The Total Bastard Behavior
Yandere Naoya x AFAB! Reader
Word count: 7.7k
Summary: If you'd known that bleached-blonde prick was going to be the last thing you ever saw in the light of day, you probably would’ve spit in his drink while you still had the chance.
Warnings: Dub-con/Coerced consent, kidnapping, abusive relationship, misogyny, manipulation, degradation, Stockholm syndrome, imprisonment, severe mental health distress, forced pregnancy, child endangerment, DEAD DOVE: DO NOT EAT.
Author's Notes: Naoya basically is just a piece of shit to you the entire fic. I wrote this while I was very sleep-deprived.
If you'd known that bleached-blonde prick was going to be the last thing you ever saw in the light of day, you probably would’ve spit in his drink while you still had the chance.
Back then, your biggest worry was whether the late-night delivery truck would be on time.
You remembered the first time he walked into that cramped convenience store in the outskirts of town. It was 2:47 AM, three minutes past the point where you had mentally checked out of being a functional human being.
The convenience store — Konbini Plus in faded red kanji — sat at the intersection of two roads that, generously speaking, formed a crossroads. Your first impression of him was that he wore a traditional kimono that looked very expensive, which seemed out of place for a place with one security camera with a busted hinge.
Then, two weeks crawled by while he was on his "mission" (whatever that meant). Same fluorescent hell, same humming refrigerators, same bad pop music on rotation. He would show up at 2:00 AM, smelling of expensive cologne and something metallic you couldn't identify. He would lean on the counter and talk about things that made no sense of "Grade 1" rankings and the "pitiful weaklings" he had to deal with.
He’s genuinely insane, you’d tell yourself while restocking the cigarettes. He’s a high-functioning lunatic with a God complex. You treated his ramblings like white noise, answering his grandiose claims with "Cool" or "Is that all?"
Then, the mission ended. On his last night, he stood by the automatic doors, watching the rain blur the world outside.
"My father is calling me back," he said. "I have no business left in this dump."
"Safe travel," you muttered, feeling a genuine pang of relief. You grabbed a cloth to wipe down the counter, eager to return to your peaceful, lonely life.
He turned then. The playful arrogance was gone, replaced by something cold and predatory. He didn't move, yet somehow, the distance between you felt like it was disappearing. The lights overhead flickered, then died, leaving only the sickly blue glow of the exterior neon sign to wash over his face.
"Actually," he whispered, the automatic doors sliding open behind him with a robotic hiss. "I think I’ll take a souvenir with me."
That was the last time you saw the blue neon glow of the store. You didn't even hear him move—just a blur of gold and black, a sharp pinch at your neck, and around you falling into darkness.
_
When you finally woke from that forced sleep, the first thing you noticed was the smell. The room smelled of cedar and expensive incense, and God, you hated it. It was a sprawling, traditional suite within a secluded wing of the Zenin estate. Sliding shoji doors opened to a private rock garden where the raked sand was so perfect it looked frozen.
You scrambled to your feet, tripping over the hem of a silk robe you didn't remember putting on. You lunged for the exit, sliding the shoji door open so hard it nearly jumped the track. Every movement felt clumsy as the hem of the robe constantly caught under your heels. The garden outside was beautiful. You didn't see a guard.
But the moment your foot crossed the threshold, a wall of invisible, freezing pressure made your nose bleed. You couldn't see the Curtain Naoya had placed over the room; you only knew that the air itself seemed to hate you the moment you tried to leave.
The days that followed were a blur of silent, gray misery.
You saw servants occasionally, older women who brought you trays of exquisite food and silk kimonos. They didn't look at you or speak to you. When you begged them for help, they moved past you as if you were a piece of furniture he had recently purchased.
As the door slid shut, you grabbed the bowl of rice and hurled it at the wood. It shattered. The sound was small. Pathetic. Just like you.
By the third day, the bitter monologue in your head was a constant, screaming loop. You heard the guards outside the garden—their voices carrying over the wall.
"The young master’s new pet is a noisy one," one laughed.
"A non-sorcerer too," the other replied, his voice dripping with disdain. "But as long as he’s entertained, she’s his problem. Better than him taking his temper out on the servants."
The "mission" he’d been on finally had a name: exorcism. You learned the vocabulary of your prison through the hushed whispers of the guards. He’d spent those weeks at the convenience store hunting Curses, monstrous manifestations of human misery that you were biologically incapable of seeing.
As the sun began to dip below the eaves of the estate, casting long, predatory shadows across the tatami mats, the rage that had sustained you during the morning—the screaming, the door-kicking, the frantic clawing at the invisible barrier—began to curdle. Because you knew the sun going down meant he was coming back.
