The Amphisbaena (3 page)

He did not think of it as any kind of nuisance. Setting aside whether these were romantic feelings, if asked if he liked her or not, Kojou would say without hesitation that he liked her.

And that very fact was the reason Kojou was troubled by it.

After all, he had a great secret that he couldn’t tell her: the nonsensical, lethal secret that
he
was the World’s Mightiest Vampire…

He couldn’t embrace Asagi’s feelings for him while keeping a crucial fact like that hidden from her.

Having said that, pushing her away to protect that secret would hurt both her and him as a result. In the first place, could not merely being close to him put Asagi, unaware of the truth, in danger by itself…? When he began thinking about that, Kojou’s thoughts became a quagmire without escape, leaving him completely at a loss. Sayaka’s phone calls weren’t the only reason he wasn’t getting enough sleep.

“Kojou… I’m surprised that you’re the type who falls for swindlers and con artists so easily.”

“C-con artists?”

Kojou stared at Rin in shock as giggles trickled into the air all around them.

Upon seeing this, Kojou finally understood. Rin had completely taken him for a ride.

Now that he thought about it, Rin was always close at hand; all she needed to figure out what was bothering Kojou was a little simple observation. She didn’t need to rely on telling fortunes at all. Perhaps she’d
figured out that Asagi was the cause of Kojou’s troubles before she’d even started.

“Shit… You totally fooled me. I’m never gonna trust you guys again. Ever!”

“‘Fooled’ makes it sound so underhanded. I was trying to have a serious conversation,” Rin replied with a serious look.

Kojou exhaled roughly. “I’ll pass. I knew from the start that I gotta do what I gotta do.”

“Hmm… Well, if you say so.”

Rin smiled charmingly as she stared at the disgusted look on Kojou’s face from the side.

Kojou and the others, still standing around, turned toward the classroom. It was still a little before the start of classes; about half of the students were already inside. Among them was a schoolgirl with showy, highly conspicuous looks…

Asagi Aiba noticed Kojou and the others and raised a hand.

“Morning, Rin. You guys, too.”

Kojou listlessly returned the greeting, but he was quietly relieved that Asagi was her normal, everyday self. Even after what had happened in the hospital room, her attitude toward him hadn’t changed whatsoever. Kojou was honestly grateful for it, even as he found it a little eerie.

But Rin, her sharp eyes detecting a subtle change in Asagi, raised an eyebrow, obviously intrigued.

“What’s wrong, you’re short on sleep, too, Asagi?”

As Rin pointed it out, an expression came over Asagi like that of a child being teased. She was covering it up very well with makeup, but when Kojou looked more closely, there were faint shadows all around her eyes.

“Mm… Yesterday was a bit… Er, what, Kojou? What’s with that horrid look?”

Asagi, her eyes narrowed and sleepy looking, looked skeptically up at Kojou. Rin seemed amused as she looked between Asagi and Kojou, studying their expressions.

“Akatsuki says he didn’t get much sleep, either.”

“Wh-what are you grinning like that for…?” Asagi lodged an objection in a shrill voice. Her cheeks reddened as she grasped what Rin’s
words were suggesting. The redness remained as she glared sharply at Kojou.

“And could you please stop inviting misunderstandings like that?”

“What are you complaining to me for…?”

Asagi machine-gunned the excuse. “Anyway, the reason I couldn’t sleep last night was because of that ruckus.”

Listening to her, Yaze murmured as he bit. “I see. Right, that stuff was near your place.”

“That’s right. There were fire engines going all around till almost dawn. Was really noisy…”

“…There was a ruckus yesterday?” Kojou asked as the subject tugged at a vague memory. Asagi’s residence was in a pricey residential district near the center of the city. He thought it was a sleepy district free of late-night disturbances.

“Mm… I saw something about it on the news, about rampaging demons in West in the dead of night? Unregistered demons going at it or something.”

“Demons running amok?”

Kojou’s expression froze at Yaze’s amused explanation.

Asagi listlessly put her head on her hands and nodded.

“Looks like they made a real mess of things. A bunch of buildings came crashing down, some roads got blocked off, the Island Guard deployed to suppress it… It’s a big uproar. I thought for sure some idiot vampire let some Beast Vassal run amok again, but…”

“It wasn’t me, I didn’t do anything.”

