Soul for a Girlfriend?

It was dark inside my room, except for the crimson glow that was emitting from Lilith\'s eyes as they were following me around. In the silence of the night, my room was filled with the repeating sound of my footsteps.

I was pacing back and forth as it was already half an hour past, but there were no signs of capturing the target. I asked Lilith, and she said that there was still no sign of her falling in love with me. 

Lilith could still trace mana from her, which meant that the soul that was inside her didn\'t leave her body. At that moment, many things were going on inside my mind, but I was having second thoughts as to whether falling in love was actually the key to capture these so-called targets.

Now this wouldn\'t have been a problem if I was in the process of capturing her, but my predicament was completely different considering the fact that it\'s already been more than an entire day since I started dating her.

I remember it went something like this with Saki too. I asked her out, and the next day she agreed to date me. And later that day, it ended up in completing her liberation. But this wasn\'t the case with Naoto.

Lilith clicked her tongue in irritation and said in an annoyed tone, "Would you sit down for a bit?"

I stopped midway and my eyes shifted towards her, who was sitting up on her futon as I replied in a calm tone, "Walking helps me with my thinking."

As I was walking in the dark for quite some time, my eyes adjusted to the dim light as I could see Lilith shaking her head vaguely and sighing, "Just calm down for a moment." 

My eyes were still locked on her as I ran my hands through my hair and replied, "I\'m calm. What do you mean?"

"You definitely aren\'t!" It\'s great that she has bright crimson eyes because I could tell that she rolled her eyes as she said that.

I again started pacing back and forth in my room, and her eyes kept following me. I was in utter disbelief, as I expressed my concern, "You don\'t understand… this is the first time..."

Lilith sighed and said in a sleepy voice, "See, this isn\'t under your control…"

Of course she would be sleepy. What a lame devil. 

I came to an abrupt stop in front of her and crouched down on my knees to match her eye level. Staring at her for a few moments, I said, "I know, but I\'m curious about why it didn\'t happen…"

Lilith adjusted herself on the futon to sit in a more comfortable way. As she raised her index finger, pointing it towards me, she asked, "She asked you out, right?"

"Yeah… but still she hasn\'t fallen for me yet… so it\'s weird…" I replied to her in a hesitant tone as there were many possibilities running in my mind. My eyes were wandering around the room, as I added, "From this I can deduce one thing…"

Lilith tilted her head as her silver hairs fell over shoulders, and asked, "What? That she asked you out but doesn\'t actually love you?"

I knew my train of thoughts were leading towards the correct direction as Lilith seemed rather curious and surprised when I said, "You\'re partially correct."

"Huh?" Taking a seat in front of her futon which felt awfully warm compared to the cold floor, I smiled at her and asked, "Devil-chan, what do you think of this contract and the whole ordeal about making the targets quote in quote fall for me?"

As I emphasised on the \'quote in quote\' part, her face clearly illustrated that she was enjoying this conversation. But in a rather alien tone, she looked at me and asked, "Eh? What do you mean?"

Resting my arm on my knee, I turned towards her, and said in a rather vague tone, "Since you never answer any questions I ask about the contract, I decided to do a bit of research on my side."

"Eh?" She tilted her head and gestured for me to continue.

At that moment, I actually felt quite nervous since all what was going inside my head for the past few months was now on my tongue. Some part of me was also a bit excited to see Lilith\'s reaction to my hypothesis. There was a half by half probability of me being wrong as well as right.

Taking a deep breath, I shifted my gaze towards her and started talking in a rather low tone since it was the middle of the night, "When you first told me about the contract\'s criteria about making them fall for me, I didn\'t give it much of a thought."

Lilith nodded, as I continued, "But as I kept interacting with the targets, I came to a realisation…"

I came to a slight pause to observe her reaction as a frown formed on her face and she asked, "And what realisation?"

"When you said make them fall for me, you used that phrase rather vaguely. It\'s not that I\'m actually making them fall for me, is it?" Narrowing my eyes at her, I continued as I noticed her lips curved into a smile and she leaned towards while saying, "Hoo… Interesting. You\'re correct about this part."

"So what am I actually doing?" I said in a tone what appeared as if I was asking her a question. She tilted her head in confusion without saying a word as I added, "Is the question I asked myself several times before finally arriving at a conclusion."

Resting her chin on her palm, her crimson eyes narrowed at me as she asked in an indifferent tone, "And what that conclusion might be?"

"I\'m not making them fall in love with me, rather, what I\'m doing is helping them to detach an impurity from their emotions.." As those words left my mouth, Lilith\'s eyes grew wide in shock as a moment of awkward silence continued between us.