a repressed memory
a memory of their mother
a memory of death/loss
an eye-opening memory
tainted youth curls within itself, its vessel grasping unto its remnants preserved only by fading memories thankfully made tactile by a lone tasseled hair ensemble. The child shivers underneath his workshop table, certain of inevitable punishment from infernal transgression committed from the innocent, primal wish to protect oneself from harm.
( sin breeds sin. )
Carmine eyes refuse to open as a frenzied mind seeks for repose, to escape from a cruel reality so harshly imposed by none other than herself and an unknown power of sorts. The warmth of a cooling hand to her cheek, the gentle smile of an absent mother who lives no longer are precious threads of a bittersweet dream she weaves to cocoon herself as one hand grasps her memento as the other grips tightly an arm, one of two that were held, horrible purple bruises having blossomed on pale skin her proof. There is fear; there is disgust. Bile threatens to rise from an empty stomach, the skin over it wrongfully caressed with intent.
She feels cold inside and yet her body is scorched. Tears run down her cheeks, down the bridge of her nose, over her trembling lips, on her tongue as she bites it to keep in sobs that sent tremors throughout her body.
Oxygen is scarce and her chest constricts in pain. A gasp leaves her petrified being when she hears his footsteps. ( heavy and systematic. even as he glides over tatami, opening the door harshly. ) So she makes herself even smaller, retreats further but to no avail. Reality will have its way with her where one of her father’s ‘ friends ’ have failed. The demon she has to face is not foreign, intrusive touches but the familiar hand that has made bloom several other bruises on the pallid canvas of her body. Not consciously, she gathers, as this only ever happens when HE reeks with the putrid stench of sake. Still, upon what she has done, she knows that he does not need sake to hurt her.
She killed him.
HIS friend.
She wished him dead and now he is.
She will pay the price for striking a deal with a demon to slay another.
Yet she does not feel fear for that demon ---- the one that has given her salvation procured from her wishes, her memories... ( a warmth that enveloped her kindly, a voice that sang her to sleep, the gentlest touch ever inflicted upon her person. )
NOT THIS.
Not a touch so jarring, so unkind. So different from the hands that are now forcing her to face her prosecutor. Some unholy heavenly judge to a sin she does not understand the weight of. She hears him gasp too when her visage is revealed to him... when he sees her dyed in vermillion. Her mouth opens and she hears herself crying out apologies, chichiue, chichiue, please. Please listen, father.
( He touched me, he touched me! )
( DEMON. )
( Help, chichiue. )
his title is spilled from cut lips, his role called upon by the one whom he needed to act it towards but failed. There is pain in her back as she is slammed down on to the wooden surface of the table that had been her safe haven just moments before his entrance emboldened by righteous fury. The sting of her cheek from the slap she receives for pleading for mercy mutes everything else. She is screaming, kicking, fighting but he holds her down by her neck, making oxygen scarcer than it already is,
( DEMON. DEMON. I should have killed you then, I should have known. )
( chichi...ue--- )
( you killed her. )
( no...---- )
( You’re EXACTLY like her. )
And what else could she do but cry as life is squeezed out of her by one who had breathed it into her? Perhaps he was right. Perhaps she should just die and be done with it. Her thoughts spiral into nothing as the hands lose their strength -- one trying to pry off his hands from her neck, the other grasping her mother’s memento. Grasping for her mother, gasping for them both. Help her. Please. Weak and insignificant as she is, she craves to live. She craves to find the same warmth that has been stolen by indifferent time and unforgiving death.
She wants to live.
「母上ー」
Gripping the hair ornament, she gathers all she has left of her in her voice, her drained thoughts.
Call my name, call for me.
Carmine eyes open ( since when have they closed...? ), death and life amalgamate and from nothing comes something. A meaningless existence reaching out from a harrowed soul, far too broken to care what means she has to use to remain in ukiyo-e. She knows how this will end. How he will end. By the blade of the only demon that mattered, the only demon that cared. So she answers it, offers her soul to it as she calls it by its name.
「金色夜叉。」
The contract is sealed and chichiue’s blood is vermillion to his colleague’s rust. If dyeing her stained nagajuban with new vermillion is what she must do to survive, then she will... for no other person, no other demon shall keep her alive but HERSELF.
Oda comes home with groceries...
Sets bag on counter...
Tendrils snake out of fridge...
Grab food and pull it back into fridge when he’s not looking.
Oda turns back... ‘???’
Shrugs
tranquility such as the current one is an unusual occurrence / particularly in his presence ; eccentric in both appearance & personality , something so calm could never last . however , even the man has a peculiar aura around him ( maybe because people nowadays aren’t as invested in reading books as they used to be ? nikolai doubts it’s the case ) .
curiosity killed the cat / but , he’s no ordinary one ! & so , he reaches under his cape , the book previously in the other man’s hold now in gogol’s - momentarily , his gaze ends up on the foreign characters forming the title . the object is turned towards its owner , a single digit pointing at the previously inspected cover ( such a boring , boring cover , containing nothing but the name of the book / although , he isn’t the one to judge by mere appearance ) . ❛ what does it say ? ❜ ( @lifends / sc. )
