A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (1)
A sidelong glance.
"……."
"……."
Another glance. Then another.
"……."
"……."
"Shion."
"Yes."
Ninomae Hitomi set her chopsticks down on the table and spoke.
"How long are you going to keep tiptoeing around me like that?"
"…If it troubles you, I will go to the corner. On my knees."
"That's what I'm telling you! Stop with that attitude."
Hitomi let out a long sigh and looked at Han Seoyeon. As ever, her expression barely moved—but set against her usual self, the gloom in those eyes was unmistakable.
"And throw that necklace away, too."
"Mm… But my penance still feels somewhat insufficient. I may have cause to wear it again later…"
"Even if I tell you you're forgiven? Then throw it away. Right now."
"…Yes. I understand."
Only then did Han Seoyeon nod and cross to the living-room sofa, where she picked up the necklace she had left there. Calling it a necklace was generous. It was a crude little thing: a length of string run through a sheet of printer paper.
I am an idiot and a pervert who fucked my lover to death.
Hitomi read the words and sighed again. She would never forget the shock of waking to find Seoyeon kneeling formally beside the bed with that thing hung around her neck.
"How long were you kneeling there?! Get up, right now! No—before that, was I dead?!"
Looking back, dying would not have been strange at all. The date had rolled over twice, and through every hour of it they had never once stopped—not as a figure of speech, but in the most literal sense—tangling their bodies together. Even a body that was half vampire could not have endured it.
For Han Seoyeon, too, there was nothing strange about sinking into guilt. She had let her own desire sweep her away until she killed Hitomi. Had she been unable to work the miracle of resurrection, a catastrophe of this kind would never have come to pass in the first place.
Well… I wouldn't mind dying, however many times it took.
If death was the price of being joined to Seoyeon, then dying over and over would have been fine. No—if anything, it was proof that Seoyeon had fallen for her past the point where ordinary judgment still worked, and that made her a little glad. If the one doing the killing was Han Seoyeon, even the mere thought of being murdered sent nothing through her but a thrill. Were she to live through the very same thing again, Hitomi was certain she would be happy.
She knew, dimly, that the feeling was badly warped somewhere. It was still her honest heart.
But it could not be allowed to stand. Hitomi herself could accept anything; what she could easily foresee was how much grief it would lay upon Han Seoyeon. Well. She would have to find a way somehow—whether that meant making her body stronger, or something else entirely.
Ninomae Hitomi drew Seoyeon, returned now to her side, into her arms and kissed her, quietly swearing it to herself.
"Hm."
The café had an old-fashioned air. From the speakers, though, a cute, bouncy song was spilling out. It was not the usual case of an otaku owner putting on anime songs to suit her own taste… though it was true that a great deal of private intention had gone into the selection. That intention happened to be very simple. The song was the owner's own—Guroyuki Sui's.
And so, in her café, where for entirely personal reasons a single track had been left on repeat through every hour of business, Guroyuki slowly opened her mouth.
"…So this is some new breed of shoving it in my face."
"I—I'm telling you, it isn't!"
At that, Ninomae Hitomi—seated at the counter, sipping a café latte—cried out. She had dropped by her senior's café for the first time in a while, and somewhere in the middle of their chat she had raised, as if it had only just occurred to her and under the name of asking advice, the matter of the person who was both her roommate and her lover……. From where Guroyuki sat, being briefed on how the two of them had fawned over each other until they finally went through with the deed, no other impression was available.
"But boil it down, and what you're saying is still 'My lover likes me so, so much she lost her mind, and it's a problem.'"
"No, that isn't what I—"
It was not an incorrect summary. Admitting as much, though, felt as if the nuance had been badly warped, and Hitomi grumbled under her breath, distinctly unsatisfied.
"…Even so. Dying of sex on the first night isn't common."
"……It wasn't so much the first night. It kept going through the third day, and that's how it happened."
And was this a blessed death, or wasn't it? Even Guroyuki, who had been heckling her to cut out the couple-bragging, had no choice but to shake her head at this particular point.
"Cause of death: malnutrition from excessive exercise? If you weren't eating or drinking."
"I drank blood several times along the way, so I think it was simply cardiac arrest."
"I hear that's considerably painful. How was it, actually?"
"The truth is, the last hour or so is hazy……."
"If you were in and out for a whole hour, perhaps feel a sense of crisis at that point."
Hitomi gave an embarrassed little ehehe and looked away.
"Ah, anyway, that's why I'm asking! Isn't there some way to strengthen my body even further?"
"That seems like something Sister would know better than I would. She's supposed to be some great Apostle-this-and-that, isn't she."
"They say information about the hidden world is fragmented more often than not—family secret arts, things like that……. Setting aside the general knowledge Shion would already have, is there something special that's yours alone, Guroyuki? Anything like that?"
"For a start, I'm a first-generation entrant to the hidden world myself, so I don't particularly have anything of the sort……."
Guroyuki's whole family lived on the surface. She alone had stumbled into a contract with a demon and stepped into the hidden world, and so connections and information on that side were bound to be thin.
"I could ask Ma later… But to begin with, isn't it enough to stop before it strains the body?"
"What? You want me to cut Shion off before her desire is fully spent?"
"…Hm?"
