Chapter Text
- This is a translated work. The original work is @Holothurian’s [(双宫北) PETMAN]. Thank you @Holothurian for granting me permission to translate your work into English!
- Hi everyone! Thanks for clicking into this page. This work includes Miya Atsumu x Kita Shinsuke & Miya Osamu x Kita Shinsuke, if you don’t feel like you want to read this piece, please kindly close the window. Thank you so much for your understanding!
- Once again, I apologize for any grammatical errors since English is not my first language. And I also apologize for unable to translate their Kansai dialect.
- I know I haven’t finished translating Kobe Beef…I’ll try to keep it up. Sorry for the delay!
- Please don’t hesitate to comment! And please enjoy ;)
News Anchor (on TV)
[The prime suspect in the Wednesday murder case has committed suicide…]
“Hey! Turn down the volume!”
Miya Atsumu smashes his pen to the ground and yells at his brother. While Miya Osamu ignores him, and keeps chewing his chips.
“Did you hear me? I said TURN DOWN the volume!!”
Osamu slowly grabs the TV remote and turns down the volume a little.
“Hey, what’s the matter? Since when did you start watching news?”
Atsumu retrieves his pen and glances at the TV screen.
“It’s about random murder cases. There’s another one.” Osamu answers him.
“Another one?”
Atsumu looks at the TV, and sees the subtitles rolling down the screen.
There are indeed one more case happened this Wednesday. Including the former two cases, three murders have taken place this month.
One in Nagasaki — A thrill killing took place in the National Peace Memorial Hall.
One in Tokyo — A police officer shot his colleague.
One in Kobe — A college professor raped and killed his female student.
Atsumu begins to get interested. He sits down beside Osamu, and grabs the bag of chips from his brother’s palm.
The news anchor continues the report while discussing with the commentator about the three murder cases. According to the commentator, there’s a high possibility that the murderer might have lived a peaceful, even elite lifestyle without showing a sign of antisocial manners until the killing took place. Just like Ted Bundy***, the notorious serial killer who confessed to murder 36 women in the 1970s. Bundy entered the University of Washington and had the experience of working at Seattle’s Suicide Hotline Crisis Center. Moreover, his former colleague at the Crisis Center described him as a “kind, solicitous, and empathetic”*** person.
Following the commentator’s words, the anchor presents with the three murderers’ educational backgrounds: one graduated from the University of Tokyo, one from Stanford, and one from Kobe University.
“They all look pretty decent.” Atsumu chews up his chips, “and they all committed suicide?”
The commentator continues with his analysis, which he concludes that these types of criminals are mostly “control freaks,” thus they would choose to self-immolate when things are out of control.
“Yes. All of them.” Osamu nods his head.
“Damn.”
Following the commentaries are a series of interviews from the criminals’ neighbors and former colleagues, all of whom suggest the criminals’ “kind, intelligent, well-mannered and trustworthy” characteristics.
“Wait…‘kind, intelligent, well-mannered and trustworthy?’ Aren’t those attributions perfect to describe Kita-san?” Atsumu firmly grabs the chip bag.
“This has nothing to do with Kita-san.” Osamu tries to retrieve his chip bag.
“Whatever. I’m going to sleep.”
“You still have math homework.”
“I don’t care.” Atsumu throws the chip bag to him.
Apparently, he should care.
“Damn it, damn it, damn it!!!”
The next day at school, Atsumu’s math teacher, Mr. Nishikawa, went furious when he found out Atsumu’s empty exercise book, and threatened to give Atsumu a detention if he couldn’t finish the homework before their afternoon session.
Atsumu scribbles on his exercise book in the cafeteria, without even looking at the math formulas. He tries to fill each and every empty space with a whatever answer.
“Well…wouldn’t Mr. Nishikawa be even more angry if you do this?” His good friend Ginjima Hitoshi tries to comfort him.
“Just leave it, Gin.”
“This guy is hopeless.”
Suna Rintarou and Osamu pulls Ginjima back to their lunch table.
Alright you sons of bitches. Atsumu clearly hears their comments, and decides to pay them back after class. Just then, he hears the chit-chats from the girls’ table.
“Have you heard about ‘PETMAN?’”
“What ‘PETMAN?’”
“Oh you don’t know? It’s that urban legend!”
“PETMEN are just perfect…I would definitely marry one of them.”
“Are you sure? I don’t think they even exist.”
The girls continue their conversation and walk away, intriguing Atsumu’s interest. So he rushes to his friends.
“Hey, do you know what’s a ‘PETMAN?’” Atsumu asks Suna.
“Sure, let me tell ya. First, you unlock your phone. Second, you open Google and search ‘PETMAN,’ you’re welcome.” Suna sips his juice.
“What’s a ‘PETMAN?’ A superhero? Like Batman or Spiderman?” Ginjima looks curious.
“Nah…it’s quite different,” hearing Ginjima’s question, Suna straightens his back and starts to explain, “it’s one of those urban legends. A ‘PETMAN’ is said to be a new form of human beings from science experiments, just like the mutants. It is said that there’s a research center founded by a lunatic scientist, dedicating to create ‘perfect’ humans — the ‘PETMAN.’ The PETMEN are said to be good-looking, incredibly intelligent, and absolute obedient to their master. Each of them is encoded with a secret code under the skin of their nape. And whoever finds and reads the code will be the PETMAN’s master.”
“How perfect…I would like to marry one of them.” The PETMAN story seems appeal to Ginjima.
“How perfect slaves,” says Suna, “what if someone commands them to commit a crime?”
