the new ballet season is upcoming and you've been selected to play both the pure white swan and the lustful black swan. you were the perfect white swan. pristine, pure, perfect. but when your strict ballet instructor guides you down a tainted path to fulfill your dual role as the black swanβ just how far are you willing to go to gain his approval? how deep are you willing to let him drag you into hell for the sake of perfection? and most of all: how desperate are you to keep his attention on only you?
β wc :: 1.8k
β‘ βΛβ§ cw. ballet au :: angst :: smut :: toxic dynamics :: age gap ( 40s / 20s ) :: violence :: blood :: murder :: corruption :: purity fixation :: unhealthy beauty standards :: obsession :: manipulation :: jealousy :: f.masturbation :: semi-public sex :: fingering :: rough sex :: degradation :: choking :: sukuna is very touchy & creepy :: rival!yorozu :: inspired by 2010's black swan
β‘ βΛβ§ sweetheart. this series was commissioned by @delicatedahlias <3 thank you cutie!
What were you, if not perfect?
It's the thought you went to bed with. The thought you woke up with. The word that haunted you as you sat at your table and picked at the slices of fruit you called a meal.
Perfection was discipline. Dedication. And by god, were you both.
Not a hair out of place. Not a crease in your clothes. You even walked between the cracks of tiles in the dim ballet studio.
Many said this was the place where dreams died.
But this, oh, this was where you soared.
Your feathers pristine. Your wings wide. You glided through the air and swayed to the music with an elegance most likened to an angel.
Pure, pristine, and above all:
Perfect.
Well, until he came along.
"You call that an Arabesque?"
A gruff voice maced through the cold studio air. Your feet fell flat on the floors. Dejected.
Your newest ballet instructor didn't think of you as an angel at all.
Hulking arms crossed over a broad chest. The black material of his shirt strained around his biceps. Chin raised high like his standards. Pink hair chaotic, yet controlled. Maroon eyes a burning fire of cold coals.
Ryomen Sukuna was notorious for his methods. As strict as he was severe. Said to weed out perfection from the pores of poor ballerinas with bloodied tweezers if he had to.
That's why the studio hired him. Bankruptcy threatened, and they were desperate. If anyone could fix this place, Sukuna could.
The first day he walked in, he pointed out everyone's flaws. Extended practice hours. Chastised even the smallest mistakes.
Especially yours.
His problem with you?
"You're too perfect," he barked. The ground and knees of other ballerinas trembled as he approached.
You stood stiff. Straight. But not tall, never tall. You were such a timid thing. A sweet little girl, just as your mother always wanted.
"Excuse me?" You meeked, daring to look up. The white spandex bit into your skin. Taunting you with tight failure.
"Your performance as Odette," he stopped before you. Stared into your soul until it wished to shrivel up.
"It's perfect. Not a flaw."
You blinked. Breath hitching as he circled you. A predator sizing up whether or not you were worthy prey.
You didn't voice your confusion.
As far as you were concerned, you didn't have a voice. Not in his presence. Not when searching for his approval.
His height cast a shadow over you. Swallowing you in his criticism. The studio tilted under the weight of his presence.
Auditions were always harsh. Especially for roles in Swan Lake. A classic should be treated with respect, every ballerina knew that. It was why you stepped up with your head held high and your eyes set on the Swan Queen role.
As the tale went, Odette, a virgin girl, pure and sweet, is trapped in the body of a white swan. She desires freedom but only true love can break her curse. Her wish is nearly granted in the form of a prince, but before he can declare his loveβ her lustful twin, Odile: the black swan, tricks and seduces him. In the end, devastated, the white swan leaps off a cliff and in death, she finds freedom.
Sukuna insisted that both white and black swans should be played by the same ballerina. And so, here you were.
Failing.
"But you're not just the white swan, are you?" He said, voice glass. "Your performance as the black swan is putrid."
It cut you, as it always did.
Your nails itched to dig into your wrists. Instead, you cupped your hands.
"What are you corrections, Mister Ryomen?" You asked, soft and sweet.
He only scoffed. Brushing past you as he left you with the scorn of your reflection.
"The black swan is chaos where there's control. Intense, violent."
His stare sliced through your confidence as he sat back down. "What would a timid little princess know about anything like that?"
Your throat tightened.
He shoved the radio back on and snapped his palms together. Rattling your ribcage as he barked out another: "again. This time with bite."
You tried.
"Again."
And you tried.
"Again."
And you. Tried.
"Again!"
Until your feet cramped. Your nails dug into your shoes. And the glint of his steeled, stern glare in the mirror was all you knew.
Along with your horrid reflection.
The office was an encyclopedia of everything you couldn't be: perfection.
The hardwood desk aligned with the floor window behind it. Shelves lined with rows of books in descending order. The wooden floors crisp. Clean. Tiles too small for you to stand between the cracks of.
Sukuna had taken the former instructor's office and moulded it into a dark, stark palace.
But he was no prince. No king. No saving grace.
Not to you.
Not yet, you thought.
