my entry for @seventasia pretty girl avenue event! managed to finish this on the last day of pride month so happy pride month! i wanted to post this asap so i didn't proof read so my bad!
14.7k words
cw: depictions of violence and death, lesbian sex, 69, fingering, oral, squirting, lots of plot with a taste of porn
Chirping locusts echo through your open window, the faint smell of tobacco smoke from your kiseru whisked away by the summer breeze. It's almost morning, yet sleep continues to evade you, the soft light of sunrise barely peeking over the horizon.
It had been a long night. A whirlwind of high profile clients and feigned excitement over their return to the pleasure house your ex husband, Jinichi, had dumped you in. Left to rot in the company of depravity when offered the right price as if you were nothing more than cattle.
Your first month here, you'd barely pulled your weight; locking yourself in your chambers, refusing food and clients all the same. You were wasting away with the realization that you had been abandoned, after a year of marriage no less. Nights were spent recounting the months you had spent together, filing through every detail and trying to pinpoint exactly where it had all gone wrong. You found solace in your bitterness, in the fact that these were just the unlucky cards you had been dealt; that you had married a man who's only goal in marriage was financial gain.
The early mornings were the hardest, especially when your wandering mind kept you from sleep as it did more often than not. You imagined killing him frequently— slicing his head from his neck and watching the light fade from his eyes, blood pooling around him. You as his executioner.
Lying in your misery and daydreaming wouldn't bear any fruit, you'd have to pull yourself up and be smart if you ever wanted to leave this place. To exact your revenge. The only path to your self proclaimed destiny was to become the most sought after, highest paid courtesan. Make a name for yourself, putting all your girlish ideals of purity behind you. Elbow deep in the dirty work of seduction.
And highly sought after you had become; not because you were particularly mind blowing when laid flat on your back, but because of other, equally important elements—your innate beauty, the seductive lilt of your voice, and your ability to command not only a conversation, but an entire room. Inflating the egos of clan heads and high ranking military officials was easy, whispering exactly what they wanted to hear with your lips skimming over the shell of their ear. Indulging their fantasies of being the strongest, smartest man of them all. Talking them out of their money with promises to see you more often, making good on that by making a large down payment to reserve your time.
They find pleasure in picking you apart, trying to pry all the things you hold near and dear out from inside you only to find themselves wrapped in the mystery that you've manufactured as they seat themselves inside your flesh. Multiple clients unearth themselves beneath your robes, rolling in the expensive quilts their generous depravity had paid for while you go through the motions of feigning pleasure. All the while repeating your plans for revenge, as if you could wake up one day and forget them.
Buyout your own contract. Track down Jinichi Zenin. And kill him. Slowly, brutally.
The hard part was keeping enough of your earnings to buyout said contract. Most of the large sum these men were paying went to your room and board; expensive and intricate kimonos, hair ornaments and makeup; expensive meals to maintain your figure and anything else the Madame had decided to tack on. Your more malleable clients left coin pouches filled with a few pieces of shiny gold that you'd tuck under a false bottom in your unused sewing kit. It wasn't much, but you'd hold onto your desire for retribution for 10— no, 20 years if you had to. Flattering and fucking your way there for as long as circumstances necessitated.
That's how you find yourself 5 years into your debt, finding pleasure only in the taste of tobacco and the quiet birdsong outside your window. Your head turns at the soft sound of the wooden frame of the screen being slid open, a client call early in the morning was unusual and highly unwanted—the quiet mornings being the only time you had for yourself.
A tall man stands in the doorframe, unruly inky hair almost to the point of impeding his eye sight. Gazing upon it made your stomach turn. He stands beside the Madame, only looking up as she addresses you by name. The unusual green of his eyes sticks out immediately, your own traveling to the faint scar on his lip that only seems to add to his beauty. He's masculine in a feminine sort of way, but leagues ahead of your regular clients in regards to looks. You quirk an inquisitive brow at the Madame, tapping the metal bowl of your kiseru against your wooden tray to dispose of the ash.
"To what do I owe the pleasure of being disturbed so early in the morning?" You recline back into the wall behind you, your kimono sliding off your shoulder slightly. His eyes track the movement of the fabric, studying your every move intently.
"Don't be so rude to such an esteemed patron." She waves her fan about to express her displeasure. "Mr. Zenin here-"
Your heart stops for a moment. You'd know that last name anywhere, because for a short while it had been your last name too.
"It's Fushiguro." His cut in is curt, voice a bit high for a man. You study him right back, eyes scrutinizing his commoners robes; a deep blue yukata and dark dyed hakama hung sloppily over his figure accompanied by worn sandals. You bring your forgotten tea to your lips, it's run cold and steeped far too long.
"Mr. Fushiguro here has kindly bought out your contract."
You choke on your tea, sending you into a rather unflattering coughing fit. The scar on his lip elongates as one side lifts into a faint smile. The Madame's own smile is tight, showing too much teeth, unhappy with losing the prospect of more money than she was paid for you.
"How kind of him." Your jaw is set tight, words coming out strained and ungraceful.
This man was a stain on your plans. Who did he think he was, buying out the contract of a woman he'd never met? How could such an unkempt man even afford the price of your company for one night, much less the rest of your life? How could you resign yourself to be nothing but property, yet again?
His eyes are unfeeling, that sly upturn of his mouth gone now as he lifts his head to look down at you. As if you were beneath him. It was irritating beyond belief, to have a man look at you with such contempt. And now you belonged to him.
"Pack your things and pack light. We leave in ten." He turns on his heel, giving you one last look of indifference over his shoulder before going on his merry way. You say nothing, sitting for a moment to collect your thoughts, gazing around your small room and realizing just how many things you've collected. All the ornamental hairpins and silk kimonos. Little trinkets given to you by customers determined to win your heart by any other means than buying out your contract.
"You don't seem too keen to leave this place." The Madame plops a yanagigori down next to you before settling onto her knees. "Most of the girls here would kill to be in your position."
She takes your most ornate kimono out of its box, you gaze longingly at the deep green silk patterned with white chrysanthemums and wonder if spending out the rest of your life here would truly be so awful.
"Well maybe it should've been one of their contracts that was bought out instead." You snap, standing to collect a few of your favorite hair pins and settling them next to the stack of kimonos shes collected. You know you're being ungrateful, that most of the women here truly would love nothing more than to be whisked away into a life of child rearing and homemaking. The thought makes you sick.
"Oh, hush, stupid girl. You've been here long enough. Go live out your happy little life and forget about the bastard who abandoned you here." Her words make you freeze, almost dropping your cosmetics on the tatami mat below.
"I'm offended you think I still-"
"You don't get abandoned by someone you love in a place like this and just let it roll off your back. Not a girl like you, anyway." She gazes at you through her peripheral, continuing to load your items into the wicker trunk without so much as turning her head toward you. "I, too, remember what it was like to be young and in love, with dreams for the future."
"Love is but a child's dream." You huff, kneeling beside her to help pack. "Men are covetous and I would die before putting my trust in one again."
"While you may have abandoned trust, never let them take away your ability to dream. That is the last bit of wisdom I will impart on you." She closes the lid of the yanagigori, wrinkled hands coming up to squeeze your shoulders before standing and making her way to the shoji screen.
"Madame?" You look down at your hands folded in your lap, trying to focus on the red paint to distract from your bashfulness. She hums a quiet response your way, the same hand that had given you that comforting squeeze resting on the door way, body half turned. You lift your head to take one last look at her; her graying hair and crows feet, still beautiful even as an old woman.
"You may give my remaining cosmetics and kimonos to the other courtesans, but leave the hairpins and trinkets for the kamuro." You smile, genuinely. The feeling is foreign and awkward. "Let the young girls keep their dreams."
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Fushiguro doesn't talk the whole half day's ride to his humble abode. And neither do you. The only sound is the beating of hooves under you and the infrequent tinkling from inside your trunk. The horse underneath you is gorgeous, definitely one that would fetch a high price if you ever needed to make a quick escape. You stare at his back, shoulder blades the only identifiable part of his figure underneath robes that swallow him whole.
The sun has almost set on the horizon as you approach a grassy path that leads to a small home in a densely wooded area. It's just a bit larger than the shack you had grown up in, though, much nicer with it's shoji screens and the engawa wrapped around it. He hops off his horse, taking the bridle of both his horse and the one you're sat atop of and leading them to a makeshift stable and securing them.
Slender fingers, looking much like your own, rest on your hips to help you down. The implication that you couldn't have dismounted on your own has irritation licking its way over your already fried nerves and in a small act of defiance you grab your trunk and trudge your way to the door.
He gives you a sidelong glance as he holds the door open, motioning you inside with the same hands that had just rested on your waist. You begrudgingly oblige, huffing and puffing your way through the threshold. The main room is much nicer than you'd imagined, the tatami mats are well kept with a low table sitting in the middle— a decorated tea set sitting close to the edge. There's two screens on opposite ends of the main room, the paper on them bright and new as if they'd just been adhered. You'd half expected a desolate shack made of worn down wood with a leaky thatched roof, the surprise grandeur was welcome.
"Am I allowed to know the first name of my benefactor, or am I overstepping my bounds Mr. Fushiguro?" Your tone is sharp, setting down the overbearing weight of your trunk to give your arms some relief. When was the last time you'd lifted something heavier than your kiseru?
"Toji." He looks at you in that suspicious sort of way that makes you wonder if he's lying, "And I would like for you to address me as your husband from now on." A demand.
"Whatever you wish, husband." It's wrapped in a sneer. He ignores it.
"You may sleep, eat and do as you please, whenever or wherever it suits you. If you don't want to share a bed, I won't force you. If you wish to live in silence, I will not utter a word your way."
You turn away from him without a word, dragging your trunk by the handle toward the room closest to you. You make it about half way before leather separates from wicker with a snap, sending you flying and landing on your rear. A muffled chuckle comes from beside you before a calloused hand wraps around your arm, yanking you to your feet. You glare at him as if he had pushed you down himself, watching too closely as he lifts your trunk with one hand and pushes past you into the room of your own choosing.
The room is plain save for the lone futon sprawled out on the floor, a dark blue quilt folded neatly at the end. You missed your fine quilts and curse yourself for bringing lavish kimonos instead. You sink to your knees, loosing out a breath to quiet your nerves as the screen shuts quietly beside you. Defeat begins to gnaw at you, the realization that all of your hard work may very well have been for nothing and a life of quiet, unpaid servitude would be the only path available to you was… jarring to say the least.
The room felt too small, your clothes too tight and your skin grimy and caked with dirt and horse hair. You needed a long bath where you could scrub away all your hopes and dreams for the future yet again and maybe a good meal to make yourself feel better about it. And a cup of sake. Or ten.
Your fingers fiddle with your obi, loosening the tie and allowing yourself some room to take a full breath. The room is too hot, a bead of sweat sliding from your hairline down the back of your neck as the walls seem to creep closer and closer. Your kimono is thrown haphazardly behind you, your undergarments sticking to you like second skin. You stand on shaky legs, stumbling to the shoji leading outside and sliding it open to bask in fresh air. Your clammy forehead rests against the grid-like wood, palm flat against your exposed diaphragm as you try to regulate each inhale and exhale.
The stables are in view from your bedroom, Toji's there and you watch as he cares for the horses. His long sleeves are tied up, slender forearms corded with muscle, bulging with every careful brush over your horses coat. You weren't much different than the animal before you, something bought and made to be maintained. The setting sun casts an orange hue over his features, a glow that only enhances his infuriating beauty. His head turns, forearm coming up to wipe away sweat. Your face warms, being caught staring and all. His eyes rake down your body, summer wind rustling both of your heads of hair.
You square your shoulders, clearing your throat, "A bath. I'd like to take one."
He sets the brush down, wiping his hands over the front of his robes. He takes a few steps toward you and you take one back in turn. A smile elongates that marred corner of his mouth, body coming to a halt. He points toward a path that feeds between the trees.
"There's a hot spring at the end of the trail, I'll get in when you're finished."
You nod, stepping out onto the engawa and sliding your sandals back on. The grass flattens under your feet, strides hurried as you pass Toji who has gone back to grooming the horses and pretending he isn't eyeing your exposed skin.
The hot spring isn't too far into the trees, the rising of steam shrouded by cypress and cedar. Regardless of the illusion of cover, you check your surroundings for creeping little eyes in the shadows before removing your undergarments and dipping a toe into the water. Your whole body relaxes as you submerge yourself for what is probably the first time in a very, very long time. Nimble fingers pull your hairpins out, the strands coming to wrap around you like a shawl. You dip fully beneath the surface, scrubbing your face with your hands as you come back up for air.
It's nice out here, even in your displeasure you could admit that. And Toji was quiet, aloof and willing to give you all the space you needed. Perhaps your plans weren't so far fetched now that you'd made it out of the pleasure district. Maybe Toji had given you a head start.
Your fingernails scrub your skin until its red and painful, you manage to stop your abrasive hands despite still feeling unclean. Tomorrow you'd pack up your horse and head into town, disguise yourself as just another local and ask around about that evil man who'd taken advantage of your young, naive heart.
Toji's footsteps are silent as he approaches, his head turned to the side as he shoves a towel your way wordlessly.
"I'm not some virtuous, highborn woman." You scoff, ripping the towel from his hands. "You can look."
The sun has fully set, the twinkling of dusk filtering through the trees, but you can still see that tinge of pink on his ears even through all that shaggy hair. You stand to full height, bared to the world as the cold of night hits your warm skin. Your nipples pebble, goosebumps kissing their way over you, bathed in moonlight.
"I'd rather not." He grumbles, crossing his arm over his chest. You wonder what's hiding beneath those shabby, oversized robes. Wonder if there's some defect or mutation hidden underneath and maybe that's why he isn't too keen on seeing underneath yours.
"Have you never laid with a woman before, husband?" Your voice comes out in a teasing little sing-song. He's stood so close, his back to you as you reach out and use his shoulders as leverage. They're much more petite than you'd imagined but the thick muscle is apparent nonetheless. Your lips brush the shell of his ear as you lean in. He freezes, whole body rigid as his ear turns a darker shade.
"Will your wife have to teach you the pleasures of the flesh?" Your teeth graze the lobe for just a moment before you straighten out, stepping fully into your sandals and sauntering away. You hear him groan behind you and mumble incoherently under his breath. You walk the short way back, a vindictive little smile stuck to your face the whole way.
This was going to be fun.
▬▬ι════════ﺤ
The first week was noiseless. Uneventful except for your naked teasing when getting out of the hot spring. You had found a little pocket of joy in tormenting him by "forgetting" your towel each night. He mostly leaves you to your devices, leaving during the day to head into Edo and do god knows what. You derive enjoyment in sitting on the engawa and taking long drags off your kiseru to which Toji comes home and nags you about the stagnant smell of tobacco sticking to the paper screens and bedding. You remind him he's the one supplying you with said tobacco and watch as he rolls his eyes and excuses himself to prepare dinner.
The second and third weeks follow the same pattern of quiet, greetings in the mornings and even quieter dinners. Silence and soba. You're fond of him, silent as he is. Toji does his utmost to not make eye contact with you when you sit across from him with your nemaki hung open, legs spread in a most unladylike way. You find a sadistic little joy in teasing him, watching him squirm as he bathes in silence and your lewd tendencies. He brought you here and you sit like a caged animal, despite his assurance that you may do as you please. What more is there for you to do here but laze about and enjoy his little show of charity for disrupting your life?
Most nights, he practically sprints back to his chambers once dinner is over. Shutting himself in and extinguishing his lantern. You bark out a laugh, thinking of how fun it'd be to suggest sleeping in the same bed and watch the horror play across those wondrous features. You call out an exaggerated goodnight that gets nothing in way of a response before padding over to your own room. You tuck yourself beneath cool, unfamiliar bedding in an even less familiar room. Sleep had continued to prove difficult, the cicadas chirping so loud you wonder if a few had snuck in. You count the ceiling panels, making note of each groove and divot.
That night, you dream of being dressed in an expensive kimono, your mane pulled up elaborately with hairpins that tinkle with every graceful, assured step. You look at the familiar hallway, the hushed sound of your tabi socks smoothing over the tatami mats as your eyes scan the portrait of your parents at the end of the corridor. You stop in front of a shoji screen, the outline of a large, long haired man visible as light filters through paper. You reach out, fingers gripping the wood gingerly, sliding it open just a hair. The hunched back facing you is one you'd know anywhere, one you'd fantasized about every day for the past 5 years.
Fury ignites every nerve ending, you fly forward without thinking. Your fingers find a blade tucked inside of your sleeve, time moving in slow motion as you pounce. Your ex husbands back is pressed into the tatami below as you straddle his waist. His face is pulled into a look of shock, the star shaped scar in the middle of his forehead creasing at one of the points. He's as big and beautiful as the day you last saw him. A pathetic little part of you aches to melt into him but a larger part feels nothing but disgust. Rage blinds you, metal pierces into skin over and over as sanguine stains your kimono and that of the one below you. There's an animalistic scream coming from somewhere far off, shrieking all the words you'd wanted to say and a sound that can only be described as a quiet gurgling of blood. The screams are from you, the gurgling from him. Everything is painted in red, the walls, the floors. You look up and see your wedding portrait hung on the wall, you look like a stranger. All young and hopeful and painted in your lovers blood. You want to wail and scream some more, destroying everything that reminds you of what was and what could have been.
You look down at the scene before you, ragged puffs of air expelling irregularly into tight lungs. Your fingers grip into his kimono as you watch his dead eyes wander no more. You're still screaming, fists coming down heavily into his chest which only makes blood gush from his wounds all the more. Your face is hot with tears of relief, at the notion you are finally free. Grief for the way your foolish heart had been swayed. Another look at his face and it's morphing. A haze cast over familiar features until you realize it's no longer your ex husbands face staring blankly at you.
It's your own.
▬▬ι════════ﺤ
Your eyes fly open, your shoulders are being shaken and it's making your brain feel like its hitting the walls of your skull. Toji's in front of you, green eyes blown wide as he hollers out your name in a panic.
"You were screaming out in your sleep." You're scanning him and the room around you, mind still foggy from rest. "I thought somebody was murdering you."
The thought was almost funny considering your nightmare had been the opposite but not, all at once. Your eyes travel to his scar, the way it shrinks and grows as his mouth moves, his sharp canines and his wet tongue. A person so similar to your past lover but so different all the same. A long muscled neck is straining with panic and your eyes marvel at the sharp collarbones unhidden by his robes. Your brow quirks, not fully registering that where the flat expanse of chest should be, there are breasts practically spilling out.
Your fingers latch into the fabric, mind moving before reason as you rip his robes from his shoulders.
"You're a woman." It isn't a question. How could it be when two breasts are looking you right in the face? She says nothing, head downcast so her shaggy hair acts as a curtain. That sick little sense of dread that's been eating away at you suddenly dissipates. You have the upper hand here, though the betrayal stings all the same.
She pulls her kimono back over her shoulders, hugging it tightly to her frame. "You weren't supposed to find out."
Her head is turned to the side, the edge of her jaw and the downturn of her lips the only visible part of her face. "Well, now I have. And I have questions, lots of them."
"I just need-"
"No, you have meddled in my life more than enough and I have sat here like a good little pet while you do nothing but leave me in silence. So you will answer me, and you will do it now." You bark, catching her wrist and pulling her toward you. The tug catches her off guard and she falls into you, palms rested on either side of your head, her legs a copy over your hips.
"Tch." Is all the response she gives, fingers drumming on her exposed thigh impatiently. The motion is irritating, as if you were the bother and not her.
"First, I'll make you a promise to keep your little secret." You motion to her chest, which is spilling out yet again. She looks back at you with a roll of her eyes and a clenched jaw. She pulls it shut yet again, crossing her arms over her chest to secure the fabric. "But the full price of my silence is based on how truthful you are. If you lie to me I will not hesitate to go back on my word. I imagine the Madame would be glad to have me lining her pockets once again."
She nods slowly, straightening but still sat atop you.
"What's with all this?" You motion above you, unoccupied arm coming to rest behind your head. "The short hair, the baggy garments, the prostitute bride?"
"There's a man I want to kill and as I imagine you know, it's hard to make your way in this world as a woman." Her eyes reflect a deeper shade of green. "I needed you to solidify me masquerading as a man."
"Why me specifically?" You cock your head to the left, your own fingers tapping gently on your chin. "Or am I just that unlucky?"
She looks you up and down as if assessing you down to the very fragments of your soul. It makes you squirm uncomfortably underneath her.
"He's someone you used to be well acquainted with." Chills run up your spine at her admittance. She's holding you hostage in her vermillion gaze, judging whether or not you can handle the information. "I figured he'd come looking for you when his part of your monthly earnings stopped being sent."
It's your turn to straddle now, flipping her so her back thuds into the embroidered quilt below. You don't care what her reasons are, what little ways he may have wronged her.
"Jinichi Zenin." You hiss, your lips are pulled up over your teeth and the words come out as a curse, like just the name being spoken aloud was burning the tastebuds off your tongue.
She just stares at you and there's a disgusting paranoid little voice in your head that tells you 'she's one of them. kill her. kill them all.'
"I want his head." It's catlike, almost a purr your fingers tickling at the expanse between her breasts in a seductive way you learned so many years ago. She lets you do as you please, regardless of the fact that she could overpower you almost too easily. "I wanna put it in a glass fucking box and keep it so he can watch me live a happy life after I've taken his."
A sly smile plays at her lips, that marred side of her mouth stretched so the battered skin becomes an even brighter white. "I've chosen a very vindictive little bride."
You ignore her. "I'll help in whatever way I can. I just want the bastard gone."
"A month more is all I need. Just pretend with me for another month." It's almost pleading, though you imagine she feels that's a bit beneath her.
"Surely, I can help with more than just that." You huff, crinkle settling between your brow in a way you know the Madame would've swatted you for. She thinks for a moment, eyes rolling to look up at the ceiling panels.
"Can you cook?" Her hands come up and you think she's about to push you off her, but she just rests on her elbows as if to get a better look at you.
"I suppose, but I don't enjoy it." You pout.
"Clean?"
"I don't enjoy that either." You're beginning to become irritated. The wifely, mundane duties of a woman never suited you. "If you have forgotten, I have spent the last few years of my young life laid on my back and being tended to by other women."
The proclamation doesn't make you feel any better, yet it still doesn't fill you with any desire to better yourself in either department. Homemaking reminded you of a life long past. Something you had only had the illusion of and would never have again.
"I can't have my betrothed unhappy, now can I?" She chuckles, the rumbling setting something alight underneath you, pressing your thighs together. "Well, what can you do then?"
You eye her up and down letting your kimono fall lazily down both shoulders, your areolas peaking over the edge of the fabric. You hover over her, eyes half lidded in that way that had your customers emptying out their pockets. "Would you like me to show you, my wife?"
She crinkles her nose at the moniker, but her eyes travel along your collar bones and down that pretty little valley between your breasts. If she was a man, you'd feel her solid underneath you. Something about not truly knowing how she felt was exciting, like learning the art of seduction for the first time again.
"You're a cunning little fox." She muses, her fingers playing at the tie around your waist. "And you'll let me use you like that?"
"It's about time I use my talents for my own gain." You smile as your own hand mirrors over hers, notching it into the loose knot and pulling it free. You're laid bare in front of her, undergarments strewn somewhere in the corner. You bend down until your lips find her ear, nibbling on her lobe. "Besides, what else do I have to offer?"
She almost imperceptibly recoils, her hands falling. She lifts you up with ease, settling you on the tatami mats beside your futon. Her face is soft in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable in your nakedness, especially as she bends down and presses a soft kiss to your cheek. It makes you feel dirty, unclean. She looks almost disappointed, as if she hadn't plucked you out of a pleasure house.
"I will be in your debt." She whispers, she sounds so feminine now you wonder how you could have perceived her as anything but. "I'm going into town, you can come with me if you want."
You nod, mumbling something about needing a bath, unable to meet her gaze. She leaves you with that, ungraceful in her steps as she moves out of the room. You sit for a moment, stark naked and feeling worse than you have in a long while before pulling your robes closed and bolting to the hot spring.
Today, you scrub your skin until it bleeds.
▬▬ι════════ﺤ
You make your way back to the shrine, rejection licking its way after each step you make closer to where Toji is sat waiting on your engawa. You still find it hard to meet her gaze, you can't remember a time— if there ever was one— where your advances had been rejected. It stung more than the bathwater over your raw skin.
