Ch.6: MinaYuu - A Study in Scarlet/愛して愛して愛して
Minami Kenjirou sees red.
The water pools around his ankles, cascading down his pink legs and splashing against the tiles of the shower stall.
[Distantly far away far away long ago a coiled necklace]
“Now Minami, you'll be a good boy and stay still for your shot, will you?
He tries to scream but hands slap on his mouth, restrain his limb. One wraps around his neck and its coil gets tighter, tighter, tighter –
Black spots invade his vision, eclipsing the pain of the needle sinking into his skin.”
[“I want people, I want people,” it cried, this cursed necklace]
His skin is turning pink from the scalding water, the color sprouting from various spots on his limbs and spreading like wildfire, a distant rash his eyes ache to relieve but not his hands.
“You good-for-nothing brat,” a woman spits from behind him before striking him on the back one more.
He sits on his knees, hands balled into fists and a neutral, distant expression on his face. The ideal figure of the obedient child.
The first strikes have that effect. They don't sting so much anymore, or maybe it's just that he can't feel them as acutely as he does for the next ones.
His nails dig into his palms as the whip hits the tender, marred flesh of his back which he is sure is a cobweb of red lines by now, a maze of strings entangled together and imprisoning his frame.
He grits his teeth when she pauses, then lashes out at him with a howl-like scream. There we are, he observes. The whip drags itself along his spine, dragging with it remnants of the skin it has reopened, and blood. The movement, somehow, reminds him of a dog licking its master's wounds.
Maybe if he untangled his hands from his hair, he could give in to the pulsing curiosity. Run his fingers along his arms, his legs, his chest and back. Search for dark places and feel them burn underneath his numb fingertips. Rake them with his nails, just the tips, then pressing, digging into the flesh then rubbing, and scratching, until skin there is no more.
"Please, Minami, my darling, my love..."
He advances towards the woman half-sprawled on the floor, her body slowly emptying itself from blood, liquid seeping between the fingers she presses on her stomach. If he closes his eyes, Minami could almost hear it drip. Each and every single drop leaving the veins, slipping through pink flesh and reddening fabric, attracted by force of gravity to the fellow trickles and pulling itself to the ground in a steady beat. A pulse outside of a body, a rhythm in echo wth the faltered breathing and choked sobs.
What a sweet, sweet music to his ears.
“Oh my god, Minami, I beg of you!”
His feet bring him closer in the direction of the body, reaching out towards the extended hand. He raises his own in response, fingers clutching a torn card to the pint the corners have dug into his palm and etched a new web of lines interwined with his own natural lifelines.
The knife resting in the palm of his hand is the only god he knows.
His nails, he notices, have dug into the flesh of his palms deep enough to leave crescent-shaped indents. The hot water's strangely relaxing effect, added to the cacophony thumping inside his head, has left him too numb to focus on the pain. The mark becomes an open wound and even as it draws blood, Minami's eyes only follow the trail crimson droplets take, plunging into the pink water and blooming atop the rose water. They disperse themselves as soon as they come, washed down the drain.
[Fasten it tightly, til you could throw up, so there aren’t there aren’t any people here.]
Like poppies, a voice pipes in his brain. Alive for a day, then gone tomorrow.
[Nice results, huh? Hey hey, aren’t I a good kid?]
He exits the cabin and lifts his hand in front of his face, bringing it to the mirror next to the stall. The temporary crimson hair dye he used on missions has left his fingers tinted as if he's dipped them in a can of paint.
These days, he doesn't bother putting on gloves to dye his hair or using cottonballs and makeup remover to wipe the blotches of red and white caked on his face after a long night.
[Aren’t I a cute kid? Hey hey, I’m good, right?]
He touches a finger to his lips, chases the movement of the tip as it traces the remnants of wine red that formed a perfect line on his mouth only hours ago. A blunt slip on one side smears cosmetic beyond the left corner of his lips. His finger presses flush on his cheek, and he repeats the motion faster on the other side, smudging the right cheek with a wider, paler line that still burns bright under the bathroom led.
