He’s dangerous. I would normally run, but this person—Er, he says he isn’t human, but I’ll call him a person for convenience.
Despite his confusion, Masamichi desperately tried to think straight.
This person saved my life. That’s a fact. I still don’t know what he’ll make me do as his servant, but he’s given me a bed to sleep in and fed me. It’s scary, but he’s nice, no matter how I look at this.
Shino’s blunt words and actions frightened him, but when Masamichi considered all the man had done for him, he felt indebted.
If he looked at things that way, his fear lessened.
“You might get mad at me again, but you’re human, no matter how I look at you.” He worked up the courage and said it. Shino clicked his tongue again.
But Masamichi thought Shino was mad at his late master, not him.
And he seemed to be correct.
Shino tried to explain, albeit grimly.
“Long ago, I was a specter that ate humans.”
This time, Masamichi put his head in his hands. “That’s an even more disturbing story about the past…!”
“What is with you? Stop interrupting!”
“Sorry! When was this?”
“About a thousand years ago. You people call it the Heian period.”
“…The Heian period.”
Masamichi learned that when people were overwhelmed with too many surprises, their emotions went haywire, and they became numb. He calmly asked Shino, “You ate people during the Heian period? Like you ate my leg? That really happened, didn’t it?”
Shino nodded like it was the most natural thing to have done.
“Yeah. Back then, a crack had occurred in the boundary between our worlds, and I slipped in. I grabbed people, tore them apart, and ate them randomly.”
“I don’t know how to respond when you talk about it so matter-of- factly.”
“Then don’t. Just listen,” Shino said casually and continued to tell Masamichi about other memories that made his skin crawl.
“Abe no Seimei was quite the formidable spiritual medium, but after his death, there were no other onmyouji—masters of yin and yang—who could control me. I suppose I was naive to think that. A man captured me. He wasn’t much of a master of divination, but he was cunning and vindictive like a snake.”
“Was that your master? The second man?”
“Correct.”
Shino’s mouth twisted disapprovingly.
“I assumed he would kill me, but that man… In a fit of madness, Tokifuyu Tatsumi convinced his fellow masters that I was a powerful specter he could use in his practices. He said they could utilize me as a servant to protect the capital, and it was wiser to make me pay for my sins for a long time rather than kill me.”
“And he made you his servant?”
“Correct. They referred to specters and deities they used as their servants as shikigami, or shiki.”
“Oh, so this Tokifuyu…”
“Tatsumi.”
“Tokifuyu Tatsumi became your master.”
Shino turned his vacant gaze to the sky as if looking somewhere far away.
“That was when Tokifuyu named me Shino and cast a spell on me.”
“What…kind of spell?”
“He took away a large part of my power and locked my soul in this human body. I could turn myself into any being before, but if I weaken in this state, I will become invisible with no physical form. Even after regaining some power, I can only return to this body that Tokifuyu created for me.”
Masamichi stared as Shino spread his arms and showed him his body.
Even when the hit-and-run had left him near death and with deteriorating vision, Masamichi had recognized that Shino’s beauty was out of this world.
He had an oval-shaped face with symmetrical features. The hair that framed his face was slightly wavy and came down to his ears.
The face was modern and beautiful, but it was nothing like the round and puffy ones of the aristocrats in picture scrolls from the Heian period.
“You have a modern face,” Masamichi said. “Your master gave you that face and body during the Heian period, right?”
“He didn’t give it to me. He forced it upon me,” Shino corrected, roughly rubbing his cheek with one hand. “He said a round and happy face didn’t suit me and that he would give me a fierce, thoughtful face and a large body.”
“A fierce, thoughtful face, huh? And yeah, you would have been big during the Heian period.”
Shino nodded grimly.
“Because of that, I often bumped my forehead into things. Everything Tokifuyu said and did annoyed me.”
“Was there a reason he gave you a big body?” Masamichi asked curiously.
Shino answered grumpily, “He said it was convenient when he had me pull kimonos off the top shelves, and that it would surely be an asset when picking persimmons from the tree in the garden.”
“Pfft!”
Masamichi couldn’t help laughing, and Shino narrowed his eyes.
“You dare laugh at your master?!”
“S-sorry. But I didn’t expect something like that… It’s cu…”
Cute!
Masamichi swallowed the word before it came out of his mouth. Shino would be furious if he said it was cute.
Covering his mouth with one hand and suppressing his chuckle, Masamichi wondered:
I can’t remember when I last laughed or talked to someone like this.
He was a guy who had trouble opening up to others. But here he was, talking naturally and laughing with a man who claimed to be a specter.
