Epilogue

Just a Horse with a Horn

Something about today was different, Arihiko decided. There was something in the air, he thought, some strange beat by which the day turned. Or something he might have forgotten. It nagged at the corner of his mind.

It was only just after four in the afternoon, not even time for dinner, not even anywhere near dark yet in the fading summer season. The off-feeling had nothing to do with going home early, as that was fairly normal. His sister would not be home for hours, so he would go unmolested for a while. And he never felt like studying.

"Should've gotten food," he said, plugging his keys into the door to the apartment. "Don't really feel like take-out." Of course, being Monday, it was likely that he would fall back on that anyway. It took him nearly the entire week to build up the motivation to actually do some cooking for himself.

"Dahahahahahaha~"

Laughter bubbled out into the hall the moment he opened his apartment door. The sound of a laugh track on a game show was enhanced by the girly laughter emanating from in front of the television.

"So that's it," he said, not really sure if he was complaining or in apathetic acceptance. The girl-spirit-thing-ghost-beast was back.

Calmly, he discarded his shoes, tossed his bag into the coat closet, grabbed something in turn.

Nanako waited on the couch, at least this time having the decency to look contrite. She peered up at Arihiko as he entered. "Ehehe…Master booted me out for a week after—"

Arihiko, ready this time around, pulled out the hammer he had nicked from the arcade and smashed the squeaky toy as hard as he could over the girl's head.

"So then the things in the forest were actually wraiths only in the most distant sense, as their original hosts were still back in that room we were in and parts of their spirit were put into remote bodies like those MMO video games and when the guy died the control barriers on the house died with him and the screams were basically calling their remote bodies home where they could actually die normally and Master and that girl that kissed the other girl went back and cleaned up the next day—"

Arihiko tried his best to think of the pleasant part of Nanako's rambling—mainly the girls making out—and only partially succeeded. Such wondrous thoughts only gave way to thinking about the ghost-girl before him and what they had done…and what it all meant.

"—so they were missing persons over a decade or so and the guy we railroaded was totally a researcher that was looking into manifestations of physicality out of records within our souls from previous lifetimes and the way he looked was because he unlocked information about his past life, although Master said it might actually be likely he wasn't a squid or octopus so much as some crazy person who went too deep into subconscious fears or something and might've written books, I don't know, she was kind of weird on that last bit, she might have been making fun—"

His memories were a little fuzzy, yet very very vivid, and he wanted to shout it to the world and howl at the moon or something crazy like that, while at the same time he wished he could bury it away and completely forget about it. After all, Shiki had such an absolute babe for a lover and some poking and prodding suggested he was not nearly as inexperienced as he seemed, which only compounded Arihiko's feelings since not only was the girl he'd been with somewhat…well, less than Ciel-perfection, she might not even be real in the sense of the word. How did one explain that their first was to a figment, and not just a figment, but one that, if he really made up in his mind what she appeared to be as if in a dream, she looked…like…part horse?

"—was really hot. You sure are a different man, you know that?"

Arihiko blinked, belatedly realizing Nanako was asking him something directly. Something that was distressingly related. Something that, somehow, for some reason, had his blood pumping. "I want to make another contract," he said, not really registering what he was even saying.

"Huh?"

(Arihiko, in his one-track mind, did not realize that she was speaking of the fact that he fired her more like a prana cannon than a Scripture, something that was entirely different and should not have worked. Nanako was, of course, completely oblivious to the way he kept stealing glances her way.)

He climbed over the girl-spirit such that their noses were almost touching. "You heard me, I wanna do it again…" Like a light switch had been flipped, he reached up for her chest.

Which was how he was caught. His sister Ichiko, who should have been asleep for another three or four hours by Arihiko's count, wandered into the room at that moment, half-dressed, apparently on an instinctual quest for coffee. She walked right past them for the kitchen, then stopped, doubled back, took a look at her brother's hands all over the tiny girl that sometimes visited, and without a word, went to pick up her phone from the kitchen counter.

"Police, yeah, I need to report a case of pedophilia. Err, no, maybe bestiality makes more sense?"

Arihiko tried to pull himself up and charge his sister for control of the phone, but was halted as Nanako's hoof-hands somehow held him in place. Conversely, she flailed her legs as if to kick him away. "Stooop, nooo, I'm only a chiiiild!" she shouted, although her tone was entirely flat.

The most inane thought rose to Arihiko's mind as he tried to free himself from the girl's grip: I bet Tohno doesn't have to deal with this kind of crap.

Some kilometers away, a black cat with a bow around its neck crept along the windowsill of a large, Western-styled mansion.

The End