…DING-DONG-DING-DONG♪
…DING-DONG-DING-DONG♪
An eerie mechanical noise echoed through the room.
I looked around for where it was coming from, but I couldn’t see anything like a speaker.
(What’s starting now? Either way, as a member of the Shikijo family, I have to stay calm and dignified…)
…BEEP!
The display on the front monitor switched.
………………………………………………………………
[It’s time. The orientation will now begin!]
[Within the time limit, please form pairs with the opposite sex!]
[Those who fail to form a pair within the time limit will receive a Penalty!]
[Now then, ready… start!!]
[Current partners: 0/10]
………………………………………………………………
I understood what the screen meant almost instantly.
Basically, I had to pair up with a total stranger in this room-a man.
I wasn’t sure what “pairing up” really entailed, but it was definitely going to be awful.
…Give me a break.
Forced into a sick game with horrible tastes, and on top of that, forced to pair up with a man whose very presence makes me sick.
(Ugh… but I don’t know what this Penalty is. I have to plan for the worst.)
I won’t die pathetically in a place like this. As the next head of the Shikijo family, I’m going to survive and make it back home.
It pisses me off to be dragged into this stupid setup, but with my life on the line, I can’t avoid picking someone.
If worst comes to worst, I might just have to take the Penalty.
Just as I prepared myself for that, my right arm suddenly felt hot and started to glow faintly.
(Wh-what is this? Something’s stuck on my arm?!)
I looked around in a hurry and saw that everyone else’s arms were glowing too.
It looked like every person here was going through the exact same thing.
When the light faded, a dull gray metal band was locked around my left wrist.
(This settles it. There’s no way human technology could pull this off. Something… something supernatural is going on.)
That was the conclusion I came to after seeing those bizarre events.
Sure, I couldn’t completely rule out being kidnapped by some high-tech organization. But based on everything I knew, I couldn’t find a single logical explanation for this crazy situation.
I checked out the metal bracelet on my wrist. It was about two centimeters thick.
There was a small screen on the side facing the back of my hand. It was clamped tight against my wrist without any gap, which felt super creepy.
The screen just showed “0:00” and the cold text “Partner: Unregistered.”
So this was the device for registering…
Looking around, I noticed a guy in his forties wearing a suit and a high school boy about my age holding out their arms and touching their devices together in the corner.
But judging by the reaction on their screens, the system really only allowed pairing with the “opposite sex,” just like the monitor said.
Still, that black-haired boy… was he as quick to catch on as I was?
Everyone else was just losing their minds, screaming or crying. I couldn’t find anyone else actually processing the situation and trying to find a way out.
Before long, the first pair was formed.
That weak-looking middle-aged guy and a flashy woman who looked like she worked at a night club.
If I had to choose, I’d way rather pick that quiet high school boy over some old man.
While I was running through options in my head, footsteps came closer, and a man stopped right in front of me.
”Hey, listen up! You’re gonna be my partner, got it?” he growled, leaning in tight.
He stank. No, not just bad-he stank so much I wanted to wipe him out.
His murky eyes ogled my chest through my uniform in a filthy way.
A greasy, slimy grin on a gross man. I couldn’t stand him on a physical level.
At this point, there wasn’t even a tiny chance I’d pick him as a partner.
”No, thanks. I have zero interest in pairing up with you.”
”B-but if we don’t form a pair, we’re gonna get hit with the Penalty!”
”Yes, I know. But I’d rather take the Penalty by myself than pair up with a guy like you.”
I told him off coldly, showing no pity for this fat guy.
Gross. Just imagining touching him made me want to puke.
”Yeah, beat it, fatty!” another guy barked, shoving him aside. He was a flashy guy covered in piercings. “Hey, forget that loser and pair up with me instead. Heh, I’ll treat you right and make sure you have a real good time, got it?”
He was no different from the fat guy-glaring at my chest instead of my face with a cocky grin.
Was every single man here just trash that couldn’t hide their gross desires?
Disgust twisted in my gut like heavy mud.
”No. I don’t want to pair up with you either. You’re blocking my way, so move aside.”
I shut him down firmly, but both men kept standing in my path and crowding me.
…So annoying.
Guys like them were the type I’d never interact with in my entire life if I hadn’t been pulled into this crazy place.
Their gross stares brought back a dark memory of a kidnapping from my past. My chest tightened and my breathing got shallow.
Before I knew it, most people in the room had already paired up.
(At this rate, I really am gonna end up alone and take the game’s Penalty by myself.)
Then another shadow stepped up to me.
It was that high school boy I saw earlier, the one calmly testing out how the devices worked.
I didn’t know his name yet.
He was staring right at me too, carefully sizing up my body.
But weirdly, I didn’t feel that gross disgust from him.
(He’s analyzing me… checking something out? Normally a guy would stare at my face or chest with cheap lust, but he’s not looking there. Why…?)
Still, no matter who it was, my stubborn stance wasn’t changing.
I was completely done with men trying to push themselves on me.
”Sigh… I don’t want to pair up with you either. Same goes for you, the one who just walked over. I’m not pairing up with anyone. I’ll be fine alone.”
I was totally fed up.
I knew very well from experience how attractive my body was to men, and I was used to those kinds of looks.
But I still had the right to choose.
With the trauma I carried, I could never bring myself to just pick one of them on a whim.
…And then it happened.
The floor shook slightly, and the air around me felt like it twisted.
An incredible pressure burst out from the high school boy who’d just approached.