When the shoji door finally slid open, you didn't yell this time. You didn't throw anything. You just backed into the corner, your heart hammering a frantic, pathetic rhythm against your ribs.
"Still sulking?" he mused, clearly just spent the day training; his hair was swept back. He sat in the center of the room, pouring a cup of tea with agonizingly slow precision. "You should be pleased. I had the servants bring the finest Uji matcha. It’s a bit more refined than the sludge you served at that... what was it? Konbini Plus?"
"Please," you whispered. The word felt like ash in your mouth. You hated yourself for saying it, but the isolation was starting to break you. "Please, Naoya. I won't tell anyone. I’ll just... I’ll go back to the store. My family is probably calling the police by now. They’ll come looking for me."
"No one is looking for you," he’d reply. "I’ve made sure of that."
He reached out to tilt your chin up, his eyes searching yours for that spark of defiance he so enjoyed. "Come on, don't look so miserable. Most women would kill to live in a place this fine. You should be down on your knees thanking me for pulling you out of that gutter."
Later, you soon learned that the world you knew was already gone, too. While you were unconscious, Naoya had used the Zenin clan’s influence to erase your entire existence.
Your phone was "found" at a train station three towns away, shattered and wiped. A series of perfectly forged emails and letters had already reached your family, explaining that you’d been scouted for a high-paying, secretive corporate job in Europe—a dream opportunity you couldn't pass up.
In the beginning, you fought every touch. You bit your lip until it bled to keep from speaking, but your eyes always betrayed your hatred. Lost sleep. Lost everything, really. Naoya hated that look. He would meet your defiance by slamming our head back against the cedar pillar as your vision fractured into a thousand white sparks. He moved so fast around the room that your vision blurred, a dizzying whirlwind of gold and black that left you nauseous.
"Try to be a little more grateful by tomorrow, won't you? It’s much more becoming," he held you there, your feet dangling inches off the floor, watching with a detached curiosity as your face turned a bruised purple.
The violence was never passionate. If you fumbled a tea cup or failed the three steps behind rule, the punishment was instantaneous. It wasn't always a punch. Sometimes he’d tilt your head back, forcing you to look at him while your eyes leaked tears of pure, involuntary pain. And if you tried to pull away, to reclaim even an inch of your own body, he would slam you against the wall, his Projection Sorcery making the impact feel like you’d been hit by a moving car. You’d be gasping for air on the floor, your vision swimming, while he simply looked down at you with disgust.
After a particularly violent outburst, perhaps leaving you with a split lip or a bruised wrist, his mood would flip. He would return hours later, acting as if nothing had happened. He’d bring a jar of expensive medicinal salve and apply it himself.
When he reached out, you flinched, expecting another blow, but his fingers were unbelievably gentle:
"Look at you, all marked up," he’d murmur, his eyes soft as he rubbed the cream into the skin he had bruised. "If you’d just listen, I wouldn't have to discipline you. You bring this on yourself, you know. You’re so stubborn, so intent on being difficult. Why do you make it so hard for me to be kind to you?"
He spoke as if your kidnapping were a mutual burden he was trying to help you carry. He acted as if he hadn't stolen your life.
"Look at how small your hands are," he chuckled, a bright, boyish sound. "I could snap these fingers with a thought. And yet, you use them to try and claw at me."
He took your hand, interlacing his fingers with yours, examining the contrast between your skin and his. He’d press a kiss to your knuckles, his lips cool and dry, while his other hand traced the faint, yellowing mark on your forearm where he’d grabbed you too hard the night before.
"Is it still sore?" he asked, his voice dripping with mock sympathy. "Answer me."
"Yes," you nodded.
"Good. Then you'll remember why it's there." Suddenly, his fingers tightened, and he pulled you toward him in a bruising embrace. For a second, he just held you there, his heart beating a steady rhythm against your own frantic chest.
"Do you have any idea how many nights I wasted at that dusty counter?" he said, his voice hardening as he felt you try to push him away. He didn't budge. Instead, he tightened his grip, his fingers digging into your waist until it hurt. "Watching you tuck your hair back, staring at cigarette cartons with more focus than you ever gave me. It was insulting—how someone so beneath me could be so dismissive."
"Why… would you," you gasped against his shoulder.
He laughed, a short, sharp sound. "I’m a Zen'in. We get what we want. But don't worry—I’m going to fix you. I'll teach you how to move and talk so you don't embarrass me. I'll teach you to look at me with something other than that cheap resentment. Now, tell me you understand."
You knew if you didn't answer, the hands currently stroking you would find your throat again.
"I understand," you whispered.
"Good girl," he smiled, and for a second, he looked genuinely happy. He leaned in, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to the corner of your swollen mouth. "See? We're going to be so happy here, once you finally learn your place."
