Imamimi Notanobu - XII

Somewhere in the back of a big truck, sits me, a Russian, and what I assume to be another man, given the intensity and frequency of his rather masculine sneezes. There’s a bag over my head as this happens, but even so, I can guess the identities of those around me by sound and vague intuition.

I’m being taken somewhere, that much is obvious. But I have no idea where, nor why. I’d like to say I’m not thinking about it. I’d like to say, it’s pretty meaningless to do so, since it doesn’t change what’s going to happen to me either way. But I’d be lying.

I am pretty damn nervous. My hands are tied. The bag’s kinda hard to breathe in. If you told me I’d be dumped in a river with concrete tied to my feet, I’d be inclined to believe you.

I can’t exactly work my charms either. With a bag over my head, the power of my admittedly beautiful face seems to lose any and all value.

I take long and deep breaths. I take short and shallow breaths. When I take my fourth breath, which is somewhere between the two, a fist, or something like it, bops me on the head.

“Don’t kill him,” says the man, in impressive Japanese.

“Am not,” replies the accented woman (the one who I’m now remembering I set on fire).

“You can’t control your strength.”

“Why, because I’m Russian?”

“A-are you serious? Because you’re a vampire, h-how do you not get that?”

“That’s racist.”

“No. First of all, it’s only racist if I judged you on your skin colour.”

“Vampire are pale. White. Is colour.”

“I have white friends, okay. This has nothing to do with the colour white, pale, whatever, and has everything to do with you.”

The man at the front shouts back. “Will you two please shut the hell up?”

And somehow, that does it, and the two just sort of shuffle back into their uncomfortable nylon seats and keep to themselves.

After a while, the truck does a slow turn around a corner, before stopping altogether. It’s only been a few minutes. Maybe five. So this place can’t be very far.

The door opens with a recognisable, metallic drag. The others step out. I’m pat on the back, and led out, taken into an obvious building, up an obvious elevator.

When we reach the third floor, we end up walking all of five steps before coming to a halt.

“Good afternoon.” There’s a voice ahead of us. It sounds confused and a bit nervous.

I assume it’s a neighbour wondering why four different people are pushing around a guy with a bag on his head. It’d be a good time to call for help, all things considered, but also… maybe not? Say they aren’t looking to kill me, but just rough me up a bit, wouldn’t being a pain in the ass just exacerbate that more?

I break the short silence. “It’s a fetish thing. I have a boner right now.”

“Oh, makes sense.”

We finally end up in the apartment, whereupon the bag is taken off my head. Beyond the curious placement of furniture and a few Chinese decorations, it is quite literally your average Japanese apartment. Not too big. Not too small. Three rooms, a kitchen to the left, and a living room a part of that.

“Wait here.” One of the guys, a tall Chinese man, moves into the apartment and opens a door.

The sound of music carries through the open space. It’s an old, slow-paced song, with pre-war vibes. Dragged out by the vocals of a woman past her 30s. It’s not in Mandarin, but some language adjacent to it, maybe Cantonese, I don’t know.

Before I can think of another contemplation, a strange sound comes from the kitchen area. A sharp, heavy thud. Followed by the grind of something wet and slick. Like meat. It comes, again and again, in a 1-2 rhythm. Continuing for a good ten seconds.

There’s a sound of discussion. The voice of the man, and the voice of someone far younger. A boy, or young man, maybe.

The discussion stops.

Without knowing why, I start to flinch in place, and swallow a bead of thick, pill-like saliva.

The sound of footsteps makes a quickened line for me.

An excited head peeks around the corner. “Who’s there, who’s there?” He stares at me wide-eyed and skips across the wooden floor to greet us in person.

The man follows after him, offers a short look, before leaving the building.

The boy’s on the pretty side, a head shorter than me, and maybe a few years younger too. His silver hair is in buns that descend into twin tails, and he’s wearing Chinese-style robes that go past the knees. Funnier still is that he’s got a big pair of drooping brown ears—the furry kind, I mean, meaning he’s some kind of hybrid, or born with a condition like mine.

I get the impression he occupies an important position amongst the gang, given his age and the fact that everyone else is dressed like an inconspicuous modern person.

I’m not too sure how to respond, so I flash an innocent grin and wave. He takes it well and waves back, excitedly turning in place.

The boy and the man exchange some pleasantries in Chinese. I hear the shut and turn of more than a few locks behind me.

With a smile and wag of his tail, the boy tugs on my hand, and leads me to a room with a surprising amount of force.

“Stay here,” he says, dipping his head a bit. “I swear, everything will make sense in a bit!”

As if neglecting the fact that I'd been beaten, kidnapped, and taken who knows where, the dog-boy happily skips out the room, and locks the door behind him.

In the meantime, I get up and look around the room.

Looking.

Looking..

Looking…

There's a desk, a bed, and a closet full of clothes. And that's about it. I end up perusing the bookshelf for one last gamble at equipment, before giving up altogether.

