It didn’t matter who it was, no one’s blood tasted good.
The sensation of licking blood off someone else’s finger was even worse than I expected.
Miyagi’s blood tasted exactly like mine when I licked my own blood – like rusty iron. That being said, I’d never licked rust or iron before, so I couldn’t say whether that was really true or not. Regardless, it tasted terrible. Even soda, which I wasn’t particularly a fan of, was way better than this.
「Lick it properly.」
She said as she pushed the finger further towards me. The liquid that was escaping her finger wet my lips. Out of pure reflex, I closed my mouth. However, as if trying to pry it open, Miyagi stuck her finger right into my mouth.
When her finger brushed my tongue, I could taste her blood more clearly than before.
Was it type A? Type B?
Or perhaps even a different blood type?
I didn’t know what Miyagi’s blood type was, but that didn’t matter. Regardless of her blood type, I wasn’t licking her finger because I wanted to. As if my feelings didn’t matter either, her finger did not leave my mouth. Instead, my tongue was now pressed against the opening of her wound, which caused the blood to taste even stronger.
Her blood, which tasted even stronger than mine had in the past, was not delicious at all.
I would never do this with anyone other than Miyagi.
Even if I had a lover in the future and they ended up cutting their finger, I would never lick their blood off like this.
It didn’t taste good and it wasn’t very hygienic either.
Miyagi would be the first and last person I would ever do this with.
I swallowed the blood that was in my mouth.
Having someone else’s bodily fluids trickling down my throat wasn’t a pleasant feeling in the slightest. But instead of resisting, I pressed down even harder on her wound with my tongue, causing Miyagi to let out a subtle gasp of pain.
Once again, a liquid that tasted like iron stained my tongue, and I swallowed it.
The bleeding from her wound didn’t stop.
But that was to be expected, since licking it wasn’t going to stop the bleeding.
Every time her blood spread in my mouth, it felt like Miyagi was corroding my body, giving rise to goosebumps on my skin.
This wasn’t good.
The order she gave me was absurd.
Well, you could say this whole order giving and obeying thing was kind of absurd to begin with, but what she was making me do right now was pretty bad too.
Thinking that, I bit down near her wound.
The inside of my mouth was being stained by the taste of her blood.
Even though I didn’t want to swallow it, Miyagi’s blood traveled down my throat once again.
「Open your mouth.」
Miyagi said in a subdued voice.
When I acted like I hadn’t heard her order, she forcibly pulled her finger out and asked,
「Do you find human blood delicious?」
The taste of her blood remained in my mouth.
It was worse than soda. It felt like my entire mouth was covered with an unpleasant fluid.
「If I were a vampire I might think it was delicious. But I’m human, so no, I think it tastes horrible.」
「Just think of it as an iron supplement.」
Miyagi said, as if she had nothing to do with any of this.
I had no interest in drinking someone’s blood as an iron supplement. Anyway, if I really had to let something become part of my body like that, liver would probably be more effective. Even though I don’t like it, it’d be better than blood.
―― Oh.
Since I’ve eaten her blood, does that mean Miyagi has become part of my body now?
The thought of that made me sick to my stomach.
「I need to borrow a cup.」
Abandoning that train of thought, I went to open the cupboard before Miyagi could even reply. I grabbed a cup and immediately filled it halfway with water.
Gulp.
I glugged the water, trying to wash away any remaining traces of blood from my mouth.
After emptying the glass, I glanced over at Miyagi, whose finger was still bleeding.
「Give me your hand.」
I wasn’t going to take no for an answer, so I didn’t wait for a response.
I grabbed Miyagi’s wrist and washed her bloodstained finger. This time, Miyagi did not resist, and she let me bring her finger towards the running water.
「I’ll go grab some bandages, so wait here for a bit.」
I bet even if I asked Miyagi where she kept her bandages, she wouldn’t tell me, so it was faster if I went to grab mine instead.
I went back to Miyagi’s room and pulled my bandages – which were uncute, but claimed to promote healing – out of my bag. I quickly put my slippers on and rushed back to the kitchen, where I saw Miyagi staring at her own wound.
「Here.」
I handed the bandages to her.
「You’re not going to stick it on for me?」
「Are you telling me you want me to?」
She did not reply. Instead, she simply stuck her finger out towards me.
