Monogatari Series - Volume 18 - Chapter 1.06

006

I of course didn’t recall doing anything to make Ononoki hate me to the point of wanting to kill me, and she rescued Kanbaru and me from inside the blazing building in a fairly normal way. My junior had flopped on the floor unconscious due to the impact of the backdraft and its explosive fire-fighting effects, so I put her on my back before clinging onto Ononoki. The energy drain had already brought Kanbaru close to her limit─despite her messing around, she’d been forcing herself to hold on, so I had no reservations at all as her senior about carrying her.

True, I nearly screamed something out in exasperation.

Why was she seriously not wearing a bra?!

Given the scale of the fire, it was a miracle that we made it out of there without serious burns─but I wasn’t exactly heaving a sigh of relief, either.

If I had to find a silver lining, it was that the fire wasn’t spreading beyond the building. These ruins were isolated, so perhaps I should say it’s a good thing there were no nearby structures.

And then, without the help of any fire trucks rushing to the scene, the abandoned cram school, filled with memories both good and bad ever since spring break, burned itself out─fizzled out, you might say, like a candle’s flame.

Only cinders lacking any semblance of their original form were left behind─and all I could do was look up with vacant eyes as I crouched near Kanbaru’s prone form, unable to so much as stand.

A sense of loss.

No, I wasn’t so attached to those ruins that I felt a sense of loss─but something that had stood there so naturally was gone all of a sudden, and I couldn’t hide my shock at the fact.

It was as if─yes.

My connection, not to the building itself so much as to the guy, the expert who’d taken up residence there─had vanished completely.

As if the place he might return to was no more─but that was ridiculous, how could that vagabond have any place to return to? He was only stopping by in this town too─he drifted through, and the abandoned building was just shelter from the rain to him.

Still, that said─for the place to disappear in mere minutes?

Razed to nothing.

That felt wrong.

“Sorry to interrupt your sentimentalizing, monstieur, but what exactly happened?”

Ononoki.

She said this from behind me, expressionless and emotionless─rushing a conclusion without any consideration for my complicated feelings.

“I can’t blame you for brooding over that snail girl, but don’t go attempting a murder-suicide with a random girl you found.”

“Even your misunderstandings are excessive.”

A random girl?

She meant my adorable junior.

“Her name is Suruga Kanbaru.”

“Oh, really. So she’s─”

Miss Gaen’s niece, Ononoki said, not sounding particularly interested─and she probably wasn’t.

“The former Suruga Gaen. Suruga Kanbaru after Miss Gaen’s elder sister─”

“If anything, Ononoki, I should be asking you why you’re here. As far as I remember, your role isn’t to be some girl who’s always ready to dash in and save me whenever I’m in a tight spot.”

“It seems I’m the only one assigned to that task as of late. I wish they’d give me a break. I get called to do audio commentary all the time, too.”

“I can’t say that’s my fault.”

“Even if it isn’t, I wish you’d take responsibility for it. That’s why you’re around, right? To take responsibility.”

“You think whoever’s responsible exists only to take responsibility? And don’t make me responsible for everything in the world.”

“Well, I just happened to be around, I wasn’t planning on saving you or anything, monstieur.”

Her words sounded cold, depending on how you interpreted them─but nothing about her was either hot or cold.

Yotsugi Ononoki has no will.

She was just stating the facts of the matter.

“I was only doing my job─when I found you dragging a woman I don’t know into a murder-suicide. I thought, ‘Boy, do I need to mess up your plans,’ that’s all.”

“Sounds like you have a hell of a will to me…”

Please, it wasn’t a murder-suicide.

And what’s with this “need” to mess up my plans?

“Well, I need to toy with whatever your plans are, whether that’s a murder-suicide or a pedo-suicide.”

“Just how much do you hate me?”

“I don’t hate you. I just want to Toys-R-Ound with you.”

“What does that even mean? Stop inventing new phrases whenever you feel like it.”

I also let it slide, but what’s a pedo-suicide, anyway?

She wasn’t talking about what happened with Hachikuji, was she?

“I like you if anything,” the shikigami said. “Hm? Oh, did your heart just skip a beat there?”

“You’ve turned into a pretty annoying character in the short time since we last met…”

What happened in just a half-day or so…

In any case, I’d lost count of how many times Ononoki had rescued me. I wanted to show my gratitude to her somehow, but she wasn’t making it easy, ruffling my feelings. Still, this time she’d saved not just me, but Kanbaru too─how could I not thank her?

