・Kibutsuji Muzan's Chapter・
This is a story from when I was a child.
As I lay in my room, something came flying in. What hit the inner wall and rolled all the way to my bedding was a dirty yarn ball. Picking it up with my finger, thinking 'you've been played with quite merrily,'
"Yay! I dropped the yarn ball so I'm deeeeead──!"
A bizarre shriek made my skin crawl and I almost dropped the yarn ball. A child's voice from beyond the wall. I turned my face in that direction.
Blocked by the wall, the figure wasn't visible, but I could definitely feel someone's presence there, and a breath later, it leaped lightly over the wall.
At first, I thought the light-footed figure was a tengu. Something blessed by the wind. What descended into the gorgeous garden, prepared for me though I'd never even taken a stroll in it, was a child not much different in age from me.
For a boy brimming with more vitality than I, who spent my days lying in a sickbed, could ever envy, running around outside like a dog seemed more fitting than reading books and enjoying waka.
My heart fluttered at that lively atmosphere.
"Is this yarn ball yours?"
I was only worried that my voice might not have sounded enthusiastic. I had never spoken to anyone other than the mansion people. Because my parents, worried about the eldest son's frailty, had forbidden it, saying if I talked to someone and accidentally harmed my health, it would be a disaster.
I wasn't even allowed to make friends, lest I lament my own weakness.
Parents, maids, everyone, pitying the young master, lamented me more than I lamented myself.
I hated that so much.
I too wanted to make friends like a normal person, share trivial stories, open my mouth and laugh at silly things. I was slowly getting fed up with a life forced to endure because of weakness. I expected him to play the role of puncturing a hole in this accumulated resentment.
"In exchange for returning this yarn ball, I have one request."
When I asked him to keep me company, the boy nodded readily. I was anxious he might run away the moment I gave back the ball, but no such thing happened; the boy tucked the yarn ball under his arm and leaped onto the veranda.
"What's your name? Huh? Kibutsuji Muzan? What's that, how do you write the kanji? Where does the family name end and the given name start? Ah, me? My name is~!"
Sunlight makes me dizzy. So my sickroom is structured to reject sunlight.
In that dim room, the boy's smile, chattering noisily, was warm like the sun.
・
・
・
"Hey~ Muzan-kun~! Let's do nagashisomen~!"
Having hung out for weeks, the revealed fact was, this guy was always offbeat. I recited the 'Tale of the Bamboo Cutter' for him, and the next day he showed up with bamboo tied to his back and declared that.
Before I could even say anything, the guy commenced preparations for some ritual. Bamboo processed to be easily assembled was, in the blink of an eye, assembled into an unseen form.
"We don't have somen noodles, so let's let something else flow down. Something like Father's anger over five torn sliding screens."
"Apologize when you go back."
I didn't know what somen was, but experience taught me I wouldn't find out even if I asked in detail.
Last time too, when parting, he shouted from atop the wall an extremely bizarre phrase, "Don't catch a cold, eat lots of tangerines... I mean, mandarin oranges! You gotta load up on Vitamin C!"
Just what is 'Vitamin Cee'? Judging from it not being recorded in any book, the things he says are like outside slang, sometimes incomprehensible.
For the uncultured him, there were times I taught him something, but the opposite was quite rare, so it felt rather fresh.
Out of intellectual curiosity, I asked "What is Vitamin C?" and got an unclear answer: "It's effective for freckles... and good for health... something like that... yeah, something like that... hmm, wanna ask Siri?"
Hey, you don't know either? Wait, you ask something to your butt (shiri)? And your butt answers? Just what is your butt? Does it have an omniscient other personality attached?
Leaving the butt question aside for now, I ate the mandarin oranges as told, and that year's cold passed lightly.
He says incomprehensible things, but he doesn't lie.
While reminiscing, an elaborate bamboo craft was completed. A slanted bamboo water channel assembled from inside the room outward. The guy placed a flower petal fallen in the garden at its top and poured water scooped from the small pond.
The petal flows gently with the water stream. I wonder if a stream, which I've never seen, is this beautiful too? Feeling that, yet feeling ashamed and frustrated for being happy over something this simple, I didn't openly show delight.
But it seems the guy noticed my eyes shining.
In my place, unable to move, he went back and forth between the lower exit and the upper top many times, letting flowers flow for me.
The beautiful, private time for just the two of us was precious.