You say nothing as you brush past her, all too aware of yourself as you pick out a kimono. You pull that pretty forest green one from your wicker trunk, trying to ignore the way it matches her eyes in that annoyingly unintentional way. You hang it over the lid of the box as you slip on your tabi, all too aware of how her gaze follows as your spine curves. It feels scrutinizing now, it makes your skin crawl as you try not to think about the raised scratches on your exposed skin.
You hear her feet pad across the tatami mats, holding your breath when you see her bend down and pick up your kimono. The white chrysanthemums patterned against green silk sparkling in the early morning sun. You pull your nagajuban over your shoulders and tie it neatly, taking your time as an act of petty revenge as she stands there with your robes in her hands. You put your arms out, watching in mirrored glass as a crease of concentration forms between her brows. Strong arms whip you around to face her as she wraps the right side over the left like she'd been dressing you all her life. She bends down, tongue popping through her plump lips as she makes sure the hem clears your ankles. The koshihimo is plucked from inside the wicker basket, securing it over the bunched fabric at your waist and pulling it to form an even fold over your midsection. A little part of you wonders where she learned to tie it so well, considering hers tend to be oversized and tied haphazardly.
"I wasn't raised as a man, you know." She blurts, reading you like an open book in a way that makes irritation buzz beneath your facade of indifference. "Now, where's your obi?"
You sit in your silence, bending down to retrieve it from underneath all your other trinkets. You take the sewing box from it as well, waiting for her to take the garment from you. The white silk is patterned with intricate butterflies that seem to change color in the light, she marvels at the ornate pattering and you think maybe its best not to mention that you'd gotten it so many moons ago as a wedding present. You hadn't dared to wear it even once.
You flip open the false bottom in your sewing box, pulling your pouch of savings from within and tying it to the netsuke attached to your obi once she was done. She stands back and watches you, as if marveling at her handiwork. You nod your head toward the door, "Bring me your robes, I'll tie them properly for you."
"I can do it just fine on my own." She grunts, you stifle a laugh as you give her a once over.
"I don't desire to be in your debt anymore than I already am." You wave her off, kneeling in front of the mirror to begin pinning your hair in whatever way seems most appropriate for the kimono you've chosen. "Let me help you, call it my wifely duties or my addition to our shared cause if you so wish."
She stares at you through the glass and you hold her there, telling her without words that you won't be backing down. She turns on her heel with a sigh and slithers through the doorway, not bothering to close it behind her.
That inky black hair makes its reappearance just as you put the last of your hairpins in. Her face is solemn, as if you'd slighted her in some way by offering her help in the way of appearing more presentable. You stand to your feet, socks smooth against the floor. Your hands cup her chin, angling it up so shes looking forward, adjusting her shoulders for better posture. That smug glint in her eye is gone, now sending daggers your way. You have to hold back a snort, she looks too much like a bratty child as she is now.
"Would you rather I dressed more sloppily so we can match?" You tease, pulling her haphazardly strewn on kimono from where it's tucked inside her hakama. "Who in their right mind would believe we're married?"
She makes a low sound, hands tensing at her sides as you continue discarding layers of cloth. "Maybe they'll think I'm a devoted husband whose only wish in life is to provide for my wife."
You glance up, a laugh exploding from deep inside your belly as you see how proud of herself she looks— which makes her pout. "Well, I guess you plan for me to beat the other women off you, hm?"
She says nothing, avoiding your eyes as you take off her last layer, stripped down to her undergarments. She doesn't make eye contact with you in her nakedness and you can't blame her. She wasn't the one who had spent years in a glorified brothel. You hold her face in your hands, making her look forward once again and rolling her shoulders back. You frown at how poorly her chest is bound.
"Arms out." She makes a noise like a low growl at your demand. "Oh please, I'm not going to fondle you."
Her eyes roll, but she does as she's told. You have to hold back calling her a 'good girl' just to spite her. You mull over ways to distract her as your fingers pull the sarashi loose. Her breasts falling to where they should sit naturally. And oh, was she beautifully endowed. You almost want to curse her out for it.
"So, why are you going after that bastard Jinichi?" You try to distract yourself from the way her nipples protrude in the chilly morning air, ignoring how beautifully pink they are as well. There's a seductive little whisper in the back of your mind that urges you to crane your neck and pull one between your teeth. You chalk it up to years of conditioning from surviving in the pleasure district. Though, the thought doesn't last long. Not when she's more rigid than before after your prying.
"There was a woman I loved very much. She was sickly and in her desperation she was offered opium as a cure." Her face is solemn, voice devoid of any emotion in the same way it had been when she'd told you to pack your whole life in one trunk. You dont say anything, just nod as you fold the cloth neatly in half. "Jinichi provided her with it and she died as a result."
Some little part of you that you'd thought died aches at the way her eyes unfocus and stare blankly at her reflection. You don't need to ask, she had loved that woman more than what could be ascribed to friendship. No, you know that look of grief. You had felt it in your own way, had seen it staring back at you.
"I apologize for asking." You mutter, you can't bear to look her in the eye now. You had crossed a line, even if you hadn't known it was there.
"It was three years ago, it'd be foolish of me to be upset over it still." She tries to feign indifference, the scar on the right corner of her mouth pulling taut with a too wide, close lipped grin. You want to say something reassuring, to tell her you understood at least half of what she felt; to lie and say it would pass. But you knew all too well what the passage of time was capable of, what it could twist that solemn feeling into. So you say nothing and continue wrapping the binder tightly around her until her chest lies practically flat.
"How do you feel about killing the man you love?" Your head snaps up to meet her gaze as your fingers stuff the loose end into the many layers of cloth. Your brow furrows, your face turning hot at the presumption that you could still love a monster like him. Laughing incredulously.
"Love?" You almost can't believe the implication. "No, there is no love left inside me for that man. Maybe not for anyone again."
You slide her kimono back over her shoulders, frown deepening as you realize she seems to have gotten it made at least 2 sizes too big. She folds her arms back to her sides as you repeat the masculine version of what she had just previously done for you. Wrapping the left over the right, securing the waist cord and tying the kaku-obi low around her hips. Your muscle memory astonishes you, the way your body still remembers how to properly dress a man. You stand back and admire your handiwork, smoothing your hands over whatever wrinkles and pleats there may be before tossing her hakama to her.
"He's my brother, you know." She says it so casually, as if it's normal for brothers and sisters to kill their lovers and each other. There's a small pit of betrayal laying heavily in your belly, though you surmised as much. The madame had referred to her as a Zenin originally, after all. And that same dark, unruly hair and the overconfident way they both held themselves would have been enough of an indication anyway.
"Didn't see you at the wedding." You joke, trying to lighten the mood. "Or had you already denounced the Zenin name by then?"
"Hmm, well I can't say we were ever close." Her nimble fingers tie the strings, though her eyes hold yours. "I'd taken on her last name long before your wedding."
"Good for you." You smile, picking up your sandals and moving them toward the now opened shoji, placing them on the engawa. "To be a Zenin is to be cursed anyhow."
She chuffs out a laugh and it's beautiful, innocent and childlike. You tuck the image away in your mind, into a safe spot where you can mull it over again later. She grabs her own sandals and places them next to yours, sliding them on before offering you a hand which you gladly take.
"Let's hope your seduction will prove fruitful."
▬▬ι════════ﺤ
When you arrive in town, Toji ties up your horses and as she does you immediately try to run off. The only things on your mind being finding the first poor soul to take advantage of and buying her a more fitted kimono. Both of which she'd hinder you in doing. Her hand circles around your wrist, pulling you back into her with a quiet look of demanding.
"I can't very well seduce anyone with my husband riding my skirts, can I?" You ask, your tone enticing. "Let me do my job, you do yours."
She doesn't like the idea, the look of irritation on her face says as much, but there's no other way. Your nails harsh her jaw, that murderous little look you have found yourself enjoying splayed across it as you kiss her cheek before going on your merry way.
Edo and it's residents proved to be quite unhelpful, except for the shop merchant who'd sold you a dazzling emerald kimono and a new pair of hakama pants. No matter who you turned your flirtations onto, there was no information to be had about Jinichi or anyone else in the Zenin clan for that matter. You should've expected as much, considering they had their grubby little fingers in just about every business in Edo. Hell, a good chunk of the money you had made at the pleasure house was going straight back into their pockets.
You trudge your way back to where Toji had left the horses, trying to find a way to hide the thick fabrics from her. You didn't want to come off as too soft for fear of it being taken advantage of. She was still a woman you didn't know, with ambitions you couldn't be 100% sure about.
Toji is halfway down the road, watching as you try to stuff the garments inside your kimono. She looks at you as if you've grown another head and you huff, embarrassment warming your cheeks. "You needed something more tailored if we're going to be seen together in the future."
You hope it comes across as conceited as it was meant to, she hums a sarcastic little sound and you fight the urge to bite back with a rebuttal.
"Any luck?" She frowns and you don't need to ask whether she had been successful in her investigating either. You give her a small shake of your head, though you're largely more interested in the ceramic vessel tucked under her arm.
"Sake?" You smile, a mischievous little grin pulling at your lips. She rolls her eyes, setting it on the dirt path for a moment before hoisting you up onto your horse.
"Well, it was supposed to be a celebration." She pouts, "Though, I guess me and my little drunkard wife can still partake."
You glare at her, in a playful little way that makes her chuckle. "There's one more place I want to check before heading back." She perks up like a dog being offered table scraps, awaiting your continuance.
"Just follow me, it's not terribly far from here."
▬▬ι════════ﺤ
Toji follows you wordlessly, the sounds of hooves slamming into dirt and grass the only sounds between you. You slow to a stop, coming up on a large estate that looks like it was abandoned in a hurry. The screens have been left open, empty trunks strewn about inside and out. You dismount, jaw tight as the familiar building gets closer and closer with each step. You felt like a ghost here. In the house that supported the facade of devotion, where you had planned to see children with inky black hair and terrible attitudes running through the halls.
Toji's light footsteps aren't far behind, her finger hooking into the sleeve of your robes as you stand there— stuck in a daydream.
"This was my home for a short time." You blurt, taking one step through the threshold. The pictures of both of your parents still hung on the wall at the end of the hall. She says nothing.
You peek into the front room, your wedding portrait staring back at you. Your stomach churns and your fists ball up, you look like a young girl in love. Probably because you were, foolish as it had been. Jinichi is seated beside you with his stone face of indifference and his long hair you used to hope he would never cut.
You don't linger long, pushing to the bedroom you'd shared to see if there's any indication of where he could've run off to between the remnants of your old life. The room is practically bare, save for your wedding kimono hanging out of the wardrobe. Your fingers itch at your sides to run your hands over the fabric, fold it up and store it away like there was another time you'd be betrothed.
"Take it with you." Her voice is low behind you, your head snaps to look at her leaning in the doorway. "Burn it, wear it again. It's yours ain't it?" She shrugs it off in that dismissive sort of way. You turn your back to her again, delving further into the room and pulling it from the wardrobe. Your heart stops when a scrap of paper floats to the ground. You turn to look at Toji again, eyes blow wide. Her footsteps boom over the tatami mats, bending down and clutching the paper in her hand so hard it wrinkles.
"To my wilted little flower," Your hands shake as Toji begins reading. You want to rip it from her hands, embarrassment and rage coming to make themselves at home inside you. "I imagine you've come looking for me. I loved that vindictive little part of you. Come, yell at me. Be spiteful and spit your venomous words my way. Your husband misses you."
You stand to your feet, leaving your kimono and house of lies behind as you trek your way back to your horse. You don't want her to finish. There's a part of you that knows if his location is revealed to you, you'll be halfway there by the time Toji falls asleep and you weren't dumb enough to think you'd be successful without a concrete plan.
You haul yourself haphazardly onto your horse, using Toji's hakama and kimono as padding underneath you. She doesn't say anything as she sits atop hers a few seconds behind. You hope the promise of sake is still there and tell yourself you'll just pad into her room when she's sleeping to take it and help yourself.
The ride is silent again, your bones feel like they're vibrating underneath skin and muscle. Toji's pulled ahead of you at some point, her jaw set tight and brow furrowed in the moonlight. She looks beautiful and vicious, you want to slip your hands inside of her kimono and feel the warmth of her skin under your fingertips.
When you get back to your shared home, she takes your horse from you and leads both of them back to that makeshift stable that faces your room. You trudge your way through the screen, putting her new clothes on the low table in the front room before setting your sights on your own dwelling. You're halfway naked by the time you enter, your body heavy with frustration and hatred. Your nemaki is pulled over your shoulders, undergarments discarded and the ribbon tied loosely around your midsection as you rest against the door frame.
She's come in by then, her own deep blue sleeping clothes pulled on and sat at the low table— the garments you'd gotten her gone now. There's two sakazuki in front of her, both filled to the brim with what feels like liquid gold.
"What, is this our marriage ceremony?" You snort, gesturing to the cups as you sit on your knees in front of her.
"It's all we had." She chuckles back, sliding one your way and picking hers up with slender fingers. "Besides, I'd say it's a celebration of sorts."
You raise a brow her way, picking your own up and bringing it to your lips. "Celebration of what? Getting the run around from Jinichi?" His name tasted like poison on your tongue, the sake following suit to wash it away.
"I'd say we've made some great progress. All thanks to you of course." She gives you a sly little wink, you watch too closely as her head tips back. The way her lips part and throat moves as she swallows. You want to reach out, slip sake between your mouths as you press your lips to hers. You want to take everything from her just to give it all back and then some.
"Well, I'm glad I could be of use somehow." You shake your head, pulling yourself from your pent up day dream. You'd thought about her naked and writhing too much latetly, like you were some old pervert.
"You being here was enough." She smiles, it pulls at you somewhere deep inside in a way that makes you so uncomfortable you shift on your knees. "So, thank you."
You blush, looking away from those green eyes that hold you captive more often than you'd like to admit to yourself. "Oh, don't get soft on me now. A lowly woman from the pleasure district like myself, may fall in love with you."
It's teasing and lighthearted enough. The truth of the matter was letting yourself love Toji wouldn't be hard. In fact, it was so easy it was becoming worrisome. This life was bliss. It was peace in a way you had never known it. And Toji had given that to you. You had spent even less time with Jinichi before you'd been married off and you had learned to love him intensely, evil as he was.
"Firstly, I'd never dream of calling you lowly." She laughs, pouring another cup of sake for you both. "Secondly, it'd be an honor for most to be loved and doted on by a woman like you."
Her admittance leaves you wordless, choosing instead to down the sake she'd poured in one gulp, watching as she does the same and begins filling them again.
"Oh, you flatter your wife." Your giggle feels like it reverberates around the room. "Though, doubtful as it is."
"Oh?"
"I am a courtesan." Your fingers drum lazily on the table, face warm with alcohol and maybe a little embarrassment, "A prideful one at that."
She quirks a brow at you, waiting for you to finish your drawn out thought. She takes your silence as a signal for the truth serum the sake had become. Her hands are steady and sure, much unlike yours that feel the need to busy themselves whether it be tapping or picking at the frayed sleeve of your nemaki.
"You denied me." Your eyes are cold as they flit to connect with hers. You hold her gaze as you bring the cup to your lips and swallow slowly. The bite has you pulling air through your teeth. "You're the first, you know? To deny the opportunity to seek pleasure in me."
"A good sign don't you think? I value you for more than what is between your legs." She laughs as if you had told a rather funny joke. It irritates you though you imagine it should make you feel better.
You try your seduction again, her statement feeling like a challenge. You let your robes slide all the way off this time, the lantern lights flickering against your breasts. Your robes pool around your hips and your hands push them away, baring it all. You convince yourself the flush on her cheeks is in fact because of you and not the multitude of sake shared between you. Her eyes dart around like she isn't supposed to be looking and it bothers you even more.
"Do I not pique your interest, my wife?" It's quiet, barely a whisper. Insecurity masked by seduction. You lean over the table, faces merely a few inches apart as your breasts kiss the laquered wood. "Do you not think of me late at night, alone in your chambers?"
She pulls her own full cup to her lips, drinking it just as fast as she'd poured it. Settling the cup onto the table a little more heavy handed than you think she means to.
"You haunt me." She breathes, settling back onto her palms— the distance between you increasing. "Every moment of every day, you're like a ghost I can't shake off."
You smile at that, it makes you feel better about the sleepless nights you've spent playing at your clit at the thought of her. There's a deep hunger within you that food and drink can't satiate, the sake settling like a warm hum beneath your skin.
"Then let me keep haunting you, Toji." You think it may be the first time you've said her name aloud. A small thing she seems to have noticed as well as she sits lazily across from you, her robes loose around her waist, face pulled into a magnetizing little smile.
"You are very bewitching." Her face is relaxed, nothing like it had been all of the other times you'd been disrobed in front of her. You can feel her denial like a heavy weight on your back and curse yourself for deluding yourself into thinking she'd take you to her chambers. Maybe the pleasure district had warped you into thinking you were irresistible. Maybe you were now the fool who couldn't decipher kindness from want. No better than a man.
You shrug on your robes, looking away from that beautiful face that makes you ache somewhere you'd thought had been lost to you. Right now, you wish it had. You stand to your feet, hiding away inside yourself like a forgotten child. "I thank you for the sake. I shall retire to my chambers."
Your sleeve is pinched between her fingers, her head hanging like you'd just given her a rather harsh scolding. "Stay."
"I do not like to be ordered—"
"Tomorrow, after we go find Jinichi and end his miserable life, I want you to stay." She keeps her head down which you feel thankful for when your whole face morphs into ugly shock. "I don't want to lie with you if you're ready to turn tail as soon as our goal's been achieved. You may be a prideful woman but I promise my jealousy far exceeds that."
You fall to your knees, face in your hands as you try to mask the elation spread across your features. "Oh, you foolish woman."
"I feel calling me foolish is rude." She pouts, her fingers prying yours away from your face. "I just offered you my life."
You snort at her. A foolish woman indeed. "Is that what that was?"
"Was I not clear?" Her dark brows pull together, the left one quirked up higher as her scar turns downward. Your fingers tap against your chin in mock contemplation, goading her into the notion that you may just decide to leave and never look back. Jinichi had been right, you were vindictive.
"I would like to keep haunting your halls for a good long while. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to haunt your chambers." You laugh, shaking her off and standing to your feet. "For now, I will bid you goodnight."
You close the door softly behind you once you're back in your room, loosing out a shaky breath. All your late nights
You slip under your quilts so quickly you don't notice Toji's lingering frame shadowed against the shoji before putting out the lantern.
▬▬ι════════ﺤ
The next morning you and Toji have a breakfast filled with conversation about what you'll pick up at the next market, all the new embroidered silks you're going to buy for your next kimono while Toji tells you to get whatever pleases you. You both say nothing about what will transpire in a few hours.
She cleans the kitchen and you pretend to be helpful and not distracting. She ties your kimono— a beautiful opalescent silk pattered with cherry blossoms— and picks out your hair sticks. You try to convince her to tie her hair back to which she refuses as you dress her in the new kimono and hakama you'd bought her.
You both look at each other with twin grim expressions once all is said and done. She sits at the low table, motioning for you to join her. You do. She uses one hand to push her hair back from her dazzling face and you wonder how much more beautiful she is naked. To which you pinch yourself for— it's no time to be fantasizing. Her other hand picks at her cuticles til they bleed.
"He wants you to come to the Zenin estate." She blurts, she looks nervous and you don't need to be a mind reader to know she's considering leaving you at home. You both know you'd never forgive her if she did. "He says the rest of the clan will be out doing their bidding so it'll just be servants perusing the halls."
You nod slowly. You feel your breakfast coming up, pickled vegetables creating something like a bomb in your stomach. "What do you need me to do?"
"Just go in. Be the dutiful wife who misses her husband. We'll take one horse, I'll ride with you until we're just outside of the estate and I'll take it from there." She's sure of herself and it provides you with some strange comfort.
"I want to be the one to land the final blow." You mirror her confidence despite your lack of training. You won't freeze or falter. You want to watch the life drain from his eyes and know that you had a hand in your own fate— your own peace.
"It's too dangerous for you—"
"I don't care." It's akin to a growl. You're all but baring your vicious little teeth and she doesn't even pretend to flinch.
"You loved him for a time. It's much harder to kill someone you love than you think." Her hand reaches out to you from across the table. You take it but keep your face stern. You won't let her sway you.
"Toji." It's all you say, conveying with your eyes everything else you can't say aloud. She sighs, letting her free hand slide over her face and saying something under her breath about you being a frustrating brat.
"Alright, okay? I get it." She looks tired, like she had spent all night contemplating this exact scenario. She had. "I'll hold him down and you'll sink your pointy little teeth in him."
You smile at her, bringing the hand you're holding to your lips. "Thank you."
"If you go rogue on me I won't hesitate to put your ass back on that horse and send you back home. Where it's safe." You wave her off, standing to your feet and making your way to the stables.
▬▬ι════════ﺤ
The ride to the Zenin estate is long. You'd forgotten how far from civilization yours and Toji's little slice of heaven is. Anxiety licks its way up your spine, not because of Jinichi or for your own well being. Toji is both the cause and the cure. Her chest is pressed firmly against your back and you're beginning to come to terms with the fact that you've become quite the pervert. You imagine her fingers under your robes as she sits behind you, licking her fingers covered in your wetness.
"The tips of your ears are red, you little degenerate." Her lips are too close to your ear and it makes them flush all the more.
As promised, she hops off your horse just before the bend that leads to the compound. She herself looks anxious now, fiddling with the strings on her hakama. You almost wish you'd let her wear her old robes, it'll be pain to get the blood out of her garments. She urges you down off the horse for a moment, cupping your face in her hands as soon as your feet hit the ground.
"You are going to go in there and be your most charming self. Say whatever it is you think he wants to hear. I'm going to be right behind you whether you can see me or not. You are going to be smart and level headed. We will kill him and then we will go home. Safe. Together."
You nod, smiling as the crease in her brow deepens. "I will be fine. I know how to stroke a mans ego. I used to be a professional until you came along."
She doesn't say anything as she rests her chin atop your head. She takes a deep breath in and kisses your scalp before pulling back, your face still cupped in her hands. "Oh my pretty little bird."
You roll your eyes at the moniker. "We should go."
She nods but doesn't let go. Her face comes closer and you're too eager, gripping her by her kimono and pulling her toward you to connect your lips. They're softer than you'd imagined, melding into your own. You curse the both of you for having these grudges, you want to go home and twist around under your quilts until you fall asleep with your limbs intertwined. Though, if it weren't for these grudges you'd still be married or worse yet, still stuck in the brothel. You would've never known the peace she had given you.
The kiss is cut much to short, both of you panting as you pull away. She presses one more kiss to your forehead before lifting you back onto your horse and giving it a light swat on the behind to urge it forward. Try as you might not to look back, you watch her until she disappears. The path ahead is filled with carefully crafted masks and bloodshed. You want to feel her warmth the whole way through. When had you become so sentimental?
There's no one to greet you after you tie up your horse and make your way to the inner gardens. You're not totally unfamiliar with the Zenin estate, you'd been there a couple times. Once during Jinichi's courting and once more when you'd been married. You were supposed to return once more when you'd become with child, which thankfully never happened.
When you slide open the Shoji to the main house, Jinichi is sat waiting with his back to you. A different location but too similar to your dream. His hair is as long and wild as ever and you take this opportunity to pull your face into something mirroring eager elation.
"Jinichi!" You gush, running over and wrapping your arms around his large shoulders. He hums a gruff sound and places his hand over one of your forearms, stroking you like a pet. Your skin feels coated with grime, a bath has never sounded better.
"My wife has come home." If you didn't know him, you'd think he was actually excited to see you. "Did you miss me?"
"How could I not, dear husband? My only wish in this life has been to remain by your side." You hope wherever Toji is, she cant hear you. Or will at least pretend not to.
"I've been looking for my little flower for a very long time." Liar.
"I curse the gods for keeping us apart. But I am home now." You nuzzle into his neck, that familiar smell stinging your nostrils so harshly it almost makes your eyes water. He pulls you into his lap, his fingers playing with the tie on your obi. You try to mask the way your whole body freezes, your stomach turning at the thought of having to lie with him— or any other man— ever again.
Regardless, your hand comes up to caress the side of his face. "What about you, did you miss me?"
He smiles in that disgusting way you used to find so endearing, his teeth on display as if he was warning you not to cross him. "Of course I missed you, honey. Your husband is so glad to have you back home."
His fingers pull the knot loose, your kimono pulled open to leave you just in your undergarments. His hungry gaze feels like spiders walking all over your skin and you want to scream and cry for Toji. But you don't. You keep that deep look of adoration splayed across your features, clinging to him like a child with your eyes squeezed shut.
