-Chapter 1-

Losing Control

The lightbulb flickered.

That was about the only noteworthy thing to note when staring at the ceiling from the floor with your legs beneath a kotatsu. Didn't even keep them warm, the broken piece of shit. She'd really needed to get that thing fixed one of these days. It wouldn't even be too difficult if you knew a guy.

The piercing glare intensified. 'God, am I seriously wasting my thoughts on some trivial bullshit like this?' it seemed to convey to the ceiling. The wood above refused to get the message or provide answers. Stupid ceiling!

The lightbulb flickered some more. To most, it might seem random, but after literal hours of idle observation, a pattern would form from time to time.

Flick, flick, flick. Flicker. Flicker. Flicker. Flick, flick, flick.

A vein popped in her forehead. Taunting. That is what this was. She hadn't been the best student years back, she'd admit that, but her gut told her that much.

It was like a pathetic cry for help.

The ceiling lamp shook lightly from a small tremor.

The light went out.

A metaphorical string snapped after being taught for far too long.

She jolted upright and scampered on her feet, walking the empty corridors of her home until she reached the room designated as hers. She rummaged the drawers, searching for something she had idly thought about a few months back. Slamming a stack of papers onto the desk, she grabbed a nearby pen.

Next thing she knew, she was furiously stomping down her neighborhood. She passed by one of her neighbors, who instinctually moved out of the way where she didn't have the patience to.

She reached the local postal deposit box and wordlessly dunked her parcel in before she could give it any further thought.

And so she found herself back home, standing in front of her bathroom mirror. What stared back at her was a woman in her late twenties with dyed blonde hair with by now prominent black roots showing off the original color. Her hazel eyes glared back at her, her furrowed and knit brow fiving off a permanent air of 'don't fuck with me'.

Kogarashi headbutted the person in the mirror, gaining nothing for her troubles than a shattered mirror.

"Goddamnit!" she growled out. She pulled back to inspect the spiderweb cracks on the reflective panel, only idly noting that her forehead was bleeding lightly.

Letting out a seething hiss through her teeth, Kogarashi pulled out her smartphone and quick-dialed one of her contacts.

...

"Hey, sis!"

"Harima," Kogarashi greeted in quite a neutral manner.

"Ow, so hurtful! To talk to your big bro after so much silence with such indifference," Harima mock-cried. He got over it immediately. "So, what's up?"

"You ever feel like life has just slipped out of your control?"

"... What did you do?" His voice carried a tone of slowly growing concern.

For a moment she said nothing. Mostly to corral all her thoughts about what had happened just earlier in the morning.

"Moe..." her brother intoned warningly. She had to strain to swallow the angry snarl threatening to escape her throat.

"I might have just mailed an application for the Interspecies Exchange Program," she droned out.

"... Oh," Harima said. "Well, that's not as bad as I thought."

Her forehead vein bulged, overcome with sudden agitation. It made the cuts on her forehead bleed a tiny bit more.

"And just what the fuck is that supposed to mean, eh?"

"Nothing, nothing, dear sister of mine," the man on the other end placated airily. "You know, I heard that Karo also took part in that whole thing as well."

"Huh," Kogarashi hummed idly, rolling her stiff shoulders. "Well, whatever. Not like they'll ever approve a person like me in a thousand years. They'll just take one look at my file and just slam a refusal on it."

"Speaking of you, how are things over there?"

"Got fired," the woman admitted without preamble. "A dumb convenience store gig. The manager was a piece of shit anyway, so good riddance."

"... Again, huh?" Kogarashi clicked her teeth at the clear, unspoken undertone of disappointment. "Seriously, sis. Just can't control yourself for, like, a few months?"

"Ain't my fault if they can't handle me." She wasn't being defensive. At all. "Not like it matters. Got plenty saved up, and the rent on the house is dirt cheap. It'll work out."

She fiddled with her bangs for a bit, accidentally brushing one of her bloody cuts and letting out an involuntary hiss.

"... What was that?"

"Nothing," she answered. A bit too quickly.

'...' The line was silent for a few seconds. "You got mad and headbutted the mirror, didn't you?"

"Choke on a dick and die."

She disconnected the call and shoved the phone back to her skirt pocket with a disdainful scoff. Then she went to the med-kit in the room for just these occasions and cleaned her wounds and bandaged them up without a fuss.

"Fuck, now I gotta replace the mirror again," she spoke to herself. She shook her head with a sigh. "Well, whatever."

Kogarashi made her way to the kitchen and looked into the fridge. The sight that met her was not what she liked.