Masamichi was stunned to realize that, when Shino, who was still slightly annoyed, added, “One other thing. I was also strictly forbidden from capturing live humans and eating them. Disobey that rule, and my soul would immediately disappear.”
“Huh? That doesn’t make sense.”
The question that popped into Masamichi’s mind conveniently stopped his laughing fit, and he looked straight at Shino and made his point.
“You munched away at my leg when we first met!”
Shino grinned and licked his lips with the tip of his tongue as if recalling the taste of Masamichi’s flesh and blood, making the young man shiver.
“Yes, I did. But I didn’t capture you. That leg wasn’t attached to your body. All I did was pick it up off the ground and eat it.”
“Isn’t that nitpicking?!”
“That’s what spells are like. One may believe it’s perfect, but somewhere, sometime, there is bound to be a loophole. And thanks to that loophole, I enjoyed tasty flesh and blood for the first time in a thousand years.”
“Okay, hold on again. Did you say I would be food for you?”
“I certainly did. That’s one of a servant’s responsibilities to his master.”
Masamichi couldn’t believe it. He stared at the partially eaten salmon on the table before him.
“Are you saying you plan to pull off bits and pieces of my body and eat them like we’re eating this delicious meal? But my body is whole now. You can’t capture me and eat me, right?”
Shino’s eyes changed as soon as he saw Masamichi’s fear.
Their lightly pigmented, brownish luminescence became a catlike golden color, and the round pupils turned into long, thin, vertical lines.
“…!”
“So I won’t capture you,” Shino said in a singsong voice as the corners of his lips curved upward.
“Huh…?”
“You are my servant. I don’t need to capture you; you must do as I say. You must gladly offer me any part of you, be it an arm or a leg, if I order you to do so.”
“B-but…”
“Do you want to run away? Do that, and the blood gushing from your exploding heart will splatter the old items in this place before you take three steps.”
Suddenly, Shino’s true demonic nature was peeking out from behind his human facade, and Masamichi stiffened like a frog at the mercy of a snake, unable to blink.
But it turned out that Shino was only kidding.
He quickly changed his eyes back to those of a human, chuckled, and said, “But if I tear off your limbs and eat them, I would be left with a lot of work to do.”
“…Huh?!”
“I thought it would be easier to mend a human body, but it was quite a challenge,” Shino said, staring up and down Masamichi’s body as if to get revenge on Masamichi for laughing at him. “I had a hard time putting that right leg back in place after I got greedy and nibbled on it. I had to use up all the power I’d gained by feeding on your flesh and blood. It isn’t worth it.”
Masamichi shook his head and breathed a long sigh of relief.
“I never expected you to talk about the cost-effectiveness of eating me. So anyway, you’ve scrapped the idea of pulling off my arms and legs and making a meal of them, right?”
“Yes, but if I don’t have to put them back in place…”
“Please do that. Or rather, give up on the idea. But then what part of me are you planning to eat?”
“I’ll think about it. For now, you should eat properly and get back in shape.”
Masamichi examined the palms of his hands.
“I’m already back in shape. You fixed me.”
Shino shook his head.
“Not completely. All I did was use my power to enhance your physical ability to regenerate and fill in what I thought was missing.”
“What you thought was missing?!”
No wonder Shino had overlooked his birthmark. Masamichi was oddly convinced.
“There will still be areas that aren’t fully healed and body tissue that isn’t completely connected. That is beyond my responsibility. You fix things like that on your own.”
That’s why my body still hurts all over. It’s been telling me that I haven’t fully recovered yet.
Masamichi bent and stretched the fingers of both hands a little awkwardly, but Shino told him not to mind that and eat.
Then Shino asked, “And did you have…a nesting place?”
Masamichi set his chopsticks on the table again and nodded.
“A nesting place… Yeah, I live in an apartment.”
Shino responded by giving him an order in a very masterly manner.
“Then go and move out immediately.”
“Huh?!”
Shino pointed at the top of his head.
“It’s natural for you to live with your master if you’re a servant. I’ll give you the room you were sleeping in earlier. Use it as you like. But there is no room for your things. Go and throw away your belongings.”
“I’m going to live here? With you? Um, who else—?”
“There’s no one else. It’s just you and me.”
“I…see.”
“All right then, hurry up and get it done. As a servant, you should not question any order I give you.”
Not long after he started to relax, Shino’s innate impatience kicked in, and he began getting frustrated again.
“Yes, sir!! I mean, okay!”
Masamichi hurried to fill his mouth with the rest of the salted salmon, which had sadly gotten completely cold but still tasted excellent with the rice…