_
The horror of the Zen’in estate was the dizzying, nauseating whiplash of his attention. The constant cycle of physical pain followed by him showered you with care and gifts began to rot your sense of self. Sometimes he’d spend hours like that, draped over you. He talked—endlessly, aimlessly—about clan politics, about his father’s drinking, about the "pitiful weaklings" he’d exorcised that day. He treated your ears like a wastebasket for his thoughts, never caring that you didn't ask. He’d tell you how much he’d missed your boring face while he was out, his thumb tracing your jawline with a tenderness — possessive little
You realized that if you just looked at the floor, he didn't hit you. If you stayed quiet, he didn't mock you. If you were good, the world stayed quiet.
I hate him, you told yourself. I hate him, I hate him, I... You looked down at the crown of his head. You loathed him with a bone-deep intensity, but more than that, you were simply tired. You were exhausted by the vigilance of your own heart, sick of the adrenaline that had nowhere to go. You just wanted the shaking in your hands to stop.
Slowly, you reached out and began to thread your fingers through his bleached hair.
It was softer than you expected, cool against your skin. You felt him go still. For a second, you feared he would strike you for the presumption of touching him first. Instead, he remained motionless, his own hand coming up to cup your cheek, waiting.
You needed to believe the lie that he could be kind, because the truth—that you were a prisoner of a sociopath—was too much to bear.
You leaned forward, closing the distance yourself, pressing your lips to his in a soft, voluntary kiss. I could bite until I taste iron, a dark, frantic voice whispered in the back of your mind. I could try to hurt him one last time.
Naoya didn't move at first, shocked by the sudden surrender, before he pulled you into him with a possessive, crushing force.
"Finally. You’ve come to your senses," he breathed against your lips, a triumphant smirk pulling at his mouth.
You just closed your eyes, burying your hatred deep, deep down in the dirt where he couldn't see it, and told yourself that this was the only way to live.
When he pulled back, his eyes were burning with a dark, terrifyingly bright hunger.
He moved with that same impossible speed, and suddenly the weight of him was pressing you back against the tatami mats. You didn't fight. You let your limbs go heavy and pliant, letting him pinned your wrists above your head. He stared down at you, his bleached hair falling forward to wall you both off from the rest of the world.
You looked at him—watched the way the dim light caught the sharp angle of his jaw, the way he looked at you as if you were the only holy thing in a world of weaklings. It was a gaze that could easily be mistaken for devotion if you ignored the cage bars that made it possible.
"You're learning," he leaned down, his lips grazing the pulse point in your neck. "Stay like this. Be this good for me, and I’ll give you the world."
You didn't answer. You simply focused on the sound of the rain hitting the roof, steady and relentless. The sliding doors remained shut, the "No Loitering" signs of your old life a million miles away.
Naoya was unbelievably gentle tonight, like he was trying to coax a wounded animal into trusting him. His touch was careful, almost reverent, as his fingers traced your jawline before trailing down as he started to undress you. He released one wrist to push silk off your shoulder, exposing your collarbone, clavicle, the fading yellow-green of bruises he left.
"Been thinking about this since the convenience store. Since you looked at me with those tired, honest eyes and called me — what was it?"
Goosebumps racing across your newly exposed skin. Pulse hammering visibly in your throat where his lips had just been.
"The bleached-blonde prick, maybe. Yeah. That was it."
His weight settled over you fully, suffocating in its intimacy. He whispered something against your ear that sounded almost like a promise, almost like love if you squinted hard enough and forgot what his hands had done.
This could feel good, you lied to yourself. You looked at the sharp line of his jaw and tried to see it as beauty. You focused on the warmth of his skin, trying to convince your nerves that it was comfort. Look at him. He’s beautiful, isn't he? Isn’t this what you want? To be chosen by someone powerful? To not be at the bottom of the gutter anymore?
What followed was inevitable in the worst possible way. Your clothes were carelessly discarded, silk pooling on tatami like shed skin. His hands mapped your body thoroughly — ribs, hips, thighs — memorizing every flinch that became a shiver.
He bit down on your shoulder, and your back arched off the mat. His mouth traced downward with agonizing slowness, pausing at each rib (probably counting how many meals you'd skipped), and settled between your legs. He looked up at you through his long lashes — moonlight catching those burning eyes, making them glow like coals.
"Eat more. These ribs are embarrassing."
Don’t take it personally, you told yourself, the words a mantra repeated so often they had lost all meaning.
So you reached up, your hands trembling as they found the back of Naoya's neck, pulling him down until your lips were crushed together again. You kissed him with a sudden, starving intensity—a frantic attempt to drown out the voice in your head that still wants to scream. You gasped against his mouth, your body pliant and open beneath him. "I'm yours. Just... don't stop, Naoya."