I snagb a pen from the desk, the closest thing to a pointy metal weapon, and stuff it in my pocket. The sound of footsteps comes from the corridor, and I go back into a sitting position like the good kidnap-ee I am.

Nothing wrong here~~ Just someone trying not to get himself killed, ho-ho-ho!

“So…” the door swings open, just slight enough for an eye to look through. “How's our beloved guest doing?”

“Eh, good enough.”

“That's awesome!”

He pushes past the door, and promptly seats himself next to me. Excited, his tail wags against me like a pendulum, brushing against my back with constant rhythm.

Left—right. Right—left.

As if remembering something very important, his smile quickly recedes into one of curiosity.

“My name is Hong. Hong Yanghua! What's yours?”

I think about lying, but figure they'd probably find out my information anyway. “Imamimi Notanobu.”

“Mhm, that's what I figured!”

I sit there, unsure of what to say. Like, good on you Nobu!—you didn't lie to your kidnappers, I'm sure this'll help you in some way!

“Oh—my bad! I mean, it's written on the card in your wallet! Not that you seem like an Imamimi Notanobu or something, I don't know how Japanese names work! You could be a Kaito, Katou, or whatever, really!”

“That's okay.”

“So.” He crosses his arms. “Nobu-kun, do you want the bad news or the good news first?”

Good news and bad news… I prepare to use a pen as a stabbing device, and brace myself for what he's going to say.

“I believe in ending things on a high note, so how about the former?”

“Okay! Well, the bad news is that you're gonna be here with us for a few days. And the good news is… that's it!”

I relax a little. He's happy, I think, and seems to pick up on that. Yet as the words ‘That's it’ cross my mind, a lesser unease returns.

“That's it? ‘That's it’ is pretty vague. Like, that's it, I'm dead or that's it, I'm free?”

A slow shock spreads across his face. Pure, genuine confusion. Then distilled with a bit of frustration—but not at me, more like at the circumstances themselves, whatever that might be.

“W-who put that nonsensical idea inside your head?”

“That I’d die?”

Shaking his hands and tail, the boy nods with incredible speed.

“Everyone?” I sound uncertain. “It was a group effort really. I was punched. Kicked. And put in the back of a suspiciously discreet van, by who knows how many people.”

“W-what, really?!” Right away, anger flashes on his face, and his tail wags even faster. “Oh, these no-good gangsters! Why that's a crock pot of stupidity! Let me tell you, Nobu-kun, as long as we're here, not a single person's gonna touch a hair on your pretty orange head!”

I can hear him breathe hard, and I can see him shake his head in great swerves of disappointment. I want to believe him. I do. And, it’d be fair to say I’m already ⅔ of the way there, with how convincing he is. But this isn’t your ordinary situation, and cutting it close with a ‘maybe’ could get me killed.

“How do you know I won’t be killed?”

“I just do!”

“You sure?”

“One hundo, two hundo!”

“Sure, sure?”

“Three hundo!”

The poor boy sounds wholeheartedly convinced. He seems too young and hopeful for this sort of work, and there’s no saying what stories or narratives the gang spun to convince him of their goodwill.

“Maybe they’re lying to you. Maybe I’ll be taken out back to my auntie’s farm in the countryside, where I won’t ever be seen again.”

He shakes his head. “That’s not gonna happen.”

“Why not?”

“It just won’t!”

“How do you know?”

Yanghua gives a reassuring smile. “‘Cause, if they did, I’d kill all of them, obviously!”

Kill all of them. I find myself thinking that over. Kill all of them. I doubted the boy’s words earlier, but something about that threat strikes as particularly true for some reason. In the sense that he’d at the very least, act on it, if not succeed.

“Anyway, anyway, anyway! As long as you don’t, um, try to inconvenience the others as long as you’re here, it should be fun enough.”

“Incovenience, like, run away?”

“Running away. Jogging away. Trying to stab someone’s carotid artery, you name it!”

“Alright. Sounds reasonable.”

Of course, I don't entirely believe all this. There's a chance he's just trying to calm me down, like a sheep before the inevitable slaughter. Trying to stop the stress hormones from polluting the meat and whatnot.

I look at his face. His smiling innocent face. And inhale a waft of lukewarm air. Once again, I am reminded that the power of good looks is a pathway to many unnatural feelings.

“So, Yanghua-san, what's there to do in this nice little apartment?”

“Lots and lots of things!” He knits his eyebrows. “Normally, I just write up some fulu for everyone, but I’ve got a lot of free time right now!”

Writing up fulu. So he’s the one responsible for all their magic?

“Really, what do you like to do with your free time?”

“Oh, you know! Training. Reading. Watching some stuff online, playing video games… Speaking of video games, wanna play some?”

An object slides from his robe’s left sleeve, and Yanghua raises it. It’s a game case. ‘Project Nightrider’. Its cover is a line of sports cars against the nighttime backdrop of a modern street. The logo in the top left tells me it’s meant for the VS3 console, an old one that came out some 20 years ago.

I stiffen, look at the case, then back to Yanghua, before coming to a decision.

“Winner gets to leave the apartment?”

“Haha, nope!”