Ch1:

Yagitsune "Ren" Renji was staring at his phone with a pale face.

"H-How? How the hell did it come to this?"

A crow-headed yokai in a business suit replied to his question:

||Your haunting request is pending. Please hold.||

Ren clutched his hair like it was the most natural thing to be done in this situation.

Meanwhile, downstairs, an old man watching Netflix on the 45-inch TV yeeted the last of Ren's beer cans onto the pile beside. He had an elongated head and a smug expression on his face.

||Good Wi-Fi,|| he yelled. ||I'll live here, Karasujin!||

||Sure, Nurarihyon! Our contractee wouldn't mind, I'm sure||, said the crow-headed yokai in a deadpan voice of an overwokred corporate employee.

The contractee in question, meanwhile, was staring helplessly across the room at another yokai who was busy spinning truck-sized webs all over the place. She was part-spider, part-lady, and had more legs than would be necessary for such a creature.

||I love this place.||, she said while casually spinning a thread of about 15 feet in a second.

Karasujin maintained his blase expression

||Okay, Jorogumo. I'll— oh, finally!||

He called the other three to come over.

||Buzzkill! They were about to kiss...||, grumbled Nurarihyon.

||I can hear perfectly, no thank you||, echoed an eerie voice from the bathroom.

||Aaaaaaanyways did the permit come?||, asked Jorogumo.

||Yes ma'am, it has arrived. Now.....||

The three of them turned towards the 17-year old who was now questioning reality.

||So, contractee Ren, have you decided?||

~~~

After Ren had gotten over the shock of seeing a yokai—something he never believed in—Karasujin came out of the bed and stood with a bored expression.

|| Greetings, contractee... uh, to whom do we owe the honor, sir? ||

"Y-you can call me Ren. But who on earth are you, and freaking how did you appear under my bed just like that?!"

|| Alright, contractee Ren it is. I am Karasujin, a yokai contract manager. I am here to finalize your contract. ||

Before Ren could answer, however, an old man with an elongated head popped out of nowhere and ran toward the refrigerator, alcoholism glowing in his yellow eyes. Simultaneously, a fusion between a spider and a strikingly beautiful woman crashed in through the roof.

|| Ah, welcome! || said Karasujin in a neutral voice.

"HANG ON BRO, what in the name of Dwayne Johnson is going on right now?"

Ignoring his horrified host, Nurarihyon ran down the staircase toward the TV with a truckload of beer cans in his arms. Jorogumo, meanwhile, started spinning webs all over Ren's room like an absolute maniac. Karasujin looked at them with no expression and then turned toward Ren.

|| As I was saying before, I am here to inform you about the contract, contractee Ren. Let me warn you in advance though; it is non-refundable. You might have checked the notification on your phone earlier— ||

"What contract, my guy? I don't know any of you and I definitely did not sign up for any of this crap, so you better get out ASAP, bro."

Nurarihyon's laughter echoed through the hall. Karasujin opened a file and flipped some pages.

|| It says here that you agreed to sign an '(Un)Lucky Yokai Contract' just a few minutes ago— ||

"What?! No! I DIDN'T, YOU CROWHEAD, what bullcra—"

|| Did you, perchance, drop your phone below a bed, contractee Ren? ||

Ren paused, his mind a mess. A few seconds later, he remembered something.

"Y-yeah! I remember. I dropped my phone, and a creepy-ass hand politely returned it to me—wait, was it y—"

|| That means you agreed to the contract, contractee Ren! ||

Ren's entire existence short-circuited. Was that how one signed a contract? Contracts were supposed to be signed after both parties agreed in their sane minds, right? Not because a yokai jumpscared him into it.

Just then, he decided to make the most logical decision he had ever made in his life. He looked at Karasujin, trembling, and said:

"Wait, uh, I need to think over this. I gotta go real quick..."

And ran towards the bathroom.

As he slammed open the bathroom door, however, he found a masked spirit with a red cloak standing upside-down on a mug.

||Red paper or blue paper?||, it asked in a hollow, unsettling voice.

"DUDE I JUST WANNA PEE—"

||T&C apply.||, it said, waving a document. ||Won't ask again, are you sure?||

"YEAH, NOW GET OUT—"

Suddenly, Ren felt something deep within him change very subtly. Not paying it attention, he thought it all over.

He'd been doomscrolling. Fine, perfectly normal. Then he dropped his phone. Before he could pick it up, Karasujin handed it back to him. And all the lore started from that moment. Or so he thought.

"Probably my brain gaslighting me into sleeping...guess I really should stop doomscrolling. But ain't no way yokais are real. Hell, they'd even be gone once I come out! Yeah, that must be it."

And in regal splendour, Ren came out of the bathroom, earnestly hoping that he had imagined the whole encounter and that his brain was really playing tricks on him...

It wasn't.

Karasujin was staring at him, dead from inside as usual. Jorogumo paid no attention and kept spinning the fifty-eighth layer of webs. From below, Nurarihyon could be heard cursing in a drunk voice.

Honestly, Ren was exasperated now.

"ONG can you guys PLEASE stop haunting me? I wanna sleep so bad!"

Karasujin blinked. Then he said in a perfectly placid voice:

||Your haunting request is queued. Please hold.||

For the first time since she entered—crashed?—the room, Jorogumo spoke:

||Oh? Damn, our contractee is a buffoon. Smh....||

Before Ren could protest, however, Jorogumo added:

||Aaaaaaaaaanyways, you know that your soul payment is due in thirty days right?||

Ren.exe crashed.

After two minutes of internal screaming, Ren replied in a timid voice:

"W-w-what soul payment? What the hell do you mean?"

Jorogumo stopped spinning and stared at him. Karasujin was staring at him at usual.

Both of them clicked their tongues in perfect unision:

||Really now, you should've read the Terms and Conditions in the bathroom...||

Jorogumo returned to spinning.

Nurarihyon could be heard opening the last of Ren's chips packets.

~~~

And that was how Yagitsuni "Ren" Renji ended up being asked by a crow-headed yokai in a business suit:

||So, contractee Ren, have you decided?||