Magical Girl with Demonic Time Magic-Chapter 78: Distractions

I come home without patience for Hexael, who was trying to manipulate my mind.

"Should I distance myself from Ayane a bit?" I wonder if this is a good idea, Hexael is slowly infecting my mind with problematic ideas and I’m falling into his tricks more and more.

Even though I try to avoid it, even though I do everything in my power, I can’t overcome Hexael, who knows me better than I know myself. If you know someone deeply, you can predict that person.

Hexael somehow knows exactly what I’m like and how I normally act, and he uses that to manipulate me.

’I need to distract my mind, I need to distract my mind in any way possible’ I quickly think of what to do to control the bad feelings as I enter my house.

A simple house, but even it reminds me of Ayane, since it was Ayane who helped buy all the furniture in this house.

’This isn’t helping’ Killing monsters didn’t even come close to helping me, coming home didn’t help either, I need some other form of distraction, no matter how small.

"...Haaa...I wish I could forget everything" I murmur, opening the fridge and grabbing a cold slice of pizza and taking a bite, since I didn’t eat anything for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

’Tasteless...’ I continue eating the cold slice without really enjoying what I’m eating as I sit in the chair, looking at a wall clock that I chose from the things.

It’s a simple 3-hand clock that indicates seconds, minutes, and hours without directly telling the time. I liked its simple and straightforward style, so I ended up choosing to bring it with me as well.

The tick-tock helps me a bit, it’s rhythmic, simple, and progressively unchanging, so by focusing on it, it helps me take my mind off the bad things in my head.

What bothers me the most is that when Hexael talked about killing Ayane’s boyfriend, I actually thought of it as a plausible thing to do for a moment, which showed me how much I’m slowly crumbling without realizing it.

Hexael is a treacherous "snake" and his words slowly poison my mind, but it’s not like I have any way to not hear him. He takes advantage of opportune moments to spew these manipulative nonsense.

"Envy..." I never thought I was the envious type, but now it all makes sense. In fact, my being envious explains a lot about my behavior in the past and present.

The feeling of inferiority I always feel when I compare myself to her is a clear sign of the envy I feel. It’s just that I’m so bad with emotions that I never realized it was envy, I just thought it was a discomfort with something.

It means that I’ve been envious of Ayane since childhood. Now, exactly when it started, I don’t know. I have no idea at what point Ayane became the target of my love and envy, I just know it started in childhood and grew over time.

I even hid it pretty well, but now that I’m a girl, the comparisons between us two keep coming up, and with Hexael amplifying bad feelings to the max, the envy simply increased dramatically.

Or maybe it didn’t increase, it just became more "free". I don’t know, I have no idea if my bad feelings are so bad because Hexael amplified them, or if they’ve always been that bad.

"..." I finish eating the pizza and look at the clock’s hand moving, thinking about what to do now. The clock is no longer helping enough, I need something more consistent and powerful to stop thinking nonsense.

"I should support her...no matter what Hexael said, I won’t fall for these tricks." If I support her relationship, everything will be fine. There aren’t many other options to consider.

"Yes...that’s all I have to do. Who cares if I suffer from it?" Ayane and no one else will know. The only one who will know if I suffer is Hexael. Besides, it’s my decision. Suffering from my own decisions is just taking responsibility.

"That’s what I’ll do..." I pick up my phone and write a message to Ayane, congratulating her on her date, while saying we can talk tomorrow, but then I remember she didn’t tell me about this date, so I delete the message that doesn’t make sense.

"Haaa...I’ll just send a different message then..." I try to write something, anything that will help me start a conversation with her, but it’s hard to find any topic to talk to her about. I’m a boringly dull person with nothing interesting about myself.

"She’s online..." She seems to have seen that I tried to write something but didn’t send anything, so she sends a good night and asks if I want to talk, which I immediately agree to with a message.

[It’s a beautiful night, isn’t it?] I send a simple and direct message and anxiously wait for her response.

[Yes! I had my first date with my boyfriend, do you want to hear about it? (≧▽≦)] She asks, sending a blushing smiley emoji.

[Of course, what happened?] I ask, pretending some interest when in fact I observed everything, except for the conversations, since I couldn’t hear from that distance.

[It was really fun, he knows a lot of cool and fun things, and he talked about several other countries he’s been to. There are some beautiful sceneries that I’d love to visit in the future. He also mentioned some nice places in the city where we can go on more dates (＾▽＾)] She sends a slightly longer message.

’...’ At this point, it’s obvious his narcissism in talking more about himself than asking questions. Ayane continues sending messages describing the date, where it’s clear that the boyfriend practically talked more about himself than asked questions.

With each message, I get more irritated. I think this was a bad idea, but I need to be strong for her and myself, so I continue responding as she describes.

’At least she had fun, and that’s good.’ If she’s happy, then everything is perfect...that’s what I can tell myself.

[And you, Setsuna? I heard you’ve already been discharged from the medical ward at the magical girls’ base. Do you feel better now? Or do you need any help?] Ayane finally talks about something different.

[Yes, I’ve already been discharged, and after tomorrow, I’ll be back at school. I’m doing well now, and I appreciate the offer, but I don’t need any help. However, I’ll send a message if I need anything.] I send the message, preferring this topic.

[That’s great! I’m so glad you’re doing better now (⁄ ⁄>⁄ ▽ ⁄<⁄ ⁄)] She sends a shy, smiling emoji.

[By the way, I have a small favor to ask...Setsuna, could you help me with the assignment? The professor gave us something really difficult (⁄ ⁄>⁄ᗝ⁄<⁄ ⁄) and I’ll be in trouble if I can’t do it.] She sends a more casual message, which makes me smile a little.

[Of course I can help you with your problem. Just send a photo of the subject, and I can do it tomorrow on my phone with you. How’s that?] I ask.

[Really?! Thank you so much! (≧∀≦)] She says, sending more smiling emojis.

[Here’s a hug as a gift! Thank you for the help (づ￣ ³￣)づ] She sends another emoji. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

[Now I have to go to sleep, Setsuna. Thank you so much, you saved me! And have a wonderful night! (⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄)] She says, sending a shy emoji.

[No problem, I wish you a wonderful night as well...Goodbye.] I say, as the icon shows she’s gone offline.

"..." I look at the icon, a photo of Ayane and me at the cafeteria. It’s the photo we took together, and it immediately warms my heart. I didn’t notice when she changed her profile picture.

In the app’s status below the photo, it says "Best Friends" with several cute emojis, which is very much her style.

This kind of makes me feel dirty for being envious of such a pure and brilliant girl. I feel like a parasite that robs her of her light.

"...Maybe this is enough..." I go to my room with my phone and as soon as I get there, I throw myself on the bed. I thought of a possible good method to ignore the bad feelings.

I just need to replace them with something else. Now the point is, how can I do that? And that’s when this idea came up. If I masturbate thinking about Ayane, as Hexael said, I can forget the problems.

I know perfectly well that this is a temporary measure, because I can’t just go masturbate every time I feel bad about the envy and jealousy. But at least in certain situations and moments, it can help.

"...She wouldn’t mind..." It’s not like it’s a crime to fantasize about Ayane’s image. I’m doing everything for her, I’ll suffer for her, I’ll do everything in my power for her, so at the very least I should be able to use a bit of her image to feel other things, right?

I copy Ayane’s profile picture and create a copy in the gallery. Maybe later I’ll ask for the original photos, but for now, this one will do. I quickly create another cropped copy with just Ayane in the image.

"Looks good enough for me..." It’s better than just seeing her in my imagination. With the photo, it will be easier.