"So, Naegi-kun… what are you waiting for?"
"Eh?" was the only non-word that he could muster.
Makoto Naegi was no stranger to surprise, shock or even moments of paralyzing horror. The world -perhaps its entire weight- had been known to slam into his senses without warning, and in unbelievable or seemingly impossible ways. He'd like to think that after all this time with all the trials he'd fought that he'd learned to cope with surprise. And yet there were occasionally moments that could still take him off guard. For some reason, those moments seemed to usually involve her.
He'd walked into his assigned room to find his Future Foundation co-worker and close friend (perhaps more) Kyouko Kirigiri lying across the edge of his bed. Her clothes were neatly folded at the bed's other end, and she was dressed down to a lacy black bra and matching panties with a floral design, along with her trademark studded gloves. Yet as enticing as that image was, to him the most distinctive thing she wore was an inviting smile, like the cat that got the cream.
She sat up and asked him "Is there something wrong?" with a playfulness in her voice. Perceptive as she was, she knew exactly where that look on his face came from.
He mouthed some words and tried not to stutter through them, but with no real frame of reference for this situation, no real sentence ever formed. Perhaps the fact that he'd just begun undressing before she spoke up added to that.
(just how long was she watching?)
She enjoyed getting this flustered reaction out of him more than she'd like to admit; to string him along and let him reach his own conclusions. Something about his manner always made cases -and daily life in general- more interesting. But at the moment she'd prefer to cut to the chase.
"So do you want me to spell it out, Naegi-kun?" she asked as she stood up from the bed, making him flinch backward as if the peculiarity of the moment left him on the defensive.
She then moves in closer and tells him "Simply put, you're going to give me a spanking" without a hint of hesitation in either her voice or her stride, as if she were delivering a report.
"Wait…" he vocalized without meaning to, thinking he might have misheard her. As a short second passed, her words fully registered and he bellowed "WHAT!?" while his voice went higher than he would have wanted it to.
With a short laugh, she answers "I think I've had enough time to learn your tastes." His eyes widened noticeably in worry as he heard that, in all its implications. "What do you mean?"
"I've managed to hear you rather closely during the night" she says with her usual calmness, as Naegi's face starts to go crimson, wondering how she pulled that off short of stalking him. "And I found some of the 'material' you like to use as well; you really ought to hide it better." She kept a soft yet confident grin through her explanation; apparently privacy wasn't a concern to a devoted sleuth like her.
Once again left at a loss for words, Naegi awkwardly looked down towards the floor as if his spiky brown hair would somehow hide the color in his cheeks. This also put her half-naked form more keenly within eyeshot, which caused him to blush even harder. Kirigiri found it rather cute, but felt it'd be rude to say that to his face.
"Don't worry, no one else knows." She moved her hand up as if prepared to stifle a laugh. "I'd imagine Togami-kun wouldn't let you hear the end of it if anyone did." One hand on his shoulder and the other on his chest, she leaned in closely and whispered sultrily into his ear "this is just for us."
She was right: this was a rare night-off for both of them, and everyone else was busy working elsewhere or out on some mission. The door was locked and the room was soundproof. No one would ever find out…
Maybe he really was lucky.
She pulled away as the hand she'd had on his shoulder traced its way down to his wrist. "So are you going to make a girl wait? You really are cruel, Naegi-kun."
She gently pulled him towards the bed where she had been patiently waiting for him earlier. Not needing to be led like a child, he went ahead and sat first along the bed's edge, awaiting her, and it amused her to notice how his modest height had kept his heels from fully reaching the floor.
With one last glance while she was still on her feet, she slowly fell to her knees for a moment before leaning toward him, her waist across his lap, with her gloved hands planted on the floor. Her lavender hair fell to the side like a silky veil, and he could feel her body's warmth and some of her weight press against him (he noticed she was rather light as his feet met the floor).