“Well, Ononoki. Thank you. I know my debt to you keeps getting larger and larger, but I promise to return the favor someday.”

“What are you scheming? Are you hoping to get another kiss out of me by being noble?”

Such was Ononoki’s reaction─it felt like there was no point in thanking her, and uh, I guess that did happen…

“Sorry to dash your hopes, but I did that to harass you. You’re not getting a kiss from me when you’re hoping for one.”

“Then you’re not sorry about dashing my hopes at all.”

It was harassment…

Now that she mentioned it, that case was far from settled.

“So, monstieur. If you want to repay me, I’d normally want you to do so by bringing me immense wealth. But I’ll accept an answer to my question this time around. What exactly happened?”

“What happened?”

“I’ll lend an ear, if you’d just open up to me.”

“As if I’d ever come to you for life advice.”

Whatever she said and however she said it, her words always sounded wooden. No matter what kind of retort or reaction I gave, it sounded like me getting worked up on my own, which I have to admit was depressing.

Still, my sorrow forced me to cool off─my heart had been pounding since those raging flames, but my pulse seemed to be returning to normal.

Usually, she’d be the last person I’d open up to, but if she was willing to listen to my troubles despite being on the job, maybe I just had to accept her kindness and─hm?

Hold on, no.

What was that again? She wasn’t planning on saving me, she just happened to see a fire at her job site─and decided to lift a finger because that fire was engulfing us.

Then asking me “what exactly happened” and attempting to get my story was nothing more than part of her job, not any kind of kindness. You certainly couldn’t say it was out of goodwill.

“Phew…that was close, Ononoki. I nearly got the mistaken impression that you like me or something. I was beginning to think, Is she into me or what?”

“I just told you that I like you. Stop running from the kindness of others. You cowardly little chicken.”

“…”

She was awfully insulting for someone who liked me.

I couldn’t tell how serious she was being, at all.

“If you can’t bring yourself to accept my kindness, I wouldn’t mind if you just accepted my body. Of course, me being a corpse, I doubt you’d be able to show it on TV. That’s fine, right? The anime’s basically over at this point.”

“What did you talk about with whom in the past half-day to turn into your current character?”

Such a blasé character, too… Clawing at my teenage heartstrings like that…

Even if I couldn’t accept anything of hers, I might at least answer her and explain what happened─but as far as nonsensical experiences went, nothing could outdo the one I’d just gone through.

No matter how cogent my explanation, the listener would think I’d gone crazy: a warrior in a full set of armor appearing after I met up with someone in an abandoned building; countless shafts of flame shooting up from below; getting trapped in a fiery cage; and the armored warrior then making a leisurely exit?

I was only able to tell Ononoki without worrying because she was an expert and an aberrational phenomenon herself, a familiar.

“Hmm. I don’t understand at all. I think you’ve gone crazy, monstieur.”

“Hey…”

“Don’t worry, I’m kidding. You can laugh, you know. I can’t completely deny that it doesn’t make sense, though. Hm, an armored warrior?” As if to make absolutely sure, Ononoki said, “And it automatically rebuilds itself even if it gets scattered to pieces and can use an energy drain?”

“Yeah.”

Hearing its abilities shortened down to a list of bullet points made it sound suspicious even to me, who’d not only witnessed the thing but been attacked by it. Still, being too strange to be real wasn’t grounds to deny its existence in this case.

Aberrations are aberrant by nature.

I hadn’t told Ononoki everything, though. Not that I was trying to hide anything from someone who’d saved my life─in fact, supplying her with the whole truth was the smart thing to do.

Why not fully rely on this shikigami, who surely knew far more about the subject than I did? Any weird sense of pride or vanity on my part would only get in the way.

Yet I couldn’t disclose it all to her, couldn’t but hesitate when it came to passing off something that I still hadn’t fully processed myself. I hadn’t─which isn’t to say I couldn’t tell her because it made no sense whatsoever. Rather, I couldn’t tell Ononoki because she just might make sense of it.

The armored warrior’s parting words.

The unthinkable, un-Japanese syllables─Kissshot.

The name that even I no longer called her─he used it.

The enchanted blade, Kokorowatari…

“…”

Ononoki gazed down at me, silent.