Asagi looked up with an exasperated expression as Kojou’s mouth ran ahead of his conscious thoughts.

“Well, I know that already. What are you talking about?”

“R-right. Of course,” Kojou said in a frail voice as he wiped the sweat off his brow. Itogami City was a Demon Sanctuary. About 40 percent of its 560,000-odd citizens were inhuman demons granted formal residency. They included beast men, fey, half fey, half demons, artificial life-forms…and vampires. In this city, demons were more likely to run amok than outsiders of some sort.

That was why, even if a demon other than Kojou went wild and wrecked the city, it wouldn’t really be anything shocking.

As soon as Yaze and Rin turned to take their own seats, Asagi tugged on the collar of Kojou’s uniform and spoke in a small voice. “Incidentally, Kojou…do you have any plans after classes today?” For some reason, her question sounded bashful, driving Kojou’s tension way up.

“No. No special plans…”

Kojou made an awkward shake of his head. He expected that Yukina would be sticking to him in the course of her watcher duties that day, like every day, but he couldn’t call that
plans
.

Asagi made what seemed like a small sigh of relief.

“All right, come with me to the art classroom after class.
Alone.
”

“Art classroom? I mean that’s fine, but why…?”

Even while managing to keep his face composed, Kojou was completely beside himself. The Saikai Academy art club was currently on hiatus due to insufficient members. In other words, there’d be no one in the art classroom after classes at all. What in the world did she intend to do, leading Kojou to a place like that…?

“Just come. And keep it a secret from everyone else,” Asagi whispered, her cheeks red, ignorant of Kojou’s mental anguish. Unable to hold out against that face, Kojou put some distance between them as if making a tactical retreat.

And after classes that very day…

Asagi had left class first to wait for Kojou in the empty art classroom. The thin rays of the setting sun passed through the curtains to illuminate her from behind as the blowing ocean breeze made her hair sway.

Asagi had a pure white sketchbook right before her eyes. Her right hand was holding a heavily sharpened pencil for sketching.

“…A portrait?”

Kojou asked while giving her a look of disbelief. She was wearing an apron over her school uniform.

Asagi pointed to a calendar standing in the corner of the art classroom.

“That’s right. It’s a portrait or, you know, a likeness of a friend. I’m supposed to submit it by this coming Monday.”

“…Didn’t we do this in class last week?” Kojou asked back with a
languid look on his face. Called out to a classroom with no other sign of human life like this, Kojou had intended to come prepared for anything. For example, a heartfelt confession or a demand to continue here where they’d left off in the hospital room…

But Asagi had her usual composed smile on her face. “Right, but I wasn’t in class that day. The police called me over that day to give a witness statement. You know, about when that terrorist group kidnapped me.”

“So you want me to…model for you?”

His strength deserting him, Kojou sat in the chair that had been prepared for him.

“Why not? You have the time and all.”

“Well, I’m fine with it, but if you’re gonna sketch, wouldn’t someone like Tsukishima make for better material?”

“Rin has committee work today. And that idiot Motoki is on a date.”

“…I see… Guess I’ve gotta do it,” Kojou muttered powerlessly as if resigning himself to the inevitable. From a logical standpoint, Asagi’s request was not unreasonable whatsoever. Kojou had simply let his imagination run wild.

“Right, right. So that’s how it is. Now, would you mind stripping?” Gazing with satisfaction at Kojou’s cooperativeness, Asagi spoke with an offhand, casual tone.

“Huh? Strip what off?”

“You’re a model, so of course I mean stripping off your clothes. Don’t tell me you’re embarrassed by something?”

“Wait, wait! Why do I have to strip off my clothes to model for a likeness?!”

“It’s for art, so deal with it. Then, I want you to make the same pose as this.”

With a grin all over her face, Asagi pointed to a corner of the art classroom decorated with a replica statue of
David
. The original was a masterpiece from the Renaissance painted by no less than Michelangelo. But…

“He’s buck naked!!” Kojou yelled at the entirely too aesthetic figure.

Asagi grinned and cackled. “I’m kidding, it’s a joke. All you need to do is take that smelly parka off.”

“Could’ve just said so. And don’t call my parka smelly.”

With a low groan, Kojou stripped off the parka he wore over his upper body school uniform.