Naegi gulped as the lace of her underclothing and the smoothness of her skin came into contact with his own; she was so methodical in how she moved that both sensations seemed to hit him at once. He tried not to let his eyes wander, but couldn't help admiring the curve of her back as her long hair parted; couldn't help savoring the well-defined, womanly contours of her hips and lower back as she raised her rear pertly in anticipation. He noticed she'd extended her toes for height's sake.
To look upon the figure of a mysterious beauty like her felt so forbidden; to leave a rosy trail upon her soft skin so incredibly enticing. If this was a dream, please don't let him wake up just yet. Please.
His voice shook slightly, but he still spoke. "Alright… I'm gonna start, Kirigiri-san."
Turning to look up at him, she decides to break down yet another barrier. "For tonight… just call me Kyouko." Professionally, she was Kirigiri-san to him; that permission of hers to disregard the formality emphasized to him just how isolated they were from the confines of their regular world. As if this room had become a world unto itself.
With that invitation of trust, he hoisted his right hand into the air; this was the moment in a dream where he'd probably wake up. With that single moment's hesitation, he swung down and leveled a soft smack upon the center of her panty-clad bottom. It took him a second to pull his hand away once the realization fully hit him that he wasn't dreaming.
The sound it made was more muted that she was expecting, and she certainly knew he had more arm strength than that. Even then, he looked down at her worriedly to see if he'd really hurt her, unsure of how appropriate it was to use any more force than that, or if she had properly prepared herself for it. The fact she'd let him do even this much felt like an enormous step in their relationship. Knowing all of this, he hadn't expected to instead hear what he hoped wasn't a light chuckle.
"Hmmhmm… I guess I can't expect you to change your gentle nature in just one night." Her head still faced the floor, yet her voice lost none of its poise.
"K…Kyouko?" he asked, still unused to using her name so casually.
She turned up at him once more. "I can see it, plain-as-day… you're still nervous, Naegi-kun. You always have been an open book, after all." She knew very well that he still found it annoying when she called him that.
She continued with a subdued -perhaps patronizing- smile that she was sure he could see. "I guess it can't be helped, since that's just how you are. It's actually rather appealing." He suddenly felt sorely reminded of that time he'd been called an 'herbivore' man. If she was trying to embarrass him right now, it was working; how she'd managed to be the less embarrassed of the two of them now of all times he'd never know.
"So for now… maybe we should consult some of those magazines you've hidden under the mattress. How does that sound?"
And now she was bringing that up again? It seems she hadn't studied the material closely enough. No better time than now for a lesson…
Just outside her periphery as to not let her see what was about to happen, his left hand lowered slowly and was lingering over the snug waistband of her panties, fingers slowly curling as if ready to strike. His voice was lower than usual. "You've got that wrong… Kyouko."
All at once, just barely thinking about it, he weaved the lace material into a sturdy grip and pulled upward, sliding the now-taut material inward enough to expose her buttocks more clearly, and lifting her rear higher to be an easier target.
Her eyes widened at the discomfort, but against that innate reaction, it didn't actually bother her so much. His potential for spontaneity was one trait she found among his most alluring, like an open book with lines between the lines. He was the only person in the world she could enjoy being surprised by, because for as many surprises as he held, she knew he would never try to deceive her. This was just another step in getting to be surprised even more.
With his target's weak point left vulnerable, he fired off a powerful swat whose echo filled the room with a sharp, fleeting clap. Her head went reeling back in the same surprise she was seeking as the feeling of the impact shot through her like a jolt of electricity that finished deep at her core. When he pulled his hand away, there was a red outline of a handprint left behind. She shivered as she relished in that slowly-fading, white-hot energy; as it did fade, she relaxed her neck and her head slumped down.
"Hahh… that was good… Naegi-kun…" she said through a weighty breath.
He grinned lightly, happy to see that his technique wasn't so laughable after all. Without responding to her, his hand lifted once more, bringing it down twice in rapid succession to evenly cover both of the fleshy globes of her rear.
She winced softly enough that he barely heard her before she bit down weakly on her lower lip; but he did hear her, no doubt. With how good she was at masking her own reactions and impulses, he knew he must be having a strong effect on her.