"Tch, empty, huh?" the woman said. Aside from honestly too many cans of beer, the thing was as barren as the antarctic. "Could've sworn I just stocked up..." She let out a sigh, closing the fridge.

She eyed the kitchen and dining area. A multitude of empty packages and containers of snacks and the cheapest kind of instant ramen littered the place in what could only be called organized chaos. It wasn't the ugliest mess, but a mess regardless.

Steeling herself, Kogarashi breathed in. "Need to go shopping. Might as well."

She spent the next moments cleaning up the mess into a garbage bag. On the way out, she passed the partially open, murmuring supply closet in the hallway, closing it and sparing a wave at it. After grabbing her wallet and putting on her favorite black leather jacket, locking her front door, and dropping the trash bag into the collecting bin outside her house, she set out for the nearest convenience store.

"Another week of instant ramen. Hooray," she cheered lifelessly.

She found herself sighing, struck by a thought. 'When was the last time I had food that was prepared and not instant garbage?' She didn't know how to feel about the fact that she honestly didn't know.

Kogarashi Moeru, a woman in her late twenties. Her most notable feature is the naturally knit and furrowed brow she's had since childhood that, combined with her narrow, sharp eyes, gives her a constant look of agitation. The kind of face that says, "I will punch you in the face if you mess with me". A woman with little to no passion or aspirations for the future.

Since graduating high-school, Kogarashi has not made any great strides to get anywhere in the world. Part-time jobs, one after another, most not lasting too long. She was a professional job-hopper at this point, a veritable expert in the field, for what little that was worth.

Despite doing work on-and-off for minimum wage, she wasn't poor. No really. She had plenty of saving and was a bit of minimalist. Most of that could be attributed to her diet, which constituted almost entirely of the cheapest instant ramen available, and snacks that were on sale.

Heck, she lived in a considerably large house. The place was an old Japanese compound, modernized with traditional architecture. There were loads of sliding doors. It was almost like a mansion. Normally a place like that would cost a small fortune, but Kogarashi had managed to live there on an absolute steal. For some reason, when she moved in two years ago, the rent was manageable on her budget, for a place of that size. Not that she complained. She just struck the iron while it was hot and didn't waste the opportunity.

It left her with plenty of rooms and space she wasn't doing a damn thing with. And yeah, it might feel a bit lonely, sometimes, to live in such a large home all by her lonesome... not that she cared.

She did eventually figure out why the place was so cheap. But that isn't that important.

Finally reaching the convenience store, Kogarashi stocked up her reserves of questionably nutritional garbage and paid up to the cashier who kept looking at her nervously. She was used to it, even if it was pretty damn annoying at times. Checking once more that she had enough for a while, she started on her way home with a plastic bag full of fairly bland, cheap food and snacks.

She just wanted to go home and eat while watching some TV. There was a true-crime series running later she liked. And a pretty good drama was later this evening. There were also some late-night programs she enjoyed well enough. Plenty to do while planning on what her next job would be.

Her mind drifted back to the application she'd sent on a whim, only to scoff at even entertaining the idea. There was no way someone like her would be picked for that new program.

It was still wild though, that just three years ago humanity at large learned that it was not alone on this blue planet. At the time Kogarashi had been amongst the people who didn't really know what to do with the news that monsters existed. Or liminals, as was the politically correct term nowadays. She eventually moved into the camp of benign indifference.

So long as they weren't hurting anyone, she wouldn't have any real issue with them. She'd acknowledge that they existed, but that was about the extent of her feelings on the matter.

So, when her honed hearing picked up something while she passed by a crossroads picked up a commotion not too far away, drawing her attention to the scene happening not too far away, her next course of action was already decided.

It was pathetic, really. A group of four men, probably early twenty-somethings, hovering over and cornering what seemed to be a meek-looking young woman with grey-skin and elongated ears. Kogarashi's passing knowledge of non-humans was able to pin her as a dark elf, also known as drow since they were pretty recognizable in the public consciousness thanks to fantasy novels.

It was the usual fair, from what she could hear.

"What's a pretty thing like you doing all on their lonesome?"

"Why don't you come with us, we'll keep you real safe."

"It'll be a great time!"

Stuff like that. Essentially creepy flirting. Less insidious rapist, more unpleasant fuckboy.

"P-please give my shades back!" The dark elf stammered nervously.

'Oh,' Kogarashi thought, indeed seeing one of the men holding a pair of sunglasses and the dark elf squinting her eyes something fierce. 'So just your basic bullies then.'

Feeling honestly disappointed for some reason, the older woman rolled her eyes while sighing furiously, before taking steps towards the gang of hooligans.

