You Don't Want to Be Tied Up?
She didn't seem to understand a word I was saying. It was obvious this was a kidnapping and imprisonment, so where did she get the confidence to say something like that? Still, she was breathtakingly beautiful. Her long hair, reaching down to her waist, shimmered with a silvery base tinged with soft gray. The outfit she wore was revealing and hard to describe, but it suited her perfectly, making her look even more stunning. That didn't mean she wasn't terrifying, though.
“What are you even talking about…? I only met you today… and you want to get to know me…?”
I called her “noona” since she was clearly older. Suddenly, her face flushed bright red and she looked shy. What the hell? Why is she making that face…? It’s creepy…
She seemed a little unhinged, and her eyes had taken on a faintly lustful glint. She shook her head, coughed once, and spoke again.
“A-Anyway… you’re my mate. It’s fate.”
“Huh? What does that even mean…? Hic… Please, just let me go…”
“No. Then there’d be no point in bringing you here. I want to take responsibility for you. From now on, I’ll guarantee your safety.”
Her eyes were sincere as she looked at me. Naturally, that only made me more scared and sent chills down my spine. How could she talk about safety when I wasn’t safe at all? She was clearly being genuine, but everything about this felt wrong. Getting kidnapped while on vacation? And having some woman I’d never met before suddenly say stuff like this? It was terrifying.
“We literally just met today… I don’t want to be here… Please let me go…”
It wasn’t the first time I’d begged. Whether it was lucky or not, she didn’t get angry. She just spoke in a firm voice.
“Like I said earlier, I can’t let you go. You have to stay with me.”
“What are you saying…? I can’t accept this… Why do you keep… Hic…”
“Don’t cry… It hurts me when you cry. And don’t be so scared. I’m not going to do anything bad to you. It’s the opposite, actually.”
She looked at me with those sincere eyes while she spoke, but somehow they felt sharp and frightening. That only scared me more. To me, that gaze was a clear threat: if I didn’t listen, she wouldn’t let it slide.
“Hic… I don’t know! I’m going home! Let me out!”
Because I kept throwing a fit, her eyes grew a little colder. I flinched at the sight.
“Huh? Ah, no! I’m not mad! Wait! I was just thinking for a second! Really!”
She’d clearly looked like she was about to get angry, but then she suddenly started explaining that she wasn’t. Is this… gaslighting? I wondered.
“Haah… What do I have to do for you to believe me? What do you want me to do, hm?”
When she closed the distance again, I instinctively backed away. The gap returned to normal, and she looked at me with a hurt expression.
“Why… are you avoiding me…? I’m not going to—”
“L-Let me go! Then I’ll believe you! Hic… All I want is to get out of here!”
I shouted with everything I had, trying to convince her. The moment she heard me, her eyes sharpened again. She bit her lip and seemed to think it over, but to me it just looked like she was glaring.
“Th-Then how about this!”
“Huh?”
“We’ll… get to know each other! That way you’ll understand me and stop being scared… Let’s just spend some time getting closer! H-How about it!?”
While saying that, she suddenly started asking questions about me out of nowhere. Her tone was gentle, but her eyes weren’t smiling at all, which made it terrifying.
“Eek! About me!? D-Don’t tell me… You’re not trying to harvest my organs, right!? Y-You’re asking about my health, aren’t you!?”
“What!? N-No! Absolutely not!”
“I-I’m not even healthy… I’m short… and I go to the hospital a lot… So… please let me go…”
I deliberately listed negative things, thinking this might really be human trafficking. She looked flustered, waving her hands and shaking her head vigorously.
“Th-That’s not what I was going to ask! I-I just… wanted to know more about you!”
She explained right away, shaking her head even more enthusiastically than before. She even smiled and said she thought I was cute. To stay on her good side, I forced out a compliment.
“Y-You’re pretty too, noona! S-So… please send me home… Okay? Hic… Please…”
Honestly, it wasn’t so much a compliment as just saying what I really thought when I looked at her. At the word “pretty,” her eyes widened like saucers, and just like before, her face flushed as she looked shy.
“Um… I appreciate you thinking I’m pretty, but I can’t send you home. Ever.”
She said that in a calm voice, adding that if I answered her questions properly, she’d make things comfortable for me.
“Hic! A-Are you going to kill me painlessly!?”
“What!? N-No! It’s not that! You’re misunderstanding! Really! Really! It’s not!”