"Take your filthy hands off her. Now." The low rumbling of Toji's voice is like music to your ears. When you open your eyes, she's got a katana pressed against his neck.
"Oh, my little sister come to save my whore wife?" He laughs, it's bitter and void of all that emotion he had pretended to have before. It's your turn to bare your teeth, pulling the short blade from where it's strapped against your thigh and clenching it between your fist.
"You mean the wife you left to rot in the pleasure district?" You laugh back, "I am not the same foolish girl you married and you would've been wise to expect more than an easy lay from me."
He finds that funnier than the blade against his neck, his eyes furious as spit flies from his cursed maw. "Do you forget yourself? You are two women. What do I have to fear?"
You see his hands moving and before you can think you're kicking him onto his back, Toji's blade nicking his throat. She looks at you like you've betrayed her and you know you're one idiotic move from her keeping her promise to send you back home.
"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned, dear husband." You straddle his waist and pretend not to see the frown on Toji's face and the hardness underneath you. "You've taken something very precious from the both of us. Your debt will not be left unpaid."
Your hand is steady as you plunge your knife into his chest cavity. Blood seeps from the wound and turns his kimono a darker shade, but it's his laugh that unsettles you. His blood flies from his mouth, covering your garments with splatters of crimson.
"You stupid woman." He spits, "Both of you exist to be used as pawns. Nothing more than pleasurable toys to be used at a man's whims."
You see red as his eyes flit to Toji. You think of her struck with grief as she holds her deceased lover and your limbs are out of your own control.
"Don't look at her. Don't look at her. Don't look at her." It's repeated through clenched teeth as your weapon is pressed into that same wound over and over. You continue even as his body goes limp and his eyes glaze over. You barely notice as Toji's blade separates his head from his neck, your body put on autopilot.
You hear her call your name but it sounds too far away. Only when her bloodied hands cover yours do you stop moving and let her pull you off him. She brings you into her lap, smoothing your hair and holding you like you would a child who needed consoling. Your fingers grip into whatever piece of her you can latch onto, gasping for air like you'd been drowning.
Jinichi is gone and you're finally free.
"It's alright." She pulls your kimono closed and secures your obi once again. "He's dead, it's just you and me now. Let's go home, yeah?"
You nod and she lifts you in her arms, carrying you the whole way back to your horse. Its breathing steady underneath your thighs. Your fingers rake through her mane, silky and smooth under your bloodstained fingertips.
Toji's warmth is something beyond comfort, her arms wrapped tightly around you as you make your blood-soaked way back home. Her lips press softly against your ear, words of comfort whispered in as her breath tickles your skin.
It takes too long to get home, your mind and body heavy with exhaustion. The sun has come and gone as you trot up to the stables, the cool night air soothing against your clammy skin. Toji hops off, leading the horse to its pen and plucking you from its back before shutting it in beside the other horse in its stall. She takes your hand and you walk toward your room at the back of the house, sitting you on the engawa as she carefully removes your sandals and tabi socks. She's quiet and focused, that almost permanent crease between her dark brows on display. You want to kiss it away, your body leans forward and your presses your lips to that little crease. Her hands rest on your thighs, rubbing circles on your soft skin.
"Wait here, okay? The fresh air is good for you." She stands up, joints cracking as she makes her way to the shoji screen and enters your home. You rest back onto your palms, counting the stars in the sky and for the first time appreciate the fresh air in your lungs. You reach over, taking your kiseru from where it now lives on the wooden flooring just outside your bedroom door and load it with tobacco. The nicotine fills your lungs and you think about what this freedom really means—what life without shackles of the past could blossom into. You no longer had to bear the burden of rearing children, your wife takes care of all of the cooking and most of the chores and has already given herself a reputation for making you want for nothing. You needed a hobby, or at the very least needed to participate in home life a bit more. A purpose.
Toji's familiar footsteps pad against the tatami mats and then against the outside wood before coming to kneel in front of you with a large steaming basin under one arm and a rag hung over the opposite shoulder. She holds your eyes as she pushes the skirts of your kimono up, dipping the rag into the warm water and scrubbing between your toes and up your ankle all the way to you calves.
"You did well today." Her voice is softer than you'd ever know it to be and part of you wishes for that gruffness back— selfish as it is.
You hum in response, reaching your hand out to push her hair from her eye line. "Maybe you can start taking me with you wherever you seem to run off to during the day."
Her brow quirks, her gaze dropping back down to the basin to wring out the blood from the cloth and begin scrubbing at your thighs. Your heartbeat quickens as she travels higher, your legs parting as if on instinct. "I don't know what you mean."
There's a smile pulling at her scar, she's a wonderful liar and you both know it. You laugh at her, your knees coming up to expose your undergarments. "Don't lie. I'd be a fool not to have some inkling of what you're getting up to when your clothes are always splattered with blood."
"Don't you worry your pretty little head, my wife. Do as you wish, learn to paint or play the koto. Buy one hundred kimono's just to watch them collect dust. The only job you have is to live with happiness in your heart. That is all I want for you."
"You fool." Your fingers thread into the panels of her kimono, making her fingers stop their movements on the inside of your thighs. You want her more than you ever have, which is alarming considering how many nights you tortured yourself over the thought of her under your quilts. You pull her forward, lips pressing harshly against hers in a desperate kiss. Her hands grip into your hips and pull you down into her lap to sit atop her.
Her cold fingers untie your obi and pull your kimono away, your own hands pulling at the longer strands at her nape. Her mouth is greedy, finding purchase on your jaw and nipping at the skin there. Excited hands come up to pull your hairpins free, strands coming down to tickle against your face. You want her in a way that makes your skin feel like a live wire and your mind clear as if this was the one thing a lifetime of strife had been for.
Her fingers are calloused and rough against your soft skin, the juxtaposition of two hard lives carried out almost opposite before merging as one. You feel fragile in her embrace, breakable. Precious. Heart hammering against your chest like it was your first time being touched as she rids you of your undergarments. Soothed by hands that show kindness toward you while showing brutality to others as she kneads at your hips. Touching you in a way that is both rough and soft. Something you're sure only a woman could do. Or maybe it was just that only Toji was capable of such contradictory ministrations.
She sucks at your neck, tongue laving and teeth grazing your gentle skin as her hand comes to knead your breasts. You don't remember a time where you'd felt so passionate. So hot and heavy and wanting for more. Little pants of her name leave your parted lips and she takes it as an opportunity to let her tongue tickle against your lips, waiting for an invitation. You open your maw and she's so goddamn greedy, licking over your teeth, exploring the inside of your orifice as if she'd find some hidden part of you within to coax out. She sucks on your tongue, moaning into your mouth as you relinquish everything to her.
She lays you down gently, the grass kissing your naked back as she works her way down your front. The gentleness of every touch has you choking on emotion. You didn't know lust could be so tender and kind. So giving.
"Am I allowed to seek pleasure with you, my wife?" It's mumbled against your collarbone, the reverberation of her voice making your skin prick with goosebumps. Her ask pulls at someplace inside you thought had been lost long ago. To seek pleasure with you, not in you. You feel your face morph into something that wordlessly spells devotion and she looks at you as if seeing you with new eyes and a deep endearment that spans beyond this life time all the same. "Let me show you what it is to be wanted as a woman and not as a means to an end."
Tears prick at your eyes and you nod, fingers still locked through jet black strands. She leaves wet kisses against your décolleté before popping your right nipple in her mouth, using her roughened finger pads on the left. Your back arches under her touch, fingers twisting through shaggy hair.
"You're beautiful." It's more of a breath than a string of words. It doesn't feel like flattery, it feels like truth being spoken aloud. "I'm selfish and want to keep you locked away here, away from all the terribleness of the outside world."
"You're a bit late for that, my dear." You laugh through a yelp as she grazes her teeth over your sensitive peak. Her fingers leave your left breast and tap their way down your ribcage, past your abdomen and all the way to your pretty cunt. She leaves tender touches against your clit that make you want to reach out and rip her wrist away just to chastise her for stopping. She hums as her mouth follows the same path as her hands, the evidence of wet kisses being left behind on your stomach.
"And I'm not so terrible as to clip your wings and lock you in cage." She mumbles it into your belly, just above your mound. She ventures lower, onyx strands tickling against your skin as she licks a stripe just above your clit. It sends shivers across your entire body, your hips lift for more delicious pressure. She's teasing you and finding too much joy in it, sitting up between your thighs and popping one of your toes in her mouth. It's warm and wet and tickles a little more than you're comfortable with. You wriggle them around until she pops off, scrunching your face up at the glossy sheen of saliva left behind.
"What?" She chuckles.
"I haven't had a bath, they're dirty." You pout.
"I wiped you down like a good wife, didn't I?" She puts your leg over her shoulder, kissing your ankle up to your calf before pressing a long one to the side of your knee. "You are purity personified. There is nothing unclean about you, my wife."
She hovers over your mound again and you clamp your legs closed around her head. "What now?"
"It's quite unfair I'm the only one naked." You huff as you push yourself up onto your elbows, a teasing glare playing on your features. She glares back but unties her hakama, discarding them and her kimono somewhere behind you. She wears no undergarments save for the cloth binding her chest. You sit up more properly, your hands shaking embarrassingly as you pull it loose and her breasts spring free. Your fingertips play gently at one of her peaks and she shudders. You watch her face contort into desperation and you scoot forward, the grass below flattening underneath you. Your mouth rivals hers in its greedy path, sucking a nipple into your mouth and swirling your tongue around it. You look up, holding her gaze as if to ask her silently if you're doing okay, little gasps muffled as she brings her hand to her mouth.
You pop off, blowing air over the saliva accumulated on her skin and watch as she shudders, goosebumps road-mapping their way over her. She's beautiful and feminine, you wonder how the world experiences her and doesn't see it. Her cheeks flush all the way to the tips of her ears, a foreign shyness splaying over her pretty face as she reverses your roles. She lays against the grass and pulls you to sit over her face, your view of her open legs and cunt. Her breath fans against your lower lips and you gasp, a dizzying cloud of lust coming over you as you bend forward.
Her tongue lolls out and licks at your pussy, mouth greedier than it had been before. That mouth. That beautiful mouth that teases and goads. Curses and compliments. It's on you and it's licking and sucking like you're the best thing it's ever known. You're writhing above her, grinding down into her tongue that's poking at your entrance. You curse and lie and tell her no more. But more is what you want. You want everything she has to give and maybe even more than that. Your bottom lip brushes over her pretty cunt and she whines, it's like music to your ears as your sounds of pleasure mix into a hypnotizing melody.
"You're so unfair." She mewls, her fingers coming up to replace her tongue. They scissor into you, opening you up as her mouth focuses back on sucking your clit. "A lovely woman with an even lovelier pussy. Come sit on my face a little harder, let me taste your sweet nectar more."
You gasp at her vulgarity, there's a tingling feeling just below your belly that's getting more intense as her words are spoken against your most sensitive spot. Your arms hook around her thighs, spreading them further before swiping your fingertips across her slit. Your eyes roll back between the forceful thrusting of her fingers, her sucking at your clit, and the wetness collected on your fingers. You bring it to your lips and suck, moaning at the taste of her on your tongue.
"And what about you? You've kept this wondrous cunt from me for so long. I could've been licking and fucking it for over a month now." You chide, teeth grazing her mound. She growls at that, free hand coming to swat at your ass and gloating as you yelp.
"What a greedy little thing you've become." She uses her long arm to push your upper body down, signaling you to mirror her movements. You oblige, pulling her swollen clit between your lips and sucking, keeping her legs spread with one arm and collecting her wetness with the fingers on the other before dipping them inside.
She's warm and wet, part of you understands the fixation men have on sheathing themselves inside though you didn't harbor any of their selfishness. You rock back and forth on her mouth in tandem with the thrust of her fingers. The whines and panting of the others name being cast into the surrounding forest as you mirror the way her fingers curl into a spot you'd never known existed.
There's a hot knot burning low in your belly that gets tighter and tighter as her fingers pump in and out of you more furiously. Her cunt is clenching around your fingers as you mirror her movements, drool and slick collecting on your chin, her hips undulating for more. You're stuck in a cycle of want. Both wanting to give and receive pleasure.
"Toji, I-"
"Shh, I know. Just a bit longer, my dear. Just hold out a bit longer for me." Your clit buzzes with the vibration. Your hands are sporadic, your walls clenching to hold back your orgasm as Toji's brutality becomes more and more intense. The sounds of both of your cunts squelching in your ears making it that much harder to keep your composure.
"I- I can't. I have to cum Toji. Please." It's more whiny and desperate than you'd ever meant for it to be. Your toes are curling, blades of grass stuck in between as you rock against her. Her breaths are puffing out more heavily, her stomach becoming taut with need underneath you.
"Cum for me, my pretty little dove." She whispers. And you do, its earth shattering. Every atom in your body exploding with pleasure as you both become a tangle of limbs and sultry sobs. You're leaking down her forearm and she's watering the grass below as her body pulses underneath you. It's less than a minute but you're imprinting your teeth into her inner thigh, your unoccupied hand clenching so your fingernails leave crescent moons into the skin on the other. You're twitching with the aftershocks as she continues to clean you up with her tongue and spurring you into over sensitivity.
You go limp on top of her, your breasts pressing into her abdomen. Your fingers slide out of her and are popped into your mouth to savor the taste of her and you cry out when hers follow suit. She rolls you off her, easing herself into a crawl to plop next to you.
"I love you." She blurts. It's casual like she hadn't just said it for the first time. You stare at her mouth agape as you watch her lick your wetness from her forearms and sucking you off her fingers with a hum.
"What?"
"What the hell do you mean what?" She snorts, turning on her side to get a better look at your awe struck face.
"Say it again." Your brows knit together in something between confusion and adoration. "I want to hear your honeyed words from those lips once again."
She chuckles at you, brushing your hair from your face and pressing a delicate kiss to your lips. "I love you."
You stare at her, taking in all the things you'd never been able to before. The way her eyes crinkle at the corners when she smiles, the way her breaths come out in controlled puffs, her jadeite eyes and how beautifully unique that scar on her lip makes her. The moonlight glows off her skin and you think maybe there has never been someone more beautiful— more perfect for you.
"I love you too, my wife." You smile so hard it makes your cheeks hurt and she follows suit, that eye catching scar warping more beautifully.
She carries you inside once her limbs no longer feels like jelly, wiping you down fully this time and tucking you naked under your quilts. She only leaves you to make some tea and a bowl of soba noodles to share. You spend the rest of the night giggling and telling stories, though there are brief intermissions of fucking and moaning.
That's what your days become, mornings filled with warmth and love and evenings filled with desperate hands and whines. Peaceful and debauched. Living in love instead of running from it. Toji's is yours and you are hers, until you turn old and gray.
my entry for @seventasia pretty girl avenue event! managed to finish this on the last day of pride month so happy pride month! i wanted to post this asap so i didn't proof read so my bad!
14.7k words
cw: depictions of violence and death, lesbian sex, 69, fingering, oral, squirting, lots of plot with a taste of porn
Chirping locusts echo through your open window, the faint smell of tobacco smoke from your kiseru whisked away by the summer breeze. It's almost morning, yet sleep continues to evade you, the soft light of sunrise barely peeking over the horizon.
It had been a long night. A whirlwind of high profile clients and feigned excitement over their return to the pleasure house your ex husband, Jinichi, had dumped you in. Left to rot in the company of depravity when offered the right price as if you were nothing more than cattle.
Your first month here, you'd barely pulled your weight; locking yourself in your chambers, refusing food and clients all the same. You were wasting away with the realization that you had been abandoned, after a year of marriage no less. Nights were spent recounting the months you had spent together, filing through every detail and trying to pinpoint exactly where it had all gone wrong. You found solace in your bitterness, in the fact that these were just the unlucky cards you had been dealt; that you had married a man who's only goal in marriage was financial gain.
The early mornings were the hardest, especially when your wandering mind kept you from sleep as it did more often than not. You imagined killing him frequently— slicing his head from his neck and watching the light fade from his eyes, blood pooling around him. You as his executioner.
Lying in your misery and daydreaming wouldn't bear any fruit, you'd have to pull yourself up and be smart if you ever wanted to leave this place. To exact your revenge. The only path to your self proclaimed destiny was to become the most sought after, highest paid courtesan. Make a name for yourself, putting all your girlish ideals of purity behind you. Elbow deep in the dirty work of seduction.
And highly sought after you had become; not because you were particularly mind blowing when laid flat on your back, but because of other, equally important elements—your innate beauty, the seductive lilt of your voice, and your ability to command not only a conversation, but an entire room. Inflating the egos of clan heads and high ranking military officials was easy, whispering exactly what they wanted to hear with your lips skimming over the shell of their ear. Indulging their fantasies of being the strongest, smartest man of them all. Talking them out of their money with promises to see you more often, making good on that by making a large down payment to reserve your time.
They find pleasure in picking you apart, trying to pry all the things you hold near and dear out from inside you only to find themselves wrapped in the mystery that you've manufactured as they seat themselves inside your flesh. Multiple clients unearth themselves beneath your robes, rolling in the expensive quilts their generous depravity had paid for while you go through the motions of feigning pleasure. All the while repeating your plans for revenge, as if you could wake up one day and forget them.
Buyout your own contract. Track down Jinichi Zenin. And kill him. Slowly, brutally.
The hard part was keeping enough of your earnings to buyout said contract. Most of the large sum these men were paying went to your room and board; expensive and intricate kimonos, hair ornaments and makeup; expensive meals to maintain your figure and anything else the Madame had decided to tack on. Your more malleable clients left coin pouches filled with a few pieces of shiny gold that you'd tuck under a false bottom in your unused sewing kit. It wasn't much, but you'd hold onto your desire for retribution for 10— no, 20 years if you had to. Flattering and fucking your way there for as long as circumstances necessitated.
That's how you find yourself 5 years into your debt, finding pleasure only in the taste of tobacco and the quiet birdsong outside your window. Your head turns at the soft sound of the wooden frame of the screen being slid open, a client call early in the morning was unusual and highly unwanted—the quiet mornings being the only time you had for yourself.
A tall man stands in the doorframe, unruly inky hair almost to the point of impeding his eye sight. Gazing upon it made your stomach turn. He stands beside the Madame, only looking up as she addresses you by name. The unusual green of his eyes sticks out immediately, your own traveling to the faint scar on his lip that only seems to add to his beauty. He's masculine in a feminine sort of way, but leagues ahead of your regular clients in regards to looks. You quirk an inquisitive brow at the Madame, tapping the metal bowl of your kiseru against your wooden tray to dispose of the ash.
"To what do I owe the pleasure of being disturbed so early in the morning?" You recline back into the wall behind you, your kimono sliding off your shoulder slightly. His eyes track the movement of the fabric, studying your every move intently.
"Don't be so rude to such an esteemed patron." She waves her fan about to express her displeasure. "Mr. Zenin here-"
Your heart stops for a moment. You'd know that last name anywhere, because for a short while it had been your last name too.
"It's Fushiguro." His cut in is curt, voice a bit high for a man. You study him right back, eyes scrutinizing his commoners robes; a deep blue yukata and dark dyed hakama hung sloppily over his figure accompanied by worn sandals. You bring your forgotten tea to your lips, it's run cold and steeped far too long.
"Mr. Fushiguro here has kindly bought out your contract."
You choke on your tea, sending you into a rather unflattering coughing fit. The scar on his lip elongates as one side lifts into a faint smile. The Madame's own smile is tight, showing too much teeth, unhappy with losing the prospect of more money than she was paid for you.
"How kind of him." Your jaw is set tight, words coming out strained and ungraceful.
This man was a stain on your plans. Who did he think he was, buying out the contract of a woman he'd never met? How could such an unkempt man even afford the price of your company for one night, much less the rest of your life? How could you resign yourself to be nothing but property, yet again?
His eyes are unfeeling, that sly upturn of his mouth gone now as he lifts his head to look down at you. As if you were beneath him. It was irritating beyond belief, to have a man look at you with such contempt. And now you belonged to him.
"Pack your things and pack light. We leave in ten." He turns on his heel, giving you one last look of indifference over his shoulder before going on his merry way. You say nothing, sitting for a moment to collect your thoughts, gazing around your small room and realizing just how many things you've collected. All the ornamental hairpins and silk kimonos. Little trinkets given to you by customers determined to win your heart by any other means than buying out your contract.
"You don't seem too keen to leave this place." The Madame plops a yanagigori down next to you before settling onto her knees. "Most of the girls here would kill to be in your position."
She takes your most ornate kimono out of its box, you gaze longingly at the deep green silk patterned with white chrysanthemums and wonder if spending out the rest of your life here would truly be so awful.
"Well maybe it should've been one of their contracts that was bought out instead." You snap, standing to collect a few of your favorite hair pins and settling them next to the stack of kimonos shes collected. You know you're being ungrateful, that most of the women here truly would love nothing more than to be whisked away into a life of child rearing and homemaking. The thought makes you sick.
"Oh, hush, stupid girl. You've been here long enough. Go live out your happy little life and forget about the bastard who abandoned you here." Her words make you freeze, almost dropping your cosmetics on the tatami mat below.
"I'm offended you think I still-"
"You don't get abandoned by someone you love in a place like this and just let it roll off your back. Not a girl like you, anyway." She gazes at you through her peripheral, continuing to load your items into the wicker trunk without so much as turning her head toward you. "I, too, remember what it was like to be young and in love, with dreams for the future."
"Love is but a child's dream." You huff, kneeling beside her to help pack. "Men are covetous and I would die before putting my trust in one again."
"While you may have abandoned trust, never let them take away your ability to dream. That is the last bit of wisdom I will impart on you." She closes the lid of the yanagigori, wrinkled hands coming up to squeeze your shoulders before standing and making her way to the shoji screen.
"Madame?" You look down at your hands folded in your lap, trying to focus on the red paint to distract from your bashfulness. She hums a quiet response your way, the same hand that had given you that comforting squeeze resting on the door way, body half turned. You lift your head to take one last look at her; her graying hair and crows feet, still beautiful even as an old woman.
"You may give my remaining cosmetics and kimonos to the other courtesans, but leave the hairpins and trinkets for the kamuro." You smile, genuinely. The feeling is foreign and awkward. "Let the young girls keep their dreams."
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Fushiguro doesn't talk the whole half day's ride to his humble abode. And neither do you. The only sound is the beating of hooves under you and the infrequent tinkling from inside your trunk. The horse underneath you is gorgeous, definitely one that would fetch a high price if you ever needed to make a quick escape. You stare at his back, shoulder blades the only identifiable part of his figure underneath robes that swallow him whole.
The sun has almost set on the horizon as you approach a grassy path that leads to a small home in a densely wooded area. It's just a bit larger than the shack you had grown up in, though, much nicer with it's shoji screens and the engawa wrapped around it. He hops off his horse, taking the bridle of both his horse and the one you're sat atop of and leading them to a makeshift stable and securing them.
Slender fingers, looking much like your own, rest on your hips to help you down. The implication that you couldn't have dismounted on your own has irritation licking its way over your already fried nerves and in a small act of defiance you grab your trunk and trudge your way to the door.
He gives you a sidelong glance as he holds the door open, motioning you inside with the same hands that had just rested on your waist. You begrudgingly oblige, huffing and puffing your way through the threshold. The main room is much nicer than you'd imagined, the tatami mats are well kept with a low table sitting in the middle— a decorated tea set sitting close to the edge. There's two screens on opposite ends of the main room, the paper on them bright and new as if they'd just been adhered. You'd half expected a desolate shack made of worn down wood with a leaky thatched roof, the surprise grandeur was welcome.
"Am I allowed to know the first name of my benefactor, or am I overstepping my bounds Mr. Fushiguro?" Your tone is sharp, setting down the overbearing weight of your trunk to give your arms some relief. When was the last time you'd lifted something heavier than your kiseru?
"Toji." He looks at you in that suspicious sort of way that makes you wonder if he's lying, "And I would like for you to address me as your husband from now on." A demand.
"Whatever you wish, husband." It's wrapped in a sneer. He ignores it.
"You may sleep, eat and do as you please, whenever or wherever it suits you. If you don't want to share a bed, I won't force you. If you wish to live in silence, I will not utter a word your way."
You turn away from him without a word, dragging your trunk by the handle toward the room closest to you. You make it about half way before leather separates from wicker with a snap, sending you flying and landing on your rear. A muffled chuckle comes from beside you before a calloused hand wraps around your arm, yanking you to your feet. You glare at him as if he had pushed you down himself, watching too closely as he lifts your trunk with one hand and pushes past you into the room of your own choosing.
