My imaginary crush is surprisingly terrifying .

  Someone that beautiful has no business being this scary, but once again she proves herself to be above my worldly logic. It’s truly amazing how she managed to make the bathroom the scariest place in the house by visiting it just once.

  “This is the fifth time you come back, just go and shower already.”

  I can’t go in there when I don’t know what she’s planning. I froze in front of the store and failed to keep my promise to buy food, and I even indefinitely delayed her first shopping trip that she was so excited about, by asking my mom to buy food when she came home early. She said it was okay to do both those things, but I can’t be sure she doesn’t hold a grudge. To begin with she considered the whole ordeal to be some sort of motivational experience, so she might repeat it because it didn’t motivate me enough.

  It’s also possible the sadist in her just enjoyed watching me squirm last time, or the narcissist in her enjoyed seeing me awestruck by her perfection. She has so many reasons to do it again, how can I not be scared?

  I will never mentally recover from our last bath together, I can’t take the risk of another one. I couldn’t act normally all day and ended up doing almost everything she asked. One more bath might be all it takes for her to fry my brain completely and bodysnatch me. I wouldn’t really mind myself, but this body is definitely not narcissist-compatible so I have to protect her. Ami deserves better.

  “Y-you aren’t j-joining, r-right?”

  “Do you want me to join?”

  “N-NO!”

  Does she even hear how ridiculous she sounds? Why would I want the most beautiful woman in the world to join me in the bath… Okay, I see her logic there but still the answer is no.

  “Too loud Mai, your mom is home. I won’t join you if you don’t want me to, so go already. You are wasting my TV time.”

  She doesn’t seem to be lying. But I also couldn’t tell she was lying when she called me cute this morning, and I had a mirror in front of me to show me just how false that statement was.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Do I just have to live under constant fear from now on?

  “I don’t mind going in with you if you want me to, just say so and go already.”

  “I-i don’t.”

  “Liar, you had fun last time, and now you act like this is the worst thing ever.”

  “T-that’s s-school.”

  We already established the worst thing ever was school, it’s the one thing we seem to agree on.

  “Exactly, so stop acting like our bath yesterday was worse and go shower already. You have a test tomorrow so we can’t stay up late and we won’t have time to finish this season if you keep wasting time.”

  Don’t say the word test out loud, it makes it sounds like I should be studying instead of freaking out about my imaginary friend joining me in the bath. Wait, what test is she talking about, I didn’t hear anything about a test.

  “T-test?”

  “Math test. They kept talking about it in class yesterday so it seems to be a big deal.”

  How did I not hear any of this? And why didn’t she say anything until now?

  “I-i didn’t h-hear about it.”

  “You were busy plotting how to use the school computers to order food without actually talking to anybody. You don’t really listen much in class anyway.”

  I couldn’t even think of a way to get to the computer room without having to talk to people in the end. That plan was doomed from the beginning though. I only realized it after getting my phone back today, but there is no restaurant around here that lets you order online using cash. It’s all delivery apps and credit cards, there was no option of sliding a bill under the door to pay for the food anywhere.

  Oh well, no one expects someone who skipped a few months of school to pass a test straight after coming back. I doubt anyone would even notice that I didn’t study for it at all, so the shower thing is still my main problem.

  “Mai, you wasted a whole episode worth of time already just standing there. Go shower already.”

  “J-just don’t f-follow m-me.”

  “I won’t. But if you don’t go right now, I’ll take it as a sign you just want to see me naked and I’ll strip right here.”

  “I-i’m g-g-going.”

  I managed to make her angrier, I should really get this shower done with as quickly as possible so that she can calm down while watching TV.

  This room brings memories from yesterday that I rather forget, and somehow want to remember more clearly at the same time. For most of the day I simply couldn’t get those thoughts out of my head. The cold water falling on my head is helping me clear my head a little. I really hope I’ll be able to start acting normally around her again tomorrow.

  But right now, it seems impossible.