by Nisioisin
If only she’d just smacked me then and there…
“Still, friends?” I muttered, holding the paper bag with the two magazines in one hand and my phone in the other, checking through its contacts list. “It’s not like…I need them or anything.”
Still.
Being told that kind of thing made me think: When did I get this way?
I want to say I played well with others in middle school─to say nothing of elementary school. In that case, was it after I entered high school and turned into a slacker?
How simple.
I overreached in picking high schools, got in by mistake, fell behind, and…didn’t see things the way those around me did.
Because I had failed.
No, was that really it?
Even then, I must have had a chance to fix things. My grades may have been poor, but it wasn’t as if I was being discriminated against, and I wasn’t despised. I should have had more than enough opportunities to make friends.
The party that was rejecting those opportunities was none other than myself.
“Hmm.”
Sometimes, I just don’t know.
I don’t want friends, but is that just me making excuses for myself for not having friends?
Friends.
It’s not as if I can’t live without them.
People without friends can just hang out with other friendless people. Really, it isn’t as if I’m alone─to give an extreme example, this guy who was in my class both my first and second years rarely talked to anyone at all as far as I could tell.
So it’s fine. That’s one way of living your life.
But…
“I don’t feel like I want to make friends, and I certainly don’t feel like I want a girlfriend, but why is it that I can’t stop having dirty thoughts?”
Such a mystery.
A single pair of panties had shaken me so profoundly that I was ultimately moved to contribute to the circulation of currency.
Didn’t I know that it was basically just a piece of cloth?
Before, I had wondered, “Why do girls go out of their way to wear those things and gussy themselves up? What are they, perverts?”
But I’d had it the wrong way around.
It’s not like you can’t buy those.
…No, wait!
Buying a used pair, that would be a crime!
Even if it’s not technically a crime, it’s downright criminal!
God, I wish I could turn into a plant.
Then I wouldn’t have anything to do with these desires.
But turning into stone or iron? I’ve never wished it, nor could.
Is that just another way of being small─as a person?
“Ack, this late already.”
Though I’d intentionally leapt into the bookstore right before closing time, it was quite late after all of the wandering around I’d done─in fact, the date on the calendar had changed.
It was already March 26th.
Spring break had officially started.
I put my phone back in my pocket and began to hurry home, my pace quick. The large bookstore I had gone to was farther from my home than what I would normally consider walking distance. In fact, locationally, it wasn’t too far from school. I had more or less walked a distance that I normally biked.
Of course it took time. But I’d taken a little too much time.
I had no reason to get home early, but still, I couldn’t be too late… There was always the chance my little sisters would barge into my room without asking, too.
Knowing those two, they were apt to put everything together if they saw that I wasn’t at home but my bicycle was… They’re perceptive when it comes to that kind of thing.
Oh, speaking of which, I suppose I’ve seen my little sisters’ underwear before. They walk around in them after getting out of the bath, after all. But I guess that doesn’t count.
Putting that aside…
Whether or not I was at risk of being discovered, it was late enough to be even darker out than when I’d left home. It’d be idiotic if I got myself hit by a car.
I think all guys share this anxiety; we are never more careful on our way home from buying a dirty magazine than on any other itinerary.
I mean, what if you got in an accident and your belongings were inspected?
A primary focus on high school girls and their underwear.
If Hanekawa somehow managed to find out about it…of course she’d misunderstand.
But that’s not it! If anything, this is a way to safeguard your chastity from me… No, that’s not my intention at all!
Well, to be honest, this kind of pointless suspense is more fun than anything else.
I couldn’t deny that it was dangerous to be out, as dark as it was, but I lived in a sleepy town. There were few cars on the road to begin with, and they were easy to spot with their headlights. So my fear was irrational─but.
That said, wasn’t it a little too dark?
I looked up toward the sky, and I realized why.
There was no light coming from the street lamps.