Maybe he should start investing in better cosmetics. If only to stop looking like he just stepped out of a freak show. He knows himself to resemble such a specimen out of overhearing the people coming by the orphanage, the same ones who come to adopt and yet whisper behind his back. They say a lot of things, mostly about how he does'nt strike anyone as a fit role model for the children he teaches at the small college. Some even go as far as saying things along the lines of him trying to find a family that will love him through his work. Someone who who will appreciate him in spite of his antics and queer physique. About what a child he is. On the outside he gives them the smallest polite smile he can msuter. On the inside he's dismembering them and cutting inch by inch with a dull saw. See how pretty they'd look with red decorating their faces.
Minami may be naïve, but he isn't so stupid as to not know what others have to say about him.
But then, Yuuri did say red suited him, didn't he?
“There my little puppet, I'll show you how to do it.”
Minami's wide eyes remain fixated on Yuuri's face and hands as they remove the cap atop the lipstick, the color slowly popping out of its tube like a pointed needle, threateningly long and crimson. He shivers at the thought of it pressing against his lips.
As if sensing his inner dilemma, Yuuri – or rather, the Puppet Master as he'd introduced himself the first time (he really ought to get it in his head by now, stupid stupid stupid) – smiles at him reasurringly, warm brown eyes crinkling from underneath his lace mask.
Minami almost flinches when Yuuri raises his hand, and scrunches his eyes shut tightly in expectation of a slap or a blow far worse. Surprise almost makes him pull back when instead, the vigilante carresses his cheek as if cajoling a scared, wild animal.
He lets himself be manhandled, Yuuri's hand propped under his chin and fingers raising it higher. This time Minami doesn't jump when the lipstick fills the distance between himself and the other man. The tip, spotless a second ago and almost so silky he could have sworn seeing his reflection in it, dissolves as it brushes his cupid's bow, then bends in accord with the curve of his upper and lower lip. Yuuri never once takes his eyes off his work, focusing hard on getting his apprentice's mouth perfectly shaped. His touches are slow though deliberate, a painter's brush strokes on a blank canvas.
If such is a muse's occupation, then he wouldn't mind having Yuuri's eyes on him anytime.
[Love me, more and more.]
And yet he also insisted that personal hygiene remained a capital matter.
[Love me. Love me, so much that it’s maddening.]
For the umpteenth time, Minami messes with his lipstick. It had started out as it usually did in these situations: out of curiosity he'd probed at the sticky substance spread across his lips in a perfect circle, finding it a little itchy despite the smoothness of the applied cosmetics under his now smeared finger. He doesn't need to look at the mirror to know that he looks like a mess.They haven't even gotten started on his hair for the day, and yet there's no doubt he already makes for a vision in red.
[It’s painful, it hurts.]
Yuuri sighs in fond exasperation by his side, if the telling smile that makes its way to his lips is any giveaway. It sends his heartbeat going at a faster pace, having this smile dedicated to him, and him only in this moment ...
[Undo undo the curse, okay?]
“Hey, isn't that my lipstick?” Yuuri raises an enquiring eyebrow. “The shade looks familiar.”
“It is!” Minami exclaims. “You gave it to me when I first started as your assistant.”
“I did? My, my, was that long ago...” Yuuri muses, hand propped under his chin and inching closer to Minami.
His hand then reaches for Minami's, while the other comes up to carress his jaw in a soft manner. Mnami feels his cheek heat up under his teacher's knuckles.
“I must say, my little one, it suits you very well. Though you probably already knew that.” Minami's breath catches at the compliment and sincere compliment, but he has no time to muster a “thank you” before Yuuri pulls him in for a kiss, and he reacts of his own will once their lips brush. The flavor of the flowery paste invades his mouth and melts with Yuuri's own minty and sweet taste.
“Oh, poppet” Yuuri whispers when they break apart, breathless and panting in each other's ears, “I'll make a bonfire out of that spark of yours.”
Red carries memories and images that Minami shall never forget, the kind burnt in a corner of his brain, always there but never really. The scarlet fringe that falls into his eyes, the sole untainted reminder he has of his dark days. The flames burning in the hearth of Victor Nikiforov's home at every gathering, eternally burning come what may. The blaze shortening his breathing, chocking him, almost licking his body with unbearingly strong heat.
“It's okay, you're gonna be okay.”
He succumbs to darkness in the arms of a dark angel.
[It hurts now, it’s not enough now.]