She had only asked out of ordinary common sense, but Hitomi turned the question straight back on her, as if the very idea were absurd. Was she serious? Guroyuki stared blankly at her for a moment, and found not the slightest flicker of doubt in those eyes. If she could not keep up until Han Seoyeon was satisfied, then wouldn't it be better simply to die? That was what Ninomae Hitomi was saying.
"……."
Han Seoyeon's fanatical streak of worship showed itself often enough, as a rule, to hide the rest—but look closely, and Ninomae's obsession was every bit as abnormal. No. It might have run even deeper than Han Seoyeon's.
"Ah. Right. Anri did say she used to train."
Some instinct warned that digging any further would turn dangerous, and Guroyuki hastily changed the subject.
"Oh? You called for me-Yo?"
"You've already been found out. Is there any need to keep that way of talking up?"
"…You really do have a goddamn talent for killing the mood, Boss."
"Killing the mood, is it. All you ever think about is fishing for women."
The one who had cut in was the employee, Osean Lee—better known as Anri. By her own account, when she wanted to win people over as a European beauty with an interest in Japan, sounding clumsy was more effective than speaking fluent Japanese… Frankly, Guroyuki did not follow the logic.
"Anyway. Anri, your family back home ran some kind of dojo, didn't they? Might that help? How much of this did you hear?"
"From the part where the two of you went on a date."
"Th-then you heard all of it, didn't you…?"
"That would be about right!"
Anri winked as she said it. All Hitomi could offer in return was an awkward smile.
"Though I don't think my techniques would help with that particular problem. Physical conditioning isn't part of our dojo's curriculum."
"Huh? How is that possible?"
"Fundamentally, our side focuses on oddities who can't handle the output of their own bodies, and on teaching them to control themselves."
In other words, it would do next to nothing for the gains in stamina and physical ability Hitomi was hoping for. That was the gist of what Anri meant.
"But."
Anri was not finished. She lifted one index finger and grinned.
"There is one other good approach. And this one, I can help with. Hard to push your physical ability any higher in a short time? Then you change the premise."
"How?"
"You disperse the harm itself."
A brief silence followed.
"Gyah—!"
"This sex fiend. Honestly."
Thwack! A light, crisp sound rang out across the back of Anri's head.
"I thought the speech was running long. Of course it was that kind of talk."
"But hear me out, Boss!"
"Don't want to."
"I'm telling you, just listen! You planning to live at all? A threesome is the dream! A flower in each hand is the situation everyone yearns for—ack! Save me, Miss Ninomae! The boss is beating her employee!"
The moment Guroyuki raised her hand again, Anri broke into an exaggerated wail and scurried to hide behind Hitomi.
"Dispersing the harm…"
"No. Ninomae, you don't need to take this one's words that seriously."
"No. I think it's a perfectly good method."
"What."
"…Huh? What?"
Even Anri, who had suggested it, could not help the fluster that slipped into her voice at what Hitomi said next. For her own part, she had not much expected to be taken up on it. A moment later, though—perhaps deciding this was a chance that would never come again—she changed her look and lunged.
"Me! Me! I volunteer-DA!"
"Huh? What? Ah, n-no. That isn't what I meant!"
Only then, as if realizing how her words had landed, did Hitomi flush scarlet and deny it.
"I mean—um—what I'm saying is this."
Even as she felt her cheeks burning, she snapped her fingers, and several bats rose out of her shadow. The winged things circled near their master, then slowly changed shape, as if melting. Soon the forms scattered a few snow-white feathers in every direction and became copies of Ninomae Hitomi. A moment later, when she raised her right hand, the bat-Hitomi raised its right hand along with her.
"Like this… they're familiars that share most of my mind, my senses, even my actions, so you could call them a kind of double. With something like this, even if there are several of them, they still feel like an extension of me, don't they?"
"Oh……."
"Whoa. You can do that?"
At the two of them's awe, Hitomi gave a prim little ahem and drew herself up, chest out.
"With this, I could even take Shion in a rotation of ten!"
"About that, though. Human."
Right after, Marbas—who had been washing dishes behind the counter, quietly listening—opened her mouth. Golden eyes rested on Hitomi without expression.
"If the senses are shared as well, doesn't that defeat the point?"
"…Ah?"
"No. Count the trouble of keeping a double up, and it's a loss."
"That's Ma. Earning her keep as a demon of wisdom."
A question the length of a single sentence was enough to dismantle Hitomi's strategy. The double, her exact likeness, pointed gloomily at itself. The look was pitiful, as if to ask, You don't need me…?
"No…! Our Shutang is not a useless girl! You've got it wrong, Marbas!"
Perhaps that gaze had stirred her pity. Hitomi cried it as she seized the double in a sudden embrace, and the double hugged her tightly in return.
"Wow. Oh my God. Six heads… gk—"
"Quiet."
Guroyuki brought the blade of her hand down across the neck of the perverted employee, who was marveling and wriggling her fingers as if kneading something between them. Her eyes stayed fixed on Hitomi all the while, and inwardly she let the doubt settle. That doesn't seem like a double.
"Anyway, Ninomae. Today's that stream, isn't it."
"That stream… ah, yes. That's right."
At the change of subject, Hitomi thought for a moment, then nodded hard.
"Sister… no. Shion is the guest today."
Shion, of course, was not a nickname for Han Seoyeon. It meant Hinata Shion—the character the company had assigned her this time.
So, to put it simply, the matter was plain. Today was the day of Han Seoyeon's virtual debut.