Muya/暮鴉 Art archive, please read pinned post! 中文/Eng｜20↑ Do not use or repost my art. Tokyo Debunker(腐) Romeo simp, I draw Taiga x Romeo(bamiromi) Commission contact: DM/[email protected] Other links: https://starrymuya.carrd.co
I can't take it. I can't take it. I'm genuinely at my limit.
This is the third migraine I've had this week. It's too much. It's all too much. And yet if I don't do everything myself, somehow that's worse. Because then, when I get back to it, I'll be doing everything I'm meant to be doing and doing damage control on top of it.
The ledgers are wrong again. Not catastrophically wrong, of course, because apparently I am the only person on this entire floating monument to fiscal idiocy who understands that "close enough" is not an accounting principle. But wrong enough. Wrong enough that I noticed. Wrong enough that it made the numbers blur at the edges until they stopped looking like numbers.
I stared at the same column for eleven minutes today. That is not an exaggeration. I know because I checked the time before and after, because apparently even while my skull is attempting to split itself open, I still have the presence of mind to document my own decline with precision.
There was a pulse behind my right eye like someone had tucked a lit match into the socket. Every sound on the casino floor sharpened until it felt designed for torture. Chips clicking. Cards sliding. Laughter. That disgusting little celebratory shriek people make when they win money they do not deserve. Someone dropped a glass near table six, and I nearly signed away an entire staff member's continued employment on reflex alone.
I did not. That should count for something. It will not, naturally, because restraint is invisible unless one is surrounded by people competent enough to recognize the alternative.
And that BTH...
He was impossible today. More impossible than usual, which is a considerable achievement considering his baseline state is already somewhere between feral casino mascot and litigation risk. He came in grinning, smelling like smoke and something I refuse to place, with blood on his sleeve that he claimed was "probably not his," as if that distinction was meant to soothe me.
I asked where he had been.
He said, "Out."
Out. As though we are married and he is testing the structural integrity of my self-control.
I told him to be specific. He leaned over my desk instead, close enough that I could see the cut at his lip reopening when he smiled, and said, "Missed me, Lulu?"
I should have had him removed. I should have thrown the nearest paperweight at his face. I should have done several things that would have been sensible, sanitary, and defensible under pressure.
Instead I told him he was dripping on a procurement report.
He laughed.
My head hurt so badly I wanted to close my eyes and keep them closed until everyone in this house either learned basic operational discipline or died trying to convince a carnivorous book to teach them.
But if I close my eyes, things happen.
That is the intolerable part. The moment I stop watching, the casino remembers it is being held together by nothing but my attention and several threats no one has been smart enough to call my bluff on. One dealer starts skimming because he thinks I will not notice. One supplier rounds up costs because he assumes Sinostra money is abstract. One guest with too much confidence and not enough fear decides the house can be tricked. One idiot in management approves a purchase order without checking whether we already own seventeen cases of the same godforsaken item.
And then they come to me. They always come to me.
Fico, the numbers are off.
Fico, there's a guest complaint.
Fico, The boss said—
Fico, can you—
Fico, we didn't know—
Of course you didn't know. Knowing requires attention. Attention requires effort. Effort requires a standard. And apparently standards are something I alone am cursed to possess.
My hands were shaking by noon. Not visibly, I don't think. I kept them folded under the desk when I could. I used my left hand to steady my right when I signed the vendor corrections. I took my medication too late because I was in the middle of reviewing the security incident reports and because, apparently, I would rather suffer neurological collapse than allow someone else to misclassify an avoidable expense.
That is the embarrassing part. Not the pain. Pain is boring. Pain can be compartmentalized if one is sufficiently practiced. The embarrassing part is that I wanted someone to notice.
Not the staff. God forbid. The thought of any of them looking at me with concern makes me want to peel off my skin. Concern from subordinates is just pity wearing a pressed shirt.
But I wanted—God. I wanted him to notice.
I wanted Taiga to stop being theatrical for five consecutive seconds and notice that I was one loud noise away from vomiting into the nearest waste bin. I wanted him to take one look at me and understand, without making me ask, that I needed the lights lower. That I needed quiet. That I needed him to stop bleeding on my paperwork and start behaving like something capable of care.