"Wasn't planning on it," he liked the sound of his name on your tongue. It made him preen as he groaned into your mouth.
He pinned your wrists above your head with one hand while the other hooked beneath your knee, pushing it higher. The contact sent a jolt of revulsion through your gut, but you ruthlessly suppressed it. You wanted to enjoy it. You needed to.
"Ohh, your pretty face is gonna be a mess when I'm done with you."
Didn't care about your comfort, he entered you without a preamble, one fluid thrust that punched the air from your lungs and made your spine bow like a drawn string, pain and fullness collided.
"Aww, don't hold back. I want to hear all your cute little noises.”
He started slow at first, it hurt, grinding rolls of his hips that dragged sensation like sandpaper across your raw nerve endings. Then faster. It hurts. Each thrust drove you further into the tatami, your nails raked down his back, drawing thin red lines that beaded like dew on grass. He hissed through his teeth. His hand tightened around both your wrists until circulation thinned.
Your head thrashed back against the mat, "Naoya... Naoya, please!" You chokes out his name, the sound half-sob and half-plea, your eyes wide and unfocused as you stare up at him, finally giving him the total, shattered recognition he has been hunting for.
You tried to buck your hips in tandem with his thrusts, and he can't help but cooed at the adorably pathetic sight. "Say my name."
"Naoya…" you whimpered.
Words dissolved into motion as he was faster and rougher. One hand gripped your hip hard enough to leave fresh bruises alongside the fading ones, while the other braced against the floor beside your head.
He buried his face in your neck and bit down, sucked hard enough to guarantee a mark that wouldn't fade for weeks. His fingers traced paths up and down your stomach, pushing roughly at where his cock sat; tight and welcomed warmly.
"Make it messy for me, pretty girl."
Your orgasm hit like lightning as your back arched clean off the ground, thighs clamping around him, nails raking four red lines down his shoulders that beaded crimson. Pain and pleasure fused into one indistinguishable sensation that short-circuited every remaining fragment of resistance.
He pressed himself against you and you felt a rush of heat and a thick, sticky wetness flood your womb. You have to endure every twitch of his cock as he finished inside you. And you bite your inside cheeks hard to keep any retching noises of disgust from making it past your lips. He rocked his hips against you in short, deep thrusts that you knew was for the purpose fucking his cum deeper into you.
Finally, he pulled out of you, watching your hole struggle to close and a gush of cum spurted out. He tugged your hair a bit to the side before letting go, trailing a hand along your face.
Outside, a guard changed shifts, footsteps passing the door without slowing, without questioning the sounds bleeding through the walls.
Nobody interrupted the young master.
Nobody ever would.
The weight of him eventually lifted, leaving you feeling cold and strangely weightless on the tatami. He didn't say a word as he lit a single candle. The flickering orange light caught the gold embroidery of the robe he’d forced you into. He returned to your side with a warm, damp cloth, kneeling beside you with a poise that made your stomach turn.
He began to wipe the sweat and the stickiness from your skin. He was thorough, his touch tracing the curves of your collarbone, the angry red marks on your wrists, and dabbing at the corner of your lip where the old split had threatened to reopen.
"You see? This is much better," he whispered. "We could have had this months ago if you weren't so intent on being difficult. Why did you insist on making me hurt you?"
He went to a lacquer cabinet and brought back a fresh, heavy kimono, this one a deep, bruised purple. He dressed you, lifting your limp arms and cinching the obi just tight enough to remind you that you were still held.
Once you were covered, he sat behind you, pulling your back against his chest and wrapping his arms around you. He rested his chin on your shoulder, his hair brushing against your neck.
"I’ll have the servants bring up something light to eat," he said, his voice back to that casual, conversational lilt. "And then we’ll sleep. You look tired. It’s hard work, finally accepting the truth, isn’t it?"
You leaned back into him, your body betraying your mind by seeking the warmth of the only living thing in your world. You stared at the candle flame, watching it dance and drown in its own wax.
You felt him press a dry, chaste kiss to your temple, and you closed your eyes.
_
It started with a morning sickness that you couldn't hide. You were bent double over the wooden basin, the sound of your own retching echoing off the sterile cedar walls.
No, you thought, staring at your reflection in the bile-filthy water—hollow-eyed, skin the color of wet parchment. Please, no. Not his. Not here.
You looked down at your hands, still faint with the faded yellow of old bruises he had given you months ago. Your body had survived his strikes, his isolation, and his suffocating speed. But it had betrayed you in the most permanent way possible. You were carrying a piece of him.