The fifth smack was merciless in how little time he gave her to prepare herself, coming in from an oblique direction, making sure to cover as much area as possible. Naegi noticed her reddening behind, which before she had eagerly risen, had now begun to progressively sink down, as if wanting to escape. Of course, there would be no escape: he was still able to hoist her bottom into perfect range when needed by virtue of his clutching her panties by their rear elastic.
It wasn't until the ninth and tenth smacks that she begun to truly squirm, but the pace of her squirming was unmistakably increasing; there was no disguising that. Little prickles of heat fired all across her hindquarters, sweltering and tactile. As she caught a shaky breath, she began to speak even while sweating and facing the floor.
"I'm amazed at your gusto, Naegi-kun" he hears her say softly, yet even then it sounded like he was being graded on a test. He paused for her sake as she then turned to look up at him, her sleek hair more disheveled than when they started.
"But still… shouldn't you be getting tired?" she asked as genuinely as he'd ever heard her ask. The question of his being tired was strange, but the composure in her voice even with how flushed her face looked right now was even more perplexing.
"The skin on the hand is supposed to be thinner than the skin on the rear. I can only imagine what you must be feeling right now" she stated in what sounded like sympathy, maintaining her diagnostic style as if this were just one of their many conversations. If he hadn't known her as long as he had, he might have been baffled that she was bold enough to say that in spite of the position she was currently in.
"So… are you feeling satisfied… Naegi-kun?" she asked through a subtle smirk that almost seemed to challenge him to call her bluff…
He'd only seen her resort to sarcasm when she was in a truly whimsical mood, a rarity that he could pick up on better than anyone. Looking straight into that piercing stare of hers, instead of words he answered with her eleventh spank, earning a short but audible gasp from her as the supple flesh of her posterior quivered from the force of the hit.
"I feel fine… Kyouko…"
His voice was no longer inhibited in using her name; it was a voice ready to soldier on in defiance of any soreness he may or may not have felt.
Without a word of warning, he sent a twelfth, punishing smack straight across the spot where her buns met her thighs: her sit spot, in other words. It was unlike any hit before it, and her eyes begin to water on reflex. As the thirteenth smack came down across the same spot, she shut those eyes tightly, recognizing where she'd pushed her luck too far. She hadn't considered that the material she'd so rudely gone snooping through earlier had filled in as training for the fantasy of one day training it all on her defenseless bottom, which she herself had made defenseless.
It felt stupefying to consider how much of this situation she'd engineered in all her lascivious glee. This was the strong Naegi: the one who could take charge and lead the leaders when all hope seemed lost; the one who could go from mild-mannered to telling the Ultimate Despair straight to their face how full of it they were; this was the Naegi who had once saved everyone from the very lowest of despairs.
She had so wanted to see this side of him more often -out on the field or otherwise- but it took some prodding to bring it out. She knew now that she'd stoked all the right fires, and having made that proverbial bed, now had to lie in it. So to speak.
She was interrupted mid-thought as her next two spanks came in without warning, leaving little chance for the energy of the last one to die down. She blushed from both stimulation and pain, and she didn't know which of the two made her breaths come in and out harder and more audibly than before.
Her head drooped down as she quietly accepted her next spank, and then the one after that, and then after that, over and over. Perhaps she didn't want him to see the face she was making; so prone as she was to keeping her cards close to her chest.
She honestly didn't mind this controlled loss of control: she'd always been the type to take on too many responsibilities in her work, and those times when she'd been forced to slow down had been some of the most stressful to her. There came a certain amount of freedom and independence with that responsibility, and yet even for her it could become vexing.
Strange as it may seem for someone like her, the ability to surrender a little bit of that power to someone she trusted -to the only one who calmed her nerves- relaxed her completely. It felt like ages since she'd relied on someone like that, and ages more since they'd proved themselves worthy of the distinction.