She looked flustered again, shaking her head and explaining that she was only trying to be considerate because I seemed so scared. But I’d been kidnapped and locked up here in the first place—did she really not see the problem with that? All I could do was keep asking to go home.
“Calm down a little… Hm? Whew, well, whatever… Even your crying face is cute… Yeah, you really are my type…”
“!?”
Before I knew it, she’d closed the distance and was gently stroking my cheek with her soft hand. Every time she did, I flinched and shrank back in fear.
“If you keep getting scared like that… I really won’t have a choice.”
“Huh? Wh-What do you mean by that…?”
“Like I said… you can never leave this place. And ‘no choice’ doesn’t mean I’m going to hurt you… It means I’ll tie you up with this again.”
She picked up the rope she’d untied earlier, her explanation sounding almost like a threat. The moment I heard that, my body reacted on its own—I stopped resisting and didn’t try to back away or beg to go home anymore.
“See? You can do it if you try. Now then… So you really hate being tied up, huh?”
“(Nod nod)”
“Good. Then listen to me carefully.”
Her hand returned to my cheek, then moved up to gently pat my head.
“Don’t tremble… I’m really not trying to hurt you. I just want to be with you. So don’t waste your energy, okay?”
“Hngh… I’ll try… But really… can’t you just send me home? I…”
I managed to hold back the tears, but the fear was too much and the words slipped out anyway. She looked sad and stroked my cheek again.
“Poor thing… I won’t tie you up, so can you stop crying now? Your pretty eyes will get all swollen if you keep going. Let’s just talk for a bit… I’m asking nicely, too.”
I’d expected her to get angry, but she just kept looking at me with that sad expression, and somehow it made me feel a little less guarded. She even waited quietly until I stopped crying, which helped ease some of my wariness.
“T-Talk…? Hic! Wh-What do you want to talk about…?”
“Hehe, anything’s fine~ As long as it’s about you~ I’ll listen to everything! What you like, your family, your friends, your hobbies~!”
Her bright smile made the earlier pressure disappear completely. In that moment, she didn’t look like a yakuza boss at all—just a friendly neighborhood noona. Still, casually chatting like this in this situation felt impossible.
“I-I can tell you what I don’t like… Being locked up here… Hwaaaah!”
Maybe because of how desperate I was to get out, her kindness suddenly felt threatening again. This time I wasn’t just tearing up—I was full-on sobbing. Seeing me like that, she let out a long sigh, looking a little annoyed.
“Haah… So you really hate being locked up here?”
Her hand was now gripping my shoulder, and there was a bit more force behind it.
“If you keep avoiding my questions, I’ll have to set conditions of my own. But if you answer properly, I might let you out.”
“!?”
The crying stopped instantly. My eyes widened and I asked her over and over if she really meant it.
“I don’t lie. But you can’t lie either. You have to answer honestly. Got it?”
“Y-Yes… I understand…”
“Good. Then here’s the first question. What do you think of me?”
The sudden question almost made me slip up. From the very first moment, her yakuza aura had given me chills, and right now I thought she was completely out of her mind. But if I said that, I really might end up buried somewhere, so I tried to stay calm as I opened my mouth.
“I-I only met you today, noona… How could I—”
“Uh… Um… I mean, just your first impression or something, you know? What you thought from the moment our eyes met.”
Was she trying to steer the question in a favorable direction? Honestly, the only thing that came to mind was what I’d thought earlier. I couldn’t bring myself to say she was pretty and beautiful, so I just told the truth.
“M-My first impression was… hic… I thought you were going to take out my organs… Hic…”
She’d told me not to lie, so I answered honestly. Her face turned bright red with embarrassment.
“Wh-What!? Why would I take out your organs!? Y-You really had some weird misunderstanding!”
She looked flustered, frantically denying it and insisting she wasn’t that kind of person.
“I-I’ve said it so many times! I just wanted to talk to you!”
“Hic… If you just wanted to talk… why did you have to kidnap me like this? Someone covered my mouth… You could’ve just met me normally and talked… Why go so far as to kidnap me…?”
Because she’d raised her voice earlier, my anxiety spiked again. She looked like she’d made a mistake, her expression flustered as she tried to explain that the kidnapping had been necessary.
“L-Like you can see… I’m a yakuza boss… You could’ve run away… or reported me… Then we wouldn’t have been able to talk at all…”
It sounded like an excuse, but her eyes and expression looked genuinely sincere as she explained.