──The day my parents found out about our secret relationship was one winter day.
That day, the coughing wouldn't stop from morning. I didn't have a fever, but the coughing that emerged wouldn't calm down even with medicine, tears welled up from the agony, and I couldn't even breathe. Every time I coughed, it felt like my lungs would burst out, it was so agonizing.
My parents fretfully rubbed my back, and amidst the doctor and maids bustling about─ he showed up, utterly oblivious.
"Muzan-kun~! Na~gashi~so~men~~~!"
At the vibrant shout, everyone turned their gaze to the wall. Instantly, the guy who lightly revealed himself. With movements that made one think 'so this is what the rumored tengu is like,' both my parents and the maids screamed.
Already knowing he used bamboo like that to leap over obstacles, I wasn't surprised now, but to an unknowing person, it was a leap that truly seemed to dance on the wind, with no sense of the bamboo's presence at all.
A monster? A demon threatening the young master! Anyway, catch him! Chased around by the men, the guy fled all over the garden's every direction, truly纵横无尽. Crawling under the veranda and leaving the pursuing men covered in cobwebs was just the beginning.
Easily dodging men rushing with arms spread, making them bump heads and incapacitate each other was a piece of cake.
In the end, he even jumped into the pond, shouting "Gotcha!" and hoisting a carp, standing on land. Isn't this guy too extraordinary.
And then, holding the fish, he climbed a tree by the pond with agility that would surprise a monkey and thrust forward a hostage-taking that wasn't with a hostage! "You're okay with whatever happens to this guy, right?!" The flapping, struggling fish evoked sympathy.
While everyone else watched holding their breath, only I felt an odd emotion, 'So there was such a splendid carp in our garden.' That's how splendid the carp was.
The guy distorted his youthful face menacingly and spouted villainous lines, "Heheheh, move clumsily and I'll make this guy my dinner," but his reign ended there. The branch he was on snapped with a crack. "Ack," he uttered one word and fell straight into the pond standing up, his face filled with futility.
Not missing that opening, the men surrounding the pond. I was watching with interest to see how the cornered guy would get out next, when, would you believe it, he slipped between the men's legs and fled straight towards me.
"Muzan-kun save meeeee!" dragging out the end of his words, this guy who burrowed into my futon showed no trace of his earlier vigor. A sorry sight like a wet rat. By the way, is pond water this blue and fishy? First time knowing. Didn't want to know.
"It was an impulse! Reeeally just a temporary impulse! But everyone was scary! Scarier than my father who saw ten sliding screens fall like dominoes this morning! You'd run away from this too, right! You'd want to run, right! You'd run even sacrificing something, even taking a fish hostage! Right? Is there anyone who wouldn't run?! There can't be! Hey you! Don't break the attention stance! What were you gonna do, you weren't about to raise your hand, were you! Can't forgive, I absolutely cannot forgive that! Even if God forgives, I won't! See, see, there isn't?! Just as I said, look at this, look at thiiis!"
Innocent! I am innocent! Victory! Seppuku! Danganronpa!
Amidst everyone being dumbfounded by the life-saving plea from who knows where he breathes from, I held my stomach and laughed. It was the first time I laughed so hard I became short of breath. The cough had already stopped unnoticed.
After that incident, the guy started visiting the mansion properly through the door. I thought my parents would dislike such a noisy companion being a friend, but surprisingly they permitted it without any reservation. It seemed they thought it was a good influence, as me, who had been despondent from illness, laughing out loud was something that had never happened until now.
The guy often brings deutzia flowers. In spring, summer, fall, winter, all four seasons, all year round. It seems they bloom out of season on a nearby mountain. According to him, that place is so beautiful it's hard to believe it's a scenery of this world, and he said he wants to go there with me someday.
Time passed, the familiar old doctor died, and his disciple began examining me. This doctor is good-natured, kind, and enthusiastic about making my body healthy. He tests various medicines for me.
The previous doctor was also good, but he tended to focus more on the illness not worsening rather than curing me, so I was grateful for the current doctor's passion.
I want to quickly heal my body and laugh with that guy under the bright sunlight.
Since we pinky swore like that on that childish day.
＊
──Ah, it's as if, as if.
──I've become a demon who knows no reason.
＊
When I came to, the doctor's corpse was sprawled before my eyes.
