-----------
For almost as long as he could remember, Shuji Yaginuma had lived all by himself in a cabin in the woods.
He hadn’t always lived alone, of course, but his parents had died in a car accident when he was very young. With no other relatives who could take him in, he was sent away to live with his great uncle Sanzo, who raised him with love and care as if he were his own child.
Uncle Sanzo was a very smart man, and he taught Shuji everything he needed to know about surviving deep in the woods. He learned how to feed himself by farming, hunting, and fishing, how to sew his own clothing from natural materials, how to protect himself by setting booby traps around the cabin, and how to put an arrow through a target the size of a grapefruit from 250 meters away.
Shuji also learned about the evil race of lemur people who controlled the world from the shadows, the government mind-control beacons hidden in all electronic devices, and the imminent apocalypse that would consume all mankind. Once a month, Uncle Sanzo would take him to the nearest town two miles away, and they’d spend the day handing out hand-printed pamphlets about the great lemur conspiracy to everyone they met.
No one ever seemed to take them very seriously, but Uncle Sanzo never gave up hope that someday, he would open the people’s eyes and bring the whole corrupt system down on those tree-climbing bastards. That was why, even after Uncle Sanzo had passed away in his sleep when Shuji was eight, Shuji had kept printing out his pamphlets every month and making the trek into town to hand them out.
It was during one of these trips that he’d first laid eyes on his destined love. He’d been making a routine stop by the library on his way out of town when one of the novels on the “new arrivals” shelf had caught his eye. Romance novels weren’t usually his thing, but something about the cover had drawn him in like a magnet, so he’d decided to go ahead and borrow it.
That night, Shuji Yaginuma had experienced true love for the first time in his life. Every description unfolded with picture-perfect clarity before his eyes, and every bit of prose resonated with his very soul! He’d stayed awake reading late into the night, completely enraptured by the magnificent masterpiece of literature he’d discovered. It was only when his tears of joy started dripping onto the final page that he realized he’d started crying.
Shuji had stopped handing out his uncle’s pamphlets after that. Instead, whenever he went into town, he would sell some of the produce from his farm, saving up the money so he could buy the latest book written by the visionary who had changed his life. Sometimes, he even bought extra copies of books he already had, just so he could cut the photos of the author out of the book jacket and add them to his secret shrine.
As far as Shuji was concerned, the great lemur conspiracy could sort itself out on its own. All he cared about was amassing as many of Toko Fukawa’s stories as he could.
He could scarcely believe that the girl whose writing had captivated him so completely was only a year older than he was. She seemed so brilliant, so worldly, so experienced in the ways of love! How he had yearned to sit down with her and hear the tales of torrid romance that had inspired her to write such beautiful novels...
And then the Tragedy had happened, which put a slight damper on his dream of one day meeting his favorite author. It also meant he’d have a much harder time tracking down the few novels of hers he was still missing, as most of the bookstore staff in town were either dead or too busy dressing up like monochrome teddy bears and setting things on fire to be of much help.
Shuji could only assume Uncle Sanzo would have been thrilled to have one of his theories finally proven right. Admittedly, he’d been a bit off on when and how the apocalypse would happen - his money had been on a viral outbreak in December 2023 that would kill off 75% of humanity by slowing down their brains and driving them to commit suicide.
Oh, well. Not even someone as smart as Uncle Sanzo could be right all the time.
Regardless of the finer details, Shuji was already as prepared for the end of the world as anyone could be, so life continued fairly normally for him. The thought that his beloved Toko might have perished was heartbreaking, but he’d still held out hope that she had escaped the carnage somehow and was already hard at work on her next masterpiece.
Then, one day, a miracle had happened. While he was busy fertilizing his tomato plants, the chimes attached to one of his perimeter traps had gone off. As usual, he’d grabbed his trusty hatchet and set out to finish off whatever variety of homicidal stuffed animal had found its way to his cabin this time.
Instead, he’d found none other than Toko Fukawa dangling from a snare by one ankle, having stumbled onto his property while hiding from a group of the bear-like robots.
He’d let her down and apologized profusely, but the damage was already done. He hadn’t exactly designed his snares with the victim’s safety in mind, and her ankle had been sprained so badly she wouldn’t be able to walk for at least three weeks. Fearing for her safety, he’d taken her back to his cabin and promised to care for her until she could move on her own.
Those three weeks had been the happiest weeks of Shuji’s life. Toko had understandably been rather cold to him at first, but his earnest kindness, tender care, and genuine admiration of her work eventually got through to her. Soon enough, she started answering his questions about her stories, and a strange sort of bond grew between them.
Shuji liked to believe that in better circumstances, she could have grown to love him on her own. If only she hadn’t shown him that damned manuscript...
-----------
“Time for dinner, Toko! Hope you’ve been workin’ hard today!”