“But imagine! If there’s a girl like that, I would definitely promise her a happy life and asks her to marry me…What’s wrong Atsumu? Are you OK? You don’t look so good.”
“I’m OK.” Atsumu is sweating. But Osamu knows his brother has something in mind.
“I’m going to pee. Don’t wait for me.” He quickly blinks to Osamu and rushes out the cafeteria.
“Hey, don’t forget your homework!” Ginjima shouts behind him.
About half a minute after Atsumu arrives at the restroom, Osamu appears. The twins look at each other and sneak to the rooftop.
“What do you want?” Osamu asks his brother with a big “I don’t care” face. He knows Atsumu. He knows how his brother can have boundless energies, crafting a whole world out of his mind.
“Did you hear Suna’s words, Samu? Think about it…intelligent and good-looking…what if Kita-san is a PETMAN?!” Atsumu looks excited as he makes a Holmes posture by crossing his fingers under his chin.
After three seconds of silence, Osamu opens up: “You just said Kita-san looks like one of those murderers yesterday.”
“That was yesterday! And what if those elite murderers were commanded by their masters to kill?” Atsumu tries to connect Suna’s story to the news yesterday, “And that’s why we should figure it out!”
“Figure what out?” Osamu looks uninterested.
“To see whether Kita-san is a PETMAN! You can help me restrain his moves, and I’ll uncover the code. Let’s do this today after training!” Atsumu looks even more excited when talking about Kita-san.
“No.” Osamu stares at him.
“I’ll buy you a pudding.” Atsumu offers.
“Would you go to tear off our math teacher’s wig for one pudding?”
“Okay fine. Three!”
Osamu’s silence shows his attitude.
“Alright you win!! Ten! I’ll give you ten puddings!” Atsumu almost hears his wallet crying.
“Deal.” Osamu raises his palm, and his brother gives him a high-five.
Unfortunately, Miya Atsumu didn't attend the volleyball team’s training.
When Mr. Nishikawa found out Atsumu’s scribbles on the exercise book, he did become more angry and gave Atsumu a detention. After Atsumu finished all the homework under Mr. Nishikawa’s guidance, he realized he has already missed the training.
With a slight hope that there might be some of his teammates left for training, Atsumu rushes to the gym, and he hears the sound of a volleyball striking the ground. So he peeps inside the gym.
And he sees his brother, with Kita-san.
“Atsumu.” Kita nods at him.
Atsumu stares straight back to Kita-san's eyes and nods to him. Maybe he has been brainwashed by Suna’s urban legend -- or else how could his mind be only filled with Kita-san’s bright eyes?
How could he never notice Kita-san has such pretty eyes?
“Remember to finish your homework next time. Now go to warm up. We still have half an hour before the gym’s closed.” Kita-san looks at him.
“Yes, sir!”
Atsumu quickly gets changed and walks behind Kita. He blinks at his brother, tries to get his help to restrain Kita-san. But Osamu ignores him. And he sees his brother talking to Kita-san with a smiling face.
Damn you, Samu!
Although Atsumu only lip syncs his anger, Kita still catches him fooling around and walks toward him.
All of a sudden, Osamu grabs Kita’s arms and restrains his moves.
“Samu!!!” Atsumu cries out his excitement and rushes to Kita-san.
“What are you doing?” Although being restrained, Kita still looks calm and stares at the twins.
The Miya twins look at each other, and decide to continue their plan.
What if the whole “PETMAN” thing is just a joke? What if there’s nothing behind the skin of Kita-san’s nape? What if…
Atsumu begins to get nervous, because he finds nothing on Kita-san’s nape. He only feels his soft skin.
“Hey, can you do it or not?” Osamu urges him.
Atsumu looks even more nervous after he finds nothing and scratches Kita-san’s skin, causing their senpai to moan. Suddenly, he touches a small swelling behind Kita-san’s ear.
Atsumu gasps and tears off the swelling skin like a piece of paper. He then moves closer to look at Kita-san’s nape, and his brother also moves closer.
There is indeed a series of numbers on Kita-san’s nape.
“PETMAN13147111…what’s this? An ‘O’ or a ‘0?’”
“PETMAN1314711101.” Says Osamu.
“PETMAN1314711101.” Atsumu quickly repeats the code, finishing his reading at the same time.
Osamu unleashes Kita-san’s arms, and Kita-san turns back at them.
This is so strange. This is so strange that Atsumu almost feels like he has been fooled by Suna and Ginjima, as if they will jump out of somewhere with two “boo we gotcha” faces.
But there’s no Suna or Ginjima.
Neither is the “boo we gotcha.”
Atsumu only sees Kita-san’s almost robotic face, and remembers when the second-years often joke about how their captain looks and talks like a robot.
He remembers well enough.
“Passcode confirmed.” And he hears Kita-san’s robotic voice.
As Atsumu still places his hand on Kita-san’s nape, he almost feels a flow of electricity going under Kita-san’s skin.
“PETMAN1314711101, code name Kita Shinsuke, now confirm Miya Atsumu as my master, now confirm Miya Osamu as my master. Please give me your instructions.” Kita-san stares at their eyes.
It is real.
Atsumu and Osamu look at each other. For the next five minutes, no one has ever said a thing. There’s only Kita-san standing in front of them, looking like a real robot.
It is real.
The PETMAN is real.
***Bundy’s information is sourced from https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/ted-bundy-6703.php.
***Sourced from Ann Rule, The Stranger Beside Me, 2009.