoping to lure it away from the student council long enough for them to escape. By now, nearly everybody else in the area had managed to flee — though there were a couple of gawkers still hanging around, far from the action but in sight. Mogari turned to wave at them cheerily when he noticed them. One of them pulled out their phone and Mogari blew them a kiss while he was at it.
Ren finally caught up to him. “One of your classmates is about to die,” he said flatly.
“Huh?” Mogari turned his attention back to the Phantom to find that it had lost interest in him and was once more slouching back towards the judges’ table. “Shit!” He made a mad dash back to the table, leaping in front of the Phantom again. “Kore—!” he barely managed to dodge out of the way of another attack, stumbling and nearly tripping before he caught himself. Even though the Phantom was slow, it was huge, and it had only just missed him by a hair. “Koreshiki, what’re you still doing here?!”
The other boy had just been standing there, watching the fight. His eyes widened at Mogari’s call, as if he only now realized that he was still in danger. “I…” he backed up a couple of steps, staring at Mogari, and then he ran.
Mogari turned his focus back to the Phantom. He had enough experience at this point that he knew there was no point in actually fighting the thing. What he really needed to do was find the object it was possessing, and destroy that.
It was fixated on the judges' table, and it had nearly taken possession of the judges themselves. What had the prize been again? A set of knives? The set was boxed up fancily on the far side of the table, at the end of the row of competition dishes.
Mogari finally remembered the sword he was still carrying, and he swung up to meet the Phantom’s next attack. It recoiled, giving him just enough time to scramble away and go for the prize. He grabbed the box of knives, raised it high over his head, and slammed it against the ground.
It broke open, but the Phantom didn’t disappear. “Shit!” he stomped on the stainless steel knives and they shattered like glass under the sharp red heels of his boots, but that didn’t do anything either. “Ren, a little help here?!”
The cat had disappeared on him again. Great. Mogari desperately cast his gaze around and finally noticed the tripod and camera set up just a little bit away.
Right, that had been the second component of the prize — the winner’s picture in the paper. Mogari ran for it, practically flying over the Phantom’s sludgy limb and raising his sword into jōdan as the beast gave one last gruesome roar. “EXORCIST EXPULSION!” he screamed, bringing the sword down and cutting right through the camera like a hot knife through butter.
A terrible shriek rang out, emanating from the camera, and with one final groan, the Phantom collapsed into a heap of rotting meat.
He didn’t get to relish in his moment of triumph for long. From behind him came a slow, quiet clap.
Mogari whirled around, his sword falling automatically into gedan. “You!”
“Good afternoon, Exo,” the other boy said. Like always, he was dressed elegantly in a princely pure white suit, embroidered with intricate gold thread. A white domino mask obscured his eyes and a superior smirk played across his lips. Mogari felt himself flush with anger.
“That’s Magical Mystic Dark Warrior Exorcist to you, asshole!” Mogari snarled.
The Phantom Masque’s smile twitched, but he continued valiantly with his villain monologue. “I wanted to congratulate you for beating my Phantoms once more. Your efforts thus far have been… truly commendable.”
“Why don’t you just give up already, huh?!” Mogari said. “Since all you do is lose to me anyway!”
The Phantom Masque stepped closer, as if he hardly even noticed the sword that Mogari was keeping between them. “Tell me, Exo,” he said. “Do you know what a Pyrrhic victory is?”
“No! Let me guess, it’s a total waste of time? Because that’s what this whole thing seems like!”
“Sure, you’ve won,” the Phantom Masque continued, ignoring Mogari’s tirade. “But in the process of winning this little fight, you’ve lost something much more valuable.” He tilted his head slightly and his hair, loose and shaggy and auburn, fluttered in the breeze. “You don’t even know what you’ve lost.” His voice was almost soft, as if he pitied Mogari.
Mogari had no idea what the Phantom Masque was talking about, but it made a cold shiver run up his spine all the same. He gritted his teeth, pressing his tongue against his fangs as he fell into a more offensive stance. “I’m sick of your riddles,” he bit out. “If you want to fight me, just do it already!”
“I’m not interested in fighting you,” the Phantom Masque said, clasping his gloved hands behind his back almost politely. “I would wager that you’re not very interested in fighting me either, are you? You could have struck first long ago, after all.”