The room is plain save for the lone futon sprawled out on the floor, a dark blue quilt folded neatly at the end. You missed your fine quilts and curse yourself for bringing lavish kimonos instead. You sink to your knees, loosing out a breath to quiet your nerves as the screen shuts quietly beside you. Defeat begins to gnaw at you, the realization that all of your hard work may very well have been for nothing and a life of quiet, unpaid servitude would be the only path available to you was… jarring to say the least.
The room felt too small, your clothes too tight and your skin grimy and caked with dirt and horse hair. You needed a long bath where you could scrub away all your hopes and dreams for the future yet again and maybe a good meal to make yourself feel better about it. And a cup of sake. Or ten.
Your fingers fiddle with your obi, loosening the tie and allowing yourself some room to take a full breath. The room is too hot, a bead of sweat sliding from your hairline down the back of your neck as the walls seem to creep closer and closer. Your kimono is thrown haphazardly behind you, your undergarments sticking to you like second skin. You stand on shaky legs, stumbling to the shoji leading outside and sliding it open to bask in fresh air. Your clammy forehead rests against the grid-like wood, palm flat against your exposed diaphragm as you try to regulate each inhale and exhale.
The stables are in view from your bedroom, Toji's there and you watch as he cares for the horses. His long sleeves are tied up, slender forearms corded with muscle, bulging with every careful brush over your horses coat. You weren't much different than the animal before you, something bought and made to be maintained. The setting sun casts an orange hue over his features, a glow that only enhances his infuriating beauty. His head turns, forearm coming up to wipe away sweat. Your face warms, being caught staring and all. His eyes rake down your body, summer wind rustling both of your heads of hair.
You square your shoulders, clearing your throat, "A bath. I'd like to take one."
He sets the brush down, wiping his hands over the front of his robes. He takes a few steps toward you and you take one back in turn. A smile elongates that marred corner of his mouth, body coming to a halt. He points toward a path that feeds between the trees.
"There's a hot spring at the end of the trail, I'll get in when you're finished."
You nod, stepping out onto the engawa and sliding your sandals back on. The grass flattens under your feet, strides hurried as you pass Toji who has gone back to grooming the horses and pretending he isn't eyeing your exposed skin.
The hot spring isn't too far into the trees, the rising of steam shrouded by cypress and cedar. Regardless of the illusion of cover, you check your surroundings for creeping little eyes in the shadows before removing your undergarments and dipping a toe into the water. Your whole body relaxes as you submerge yourself for what is probably the first time in a very, very long time. Nimble fingers pull your hairpins out, the strands coming to wrap around you like a shawl. You dip fully beneath the surface, scrubbing your face with your hands as you come back up for air.
It's nice out here, even in your displeasure you could admit that. And Toji was quiet, aloof and willing to give you all the space you needed. Perhaps your plans weren't so far fetched now that you'd made it out of the pleasure district. Maybe Toji had given you a head start.
Your fingernails scrub your skin until its red and painful, you manage to stop your abrasive hands despite still feeling unclean. Tomorrow you'd pack up your horse and head into town, disguise yourself as just another local and ask around about that evil man who'd taken advantage of your young, naive heart.
Toji's footsteps are silent as he approaches, his head turned to the side as he shoves a towel your way wordlessly.
"I'm not some virtuous, highborn woman." You scoff, ripping the towel from his hands. "You can look."
The sun has fully set, the twinkling of dusk filtering through the trees, but you can still see that tinge of pink on his ears even through all that shaggy hair. You stand to full height, bared to the world as the cold of night hits your warm skin. Your nipples pebble, goosebumps kissing their way over you, bathed in moonlight.
"I'd rather not." He grumbles, crossing his arm over his chest. You wonder what's hiding beneath those shabby, oversized robes. Wonder if there's some defect or mutation hidden underneath and maybe that's why he isn't too keen on seeing underneath yours.
"Have you never laid with a woman before, husband?" Your voice comes out in a teasing little sing-song. He's stood so close, his back to you as you reach out and use his shoulders as leverage. They're much more petite than you'd imagined but the thick muscle is apparent nonetheless. Your lips brush the shell of his ear as you lean in. He freezes, whole body rigid as his ear turns a darker shade.
"Will your wife have to teach you the pleasures of the flesh?" Your teeth graze the lobe for just a moment before you straighten out, stepping fully into your sandals and sauntering away. You hear him groan behind you and mumble incoherently under his breath. You walk the short way back, a vindictive little smile stuck to your face the whole way.
This was going to be fun.
▬▬ι════════ﺤ
The first week was noiseless. Uneventful except for your naked teasing when getting out of the hot spring. You had found a little pocket of joy in tormenting him by "forgetting" your towel each night. He mostly leaves you to your devices, leaving during the day to head into Edo and do god knows what. You derive enjoyment in sitting on the engawa and taking long drags off your kiseru to which Toji comes home and nags you about the stagnant smell of tobacco sticking to the paper screens and bedding. You remind him he's the one supplying you with said tobacco and watch as he rolls his eyes and excuses himself to prepare dinner.
The second and third weeks follow the same pattern of quiet, greetings in the mornings and even quieter dinners. Silence and soba. You're fond of him, silent as he is. Toji does his utmost to not make eye contact with you when you sit across from him with your nemaki hung open, legs spread in a most unladylike way. You find a sadistic little joy in teasing him, watching him squirm as he bathes in silence and your lewd tendencies. He brought you here and you sit like a caged animal, despite his assurance that you may do as you please. What more is there for you to do here but laze about and enjoy his little show of charity for disrupting your life?
Most nights, he practically sprints back to his chambers once dinner is over. Shutting himself in and extinguishing his lantern. You bark out a laugh, thinking of how fun it'd be to suggest sleeping in the same bed and watch the horror play across those wondrous features. You call out an exaggerated goodnight that gets nothing in way of a response before padding over to your own room. You tuck yourself beneath cool, unfamiliar bedding in an even less familiar room. Sleep had continued to prove difficult, the cicadas chirping so loud you wonder if a few had snuck in. You count the ceiling panels, making note of each groove and divot.
That night, you dream of being dressed in an expensive kimono, your mane pulled up elaborately with hairpins that tinkle with every graceful, assured step. You look at the familiar hallway, the hushed sound of your tabi socks smoothing over the tatami mats as your eyes scan the portrait of your parents at the end of the corridor. You stop in front of a shoji screen, the outline of a large, long haired man visible as light filters through paper. You reach out, fingers gripping the wood gingerly, sliding it open just a hair. The hunched back facing you is one you'd know anywhere, one you'd fantasized about every day for the past 5 years.
Fury ignites every nerve ending, you fly forward without thinking. Your fingers find a blade tucked inside of your sleeve, time moving in slow motion as you pounce. Your ex husbands back is pressed into the tatami below as you straddle his waist. His face is pulled into a look of shock, the star shaped scar in the middle of his forehead creasing at one of the points. He's as big and beautiful as the day you last saw him. A pathetic little part of you aches to melt into him but a larger part feels nothing but disgust. Rage blinds you, metal pierces into skin over and over as sanguine stains your kimono and that of the one below you. There's an animalistic scream coming from somewhere far off, shrieking all the words you'd wanted to say and a sound that can only be described as a quiet gurgling of blood. The screams are from you, the gurgling from him. Everything is painted in red, the walls, the floors. You look up and see your wedding portrait hung on the wall, you look like a stranger. All young and hopeful and painted in your lovers blood. You want to wail and scream some more, destroying everything that reminds you of what was and what could have been.
You look down at the scene before you, ragged puffs of air expelling irregularly into tight lungs. Your fingers grip into his kimono as you watch his dead eyes wander no more. You're still screaming, fists coming down heavily into his chest which only makes blood gush from his wounds all the more. Your face is hot with tears of relief, at the notion you are finally free. Grief for the way your foolish heart had been swayed. Another look at his face and it's morphing. A haze cast over familiar features until you realize it's no longer your ex husbands face staring blankly at you.
It's your own.
▬▬ι════════ﺤ
Your eyes fly open, your shoulders are being shaken and it's making your brain feel like its hitting the walls of your skull. Toji's in front of you, green eyes blown wide as he hollers out your name in a panic.
"You were screaming out in your sleep." You're scanning him and the room around you, mind still foggy from rest. "I thought somebody was murdering you."
The thought was almost funny considering your nightmare had been the opposite but not, all at once. Your eyes travel to his scar, the way it shrinks and grows as his mouth moves, his sharp canines and his wet tongue. A person so similar to your past lover but so different all the same. A long muscled neck is straining with panic and your eyes marvel at the sharp collarbones unhidden by his robes. Your brow quirks, not fully registering that where the flat expanse of chest should be, there are breasts practically spilling out.
Your fingers latch into the fabric, mind moving before reason as you rip his robes from his shoulders.
"You're a woman." It isn't a question. How could it be when two breasts are looking you right in the face? She says nothing, head downcast so her shaggy hair acts as a curtain. That sick little sense of dread that's been eating away at you suddenly dissipates. You have the upper hand here, though the betrayal stings all the same.
She pulls her kimono back over her shoulders, hugging it tightly to her frame. "You weren't supposed to find out."
Her head is turned to the side, the edge of her jaw and the downturn of her lips the only visible part of her face. "Well, now I have. And I have questions, lots of them."
"I just need-"
"No, you have meddled in my life more than enough and I have sat here like a good little pet while you do nothing but leave me in silence. So you will answer me, and you will do it now." You bark, catching her wrist and pulling her toward you. The tug catches her off guard and she falls into you, palms rested on either side of your head, her legs a copy over your hips.
"Tch." Is all the response she gives, fingers drumming on her exposed thigh impatiently. The motion is irritating, as if you were the bother and not her.
"First, I'll make you a promise to keep your little secret." You motion to her chest, which is spilling out yet again. She looks back at you with a roll of her eyes and a clenched jaw. She pulls it shut yet again, crossing her arms over her chest to secure the fabric. "But the full price of my silence is based on how truthful you are. If you lie to me I will not hesitate to go back on my word. I imagine the Madame would be glad to have me lining her pockets once again."
She nods slowly, straightening but still sat atop you.
"What's with all this?" You motion above you, unoccupied arm coming to rest behind your head. "The short hair, the baggy garments, the prostitute bride?"
"There's a man I want to kill and as I imagine you know, it's hard to make your way in this world as a woman." Her eyes reflect a deeper shade of green. "I needed you to solidify me masquerading as a man."
"Why me specifically?" You cock your head to the left, your own fingers tapping gently on your chin. "Or am I just that unlucky?"
She looks you up and down as if assessing you down to the very fragments of your soul. It makes you squirm uncomfortably underneath her.
"He's someone you used to be well acquainted with." Chills run up your spine at her admittance. She's holding you hostage in her vermillion gaze, judging whether or not you can handle the information. "I figured he'd come looking for you when his part of your monthly earnings stopped being sent."
It's your turn to straddle now, flipping her so her back thuds into the embroidered quilt below. You don't care what her reasons are, what little ways he may have wronged her.
"Jinichi Zenin." You hiss, your lips are pulled up over your teeth and the words come out as a curse, like just the name being spoken aloud was burning the tastebuds off your tongue.
She just stares at you and there's a disgusting paranoid little voice in your head that tells you 'she's one of them. kill her. kill them all.'
"I want his head." It's catlike, almost a purr your fingers tickling at the expanse between her breasts in a seductive way you learned so many years ago. She lets you do as you please, regardless of the fact that she could overpower you almost too easily. "I wanna put it in a glass fucking box and keep it so he can watch me live a happy life after I've taken his."
A sly smile plays at her lips, that marred side of her mouth stretched so the battered skin becomes an even brighter white. "I've chosen a very vindictive little bride."
You ignore her. "I'll help in whatever way I can. I just want the bastard gone."
"A month more is all I need. Just pretend with me for another month." It's almost pleading, though you imagine she feels that's a bit beneath her.
"Surely, I can help with more than just that." You huff, crinkle settling between your brow in a way you know the Madame would've swatted you for. She thinks for a moment, eyes rolling to look up at the ceiling panels.
"Can you cook?" Her hands come up and you think she's about to push you off her, but she just rests on her elbows as if to get a better look at you.
"I suppose, but I don't enjoy it." You pout.
"Clean?"
"I don't enjoy that either." You're beginning to become irritated. The wifely, mundane duties of a woman never suited you. "If you have forgotten, I have spent the last few years of my young life laid on my back and being tended to by other women."
The proclamation doesn't make you feel any better, yet it still doesn't fill you with any desire to better yourself in either department. Homemaking reminded you of a life long past. Something you had only had the illusion of and would never have again.
"I can't have my betrothed unhappy, now can I?" She chuckles, the rumbling setting something alight underneath you, pressing your thighs together. "Well, what can you do then?"
You eye her up and down letting your kimono fall lazily down both shoulders, your areolas peaking over the edge of the fabric. You hover over her, eyes half lidded in that way that had your customers emptying out their pockets. "Would you like me to show you, my wife?"
She crinkles her nose at the moniker, but her eyes travel along your collar bones and down that pretty little valley between your breasts. If she was a man, you'd feel her solid underneath you. Something about not truly knowing how she felt was exciting, like learning the art of seduction for the first time again.
"You're a cunning little fox." She muses, her fingers playing at the tie around your waist. "And you'll let me use you like that?"
"It's about time I use my talents for my own gain." You smile as your own hand mirrors over hers, notching it into the loose knot and pulling it free. You're laid bare in front of her, undergarments strewn somewhere in the corner. You bend down until your lips find her ear, nibbling on her lobe. "Besides, what else do I have to offer?"
She almost imperceptibly recoils, her hands falling. She lifts you up with ease, settling you on the tatami mats beside your futon. Her face is soft in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable in your nakedness, especially as she bends down and presses a soft kiss to your cheek. It makes you feel dirty, unclean. She looks almost disappointed, as if she hadn't plucked you out of a pleasure house.
"I will be in your debt." She whispers, she sounds so feminine now you wonder how you could have perceived her as anything but. "I'm going into town, you can come with me if you want."
You nod, mumbling something about needing a bath, unable to meet her gaze. She leaves you with that, ungraceful in her steps as she moves out of the room. You sit for a moment, stark naked and feeling worse than you have in a long while before pulling your robes closed and bolting to the hot spring.
Today, you scrub your skin until it bleeds.
▬▬ι════════ﺤ
You make your way back to the shrine, rejection licking its way after each step you make closer to where Toji is sat waiting on your engawa. You still find it hard to meet her gaze, you can't remember a time— if there ever was one— where your advances had been rejected. It stung more than the bathwater over your raw skin.
You say nothing as you brush past her, all too aware of yourself as you pick out a kimono. You pull that pretty forest green one from your wicker trunk, trying to ignore the way it matches her eyes in that annoyingly unintentional way. You hang it over the lid of the box as you slip on your tabi, all too aware of how her gaze follows as your spine curves. It feels scrutinizing now, it makes your skin crawl as you try not to think about the raised scratches on your exposed skin.
You hear her feet pad across the tatami mats, holding your breath when you see her bend down and pick up your kimono. The white chrysanthemums patterned against green silk sparkling in the early morning sun. You pull your nagajuban over your shoulders and tie it neatly, taking your time as an act of petty revenge as she stands there with your robes in her hands. You put your arms out, watching in mirrored glass as a crease of concentration forms between her brows. Strong arms whip you around to face her as she wraps the right side over the left like she'd been dressing you all her life. She bends down, tongue popping through her plump lips as she makes sure the hem clears your ankles. The koshihimo is plucked from inside the wicker basket, securing it over the bunched fabric at your waist and pulling it to form an even fold over your midsection. A little part of you wonders where she learned to tie it so well, considering hers tend to be oversized and tied haphazardly.
"I wasn't raised as a man, you know." She blurts, reading you like an open book in a way that makes irritation buzz beneath your facade of indifference. "Now, where's your obi?"
You sit in your silence, bending down to retrieve it from underneath all your other trinkets. You take the sewing box from it as well, waiting for her to take the garment from you. The white silk is patterned with intricate butterflies that seem to change color in the light, she marvels at the ornate pattering and you think maybe its best not to mention that you'd gotten it so many moons ago as a wedding present. You hadn't dared to wear it even once.
You flip open the false bottom in your sewing box, pulling your pouch of savings from within and tying it to the netsuke attached to your obi once she was done. She stands back and watches you, as if marveling at her handiwork. You nod your head toward the door, "Bring me your robes, I'll tie them properly for you."
"I can do it just fine on my own." She grunts, you stifle a laugh as you give her a once over.
"I don't desire to be in your debt anymore than I already am." You wave her off, kneeling in front of the mirror to begin pinning your hair in whatever way seems most appropriate for the kimono you've chosen. "Let me help you, call it my wifely duties or my addition to our shared cause if you so wish."
She stares at you through the glass and you hold her there, telling her without words that you won't be backing down. She turns on her heel with a sigh and slithers through the doorway, not bothering to close it behind her.
That inky black hair makes its reappearance just as you put the last of your hairpins in. Her face is solemn, as if you'd slighted her in some way by offering her help in the way of appearing more presentable. You stand to your feet, socks smooth against the floor. Your hands cup her chin, angling it up so shes looking forward, adjusting her shoulders for better posture. That smug glint in her eye is gone, now sending daggers your way. You have to hold back a snort, she looks too much like a bratty child as she is now.
"Would you rather I dressed more sloppily so we can match?" You tease, pulling her haphazardly strewn on kimono from where it's tucked inside her hakama. "Who in their right mind would believe we're married?"
She makes a low sound, hands tensing at her sides as you continue discarding layers of cloth. "Maybe they'll think I'm a devoted husband whose only wish in life is to provide for my wife."
You glance up, a laugh exploding from deep inside your belly as you see how proud of herself she looks— which makes her pout. "Well, I guess you plan for me to beat the other women off you, hm?"
She says nothing, avoiding your eyes as you take off her last layer, stripped down to her undergarments. She doesn't make eye contact with you in her nakedness and you can't blame her. She wasn't the one who had spent years in a glorified brothel. You hold her face in your hands, making her look forward once again and rolling her shoulders back. You frown at how poorly her chest is bound.
"Arms out." She makes a noise like a low growl at your demand. "Oh please, I'm not going to fondle you."
Her eyes roll, but she does as she's told. You have to hold back calling her a 'good girl' just to spite her. You mull over ways to distract her as your fingers pull the sarashi loose. Her breasts falling to where they should sit naturally. And oh, was she beautifully endowed. You almost want to curse her out for it.
"So, why are you going after that bastard Jinichi?" You try to distract yourself from the way her nipples protrude in the chilly morning air, ignoring how beautifully pink they are as well. There's a seductive little whisper in the back of your mind that urges you to crane your neck and pull one between your teeth. You chalk it up to years of conditioning from surviving in the pleasure district. Though, the thought doesn't last long. Not when she's more rigid than before after your prying.
"There was a woman I loved very much. She was sickly and in her desperation she was offered opium as a cure." Her face is solemn, voice devoid of any emotion in the same way it had been when she'd told you to pack your whole life in one trunk. You dont say anything, just nod as you fold the cloth neatly in half. "Jinichi provided her with it and she died as a result."
Some little part of you that you'd thought died aches at the way her eyes unfocus and stare blankly at her reflection. You don't need to ask, she had loved that woman more than what could be ascribed to friendship. No, you know that look of grief. You had felt it in your own way, had seen it staring back at you.
"I apologize for asking." You mutter, you can't bear to look her in the eye now. You had crossed a line, even if you hadn't known it was there.
"It was three years ago, it'd be foolish of me to be upset over it still." She tries to feign indifference, the scar on the right corner of her mouth pulling taut with a too wide, close lipped grin. You want to say something reassuring, to tell her you understood at least half of what she felt; to lie and say it would pass. But you knew all too well what the passage of time was capable of, what it could twist that solemn feeling into. So you say nothing and continue wrapping the binder tightly around her until her chest lies practically flat.
"How do you feel about killing the man you love?" Your head snaps up to meet her gaze as your fingers stuff the loose end into the many layers of cloth. Your brow furrows, your face turning hot at the presumption that you could still love a monster like him. Laughing incredulously.
"Love?" You almost can't believe the implication. "No, there is no love left inside me for that man. Maybe not for anyone again."
You slide her kimono back over her shoulders, frown deepening as you realize she seems to have gotten it made at least 2 sizes too big. She folds her arms back to her sides as you repeat the masculine version of what she had just previously done for you. Wrapping the left over the right, securing the waist cord and tying the kaku-obi low around her hips. Your muscle memory astonishes you, the way your body still remembers how to properly dress a man. You stand back and admire your handiwork, smoothing your hands over whatever wrinkles and pleats there may be before tossing her hakama to her.
"He's my brother, you know." She says it so casually, as if it's normal for brothers and sisters to kill their lovers and each other. There's a small pit of betrayal laying heavily in your belly, though you surmised as much. The madame had referred to her as a Zenin originally, after all. And that same dark, unruly hair and the overconfident way they both held themselves would have been enough of an indication anyway.
"Didn't see you at the wedding." You joke, trying to lighten the mood. "Or had you already denounced the Zenin name by then?"
"Hmm, well I can't say we were ever close." Her nimble fingers tie the strings, though her eyes hold yours. "I'd taken on her last name long before your wedding."
"Good for you." You smile, picking up your sandals and moving them toward the now opened shoji, placing them on the engawa. "To be a Zenin is to be cursed anyhow."
She chuffs out a laugh and it's beautiful, innocent and childlike. You tuck the image away in your mind, into a safe spot where you can mull it over again later. She grabs her own sandals and places them next to yours, sliding them on before offering you a hand which you gladly take.
"Let's hope your seduction will prove fruitful."
▬▬ι════════ﺤ
When you arrive in town, Toji ties up your horses and as she does you immediately try to run off. The only things on your mind being finding the first poor soul to take advantage of and buying her a more fitted kimono. Both of which she'd hinder you in doing. Her hand circles around your wrist, pulling you back into her with a quiet look of demanding.
"I can't very well seduce anyone with my husband riding my skirts, can I?" You ask, your tone enticing. "Let me do my job, you do yours."
She doesn't like the idea, the look of irritation on her face says as much, but there's no other way. Your nails harsh her jaw, that murderous little look you have found yourself enjoying splayed across it as you kiss her cheek before going on your merry way.
Edo and it's residents proved to be quite unhelpful, except for the shop merchant who'd sold you a dazzling emerald kimono and a new pair of hakama pants. No matter who you turned your flirtations onto, there was no information to be had about Jinichi or anyone else in the Zenin clan for that matter. You should've expected as much, considering they had their grubby little fingers in just about every business in Edo. Hell, a good chunk of the money you had made at the pleasure house was going straight back into their pockets.
You trudge your way back to where Toji had left the horses, trying to find a way to hide the thick fabrics from her. You didn't want to come off as too soft for fear of it being taken advantage of. She was still a woman you didn't know, with ambitions you couldn't be 100% sure about.
Toji is halfway down the road, watching as you try to stuff the garments inside your kimono. She looks at you as if you've grown another head and you huff, embarrassment warming your cheeks. "You needed something more tailored if we're going to be seen together in the future."
You hope it comes across as conceited as it was meant to, she hums a sarcastic little sound and you fight the urge to bite back with a rebuttal.
"Any luck?" She frowns and you don't need to ask whether she had been successful in her investigating either. You give her a small shake of your head, though you're largely more interested in the ceramic vessel tucked under her arm.
"Sake?" You smile, a mischievous little grin pulling at your lips. She rolls her eyes, setting it on the dirt path for a moment before hoisting you up onto your horse.
"Well, it was supposed to be a celebration." She pouts, "Though, I guess me and my little drunkard wife can still partake."
You glare at her, in a playful little way that makes her chuckle. "There's one more place I want to check before heading back." She perks up like a dog being offered table scraps, awaiting your continuance.
"Just follow me, it's not terribly far from here."
▬▬ι════════ﺤ
Toji follows you wordlessly, the sounds of hooves slamming into dirt and grass the only sounds between you. You slow to a stop, coming up on a large estate that looks like it was abandoned in a hurry. The screens have been left open, empty trunks strewn about inside and out. You dismount, jaw tight as the familiar building gets closer and closer with each step. You felt like a ghost here. In the house that supported the facade of devotion, where you had planned to see children with inky black hair and terrible attitudes running through the halls.
Toji's light footsteps aren't far behind, her finger hooking into the sleeve of your robes as you stand there— stuck in a daydream.
