by Nisioisin
Still, choosing a drainpipe as a bed had been a huge blunder. Sure, there was the fact that it was hard, but more than that, more than anything, the goddamn surface was curved.
I guess I was enamored of drainpipes in the first place because they appear so much in Doraemon, in which case this was all Doraemon’s fault in a roundabout sort of way.
Dammit, Doraemon.
“Are you okay, Nobu-chan?” I asked.
“Though Nobu-chan be likely a variation on Nobuemon, ’tis like a regular Japanese kid’s name. And its ring is rather like unto Nobi-chan.”
“So, are you okay or not?”
Aye, I am fine, replied Shinobu.
Hmm, even having lost most of her vampire nature, she was still one at heart, and I suppose she could cope with this harsh of an environment and then some.
“’Tis not so. I managed not a wink of sleep.”
“Huh? Why? Couldn’t trade night for day?”
“’Tis not that. Thou wert clutching me as though thy sleep was troubled, so I in turn could not slumber.”
“…”
Had I really used her like a body pillow? Or like a futon?
“Thou wert playing my ribs like a güiro in thy sleep and calling out, Hanekawaaa, Hanekawaaa, Loli Hanekawaaa.”
“Liar!” Please, not like a güiro!
“I thought perhaps that coming to this past might have made thee forlorn, so nothing for it but to indulge thee.”
“You liarrrrr!”
If it’s true, I could never face you, or Hanekawa, or Senjogahara again!
I’d be the absolute worst character, I needed to die tomorrow!
“Heh, but for today at least, I’ve got to live,” I exhorted myself. “Because on this Mother’s Day, I must save Hachikuji.”
“Thou art trying to pass this off as a gag with thy cool-seeming utterance. But ’tis no laughing matter, thy handprint remains clearly visible upon my ribs. Here, see for thyself.”
“What a shame, it’s a novel, so I can’t.”
“Simply add an illustration.”
“What, of a little girl lifting up her dress to show what’s underneath?”
“In the style of the iPad version of Alice in Wonderland.”
“Interactive, you mean?”
“The reader may lift up my dress with but a touch.”
“Yikes… Well, switching gears, shall we head to the Hachikuji residence? We can skip breakfast. If you’re willing to put up with that, I’ll treat you to Mister Donut when we get back to the present.”
“No, ye may not switch gears just as ye please. Dost thou think that the mere mention of Mr. D allows thee to gloss over anything and everything? Thou art already committed to treating me in recompense for the time warp I have wrought for thee.”
“Urk.”
“If ye wish to make this handprint disappear, ye must needs treat me to Café Andonand.”
“Why do you know about Mister Donut’s luxury franchise…”
Who told her?
There’s nothing like that in my town, nor was there ever, nor will there ever be.
“That handprint will vanish in a heartbeat, it won’t prove anything,” I sneered.
“Then I shall just have to prove it by taking a selfie with thy phone.”
“Forget about proving anything, if a pic like that ends up on my phone, Hanekawa will cut all ties with me and Senjogahara will break up with me.”
“And thou shalt be apprehended by that policewoman.”
“I wonder if she’s still on the force in the present…” If so, then we might meet again on the other side. The ties that bind are inscrutable, after all. “Anyway, you’ve got to be the only vampire who goes around using words like selfie.”
“And that vampire’s ribs─”
“I apologize, I sincerely apologize, so please stop bringing it up!”
I had absolutely no recollection of the incident, but considering how difficult it was to sleep in that drainpipe, it seemed plausible that I would react to my nightmares that way. And so, mistrustful of myself, I ended up begging wholeheartedly for forgiveness.
“Well, I have no intention to avenge myself on thee, given thy promise to treat me to hordes of donuts, and that every day.”
Shinobu certainly looked pleased with herself.
Which gave me the sense that I’d been cleverly set up.
She could even have made the handprint herself.
“Fine,” I assented. “I’ll content myself with the lingering possibility that I enjoyed your ribs to the fullest.”
“My, but aren’t ye a positive lad…”
We crawled out of the pipe.
The weather was clear, same as yesterday.
And by yesterday, I mean the yesterday of eleven years ago.
I had kind of hoped it would rain, since that would ease the difficulty of tailing Hachikuji (rain hides sounds and figures alike, and umbrellas make you neglect your rear), but things didn’t go my way.
Well, Hachikuji hadn’t said anything about it raining that day, anyway.
Shinobu and I did some light stretches in the park to loosen up our tense muscles (I don’t know if she actually needed to stretch, but she did it along with me anyway), and we headed for the Hachikuji place.