"Hey, dipshits!" That got their attention easy enough. "I think you should leave the chick alone, and give her glasses back."

"Huh?" The oldest one of them, probably around 21, the one holding the sunglasses, speaks up. "Hey, hey, we're just being friendly here."

"Yeah," another says, nodding along like a good toadie. "We're just keeping the lady here company."

"Mhm," Kogarashi hummed neutrally, crouching for a moment to put down her grocery bag without losing eye-contact. "Funny, that. I thought bullies grew out of it after high school. Guess not."

That got them shooting stink eyes at the woman.

"Oi, oi," the apparent leader says, stepping up to the front to glare at Kogarashi, acting tough. "That's a mean thing to say, lady. We ain't hurting no one her-hey!"

Kogarashi wordlessly snatches the sunglasses from his hand and walks past him without so much as a glance his way.

"H-hey! What the heck's your deal?!" After getting no response, the man grabs the woman by the shoulder of her leather jacket. "I said, what's your deal, lady?!"

Kogarashi stopped dead still.

"I'll give you one chance to leave this place without a fuss," she says in a low tone. "So let go. Now."

The man did not, sneering at the woman and forcing her to turn to face him. "Look here, I dunno who you think you are, bu-"

It was as far as he got before a fist slammed into his face with incredible force, sending him into a twisting pirouette, his feet leaving the ground for a full second, right down into the concrete.

The three others could only blink with blank, uncomprehending expressions as Kogarashi rolled her wrist and turned back around without so much as a blink. She walked to the dark elf and held out the shades. "Here."

"O-oh. Thanks." The dark elf took them gingerly, about as wide-eyed as the men who'd been harassing her despite the discomfort it was visibly causing her eyes.

Turning back to the remaining three, Kogarashi glared at them, standing between them and the liminal woman. "So then, you kids got any more wonderful ideas?" The sarcasm could not be more blatant, nor was the unspoken challenge. The three looked at their apparent leader, out cold on the pavement, before hesitatingly eyeing the woman who had laid him out cold in one fearsome punch like it was nothing.

Kogarashi Moeru was a woman in her late twenties. Despite having matured with age, a piece of her soul still clung to the past. Back in high school, she was a delinquent. But that was not all she was back in those days. Back then, she was known in her hometown by a very different name.

The eyes of the Demon of Benizakura burned with an inner fire, unextinguished and undiminished after all these years.

"Scram."

The three ran like a fire had been lit under their asses, leaving their leader behind. 'So much for loyalty.'

She turned her head to look back at the liminal woman behind her. "You alright?"

"Huh?" The dark elf blinked, seeming to break out of some kind of trance. "O-oh, yeah. I'm fine. T-they didn't hurt me, or anything. Just... took my glasses and... wouldn't let me leave."

"Yeah, figures," Kogarashi sighed out, closing her eyes for a moment. Then she fully turned around, glaring at the dark elf, who flinched at her intense eyes. "Oh, don't even think I've ignored you in this equation! Where the hell is your host?"

The dark elf's expression froze, like a kid who'd been caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Her hands messed with the sunglasses in her hands nervously. "Oh. Err, that is-"

"Good grief," Kogarashi scoffed, tilting her head which caused her neck to crack audibly. Her irritation was mounting. "For fuck's sake, how irresponsible do you have to be to lose sight-"

"N-no, wait!" The dark elf's arms waved around wildly. "You misunderstand! My host didn't... didn't lose me! Don't blame him, please! I..." She physically wilted under Kogarashi's judging gaze. "I snuck away."

Kogarashi pinched the bridge of her nose. "God, you're an idiot."

"Sorry..."

"Sorry ain't gonna fix nothing," Kogarashi said, staring the dark elf dead in the eye. "What's your name?"

"Err, it's Daruu," she introduced herself.

"Cool," the older woman said without much real substance behind it. "Okay. Daruu, where do you live?"

The dark elf's back shot ram-rod straight. "Uhh..." She started sweating bullets under intense scrutiny. Kogarashi was giving her a 'Are you fucking serious right now'-look. "Um, m-my host's name is Mashirao Kazuki..."

"No clue who that is," Kogarashi muttered, massaging her temples. "Fuck, why me?"

Her mind tried to work something out. Sure, she could just leave, but that felt just rotten. A homestay wasn't supposed to be out without the supervision of their host, so Daruu could easily get punished for her infringement. Likely by deportation.

...

Well, there was one method.

