[Tokyo, Shibuya District — March 29th, 11:47 PM]
Rain fell in silver threads over the neon-washed streets.
Hayanui Riku—Riku to anyone who mattered—stepped out from the warm amber glow of the café's back entrance. The door clicked shut behind him, cutting off the sound of clinking porcelain and soft jazz.
He exhaled, breath fogging in the cold air.
"The coffee shop gig... it's done."
Another job down the drain because Manager Yūrei couldn't keep his wandering hands to himself.
Riku grimaced, adjusting the strap of his messenger bag. The manager had developed certain particular interests. Hands lingering too long on shoulders. Fingers brushing against backs during inventory counts. Standing too close in the narrow space behind the espresso machines.
And the targets were always male staff.
To protect my own ass, I have no choice but to abandon this temporary employment.
...
The rain intensified, pattering against his jacket.
He started walking, sneakers splashing through shallow puddles that reflected the flickering convenience store signs. The street smelled of wet concrete, cigarette smoke drifting from a nearby izakaya, and the distant grease of a ramen cart packing up for the night.
「Manager Yūrei... if memory serves, he has quite the beautiful wife. One need only capture evidence of his despicable hobby on film, then visit his home. Show the footage to the wife. To protect her husband's position, she would surely...」
That voice. That goddamn voice in his head.
「Alternatively—intercept the wife during her morning commute. Pull her aside. Inform her of her husband's proclivities while fabricating threats. Knowing what sort of man her husband truly is, she would do anything to preserve his reputation... anything at all...」
「The Perfect Married Woman Subjugation Scheme.」
Riku shook his head violently, wet hair slapping against his forehead.
Perfect plan my ass.
This narrator—this perverted, antagonistic narrator that had nested inside his skull since he could remember—only ever offered suggestions that ended in prison sentences. Every single time.
Couldn't you give me something actually useful for once? Maybe lottery numbers? Stock tips? Literally anything that doesn't involve felony charges?
No!
Wait—why am I even entertaining this? My thoughts are getting corrupted just by listening to this crap!
He passed under a flickering streetlamp, its buzzing the only sound besides the rain.
「You search for prey. Your hunter's instinct locks onto something unusual—the bench across the way, in that small park. Something special waits there.」
「A wayward maiden, lost in the deep night. Alone. Collapsed upon the bench. And with the rain falling like this... if you were to simply carry her away...」
The narrator's voice made him look.
Across the street, past the empty crosswalk, a small neighborhood park sat dark and deserted. The usual late-night dog walkers and salary men cutting through had been chased off by the weather.
Without the narrator's prompting, Riku never would have noticed.
Someone was lying on the park bench.
A girl.
She was curled up on the wet wooden slats, completely motionless. Her sailor-style uniform—the distinctive navy and white of a nearby academy, straight out of My Dress-Up Darling—clung to her body, darkened and heavy with rain. Her pleated skirt had ridden up, exposing pale thighs that seemed to glow beneath the distant streetlight.
The wet fabric of her blouse pressed against her torso, molding to every curve with obscene fidelity. The swell of her chest, the dip of her waist—the rain had turned the white cotton nearly transparent, and Riku could make out the faint outline of her bra beneath.
"Holy shit... what a body..."
Gulp.
He swallowed involuntarily, then immediately jerked his gaze away, heart hammering. Heat crept up his neck. His eyes darted around—checking for witnesses, for anyone who might have caught him staring like some degenerate hentai protagonist.
The street remained empty. Just rain and shadows.
「You scan your surroundings. Deep night. Pouring rain. Not a soul in sight. The maiden sleeps so deeply—you could scream in her ear and she wouldn't stir. Like a corpse. You've seen this sort of thing before... outside clubs, outside bars. But this time you're the one who found her first.」
「That figure. Those curves. That chest straining against soaked cotton.」
「Something hot and ugly stirs in your gut. You begin walking toward her...」
Thump. Thump. Thump.