Naoya brought you a traditional clan physician. She simply pressed her cold fingers against your wrist, feeling your pulse, before turning to Naoya, who stood by the sliding shoji screen.
"The pulse is steady, Young Master," the old woman said, bowing her head so low it touched the tatami.
The moment the physician left, the air in the room grew suffocating. Naoya didn't look happy, happy was too human a word for the expression on his face. He looked devout. His ego, already monstrous, seemed to expand until it filled every corner of your beautiful prison. He walked over to where you sat frozen on the floor, dropping to one knee in front of you.
"A child," he whispered. The sound was jagged, a sharp, triumphant edge that cut through your soul.
He reached out. His hand—the same hand that had crushed your jaw and pinned your wrists—settled flat against your stomach. It was heavy. It was warm.
"Chin up. Let me see you," he commanded. When you didn't, he tilted your chin up until your eyes met his. "You wanted a reason to stay, didn't you? Well, here it is. A little miracle to keep your feet on the ground."
You looked at his hand on your body, and the memory of the voluntary kiss you had given him months ago suddenly felt like ash in your mouth. The Stockholm Syndrome, the desperate excuses you had made to keep the environment calm, the mindless way you had threaded your fingers through his hair—all of it washed away, leaving only the raw, terrifying reality.
"Get off me!"
Before you could think, you shoved his hand away.
Naoya simply went still. Slowly, he looked down at the spot on his hand where you had touched him, then his gaze traveled up to your face.
His pupils were sharp, needle-point black holes that seemed to suck the light out of the room. Barely perceptible unless you were standing close enough to count his eyelashes, which you unfortunately was.
"What was that?" he asked. The words weren't loud, but they vibrated in your teeth, a low-frequency threat that promised a violence far worse than a simple strike.
"I... I'm sorry," you stammered, your voice reduced to a pathetic, airy whimper. "I didn't—I wasn't thinking. Please. Naoya."
"That's right," he whispered, his eyes finally softening back into that terrifying, proprietary gleam. "You don't think. You just exist for me. Don't let your little commoner tantrums forget that again. It would be such a shame to have to remind you while you’re so... fragile."
The silence stretched, you ducked your head, your chin hitting your chest, your eyes fixed on the floorboards as you began to tremble so violently your teeth literally chattered. Until then, he leaned back and pulled a small, cream-colored envelope from the folds of his kimono. Your heart stopped. You recognized the stationery instantly—the cheap, floral-patterned paper your mother bought in bulk from the stationery shop next to the konbini.
"Oh, and before I forget, I received a lovely update today," Naoya murmured, deliberately unfolding the paper slowly, which felt like a mockery. "Your mother’s handwriting is quite elegant. It’s a shame you didn't inherit that grace."
He began to read, his voice smooth and conversational, as if he were sharing news over tea.
"She sounds so relieved in her letters. She wrote that she’s so proud of you—that you should focus on your 'new career' and not worry about calling home too often. She even mentioned how quiet the house feels, but that she’s happy knowing you’re finally out of that dead-end store."
You reached for the letter, a choked sound dying in your throat, but he moved it just out of reach with a flick of his wrist.
"That’s the story she tells her neighbors now," he continued, his eyes meeting yours with a cold, piercing light. "Why would you want to go back now and make her a liar? To show up on her doorstep looking like this. You’d break her heart."
He tucked the letter back into his robes, patting the fabric flat. "No. It’s better this way. Let her keep her happy ending, and you stay here and keep mine."
He then patted your cheek twice, a dismissive, belittling gesture. As he stood up and walked away, humming that same arrogant tune, you sat alone in the dim light of the room.
Every "I’m so proud" in the letter felt like another shovelful of dirt being thrown onto your grave. You missed your mother; she had always worked hard since your father passed away. She is probably sitting at the small kitchen table with the chipped corner right now, and checking the clock at 3:00 AM, wondering if you’re eating enough on your shift.
Does she look at my old room? you wondered. Did she throw away my old sneakers? Did she give my books to the neighbor’s kid because she thinks I don’t need them in my big, fancy corporate office?
You never realized how small your world had been, and how easily a man like Naoya could swallow it whole. You missed the sludge coffee. You missed the rude customers who didn't look you in the eye. You missed being nobody, because being somebody to Naoya Zen’in was a fate worse than death.
And for the first time in years, the urge to fight—the urge to run—flared back to life in your chest, stronger and more desperate than ever before.
_
The birth of the child happened deep within the labyrinth of the Zenin estate, in a dim, traditional chamber. For someone who couldn't see curses, the atmosphere in the room felt heavy and suffocating, as if the air itself was pressing down on your chest.
Naoya had refused to let you leave the estate. To him, a Zenin—even one born from a mundane woman—could not be brought into the world among commoners.