"Are you here to disappoint me again?" His voice rumbled from behind the desk. Paging through a file that looked tiny in his large arms.
Would you be tiny, too? Pretty for him?
You shook the thought away. Cleared your throat and cupped your hands. Sickeningly polite as always.
"You asked to see me." You remind. A part of you wished that you didn't when his maroon glare struck at you over his shoulder.
The file snapped shut. The sound tore through your nerves and urged your spine straighter.
He sighed, raked a hand through his pink hair that boasted his years in grey roots. "I'm giving you the role as the Swan Queen."
Your heart soaredβ
"Regrettably."
β plummeted.
You weren't used to the word regret stitched across your back like an open wound. Your shoulders itched again. Craved your nails.
Your palms felt their indents instead.
As always, your voice froze into a crystal in your throat. Silencing your questions. But they shone in your doe eyes.
He clicked his tongue in reply.
Tossed the file to his desk and circled around it. His presence needling the hairs on your arms and soaking anxiety into your pores.
Oh, you would look so tiny in his arms.
"No one else in this studio has potential like you do. But you waste it." His words burned harsher than your numbing feet from the hours you wasted away this afternoon. Grappling for perfection. For his attention.
"I'm sorry." The apology was instinctive. So innately you.
"That's the problem." He sneered, and stepped closer. Zeroing in to your personal space and zapping the oxygen out from between the both of you.
Your breath thinned. Eyes flickered. Unable to hold his stare.
A thumb brushed your cheekbone.
Calloused on your soft, smooth skin. He nudged your chin up. Rough. As he leaned over you.
Close. Closer than sweet little girls should allow.
"You're a good girl, aren't you?" His voice, always so sharp and stingingβ now a low drag that tickled your heart.
"I'm. . . what?" You whispered. Scared to shatter this moment. His attention.
Maroon eyes convicted your body. Frozen you into a perfect, porcelain doll under his touch.
"A good girl," Sukuna repeated. "Pure, sweet. The perfect white swan."
His thumb traced your cheekbone. Trailed to your chin and raised it further. Forcing you to maintain his gaze.
"But that's what makes you so weak."
A blunt nail dug into your chin, and you gasped. Quiet, even in your pain.
Sukuna shook your face. Aggressive. Broad fingers caging your jaw as the split second of tenderness fractured into an ugly, criticising stare.
"Let go of your inhibitions. Free yourself. You gotta take what you want. Bite. Release your black swan or else,"
His face thrust into yours. Eyes daggering into your soul. Tearing into your pores with tweezers ready weed out all of your flaws.
Acrid. Cutting. Blading, was his sneer.
"You'll never be perfect."
Within these four, quiet walls, you were perfect.
The perfect girl that your mother raised.
Her pure, pristine, sweet little daughter.
You saw her eyes when you looked into the mirror. Your entire home had been decked in reflective glass. So that you were always aware of yourself.
So that you could always see her.
"He gave me the role, mama."
You smile at yourself. Because maybe, just maybe. In this dim bedroom. In your clothes that were once hers.
You could imagine for a second. A fracturing, fleeting second: that it was her smiling back at you.
A mother's love was unmatched. That was what everyone said. That was what you wanted to believe. That her love for you outweighed her love for alcohol and men.
Outweighed her love for your perfection.
She was perfect once, too. A ballerina, just like you. Pristine, and pure. A paragon. Your pillar. Your pinnacle.
It was why she strove for you to be the same. Disciplined you in all the ways a loving mother would. Perfected you into the flawless angel you were, now.
You set your hair. Fixing strands into place and watching your every move in the glass.
If you squinted, perhaps you could imagine her sitting in her favourite chair behind you. Watching you, as she always did.
"But he says I'm. . . too perfect. Nonsense, right?" You scoffed. At least, you tried to.
You were never capable of being anything other than sweet and soft.
Another thing that made her proud.
"He's strict. And mean. But I can handle it." You stretched. Stepped back. Took a bow.
When you faced the mirror again, your mother's eyes looked a lot like Sukuna's.
Strict, stern. Beckoning you to hold their hand and let them forge you into their definition of perfection.
You shook your head. Looked away. Opting to focus on your childhood bedroom.
Old stuffies lined your bedsheets. White, and pink. The bedframe was lithe, elegant. Most of your room was. A place for a princess, as your mother claimed.
You hadn't changed much of it after she died.
She always set your bed. Tidied your room. Fashioned it to what was perfect for you. As she did most things in your life.
"I promise," you eyed the mirror again. Stretching your legs that ached from the hours you committed to tonight. "I'll make you proud. Be the Swan Queen, just like you were."
You approached the white vanity at your bed and twined the music box. Her music box. With a little, plastic ballerina at the centre. Twirling in a perfect pirouette.
Mesmerised, you watched for a small moment. Frozen in time. To a different time. Of your mother, on the stage. Pristine, pure. White.
winter landscape at night. fir trees on snow covered hill in full moon light. mysterious place in mountains. winter wonderland background for photo travel. backdrop for fiction art or mystery concepts