And the worst part is that he did notice. Of course he noticed. He is stupid about most things, but never about me. Never where it would be convenient for him to be oblivious.
He stopped laughing halfway through some idiotic sentence. His eyes fixed on my face, too sharp all at once, and the room changed. I hate when he does that. I hate when the grin drops and what is underneath looks almost lucid. Almost sober. Almost dangerous in the useful way.
He said, "Your head's bad." Not a question.
I told him to get out. He did not get out.
He moved around the desk, which no one with a healthy survival instinct would do, and crouched beside my chair like some overgrown alley cat pretending it had manners. I told him if he touched me, I would have him audited retroactively for every cash withdrawal he has made this quarter.
He put one hand on the armrest. Not on me.
"Lights," he said to no one in particular, and because he is captain, because the universe has a tasteless sense of humor, the lights actually dimmed.
The relief was immediate and humiliating. I hated him for it.
I wanted to thank him. I hated that more.
He told everyone to leave. He did not phrase it professionally. I will not be documenting it here. Several people left faster than I have ever seen them move, which means they are capable of efficiency when motivated by the correct kind of fear.
Then it was quiet. Not silent. Sinostra is never silent. The ship breathes. The walls hum. Somewhere, always, money is being lost by someone foolish enough to believe luck is a personality trait.
But it was quieter. Taiga stayed beside me.
I kept my eyes closed because opening them felt like inviting the migraine to resume negotiations. I heard him shifting, heard the soft scrape of his shoes against the floor, heard him rummage through one of my drawers with absolutely no permission.
I said, "Touch anything important and I'll break your fingers."
He said, "Your pills are important?"
I opened one eye. He was holding the bottle.
I had moved it there three weeks ago because the drawer near the bathroom had become too obvious and I did not want anyone keeping track. He found it in under thirty seconds.
I should be concerned by that. I am concerned by that. I am also, unfortunately, something else.
He got me water. He did not spill it. He did not make some obscene joke about putting his mouth on the rim first. He just handed it to me and watched until I swallowed.
Then he said, very quietly, "Lulu."
I hate when he uses that voice. The rough one. The one that sounds dragged out of him, like softness is something he has to pull through his teeth.
I told him not to.
He said, "You gotta sleep."
I laughed. It hurt.
Sleep. Wonderful suggestion. Revolutionary. Perhaps after that I'll sprout wings and delegate payroll to a trained pigeon.
I told him I had six hours of corrections left.
He looked at the reports on my desk. Then at me.
Then he picked up the entire stack.
For one pristine, clarifying second, I understood murder in the most intimate way a man can.
"Put those down."
"No."
"Taiga."
"Sleep first."
I said his name again, in the tone that makes dealers flinch and accountants resign themselves to unemployment.
He smiled. Not his usual smile. Not all teeth. Something smaller. Worse.
"You can yell later," he said. "When your eye stops doing that twitchy thing."
I do not have a twitchy thing.
I checked the mirror afterward.
I may have had a twitchy thing.
This is the part I cannot stand: he was right. That is always the most offensive thing about him. Not the recklessness, not the blood, not the way he leaves chaos in every room like a scent. It is that beneath all that absurdity, he sometimes lands precisely where I am weakest and presses one blunt, dirty thumb to the truth.
I am tired. Not elegantly. Not in the consumptive, poetic way people imagine when they see someone pale at a desk surrounded by expensive stationery.
I am ugly tired. I am tired in my teeth. In my hands. In the hinge of my jaw. I am tired of being necessary. I am tired of being correct. I am tired of knowing that if I lower my standards for one moment, the world will not become kinder. It will simply become messier, and then it will expect me to clean it.
I am tired of being the only thing between order and appetite.
And Taiga is appetite.
But today, appetite turned the lights down. Appetite found my medicine. Appetite sat on the floor beside my chair for forty minutes and threatened to bite anyone who knocked.
I did not sleep. Not really. Have you ever tried to sleep with an ice pick lodged in your temple? Didn't think so.