The labor lasted for hours, a blur of white-hot agony that you had to endure under the cold, unblinking eyes of the clan’s traditional midwives. They didn't offer words of encouragement. They didn't hold your hand. They treated you like an incubator. Every scream that left your throat felt like it was swallowed by the heavy sliding doors, leaving no echo.
Naoya didn't enter the room while you were in pain. When the final, agonizing push was over, the silence of the room was broken by a thin, sharp wail.
The main midwife immediately gathered the infant in a thick, embroidered silk cloth—the Zenin crest proudly displayed on the fabric. They didn't let you hold your child. Instead, the midwife turned her back to you, inspecting the child’s limbs and breathing with a clinical detachment.
"A boy, Young Master," the midwife called out, her voice bowing in reverence as the sliding door snapped open.
Naoya stepped into the room, completely ignoring the state you were in—pale, drenched in sweat, and trembling from exhaustion. His eyes were fixed solely on the bundle in the midwife's arms.
He took the child, and you watched from the futon, as Naoya looked down at his son. A look of supreme, unchecked arrogance washed over his face. He traced the baby’s small face with a single finger.
"He has my hair," Naoya noted, sounding genuinely impressed with himself.
He finally glanced down at you, sitting on the edge of the blood-stained futon. "You’ve done well. For a plain, useless thing, you should be proud."
Naoya leaned down and carelessly placed the wailing infant into the crook of your trembling arm, forcing your cold limbs to hold him.
You looked down at the baby squirming against your chest. Your heart didn't swell with maternal love. Instead, a wave of absolute horror washed over you. Looking at his tiny features, you saw a miniature version of the monster who had stolen your life. You saw the blonde hair, the shape of the eyes, felt like a lead weight pressing into your ribs—the ultimate, unbreakable shackle.
Every day your body regained a fraction of its strength was a day closer to the elders’ inspection, and a day closer to your permanent erasure into the background of the Zenin clan. This was your first time getting out of that place, and your only opportunity to get out of here. Having zero cursed energy, you were a commoner with no name and no standing. You were nothing more than a mistress, a quiet, beautiful secret. Even if you gave birth to a boy, the child will be raised as a servant or a low-level guard for the clan. And once the real wife—someone with a high-born pedigree—arrives, he’ll likely get bored of you and move you to the outbuildings.
…Or worse.
To plan an escape from a man who could move faster than human sight, you had to become completely invisible. You used the one thing Naoya’s arrogance blinded him to: your absolute compliance.
When he entered the nursery, you didn’t look up. You maintained the hollow, broken demeanor of a doll that had finally accepted its fate. When he commanded you to nurse the child, you did so without a word, staring blankly at the wall. Underneath that mask, however, your mind was working with a cold, desperate sharpness you hadn't possessed since the night you were taken from the convenience store.
Because you couldn't see curses or the invisible curtains that locked down the estate, you had to rely entirely on human patterns. You realized that while the sorcerers ignored you, the mundane world still had to interact with the estate to keep it running.
From the small shoji window of the nursery, you watched the courtyard.
Every Tuesday and Friday at 4:00 AM, a local commercial linen truck arrived at the back service gate to drop off fresh tatami covers and heavy linens.
The guards—low-ranking clan members with little to no cursed energy who monitored the physical perimeters—swapped shifts at 3:45 AM. For exactly seven minutes during the handover, the back corridor leading to the linen depository was left completely unmonitored.
Every Thursday night, Naoya attended a mandatory meeting with the clan elders and his father, Naobito, in the main pavilion. These meetings lasted for hours, fueled by heavy drinking and political posturing. This was your window.
An escape for a normal person required normal things—things the Zenin clan didn't think to hide because they couldn't conceive of you having the nerve to use them.
Over two weeks, you quietly hoarded small necessities. While a maid was distracted changing the heavy winter futons, you slipped a small, brass master key to the utility outer gates into the hem of your sleeve. You hid a pair of simple, dark cotton working clothes—left behind by a servant—beneath the floorboards under your bedding. You could not run in the heavy, restrictive silk kimonos Naoya forced you to wear. You also stole a small pouch of yen from the jacket Naoya had carelessly tossed on the floor during one of his visits. It wasn't much, but it was enough for a train ticket out of Kyoto.
The hardest part of the planning happened in the dead of night, when the estate was dead silent, save for the breathing of the infant beside you.
The baby cried, a small, fragile sound, and your instincts would scream at you to comfort him. But every time you looked at his face in the moonlight, you saw Naoya, the budding arrogance in the tilt of his head. You knew that if you took him, the clan could hunt you down.
If I take you, we both die, you whispered to the dark room, your voice completely devoid of tears. You had forced your heart to go numb. If I leave you, I might live. And you... you will become just like him.
