Rina finished the last bite of her ice cream cake before the kidnapper hauled her into the bathroom.
“Eating sweets and then taking a bath right after, what kind of logic is that?”
She grumbled under her breath, but her body had already obediently stepped onto the anti-slip mat, waiting to be washed.
Hisaki ignored her complaints, simply adjusting the shower to the perfect temperature before starting to rinse Shiro off.
As quiet as ever.
After washing up, she took out a new nightgown from the wardrobe.
Also a spaghetti strap style, also pure silk…
Rina looked at it.
“Is it… only”
“Nightgowns of this one style?”
Rina let it go.
Hisaki had Shiro sit on the edge of the bed while she stood in front of her, starting to dry her hair with the hair dryer.
Rina closed her eyes, her head swaying slightly with the movements of the kidnapper’s fingers, caught in a hazy state between sleep and wakefulness.
When her hair was about seventy to eighty percent dry, the kidnapper turned off the hair dryer.
Rina thought tonight’s routine was over and was about to climb into bed…
Then she watched Hisaki stand up, walk out of the Master Bedroom, and head toward the Second Bedroom. “Huh?”
Rina tilted her head, her sky-blue eyes following Hisaki’s back until it disappeared at the end of the Corridor.
***
About half a minute later, Hisaki returned, carrying something extra in her hands.
A soft, snow-white bundle of neatly folded fabric.
Hisaki crouched by the bedside and unfolded the fabric… a pair of white silk stockings.
“Foot, stretch it out.”
Rina blinked…
“Why do I need to wear these? Isn’t it fine to just have bare legs?”
“Because Shiro, if you knock something over again…”
“That was an accident today!”
“If you get dirty, you’ll have to take another bath.”
Hisaki had already grasped Shiro’s left foot, her fingers supporting the heel as she stretched open the cuff of the white silk stocking, slipped it over the toes, and then worked it upward bit by bit.
The white fabric crept up her calf, wrapping around her ankle, her calf, her knee…
Hisaki’s movements were very slow…
Rina’s toes curled restlessly inside the stocking.
Not because it felt uncomfortable…
The texture of these stockings was surprisingly soft—snug but not tight, and her toes could still move freely inside the toe section.
What made her uneasy was the kidnapper’s movements.
Putting on socks shouldn’t be this slow, shouldn’t be this careful, shouldn’t have fingers tracing the curve of her calf from outside the fabric, smoothing out wrinkles bit by bit as they traveled upward.
“The other one.”
Her right foot was slipped in too.
Both white silk stockings gathered snugly around Rina’s calves, the cuffs cinching just above the knees, wrapping the softest patch of skin where thigh met calf in a firm embrace.
Rina looked down at her legs… the white stockings shimmered with a faint pearlescent sheen under the warm orange light, covering everything from her toes to above her knees, leaving only a short stretch of thigh exposed between the hem of her pink-white nightgown.
She looked up at the kidnapper.
Hisaki was looking down, her dark red eyes sweeping slowly over Shiro’s silk-clad legs…
After the lights went out, Hisaki pulled Shiro into her arms as naturally as ever.
But tonight, Hisaki’s hand lingered on Shiro’s leg for noticeably longer than usual.
Rina buried her face in the pillow.
The texture of the stockings was actually quite comfortable… soft and smooth, and being touched through them didn’t give her chicken skin the way direct skin contact did.
But the number of touches had definitely increased.
So many that she figured her leg must have become some kind of fidget toy that needed constant polishing in the kidnapper’s eyes.
“Such a total weirdo… pervert…”
She muttered inwardly, then closed her eyes and fell asleep to the faint rustling of the stockings being stroked.
***
The next morning.
When Hisaki woke up, she looked down at Shiro in her arms… curled up completely against her, silver-white hair spilled across the pillow, the spaghetti strap of her pink-white nightgown slid down to her elbow, exposing most of her shoulder.
Her silk-stocking-clad legs were tucked between Hisaki’s, one foot unconsciously resting on top of Hisaki’s.
Hisaki quietly watched that sleeping face.
Then she reached out and gently brushed aside a strand of hair stuck to the corner of Shiro’s mouth.
Shiro’s lips were slightly parted, her breathing steady, her lashes resting peacefully against her cheeks.
She looked for a long time…
Reluctant to wake her.
But today wouldn’t allow it.
“Shiro.”
Hisaki kept her voice very soft, her lips pressed against Shiro’s ear.
“Time to get up.”
No reaction.
Shiro just wrinkled her nose.
“Shiro, it’s morning.”
“Mmm…”
Shiro let out a long, muffled protest, burying her face deeper into Hisaki’s chest, one hand grabbing Hisaki’s nightgown collar as she shrank further into her arms.
Her eyes were still closed, her mouth slightly pouted, and from her throat came a series of incoherent but emphatically protesting sounds… like a small animal being woken up, using every bit of body language to say “no no no.”