The lamps that were installed every fifteen feet were barely emitting any light─actually, less than “barely.” Only one was lit.
Were they broken?
But so many of them couldn’t go out of service at once… Was it a power outage, then? But in that case, it didn’t make sense for just one to still be on.
And while I thought this─
While I thought this, I continued walking, with the vague notion that these things happened─no point in giving it too much thought.
I said earlier that I had no reason to hurry home, but come to think of it, my mission required that I return as soon as possible to peruse the publications I’d purchased.
My mission had utmost priority─
“Ye.”
And that’s why.
“Hail…ye thither. Aye, thee.”
And that’s why, even if someone called out to me like that, I’d ignore it and keep head─ye?
Who in this day and age called out like that?
Despite my intentions, I reacted.
I looked in the direction of the voice─and it was when I did that I was truly struck speechless.
Illuminated, under the one working street lamp─was She.
“It shall…be thy privilege to aid me.”
Her blond hair looked completely incongruous for our provincial town.
Her well-defined face, her cold eyes.
She wore a chic dress on her, and it too seemed incongruous.
No, in the case of the dress, I mean it in a different way.
Surely once elegant and refined, it was now anything but.
Ripped to pieces.
Torn asunder.
It seemed like a tattered piece of fabric, in such bad condition that even a dust cloth might look more proper─though to look at it another way, the fact that the dress still exuded a sense of its original extravagance spoke volumes on its own.
“Can ye not hear me? I am telling thee that it shall be thy privilege to aid me.”
She─was staring at me.
I felt as though my body might freeze in her sharp, cold glare─but perhaps there was no need to be that afraid.
After all, She seemed to be dead tired.
Leaning on the lamp for support, She lay sitting on the paved asphalt.
No, “lay sitting” isn’t right, either. It would be better to say that She’d collapsed. Glaring at me was all She was capable of.
Or rather…
Even if She hadn’t been exhausted, hadn’t collapsed─She probably couldn’t have held me with anything beyond a glare.
To begin with, She had no hands with which to hold me.
Her right arm, from around the elbow.
Her left arm, from the joint of its shoulder.
Each had been─lopped off.
“…gh!”
And that was not all.
Her body was in a similar state b
elow her torso.
Her right leg, from around the knee.
Her left leg, from the base of its thigh.
Each had been─severed.
Well, only the right leg showed an exceptionally sharp cut─I could see a clear cross-section. It looked nothing like the disgusting, torn state of the other wounds on the right arm, left arm, and left leg.
But the exact state of the cross-sections was trivial. To put it simply, She had lost every one of her four limbs.
And it was in this state that She had collapsed under the street lamp.
Forget about tired.
What She was, was dying.
“H-Hey─are you okay?”
They speak of your heart ringing like an alarm bell. I had always thought that to be a figure of speech, but it was exactly how it felt at that moment.
My heart rang so hard it hurt.
My heart─was running wild. As if it was trying to alert me to an impending crisis.
Like an alarm bell.
“I-I’ll get an ambulance right away─”
She wasn’t bleeding nearly as much as someone whose limbs had been severed should be.
But at the time, my mind could not process even that fact. I took out the phone I’d just stored back in my pocket─but was too jittery to press the right buttons.
Wait, what was the number for an ambulance?
117?
115?
Dammit, I should’ve put it in my contacts if this was going to happen─
“An ambulance… I have no need of such.”
She─though every one of her limbs had been severed, still conscious She addressed me in her forceful, dated manner.
“Instead…give me thy blood.”
“………”
My fingers froze on the keypad.
And then─
I remembered my conversation with Hanekawa early in the afternoon.
A rumor that was only spreading among the girls.
What was it again?
What did we talk about again?
Night.
Something about night, and not walking around alone, and─
“…Blond hair.”
Blond hair.
In the light of the street lamp, that blond hair seemed dazzlingly bright─and also.
No shadow.
