The Love Box Ch. 01

Just a few seconds after I sat down on my gaming chair, Sixcia flew in.

"Your house is so cool!" She started. "There's all sorts of interesting technology. I hadn't seen those filters you have on your sink, it's dandy!"

"Glad you like it." I muttered.

"Now, about your reward..." She flew next to me and rested her palm over mine. "I, well, I really only can provide one kind of reward."

"What is it?"

"Love!"

"What?"

"I told you we vesies create stuff, right? We're an engineer race! But, we have a direct connection with emotions, feelings and tastes. We make stuff that enhances creature's experiences! Me, I'm the Love Engineer!" She made a dramatic pose in the air. "I make stuff for people struggling with love!"

I blinked. One second, I was listening intently, the next, I was laughing out loud.

"Oh, oh, that's rich. Holy shit, you're funny."

"I'm serious! I'll prove it to you." She snapped her fingers and a portal opened. I gasped, but my reaction was far more subdued than earlier. "Here, I made this a year ago."

It was a box. Painted white with a red stripe painted horizontally across, with a heart symbol in the front. It was about as big as my backpack, but very light.

"What?" I asked, looking down at it.

"This is the Love Box! My gift, to you." She said with a smile.

"What is it?"

"My masterpiece, or one of them anyway. Basically, you take it," she grabbed it from my hands, "you point the heart at someone," she aimed it at me, "the box sees into the future, and in a few seconds, an object appears in the box."

She said that, but nothing happened.

"Nothing happened." I helpfully supplied. "And what do you mean it sees into the future?"

"Oh, it's cause I'm a vesie." She laughed. "It'll work on any other kind of creature though. And yeah, it literally sees into the future to pick the right object for a designated situation. Anyway, here are the rules. If you give the item that appears to someone or something at the right time, at the least, they'll kiss you and feel lust towards you. At the most, they'll fall in love with you."

My head started to hurt.

"What? This, this sounds... You mean... How does that work?"

"Ah, I trained for this moment!" She giggled. "See, if I were to hit you, what would you say are the chances that you hit me back?"

"Pretty fucking high." I lied. If she hit me, I'd probably just curl up and cry.

"That's how love works. Everything creatures do in their day-to-day lives reduces or increases the amount of love you have for something."

"I don't think I've ever fallen for a guy because they said hi to me." Which was true, no guy had said hi to me in years anyway, so it couldn't possibly happen.

"Ah, you're wrong." She smiled. "See, it's just that the percentage to which your love changed was so small, you didn't notice it. Let's say someone hands you a snack, the way your emotions work, your love for that person will go up by, let's say, 0.001%. Get it?"

"Then, why does the thing that comes out of that box matter?"

"Because, and this is the crux of it, if someone hands you a snack, your love for them goes up by 0.001%. However, let's say you once had some sort of dog. That dog is gone, it goes missing. If someone shows up and brings you back that dog you loved so much, don't you think your love for that person would go up by WAY more than 0.001%?"

"So... It teleports missing pets?"

"That's just one situation. There are millions, Miri! Millions of possibilities where how a girl feels about you could change for better or for worse!"

I caught something in her sentence that troubled me.

"Girl?" I shook my head. "S-Sorry, I'm straight."

For the first time, Sixcia looked surprised.

"What? But I was sure you..." She leaned close, squinting. Suddenly, her multi-colored eyes came back. Something happened, clearly, because her eyes glowed briefly, before returning to the disguised browns. "Hm... I'll get back to you on that."

"Whatever." I shrugged. "So, if I hand whatever appears there to a guy, they'll like me?"

She blinked.

"They'll do way more than just like you. At a minimum, they'll want to have sex with you."

"Wait, that sounds weird. Are you sure this wouldn't, you know, force anyone to do anything?"

"Hm? Oh, you mean consent? It's okay, remember, all this thing does is mess with probabilities using real-world data. Meaning, it's not forcing anyone to do anything. If you give them the right gift at the right time, it works regardless of whether or not you have this thing with you. It doesn't really alter people at all.

Understand?"

That made my body heat up. Was she seriously promising that my tested, 18-year streak of virginity could end?

I was... Honestly, I was excited.

"Uh, could I ask you a favor though?"

"Sure." I was distracted, still thinking about the box and its possibilities.

"I, uh, belong to you now. So, could I stay with you?"

A reasonable person would have pondered the matter of how exactly I would hide her from mom. Me? I was distracted.

"Yeah, fine."

Later that night, mom arrived. I told her the first excuse I could think of, and I introduced Sixcia as a friend that was sleeping over tonight.

"Friend?" Mom asked.

"Yeah." I nodded shyly.

A few seconds of silence passed and next thing I know, she's hugging Sixcia like her life was on the line.

"Thank you for being her friend! I've been so worried that she wasn't talking to people and..."

"MOM!" I yelled as embarrassed as I'd ever been.

Sixcia just laughed.

Later that night, Sixcia explained that her race didn't need sleep. That was a little weird to me, but I shrugged it off. As I dreamt that night, Sixcia called someone on a phone she'd made for herself. As in, literally made for her self.

"Kosn?" I was asleep at the time, but she said this to someone on the other end. "I have something to ask. See, I met this human girl... no, no, it's alright. She saved my life! Yep, I know the rules. I'm hers. I know. Anyway, I'm confused... See, I'm pretty sure she's, what's the word, homosexual? But... Yeah. Yeah, that. Yeah, so I wanted to ask you about it since you know so much about humans and all..."

And so, the person on the other end of the phone explained something to Sixcia.

"Oh... I see." Sixcia smiled to herself, looking over at my sleeping back, right next to the empty space where she'd be sharing my bed for the night. "So... Should I help her with that? Yeah..."

She kicked her feet up onto my desk.

"I thought so."