Hisaki laughed.
Still laughing, she tried to peel this Shiro stuck to her chest off, but Shiro’s grip on her collar was stubbornly persistent—every time she pried one finger loose, it immediately curled back and grabbed another piece of fabric.
Her eyes never opened the whole time, and only that continuous stream of “mmph mmph mmph” protests kept outputting.
“Shiro, listen.”
Hisaki gave up prying her fingers loose, instead cupping the back of Shiro’s head with her palm, her lips pressed against her ear, speaking slowly and clearly, word by word.
“I have something to do today. I’m going out.”
“I’ll be gone all day, and I won’t be back until tomorrow morning.”
“Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are all made and in the fridge.”
“When you get up, remember to heat them up before eating.”
“Mmm hmm…”
“Stay home and behave. Call me if anything happens.”
“Mmm mmm hmm…”
Hisaki pulled back a little and looked down at this Shiro still going “mmm hmm” in her arms.
Her eyes hadn’t opened once, and her mouth was still making those muffled responses, but the sound was getting softer and fainter…
She was completely asleep.
Hisaki looked at that sleeping face for a long, long time.
Then she leaned in close, her nose lightly brushing against Shiro’s forehead, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.
She breathed those scents into her lungs, bit by bit, like stockpiling provisions she’d need for the entire day ahead.
After a long while, Hisaki straightened up.
She tucked the blanket back in place, pulled the fallen spaghetti strap back onto Rina’s shoulder, and then quietly got out of bed.
When she reached the bedroom door, she looked back once more at that silver-white head on the bed, then gently closed the door behind her.
By the time Rina actually woke up, it was already past eight in the morning.
Sunlight squeezed through the gaps in the curtains, painting a few golden stripes across the sheets.
She lay face-down on the pillow, her hair a complete mess, her eyes half-open as she stared blankly for about two minutes.
Then she reached out to feel the spot beside her… empty.
The kidnapper wasn’t there.
She slowly pushed herself up from the mattress.
Her pink-white nightgown hung wrinkled on her body, and her silk-stocking-clad legs stretched out on the bed, toes curling and uncurling inside the stockings.
She rubbed her eyes, then looked down at her legs…
The silk was still there, but a few fine wrinkles had formed around the knee of the right stocking—marks left behind by repeated stroking last night.
“…What a complete pervert.”
Then she picked up her phone from the nightstand, unlocked the screen, and saw the message from Hisaki.
“Shiro, breakfast, lunch, and dinner are all in the fridge. Remember to heat them up before eating.”
“Call me if anything comes up. I’ll be back tomorrow morning. Stay home and behave.”
Rina stared at that message for about five seconds.
If this were the old her… the one who had a key card, whose fingernails hadn’t been pried off yet, the one still racking her brain trying to escape…
She would’ve been bouncing off the bed with joy at this message.
The kidnapper wasn’t here. She was gone all day and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow morning… this was the perfect escape window.
But now.
The key card was taken away long ago.
And she didn’t have any desire to run anymore.
Where would she even go if she ran?
Live under the Bridge?
No way, it’s too hot.
Stay at a hotel?
No ID Card.
Ask the System for help?
What else would that dog system do besides screaming nonsense in her head.
Besides, even if she did run, the kidnapper would find her through some unknown method just like last time, drag her back, and then…
Forget it. Not thinking about it.
Rina tossed her phone onto the bed, then stepped barefoot onto the fluffy carpet and stood up with a stretch.
Her silk-stocking-clad legs shimmered with a soft sheen in the morning light, and her pink-white nightgown swayed with the movement.
She shuffled into the bathroom in her slippers to brush her teeth and wash her face.
In the mirror, the Red Mark left on her neck last night had faded to a faint pink.
She stared at herself in the mirror for a few seconds, then splashed water on her face, feeling slightly more awake.
The fridge was neatly stocked with three bento boxes and a separately wrapped sandwich.
The sandwich was for breakfast, and the bento boxes had labels on them…
“Lunch: heat for three minutes.”
“Dinner: heat for five minutes.”
Rina put the sandwich in the microwave for one minute.
She carried the heated sandwich to the Living Room and sat down on the sofa. She took a bite… ham and cheese…
Rina chewed while staring at the clear sky outside the Floor-to-Ceiling Window, her legs swinging back and forth at the edge of the sofa. Her silk-stocking-clad feet couldn’t quite reach the floor, so they just dangled, swaying forward and backward in the air.
Today should be a really boring, peaceful day.
No sooner had she finished that thought to herself than she saw a figure suddenly appear outside the Floor-to-Ceiling Window.
…Just plastered right against the glass, on the 23rd Floor.
Her chewing stopped mid-bite, her sky-blue eyes going wide and round as she stared at the figure drawing closer and closer to the window.
The figure became clearer and clearer.
It was a woman.
The sandwich fell out of Rina’s mouth.
She stammered, her voice trembling…
“I… I guess so…”