By all means, she should have been completely miserable right then, yet wasn't. It was like two extremes at odds: a part of her mind told her get away while another kept her firmly planted - one driven on the instinct of pain and the other on the trust in her heart. Only these two most base feelings held any importance to her now; for once, logic and analysis could take a backseat; tonight, her noisy mind could quiet down.
She expected another smack to cut off that thought as brusquely as before when there was instead a strange, unceremonious pause. Curious for a short moment, right then she heard him speak again. "So… Kyouko… are you feeling satisfied yet?"
She'd challenged him so much at every turn that it became clear this was like another game between the two of them. But before doing any more than this, he had to know how far she was willing to play that game. From the way her hair draped out like a curtain, no one -especially not him- could have seen the teary smile that crept up on her face.
"So then… you're done already…?"
She'd asked for it so many times, but that question of approval was all that was holding him back. Once more he communicated his answer with a sharp smack across the center of her backside, where they'd started this night. His hand felt so much heavier and stronger this time, as if he didn't have the heart to use his full strength with every other before it, and now she'd opened the floodgates. In that moment, she gave out a weak, involuntary yelp; not something she'd let out in a long time.
Even as the redness of where his strikes landed grew darker and the sweltering hot feeling engulfed the skin on her bum in a relentless torrent, she wasn't given a chance to rest. With twenty spanks, the Ultimate Detective had been left to someone else's mercy.
It was a mercy both knew she'd be too proud to plead for; a pride that prepared her to weather it all, like an unspoken match of mettles between the two of them. After all that she'd done to bring the game to this point, there wasn't any way she would try to escape…
The dull sound of the spanking filled the room as the volume of her whines and moans increased and then decreased, like a tide waxing then waning. Her squirming had become markedly less vigorous with her body instead slumping down limply, as did the speed of Naegi's exhausted arm. He had lost count by that point of how many he'd given her, and neither of them knew how much time had passed, but neither cared. It was as if time didn't count; as if the whole world had stopped just for one game.
Yet as they'd once been told over an obnoxious loudspeaker, ever-silent time constantly assaults everyone until the end.
"That… that should be enough…" he spoke breathily.
Naegi leaned backward on the bed, still holding her tightly by her waist so that she didn't fall with his exhausted arm. She lay across his stomach, while her hair -which was shiny from sweat- spilled all over him and the sheets haphazardly.
Her head was swimming, and it took her several moments to find her mental footing again; largely because she'd barely tried to. Some part of her wanted to stay like this, enjoying the heat, the fervor and the quiet of the moment. But even with all that, she knew she had to catch her breath and speak up eventually.
"That… was very good… Naegi-kun…" Her voice came out in worn-out, percussive huffs, but she still sounded impressed (and she was never the type to hand out frivolous praise). The whole of her pale backside was almost glowing red, stinging in a dull, twinging rhythm.
Similarly, little pulses were raging all through his red-heated palm and his digits, only noticing them at that moment in which he'd started to come down from the adrenaline of the night. As that stinging grew worse with comprehension, it became apparent what sort of burning she must have been enduring.
He fumbled with his words while trying to gather them. "I… I'm sorry… Kyouko… I just kept going… when I should have stopped." From the tone of his voice, it sounded as if he actually felt he'd violated the trust they had.
With her face still hidden by the tangle of sheets and glossy hair, a new, subtle smile crept up on her face as a new, subtle opportunity presented itself. She didn't have the heart to tell him how much of her teasing was intended to make him to go that far, since he never would on his own. That was in part since she didn't quite know herself; by some point she got lost in the feeling of risk and kept pushing buttons without thinking (every single one of those notions an incredible rarity for her). She thought that he still deserved to feel like he'd caught her off-guard for once.
She turned from the bed to look toward him. "It's fine, Naegi-kun… you do have your male urges, after all."
Pushing her hair aside from her face, she lifted herself up on her hands and knees, almost straddling him as she did. Going upright on her knees, she made her way off the bed and soon stood up at its side, giving him a look that told him to turn away for modesty's sake, which he quickly complied with, even after all he'd seen.