Mogari’s hands trembled around the grip of his sword. Phantoms were one thing. A person — even one as awful as the Phantom Masque — was another.
Mogari was a magical hero who defeated monsters. He was supposed to save people, not hurt them.
“Thought so,” the Phantom Masque said, voice low. He grabbed the corner of his cape and dipped into a brief, mocking bow before turning away. “Until next time,” he said over his shoulder, and then he was gone.
Mogari didn’t feel much better with him gone. His stomach was churning, but he knew he didn’t have much time left before people started swarming back now that the Phantom had been defeated. He fell to his knees and began rooting through the remains of the destroyed camera, until his fingers bumped against a small, cloudy, marble-like object.
Best to get it over and done with. Mogari yanked his mask down and pressed the object to his lips.
“Purify Putrefaction,” he murmured against it, and then he slipped it into his mouth and crunched down hard.
He shuddered as it broke open in his mouth, and he was flooded with what felt like every dark evil. It was the stuff that the Phantom had been made of. There were things mixed up in there that he didn’t understand — something about Goto Rinri and her family, and the hopes and fears of all the contestants who had entered the competition, and the complicated and conflicting emotions of the student council and all the rest of the audience. That was okay. Mogari didn’t need to understand it; he just needed to be strong enough to swallow it.
He stood up shakily, slipping behind one of the empty stalls once more to let the transformation fade before he rejoined the slowly gathering crowd in the now-wrecked parking lot.
“There you are,” he said, crouching down to scoop Ren up. He buried his face in the cat’s fur.
Ren wriggled in his arms. “All that cooking... for nothing...” he muttered, stretching out his paws.
“Don’t remind me,” Mogari said. He was really bummed that his whole plan had fallen apart. How were he and Korekishi supposed to become best friends forever now?!
Near the judges' table, Goto was back at the mic, which was somehow still standing despite the battle that had gone on around it. She was apologizing deeply to everyone for the events that had just occurred, flanked by Ichimiya and Yotsuya for support. Nika and Usami were moving through the crowd, talking to people and comforting them in their own ways. But where was…
“Shishikuno,” came a voice from behind him.
“Eek!” Mogari jumped, whirling around. “Oh, it’s just you, Koreshiki. EEK, Koreshiki!”
Korekishi looked a little embarrassed. “I’m sorry if I surprised you. Are you alright? That was pretty crazy.”
“Y-yeah!” Mogari said, accidentally squeezing Ren a little too tightly in his excitement. The cat yowled and clawed his way out of Mogari’s arms, landing primly on his feet.
Korekishi looked a little confused. “Did you bring your cat to the competition?” he asked. He crouched down and offered a hand to Ren, who ignored him.
“He’s not my cat,” Mogari huffed. “He just follows me around everywhere!”
Korekishi laughed lightly, and Mogari tried very hard to ignore the blush he could feel heating up his cheeks. This was probably the first time that Korekishi had expressed a real positive emotion towards him, ever. “I didn’t think you were serious about entering the cooking competition, you know,” Korekishi said.
“Of course I was!” Mogari said, and then he wilted a little. “You guys never got up to number 19, did you?”
“I don’t think so,” Korekishi said apologetically. “Even if we had, we would have hardly been in our right minds. Maybe another time.”
“Huh? Another time?”
“Hm?”
Mogari grabbed Korekishi’s hands in his. The other boy looked startled. “Koreshiki! Lemme try cooking for you again! It’ll be a lot better this time, I promise!”
Korekishi gave him a wry, slightly confused smile. “What’s with this obsession with cooking for me?”
“Because!” Mogari paused, biting his lip. He had to think about it for a moment, because the whole thing had grown from just an impulse. “It’s special, isn’t it? Cooking for people, and eating homemade food with somebody… So I wanna try doing that with you, Koreshiki!”
“I see…” Korekishi blinked at him. Mogari waited for his response with bated breath. “Well, sure,” he said.
“Yes!” Mogari jumped into the air, pumping his fist. “This is gonna be great! Oh, oh, what’s your favorite food? I’ll practice it a couple of times and then I’ll invite you over, okay?!”
“Okay,” Korekishi said agreeably, a small smile on his face. It was the polite, reserved smile that Mogari always saw him wear, but Mogari was sure that he would be able to make Korekishi smile genuinely soon enough.
And then they would be friends!
For real!