"Gimme a sec," Kogarashi said out loud, taking a few steps away, then turning back and pointedly shoving her pointer finger towards the liminal girl. "Don't fuck off, or else..." She let the maybe-threat hang there. The dark elf nodded furiously, so she at least got the message.

Letting out a frustrated sigh- when weren't they such -Kogarashi plopped down to use the unconscious man's back as a seat while slav squatting over it. Thanks to her long skirt, she wouldn't be flashing anyone even if she tried. The dark elf observing the woman sweat-dropped at the crude and unladylike behavior, while Kogarashi fished out her phone and searched her contacts until she found the one she was looking for.

She hit call.

...

"Hey, Kotaro," she greeted the person without any concrete friendliness. "Got a favor to ask you."

"... Were you in a fight? Again?" A man asked in what could only be defeated resignation.

"Wouldn't call it that," she replied.

"Kogarashi, you can't keep calling me for this," Kotaro said, clearly exasperated. "Just because I work with the police doesn't mean I can vouch for you endlessly. We just had this conversation no less than a month ago!"

"Relax. I only had to knock out one of them."

"Kogarashi..." If a man could sound like tired despair, he did.

"Oh, get over it!" she snapped. "They were harassing some liminal chick. The bastard had it coming." She took a deep breath. "Speaking of, can you get me the address one Mashirao Kazuki. Lives around my area, probably."

A silent moment passed on the other end of the line.

"...Why are you asking about something so specific, and how badly should I be worried?"

"The liminal chick I mentioned ran off from her host's place, and can't remember where it is," She explained, ignoring Daruu's shocked face at being just sold out like that.

"... Kogarashi, you're asking me to overlook the law," Kotaro stated, sounding incredibly serious. "The rules are clear that-"

"Oh, fuck off!" Kogarashi yelled out in exasperation. "We both know that law is dumb as shit as is! Just send me the address and I'll walk her home. No-fuss, no nothing."

"...Okay," the police detective relented, reluctantly. "I'll look it up and send it to you. But only because I don't want that poor girl getting into trouble. Understand?"

"You're a credit to white knights everywhere," the woman mocked in a dry manner.

The call was disconnected.

Kogarashi glared at her phone. "Fine, hang-up on me. Asshole." A moment later she got an address, as promised, and input it into a map app. She stood up and started walking. "Alright, keep up. I'll take you home."

Daruu stood in place, glancing at the man on the pavement. "Uhh... what about him?"

"What about him?" Kogarashi looked back with a glare(as usual). "Just leave him be. Not like I hit that hard. He'll get up on his own after a while." She kept walking. "Now hurry it up, or I'll leave you!"

The dark elf hesitated only a moment before putting her shades on and speeding to catch up with the abrasive woman.

"U-um... excuse me, miss?"

"Hm."

Taking that as a prompt to continue, Daruu did so. "Uh, I'd just like to... thank you. For, you know... that." The dark elf's awkwardness was palatable. "I- could I ask you name?"

"Kogarashi," the woman answered.

"Um... Is that a first name, or..."

"Last name. It's all you're getting," Kogarashi said in a way that implied no compromise.

"Uh, r-right," Daruu stammered. Socially awkward seemed to be an apt descriptor for her. "Anyway, sorry for the trouble-"

"Ain't me you should be sorry to, girl," Kogarashi cut her off while keeping her eyes on the path ahead and the map on her phone. "It's your host you ran from."

The woman could not see it, but the dark elf folded a bit into herself at that.

"Why was that, anyhow?"

"Huh?" Daruu looked at the woman's back, who was now looking at her over her shoulder.

"Why'd you run? Sounds like a pretty dumb thing to do," Kogarashi noted. "What, was he being an asshole, so you just wanted out?"

"N-no! Suzuki is very nice, a-and accomodating!" The dark elf was almost aghast at the mere implication. "But... the thing is..." she shriveled into herself again, playing with her dark grey sweater's long sleeves. "I mean, he's nice, and friendly, and treats me well. It's just that... whenever I want to go anywhere, he has to be close by. And I feel like, like it's just so...so suffocating, you know? Always being watched. I-I know it's just because he has to, but at times I feel like I'm being a bother to him, d-dragging him around because I want to go places. So... today, I just thought that..."

"It would be fine just this once, huh? Being alone," Kogarashi said, turning her focus back to her phone. "Being a little selfish now and again isn't a bad thing. Still reckless, but I get it."

Daruu's ears tilted downward in shame. "I know..."

