Dreams of Tanabata

Makoto wakes up propped against the wall in a dark room, feeling oddly weak and shaken, his arms tied behind his back in a highly uncomfortable position. He tries to stand upright only to find that his legs are tied together as well.

He thrashes about wildly trying to break his bonds, but to no avail.

It's only after he has well and truly tired himself out, that a door creaks open and a light clicks on to illuminate his surroundings.

He's lying on the floor of a small bathroom, barely big enough to contain a sink, toilet, and shower. It's decorated with a red and gold color scheme that is already making Makoto almost nostalgic for the prior darkness.

Standing in the doorway is a man in a Kitsune mask. A lab coat drapes over his boney frame and a strange amulet dangles around his neck.

Somewhat incongruously, he's holding a small ceramic pot which he sets atop the toilet tank as he approaches Makoto.

"Good morning," The man says in a sing-song voice so unsuited to the situation that, were his arms not bound, it would take an impressive amount of self-restraint for Makoto to not throttle him.

"Look," says Makoto, "I don't know what sort of sick prank this is, but I don't have time for it. I'm supposed to be filming on location today."

"Not anymore!~" the man in the kitsune mask says, "You've got a much more important role to play now."

"What are you talking about? I'm starring in this one. They won't be able to get anything done without me there."

"Really? Then tell me who's going to care about your stupid little TV drama if the world blows up or all of humanity is driven to madness?"

"What the heck are you talking about?"

"Just the sort of things I've devoted my life to preventing. I've also had to sacrifice any irrelevant little hopes and dreams I might have had for this purpose, you know."

Makoto realizes with a sinking sense of dread that his kidnapper is a madman.

If he was being held for ransom, he's confident that he's a valuable enough asset to his agency that they'd pay to set him free, and if he'd been taken by an overly obsessed fan, he'd at least have the hope of leveraging their attachment to him to give himself a chance to escape, but since the man in the kitsune mask has kidnapped him for incomprehensible reasons he has no idea what would need to happen for him to be released.

"Please let me go. I need to be there for Kokomi," he begs.

"Don't worry about that," The man in the kitsune mask says as he crouches down in front of Makoto, "I doubt she wants anything to do with you, given how you last parted ways."

That's right. He'd taken advantage of the romantic moment by kissing Kokomi and she'd rebuffed him. And also pushed him down all those stairs but that hurts far less than the pain of rejection.

"You're wrong! I'm sure she was just so happy that I kissed her that it gave her an involuntary muscle spasm." Makoto says trying to convince himself of this and meeting with only limited success as the threat of tears prickles at the corners of his eyes, "After all, why wouldn't she want a handsome rising star like me?"

"Because you're her brother, obviously." The man in the Kitsune mask says, delivering a flick to Makoto's forehead, "I thought that even an idiot like you could figure that one out."

"So what if I'm her brother?" Makoto says. He's dimly aware that brothers are not supposed to love their sisters the way that he loves Kokomi but he's certain that there must be some special exception for the two of them. How can their love be wrong when the slightest glimpse, the mere thought, of Kokomi's lovely visage sets his heart ablaze like napalm in a particularly flammable jungle and it feels so wonderful, so right to let it burn?

He continues his voice rising, "I've known her longer than anyone else, I know her better than anyone else, and while even I can't claim to be her equal in charm and grace, I come closer to matching her in those than anyone else. Who could be a better partner for either of us than the other when we're both in a league of our own, so far above anyone else's?"

The man in the Kitsune mask lets out a derisive chuckle as he takes Makoto by the shoulders and drags him into an upright position. "You're nothing special and neither is your sister. There's nothing in either of you that transcends this useless flimsy world."

"You're wrong," Makoto says, "Kokomi's beauty is transcendent!"

"It really isn't. In time it will rot away with the rest of your sister as she meets the fate of all this world's creatures. There is only one thing in this world that's truly capable of transcending it and it will be the end of all that we know. If you're good, I might show it to you someday."

"I don't want to see your so-called transcendent thing. I want to go back to my Kokomi."

"That's not happening. Anyway, let's get down to brass tacks," the man in the kitsune mask says, "You're a virgin, right?"

"Of course! I've been saving my first time for Kokomi." Makoto answers without missing a beat.

"Excellent. It would be unfortunate if I had to discard you and find someone else to kidnap. Besides, it would be such a waste to have to throw out that blood I took from you earlier."

"What do you mean, the blood you took?" Makoto asks.

"I thought that statement was fairly self-explanatory. I took some of your blood while you were still knocked out earlier," the man in the kitsune mask says as he takes the small pot from where he had set it aside, "and I'm here to give you some food to help you recover and make more."

He opens it up and takes a spoon from some pocket of his lab coat to scoop up a spoonful of the stew inside and lift it to Makoto's mouth.

"Say ahh.~" he says in that infuriating sing-song voice of his.

Makoto does no such thing.

"Fine then, we'll do this the hard way." the man in the kitsune mask says. He pulls Makoto's jaw open with cold fingers, and thrusts the spoon inside.

The taste is indescribable, and the texture is worse. Mushy bitter grains, blood flavored meat, stringy over-cooked greens and slimy strands of- is that natto?- mingle together to truly unpleasant effect. Makoto would spit it out but the man in the kitsune mask has his hand over Makoto's mouth holding it closed.

"Let me explain this in terms clear enough for even an idiot like you to understand," he says, his frigid, green eyes locking with Makoto's own, "In this new life of yours, it's up to me, not you, when you eat, drink, bathe and bleed. As well as when you relieve yourself, I suppose, unless you feel like soiling yourself. However, if you're good and prove to me that you won't run away, I'll give you those choices back little by little."

He waits patiently for Makoto to swallow and then takes his hand from Makoto's mouth and lifts another spoonful of stew to his lips. "So, what do you say?"

"Absolutely not! That's a terrible deal!" Makoto sputters.

"Wrong answer," the man in the kitsune mask says and fills Makoto's mouth with another spoonful of stew.