"This was my home for a short time." You blurt, taking one step through the threshold. The pictures of both of your parents still hung on the wall at the end of the hall. She says nothing.
You peek into the front room, your wedding portrait staring back at you. Your stomach churns and your fists ball up, you look like a young girl in love. Probably because you were, foolish as it had been. Jinichi is seated beside you with his stone face of indifference and his long hair you used to hope he would never cut.
You don't linger long, pushing to the bedroom you'd shared to see if there's any indication of where he could've run off to between the remnants of your old life. The room is practically bare, save for your wedding kimono hanging out of the wardrobe. Your fingers itch at your sides to run your hands over the fabric, fold it up and store it away like there was another time you'd be betrothed.
"Take it with you." Her voice is low behind you, your head snaps to look at her leaning in the doorway. "Burn it, wear it again. It's yours ain't it?" She shrugs it off in that dismissive sort of way. You turn your back to her again, delving further into the room and pulling it from the wardrobe. Your heart stops when a scrap of paper floats to the ground. You turn to look at Toji again, eyes blow wide. Her footsteps boom over the tatami mats, bending down and clutching the paper in her hand so hard it wrinkles.
"To my wilted little flower," Your hands shake as Toji begins reading. You want to rip it from her hands, embarrassment and rage coming to make themselves at home inside you. "I imagine you've come looking for me. I loved that vindictive little part of you. Come, yell at me. Be spiteful and spit your venomous words my way. Your husband misses you."
You stand to your feet, leaving your kimono and house of lies behind as you trek your way back to your horse. You don't want her to finish. There's a part of you that knows if his location is revealed to you, you'll be halfway there by the time Toji falls asleep and you weren't dumb enough to think you'd be successful without a concrete plan.
You haul yourself haphazardly onto your horse, using Toji's hakama and kimono as padding underneath you. She doesn't say anything as she sits atop hers a few seconds behind. You hope the promise of sake is still there and tell yourself you'll just pad into her room when she's sleeping to take it and help yourself.
The ride is silent again, your bones feel like they're vibrating underneath skin and muscle. Toji's pulled ahead of you at some point, her jaw set tight and brow furrowed in the moonlight. She looks beautiful and vicious, you want to slip your hands inside of her kimono and feel the warmth of her skin under your fingertips.
When you get back to your shared home, she takes your horse from you and leads both of them back to that makeshift stable that faces your room. You trudge your way through the screen, putting her new clothes on the low table in the front room before setting your sights on your own dwelling. You're halfway naked by the time you enter, your body heavy with frustration and hatred. Your nemaki is pulled over your shoulders, undergarments discarded and the ribbon tied loosely around your midsection as you rest against the door frame.
She's come in by then, her own deep blue sleeping clothes pulled on and sat at the low table— the garments you'd gotten her gone now. There's two sakazuki in front of her, both filled to the brim with what feels like liquid gold.
"What, is this our marriage ceremony?" You snort, gesturing to the cups as you sit on your knees in front of her.
"It's all we had." She chuckles back, sliding one your way and picking hers up with slender fingers. "Besides, I'd say it's a celebration of sorts."
You raise a brow her way, picking your own up and bringing it to your lips. "Celebration of what? Getting the run around from Jinichi?" His name tasted like poison on your tongue, the sake following suit to wash it away.
"I'd say we've made some great progress. All thanks to you of course." She gives you a sly little wink, you watch too closely as her head tips back. The way her lips part and throat moves as she swallows. You want to reach out, slip sake between your mouths as you press your lips to hers. You want to take everything from her just to give it all back and then some.
"Well, I'm glad I could be of use somehow." You shake your head, pulling yourself from your pent up day dream. You'd thought about her naked and writhing too much latetly, like you were some old pervert.
"You being here was enough." She smiles, it pulls at you somewhere deep inside in a way that makes you so uncomfortable you shift on your knees. "So, thank you."
You blush, looking away from those green eyes that hold you captive more often than you'd like to admit to yourself. "Oh, don't get soft on me now. A lowly woman from the pleasure district like myself, may fall in love with you."
It's teasing and lighthearted enough. The truth of the matter was letting yourself love Toji wouldn't be hard. In fact, it was so easy it was becoming worrisome. This life was bliss. It was peace in a way you had never known it. And Toji had given that to you. You had spent even less time with Jinichi before you'd been married off and you had learned to love him intensely, evil as he was.
"Firstly, I'd never dream of calling you lowly." She laughs, pouring another cup of sake for you both. "Secondly, it'd be an honor for most to be loved and doted on by a woman like you."
Her admittance leaves you wordless, choosing instead to down the sake she'd poured in one gulp, watching as she does the same and begins filling them again.
"Oh, you flatter your wife." Your giggle feels like it reverberates around the room. "Though, doubtful as it is."
"Oh?"
"I am a courtesan." Your fingers drum lazily on the table, face warm with alcohol and maybe a little embarrassment, "A prideful one at that."
She quirks a brow at you, waiting for you to finish your drawn out thought. She takes your silence as a signal for the truth serum the sake had become. Her hands are steady and sure, much unlike yours that feel the need to busy themselves whether it be tapping or picking at the frayed sleeve of your nemaki.
"You denied me." Your eyes are cold as they flit to connect with hers. You hold her gaze as you bring the cup to your lips and swallow slowly. The bite has you pulling air through your teeth. "You're the first, you know? To deny the opportunity to seek pleasure in me."
"A good sign don't you think? I value you for more than what is between your legs." She laughs as if you had told a rather funny joke. It irritates you though you imagine it should make you feel better.
You try your seduction again, her statement feeling like a challenge. You let your robes slide all the way off this time, the lantern lights flickering against your breasts. Your robes pool around your hips and your hands push them away, baring it all. You convince yourself the flush on her cheeks is in fact because of you and not the multitude of sake shared between you. Her eyes dart around like she isn't supposed to be looking and it bothers you even more.
"Do I not pique your interest, my wife?" It's quiet, barely a whisper. Insecurity masked by seduction. You lean over the table, faces merely a few inches apart as your breasts kiss the laquered wood. "Do you not think of me late at night, alone in your chambers?"
She pulls her own full cup to her lips, drinking it just as fast as she'd poured it. Settling the cup onto the table a little more heavy handed than you think she means to.
"You haunt me." She breathes, settling back onto her palms— the distance between you increasing. "Every moment of every day, you're like a ghost I can't shake off."
You smile at that, it makes you feel better about the sleepless nights you've spent playing at your clit at the thought of her. There's a deep hunger within you that food and drink can't satiate, the sake settling like a warm hum beneath your skin.
"Then let me keep haunting you, Toji." You think it may be the first time you've said her name aloud. A small thing she seems to have noticed as well as she sits lazily across from you, her robes loose around her waist, face pulled into a magnetizing little smile.
"You are very bewitching." Her face is relaxed, nothing like it had been all of the other times you'd been disrobed in front of her. You can feel her denial like a heavy weight on your back and curse yourself for deluding yourself into thinking she'd take you to her chambers. Maybe the pleasure district had warped you into thinking you were irresistible. Maybe you were now the fool who couldn't decipher kindness from want. No better than a man.
You shrug on your robes, looking away from that beautiful face that makes you ache somewhere you'd thought had been lost to you. Right now, you wish it had. You stand to your feet, hiding away inside yourself like a forgotten child. "I thank you for the sake. I shall retire to my chambers."
Your sleeve is pinched between her fingers, her head hanging like you'd just given her a rather harsh scolding. "Stay."
"I do not like to be ordered—"
"Tomorrow, after we go find Jinichi and end his miserable life, I want you to stay." She keeps her head down which you feel thankful for when your whole face morphs into ugly shock. "I don't want to lie with you if you're ready to turn tail as soon as our goal's been achieved. You may be a prideful woman but I promise my jealousy far exceeds that."
You fall to your knees, face in your hands as you try to mask the elation spread across your features. "Oh, you foolish woman."
"I feel calling me foolish is rude." She pouts, her fingers prying yours away from your face. "I just offered you my life."
You snort at her. A foolish woman indeed. "Is that what that was?"
"Was I not clear?" Her dark brows pull together, the left one quirked up higher as her scar turns downward. Your fingers tap against your chin in mock contemplation, goading her into the notion that you may just decide to leave and never look back. Jinichi had been right, you were vindictive.
"I would like to keep haunting your halls for a good long while. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to haunt your chambers." You laugh, shaking her off and standing to your feet. "For now, I will bid you goodnight."
You close the door softly behind you once you're back in your room, loosing out a shaky breath. All your late nights
You slip under your quilts so quickly you don't notice Toji's lingering frame shadowed against the shoji before putting out the lantern.
▬▬ι════════ﺤ
The next morning you and Toji have a breakfast filled with conversation about what you'll pick up at the next market, all the new embroidered silks you're going to buy for your next kimono while Toji tells you to get whatever pleases you. You both say nothing about what will transpire in a few hours.
She cleans the kitchen and you pretend to be helpful and not distracting. She ties your kimono— a beautiful opalescent silk pattered with cherry blossoms— and picks out your hair sticks. You try to convince her to tie her hair back to which she refuses as you dress her in the new kimono and hakama you'd bought her.
You both look at each other with twin grim expressions once all is said and done. She sits at the low table, motioning for you to join her. You do. She uses one hand to push her hair back from her dazzling face and you wonder how much more beautiful she is naked. To which you pinch yourself for— it's no time to be fantasizing. Her other hand picks at her cuticles til they bleed.
"He wants you to come to the Zenin estate." She blurts, she looks nervous and you don't need to be a mind reader to know she's considering leaving you at home. You both know you'd never forgive her if she did. "He says the rest of the clan will be out doing their bidding so it'll just be servants perusing the halls."
You nod slowly. You feel your breakfast coming up, pickled vegetables creating something like a bomb in your stomach. "What do you need me to do?"
"Just go in. Be the dutiful wife who misses her husband. We'll take one horse, I'll ride with you until we're just outside of the estate and I'll take it from there." She's sure of herself and it provides you with some strange comfort.
"I want to be the one to land the final blow." You mirror her confidence despite your lack of training. You won't freeze or falter. You want to watch the life drain from his eyes and know that you had a hand in your own fate— your own peace.
"It's too dangerous for you—"
"I don't care." It's akin to a growl. You're all but baring your vicious little teeth and she doesn't even pretend to flinch.
"You loved him for a time. It's much harder to kill someone you love than you think." Her hand reaches out to you from across the table. You take it but keep your face stern. You won't let her sway you.
"Toji." It's all you say, conveying with your eyes everything else you can't say aloud. She sighs, letting her free hand slide over her face and saying something under her breath about you being a frustrating brat.
"Alright, okay? I get it." She looks tired, like she had spent all night contemplating this exact scenario. She had. "I'll hold him down and you'll sink your pointy little teeth in him."
You smile at her, bringing the hand you're holding to your lips. "Thank you."
"If you go rogue on me I won't hesitate to put your ass back on that horse and send you back home. Where it's safe." You wave her off, standing to your feet and making your way to the stables.
▬▬ι════════ﺤ
The ride to the Zenin estate is long. You'd forgotten how far from civilization yours and Toji's little slice of heaven is. Anxiety licks its way up your spine, not because of Jinichi or for your own well being. Toji is both the cause and the cure. Her chest is pressed firmly against your back and you're beginning to come to terms with the fact that you've become quite the pervert. You imagine her fingers under your robes as she sits behind you, licking her fingers covered in your wetness.
"The tips of your ears are red, you little degenerate." Her lips are too close to your ear and it makes them flush all the more.
As promised, she hops off your horse just before the bend that leads to the compound. She herself looks anxious now, fiddling with the strings on her hakama. You almost wish you'd let her wear her old robes, it'll be pain to get the blood out of her garments. She urges you down off the horse for a moment, cupping your face in her hands as soon as your feet hit the ground.
"You are going to go in there and be your most charming self. Say whatever it is you think he wants to hear. I'm going to be right behind you whether you can see me or not. You are going to be smart and level headed. We will kill him and then we will go home. Safe. Together."
You nod, smiling as the crease in her brow deepens. "I will be fine. I know how to stroke a mans ego. I used to be a professional until you came along."
She doesn't say anything as she rests her chin atop your head. She takes a deep breath in and kisses your scalp before pulling back, your face still cupped in her hands. "Oh my pretty little bird."
You roll your eyes at the moniker. "We should go."
She nods but doesn't let go. Her face comes closer and you're too eager, gripping her by her kimono and pulling her toward you to connect your lips. They're softer than you'd imagined, melding into your own. You curse the both of you for having these grudges, you want to go home and twist around under your quilts until you fall asleep with your limbs intertwined. Though, if it weren't for these grudges you'd still be married or worse yet, still stuck in the brothel. You would've never known the peace she had given you.
The kiss is cut much to short, both of you panting as you pull away. She presses one more kiss to your forehead before lifting you back onto your horse and giving it a light swat on the behind to urge it forward. Try as you might not to look back, you watch her until she disappears. The path ahead is filled with carefully crafted masks and bloodshed. You want to feel her warmth the whole way through. When had you become so sentimental?
There's no one to greet you after you tie up your horse and make your way to the inner gardens. You're not totally unfamiliar with the Zenin estate, you'd been there a couple times. Once during Jinichi's courting and once more when you'd been married. You were supposed to return once more when you'd become with child, which thankfully never happened.
When you slide open the Shoji to the main house, Jinichi is sat waiting with his back to you. A different location but too similar to your dream. His hair is as long and wild as ever and you take this opportunity to pull your face into something mirroring eager elation.
"Jinichi!" You gush, running over and wrapping your arms around his large shoulders. He hums a gruff sound and places his hand over one of your forearms, stroking you like a pet. Your skin feels coated with grime, a bath has never sounded better.
"My wife has come home." If you didn't know him, you'd think he was actually excited to see you. "Did you miss me?"
"How could I not, dear husband? My only wish in this life has been to remain by your side." You hope wherever Toji is, she cant hear you. Or will at least pretend not to.
"I've been looking for my little flower for a very long time." Liar.
"I curse the gods for keeping us apart. But I am home now." You nuzzle into his neck, that familiar smell stinging your nostrils so harshly it almost makes your eyes water. He pulls you into his lap, his fingers playing with the tie on your obi. You try to mask the way your whole body freezes, your stomach turning at the thought of having to lie with him— or any other man— ever again.
Regardless, your hand comes up to caress the side of his face. "What about you, did you miss me?"
He smiles in that disgusting way you used to find so endearing, his teeth on display as if he was warning you not to cross him. "Of course I missed you, honey. Your husband is so glad to have you back home."
His fingers pull the knot loose, your kimono pulled open to leave you just in your undergarments. His hungry gaze feels like spiders walking all over your skin and you want to scream and cry for Toji. But you don't. You keep that deep look of adoration splayed across your features, clinging to him like a child with your eyes squeezed shut.
"Take your filthy hands off her. Now." The low rumbling of Toji's voice is like music to your ears. When you open your eyes, she's got a katana pressed against his neck.
"Oh, my little sister come to save my whore wife?" He laughs, it's bitter and void of all that emotion he had pretended to have before. It's your turn to bare your teeth, pulling the short blade from where it's strapped against your thigh and clenching it between your fist.
"You mean the wife you left to rot in the pleasure district?" You laugh back, "I am not the same foolish girl you married and you would've been wise to expect more than an easy lay from me."
He finds that funnier than the blade against his neck, his eyes furious as spit flies from his cursed maw. "Do you forget yourself? You are two women. What do I have to fear?"
You see his hands moving and before you can think you're kicking him onto his back, Toji's blade nicking his throat. She looks at you like you've betrayed her and you know you're one idiotic move from her keeping her promise to send you back home.
"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned, dear husband." You straddle his waist and pretend not to see the frown on Toji's face and the hardness underneath you. "You've taken something very precious from the both of us. Your debt will not be left unpaid."
Your hand is steady as you plunge your knife into his chest cavity. Blood seeps from the wound and turns his kimono a darker shade, but it's his laugh that unsettles you. His blood flies from his mouth, covering your garments with splatters of crimson.
"You stupid woman." He spits, "Both of you exist to be used as pawns. Nothing more than pleasurable toys to be used at a man's whims."
You see red as his eyes flit to Toji. You think of her struck with grief as she holds her deceased lover and your limbs are out of your own control.
"Don't look at her. Don't look at her. Don't look at her." It's repeated through clenched teeth as your weapon is pressed into that same wound over and over. You continue even as his body goes limp and his eyes glaze over. You barely notice as Toji's blade separates his head from his neck, your body put on autopilot.
You hear her call your name but it sounds too far away. Only when her bloodied hands cover yours do you stop moving and let her pull you off him. She brings you into her lap, smoothing your hair and holding you like you would a child who needed consoling. Your fingers grip into whatever piece of her you can latch onto, gasping for air like you'd been drowning.
Jinichi is gone and you're finally free.
"It's alright." She pulls your kimono closed and secures your obi once again. "He's dead, it's just you and me now. Let's go home, yeah?"
You nod and she lifts you in her arms, carrying you the whole way back to your horse. Its breathing steady underneath your thighs. Your fingers rake through her mane, silky and smooth under your bloodstained fingertips.
Toji's warmth is something beyond comfort, her arms wrapped tightly around you as you make your blood-soaked way back home. Her lips press softly against your ear, words of comfort whispered in as her breath tickles your skin.
It takes too long to get home, your mind and body heavy with exhaustion. The sun has come and gone as you trot up to the stables, the cool night air soothing against your clammy skin. Toji hops off, leading the horse to its pen and plucking you from its back before shutting it in beside the other horse in its stall. She takes your hand and you walk toward your room at the back of the house, sitting you on the engawa as she carefully removes your sandals and tabi socks. She's quiet and focused, that almost permanent crease between her dark brows on display. You want to kiss it away, your body leans forward and your presses your lips to that little crease. Her hands rest on your thighs, rubbing circles on your soft skin.
"Wait here, okay? The fresh air is good for you." She stands up, joints cracking as she makes her way to the shoji screen and enters your home. You rest back onto your palms, counting the stars in the sky and for the first time appreciate the fresh air in your lungs. You reach over, taking your kiseru from where it now lives on the wooden flooring just outside your bedroom door and load it with tobacco. The nicotine fills your lungs and you think about what this freedom really means—what life without shackles of the past could blossom into. You no longer had to bear the burden of rearing children, your wife takes care of all of the cooking and most of the chores and has already given herself a reputation for making you want for nothing. You needed a hobby, or at the very least needed to participate in home life a bit more. A purpose.
Toji's familiar footsteps pad against the tatami mats and then against the outside wood before coming to kneel in front of you with a large steaming basin under one arm and a rag hung over the opposite shoulder. She holds your eyes as she pushes the skirts of your kimono up, dipping the rag into the warm water and scrubbing between your toes and up your ankle all the way to you calves.
"You did well today." Her voice is softer than you'd ever know it to be and part of you wishes for that gruffness back— selfish as it is.
You hum in response, reaching your hand out to push her hair from her eye line. "Maybe you can start taking me with you wherever you seem to run off to during the day."
Her brow quirks, her gaze dropping back down to the basin to wring out the blood from the cloth and begin scrubbing at your thighs. Your heartbeat quickens as she travels higher, your legs parting as if on instinct. "I don't know what you mean."
There's a smile pulling at her scar, she's a wonderful liar and you both know it. You laugh at her, your knees coming up to expose your undergarments. "Don't lie. I'd be a fool not to have some inkling of what you're getting up to when your clothes are always splattered with blood."
"Don't you worry your pretty little head, my wife. Do as you wish, learn to paint or play the koto. Buy one hundred kimono's just to watch them collect dust. The only job you have is to live with happiness in your heart. That is all I want for you."
"You fool." Your fingers thread into the panels of her kimono, making her fingers stop their movements on the inside of your thighs. You want her more than you ever have, which is alarming considering how many nights you tortured yourself over the thought of her under your quilts. You pull her forward, lips pressing harshly against hers in a desperate kiss. Her hands grip into your hips and pull you down into her lap to sit atop her.
Her cold fingers untie your obi and pull your kimono away, your own hands pulling at the longer strands at her nape. Her mouth is greedy, finding purchase on your jaw and nipping at the skin there. Excited hands come up to pull your hairpins free, strands coming down to tickle against your face. You want her in a way that makes your skin feel like a live wire and your mind clear as if this was the one thing a lifetime of strife had been for.
Her fingers are calloused and rough against your soft skin, the juxtaposition of two hard lives carried out almost opposite before merging as one. You feel fragile in her embrace, breakable. Precious. Heart hammering against your chest like it was your first time being touched as she rids you of your undergarments. Soothed by hands that show kindness toward you while showing brutality to others as she kneads at your hips. Touching you in a way that is both rough and soft. Something you're sure only a woman could do. Or maybe it was just that only Toji was capable of such contradictory ministrations.
She sucks at your neck, tongue laving and teeth grazing your gentle skin as her hand comes to knead your breasts. You don't remember a time where you'd felt so passionate. So hot and heavy and wanting for more. Little pants of her name leave your parted lips and she takes it as an opportunity to let her tongue tickle against your lips, waiting for an invitation. You open your maw and she's so goddamn greedy, licking over your teeth, exploring the inside of your orifice as if she'd find some hidden part of you within to coax out. She sucks on your tongue, moaning into your mouth as you relinquish everything to her.
She lays you down gently, the grass kissing your naked back as she works her way down your front. The gentleness of every touch has you choking on emotion. You didn't know lust could be so tender and kind. So giving.
"Am I allowed to seek pleasure with you, my wife?" It's mumbled against your collarbone, the reverberation of her voice making your skin prick with goosebumps. Her ask pulls at someplace inside you thought had been lost long ago. To seek pleasure with you, not in you. You feel your face morph into something that wordlessly spells devotion and she looks at you as if seeing you with new eyes and a deep endearment that spans beyond this life time all the same. "Let me show you what it is to be wanted as a woman and not as a means to an end."
Tears prick at your eyes and you nod, fingers still locked through jet black strands. She leaves wet kisses against your décolleté before popping your right nipple in her mouth, using her roughened finger pads on the left. Your back arches under her touch, fingers twisting through shaggy hair.
"You're beautiful." It's more of a breath than a string of words. It doesn't feel like flattery, it feels like truth being spoken aloud. "I'm selfish and want to keep you locked away here, away from all the terribleness of the outside world."
"You're a bit late for that, my dear." You laugh through a yelp as she grazes her teeth over your sensitive peak. Her fingers leave your left breast and tap their way down your ribcage, past your abdomen and all the way to your pretty cunt. She leaves tender touches against your clit that make you want to reach out and rip her wrist away just to chastise her for stopping. She hums as her mouth follows the same path as her hands, the evidence of wet kisses being left behind on your stomach.
"And I'm not so terrible as to clip your wings and lock you in cage." She mumbles it into your belly, just above your mound. She ventures lower, onyx strands tickling against your skin as she licks a stripe just above your clit. It sends shivers across your entire body, your hips lift for more delicious pressure. She's teasing you and finding too much joy in it, sitting up between your thighs and popping one of your toes in her mouth. It's warm and wet and tickles a little more than you're comfortable with. You wriggle them around until she pops off, scrunching your face up at the glossy sheen of saliva left behind.
"What?" She chuckles.
"I haven't had a bath, they're dirty." You pout.
"I wiped you down like a good wife, didn't I?" She puts your leg over her shoulder, kissing your ankle up to your calf before pressing a long one to the side of your knee. "You are purity personified. There is nothing unclean about you, my wife."
She hovers over your mound again and you clamp your legs closed around her head. "What now?"
"It's quite unfair I'm the only one naked." You huff as you push yourself up onto your elbows, a teasing glare playing on your features. She glares back but unties her hakama, discarding them and her kimono somewhere behind you. She wears no undergarments save for the cloth binding her chest. You sit up more properly, your hands shaking embarrassingly as you pull it loose and her breasts spring free. Your fingertips play gently at one of her peaks and she shudders. You watch her face contort into desperation and you scoot forward, the grass below flattening underneath you. Your mouth rivals hers in its greedy path, sucking a nipple into your mouth and swirling your tongue around it. You look up, holding her gaze as if to ask her silently if you're doing okay, little gasps muffled as she brings her hand to her mouth.
You pop off, blowing air over the saliva accumulated on her skin and watch as she shudders, goosebumps road-mapping their way over her. She's beautiful and feminine, you wonder how the world experiences her and doesn't see it. Her cheeks flush all the way to the tips of her ears, a foreign shyness splaying over her pretty face as she reverses your roles. She lays against the grass and pulls you to sit over her face, your view of her open legs and cunt. Her breath fans against your lower lips and you gasp, a dizzying cloud of lust coming over you as you bend forward.