This time, Asagi stopped fooling around, too, and sat squarely in front of Kojou as she opened up the sketchbook. Of course, this put their faces directly opposite each other, but Asagi made no sign of noticing.

Watching her hum through her nose as she made the pencil run about, Kojou was suddenly struck by a sense of guilt.

Asagi didn’t know he was a vampire. She didn’t know because he was hiding it from her.

Kojou asked himself:
Doesn’t this mean I’m deceiving her?

He didn’t have to think about it; the answer was yes. Asagi had her guard completely down in front of Kojou because she trusted him. And yet, even now, he was betraying that trust.

He thought of Asagi as a precious friend.

Therefore, this was not a betrayal that was forgivable. Kojou only realized that himself then and there. No, he understood it from the beginning. If Asagi was truly drawing near to him with affection, Kojou
had
to tell her the truth: the crazy truth that he was the vampire known as “the Fourth Primogenitor.” Even if that meant losing both her affection and her friendship in the process…

That very moment, just as Kojou was quietly hardening his pathetic resolve…

“Mmm, this is boring.”

Asagi tossed the sketchbook away as she suddenly rose from her seat.

Kojou was thoroughly stricken by shock at her completely unexpected behavior.

“Wh-what is?”

“My creative juices just aren’t flowing here. I mean, you’re really ordinary. Can’t you make a funnier face?”

“…Why does the model have to entertain the person doing the drawing? I’m not into leaving behind a portrait of me making some kind of weird face…”

Of course, Kojou rebutted Asagi’s arbitrary demand. Asagi completely and utterly ignored him, slowly reaching a hand out to Kojou’s face.

“Oh, don’t say that, give it a try. It might be a lot more fun than you think.”

“I-idiot! Hey, cut that out! And where did you get that tape from?!”

Asagi deftly made liberal use of vinyl tape, toying as she pleased with Kojou as he resisted in vain. The reason he couldn’t simply force her off him was his hesitation about touching Asagi’s body with his hands.

“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Yes, that expression. That will do. Even you look good like this, Kojou. I feel a Picasso-grade masterpiece coming on.”

“Doesn’t feel like I’m being complimented at all here! It’s not like you’re gonna do a Picasso by having me model a weird face in the first pl… Uh, the heck is that?!”

“…Hm? It’s makeup.”

“That’s a paint marker!!”

Kojou’s voice went coarse as he felt it make firm contact with his cheek. Asagi drew a vertical line on Kojou’s cheek with a practiced hand.

“It suits you quite well. Gives off a nice punk aesthetic.”

“This isn’t ‘punk,’ it’s some corny fake, foreign makeup job…! You’re washing off this marker stuff properly afterward, right?!”

“Don’t sweat the small stuff.”

“This ain’t small,” Kojou said weakly in reply. Truth be told, it wasn’t that he hated this; when he saw Asagi laughing, all his worries seemed like ridiculous, little things. He suddenly thought,
Maybe Asagi’s pulling all these pranks with that in mind.

“Ah, that’s right… Hold on a sec.”

Suddenly, Asagi left those words behind as she went out of the art classroom on her own. Kojou watched her go with unease. If it wasn’t for the doodling on his cheek, Kojou would have gone right out after her.

Finally, Asagi returned to the art classroom, dragging several large rectangular cardboard boxes in with her.

“Sorry for the wait!”

“…The heck’s all that?”

“Costumes. The drama club’s classroom is close by, so I borrowed a few things. A lot of my girl classmates are in that club, see.”

This said, Asagi opened the cardboard boxes. The costumes within were modern-era style and thoroughly outlandish. They included butler outfits, maid outfits, gothic lolita magical girl outfits, live-action
superhero tights, etc. They seemed less like resources for a drama club than the personal belongings of a cosplay
otaku
.

“…What am I supposed to do with this stuff?”

“You’re supposed to wear it, of course. It’ll go great with your makeup, don’t you think?”

Her face extremely lively as she spoke, Asagi pulled up and showed off one of the outfits. It was a clown outfit with a red-and-white stripe motif he’d seen on the front of burger shops.

“Like hell it will,” Kojou said, raising a shout.

“Why do I have to cosplay to help you with your art homework?!”

“It’s to solve my artistic dilemma. If you don’t want me to draw a picture of you making a funny face, you should at least be willing to put an outfit on for me. Or would you rather strip?”