My family forced me through brutal sword training, so I was sharper than most at sensing people’s presence and strength.
But the aura this boy gave off was nothing like any master swordsman I’d ever met-it was ridiculously intense.
Though it only lasted for a second. In a split second, that pressure disappeared into thin air.
(What was that just now…)
”Haha, what was that? For a second, it felt like the room shook,” he said, speaking in a completely flat tone. “Anyway, moving past that… Shikijo-san. Do you actually get what’s happening? You’re smart enough to realize that if you don’t pair up in an hour, the Penalty happens. And that this place isn’t the real world…”
The boy talked to me in a totally chill voice, acting like that crazy pressure from earlier never happened.
He played dumb like he didn’t know anything either, but I wanted to point out that he definitely caused it.
Plus… what shocked me most was my name.
Ever since I was dragged here, I hadn’t told my name to anyone.
So how did this guy know who I was?
When I asked him how he knew, he gave a smooth smile like a salesman and said, “I’ll tell you if you pair up with me.”
I let out a small sigh and thought it over.
To be honest, I didn’t care that much that he knew my name.
What really shook my head was figuring out what that intense pressure earlier really was.
Maybe this guy knew something about what was happening behind this game.
(Desperate times call for desperate measures… My gut says if I want to get out of here alive, pairing up with this weird guy is the right move. Fine…)
So, I put aside a bit of my pride and agreed.
”Hold up, you little punk! You think you can just snatch her?!” the fat guy roared, stepping up with his fist raised.
”Yeah, back off! You ain’t taking her from us that easily!” the pierced guy yelled, charging forward right beside him.
They lost their tempers and lunged to grab him.
Right then… it happened again.
Once more, he let out that crushing pressure, cold and merciless.
…What is he… who is this guy, really…?
While I stood there frozen in shock, his voice suddenly snapped me back.
”Shikijo-san,” he said neutrally.
”Y-yes!? Wh-what… what is it?”
A embarrassing, squeaky sound popped out of my throat against my will.
How humiliating.
I could feel my face burning up instantly.
To hide my embarrassment, I gave him a sharp glare even though he hadn’t done anything wrong.
I knew I was taking my frustration out on him, and I felt bad.
But he didn’t care about my reaction at all and just kept going calmly.
Turns out he was talking about linking our devices.
Following his lead, I brought my metal band close to his device and tapped them together.
The registration finished.
[BEEP. Registration complete! Partner: Kageyama Manato]
The text on my wrist changed, and the deal was done.
After that, we did brief introductions.
At first, I thought he was glancing at my chest like the rest of them, but now that we were linked, I couldn’t feel any vulgar look from him at all.
Maybe he just lost interest in my body.
…No, that wasn’t it.
It was a strange, chilling feeling-like he wasn’t looking at me, but at something deep inside me.
A little while later, that creepy mechanical noise blasted through the room again, way louder than before.
Looks like it was the time limit warning.
Only two people in the room hadn’t paired up-that gross fat guy who bothered me first, and a terrified housewife.
And on the display in front, the next brutal set of rules was printed cold and clear.
It said we had to move to the assigned rooms listed on our bracelets.
I was thinking we needed to move fast-and right at that exact moment-
”……NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!”
”U-ughhhhAAAAHHHH!? I’m sorry, no, help, GRAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!”
Screams ripped through the room behind me, loud enough to split my ears.
Agonized shrieks that sounded like the end of the world.
I turned around in horror and saw two people thrashing on the floor, soaked in a sickening amount of fresh blood.
The fat guy and the housewife-the two who failed to pair up.
Blood spurted out from every part of their skin like open faucets, and dark, thick blood poured out from their empty eye sockets.
Seeing that horrific, bloody mess, some players panicked and ran for the doors like crazy, while others dropped to their knees and threw up.
(Ugh… so brutal. If I’d stubbornly held onto my pride and stayed alone instead of choosing a partner… then right now, I’d be that pile of ruined flesh on the floor…!)
The second that thought crossed my mind, a awful chill of pure horror ran through my whole body.
…I’m terrified.
…So scary.
…I don’t want to die.
Those overwhelming feelings instantly smashed my Shikijo family pride and filled me with total dread.
My knees were shaking so hard, and before I realized it, I was grabbing the edge of Kageyama-kun’s shirt beside me, holding on for dear life.
My mind was so broken that I-someone who hated men-was clinging to a total stranger for safety.
But he didn’t push my shaking hand away. Instead, he gently unclasped my fingers like he was trying to calm me down, then walked straight toward the two bleeding bodies without hesitating.
He calmly put his fingers on their necks to check for a pulse.
Looks like they were already dead.
In this nightmare where every other adult was frozen in fear and couldn’t even step forward, his back-moving ahead all by himself without fear-shocked me to my core.
And when I saw that sharp man in the suit walk over to help too, I felt pulled to step up and stand next to them.
For those two poor people who were killed so unfairly, we quietly put our hands together to pray for them.
And then, the eighteen of us who made it out left that starting room, stinking of blood, to get away from the Penalty.
Trivia:
- Yuna’s past kidnapping trauma is the unspoken reason behind her intense hatred of men and her visceral reaction to their lecherous gazes.
- Manato’s overwhelming pressure is sensed only by Yuna, suggesting she has heightened perception due to her swordsmanship training.
- The system only permits opposite-sex pairing, which forces Yuna into a painful compromise between her trauma and survival.