Her tongue lolls out and licks at your pussy, mouth greedier than it had been before. That mouth. That beautiful mouth that teases and goads. Curses and compliments. It's on you and it's licking and sucking like you're the best thing it's ever known. You're writhing above her, grinding down into her tongue that's poking at your entrance. You curse and lie and tell her no more. But more is what you want. You want everything she has to give and maybe even more than that. Your bottom lip brushes over her pretty cunt and she whines, it's like music to your ears as your sounds of pleasure mix into a hypnotizing melody.
"You're so unfair." She mewls, her fingers coming up to replace her tongue. They scissor into you, opening you up as her mouth focuses back on sucking your clit. "A lovely woman with an even lovelier pussy. Come sit on my face a little harder, let me taste your sweet nectar more."
You gasp at her vulgarity, there's a tingling feeling just below your belly that's getting more intense as her words are spoken against your most sensitive spot. Your arms hook around her thighs, spreading them further before swiping your fingertips across her slit. Your eyes roll back between the forceful thrusting of her fingers, her sucking at your clit, and the wetness collected on your fingers. You bring it to your lips and suck, moaning at the taste of her on your tongue.
"And what about you? You've kept this wondrous cunt from me for so long. I could've been licking and fucking it for over a month now." You chide, teeth grazing her mound. She growls at that, free hand coming to swat at your ass and gloating as you yelp.
"What a greedy little thing you've become." She uses her long arm to push your upper body down, signaling you to mirror her movements. You oblige, pulling her swollen clit between your lips and sucking, keeping her legs spread with one arm and collecting her wetness with the fingers on the other before dipping them inside.
She's warm and wet, part of you understands the fixation men have on sheathing themselves inside though you didn't harbor any of their selfishness. You rock back and forth on her mouth in tandem with the thrust of her fingers. The whines and panting of the others name being cast into the surrounding forest as you mirror the way her fingers curl into a spot you'd never known existed.
There's a hot knot burning low in your belly that gets tighter and tighter as her fingers pump in and out of you more furiously. Her cunt is clenching around your fingers as you mirror her movements, drool and slick collecting on your chin, her hips undulating for more. You're stuck in a cycle of want. Both wanting to give and receive pleasure.
"Toji, I-"
"Shh, I know. Just a bit longer, my dear. Just hold out a bit longer for me." Your clit buzzes with the vibration. Your hands are sporadic, your walls clenching to hold back your orgasm as Toji's brutality becomes more and more intense. The sounds of both of your cunts squelching in your ears making it that much harder to keep your composure.
"I- I can't. I have to cum Toji. Please." It's more whiny and desperate than you'd ever meant for it to be. Your toes are curling, blades of grass stuck in between as you rock against her. Her breaths are puffing out more heavily, her stomach becoming taut with need underneath you.
"Cum for me, my pretty little dove." She whispers. And you do, its earth shattering. Every atom in your body exploding with pleasure as you both become a tangle of limbs and sultry sobs. You're leaking down her forearm and she's watering the grass below as her body pulses underneath you. It's less than a minute but you're imprinting your teeth into her inner thigh, your unoccupied hand clenching so your fingernails leave crescent moons into the skin on the other. You're twitching with the aftershocks as she continues to clean you up with her tongue and spurring you into over sensitivity.
You go limp on top of her, your breasts pressing into her abdomen. Your fingers slide out of her and are popped into your mouth to savor the taste of her and you cry out when hers follow suit. She rolls you off her, easing herself into a crawl to plop next to you.
"I love you." She blurts. It's casual like she hadn't just said it for the first time. You stare at her mouth agape as you watch her lick your wetness from her forearms and sucking you off her fingers with a hum.
"What?"
"What the hell do you mean what?" She snorts, turning on her side to get a better look at your awe struck face.
"Say it again." Your brows knit together in something between confusion and adoration. "I want to hear your honeyed words from those lips once again."
She chuckles at you, brushing your hair from your face and pressing a delicate kiss to your lips. "I love you."
You stare at her, taking in all the things you'd never been able to before. The way her eyes crinkle at the corners when she smiles, the way her breaths come out in controlled puffs, her jadeite eyes and how beautifully unique that scar on her lip makes her. The moonlight glows off her skin and you think maybe there has never been someone more beautiful— more perfect for you.
"I love you too, my wife." You smile so hard it makes your cheeks hurt and she follows suit, that eye catching scar warping more beautifully.
She carries you inside once her limbs no longer feels like jelly, wiping you down fully this time and tucking you naked under your quilts. She only leaves you to make some tea and a bowl of soba noodles to share. You spend the rest of the night giggling and telling stories, though there are brief intermissions of fucking and moaning.
That's what your days become, mornings filled with warmth and love and evenings filled with desperate hands and whines. Peaceful and debauched. Living in love instead of running from it. Toji's is yours and you are hers, until you turn old and gray.
i am unfortunately going to be leaving this blog indefinitely after the month of july. while i have many of you who i truly feel i've made beautiful connections with during my time here, i just no longer feel connected to this space or find joy in it. i have 2 collabs coming up that i will be posting for, but after july this blog will be inactive. i will be leaving it up just in case any of you still want access to the things i have written thus far! thank you so much to all 2,013 of you for enjoying what i have written here! its been a fun ride while it lasted!
i'm sending you all well wishes for your futures and i know you'll find many blogs to experience sexy fun on! thank you for your understanding and i'll hopefully be seeing you all for my fem!toji fic here in a few days and again in july for beast tamer!toji ! thank you again for all the love.
Toji scolding you with your head locked between his thick thighs, warm skin rippling over flexed, rippling muscles. Your nose is pressed up against his balls and it's a little icky but you can smell him and it makes your head swim.
You've been pushing at his buttons all day. Running your hands down that slutty little compression shirt with a pout and asking just how much he benches. If he can pick you up. Hugging him close when he wraps a single arm around you, hand splayed across your ass and gripping to lift you up.
It's not your fault he's fine. Gruff rough-and-tumble voice, the low set of his brows. You like that he's a little blunt. He's buff and on a bulk right now and it makes you want to tie him up and take a picture of the scowl you know he'll give. Better yet if he tied you up. And played with you. Fingered you rough with two of those calloused digits inside, knuckle-deep, stretching you open and scissoring until your slick ran down his wrist.
You're snapped out of your reverie when he pulls at your hair, lifting your gaze from his dick to his sneer. "Hey. You listening, brat?"
He sees your hips shift at the moniker. Then his lips curl back, and he shoots you the biggest, fattest, most shit-eating grin known to man. The bastard.
synopsis. when you decide to join a travelling circus, the last thing you expect is to form a queer bond with the famed ‘two-faced demon’—the four-armed, four-eyed, two-mouthed circus freak sukuna.
contains. true form sukuna, p in v, dubious ethics, cannibalism (past), two dick sukuna, a live animal is eaten.
wc. 12.3k
my submission for @lemonswirlss's 3k circus collab!
I.
The first time you see him, you’re a newly hired aerialist at his motley circus. Fresh from an interaction with the pleasant yet unsettling ringmaster, Kenjaku, who’d effused the merits of his staff and demanded you explore the different attractions, you’d been drawn away from his presence and towards his veiled stage. It had been accompanied by only a mild annoyance; why did you have to explore first, before being able to settle down in your own quarters? To view the stage you’d be performing on, rather than this nameless stranger?
Wheels poke from beneath the stage, and the door at the side is triple-locked shut. It’s what had drawn you to the attraction, that niggling curiosity of why is it still in the caravan when it's meant to be performing? A red curtain covers the front of the caravan, and a showman stands before it, projecting his voice as he soaks in the crowd.
“—more monster than human, with an appetite so ravenous he couldn’t be matched by a dozen lions! He ate his own twin in the womb, killed his mother chewing his way out of her stomach, is a scourge on men and women alike…” the man gesticulates, face lit with manic glee. “It feasts on women and children; is beholden to no God; he is an abomination made real; a bane to all that is just… I introduce to you, the two-faced demon!”
The curtains open. Around you, people gasp. A woman swallows a scream, hands cupping her face; beside her, her husband is sickeningly pale as he holds his wife’s arm in a white-knuckled grasp. A child shrieks, hiding behind his mother’s legs, and the mother ushers him away with a terrified prayer. The two-faced demon lounges lazily, separated from you by thick metal bars within his miniscule cage.
He’s not even that ugly, you think, vaguely mystified by the theatrics of the audience. He’s horrifyingly tall, yes, standing at least a head above you. The two-faced demon’s torso is unfathomably wide and entirely bare, tattoos tracing his well-chiseled abdomen up to the lines of his sculpted face, down beneath his low-slinging pants. Disconcertingly, a mouth sits where his belly button should, wide spread in a grotesque grin as a tongue pokes out from between sharp teeth. You follow his tattoos up to his jaw, and see—
“A monster,” someone murmurs.
—a man.
There’s a strong jaw and a wide face, with cheekbones sitting high on his face. His nose stands tall, slightly ridged and strongly angled. A second pair of eyes, as crimson red as the first, sit half-slitted beneath the main pair. His hair, short and a shocking shade of cherry blossom pink, is deceptively sweet against the rest of his features. Most interestingly, something wooden and mask-like sits on the right side of his face where his features slope at a harsh, asymmetrical diagonal. His mouth is pulled taut against the skin. It must be where the nickname is from, that two-faced dichotomy; his face split between vaguely human familiarity and absolute, monstrous novelty. It’s barely fathomable. Watching him scowl down at your crowd, it’s easy to see glimpses of the inhuman monster that everyone is so terrified of.
You’ve heard of the two-faced demon before. He’s an infamous attraction, even if only for his grotesque appearance. There are rumours about having fought lions before—he has, allegedly, once fought an elephant and won—-and each story is as ludicrous as it is widespread. You just hadn’t expected that, if you squint, he could be considered handsome. Weren’t such monstrous creatures meant to be hideous?
Ignorant to your inner dialogue, the two-faced demon crosses his bottom pair of arms tightly around his chest, muscles bulging with an unspoken threat. How incredible he is, to make such a simple movement seem so domineering. The showman continues. “Despite his fearsome appearance as a rampaging beast, he is incredibly docile!” Docile? “He rarely speaks, is barely capable of following basic instruction, and acts entirely on his own whims—” What part of that is docile? “—but, rest assured, he is uninterested in harming others. His diet consists only of meat—we have a raw cow being brought in at eight, should anyone want to witness his feeding—” he rattles off a price, and the two-faced demon’s scowl only deepens.
What a salesman. You could almost convince yourself this guy is trying to sell you an antique, rather than an exclusive experience to watch a man eat.
“Adding to his inhumane appearance, the two-faced demon is stronger than an ox, and can tear apart metal like a man does paper—”
“Then why doesn’t he break out?” The words escape you before you can stop them. His captive audience turns, disturbed from their horrified trance; the showman looks somewhat displeased.
“What did you say, dear viewer?”
“You said he can tear apart metal, but he’s in a wooden caravan with metal bars. Why doesn’t he break out, if he’s so strong?”
The man scowls, displeased by your break in immersion. “Didn’t you hear me? He’s uninterested in harming others.”
“But isn’t he a rampaging beast?”
“A rampaging beast can rampage all he likes, if he’s too lazy to think his way out of a wooden box.” Still, the people around you look uneasy. Someone edges away. Even to you the logic is barely nebulous, ridiculously flimsy at best. Why would that matter, if he can tear through metal so simply? It just doesn’t make sense. The two-faced demon, the allegedly unknowing topic of your conversation, lounges backwards, top pair of eyes flitting close. The bottom pair, that blazing inhumanity, peek open; for some unfathomable reason, as the showman faultingly continues his monologue, they remain trained on you.
II.
You don’t see the two-faced demon for another two weeks after joining the troupe. He is, you learn, eternally locked within that small caravan; he eats there, he sleeps there, he pisses in a bucket and has someone else toss out the waste. The curtains are constantly closed—so as to not scare the other circus members, the showman, Haruta, tells you—and the caravan is silent, except for those few sickening minutes each night where he tears into the raw flesh of an animal and its dying squeals echo.
So, when he calls out to you, fresh from a few hours of practice, you find yourself a little surprised.
“You.”
The sound is raspy from disuse, low and rumbling from deep in the chest. It’s not a voice you’ve ever heard before, for all it immediately sends warmth to your face, so you really can’t be blamed for your response of:
“Me?” You echo dumbly.
You turn to see the two-faced demon locked in his caravan. For once, the curtains are open. He lounges languidly in his cage, head resting against his palm as he braces his elbow against the wall. In the light of day, his inhumanities are both sharpened and softened; the sun lifts the veil of his sinister appearance, at once lessening the horror and throwing the details into brutal relief. Your eyes linger on his stomach mouth for a moment, before returning to the four eyes glaring sharply down at you.
“Yes, you.” He says, his voice sharp. “I saw you.”
“I imagine you see a lot of people, considering our profession.”
He sneers. “Insolent woman.” Which… okay? You’re not sure what he was expecting, approaching you like that; you’re not sure he even knows how he wanted you to react, based on the way his scowl only deepens. Maybe it’s some leftover aggression for all that lion-killing he used to allegedly perform. “You were there when that foolish peacock was displaying me.”
Foolish peacock—? Ah. Haruta. “I didn’t realise I left such an impression.”
“Hm.” He leans forward, grinning with both mouths. His canines are frighteningly sharp. “Bring me some food.”
You blink. “No. That’s not under my jurisdiction.”
“There is no jurisdiction for who brings me my meals.”
Your brows furrow as you shoot him a disbelieving look. “Yes, there is. Uraume delegates it to someone at the start of every week. I can’t just disrupt someone else’s tasks.”
“That peacock of a showman said it himself, didn’t he? I feast on the weak. Bring me my meal, or I’ll feast my hunger elsewhere.” He leers at you, more ravenous than covetous. It doesn’t feel like desire. For a moment, you feel like nothing more than the sack of meat you must appear as—skin and meat and blood and bone, packaged beneath a pretty face and shielding a beating heart. Nothing more than a single meal to quench an endless thirst.
“That peacock,” you stress his nickname for Haruta, “also said you barely spoke and were assuredly docile. How am I to know whether or not that’s another exaggeration among many?’
“My existence is no exaggeration.” You hum in demeaning acquiescence. The two-faced demon growls. “What’s your name, woman?”
What a non-sequitor. You look at him, features carefully blank in the face of his inhumanity. His nails are frighteningly sharp, you notice suddenly. Sharper than they have any right to be. Long and razor-thin, more akin to claws than fingernails. You tell him your name, slow and sure. “Do I get to learn your name in return?”
“What makes you think you have any right to it?”
Nothing could stop you from rolling your eyes. “Of course. What was I thinking?” Biting back further grumbling, you make to walk past his enclosure. “I’m sure your meal will be here shortly. Have a good day, demon.”
For all his gallivanting, he doesn’t break out of his cage. He sits there in that imperious sprawl and scowls with all four eyes as he watches you leave. Maybe he really is domesticated; maybe he doesn’t think the effort of catching you is worth the meagre meal. It doesn’t matter—either way, you move on unimpeded, while he stays rotting in that tiny caravan. His threat goes unfulfilled. So much for the privilege of his name.
III.
The two-faced demon doesn’t take up much of your attention after that. You are, for the most part, uninterested in your disfigured colleague. On the few occasions where he is allowed to see the sun (because, for some unfathomable reason, he refuses to either draw the curtains himself or request they be done so), he singles you out. You talk, he calls you an ‘insolent woman’ or ‘foolish performer’ or, on the one occasion you really annoyed him, ‘wayward maggot’. Frustrated with him, you leave. A couple days pass, and the same event reoccurs.
Over these few encounters you learn a few things, both from him and others: no one knows his name. He speaks to no one, unless it is to demand food. He calls no one by their name, demeaning them as being too below him to know his, and him too above them to refer to them as anything other than insulting descriptors. He really did previously fight animals for show before his kill streak knocked too high, and everyone that witnessed it continues to live in paralysing fear over what he may do to them if he grows too bored. Their dramatics know no bounds.
You are perfectly happy with this routine of vague familiarity until you meet Uraume.
Despite being an aerialist, being a member of a travelling troupe means that everyone is often pitching in for odd jobs. Working as an aerialist doesn’t mean you aren’t helping with booths or applying the kids' show make-up or assisting Toji in feeding the animals. Likewise, Uraume’s role as a performer doesn’t prevent them from also being the best cook in the circus. With your odd jobs and their famed skill, it doesn’t take long until you’re tasked with assisting them in the kitchen.
“Leave that for the two-faced demon.”
You jolt from where you’re leaning over the meat, reaching for a cut of steak. Uraume’s expression, usually placid and slightly derisive, is underlined with an uncharacteristic anger; brows furrowed, lips twisting downwards, shoulders squared as they loom over you. You glance between them and the meat in question. “I thought that guy only ate live animals…?”
“He did.” Their expression smooths out as you step back, grabbing a different cut. “His tastes have changed since his reallocation.”
Reallocation? “I thought he was always there purely for his…” how to word this politely? “...cosmetic value.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. He’d never degrade himself in such a manner.” Isn’t that exactly what he’s doing now? “He used to work with the animals. Once per location, after the animal tamer performed, he would appear and fight a predator—lions, most often—for show. It was always the most anticipated event of the circus. The animals were, unsurprisingly, no match for the two-faced demon, but the display of his strength was notable all the same.”
Fascinating. Maybe those muscles aren’t all for show. You decide to ignore the concept that he was apparently so strong that lions were unable to beat him—legendary as those stories are, you’d always considered them mere stories. It’s discomforting to know there’s more truth to them than you previously assumed. “Then why’d he stop doing it?”
They level you with a dispassionate look. “They couldn’t keep up with him. He kept killing them. The law decided to prohibit his actions, but their attempts at restraining him led to the previous animal tamer meeting a… sudden end.”
“Is that why everyone is so scared of him?”
“They’re scared of him because they should be.” Uraume clears their throat. “After that debacle, they banned him from fighting in the circus. He’s decided to simply remain a viewing attraction, and abides by their drivel as long as he is sufficiently provided for.”
“Even after killing a worker?”
“Even after eating a worker.”
You blink in muted surprise. You don’t know why you’re shocked, given the nature of his threats and the way people act around him, but eating someone? You can’t fathom it. The two-faced demon, for all his bluster, is notably tame. “He must’ve been an amazing fighter, for the circus to have kept him after that.”
Uraume turns to you, uncharacteristically passionate. Their next words come out slightly breathless. “He was magnificent.”
And, well, that’s that. Uraume says no more on the topic, even as they continue their tasks with a quiet joy. You’ve never seen them as happy as they are now, as if the mere thought of the two-faced demon is enough to brighten their spirit. Huh. You’re beginning to get the feeling that he maybe really is that awe-inspiring, considering the various dramatics of your fellow circus performers.
Maybe that’s why, when Uraume hands you a massive steak so lightly cooked you can imagine its heart is still beating, you don’t deny their request to deliver it to the two-faced demon. Instead, you take the heavy meal—which, seriously? This portion size could feed at least six people—and bring it to that ever shielded caravan.
“Knock on the door before you enter,” Uraume tells you as you leave. “He won’t attack you or try to escape. Pay him the decency he deserves, given his illustrious nature.”
You don’t exactly take it into account. Rather, what you do is call “Dinner’s ready!” as you near the caravan, knocking at the door with one foot as you hold the—frankly massive—plate with both hands. “Open the door.”
“Open it yourself.”
Your eye twitches. Must this man be such a contrarian? “My apologies. What I meant to say is, I am unable to open the door—either open it for me, or continue on without your dinner. It’s no concern to me.”
A growl sounds, then the low creak of movement. He’s awfully quiet for such a large man, but even then, the caravan creaks and sinks with every step of his massive weight. The door opens with a harsh lurch, and you are abruptly the closest you’ve ever been to his monstrous form. This close, a mere half-meter separating you, his eyes are impossibly large, impossibly red; his cherry blossom hair an even softer pink than you initially conceived. Bizarrely, you find yourself almost wanting to touch it. Even the scar you first noticed seems more like a mask this close for how raised and shapely it is; yet his malformed eyes blink lazily at you in a way no puppetry could emulate.
How sickening, you think, fascinated.
“Well?” He says mockingly. “Serve me my dinner.”
He disappears back into his trailer. It’s honestly impressive that he even manages it—the trailer couldn’t be more than 5 meters by half; somehow, he turns it into a chasm. “I’ll leave it with—”
“Serve me.”
How frustrating. “If I must.” You keep your tone perfectly neutral, stepping into the darkness of his abode. It’s as discomfortingly small as you imagined. You don’t know how he manages to lounge so broadly and still look as though he has room to move; a well-practiced artifice, though you don’t know why he tolerates it. The man that could beat a lion in a fair fight, wasting away in a cage even smaller than the predators. You would laugh, if you didn’t think he would eat you for the mockery.
You lay the plate out on the floor before him. The two-faced demon licks over his teeth with his too-long tongue. “Sit with me.”
“Pardon?”
“Don’t tell me you’re even stupider than you look. Sit.” His voice is a rumbling growl. You sit, stumbling awkwardly until you’re on the floor of the caravan, legs tucked beneath you. Sitting like this, he looms over you as a carnivorous shadow; there’s no illusion of even footing. He watches you for a moment, expression bored and impassive, before leaning his head down and taking a bite of his steak. Blood streams from the bite.
His hunger is voracious. He tears into the beef with abandon, uncaring of his audience and greedy in his hunger. He tears through the meat as if it were butter, cleaving through it with a single grind of his jaw. It’s horrifying. It’s beautiful, in a way, as if for a moment his appetite makes him something both more and less than human. His top pair of eyes shut in something akin to delight, but his bottom pair remain fixed on you. You’re paralysed by his stare; his hunger; the monstrous strength of his jaw; the awful sharpness of his teeth.
“You’re unafraid of me.”
You jolt, eyes tearing from his pinning gaze to land on his mouth, brows furrowed. Your gaze darts further down, and the mouth on his stomach stretches into a leering grin. It’s disconcerting, so out of place; you didn’t realise that mouth was capable of anything more than aesthetic disfigurement. His face-mouth swallows, taking another monstrous bite of meat. “Oh? Is this all it takes to frighten you?”
Your expression briefly drops into a scowl. “Why would I be?”
“Stories of my feats couldn’t have dissipated so quickly,” he scorns. “You have good reason to be scared.”
“Uraume was very flattering,” you concede. “But as far as I’m concerned, you’ve done nothing but sit here, leer, and make the occasional threat for the entire time I’ve been employed. Why should I be scared when you’ve taken no action against me?”
It’s a blatant goad, not that you mean it as one. If the two-faced demon is as thoughtlessly savage as Haruta claims, he would no doubt jump on it; grab you, loom over you, and laugh as your life is balanced in the claws of his mercy. He does not. It speaks to his inaction; he truly must’ve become domesticated.
“Do you take me for a beast?” He asks, his lip curling. “You’ve simply done nothing to anger me yet.”
“If I haven’t angered you, then I have no need to be scared.”
“Hm.” He takes another bite of his food, leaning forward until one arm rests on his knee, propping up his head. It moves him closer to you, impossibly large despite his hunched posture. It’s grotesque, how he manages to swallow down such a sizable slab of raw meat in so few bites. He swallows languidly, bringing the plate to his torso, and has his stomach mouth lick the leftover blood off the ceramic. When he stretches his arm out, glistening plate—seriously, gross—outstretched, you take it as your cue to leave.
Of course, you don’t even get to touch the plate before his other arm snatches yours, dragging you a step closer as his hand creates a bruising shackle around your wrist. His lip curls into a smiling snarl.
“Ow,” you say belatedly. You hadn’t expected it to hurt, for your bones to creak like a rotting frame beneath the pressure. Still—is that it? A man that felled lions, resorting to squeezing your wrist a little? Are you supposed to feel threatened?
He stares at you, expression placid. The two-faced demon is threatening you. But for what? Because you’re not scared of him? How is this supposed to make you any more frightened? You level him with a (very minor, unintentional) challenge, and he responds by giving you a bruised wrist. It doesn’t inspire fear like he expects his man-eating habits to. You stare back at him, unimpressed, and lightly tug your wrist out of his grasp. He doesn’t let go.
Rather, he sneers. “Was that pathetic tug all you could conjure?”