It was 8 a.m., local time.
Seemed like a good time.
Now, not that I’d thought about it even as I slept, but in executing our mission to hide ourselves behind a telephone pole and monitor the Hachikuji residence, the real question was just how highly suspicious we would seem.
However lenient the age, the longer our stakeout continued, the greater the likelihood that a good neighbor would say something to us.
Given that it was Sunday, our mark would probably leave the house sometime in the morning, but since this was Hachikuji we were dealing with, we couldn’t be sure of anything.
She might leave at five in the afternoon, for all we knew.
She’d said that her backpack contained everything she needed for an overnight stay, and if so, it was perfectly plausible that her planned itinerary involved going there late and coming back early.
The girl was prone to let her imagination run wild and might be inexplicably worried about overstaying her welcome or something.
“What a total pain in the ass,” I griped. “She can get lost.”
“Is that not precisely what we endeavor to prevent?”
Our usual banter went on, but on that one point I readied a strict countermeasure.
A countermeasure against being addressed by anyone from the neighborhood, that is, even should the stakeout continue for ten hours─it consisted of giving Shinobu blood.
Of letting her drink my blood.
Why would I do this, which was in a sense a time-honored custom of ours, even though we weren’t preparing for battle? Because by letting her drink my blood, I could raise the level of her vampiric powers and allow her to modify her outward appearance.
Whether she actually transformed or not depended on her intentions and was completely up to her─but for that very reason, I hoped she’d change out of her little girl form.
If she was currently an eight-year-old elementary school student.
Then into a thirteen-year-old middle schooler, at least.
Actually, becoming a full adult would best suit our goals, but if she got too close to her “original form,” both of us would become susceptible to the sun’s rays.
Our bodies would be reduced to ash.
Or at least badly burned.
I had to retain a trace of humanity.
The part that thrives under the sun.
“And what meaning is there in my becoming a middle schooler?” asked Shinobu. “I’ll let thee know right now that, in the view of the world, fraternizing with a girl in junior high is enough, more than enough, to constitute a Lolita Complex.”
“That’s not the point.”
Sure, a high school third-year dating a middle school firs
t-year would probably be treated like a pariah, and in that sense, Shinobu was absolutely right─but nah, I ain’t even talkin’ about that, okay?
Not entertainin’ myself with the many ages of Shinobu or nothin’.
I asked her, “Do you remember those middle school girls from yesterday?”
“I have forgotten.”
“Well, remember!”
“Oh, them? I see, I understand thine intended artifice.”
“Ho ho, mighty perceptive, Shinobu.”
Positive that she understood exactly nothing, I enticed her to spell it out. We were both getting a little too into it.
“Through thy conversation with them, though hast discovered the fascination of middle school girls.”
“No, I’m telling you, that’s not it at all!”
“Upon our return to the present, will the first stop be the dwelling of Miss Bangs? Nay, such is unnecessary, for in thine own home there are already two middle-school little-sister character kits.”
“Don’t count my sisters in kits.”
I mean, Sengoku was one thing, but the object of your fascination being the little-sister character was something else.
“Sengoku is one thing, is she?”
“Mm? Ah, well, she’s in her second year of middle school. And lately she seems strangely grown up, you know?”
“Then that one’s actions have unexpectedly begun to bear fruit…”
“Who do you mean, ‘that one’? Sounds like some final boss… Kaiki?”
“Nay, pay me no heed. I do not wish to speak of it. Now, if what thou sayest is true, where is the sense in my becoming a middle schooler? In making me recall that gaggle of girls?”
“Because, obviously someone’s much more likely to say something if I’ve got a little girl like you with me. By all means, I want you with me on this stakeout. Which is why ingenious young Mr. Koyomi over here had this idea: If you’re fed enough blood to grow into a middle schooler, you’ll become more pretty than cute and exude an unapproachable nobility. An air about you will make anyone think twice about addressing you, a bewitching beauty who could steal anyone’s heart.”
“…”
Huh?
I was just stating the obvious, so why was middle-school Shinobu blushing?
What’s up, are you not feeling well?
Seems that with the return of your vampiric nature, the sun really does become your enemy.
I thought there’d be no problem with five or so years of growth…
“Are you okay?”
“Mm? Mmm? O-Oh, aye, all is well. W-Well then, go on with whatever ye were saying. Ye may praise me more, more, moarrr.”