“GH DHH HN HH FHRR!” Toko screamed, her furious voice muffled by the knotted white cloth tied between her teeth,
“Shucks, I know you’ve been dyin’ to see me again, but no need to get all worked up about it! I’ll be down there in just a second!”
As Shuji’s booted footsteps echoed down the stairs to the concrete-lined bunker, Toko wondered what she’d ever seen in this creep. She wasn’t normally the type to give in to flattery - mainly because no one would ever want to flatter an ugly, boring girl like her. Maybe it was the thrill of finding someone who truly, completely understood her work that had driven her to overlook his many, many personality defects and open up to him.
Whatever her reasoning had been, she’d decided that before she left his cabin to look for Master and the others she’d been travelling with, she would show him the I-novel she’d written while she was trapped inside Hope’s Peak Academy. After all he’d done to help her recover from her injury, the least she could do was give him a sneak peek at what might easily wind up being her final work.
To say the I-novel hadn’t gone over well with Shuji was an understatement. After reading it for a few minutes, he’d calmly closed the book and offered Toko some homemade tea before she set out. She didn’t know exactly what he’d put in it, but it had knocked her out with only a few sips. When she’d awoken, she’d found herself stripped naked and tied up in an underground nuclear bunker, forced to watch as Shuji lit a fire and burned her magnum opus to cinders in front of her.
There was no way he was going to let something so disgusting and hateful mar her legacy, he’d told her. Nor was he going to let her rejoin the so-called “friends” who had inspired her to write such filth. Instead, he was going to help motivate her to write a new romance novel - a story about a beautiful, waifish author getting lost in the woods and falling deeply in love with a rugged, strapping survivalist.
Naturally, the first step to motivating her was to ensure she had no possible distractions from her work - particularly distractions like weapons, escape plans, or the possibility of one of her friends finding her. As such, he’d locked her away inside his uncle’s old emergency shelter, removed her clothes (as well as the several dozen pairs of scissors Genocide Jack had hidden on her person), and tied her up as securely as he could without compromising her ability to type.
Unfortunately for her, Shuji’s distrust of most modern technology hadn’t hindered him from building an impressively restrictive setup for her. She was seated in a sturdy wooden chair in front of a writing desk, her torso and legs bound to the chair’s backrest and front legs respectively by a collection of leather belts. A pair of manacles on her wrists were threaded through a metal ring screwed to the rim of the desk, the chains just barely long enough to let her operate the typewriter in front of her. Above her, an oil lantern hung from the ceiling by a rope, providing just enough light to illuminate her desk.
“Here you are, darlin’!” Shuji said happily, placing a plate of freshly-chopped vegetables and pork on Toko’s desk. “Now, let’s see what you got done since lunch…”
As Shuji picked up the stack of papers piled to the left of her typewriter and started thumbing through them, Toko found herself hungrily eyeing the meal he’d prepared for her, hoping he’d be satisfied with her progress this time. If he wasn’t, he would sit down next to her and eat her food in front of her, then leave until her next mealtime. It was a cruel way of motivating her, but she couldn’t deny its effectiveness.
Finally, Shuji put the papers down and smiled approvingly at her. “Yep, I’d say it’s lookin’ a lot better this time! I know you usually like to fade to black for bedroom scenes like this, but I knew you could do it if you tried!”
“P-Phrfhrrt…” Toko grumbled, blushing redder than the beets on her plate. As if it wasn’t bad enough he was keeping her captive and making her write this god-awful novel of his, he had forced her to add several kinky, explicit sex scenes between the two lead characters. Her stories were supposed to be tales of true love, not glorified fetish smut!
“Well, I reckon you’ve put in a good afternoon’s work, so I’d say you’ve earned your keep,” Shuji said, tugging the knotted cleave gag out of her mouth and turning to pick up her plate.
“Y-you won’t g-get away with th-this, y-you d-d-degenerate h-hick!” Toko snarled. “M-Master will c-come l-looking f-for m-me, and wh-when he f-finds m-me, he’ll - GLLFF!”
“Shhhh, no worries, darlin’,” Shuji interrupted, his voice low and soothing as he shoved a forkful of food into Toko’s open mouth mid-rant. “No one’s gonna find you and hurt you down here. I’m gonna keep you nice and safe down here ‘til you get back into the swing of things and start writin’ the kind of stories you used to.”
He leaned in closer, and Toko shuddered at the feeling of his hot breath against her neck. “And who knows? Maybe once you’re back to your old self, you could help me re-enact some of those scenes you’ve been writin’ as a thank-you? I’m sure you wouldn’t mind - there ain’t anyone in the world who’s a better fit for you than me, after all…”
As Toko reluctantly chewed and swallowed the chunk of pork that had been forced into her mouth, she swore that as soon as she got out of her, she was going to find herself some pepper and let Genocide Jack out to do what she did best. After what she’d been through over the last few days, she doubted even Makoto would raise too many objections...
No comments:
Post a Comment