You didn't love him. You couldn't. He was the anchor dragging you to the bottom of the ocean.
The calendar on the wall marked Thursday. Naoya’s meeting was tonight. Your body was as ready as it would ever be.
The paper screens of the nursery slid open without a sound.
The air tonight was biting, a stark contrast to the stifling heat of the room you had been trapped in for months. In the crib, the child was silent, bundled in the heavy Zenin silks. You didn't look back at him, risking the phantom weight of a maternal instinct thawing the ice you had carefully poured over your heart. Stepping over the threshold, you adjusted the coarse, dark servant’s clothing you had hidden beneath the floorboards.
To your ordinary eyes, the estate was just a labyrinth of dark wood and shadows. You couldn't see the heavy, invisible barriers of cursed energy that protected the inner sanctum.
Your chest tightened as you reached the intersection of the western corridor. 2:47 AM.
Ahead, the heavy, muffled voices of the perimeter guards echoed through the courtyard. They were low-ranking men, devoid of significant cursed energy, hired to watch the physical walls while the sorcerers handled the supernatural.
"Young master is still drinking with the elders," one of them grumbled. "We'll be lucky if we get relieved before sunrise."
"Just hurry up. I want to get to the barracks," the other replied.
You pressed your back against the cedar pillar, holding your breath until your lungs burned. The heavy thud of their boots faded down the gravel path as they moved toward the guardhouse for the shift handover. You had exactly seven minutes.
Sprinting with a quiet, desperate franticness, you slipped across the open courtyard, your dark clothes blending into the night. You reached the wooden utility gate, your trembling fingers sliding the stolen brass key into the old padlock. It turned with a heavy, terrifying click that felt loud enough to wake the dead. You pushed the gate open just wide enough to squeeze through, leaving the walls of your prison behind.
You ran. You didn't have a plan beyond the train station, but the raw adrenaline of being outside the estate walls pushed your exhausted body past its limits. Branches whipped against your face, tearing at your skin, but you didn't feel the pain. For the first time in a year, the air in your lungs didn't taste like incense and captivity.
You ran blindly, following the upward slope of the mountain path, desperate to put distance between yourself and the den of monsters. The roar of the wind grew louder, drowning out the frantic pounding of your own heart. The trees began to thin, the dense foliage giving way to rocky, uneven ground.
You expected to hit the main road. You expected to see the distant, comforting lights of a normal town, the blue neon glow of a convenience store, or the tracks of a train that could carry you away forever.
Instead, the tree line abruptly ended, and you stopped dead.
You had run blindly up the spine of a coastal mountain, straight into a dead end. Hundreds of feet below, the black maw of the Pacific churned in a violent, foaming rage, slamming against jagged teeth of stone. The spray rose up in freezing needles, coating your skin in salt and despair. There was no road. There was no escape.
Before you could even turn around to find another path, the air behind you suddenly pressure-dropped. The wind seemed to freeze mid-howl, and a familiar, terrifyingly smooth voice cut through the darkness from beneath the boughs of a gnarled tree.
"Running away so soon? And here I thought we were finally starting to understand each other."
The salt spray stung your eyes, blurring the silhouette of him.
"You really thought the servants were that careless? That the gate was just left open?" He let out a soft, jagged laugh that made your skin crawl. "I watched you plan this for a while, you’ve always had a flair for the dramatic when you’re cornered. I watched you track the guard rotations with those wide, desperate eyes. I let you run because I wanted to see if you actually had the conviction to do it."
He took a slow, deliberate step forward. The shale crunched under his expensive sandals.
"Don't come near me!" you shrieked, the sound torn from your throat and swallowed by the gale. You took a step backward, your heel sending a shower of loose shale skittering into the abyss. "Don't you dare come near me!"
He stopped, but he didn't look threatened. He looked like he was watching a pet chase its own tail.
"I hate you, you son of a bitch!" you spat, your voice trembling with a decade's worth of accumulated venom. "I fucking hate this place, I hate your name, and I hate… I hate that child. I hate that you had forced him into the world to bind me to a name I hated. I hate everything you’ve forced into me and I hate every second I spent breathing the same air as you." You looked down at the churning black water, the foam white like bared teeth. "I’ll jump. I swear to God, I’d rather be crushed against those rocks than spend another night in that house."
"Then jump," he said. "If the boring life you crave so much is at the bottom of a trench, be my guest."
You froze, the wind whipping your hair across your face.
"However, the moment you cast yourself down," he continued, his eyes darkening into two pits of ink, "I’ll go back to the nursery, snap your child’s neck like a dry twig, and have the servants bury you both in the same hole."
"But this is your child, too..." Your expression grew taut with alarm.
