"An Oni's Dwelling" ~Opportunistic Devil~
"Yo!!"
When P returned home late at night, there was an Oni in his room. There he was with two angular horns like an ox and a black and yellow loincloth, sitting cross-legged on the floor cushion like it was ordinary, with piled-up magazines, sneering at one in his hand.

"Ah... Aww... Awaaa..."
With just a backward glance at P who couldn't seem to get out much of his voice, the Oni let his gaze drop to the magazine again. As though it was unimportant, he started plucking at the roots of his unkempt hair that reached way down to his back.
"Ah... What... Why're you here...?" P timidly asked.

In response to P's words, the Oni paused turning the pages with his long nail, and slowly looked over his shoulder. "Huh? Just yesterday, ye summoned me? Mm, so 'ere I am now..." As he said that, his gaze returned to the magazine.
'Yesterday? I summoned you yesterday?? Me???'  P was thinking full-force, with fear and irritation running about in his head, but there was nothing he could recall about it. While slowly setting down the bag he still had on his shoulder, he summed his courage and asked once more, "Well... Well, I... what have I done...?"
The Oni showed a thin smile and looked over. "Oh yeah, so~ Yesterday while ye were scattering beans ye summoned me. Sayin' "In with~ Oni!" "

!?
'...Never, what... Yesterday was... Setsubun!* Come to think of it... I did say such a thing jokingly while I was drinking with my friends in this room... No, no!! There's no question about it!! An Oni, what? No way, is this the real thing? 'Oni' really exist?? Certainly, his skin is strangely dark red, and he's suddenly showing yellowed fangs... It's scary... but... does the crime of trespassing on property apply to Oni!? No, no! No, it can't be. First of all isn't my life in danger? No, no no!! No, it can't...'
There were a heap of things P wanted to ask, but the first question that came from his disorded head was just, "Well, well, why do you speak with an accent...?"
As P said those words, he disparaged himself in his mind, 'What? Why such a trivial thing!!!'

Somehow or other it seemed to be a surprising question for the Oni, who cocked his head, saying, "Mm? What're ye saying about that? I thought this was the dialect in hell... Yeh... but it might be that I picked it up since I came from the northeast."

"Ah~ I see!! ...But it's not that I can understand you easily!! Anyway, you gotta leave soon. Isn't this probably a newcomer scam? A scam? The Oni is a scam? It's not so easy~ After all, even if Oni are rich... ah? Oni...? Rich...? Giving a metal rod to an Oni!!* Is that so, you cheat money from me and get a new metal rod!! ...no!! Even if you leave at once, at once, you won't get it!!"

The Oni turned again to P, who kept asking and answering questions alone. "Eh~ Today was a long trip and I'm beat, so I'll try to rest now, that fine?"

"Hm? Somehow or another... Where's a futon? Nope... as you can see, it's a small apartment and this is the only futon..."

"Nope nope, that's fine~! How many ye got? Oh! That's good. Lend me this'un."

He looked in the direction the Oni was pointing, where there was a certain plush character with an ugly, squat face, that he had caught from a UFO Catcher. "This...? Is it this...?" P said.

The Oni quickly replied, "Yep. Lend me this," and disappeared like smoke.

"Huh? Where'd ye go!? ...or should I say, yer accent transferred to me!!"

Thus began P's strange lifestyle of cohabitating with an Oni...
Notes:
This was the most difficult story I've ever translated! I did proof read it afterward, but I'm sorry if it still sounds choppy... P's thoughts in particular were really disjointed in the original Japanese too. And the Oni's accent... I really didn't know what to make of it, so I had to get help for some of those parts!


*(1) Setsubun is an event in February for cleansing the evil from the former year. People throw roasted beans outside while saying "Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi" (Out with Oni, in with fortune). In this story, P said "Oni wa uchi" instead and that was how he summoned an Oni!
*(2) "A metal rod to an Oni
" (鬼に金棒; Oni ni kanabou) is a proverb meaning "making a strong person stronger."

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