You couldn’t call her tall. If anything, with her tween-girl design, she’s short, but even then, her eyes were above mine as I hunched over, close to the ground. For some reason I found it a pretty significant strain on my psyche to be looked down on by the expressionless, emotionless girl.

I’d done nothing wrong, but I almost felt like apologizing.

“I’d say it’s a bad thing to keep secrets from your savior, wouldn’t you?”

“No… It’s just…”

How was she so sensitive to my emotions when she had none?

Savior, though?

I wondered again if I should tell her, but still had my misgivings. Maybe it was because telling her would feel like lying to her.

I mean─there’s no way it could be true.

If that armored warrior’s identity was who I thought it was, the exact existence I already knew about─but there was no way that could be true.

He─couldn’t possibly exist in this world.

The thought, the line of reasoning had to be wrong─so I couldn’t give voice to it carelessly. It had to be a mistake on my part.

If I was going to, I at least needed to check with Shinobu first─so I tried to distract Ononoki by changing the subject.

Actually, I guess it was more like moving our conversation along than changing its subject.

“Do you have any ideas, Ononoki? About this armored warrior─does it have anything to do with your current task?”

I did feel like I was late to asking this question─how could I not? Thanks to her task, she’d gotten me out of my tight spot.

From what I’d heard so far, though, she didn’t seem to be chasing an aberrational phenomenon that dangerous all on her own…

“Well, true,” Ononoki nodded.

Expressionless.

“Yes─you’re right. While it’s within the range of my official duties, according to what you’re saying it’s an almost entirely different phenomenon from my fieldwork target.”

“?”

“Remember what I just told you? I wasn’t lying when I said it didn’t make sense to me. It seems to have grown far more ferocious than when I was looking for it. What could have happened over the course of these few days?”

It wasn’t even an armored warrior when I was after it─Ononoki remarked, tilting her head this time, but her expressionlessness made it seem like she didn’t find it all that strange.

Then again, she herself had undergone quite a change in character over the course of just half a day. It didn’t seem that strange for an aberrational phenomenon she was after to change, too─but still.

Yeah, that wasn’t it.

That armored warrior had to be special─not even a special case, but a special exception. Take how strong it had gotten in the mere minutes that we fought. The armor was nothing more than a heavy, dull object at first but roared with laughter by the time it left.

Its energy drain…

Then─it grew strong enough to confuse Ononoki thanks to no one but me and Kanbaru…

How could I not feel responsible in that case─it really made me the responsible party here. But…

“Hey, Ononoki?”

“What is it, monstieur?”

I replied without giving any pushback to the ridiculous nickname she’d managed to establish for me. “Do you think we could call this one off?”

“…”

“Er, wait, no─I’m fine with it. I don’t mind, but…her,” I said, pointing at Kanbaru’s form lying on the ground.

I guess it’s true that top-class athletes know how to rest for real when they need to? It felt really off to be concerned for her when she was happily (just look at that smug face) snoring away.

“It’s okay if Kanbaru leaves, right?”

Ononoki stayed quiet for a moment, then asked, “What’s that mean?” Her flat tone made her sound angry, but she didn’t possess that emotion─she was asking because she simply didn’t understand. “Monstieur, are you going to renege on your promise to Miss Gaen?”

“Renege?”

“You leaned on Miss Gaen and promised in return that you’d introduce this girl to her. Even if it was something you absolutely had to do to save Mayoi Hachikuji and you had no choice, a promise is still a promise─you’ve really got some guts, monstieur. Trying to break a promise with Miss Gaen? You’re going to make me fall for you.”

“That’s…not what I’m trying to do.”

I would be, in effect─but honestly, hadn’t I already lived up to my promise? I thought I had.

“You’ve really got some abs on you.”

“Don’t touch on the subject of my abs.”

“Oh, I’d love to touch them.”

“Stop showing such unusual interest in my muscles.”

“I’m a corpse, you know. My interest in flesh is almost instinctual─your reason?”

“Hm?”

“Your reason for trying to break your promise with Miss Gaen.”

“I’m not unwilling to introduce Kanbaru to her, even now. But that’s not all the promise was, right? She was trying to get Kanbaru to help her with a job.”