He shrugged, "That brat was brought into this world to keep you in my bed. If that purpose has now become meaningless, then him, too, no longer has any reason to exist."
He’s a monster, you thought, your mind fracturing. He isn't bluffing. He’d do it. He’d walk back there and snuff out that tiny, screaming life just to prove a point.
The child was a piece of the man you loathed, yes, but he’s innocent, he didn't ask to be born into this. He was the only thing that was truly yours, even if he was also your cage.
"Please," you sobbed, your knees finally giving out. You sank to the jagged earth, the shale cutting into your skin. "Please, just let him live. Take him. Raise him. I’ll go, I’ll disappear, I’ll never—"
Naoya knelt in front of you, he reached out and caught your chin in that familiar, vice-like grip, forcing you to look at the terrifying vacancy in his gaze.
"No." He cut you off, his thumb pressing into the bruise-prone skin of your jaw. "You don't get to negotiate your exit. If you die, he dies. If you stay, he lives."
The realization hit you, crushing the last bit of the green light. There was no world where you were free and your child was safe. He had woven your lives together so tightly that to tear yourself away was to tear the child apart too.
You looked at the cliff’s edge, then back at Naoya. You began to laugh—a high, jagged, broken sound that bordered on a scream. Your eyes went wide and glassy, the light in them finally snapping.
"So there was never a way out," you choked out between hysterical gasps.
Naoya sighed, a soft, weary sound that made it seem as though your heartbreak was an exhausting burden for him to carry:
"Oh, you dull thing, it took you long enough," he cooed, and for a terrifying second, it looked like genuine pity.
You stopped fighting. The tension left your body, leaving you limp and hollow. You stared past him at the dark trees, your mind finally retreating into a place where the pain couldn't reach you.
"Take me back," you whispered, your voice dead. "Take me back to the house."
But right at that moment, something inside you—the last flickering ember of the person you used to be—snapped.
It was a desperate, clumsy movement. Your fingers curled into claws, aiming for the smug, beautiful face that had been your horizon for a year. You wanted to tear the skin from his bones, to feel the blood of a "god" on your mortal hands. For a heartbeat, you actually felt the shock of your shoulder hitting his chest, the jagged scrape of your nails across his cheek.
The victory lasted less than a second.
One moment you were mid-strike, and the next, your hands were clutching at empty air. The space where Naoya had been was vacant. Before your brain could process the movement, a heavy, cold hand slammed into the back of your neck.
The impact sent you sprawling into the dirt, the grit filling your mouth and scratching your eyes. You tried to push yourself up, but your limbs felt like lead, weighted down by a force you couldn't see.
Naoya stepped into your field of vision, looking down at you. He didn't even look angry; he looked bored. He wiped a single drop of blood from his cheek with his thumb and inspected it.
"How unsightly," he sighed, his voice echoing over the crashing waves. "You truly are a pathetic thing, aren't you?"
He placed a foot firmly on the small of your back, pinning you to the earth. The weight of his presence, both physical and unseen, crushed the last of your defiance into the dust. You stopped struggling. You stopped looking at the cliff.
"There we go," Naoya whispered, leaning down so his shadow swallowed you whole. "No more biting? Good girl."
You didn’t move when Naoya’s foot left your back. You couldn’t. The desperate heat of your defiance had been replaced by a flash-freeze of absolute numbness. As you lay there in the dust, the vibrant colors of the cliffside began to drain away, replaced by a suffocating, monochromatic grey. The roar of the ocean below became a muffled thrum, like you were buried deep beneath the sand.
Eventually, the silence grew boring for him. You felt hands hook under your arms as he hoisted you against his chest
"You're much prettier when you aren't making those hideous faces. If you stay this quiet, I might even forget how much of a brat you were today," he murmured, his breath warm against your cold ear.
Your head fell back, eyes staring blankly at the swirling grey clouds, tracking a bird you knew was free to fly where you never would.
"Now," Naoya said, adjusting your sleeve. "Let’s go home. You’ve had enough freedom for one lifetime."
A lock of his bleached hair falling over his eye—almost like the man you’d seen at 2:00 AM in the store.
You trailed behind him like a beaten dog, your eyes stayed locked on the heels of his sandals. You didn't look at the trees, the moon, or the path ahead. You stayed exactly three steps behind his swaying robes—far enough that he couldn't reach back and strike you.
One, two, three.
The walk ended at the heavy, traditional gates of the Zenin estate. To anyone else, they might have looked like a grand entrance, but from your position, they looked like the open mouth of a beast.
The fleeting sense of freedom on the cliff was the last time the sky would ever feel warm. As you were carried through the threshold, the gates shut behind you, and the weight of the estate swallowed the horizon.