You roll your eyes. “Could you let go of me?” Then, to be polite; “Please? I still have tasks left to complete.”
“Is that all you’re worried about?”
“Yes.” Kenjaku will have your head if you don’t complete everything in time. He really is so frustratingly particular. In fact, now that you think of it, you think you’d prefer death by the two-faced demon before risking Kenjaku’s disappointment—Mahito might get away with being a brat, but you? He doesn’t care half as much about you, nor do you bring in enough money for him to justify anything but extreme consequences to minor offences. Maybe, if the demon holds you here long enough, you should suggest your death to him; surely, he’ll accept a freely offered meal?
The grip on your hand spasms, tightening so quickly a blinding bolt shoots up your arm, and then abruptly lets go. “Hopeless,” he growls. “A pathetic little maggot, unaffected by a predator. Your foolishness will kill you.”
“This is a circus, not the wild.” You say blandly. Doesn’t that prove your point, anyway? Why would a caged lion kill a maggot? It’d sooner save its own skin escaping before it considered eating the prey of its prey. He really is dramatic, jumping to these exaggerated threats.
You scoop the plate off the floor, shaking your wrist like that’ll ease the bone-deep ache. Sending him one last look as you leave—a glance at this thoughtless, self-captive predator, who lets people think he can’t break out through bars when he can easily open the door—you roll your eyes once more. “Have a good night, demon.”
(Sukuna lets your arm go, watching you through abruptly lidded eyes. You don’t retreat. It took him a moment to realise, but he understands now—you’re not frozen out of fear, or resolute in a need to prove yourself unafraid of him. You’re simply not, staring back at him with those heavy, thoughtful eyes. You’re sedate. It strikes him, with a feeling both raging and delighted, that you aren’t unafraid; no, you don’t care. He could tear you apart with a single bite, unhinge his jaw and clamp down on your hand and rend your fingers from your palm, tear your flesh straight from the bone, and you don’t care for the threat.
Your hand flexes idly as if you had stiff joints in need of loosening, unaware of his hunger. Or, maybe, you are aware—you just simply don’t care enough to be scared. It lights a fire in his stomach; for the first time in a long, long time, he wants. He wants ravenously; he wants your blood in his mouth, your eyes pickled in a jar, your heart puncturing between his teeth, your bones a broth to flavour his soup.
His mouth waters at the thought. You make him so hungry.
But, more than anything, Sukuna wants to see you scared.)
IV.
“I hear you and the two-faced demon have struck up a friendship.”
Damn this circus and its unending gossip mill. You turn to Yorozu, who has taken the seat at the table beside you and is now grabbing whatever food is within reach. “To categorise it as ‘friendship’ is a generous stretch of the word.”
“If he hasn’t threatened to eat you, you’re practically soulmates.” She pops a bite of food into her mouth, peeking one eye open to look at you. “Has he threatened to eat you?”
“Yes.”
“Damn.” She almost looks jealous. “And you’re not scared?”
“I didn’t think it was worth mentioning.” You’re sure Yorozu has heard a dozen of the same story from a dozen different people; it’s not something you felt the need to contribute to. How is your encounter with him any more poignant than anyone else's? “He only threatened it. It’s not as if he went through with the threat.”
“And you’re… okay with that?”
“It was an empty threat. Why would I be concerned?”
She sends you a queer look. “You’re a weird girl. You know he used to kill lions, right? Once, he tore the leg off of one while it was still fighting. Barely broke a sweat doing it, too. It was beautiful, really. You should’ve seen the way he—”
You stare at her blankly. “Uraume told me.”
“Isn’t he just terrifying?” She swoons as she says it. “You weren’t there for it, but he ate one of the workers once.” Then, as if she’d just commented on the morning weather, Yorozu pops another bite into her mouth. “The guy couldn’t even fight back, it was so quick. That demon, he– he didn’t even laugh. Said the fight was too easy for him to get any pleasure out of it.”
“Uraume also told me that,” you say pleasantly. “Be that as it may, he just lounges around nowadays.”
“He only lounges around ‘cause he doesn’t see any point in killing us. Doesn’t think we’d be worth the effort,” she manages to look somewhat offended as she says it. “Besides, he’s happy as long as he’s given some poor lamb to tear apart every few days. We were all surprised when he became so languid—I mean, he’s such a monster. What kind of freak can kill a lion bare-handed? It feels like Kenjaku is dancing with the devil somedays, keeping him around. Not that I can blame him.”
“He hasn’t hurt anyone since though, has he?”
“What?” She shoots you an incredulous look. “I just said he ate someone.” You roll your eyes. “What’s with that look?”
“I just think you’re blowing things out of proportion. That’s all.”
V.
It's hard to wrap your mind around the entirety of the threat that is the two-faced demon. Sure, you’ve heard plenty about his lion-fighting, man-eating days, but it means nothing in the face of his complacency. A part of you acknowledges that he’s strong—the encounter the other day proves that—but even then, it failed to spark fear in you. He just… was.
So what if he could eat you if he isn’t going to follow up on it? When it comes down to it, anyone could kill you. He may be horrifically strong and monstrous in appearance, but he seemed more prone to idle threats than violent execution. Even the ring of bruises, once a dark brand on your wrist, has mellowed out to a discomforting yellow.
The lamb between his jaws squeals as he bites down, slicing through bone in a single bite. Upon being told to deliver a live lamb to the two-faced demon, you’d been faced with immediate disgust; he’s all-consuming and ravenous as is, so why must you witness a further indulgence? It’s every bit as grotesque as you imagined. He makes no play of it, tearing it apart while it heaves and dies, trapping it within the chasm of his jaw. What fun could he possibly contrive out of the gruesome act?
“Why did you talk to me?” You ask suddenly.
After all, didn’t Yorozu say it herself? The only reason the two-faced demon hasn’t broken out of his poorly crafted caravan and eaten another man is because he doesn’t see the point in doing so. What is there for you to fear? He can’t even be bothered to break out of his cage. You’re certainly not worth the effort.
Still, you think—he doesn’t do anything he doesn’t think worth doing. He clearly sees some value in eating a live animal, unfathomable as it is to you. He sees a point in demanding the best steaks the circus can conjure. You’ve begun to understand that aspect of his character. He does only what he wants, and indulges no further. So, as it stands, why does he bother himself with you?
“I wanted to.” the two-faced demon stares at you dispassionately. “I wanted to, so I did. Do I need any other reason?”
“You don’t want to do anything,” you counter levelly.
“I want plenty of things.” Your mouth twitches at his words, a small glimpse at your inner amusement. His eyes narrow in on your expression. “You presume to know me better than I know myself?”
“Of course not. You just don’t act on any of your wants, do you?”
“I do. How else could I have ended up in the situation I am now?”
Isn’t it obvious? He was born malformed, and taken in as a circus freak due to a lack of other opportunities; entranced by his beastial nature, they forced him to fight animals until he became too much of a danger; following that, he became little more than an aesthetic attraction, confined to his small cage. Sure, there was a case of cannibalism, and maybe a couple of threats, but most of what’s happened to him has, in fact, happened to him. It’s not as if he needed to do much to ensure the order of events.
“You’re more of a fool than I thought, if you truly think that.”
“You are more of a fool than I imagined, if you think I can’t—and don’t—take what I want.”
Oh, please. “Do you truly believe that? You’ve forgotten how to want. You sit here in this cage, demanding things come to you. You don’t do anything for yourself—you’re so content, having it handed to you. Is there anything you truly want? Anything you’ll ever desire that can’t be handed to you that you’ll still have the grasp to reach for?”
“I tire of your hypocrisy,” he growls. “You accuse me of idleness, when you subsist solely on ambivalence; there is nothing in this world you want. You’re closer to a monk than a woman.”
“We are not the same in that regard.”
“We’re more similar than you think,” he says, his voice thick with something. “You talk so much nonsense about desire and inaction. Haven’t you ever wanted to be something more than a sack of meat?” He’s awfully entertained by his own words; when the two-faced demon stretches out a hand, a raw chunk of lamb dangling between his fingers, you think you begin to understand. “Come. Feast on the lesser. Or have you not learned to want yourself?”
You swallow. “You think yourself better than everyone else here?”
“I’m the strongest, aren’t I? The weak bend to my will. They conform to my wants. It’s the way of life.”
“That sounds like a very overdressed excuse for a lazy man,” you say as if you’re demurring to him. You can’t tell if he’s delighted or incensed by your tone. “You’re strong, so you do nothing for yourself? They’re weak, so your life is assured? You’re so complacent, so unaware. Your arrogance is astounding.”
“That sounds like an awful lot of drivel to excuse your own inadequacies,” he sneers. “I suppose you are nothing more than a writhing maggot, after—”
You take a bite of the lamb.
More accurately, you lean forward; take hold of his thick wrist; drag the meat between your teeth and force your jaw shut until your teeth, blunt and weak, have no choice but to dig into the warm flesh. Blood pools in your mouth as you work your jaw, forcing a bite from the bone; where the two-faced demon cleaved through it like a hand through water, you’re left with a harsh ache in your jaw. It’s raw and vile, heavy on your tongue as blood gathers thickly in your mouth. In that moment, with a warm carcass partially sitting on your tongue and blood spilling from between your lips, you feel more animal than human—you aren’t an aerialist or a man or a thinking being, but a thing of raw instinct. Your brain insists you chew, and your frustrating humanity impedes your actions. Oh, why can’t your teeth slough through this meat like his? Why must they be so woefully inadequate?
The two-faced demon laughs at your expression. It’s a deep rumble from low in his chest, coming out closer to an animal's growl; his mouth splits open, impossibly wide, and he pulls you into a kiss.
He’s big. His mouth is large enough to eclipse your own two-fold, lips rough and chapped whilst his teeth are frighteningly sharp. His tongue bullies its way into your mouth, wet with blood and stinking of iron. And his eyes—his eyes. His eyes are that of a watchful predator, lazily lidded and staring at you with single-minded intent. All four, lasered in on you. The wet slide of your tongues set your cheeks on fire, so caught in the feeling of his hand moving to twine in your hair, pulling taut until your scalp screams beneath his grip, that you don’t realise what he’s doing until he pulls away.
A low moan escapes you as you’re left suspended there, head pulled back and neck bare for his perusal. His mouth parts on another bloody, gruesome smile, and it's only then that you realise the lamb once between your teeth is now trapped in his, its larger carcass tossed aside. The bite is comically small in his mouth as his tongue curls around it, swallowing it down without a single bite of his own. You stare after it, almost mournful—you practically broke your jaw working your teeth through its flesh, and it was stolen just like that?
Wait, why do you care? You didn’t want to eat it to begin with, did you?
“What a monstrous look you have there,” he sneers, even as satisfaction leaks from every inch of his being.
“I worked hard for that,” you say. “I don’t have your carnivorous teeth, demon.”
His mouth spreads wider. You remain caught, his hand in your hair tight enough to have tears prickling at your lash line. Another hand moves to grab the lamb back up, as if content to leave you trapped by the hair whilst he continues to feast on his meal. That selfish, lazy bastard! He can kiss you, take the food from your mouth, and then continue to eat as if nothing happened? As if you’re not a trapped fish in his hook?
“Allow me to remedy that,” he says, voice pleasant yet sinister from his stomach mouth as his face is occupied with another bite of lamb. He chews once, twice, thrice; then he leans in once more.
You’re startlingly aware of the meat as his tongue crawls into your mouth. He forces his way past your lips, jaw unhinging until you can feel his teeth bite into your cheek. It’s gross. It’s so unsexy. Somehow, with a hand at your head and his mouth eclipsing the bottom half of your face, you’re the hottest you’ve ever been. He forces the lamb past your lips, holding you in place as he deposits it half-chewed on your tongue. His mouth retreats for only just long enough for you to swallow, your throat bobbing around the uncooperative bite, before he leans in once more.
“Don’t talk to me about desire,” he says, the sound of his stomach-mouth a rumbling growl. He bites at your lip, canines digging dangerously, threatening to pierce skin, and an airy sigh escapes you. “You’re too caught up in your humanity to even conceptualise what you truly crave. I, at least, know what I want.”
VI.
You hate to admit it, but his words follow you. Something about it—we’re more similar than you think—clings to you; you think about it while you’re training, while you’re cooking, while you’re delivering his meals and watching him eat. What does he want? you think, watching him tear through a live lamb. What did he mean by that? then, as he pops its head off with a single twist, what do you want?
He doesn’t kiss you again. Somehow, that feels all the more damning.
Did you not prove yourself to him? Show him what he wanted to see? You ate a raw lamb, for goodness sake, kissed it half-chewed out of his mouth with no regard for how gross it was in the moment. He’d made you– you’d felt– you’d thought–
You purse your lips, turning sharply on your heel. What a ridiculous line of thinking you’d started meandering down; you’d shown him? Proven yourself? You won’t kid yourself—you enjoyed that far more than you logically should. It had sent a perverse thrill down your spine, suffocating on his tongue and indulging in a blood-soaked kiss. He hadn’t forced you to do anything. He’d offered you the slightest encouragement and you’d wanted it all on your own.
That thought is what draws you back to his caravan, where he’s once more engaging a crowd. People wave at you as you pass, taken in by your costume—and no doubt excited for your show—but you pay them no mind, suddenly caught up in your thoughts.
You’re not sure why such a prideful being is so content being gawked at and paraded around like little more than a show animal, or how he can consider himself so far above others yet be content with a life of ridicule. You suddenly, desperately, want to watch it once more; to see if there’s something there that you missed the first time.
Haruta is caught in his own theatrics as you approach, monologuing loudly to the gathered crowd. "The two-faced demon is a beast more monster than human, with an appetite so ravenous he couldn't be matched by a dozen lions! He ate his own twin in the womb, killed his mother chewing his way out of her stomach, is a scourge on men and women alike! He feasts on women and children; is beholden to no God; he is an abomination made real; a bane to all that is just…"
It's the exact same speech as the last time you watched this, you realise. The same speech recycled for a second audience. Haruta continues, "Look upon him as he feasts! Of course, this mere calf does nothing to sate the appetite of a monster that prefers to glut on man, but witness how he tears into his meal! Watch the disgusting voracity of his appetite!”
The two-faced demon is not eating like a ravenous animal. He’s far calmer with an audience. Rather than that steadfast, all-encompassing hunger as meat is swallowed in mammoth-like mouthfuls between a strong, grasping jaw, he eats with a casual disregard. Polite, slow, uninterested—more like a lounging cat than the predatory creature he fashions himself as.
What a hypocrite. The thought is almost fond. To let himself be carted around like a beast publicly, yet studiously consume a mannered meal as if he isn’t ravenous in private. It’s almost charming to know he lied so boldly to your face.
“He doesn’t seem that aggressive today,” you say conversationally as you approach Haruta. “I thought people had to pay an extra fee to watch him eat, anyway?”
Haruta deflates, turning to you with a bitter whisper. “Kenjaku tossed the idea. Apparently he’s not beastly enough for the extra costs. Can you believe that? As if he’s not disgusting when he eats regularly.”
The demon’s eyes, previously focused on the meal, dart over to meet yours—just the bottom pair, like he’s playing at being coy. He blinks leisurely, savouring the bite in his mouth as he watches you. How cute.
“Maybe he doesn’t see it worthwhile to upkeep manners around us,” you comment, bemused.
“No, he’s doing it to spite me. I know it. Kenjaku said I could take 2% of the sales—” only 2%? “—with the private meal showings, since I came up with the idea, and then overnight that beast developed manners. I don’t know why we haven’t slaughtered the thing already.”
That does sound like him.
“Oh, really?” You say with faux-surprise. “He’s perfectly mannered whenever I’m serving his meals.”
The demon snorts, a loud huff that has a kid sticking his hand through the caravans bars (much to his mother's despair) falling back with a horrified wail. Haruta looks beyond disbelieving. “Really?”
Obviously not. You disregard his comment altogether. “When does the showing end? I’d like to talk to him.”
“Now,” the demon cuts in sharply, placing down his half-eaten calf with a dull thud. “Peacock. Close my curtains.”
Haruta squawks; someone in the audience boos loudly. Seriously? What’s so interesting about watching him eat? You think back on that night a couple weeks ago; the cord of his neck, the monstrous strength of his jaw, his razor sharp teeth, his methodical, unwasting hunger—
—who are you kidding? You probably got twice the perverse enjoyment out of watching him than everyone in the crowd combined.
“You can’t just close your own exhibit,” Haruta protests, a whine edging his voice. “People paid to see this, you can’t just say—”
The two-faced demon bares his teeth in a vague approximation of a smile.
Haruta really is a coward; a single flash of those animalistic teeth, and he’s scurrying like a rat to herd people away. Clearly not thinking he’s going fast enough, the demon reaches for the bars. One ominous creak, the slightest bend of metal, and Haruta yelps like he’s personally being attacked.
It doesn’t take long for Haruta to clear the area of disgruntled viewers.
“Woman,” he says finally, once the both of you are alone.
“So demeaning,” you mutter. “Would it hurt to call me by my name, for once?”
He ignores you. “What is it?”
You, in turn, ignore him—who said you weren’t prone to a little pettiness? “Did you need to go through all of that fanfare? You could’ve just used the door.” He has used the door, in fact, many times—with the monstrous size of his meals, you’ve grown very used to demanding he clear the entrance into his caravan. If he’s going to be a lazy bastard, he might as well be a well-mannered one.
“Using the door wouldn’t have been half as effective. Let them see me as the brute I am. It only benefits me.”
“The brute you are? But you were so polite with your meal.”
“What?”
“Your dinner,” you repeat softly. “If it truly didn’t bother you, why were you so polite in front of the audience? Clearly, there’s something about being seen as some ravenous monster that displeases you.”
He regards you placidly. “I did not want him to make a mockery of me, so I didn’t allow it.”
You hum in acquiescence. “And here I thought you were perfectly content in your position.”
“I’m certainly more at ease than you are, woman.” It’s uncharacteristically defensive. You find yourself tempted to press. You almost do, until you recall that flash of teeth; the warm, weeping flesh being shoved down your throat and chased by a hot, large tongue. Your cheeks burn, and you say nothing. “Why are you here?”
“Because I wanted to be.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. Why are you here?”
Your lips tug on a smile. It’s cathartic to throw his own words back in his face; “Didn’t I? I’m here because I want to be. There’s nowhere that attracts my attention more, so there’s nowhere else to be.”
He leans backwards. If you had any more of an ego about you, you’d say he looks pleased. “At the circus. Why are you with the circus?”
What a simple question. Isn’t it obvious? You love it here; maybe not the people, bar the infuriating man before you, but certainly everything else. The work, the routine, the performance, the audience—it’s an addictive concoction. For once, you can live as you please and be rewarded for it; you can pursue your own passion, and the only consequence is the roaring applause of an enamoured crowd. It’s perfect.
Hm. Maybe his words have some merit after all. “Because here, I can do what I want to. Isn’t that enough?”
“So you do have something you desire.”
You batter away that wayward memory once more. “No. I already have what I want. I’ll have it for as long as I’m here.” You glance at him sideways, uncharacteristically sly. “Maybe I should be asking you that. This is a bit targeted, don’t you think?”
“I’m simply returning the favour from our previous encounters.” His eyes glimmer with… something. You can’t tell what, from so far away. “There must be some reason you stick around. It was almost beginning to seem like it was me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself too much.” You consider him, and a question calls to you from the back of your mouth. Given your prior presumptuousness, you have no qualms asking it—he’s indulged your curiosity every time before now, and it’s made you a glutton for your own non-sequitors. “Why don’t you ever leave? The circus, I mean.”
“Why would I?” He leans backwards on a stretch, straightening his spine and revealing a glimpse of his monstrous size. His shadow doubles, his eyes flash; for a moment, he looks closer to a monster than he does a human. Even having felt it, having traced it with your tongue, you contemplate the idea of him having fangs hidden in that large mouth; teeth like a lion or a wolf, a further deviance from humanity. “I eat when I want to eat, and I play when I want to play. I’m pampered as I please, and have no need to do anything but exactly what I want to do. If I wished for it, I could waste time this way until the day I die.”
You don’t say but what point is there in living?, because you know that argument holds no interest for him. By now, you have a pretty good grasp on what he’d say—because I want to, maybe, or because I don’t yet desire death, if he’s feeling more verbose.
You huff a laugh. “Be proactive for once, demon. At the rate you’re going, I imagine I’ll never see you out of that cage. Is there truly nothing worth leaving it?”
VII.
There is no greater thrill than that of performing. You weren’t lying when you told the two-faced demon that you joined the circus simply because you wanted to—you love it. There’s a thrill that comes with being an aerialist, swinging through the air on nothing more than threads of silk and listening to the audience awe over your manoeuvres. It makes the practice worthwhile, makes everything worthwhile; why wouldn’t you have run off to join the circus when you are lauded for your talents here? When you’re surrounded by such curious personalities? You are, for once in your life, encouraged to pursue your talents as an aerialist. Despite the many flaws of the ringmaster, his accepting you into his employ has made it so you can never resent him.
It’s while you’re in the air that you see it, your heart thudding in your chest and breath straining your lungs—-a monstrous, hulking shadow in the back of the crowd.
The two-faced demon?
It's a well-grained routine that prevents you from fumbling. You keep an eye on that monstrous presence, though, and know for certain that it's him. He’s wearing a robe you’ve never seen before, bottom arms veiled by its sweeping sleeves while his top pair are crossed in front of his chest, peeking out from the deep plunge of the neckline. His four eyes seem to glow in the dark, head cocked slightly to the side. No one else seems to have noticed him, but you can’t help but wonder; why is he here?
His eyes, trained on you, flash with recognition. Mouth pulling into a mocking smile, he bares his teeth at you and slips between the curtain, escaping outside.
What the hell?
Your heart thuds in your chest for the rest of your performance, the soothing silks you dance through suddenly chafing and restrictive; knowing he was watching, that the two-faced demon has left his cage, leaves your breath caught in your throat. By the time your routine is over and you’re dancing off the stage to make room for the next performer, you feel both hot and cold at once. You can’t help it—why is he doing this? What does he want?
Yorozu calls your name as you’re slipping out of the tent, features twisted in a complicated expression. “The two-faced demon got out,” she says simply, pulling you close to whisper it in your ear. “We don’t know where, but everyone’s freaking out—they think it might be like—” she cuts herself off, glancing around.
Your mind fills in the blanks—like the animal tamer. That unnamed man, made a victim at the mercy of the demon’s mercurial moods.
“I just…” Yorozu sighs, as if in genuine mourning. “Why didn’t he come to me?”
Is she serious? “Do you have any idea where he could be?”
She shakes her head. “Kenjaku wants us to keep an eye out for him. He doesn’t want that demon attacking any visitors. Even if it would be within his rights…”
You ignore her muttered comment. “He hasn’t hurt anyone, has he?” It doesn’t come out like a question; no, it feels certain. Why would he? The two-faced demon is someone ruled by his own desires, comfortable in the precedent he has set forth. He doesn’t desire to eat or attack people when food to play with can simply be given to him. So, what is so important that he’d bother with these theatrics? That he’d actually bother to take action?
“Not that we know of. It’s only a matter of time, of course. Such a magnificent man wouldn’t—hey!”
You brush past her.
Curse your damned mouth. This is almost certainly your fault. What was the last thing you said to him? At the rate you’re going, I imagine I’ll never see you out of that cage. Is there truly nothing worth leaving it? You’re too goading, too proud, too ignorantly overt. It seems there is, after all, something worth the effort. Bless whoever is made victim to his whims now.
In true theatricism, the metal of his caravan is warped and misshapen as you walk past it. Completely unnecessary, when the man can simply use the door. Somehow, it looks even smaller without him in it; you’d have thought that his leering, monstrous presence would’ve done the opposite.
You’d also think that the sheer mass of him would make him a little easier to spot. Yet, as you’re nearing the caravan you call home, you’re tugged suddenly and slammed against a wall.
A hand covers your mouth before you can scream.
You glance up at his looming form, frozen for a second in the shadow of his embrace. Two of his arms settle at your waist, unexpectedly tender as he massages his thumbs against your stomach. You are, of course, immediately distracted by the tongue bullying at your lips even as his hand continues to sit over your mouth.
He can do that!?
A muffled yelp escapes you, eyes blown wide. A cat-like satisfaction dawns on his face as he parts your mouth, tongue delving past your teeth and twining with your own. It’s so weird. It’s gross; uncomfortable; so, so disturbing you want to gag around his tongue. You don’t, cheeks burning as your hands grapple against his arms, nails digging into the skin of his biceps.
