Cold sweat slid down Kiyohiko’s temple and dripped onto the white pillow, leaving behind a small, dark stain.
The young woman before him wore a radiant smile, yet the deep-seated revulsion emanating from her was so intense that even the air seemed to have solidified.
All right.
It seemed he had messed something up.
However, there was still one thing Kiyohiko could not understand.
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he forced out a smile that was supposed to look relaxed but was actually painfully stiff.
“Miss Shinobu, we’ve never met before, have we?”
His voice was slightly hoarse from thirst, and his eyes were filled with genuine confusion.
“I know I’m a demon… but it feels like you have some kind of personal grudge against me.
I shouldn’t have offended you before…”
“At least, I’m pretty sure I’ve never offended you before, right?”
“My, what an oblivious child you are.”
With a slight turn of her wrist, Shinobu’s slender Nichirin Sword traced an elegant arc through the air.
“It is only natural for the Demon Slayer Corps to despise demons, isn’t it?
Just as humans naturally despise cockroaches and rats.”
Shinobu’s voice was gentle and sweet, as though she were telling a child a bedtime story, but the words leaving her lips were utterly venomous.
“Demons eat people, kill people, and destroy families.
To us, the very existence of every demon is a sin.”
“And even though your body is filled with the desire to devour humans, you still pretend to be a victim and ask why I dislike you…”
“Demons truly are natural-born liars.”
Grrrrrrr—
At the very moment when the atmosphere had become unbearably tense, a loud and prolonged growl abruptly echoed throughout the infirmary.
Kiyohiko’s stomach had chosen the worst possible moment to protest.
“Um…”
He looked awkwardly at Shinobu, who was standing only inches away, his gaze darting from side to side.
“I know you just called me a liar, but apparently my stomach doesn’t know how to lie.”
“Miss Shinobu, could you perhaps… give me something to eat first?
I’m not picky.
Duck-blood vermicelli soup or something would be fine…”
The coldness in Shinobu’s eyes briefly froze.
Then she withdrew her Nichirin Sword and straightened.
“Duck-blood vermicelli soup?”
She repeated the unfamiliar term, the curve of her smile becoming slightly more amused.
“We don’t have anything like that here.
However, since Master Ubuyashiki ordered me to observe you, I cannot allow you to simply starve to death.”
She turned and walked toward the door.
Her slender back remained as elegant as ever, but just before closing it, she glanced over her shoulder and left him with a lighthearted warning.
“Don’t try anything strange.
The moment you bare even one fang, my poison will cause your entire body to rot away.”
“Do you understand, Mr.
Little Demon?”
Only after Kiyohiko confirmed that Shinobu had left and he was alone in the room did he drop his awkward, comical smile.
That woman was incredibly strange.
When Kiyohiko had watched the anime in his previous life, he had never noticed it.
Now that he had met her in person, however, he realized just how artificial her smile was.
It was not the kind of false smile that could be seen through at a glance.
It was perfectly false.
So perfect that it resembled a permanent mask pasted over her face, as though she intended to hide her true expression beneath it forever.
Kiyohiko closed his eyes and thought.
Kiyohiko attempted to understand.
Kiyohiko gave up.
“Damn it.
If I’d known I was going to transmigrate, I would’ve watched the movies and anime a dozen times before coming here.”
He should focus on finding a way to raise her Bond Value.
At the very least, he needed to stop raising it in reverse.
After a while, the door opened again.
There was no duck-blood vermicelli soup.
There were only two rather misshapen rice balls and a cup of tea with an ominous purple hue.
Shinobu walked to the bedside and used her slender fingers to undo the leather strap restraining Kiyohiko’s right wrist.
“This is all we have.
Eat.”
“Don’t try doing anything unnecessary with that hand unless you want to experience what it feels like to have your wrist dislocated.”
Feeling as though he had received a royal pardon, Kiyohiko seized one of the rice balls and stuffed it into his mouth.
The moment it touched his tongue, however, his expression twisted.
In his current condition, the rice had no fragrance whatsoever.
The seaweed tasted like a sheet of plastic, while the pickled plum inside resembled a dried stone.
The entire experience was like chewing a lump of ancient candle wax mixed with sawdust.
It was disgusting.
So disgusting that he wanted to cry.
Nevertheless, he could clearly feel his craving for human flesh weakening slightly.
With his cheeks puffed up like a hamster’s, Kiyohiko mechanically chewed while cautiously looking up at Shinobu, who was sitting in the chair beside his bed.
She sat with perfect posture, her hands folded neatly over her lap.
She was smiling, the corners of her lips raised by precisely fifteen degrees and her eyes curved pleasantly.
Everything about her appeared beautiful and gentle.
Well…
As long as one ignored the Nichirin Sword she had been continuously fiddling with.
“Um… Miss Shinobu?”
Kiyohiko struggled to swallow a mouthful of “sawdust rice ball” before cautiously speaking.
“I know I probably shouldn’t ask this, but… are you in a bad mood?”
One of Shinobu’s eyebrows twitched so faintly that it was almost imperceptible.
Her smile remained unchanged.
“My, whatever gave you that impression?
Don’t I look like I’m smiling?” This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
“You are smiling…”
Kiyohiko shrank back slightly.
He pointed at his own eyes and then at her face.
“But your eyes aren’t smiling at all.
And it feels like… you’re angry.”
“Extremely, extremely angry.”
He paused before adding:
“You could just tell me directly if you hate me.
You don’t have to force yourself to smile.
It’s rather frightening…”
“Honestly, it feels like you’re going to throw that cup of purple tea in my face at any moment.”
Shinobu slowly rose to her feet.
A tiny vein pulsed at her temple, forming an almost imperceptible anger mark.
“Your intuition is irritatingly sharp.”
Her voice was as light as a feather, yet as cold as shards of ice.
“Since you already know that I’m angry, close your mouth and obediently drink this tea.”
“It is a specially prepared wisteria tea.
It won’t kill you, but it should keep a noisy little demon like you quiet for the entire day.”
With that, she picked up the cup of purple tea and held it directly before Kiyohiko’s lips.
Her smile was as brilliant as a blooming red spider lily.
“Come now.
Open wide.”
“Ahh—”
“Um… Miss Shinobu, let’s be reasonable about this.”
Kiyohiko tilted his head away slightly, attempting to move this female King of Hell with the sincerity in his eyes.
“Wouldn’t drinking this interfere with my value as an observation subject?
No matter how you look at it, this is still poison, isn’t it?”
“Don’t worry.
I am an expert in pharmacology, and my control over dosages is flawless.”
“Wait!
I still think—”
“Be good and open your mouth.”
A few minutes later—
Kiyohiko lay sprawled across the hospital bed like a salted fish that had lost all hope for the future.
His tongue hung crookedly from one side of his mouth, his eyes had rolled back into his head, and a wheezing sound like an ancient bellows escaped his throat.
“Hhhh… Hhhh…”
He looked as though he might depart from this world at any moment.
…
TL: I wish mommy Shinobu could feed me too—I’d even drink her poison, fr fr no cap.