The temporary hair dye has washed away, Minami's once fiery red hair fading back to its original flaming, marigold hue. Though the strands are slowly regaining their strawberry blond shade under the bathroom light, rose liquid still beads on the half fringe falling on his left eye, forming scarlet tears that trickle down his cheek.
[People aren’t people aren’t enough.]
“You'll leave me, won't you?”
[I won’t lose to anyone in my class.]
His sobs are delving into dangerous territory. As much as he wish he could stop that big mouth of his from opening itself and sputter nonsense, he can't stop. What had first been repressed tears have turn to openly hysteric screaming and crying. His throat and face burn under the combination of neon lights and raw anger.
[Aren’t I a lovely good kid?]
“Just say it already! Say it! SAY IT!”
Yuuri isn't replying – or could it be he isn't here at the moment? The Puppet Master's personality hardly ever strays far away from Yuuri's own, but he knows better than anyone what it takes to get him to blow a fuse.
When his mind comes into focus on this one single thought, Minami's brain shortcircuits. Shit. He just went all out on Yuuri, of all people, in a situation where he wasn't being Yuuri. He suddenly found himself praying for survival.
[More than that kid, more than any kid. Everyone come look at me.]
“DON'T “JOKER” ME!” Minami snaps, then promptly slaps his hands to his mouth. Oh fuck fuck fuck now he's gone too far now he's lost it and Yuuri's gonna hurt him hurt him hurt him –
“Joker.” Yuuri's hand claps his shoulder in a tight grasp that shakes him awake from his daydreaming.
“My little trickster...c'mere”. Minami finds himself wrapped into Yuuri's arms.
“Come on over then.” he encourages without force, rubbing his back for good measure in slow, small circles. “Cry all you need, I'm right there for you. I'm not going anywhere, okay?”
Tears stream silently on Minami's cheeks, the sobs building at the back of his throat not to far away now. He succumbs to Yuuri's embrace, burying himself deeper into his hold.
[I like you, you who are so filthy]
“Who am I to you?” Yuuri asks him one day, when they're facing each other.
A thousand words come to mind, interwined in sentences Minami is positive no language can render beautiful or meaningful enough.
His only response, the most logical that comes to mind, is to shrug, giving him his trademark lopsided grin and saying: “What's a Joker without his Queen? I'll tell you.”
He breaks the distance that separates them in a heartbeat, using one of the ropes he'd bought from a joke shop and customized to his taste – a subtle reference that, surprisingly enough, didn't go unnoticed. “Nothing.”
Yuuri sighs. “Puppet, how many times have I told you not to call me that?”
“I know, I know, but look, look! I made us assorted cards for my new deck. What do you think?”
Truth be told he had only made two cards to replace their predecessors, but the prospect of aligning the rest of the package with the brand new ones was a tempting project.
The cards are beautiful. Polished and brand new, depicting on one Yuuri's newly acquired indigo costume and Minami's own three-piece, gold and carmine suit; with the exception that Yuuri wore a golden crown encrusted with rubies atop his head, whereas Minami had on a glittery, purple jester cap up on.
Minami rushes to show them to Yuuri, but in his haste he almost flings them straight into his palm, and barely avoids cutting it when –
Blood oozes from the tiny papercut. Though the cut isn't deep, Minami is close enough to watch the copper fluid beading from the tip of Yuuri's finger. They both stare as his blood seeped from the fingertip and dropped in the middle of Yuuri's own card, now baptized with its inspiration's essence.
“Yu – Master” he hushes, breath tightening at the back of his throat and forming a ball that threatens to choke him. In his panic he'd almost let out that he knew about his true identity.
Yuuri waves him off, smiling reassuringly. “It's fine, Puppet. See? Just a papercut.” Yuuri brings the fingers to his lips, sucking in the trickle of blood descending on his finger. Minami unconsciously holds his breath at the sudden intake of air and fluid, the suction producing an almost inaudible and obscene sound.
“Besides,” Yuuri reflects, coming closer until their faces are inches apart, “I am sure you can make it up to me, can you?”
Later on, he drinks in the sight of Yuuri sprawled under him. His lips swollen from kisses, his ruby-coloured lipstick bleeding at the corners of his mouth. Cheeks flush and burning. Skin tattooed with bruises and handprints, soft to the touch and body pliant under his hands.