That was the full picture of the promise I made with Miss Gaen─with Izuko Gaen, head boss of the experts on the supernatural and senior to Mèmè Oshino, Deishu Kaiki, and Yozuru Kagenui.

In return for leaning on the wisdom of a woman who boasted that she knew everything, I’d bring Kanbaru with me to follow up on Ononoki’s job, which I’d interrupted regardless of the circumstances.

Miss Gaen had said─she needed Kanbaru’s left hand, her left arm.

By no means had she asked me to introduce her to Kanbaru out of some desire to be reunited at long last with her niece.

I was the one who’d leaned on Miss Gaen’s wisdom, of course, and Kanbaru had nothing to do with it. Hence, I’d made the promise on the condition that I’d only do it if Kanbaru agreed─but I’d messed up from the start.

I knew full well that Kanbaru would never turn down a request from me─and as a result, I’d exposed her to unthinkable danger.

I’d gotten her, a complete bystander, involved.

As her senior, I ought to have declined on her behalf.

“Yes. It’s as if Miss Gaen tricked you there, monstieur. She told you it’s a simple task anyone could do, didn’t she?”

“No, not like she was recruiting someone for a little gig.”

“A simple job that even you could do.”

“Can it.”

“Still, and I have no duty to cover for Miss Gaen, I doubt she expected an entire building to end up burning down right then.”

No duty to cover for her… Why exactly was Ononoki acting as an extension of Miss Gaen, then? This was Izuko Gaen, the self-described woman who knows everything─how could anyone be certain that she hadn’t predicted it? Or was I being too paranoid?

“As someone involved in this case from the start, monstieur, the fire seems particularly unusual─you’re even making it sound like it saved you.”

“…”

That did seem true.

Sure, we nearly ended up burning to death, but if a pillar of flame hadn’t erupted from below when the armored warrior had me by the neck─wouldn’t the life have been choked out of me right then and there?

It managed to take my voice.

But it might’ve taken a lot more.

What did it say again─the tiger’s tail?

“Well, I guess it doesn’t explain anything,” Ononoki retracted her point. “After all, your junior did get killed.”

“She’s not dead.”

“Um, her condition took a sudden turn. It looks like she’s dead?”

“What?!”

I checked Kanbaru’s breathing and pulse in a panic. I even opened her eyelids to check her pupils.

She was just as alive as ever.

“Whoopsie, I lied. Wow, you really fell for that one.”

“Don’t make me kick your ass.”

I grabbed my tween-girl savior’s head with both hands. A bystander might have thought I was getting ready to kiss her, but I wanted to straight-up headbutt her.

“To be fair, monstieur, whenever you and I chat, someone usually ends up dead nearby.”

“Stop inventing creepy rules that are incredibly close to the truth.”

“I understand how you feel. But I think you ought to give up. I can’t recommend it,” Ononoki suddenly returned to the matter at hand even though I was still gripping her head. “I’m warning you as a friend.”

“I don’t recall us ever becoming friends…”

“I’ve thought of you as a friend for a long time now.”

“…”

In the right time, the right place, and from the right person, I’d be happy to hear those words…but I wasn’t so sure this was it.

Well, fine, it did make me glad. I can’t deny that it cast a glaring light on the small size of my circle of friends.

“I’m of course grateful to Miss Gaen, and I’d like to pay her back in any way I can, but like you’ve said, Ononoki, the conditions have changed─this isn’t a safe job anymore. If she weren’t Kanbaru, she’d be dead a few times over by now.”

“And now she’s died yet another time.”

“That joke didn’t land the first time, so stop playing off of it.”

“Consider the fact that a corpse is telling it.”

“That makes it even less funny.”

“It’s far too late to turn back now,” Ononoki said, her voice composed.

Nothing was harder to get out of her than coherence. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have saved us for no logical reason like some superhero.

“It’s too late, monstieur. Don’t get me wrong, it’s up to you whether you want to break your promise to Miss Gaen. You have the freedom to ruin the rest of your life that way.”

“What… Breaking a promise to her is tantamount to ruining my entire life?” To be honest, I wasn’t prepared for that─I just wanted to get Kanbaru back home safely. “I-I was planning on working hard to make up for her absence, but that wouldn’t do?”

“How incredibly conceited of you. How vein-poppingly vain. Do you really think you could take the place of Miss Gaen’s niece?”

“That’s how strong her bloodline is?”

“Even if you could─it wouldn’t accomplish your goal.”