She then readjusted her awkwardly high panties -being so high thanks to his earlier stunt- which were now riding up even further. With his head still turned, she very mechanically got dressed back into her normal clothing, which she'd left at the bed's head. Finally, she retrieved one of the pillows that was at the head as well and sat down on it beside him, where his legs still hung over the edge.
Pillow or no pillow, she still moaned loudly after feeling her own weight pressing down so harshly upon her seat, no doubt thanks to all those hits he left on her sit spot. Naegi, who had been lying back quickly sat up in worry, hearing her make a noise she wasn't prone to making, which should have tipped him off on how intentional it might have been. The fiery sting was throbbing in small surges, and her skirt and panties offered little protection from that soreness. Whether she had or hadn't the pain-tolerance to mask it was another question that only she knew the answer to.
She exhaled softly before speaking. "I hope you know how hard it's going to be to work like this… Naegi-kun" she said as she turned to him. An uneasy look came upon his face when she said that.
"You'll take responsibility for that, won't you?" she asks as if bargaining.
"Well…" he tried to start, but no decent response came to him. What could he possibly do?
She saw his confusion, and with that same wry grin she'd worn at the beginning of the night, she sat more upright than before, pushed her hair aside and made a soft patting motion across her left knee. "I think I've got a good idea."
His pulse began to quicken just as hard as it did with the words that started all this. "You mean…Me!? Doing that!?" he squeaked, losing whatever charisma (real or imagined) he might have had before.
"Well? It is only fair, right?" she said firmly, making another patting motion to emphasize her point. She briefly thought to herself that his reaction came out better than expected, something that never showed on her face.
Her expression and the tone of her voice looked and sounded like she was serious. Naegi gulped once more that night, for a moment questioning if those leathery gloves would allow her to go longer than normal. His eyes darted around the room for some sort of escape, knowing she'd be more than willing to stay in his room all night if she had a point to prove, before they landed on the clock.
"Well… you see… I've got this important briefing tomorrow, and it's pretty late… so…" He knew how pathetic he sounded right now.
She smirked as she finished his sentence. "So you would rather have your fun and be on your way then?" she asked him sternly, as if she were a teacher scolding a disobedient student. This smirk was the same one she wore when she'd provided sufficient evidence to catch the culprit.
Naegi blushed weakly, knowing he was indeed caught. He paused for a moment to stare downward, before resigning himself to a humiliating fate.
"Okay… then…" he said as he nervously stood up off the bed, beginning to lean down towards her awaiting lap. So this was really happening?
Before he could get much further across her knee, he saw her almost cover her mouth before a feint giggle turned into full-on laughter. One more natural than he'd heard from her in a long while.
Already on his knees at this point, a weak "huh…?" was all he could manage to get out as her laugh quieted down.
"Relax. I was just checking to see if you would actually do it."
"…Wait, so…"
"Don't worry: I won't have you do anything too demeaning. You are a guy, after all. I can pay you back in other ways."
She sat up from the pillow on the bed and slowly made her way to the door, her rear at his eyelevel as he kept to his knees. There was a very slight but seductive wiggle in her hips as she walked, which wasn't lost on him. Among the stream of thought that the view gave him, for a moment he wondered how she hadn't any difficulty walking.
Before her hands closed upon the doorknob, she said "we should do this again sometime" with her expression hidden from view. That mystery just amplified the impact of her words, even with the impact they so-often carried.
"…Yeah…" he said back laconically as he stood up, only vaguely aware of what response he gave.
Before closing the door, she peered into his room one last time, smiling genuinely.
"Sleep well, Mr. Open Book…"
The soft click of the door closing accentuated how quiet the room was with her exit. His mind still in a daze, he lay back in his bed with the weight of the scenario that had just played out before him slowly registering, along with the weight of those words she'd left with him.
He was really, really lucky.
You might notice I like to switch between some official translations and some fan translations. It's mostly a matter of going with whatever wording I happen to like at the time.