With none of the other street lamps in the area working, and under the only one lit, She seemed to be basking in the spotlight atop a stage─blond hair truly bedazzling─but really.
She had no shadow.
“Not a shadow” didn’t capture it. No shadow, for real.
And She said─
“My name is Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade…the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, yet cold-blooded vampire.”
Her clothes tattered, her body limbless, but her tone domineering.
Beyond her parted lips were two sharp fangs.
Sharp. Fangs.
“I shall consume thy blood as mine own flesh. So─give me thy blood.”
“…Isn’t a vampire,” I said, gulping, “supposed to be─immortal?”
“I’ve lost too much blood. Neither regeneration nor transformation is possible for me in this state. Unless something is done─I will die.”
“………”
“A worthless human such as thee should be honored to become my flesh and blood.”
My legs wouldn’t stop shaking.
What in the world was going on?
What in the world was I getting dragged into?
Why did a vampire suddenly appear in front of me─to be dying already?
That which is not supposed to exist, a vampire, existing.
That which is not supposed to die, a vampire, dying.
What kind of reality was this?
“H-Hey.”
As I stood shaken and speechless, She seemed to scowl at me.
Or perhaps it was a scowl of agony.
After all, She had lost all of her limbs.
“Wh-What is the matter? Thou hast the privilege of rescuing me. Is there any greater honor? Ye need not do a thing─present me with thy neck and I shall do the rest.”
“B-Blood? Can’t you settle for a transfusion or something?”
It was not a very thought-out question, even by my own standards.
What was I trying to say?
Was I kidding?
She…Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, must have thought the same, and didn’t reply.
No.
She just might have lacked the energy to reply.
“H-How much do you need?”
She answered this question, possibly because it was specific.
“For the time being, I will be tided over with thy body’s worth.”
“Oh, just my body’s…wait!”
But that’d kill me!
I almost shot back at her like the straight man in a comedy routine─but swallowed my words.
Her eyes had given me pause. Cold eyes. Eyes looking at food.
She wasn’t being the funny man, and was quite serious.
Worthless human.
She was on the verge of death. And was trying to survive─by eating me.
She wasn’t seeking my assistance. She just wanted to prey on me.
To survive all on her own, you know?
“…………”
Right.
What was I thinking─and doing? Why was my thought process premised on helping the woman?
How absurd.
We’re talking about a vampire, all right?
In other words, a monster.
Who knew how She’d lost her limbs and ended up nearly dead there, but it couldn’t be for any respectable reason. What good would come of getting mixed up in it?
Discretion is the better part of valor, no?
Why venture when there’s nothing to gain?
She wasn’t human, and existed apart from humanity.
An existence greater than humans. That’s how Hanekawa put it.
“What is the matter? Thy blood. Give me thy blood. Hurry… Hurry up. Why do ye dally, laggard?”
“………”
Faced with this vampire, who spoke as though I would oblige as a matter of course, never dreaming to do otherwise, my feet took a step.
A step back.
I’d be okay. If I ran…I could probably get away. It didn’t matter if she was a vampire, a monster. Her arms and legs had been torn off, and I’d get away─she probably couldn’t even chase after me.
I just needed to run.
The same thing that I’ve always done was all I needed to do to reject this reality, too.
And when I moved my other foot back─
“Y-Ye jest…”
Her eyes grew weak and frail. As if the ice they had held until moments ago had never been there at all.
“Ye…fail to aid me?”
“………”
A monster, in a tattered dress, limbs cruelly shorn, shadowless even under a street lamp─
But I thought her, with her blond hair, beautiful.
As pretty.
I was drawn to her. From the bottom of my heart.
I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.
And I couldn’t take another step away.
Not because I was cowering in fear, or because my body wouldn’t stop shaking.
I just couldn’t move.
“N-No waaay.”
Her haughty diction crumbled, and from her eyes─the same color as her hair, golden─overflowed large tears.
Like a child, she began to sob.