“My goal?”

“You want to protect your junior now that you’ve gotten her wrapped up in your mess. I understand, I once felt the same way myself.”

“Don’t say things just because they sound cool.”

You don’t have any juniors.

Stop drawing the drama vs. comedy borderline within the same set of quotation marks.

“I will admit,” Ononoki said, “that you make the situation sound worse than Miss Gaen’s rundown of it─but why can’t you see that having the girl go home after all of this’d do nothing to protect her?”

“Hm? Wait, what do you mean by that?”

“Merely seeing an aberration can get you afflicted─merely meeting one can get you cursed. Yet you say the girl touched the armored warrior.”

“…”

More than touched… She punched it.

Even if she couldn’t pull it off, she fearlessly tried to give it a double-leg takedown too… If all aberrations are indeed divine in a way, you’d be lucky to get off with nothing more than a curse.

Right.

Suruga Kanbaru─was already involved.

Not due to any promise of mine to Miss Gaen. You could call it a promise with the world─a contract that can’t be broken, whose terms are non-negotiable.

“Please kneel, monstieur.”

“Hm?”

“Kneel. Hurry up.”

“…”

“At once. Expeditiously.”

How might I explain this to you?

I had no reason to obey any sudden command, unless it was a rare one like a tween girl demanding that I kneel, but this was precisely such an instance…so I took my hands off of Ononoki’s head and kneeled as she directed.

Both shins to the ground, my hands atop my thighs.

“Wait just a second. It won’t be long,” Ononoki said. Raising one leg, she began taking off her boot and tights. Why was she baring her foot now? I was about to find out.

Because she took her foot, fresh out of her boot, and stepped on my face.

At a perpendicular angle.

She grinded it into my cheek.

“Um, Ononoki?”

“You’d damn well better not think you can turn back now,” she said, but not in a violent tone. In the same wooden voice as always: “Whether it’s this or what happened with Mayoi Hachikuji─what you lack is resolve. I bet you think that you could start your life over from the beginning whenever you feel like it.”

“…”

“You think it’s never too late to start anything, don’t you? Even if you fail or slip up, you think you can always come back from it, don’t you? Even if you mess up, you think you can always make up for it, don’t you?”

“…”

Grind, grind.

Ononoki shoved her heel into my face as I kneeled, her knee at a deft angle as she daintily held the edge of her skirt between her fingers.

She was stepping on the same spot that Kanbaru had kneed earlier… Was my cheek a rest area for girls’ legs or something?

It was strange. Having a bare foot step on my face felt nothing at all like having the back of my head stepped on… I reflexively closed my eyes, but when I forced them open, I was so close to seeing up Ononoki’s skirt─in between her big toe and second toe.

She was standing on one leg, proof that this warrior-girl’s sheer strength was nothing to make light of.

“Everything evens out by the time you reach the end of your life─is that what you think? Hah. ’Course it does. Once you die, you’re left with nothing. Zero.”

As wooden as ever─but her tone didn’t suggest a lack of thoughts or ideas behind her words. Something that I said must have poked at a tender spot somewhere in her heart.

If dolls had hearts.

“Umm, what were we talking about again?” she asked.

“Beats me…”

“Was it about you getting excited that my feet are all sweaty from wearing boots in the summer?”

“Could you not be so direct? Let’s keep it dreamy.”

“Don’t worry. I’m a corpse, so my feet can’t get sweaty.”

“Oh…”

“You sound so disappointed… Come on, it hurts to see you look that way. Okay, so as far as what you should be doing next─”

“Hey! Don’t just move on like it’s a given that I’m disappointed!”

“Let’s move on to another time.”

“No! Take it easy, whether they’re subjects or time!”

“Learn to keep up with me. I can’t slow down to your pace if you’re going to be such a sloth.”

Apparently satisfied, Ononoki took her foot off my face… I’d like to think I showed you just how big of a man I am by not showing any signs of resistance the entire time.

I did have an excellent reason not to: if she’d used her foot there to activate her Unlimited Rulebook, she could’ve vaporized my head.

“I personally think you showed how deep your sins run, not how big of a man you are. So, monstieur, if you really do care about this girl, that’s all the more reason for you to take her to Miss Gaen and not do something as irresponsible as send her home. From there, you could have Miss Gaen keep her safe.”