I rested my head against the back of the chair and closed my eyes. That is not the same thing as sleep. But it counts for something. Has to.
At some point, his hand brushed my ankle. Not held. Not grabbed. Just there, warm and callused against the bone, as if he needed to know I had not vanished while sitting directly beside him.
I let it stay.
And half an hour later, when I opened my eyes again, it was gone.
So was he.
The reports on my desk, however, had not disappeared. Unfortunately.
They had been sorted. Badly, by my standards. Correctly, by anyone else's. Incident reports together. Vendor statements separate. Internal corrections on top. A glass of water beside them, sweating onto a coaster I do not remember putting there.
The edge of the ice pick had dulled. Not beyond recognition, but enough.
I want to love him again, but I don't know if I should. I keep going to him, to help the house, I think. To keep things afloat, but he's still there.
Can a moth love a flame?
Maybe that's the wrong question. Maybe the moth has always loved the light. Maybe it was never stupid for wanting warmth. Maybe it was only tragic because the light did not know how to be anything but burning.
I don't know how to separate the man from the fire.
There are days I remember his hands before I remember what they did. I remember his voice before it lost focus. I remember being foolish enough to believe that love was something you earned by being smart, useful, knowing. I remember wanting him to look at me and see something worth keeping.
And then I remember the heat.
I remember how quickly a room could change. How admiration could dissipate. How every soft thing had a hook in it. How he could make me feel like it was my fault for bleeding after he cut me.
So I go back, but not for him. That's what I tell myself.
I go back because someone else needs help. Because there are people there who did not start the fire, only learned to breathe smoke. Because leaving them feels too much like becoming him. Because some part of me still believes I can pull everyone out if I just hold my breath long enough.
But he's still there. At the center of it. Flickering. Waiting.
Sometimes warm enough to make me forget. And that is the worst part. Not that he was always terrible. Not that loving him is impossible. The worst part is that sometimes it is easy. Sometimes he says the right thing. Sometimes he laughs the way I remember. Sometimes he looks tired instead of dangerous, human instead of monstrous, and I feel something in me unfold before I can stop it. A wing opening near fire.
I hate that I still want a lover. I hate that wanting one makes me vulnerable. Because what am I supposed to do with all this leftover affection? Where does it go when the person it was made for cannot hold it safely?
Maybe a moth can love a flame. Maybe it always will. But love is not the same as flying into it.
Maybe the moth survives by learning distance. By circling from far enough away to keep its wings intact. By understanding that warmth is not proof of safety. By grieving the light it wanted without mistaking grief for an invitation.
I don't know if I should love him again. Maybe I never stopped. Maybe the real question is whether I can love myself enough not to burn for him anymore.
@kusanagihaku wrote 6 ssb kisses bc she wants me cooked 6 different ways
Excerpts from linwriting:
...smiles at the way they grow wide when he lifts the plush bunny to his lips, leaves a kiss on the pink tip of its nose. at the blush that spreads across suba’s face when he presses the plush into suba’s gloved hands. *for you*.
maybe it's the sake, or maybe it's the part of suba's lips, but sho doesn't pull his hand away. lets it trail across suba's cheek. lets it hold suba's breath. holds suba’s gaze when he leans in. when suba leans in the rest of the way sho thinks he has never tasted something this sweet.
drops a kiss onto suba's cheek whenever he has to open the window to his food truck. sometimes it's teasing, sometimes it's casual. most of the times it's remorseful that he has to pull himself away from the soft of suba's laugh and the quiet of suba's company. gets surprised the first time suba kisses him back, ...
CW: Suggestive under the cut
4. the open-mouthed kisses he leaves on suba are searing. pants against suba's neck, licks bruises into the pale of his skin. suba wears high collars, right? sho kissing down the sweat of suba's neck.
5. leaves a kiss on suba's forehead when he leaves in the morning. watches suba stir, brows scrunching up and lips turning down in a little pout.
6. ..keeps his eyes trained on suba’s when he presses a kiss against suba’s knuckles. tender, warm. all for you.