The kitchen knife embedded in his head was undoubtedly the one I swung. That I, who was so frail and weak, had such strength. I look down at the silent doctor with a feeling of disbelief. My breath is ragged. My heartbeat is noisy. My face is hot as if with fever. But the blood that rushed to my head cooled down as I looked at the doctor.
When I ordered him not to take his medicine and to change back to the original medicine, the doctor meekly withdrew on the spot. Relieved that it was resolved, I drank the tea brought with the meal, and it tasted strange.
When I later interrogated the visiting doctor, he confessed to putting medicine in the tea. Without a hint of apology. Smiling while saying 'It's for Muzan-sama's body.'
In that single moment, I was seized by passion.
I was angry that he looked down on my command. The humiliation of being deceived instantly dyed into hatred.
Above all, what was most unforgivable was him making me break my promise with that guy.
I even pinky swore I wouldn't take any more medicine!
I felt like hitting the already breathless doctor's body ten thousand times, like letting a thousand needles flow into his stomach. Thinking that, I feel fear towards myself who had such a terrible thought. I couldn't stop trembling at the beast-like cruelty sprouting within myself.
Lately, I, as if possessed by a demon, often had evil, ugly thoughts arise that the old me would never have imagined. Getting angry over trivial things, my temper rising like a beast, rampaging like a demon.
I am changing into something other than myself.
As I tremble, grinding my teeth, terrified and horrified by that, the guy came running into my room. He hugged me, who was sniffling unbecomingly for my age, and comforted me as if soothing a child.
"It's okay. It'll be okay now, Muzan-kun."
And you, who kindly tries to calm me down,
from your collar
the revealed neck
looked
delicious.
"Hey, will you promise me one thing?"
"Don't be afraid of me. Don't run away, don't hate me."
"Okay!"
"Pinky swear!"
Of all days, that day, the guy didn't bring deutzia flowers.
Even though I advised "run away quickly," the guy blithely chattered, "Eat lots, Muzan-kun. I've recently opened my eyes to vegetarianism so it won't smell and will be tasty," then bit his lip and fell silent.
A fragrant smell of blood. In my room where sunlight is blocked, the guy was bleeding from his shoulder. The shape of the torn flesh, clothes and all, was like the mark of a beast's fangs.
I spit out a piece of clothing. I fall into ecstasy from the taste of blood spreading in my mouth, feel rapture from the savory flavor felt in the chewed flesh.
More,
More more,
More more more.
With reason now just fragments, with a human heart now just a remnant, I whisper a warning into the guy's ear to scream and call people. With a bloody, hungry breath.
But the guy shakes his head and doesn't move, lips bitten. He shows no sign of running away. Rather, as if telling me to eat quickly, he pushes that blood-filled lump of flesh into my mouth.
I refused that temptation only once. The moment I swallowed the saliva welling up continuously, my lips had parted unknowingly.
Fangs obedient to desire bite into the guy's shoulder once more. Tearing that flesh with an ominous, crunchy sound. Contrary to my reason, my instincts couldn't bear wanting to devour this flesh.
The guy sweats cold sweat and contorts his face in pain, yet doesn't make a sound. He must be scared enough to want to scream. He must be in agony enough to want to run.
I am your long-time friend, I can grasp your heart, the fear in your chest, as if holding it in my hand, yet the next moment, the consecutive surges of gluttony prevent me from considering it.
Tearing flesh,
snapping tendons,
my teeth breaking even bones,
are truly like a demon's.
I bare my fangs, avoiding the neck so you can scream anytime. Even while guessing the neck would be the most delicious, even while knowing sweet blood would gush out, I desperately avoid it amidst the unstoppable gluttony. Even while knowing it will prolong your agony.
With one bite, ethics.
With two bites, morality.
With three bites, I myself.
Everything melts away and fades.
I am becoming a demon.
The more I eat you, the more I am satisfied, and the regret over why I ate my friend transforms into anger over why I shouldn't have eaten. I even come to believe that eating something this delicious is the correct answer.
The human called me is being crushed by the demon swollen inside me. Such a demon is no longer me. And yet this guy, even that not-me me, is not afraid, does not run, does not hate.
Whether he thinks it's friendship or not, he silently, continually fed his body to me.
The neck that slipped from my hand rolled and fell onto the crimson-soaked futon.
Thud
thud
thud
thud
Splat
splat
splat
splat
Just like the yarn ball that day.
You who once picked it up were now inside my stomach.