“There you are,” he murmurs, a smug smile curling at his lips. “I was looking for you.”
Oh, god. His palm pushes uncomfortably closer, and a dull ache begins to bloom as his fingers dig into the flesh of your cheeks. His fourth arm, unimpeded, cups your neck, bracing your head as he leans further into you. You crane at an uncomfortable angle, throat discomfortingly vulnerable as you stretch the full length of your neck.
Your nails leave pink-streaked divots in his skin, one hand fumbling for his palm to tug it away from your mouth. It shouldn’t shock you to realise that he’s letting you; that your individual strength is so incomparable to him, every action you take is a concession he allows. It shouldn’t have heat gathering in your stomach, pooling southward. “Demon—”
“Sukuna,” he rasps.
Your brows furrow, momentarily thrown. “Pardon?”
“Sukuna,” he repeats slowly. “That’s my name. If I hear a whisper of it from any mouth other than yours, I’ll tear off your head and eat you whole.”
Somehow, you don’t doubt it. You cock your head to the side, evaluating him thoughtfully. Sukuna, with shockingly soft pink hair and hateful red eyes. Sukuna, whose name quite literally means ‘demon’ or ‘calamity’. You wonder how his mother had the time to name him, if he truly ate his way out of her stomach. Did she pick it in advance, knowing what awaited her? Was her death slow, giving her just enough time to depart him with such a curse? Or are his mythic origins another blatant fabrication, the name bestowed upon him by another? “Sukuna, huh? It suits you.”
It’s almost funny to realise that you have, in a way, been calling him by his name all along.
“So I’ve been told.”
You huff. “Sukuna. What are you doing?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m taking what I want.”
”Don’t be obtuse.” It doesn’t sound half as chiding as it should, when you’re still recovering from being kissed breathless with his hand mouth, for all that it sounds absolutely ludicrous. “You left your caravan.”
“Haven’t you spent weeks goading me to?” He leans in so close that your noses brush, a colossal shadow hiding you away from the rest of the world. Leaning over you like this, he’s all-encompassing—a being of bestial passion, the likes of which Yorozu whimsically dreams of. “Don’t make such demands of me, if you’re unwilling to shoulder the consequences.” He says it as a growl and a tease at once.
Insufferable. “Don’t put words in my mouth. You just—” you cut yourself off, glancing up at him through your lashes. He is just doing what you’ve been all but begging him to for weeks. Taking what he wants. It at once sets a fire beneath your skin, a need to prove to him that you can do the same; you’re too caught up in your humanity to even conceptualise what you truly crave, he’d told you. Who gave him the right to make such an accusation?
“Infuriating,” you murmur, hands moving to run faint lines over the skin of his cheeks—one humanly smooth, the other monstrously rough. His lower pair of eyes flicker shut, lashes fluttering against his cheeks. “You love to talk around what you want, don’t you, Sukuna?” His name is a treasure on your tongue; you want to keep it there forever. Sukuna. Who else can claim to know that name? “Tell me. What do you want from me?”
His thumbs rub circles into your waist. Yours streak patterns along his cheekbones, through wisps of cherry blossom pink hair. A grin, monstrously wide, begins to stretch across his large mouth.
“I was born hungry,” Sukuna tells you. “With every passing day, I’ve wanted more than I have. There’s no craving I can’t satisfy, and no satisfaction that truly curbs my craving.” He leans in closer, lips brushing against the edge of your mouth. “Likewise, everything I’ve wanted has been achievable through the use of others. Why fight for what I want, when others are so willing to give it to me?”
“You’re talking around the point,” you chide. The words escape you breathlessly; in that same moment, he lifts you effortlessly, pressing you further against the caravan and twining your legs around his torso. His breath puffs against your face as he laughs. His head dips as he runs his rough tongue along the hinge where your neck meets your jaw, following it with the weighted press of his mouth.
“Infuriating,” he says, an echo of your own words. “Infer it for yourself, woman. I rarely need to be proactive about anything. I barely need to ask for anything, when it is handed to me without a request. And yet, an insufferable little maggot sits beside me while I eat, incessantly pestering me; what do you want? it asks me. You lazy beast, if you want me so bad, show me it. I’ve proven myself worth the effort, haven’t I?”
You have said no such thing; how he inferred that from your own words, you don’t know. Still, it’s difficult to argue when his mouth follows your neck downward, his lips stretching wide until those terrifyingly sharp teeth lay flush against your skin. An implicit threat lies in the action, in the horrific strength he wields, the unsaid vulnerability of your position.
Your pulse is a hummingbird; you are a hummingbird, paralysed beneath the weight of a predator’s teeth at your throat, his claws at your nape. You’re laid impossibly vulnerable—a single bite, and those teeth can kill you. One careless nick, and you’ll be dead before you can scream. It almost shocks you to realise you’re scared. Oh, God, you don’t want to die.
You flush, shaking beneath the sudden weight of your own need.
“You,” he mouths against your skin, more a breath than a word. “I want you.”
Well. It doesn’t get much more overt than that, does it? You pull him away from your neck by the hair, and he huffs another laugh as he allows the movement. Pulling him towards you, kissing him, does nothing to muffle the cut-off groan that escapes him.
Poor Sukuna, you think, with a vague fascination. Was he really so pent up? Driven mad with want for you?
It seems so. His hands, big enough to eclipse your waist, ride upwards. It chafes against your costume, and his fingers dig deeper, nearly bruising your ribs, as if reprimanding you for it. Truly, what a frustrating man. A breathy sigh escapes you as his thumbs rub at the underside of your breast, sensations dulled by the fabric separating you, and on your next breath you’re pushing your tongue into his mouth.
With the groan he lets out, you’d think he’d come right there. He pushes closer, closer, until there’s no room to breathe. He’s flush against you, a blazing heat against your front. There’s no room to pull away, no leverage against the monster caging you. You’re a pinned bird, laid bare at the mercy of his whims.
A whimper escapes you at the thought.
One of his hands trace the curve of your thigh. There’s barely room to breathe in the space between you, his fingers digging so deeply into your skin you can already feel the bruise. It’s hard to keep track of what he’s doing—with four arms, he’s effortlessly doing twice the work of a regular man. It leaves your head swimming, your diaphragm contracting beneath his palms as he growls. His nails, sharp as claws, tear through your leotard.
“Sukuna—!” He cuts off your complaint with another kiss. Your clothes are shed thoughtlessly, and the wind is a shock against your skin, even as your front lies flush against Sukuna. Oh God, you’re outside. You’d completely forgotten.
You tear yourself away from his mouth, turning your head to the side as you heave for breath. “You brute,” you say, breathless. “Kenjaku will kill me when he finds out you ripped that.”
“A paltry complaint.” The words come from his stomach-mouth. His real mouth is otherwise occupied, biting at your neck where your heart beats the hardest, sucking it between his teeth until the skin stains purple. “He wouldn’t dare.”
A paltry complaint? You’ll show him a paltry complaint. Honestly, his arrogance! “We also need to—” you cut yourself off on a gasp as his tongue laves over your neck, dipping down between your breasts. “—move inside.”
“I see no reason to move.”
“Anyone could see—”
“They won’t see you. I won’t let them.”
His self-assuredness is as attractive as it is infuriating. “Everyone’s on the look-out for you.”
He smiles against your breast, moving until he lacks flatly over your nipple. The sudden sensation has you jolting. “They won’t find me. Do you think I can’t predict those inane maggots? They’re swarming like ants to keep customers safe and entertained. No one will venture out this far.”
Truly, he is too confident. You’re not given room to argue, however, when he’s sucking your nipple into his mouth, too-sharp teeth grazing the bud whilst your other breast is taken into hand between those frighteningly sharp claws. Your breath hitches on a gasp, body twitching further into his touch, and thin scratches bead against his fingers.
Not willing to leave everything to him, you move, fingers delicately tracing the edges of his robe. Your hand ventures downwards, inwards, until you’ve gone from the wide frame of his shoulders to the hard skin of his abdomen. You’d never thought yourself to be interested in such brutal masculinity, but something about it has knocked your head loose; he could strangle me so easily, you think, relishing in the way his palm cups your breast and nails threaten to break your skin. He could kill me and it wouldn’t even be a struggle, as you dip your head, pressing a kiss to his scalp and tweaking a nipple between two fingers. He grunts with the motion, jerking as if he hadn’t expected to like it.
You want to hear that sound again. You pinch, but he once again has a mastery over his reactions; he raises his head, and a soft flush lines his cheeks. He groans at your expression, hiking you up with a hand at your waist until his cock is pressing against you. He’s– it’s—
“Why’s it so—?” You cut yourself off with a sharp gasp as your ripped leotard is opened further and his hands make home scratching thin lines down your torso. He rolls his hips once, twice, and you relish in the feeling before regaining your wits. You move, fingers grasping at those soft pink strands and tugging him away from your breast. He allows the movement, peering down at you with those heavy red eyes. “Sukuna? Why does it feel like—”
You don’t finish the sentence. You can’t, because it feels so ludicrous to voice aloud. It’s just… how can he be so…?
“Don’t act so shocked,” he purrs, grinning like a fat cat being served its fourth meal. A hand cups your ass, guiding you to grind against him; he laughs at the soft sigh that escapes you at the feeling. “Over and again, I’ve been called a monster. The two-faced demon, they call me; are you truly surprised the moniker extends elsewhere?”
This man! You flush violently, suddenly so hot you can’t help trying to squirm away from him. He doesn’t let you, guiding you closer, pulling you flush against his two (two!) cocks. What does any man need two of them for?
Yet, you can’t help yourself. What can you say? You’re a glutton for his inhumanities; with every monstrous revelation, you’re drawn closer into his net. You want to see, to feel, to touch. Your mouth waters at the very prospect. Can you be blamed for drawing your hand lower? Dipping below the waist of that robe until the tips of your fingers graze against the base of one of his two (seriously, two!) penises?
A cut-off moan escapes him. “Woman—”
“Call me by my name,” you murmur, tracing the base and following it to his second penis. “You asked me what I want? That’s it. I want you to say my name.”
Your name escapes him on a strangled whimper. “Don’t toy with me.”
You hum, pressing a kiss to his temple. He hurriedly sheds you of what scraps remain of your costume, loosening his robe and freeing his cocks—really, you’re not quite over that detail—before pressing forward. Air escapes you on a keen as Sukuna slides through your slick folds, and he groans appreciatively at the sound.
“Beautiful,” he mutters, low enough you almost don’t catch it.
“Oh my god, hurry up,” you hiss between your teeth, voice hitching on a moan as he bumps against your clit. The sudden stimulation is a shock to your core, and you clench fruitlessly around nothing. You want him so bad it hurts.
“So demanding,” he laughs, like he didn’t jolt closer towards you at the sound of your moan. “Don’t worry. I’ll give you what you want.”
He does not, in fact, give you what you want. Instead, Sukuna winds his bottom pair of arms around your thighs, jerking you up the wall until you’re situated face to face. He pulls you into a suspiciously tender kiss, even as his mouth eclipses your own. It should be gross. It should be weird. Somehow, you just find it impossibly attractive.
Then a tongue is swiping through your folds, and you jerk so abruptly that you accidentally bite down on his tongue. You’d forgotten about the stomach mouth, right up until it's all you can think about—he licks around your entrance, trails the tip of his tongue against your clit, careful not to apply too much pressure. He leaves you squirming, grinning against your lips and opening his mouth-mouth so wide his bottom teeth accidentally clip your chin.
Fuck, he’s so big. It’s unbelievable.
You choke on his name as a hand comes up, grasping you by the throat to hold you still. His fingers flex idly, as if it takes no pressure at all to leave you bruised. He could kill me, you think wildly. He could squeeze right now and crush your windpipe; he could open that stomach mouth a little wider and cleave right through your thighs; one careless move, and you’d be nothing but a heaping sack of meat. He could kill me, and it’d take no effort at all.
Your next moan hinges on a ridiculous whine. It feels like he’s eating your face, drinking up your cunt, toying with your tits while he humps against nothing like a rabid dog. His tongue circles your opening, stimulating sensitive nerves until you’re squirming away. Then he dips in, unimpeded by the way you clench down on his tongue at the feeling.
Thank god, the part of your brain still capable of higher executive function murmurs; there’s no world in which you were going to let him put those nails inside of you. The thought has you huffing a laugh that abruptly hitches into another moan as he massages you from the inside.
You pinch his nipple in revenge. He groans, and his teeth leave a hairline scratch against your cheek. You already know you’re going to look mauled when this is over; the mere thought has heat coursing down your spine. You want to mark him in return—you want to scratch him so deeply it takes weeks to heal, and no one will be able to glimpse at those wide shoulders, that monumental chest, and not immediately know what you did to him.
Your pussy spasms at the thought. Fuck.
You lose track of time like that, the world narrowing down to the slick slide of his mouth on yours and his tongue spearing you open. It feels like you blink and you’re panting heavily, dangling on a precipice and scratching at his chest. You manage to pull him away for just long enough to mutter, “Dear God, please put your cock in me,” before he’s fumbling like a fool, large hand gripping his own cock and lining himself up against you.
Then he pushes in and, well, your dreams of scratching him up become a reality. Red beads along the path of your nails, weeping under the weight of his moan. You duck your head to bite at his neck, chewing along his jugular like you’re trying to break skin and tear through his heartbeat. His dick twitches within you.
An eon and a moment pass at once as he sinks into you. He’s big, heavy, and the unfamiliar weight has your breath trapping in your chest. His second cock drags through your labia as he bottoms out in you, the underside dragging at your clit and sending sparks shivering through your frame. The pleasure feels inescapable; you’re cored out on his cock and trapped against a wall, unable to do anything but take it.
“You feel so good,” you whisper against his throat, tasting the way his heart thuds violently. “I want you to– Sukuna, please—”
He pulls out before sinking back in one smooth motion. It creates constant pressure on your clit, a long trail of sensation that makes your tongue numb in your mouth. “Yes,” he hisses between his teeth, “whatever you want. Just tell me. Beg me.”
“You insufferable—!” Your teeth clamp down around his skin as he plows into you. It pulls a long, low groan from him, the sound vibrating against your teeth as it travels up his throat. That man! Trying to make you beg for him as if he didn’t leave his caravan for the first time in your memory just to kiss you. Just to prove you’re worth that miniscule effort.
But oh, how you want him; his arm around your throat, his hands crushing your ribs, his teeth digging past your skin and wrenching the flesh straight off your bones. You want to be consumed—you want his teeth to work through your skin, to squeeze at your heart, for him to turn into the violent predator everyone described him as. You want him to bruise you so deeply you can’t breathe without feeling an echo of him. You want—-
“Harder,” you gasp.
“There we go,” he mutters. “Don’t you feel good, taking what you want?”
If you were taking what you wanted, you’d be riding him. You tell him as much between hiccuping breaths and he chokes on a laugh that curdles into a moan halfway through.
He chants your name on a low grunt as you near your completion, hands grasping you impossibly tight. Your ribs creak under the pressure, your breath cutting short thanks to his hand at your throat, your hair pulled so tight that tears prick at your eyes. He spasms from the pleasure; you jerk from the same. It’s almost a dance, the both of you sparking like a wildfire as you hurdle towards a mutual end. It builds, builds, builds.
“Sukuna,” you gasp. “Sukuna, Sukuna, Sukuna—”
He comes on a choked whimper, fucking you through his own completion. His other penis coats your stomach and thighs with his come, slicking your vagina further as he bumps against your clit until you physically can’t take it, following him with a strangled gasp of his name.
You heave in the aftermath, twitching with residual pleasure as he softens inside of you. You’re sensitive as a bruise. Sukuna’s hands stroke against your sides, and you can barely handle it from the dual pain-pleasure of his fingers gliding over those scratches. Your mouth is thick with blood—you hadn’t realised it in the moment, but you’d bitten your way through his skin to leave a bloody kiss carved into his collarbone. You can’t help feeling proud of it.
“I want you,” he says wretchedly, muffled against sweat-slick skin. “I want you.”
You press a soft kiss over the bite. Privately, you hope it scars; hope he has to keep this symbol of you forever. “I know, Sukuna. I want you too.”
(Sukuna’s back in his cage the next day, lounging as though he never left. Kenjaku looks at him through misshapen metal bars, a spike of irritation lancing through him at the ruckus the demon caused. He asks, “What was that about, yesterday? Did you have to make such a fuss?”
Sukuna’s mouth twitches into a snarling grin. “I went where I wished to be.”)
PRETTY GIRL AVENUE is an event organised between some friends and i dedicated to lesbianism in jjk <3 pls enjoy. pls.
ABOUT. sapphic romance in all its forms, from fem!toji to the classic shoko. do you want a western vampire? a historical mystery? what about a toxic romance? PRETTY GIRL AVENUE has it all! with only women, to boot!
AT PRETTY GIRL AVENUE, YOU WILL FIND ───
WANTED: WOMAN-EATING OUTLAW with TSUKUMO YUKI!
More information available with @seventasia!
THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT with IEIRI SHOKO!
If any issues arise, please reach out to @ackpplepie!
THE MAN I MARRIED WASN'T ACTUALLY A MAN AT ALL! with FEM!TOJI!
Reach out to @strawb3rryhachi for more information!
PREACHERS DAUGHTER with IEIRI SHOKO!
Find more information with @cassideezlife!
86'D with FEM!SUKUNA!
Reach out to @cassideezlife if you have any inquiries!
TERRAPIN with IEIRI SHOKO!
If interested, consult @purescription!
KISS IT BETTER with TSUKUMO YUKI!
Please contact @ketamiis for details!
CEO - CONFIDENTIAL EATING OUT with IEIRI SHOKO!
Details can be found with @lemonswirlss!
WHAT CAN I DO with FEM!NANAMI!
Please contact @xstars-alignedx for details!
PRETTY GIRL AVENUE is an event organised between some friends and i dedicated to lesbianism in jjk <3 pls enjoy. pls.
ABOUT. sapphic romance in all its forms, from fem!toji to the classic shoko. do you want a western vampire? a historical mystery? what about a toxic romance? PRETTY GIRL AVENUE has it all! with only women, to boot!
AT PRETTY GIRL AVENUE, YOU WILL FIND ───
WANTED: WOMAN-EATING OUTLAW with TSUKUMO YUKI!
More information available with @seventasia!
THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT with IEIRI SHOKO!
If any issues arise, please reach out to @ackpplepie!
THE MAN I MARRIED WASN'T ACTUALLY A MAN AT ALL! with FEM!TOJI!
Reach out to @strawb3rryhachi for more information!
PREACHERS DAUGHTER with IEIRI SHOKO!
Find more information with @cassideezlife!
86'D with FEM!SUKUNA!
Reach out to @cassideezlife if you have any inquiries!
TERRAPIN with IEIRI SHOKO!
If interested, consult @purescription!
KISS IT BETTER with TSUKUMO YUKI!
Please contact @ketamiis for details!
CEO - CONFIDENTIAL EATING OUT with IEIRI SHOKO!
Details can be found with @lemonswirlss!
WHAT CAN I DO with FEM!NANAMI!
Please contact @xstars-alignedx for details!
little drabble for @seventasia 's event ^_^ go check it out here!!
tw: religious guilt, religious trauma themes, smoking, emotional repression, self-destructive tendencies, internalized shame, faith crisis, crying, hurt/comfort, angst
preacher's daughter!shoko who was raised on hymnals and southern guilt and the kind of love that always came with conditions, who learned young how to sit still in hard wooden pews with her knees pressed together and her head bowed politely while everyone in town admired what a sweet girl the pastor raised. because everyone loves the pastor's daughter, even when they do not know her at all.
preacher's daughter!shoko who knows every church song by memory but mouths the words instead of singing them, voice dying somewhere behind her teeth while stained glass paints bruised colors across her skin. who thinks faith should feel warmer than this. who thinks god stopped listening to her years ago.
preacher's daughter!shoko who smells like cigarette smoke hidden beneath vanilla perfume and old books, who keeps a lighter tucked into the pocket of her choir robe, who sits on the church roof after evening service just to feel farther away from everybody beneath her. that is where you first find her. legs hanging over the edge. smoke curling from parted lips. silver cross necklace glinting beneath the moonlight. and instead of telling her father, instead of looking horrified the way everyone else would, you sit beside her. quietly. like you already know all the ugly things she's trying to hide and you have decided they don't matter.
preacher's daughter!shoko who thinks you are too kind for your own good. who rolls her eyes whenever you show up to volunteer at food drives. when you help clean after sunday dinners, pretending your presence annoys her while secretly memorizing the sound of your laugh over gospel music crackling through old church speakers. somehow you keep staying. through her sharp words and every carefully built wall she places between herself and the rest of the world. you stay anyway.
preacher's daughter!shoko who learns the sound of your car before she learns the sound of your footsteps, who waits in the church parking lot after dark pretending she is just "getting fresh air" while secretly hoping your headlights appear at the end of the road. who starts craving you in quiet, devastating ways. who wants your hoodie in the passenger seat; your hand brushing hers over diner tables during the late hours of the night; your voice low and sleepy through phone calls neither of you wants to end.
preacher's daughter!shoko who never calls it love because love feels too sacred and frightening and permanent, and she has spent her whole life being taught that wanting you is wrong because no force of god can change the fact that you are a girl. so instead, you kiss behind gas stations. in dark corner booths of a diner two towns over where nobody recognizes the pastor's daughter. and afterwards, she presses her forehead against yours like she is mourning something before it is even gone.
preacher's daughter!shoko who keeps her cross necklace on even when she sleeps beside you, the chain cold against your collarbone when she curls into you. who goes strangely still the first time you touch it. "my father gave it to me when i turned thirteen. ", she whispers, almost inaudible. like that explains everything. maybe it does.
preacher's daughter!shoko who has spent years praying for god to make her easier to love. cleaner, quieter, holier. less angry, less lonely, less this. who kneels beside her bed at night with mascara streaking down her face whispering apologies into clasped hands because she cannot stop thinking about you no matter how hard she tries.
preacher's daughter!shoko who begins pulling away the second she realizes how hard she has fallen for you. texts become shorter. calls go unanswered. kisses rushed and guilty. she stands beside her father after sunday sermons smiling sweetly at churchgoers while you watch from across the parking lot wondering if you had imagined the softness of her hands. wondering if you had imagined her entirely.
preacher's daughter!shoko who finally breaks in the middle of a thunderstorm. rain batters the church windows hard enough to sound like screaming while she cries in your arms, shoulders shaking violently beneath your hands as every ugly buried thing finally claws its way out of her chest. "i think there's something wrong with me." she says it like a confession. like a prayer. like something she has known her whole life. and when you try to kiss her, she pulls away at first. not because she does not love you, but because the silver cross hanging between you suddenly feels unbearable. heavy with expectation and shame. with every version of herself she was forced to become.
preacher's daughter!shoko whose trembling hands rise to the necklace slowly. the chain catches briefly in her shaking fingers. when it finally slips free, she starts crying harder. huge broken sobs against your mouth while she kisses you desperately, terrified and loving you so much it hurts. like she is choosing you and losing herself all at once. like a girl raised on sermons and sacrifice finally allowing herself, for one impossibly selfish moment, to be loved anyway.
PRETTY GIRL AVENUE is an event organised between some friends and i dedicated to lesbianism in jjk <3 pls enjoy. pls.
ABOUT. sapphic romance in all its forms, from fem!toji to the classic shoko. do you want a western vampire? a historical mystery? what about a toxic romance? PRETTY GIRL AVENUE has it all! with only women, to boot!
AT PRETTY GIRL AVENUE, YOU WILL FIND ───
WANTED: WOMAN-EATING OUTLAW with TSUKUMO YUKI!
More information available with @seventasia!
THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT with IEIRI SHOKO!
If any issues arise, please reach out to @ackpplepie!
THE MAN I MARRIED WASN'T ACTUALLY A MAN AT ALL! with FEM!TOJI!
Reach out to @strawb3rryhachi for more information!
PREACHERS DAUGHTER with IEIRI SHOKO!
Find more information with @cassideezlife!
86'D with FEM!SUKUNA!
Reach out to @cassideezlife if you have any inquiries!
TERRAPIN with IEIRI SHOKO!
If interested, consult @purescription!
KISS IT BETTER with TSUKUMO YUKI!
Please contact @ketamiis for details!
CEO - CONFIDENTIAL EATING OUT with IEIRI SHOKO!
Details can be found with @lemonswirlss!
WHAT CAN I DO with FEM!NANAMI!
Please contact @xstars-alignedx for details!
APARTMENT 707 @strawb3rryhachi - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
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