“Have Miss Gaen…”

“That’s right. You could keep your promise and her safe,” Ononoki restated in a half-clever manner. Despite the forcedness and artificiality, the message itself was revelatory.

She was right.

Sending Kanbaru home might be the far more irresponsible thing to do. I’d gotten her wrapped up in what you could call my own selfish circumstances, and now I wanted to shutter up and throw her back to her home just because things hadn’t gone exactly as I’d planned. How could I be so sure that was the right thing to do?

Kanbaru had crossed paths with it.

Though a total bystander─she’d crossed paths with that armored warrior and gotten herself involved in whatever phenomenon it was. In some ways, even more than me.

In which case sending her home, to be on her own, might be far more dangerous as Ononoki said─if we were talking about responsibility, wasn’t working alongside Kanbaru until the end the responsible thing to do?

Well, the best move might’ve been to ditch this job whose details I didn’t even know and go home with Kanbaru, but I, a student studying for college exams, couldn’t afford my freedom to break my promise with Miss Gaen and ruin the rest of my life.

Aside from that, I wanted to keep my promises.

Promises should be kept.

…No, I’ll be honest with you.

Of course I didn’t want to get Kanbaru involved with that dangerous armored warrior─but that isn’t to say that I didn’t want to get involved with it.

If anything.

I had to get involved with it.

That thing─had entrusted me with a message.

A message to “my master.”

So at the very least, I couldn’t abandon my role until I’d delivered it. If the armored warrior was who I thought it was─as impossible as that seemed, if there was so much as the slightest possibility of it being true.

I couldn’t throw it away.

I couldn’t go home─not until I knew.

“…”

“It seems you’ve reached a conclusion.”

My goodness, having friends can be such a hassle, muttered Ononoki, putting her tights and boot back on. Frankly, even if her feet didn’t get sweaty, wearing boots in the summer did sound uncomfortable, but I wasn’t dispensing any unsolicited advice about other people’s life choices.

Though I guess they’d be un-life choices in Ononoki’s case.

…What kind of girl had she been when she was still alive?

According to what I’d heard, she’d acquired her current demeanor and temperament after being born as an aberration…

Still, whether she was a familiar or just an animated object, if she was capable of doing this much on her own, why hadn’t her master, the diviner Yozuru Kagenui, given her just one more feature, the ability to make facial expressions? It seemed strange.

Personally, I just wanted to see Ononoki smile…

“I’m going to try to chase down this armored warrior you say you saw─I doubt I’ll be able to find it, given the way it disappeared, but my job is to tread forth on fools’ errands.”

“…”

“My job is to tread forth on fools’ errands and your face.”

“Don’t bother correcting yourself, or making it your job to step on my face.”

“Carry this niece of yours in your arms like you’re a newlywed couple, all the way to Miss Gaen. Then explain what’s going on to her.”

“You’re making it sound like Kanbaru’s my niece…”

Not to mention, few people would seem more out of place on the receiving end of a bridal carry than Kanbaru… Just let me carry her on my back like before.

“My Neighbor Totoro had a niece too─”

“If you’re talking about Mei, her name meant May rather than niece.”

“Let me finish my jokes before quipping off of them. Anyway, I’m sure that if you give a wholehearted and sincere explanation to Miss Gaen, she wouldn’t try to get you to help her with a dangerous job. My hunch is that you’ll satisfy her expectations just by bringing her info about this armored warrior.”

“…”

“Whatever the case, it’s about time for us to part ways─you can stew in your emotions by these fire-ravaged remains, but the fire department and police will be showing up soon. If you want to avoid having any groundless suspicions placed on you, you ought to beat it.”

Part of being an expert is knowing when to retreat─Ononoki said as she finished putting her boot back on. She seemed to have worn it slowly on purpose so that we could talk for as long as possible.

She was expressionless the whole time.

…With both of my hands, I reached out towards Ononoki’s face once more─not out of anger, nor seeking revenge for having my cheek trampled─but to somehow see her smile.

I was just plotting to see if forcing her facial muscles into the right positions could create something resembling a smile even on Ononoki’s expressionless face.

It was the least I could do to pay back this friend, who’d saved both my life and Kanbaru’s, and moreover given me valuable advice when I felt so faint of heart.

“Fwuh-fwye. Muhhn-suhhhr.”

“…”

Creepy.