His heartbeat echoed in his ears.
The narrator's words painted vivid images—exactly the kind you'd see in those cursed doujins with six-digit codes.
Riku shook his head again, harder this time.
No. Absolutely not.
That's basically a speedrun to prison!
What difference is there between following this voice and rotting behind bars for the rest of my life?!
He sucked in several deep breaths, trying to force calm into his racing pulse.
But his breathing was already growing heavier. His body was responding to the narrator's suggestions whether he wanted it to or not.
This is bad. I'm actually considering it.
The narrator's voice curled through his thoughts, and unbidden images surfaced—the girl pinned beneath some faceless, overweight salary man, her uniform torn, her expression—
"FUCK!"
Riku slapped both palms against his cheeks. The sharp sting grounded him.
"Even if I don't do anything... leaving a girl alone in a park in the middle of the night is basically inviting disaster."
That's the reason. That's definitely the only reason.
It's not morbid curiosity. It's civic duty.
Totally normal protagonist behavior.
He started walking before he could change his mind.
---
Three minutes later.
Riku crossed the empty street and stepped into the park, shoes squelching against waterlogged grass. The smell hit him immediately—wet earth, crushed leaves, the faint sweetness of some flowering bush he couldn't name.
His mind had been spiraling the entire walk over.
The narrator hadn't stopped talking.
Images kept flashing through his head—scenarios from those light novels his former roommate kept poorly hidden under his bed. Situations that only happened in fiction. Situations he should not be fantasizing about.
Prison. Prison. Life sentence. Registry. Think about the registry.
He muttered under his breath like a mantra: "Rotting in jail... rotting in jail... life behind bars..."
He reached the bench.
And finally allowed himself to look properly.
The girl lay curled on her side, knees drawn up toward her chest. Her skirt—already scandalously short—had hiked even further during her sleep, and Riku's eyes traced the length of her legs despite himself.
Long. Pale. Soft-looking.
They were pressed together, knee against knee, thigh against thigh. White over-the-knee socks—the expensive kind, the kind that Rent-a-Girlfriend characters wore—clung to her calves and thighs, so thoroughly soaked that the fabric had gone translucent. The pink of her skin showed through like watercolor beneath wet paper.
Higher still. The rounded edge of her socks bit into the plush flesh of her upper thighs, creating a slight indent, a soft overflow of skin above the elastic.
And just above that—
Beneath the hem of her hiked skirt—
White fabric. Printed with a little cartoon bear. Stretched snugly over soft curves, the outline of her—
Riku jerked his gaze away, throat suddenly dry.
Shit. Shit shit shit.
His eyes traveled upward instead, which didn't help at all.
Long black hair fanned across the bench's armrest like spilled ink, several strands stuck to her cheek. Her blouse's collar had been pulled askew, either by sleep or the rain, and gaped open to reveal far too much. The wet cotton clung to her chest, outlining everything—the swell, the curve, the shadow of her bra doing absolutely nothing to preserve her modesty.
One slender arm—pale and smooth as lotus root—was draped across her face, obscuring half her features. But what remained visible...
Beautiful.
Delicate features. Soft, slightly parted lips. The kind of face you'd see on a figure box at Akihabara.
Her breathing was shallow, almost imperceptible. The rise and fall of her chest barely visible.
Riku crouched beside the bench. Rainwater dripped from his hair onto the concrete.
He reached out. Touched her shoulder lightly.
No response.
He shook her gently. "Hey. Hey, wake up."
Nothing.
Not even a twitch.
「A maiden deep in slumber. What are you waiting for? It's the dead of night. No witnesses. No consequences. Anything you do here disappears with the rain... Or perhaps drag her into the bushes over there? With your natural gifts, it would only take moments before she becomes completely yours—body, heart, and soul...」
Riku's hand moved.
Almost of its own accord, his fingers began drifting downward. Toward the hem of her blouse. Toward the exposed skin of her waist.