“Huh? I wasn’t praising you, but… See, I’m saying, if you’re a little girl and we’re together, someone is more likely to bother us, but if you’re a middle schooler and we’re together, they’ll keep their distance. We’ll still be suspicious, but I think it’ll be harder for anyone to approach us, that’s all.”
“Harder for them to approach? Why, why?”
“Well, because you’re too pretty…”
“Wh-What specifically about me?”
“Hm? I mean, it’s not anything in specific, it’s everything. From your bouncy golden hair to your smooth skin, the shape of your eyes, your lips, and of course your figure, perfect even with its traces of immaturity, not to mention the immaculate proportions of your arms and legs. There’s no question that if Leonardo da Vinci were alive today, he’d paint your portrait in place of the Mona Lisa.”
“Stahp!”
She kicked me.
She kicked me with her vampire power.
I’d gone vampire too, so it should have balanced out and not hurt much─you’d think, but in fact I sustained enough damage to end up flat on my back staring at the sky.
She didn’t hold anything back with that kick.
What the hell, was she mad or something?
“Um, did I say something wrong?”
“Thou didst not, thou didst not. Not a single thing. Well now well now, if thou so sayeth, I shall hold nothing back in cooperating with thee, that I might enhance thy might.”
When she stood up, I saw that middle-school Shinobu’s clothes had changed from the standard model─when she got this much power back, she could tamper with reality as she saw fit, at least on the level of clothing.
And this time, her new outfit.
Clearly the uniform of the middle schoolers we met yesterday.
A dress, just like Sengoku’s, which is to say the uniform of the middle school I’d attended.
Wow, a super rare card!
Uniform Shinobu…
“This way we will be less likely to be addressed,” she explained. “And what is more, a uniform is enough to vouchsafe a person’s character in this country.”
“Y-Yeah. For sure.”
It wasn’t like that hadn’t occurred to me.
But I never imagined Shinobu, as particular about style as the Super-Popular Class President, would wear something like a school uniform, which so many other people also wore, so the plan had been left on the cutting-room floor.
For Shinobu to go this far in displaying a cooperative attitude all on her own… I hadn’t even tempted her with Mister Donut, so what on earth could have put her in such a good mood?
I had no clue.
It was a puzzle, a mystery.
If only I could figure it out─it’d be massively advantageous in my future interactions with her.
“If ye wish, I can ready a uniform for thee as well.”
“Okay, yeah, maybe you should.”
I decided to presume upon her good will.
Though it did make me slightly uncomfortable to think that eleven years ago, too, simply wearing a uniform made you less suspicious in this country.
Shinobu created a Naoetsu High uniform (male) for me, and I re-entered the drainpipe to change into it─thus completing our transformation into a completely and thoroughly unsuspicious male prep-school student and female middle-school exchange student.
Incidentally, while I was changing, Shinobu further altered her style so that she had glasses and braids, for some reason basing it on Hanekawa’s old look. Maybe because that was Shinobu’s image of a diligent student.
I actually couldn’t come up with a single good reason for a high schooler and middle schooler to be together, but on the off chance that someone said something to us, I figured we could skate by if we told them that she was doing a homestay at my family’s house─and while we were concocting that far-fetched excuse, we arrived back at the Hachikuji residence.
Not that we worked out the stage directions or anything, but we sort of stood near the telephone pole and began our stakeout.
I’d picked up the book that Loli Hanekawa had chucked at me and then abandoned the day before, so while I made Shinobu read that (and look like a weirdly bookish girl)─while I pretended to fool around with my cell phone (its kind didn’t exist yet, but by virtue of that, I must’ve looked like a high schooler playing a video game)─
We waited for Hachikuji to come out of her house.
Mayoi Hachikuji─with her huge backpack, on her way to her mother’s, heart surely full of anxiety and anticipation.
I presumed she would indeed leave while it was still morning─so our stakeout wouldn’t last all that long.
I likely wouldn’t even have to wait half an hour─
To meet her.
The living, breathing Mayoi Hachikuji.
015
“What the hell’s taking her so long?!” I shouted, a little after 11 a.m. I almost slammed my cell phone to the ground in frustration─even though I’d just gotten the model. “She really had my hopes up!”
“Thou art most ill-suited to stakeouts─only a paltry few hours have passed.”
“Sure… And true, I intended to stake this place out for ten hours if it came to that, but I still thought she’d leave during the morning…judging from the way she’d talked about
it.”
As we’d hoped, no one addressed the uniformed me/middle-school Shinobu combo─there was no getting around the fact that Shinobu stood out, being a beautiful blond girl and all. Passersby kept glancing at us, but no one actually stopped and stared.