If you get pampered too much, you’re going to end up as a good-for-nothing when you grow up.
Right, you’d end up as a hopeless excuse of a person, just like Miyagi is.
A spoiled human being who couldn’t even stick a bandage on herself despite already being in high school.
But this was probably an order as well.
Because of that, I put the bandage on her wound for her.
「You have precooked rice, right?」
I asked Miyagi, as I threw away the garbage from the plain but functional bandages.
「I do.」
「Okay, then go sit over there.」
「What about the cabbage?」
「It’s fine. I’ll just cut it myself.」
It wasn’t like I was in a rush to get everything done, but I didn’t want anything like the cabbage-cutting incident to happen again. If she cut her finger again, it’d just be a hassle to deal with.
After chasing Miyagi out of the kitchen, I cut the cabbage up while frying the chicken.
I didn’t even bother asking this time, instead I just pulled out some plates, arranged the food, and served it up.
I placed the plates, along with some bowls of rice, onto the counter. After taking a seat next to her, the two of us uttered the usual, “Let’s eat”, in unison. Miyagi had a rather displeased look on her face as she chewed down on the karaage.
She took one bite, and then another.
But her expression didn’t change.
「Does it taste bad?」
I asked, but she immediately answered with,
「It tastes good.」
I was happy to hear that something I cooked was delicious.
However, this was the first time I’d ever seen someone look so unsatisfied while eating something tasty.
「Sendai-san.」
「Hmm?」
「Why are you doing this?」
「I told you already, didn’t I? I’m expressing my gratitude for all the times you’ve fed me.」
「You don’t have to do this again.」
Miyagi said coldly, even though she was the one who told me it was delicious.
「Do you not like karaage?」
「It doesn’t matter if I like it or not. You don’t need to make it.」
At school, Miyagi didn’t seem like the type to express any negative emotions. Sometimes, I’d see her in the corner of eyes and she’d look like she was having fun chatting with her friends, even laughing with them. But she was completely different when it came to me. Maybe it was because we were in her home – her territory, so to speak – but whenever I was around, Miyagi always seemed so terribly unstable.
But because of that, I wasn’t going to let my guard down so easily around her either.
Dealing with people who were hard to read always left me feeling exhausted – it was so much work trying to figure out what they were thinking. And I already had my work cut out for me trying to stay in Umina’s good graces.
「Say, Miyagi. Do you not cook?」
I asked, trying to change the topic to get rid of the awkward atmosphere in the room.
「It’s not a problem for me even if I can’t cook.」
「Do you want me to teach you?」
「I’m not going to end up making anything anyway, so you don’t need to.」
「I see.」
Right.
I thought she would say something like that.
I wasn’t going to force her to learn how to cook, so our conversation stopped there as I continued to chew on some more karaage.
I thought it was quite delicious, if I did say so myself.
Miyagi finished her dinner without saying another word.
Compared to the amount of time it took to cook the food, we finished our meals quite quickly. After that, I felt like I was being harassed as I was given an order to read a novel out loud.
Now in Miyagi’s room, I was forced to read one long sentence after the other.
It continued like this for several dozens of minutes.
Naturally, I wasn’t able to finish the whole thing in one day. After spending about a total of three hours at Miyagi’s house, I left her apartment.
A few days later, Miyagi had called for me again, but she didn’t ask me to cook for her and I didn’t make anything for her either. But we still ate together. We even had dinner together sometime after White Day1, but she didn’t give me a return gift or anything.
I returned home, my habitual “I’m home” disappearing without a trace. In my room, I deposited another five-thousand yen bill in my piggy bank.
Just what was I expecting from Miyagi?
When I lifted my piggy bank up from my chest of drawers, it felt neither heavy nor light.
- White Day is celebrated exactly one month after Valentine’s Day, on March 14th. It started being marketed in Japan some time in the 1970s, and it was meant to be a day for men (or anyone who receives a gift on Valentine’s Day, really) to return the favor, usually also with chocolate (though marshmallows were originally being marketed for this occasion).
In any case, I’m sure Sendai wasn’t expecting anything from Miyagi, but because she did give Miyagi chocolate on Valentine’s Day, technically, it would not be weird if Miyagi gave her a return gift.
But she didn’t, and life goes on. Hooray! ↩︎
Credits to himi for proofreading and editing this part!
Ave Lilium Translations 