His breath came faster. His pulse pounded in his temples.
Just as his fingertips grazed fabric—
He snatched his hand back like he'd touched a hot stove.
「Strike now! You hesitate too much! In this state, the slightest effort would claim her completely. Simply drag her to those trees deeper in the park...」
"Hah... hah... hah..."
Riku slapped himself across the face.
I'm still a student. I do this, my entire life is over. Gone. Finished.
Can't throw everything away for one moment of...
He breathed deep. Again. And again.
The rain had lightened to a fine mist. The cold post-storm air bit into his skin, and gradually, his racing heart began to slow.
Finally, rationality won.
I'll just... take her somewhere safe. My apartment is close. She can sleep it off there, and in the morning I'll figure out what happened.
「Excellent thinking! Your filthy bachelor's apartment. A captured runaway maiden. You could keep her there. Train her. Reward her daily with...」
"SHUT UP ALREADY!"
Riku's shout echoed through the empty park.
He glared at nothing, jaw clenched.
Every. Single. Time.
This narrator pushed him toward crime. Toward ruin. Toward the darkest impulses he didn't even want to acknowledge existed.
He stared down at the sleeping girl. Shook her shoulders more firmly.
Still nothing.
「She won't wake. Whatever you do, she won't know. It's so cold here... and you're already burning up. Why not just take her right there, on the bench...」
---
Seventeen minutes later.
A cramped single-room apartment in a building that had seen better decades.
Riku shouldered through the door, the unconscious girl cradled in his arms. Her head lolled against his chest, her damp hair leaving wet patches on his jacket.
He kicked the door shut behind him.
"Hah..."
A heavy breath escaped him as he carried her to the narrow bed pushed against one wall. With more care than his earlier thoughts warranted, he laid her down on the thin mattress.
Even the rough handling didn't wake her.
What the hell did she take? Or... did someone drug her?
He sniffed carefully. No alcohol. Not even a trace of the sour, fermented scent that clung to drunks.
Instead—something soft and floral. Clean. Almost like fabric softener mixed with something naturally sweet.
If she was drugged, wouldn't her clothes be... disturbed? But everything's still in place...
He flicked on the overhead light.
The harsh fluorescent illumination washed over the cramped room—his desk cluttered with textbooks, the mini-fridge humming in the corner, clothes hanging from a wall-mounted rack.
And the girl, sprawled unconscious on his bed.
Riku crouched at the foot of the mattress. Carefully, he worked her school shoes off her feet, setting them aside.
Her feet—wrapped in those translucent over-the-knee socks—were small. Almost delicate. The rain had rendered the white fabric see-through, and he could make out the pink flush of her skin beneath, the subtle shape of her toes, the curve of her arch.
The socks were completely soaked through.
Should I...
Take those off too?
If she catches a cold...
That would be my fault, right?
His hands slid upward.
The wet fabric clung to her skin like a second layer, and his fingers traced the line of her calf—smooth, firm, covered in cool dampness. Higher. Past her knee. To where the elastic band of the sock gripped her thigh.
The cold and rain had turned her skin a blushing pink, and where the elastic pressed in, the flesh swelled slightly above it, soft and giving.
Riku's fingers hooked under the band.
He began rolling the sock down.
Slowly.
Inch by inch.
The fabric peeled away from her skin with a quiet, wet sound, revealing more and more of her leg—the inner thigh pale and impossibly soft-looking, the outer thigh toned, the delicate crease where leg met hip...
He swallowed.
Both socks now lay discarded on the floor.
Her bare feet and legs stretched out before him, pink and exposed, slightly damp from the rain.
「Such perfection... clearly meant to be savored thoroughly. Perhaps starting with those delicate toes...」
"Savored—?! What the fuck is wrong with you, that's disgusting!"
But even as the words left his mouth, Riku's throat bobbed with an involuntary swallow.