"That thing back there could've easily gone badly, you know that, right?" Kogarashi said, gesturing idly with her free hand. "You know you can't hurt humans, even in self-defense, which is the fucking dumbest thing ever. Those guys were just some asshole kids, trying too hard to be tough, or some dumb shit like that. Could've easily been worse kind of people that ran into you, and there'd be nothing you could do about it."

She let the implication hang in there, partially because she really didn't want to voice any of the potential grim details.

"I...I know," Daruu whispered behind her.

"Good," Kogarashi said snappily. "So be sure to apologize to your host real well! You got that?!"

The dark elf's answer was an obedient, "R-right! I will, ma'am!"

"Don't call me ma'am!" Kogarashi snapped like an angry dog, glaring behind her. "It's Miss Kogarashi to you, girlie! I'm not that old yet, damnit!"

"Y-yes, Miss Kogarashi!" The dark elf's posture straightened immediately by sheer fear of the agitated woman with a scary look in her eyes.

Scoffing under her breath, Kogarashi glared at her phone screen. Honestly, as an elf, the girl behind her was probably decades older than her, if not more. But it was the principle of the thing!

Her brow quirked a bit. 'Huh, closer than I thought. Not that from my place.'

"We're here."

Daruu bumped into her back, which got her a measured, silent look of judgment. She looked at her surroundings as her elven ears perked up.

"Oh, yes! I know this area," she cried out happily, literally jumping in joy for a second.

'Ugh,' Kogarashi winced internally. 'Too damn much saccharine cheer. Fucking hell, girl, it's just a street!'

"I'll just assume you can make it back on your own," the woman said, turning to leave. "Well, see ya."

"W-wait!"

Closing her eyes and taking a breath, she prayed for patience. She looked back with her signature glare. "What?"

The dark elf bowed deeply, her silver hair falling over her face. "Thank you again, m-most sincerely! I... I hope... I promise to make it up to you one day, Miss Kogarashi!" She straightens, obviously trying to project some level of wavering confidence. The sunglasses masked how brittle it was in her eyes.

The not-so-former delinquent didn't have it in her to smile. So instead she just turned ahead and begun walking back home with a lazy wave behind her.

She managed to walk two whole blocks before she realized something pretty damn important. Something that made her want to punch the nearest wall as hard as she possibly could.

She didn't have her groceries.

"...Fucking hell."

She spent a not inconsiderable amount of time trying to remember how to backtrack to where she left them.

The damn guy was still there when she finally found it.

So she kicked him while he was down.

She felt marginally better afterward.

[A week later...]

Kogarashi's eyes were bugged out. Weirdly, it didn't alleviate her resting thug face, only make it more intense. Her gaze was solely focused on the piece of paper she had just gotten from the mail. It took all her concentrated effort to not accidentally rip it to pieces due to her vice grip.

Her eyes were locked onto one line in particular.

-Kogarashi Moeru, you have been accepted to take part in the Interspecies Exchange Program. An agent will be in touch with you soon to iron out the details of your participation.-

Blinking, uncomprehending, her eyes roamed the document, convinced that this had to be some kind of mistake. It just had to! There was no way in hell that her, a delinquent and job-hopper could possibly be chosen to take part in a program of frankly historical significance!

Then her eyes happened upon a small part of the document.

-Accounted references: Daruu, Dark Elf, Participant of the Interspecies Exchange Program-

The hallway closet slid open on its own with a groaning sound within her periphery. Kogarashi felt her lower eyelid twitch. Violently.

'That's it! I'm never helping a random stranger, ever again!'

She spent the rest of the day absolutely hammered while in her black underwear and a grey tank top, laying on her futon and screaming like a drunken banshee into her pillow.

-Author's Notes-

What have we done...

Brain: A really cool story!

Focus on the one you had before!

Brain: But... But... Monster Girls!

...

You make a convincing argument. Proceed.

I will be candid. Daily Life With Monster Girls is my guilty pleasure and my unironic favorite thing by a fair margin. The world underneath all the fan-service is just so damn fascinating! Like, an ecchi show should not be allowed to have worldbuilding this good! Sure, there are some flaws, nothing is perfect, but the premise is just... *chef's kiss*.

So, I finally decided to try and break myself out of a creative funk I've been experiencing as of late by trying something of my own with this series I like. Maybe by taking a break from adventure and entering the sorta-comfy realm of slice-of-life, I can let my creative muscles relax a bit. So... oh boy, here I go making stuff up again!

Brain: You just want Monster Girls.

Quiet, you. In the next chapter, we shove our belligerent protagonist into being a proper host for a liminal of her own, no matter how little she wants to. And, maybe, just maybe, we'll make friends along the way.

-Talking To Myself, C-Hablerie