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squirrelwithatophat · 4 months ago

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How the Chantry (and Orlais) Turned Kirkwall into a Police State

One aspect of the Dragon Age series that I’ve always found odd is the way in which rather crucial political and historical context surrounding major conflicts the player must decide tends to be relegated to codices, outside materials (e.g., books), and optional dialogue with minor characters... meaning that many if not most players don’t seem to end up actually seeing it. Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts (Dragon Age Inquisition) in particular has become somewhat notorious for what it left out, but it’s far from unusual.

With regard to Dragon Age II, there’s a popular perception among fans that the troubles in Kirkwall can be attributed almost entirely to rogue behavior on the part of Knight-Commander Meredith and various evil blood mages. This is understandable given the overall narrative framing and Bioware’s aforementioned problem of making key context very easy to miss. But once we take a look at the full picture, it ought to be clear that the Chantry did not simply “fail” in their responsibilities towards the mages or towards the citizens of Kirkwall more broadly — they actively created and maintained the very nightmare they later professed to be dismayed about.

Moreover, despite the running Mages vs. Templars theme, the mages were hardly the only one's who suffered under Meredith's rule. Indeed, Kirkwall endured a brutal 16-year-long dictatorship (9:21-9:37 Dragon) that came into being courtesy of the Chantry and the Orlesian empire and only fell due to the mage rebellion.

Here I’ll describe in detail (with sources and citations) the story of how the Chantry turned Kirkwall into a police state and one that ultimately descended into what the writers themselves termed "genocide."

The Templar Coup of 9:21 Dragon

Our story begins with the conflict between Viscount Perrin Threnhold of Kirkwall and Emperor Florian Valmont of Orlais.

With the beginning of the Dragon Age (the era), the Orlais had experienced a major loss of territory and influence. In 9:00-9:02 Dragon (the exact dates conflict), the Fereldan Rebellion led by Maric Theirin and Loghain Mac Tir overthrew Meghren, the last Orlesian King of Ferelden (personally appointed to the position by Emperor Florian himself), and reclaimed their country’s independence after nearly a century of Orlesian occupation. These events are described in detail in The Stolen Throne. Emperor Florian, however, remained reluctant to recognize Ferelden’s sovereignty -- with peace between the two countries not being fully established until his death and the ascension of his niece Celene to the throne in 9:20 Dragon -- and may have been eager to reassert Orlesian influence in the region. Perrin Threnhold, meanwhile, ascended to the position of viscount of Kirkwall (also formerly occupied by Orlais) in 9:14 Dragon. At some point during this volatile period, Threnhold decided to raise money by charging what the Orlesians regarded as unreasonably high tolls for passage through the Waking Sea, which also controlled Orlais’s sea access to Ferelden and its capitol, Denerim.

For reference, here’s a map with my highlights:

The Orlesian Chantry, founded by Kordillus Drakon I (the first emperor of Orlais), had from the beginning been dominated by Orlesian interests. According to World of Thedas vol. 1 (p. 56): “The Orlesian capital, Val Royeaux, is home to the Chantry’s Grand Cathedral, the center of the Andrastian religion’s power. Over multiple Blights, the Orlesians have used the Chantry to expand their influence beyond the nation’s impressive borders, notably to the north into Tevinter territory and southeast through Ferelden.” The Chantry, not surprisingly, had backed the Orlesian invasion and occupation of Ferelden, most recently under Divine Beatrix III (probably) and Grand Cleric Bronach of Denerim. It should be noted that this is all part of a pattern of highly-aggressive and imperialistic behavior that has persisted for centuries from the early years up to (potentially) the events of Dragon Age Inquisition.

It also cannot be emphasized enough that the Templars are the Chantry’s army and were created by the Chantry in the first place. They do not simply hunt and guard mages; they fight the Chantry’s wars and carry out its policies. Quote: “the Order of Templars was created as the martial arm of the Chantry” (Codex: Templars). According to First Enchanter Halden of Starkhaven (8:80 Blessed), “While mages often resent the templars as symbols of the Chantry's control over magic, the people of Thedas see them as saviors and holy warriors, champions of all that is good, armed with piety enough to protect the world from the ravages of foul magic. In reality, the Chantry's militant arm looks first for skilled warriors with unshakable faith in the Maker, with a flawless moral center as a secondary concern. Templars must carry out their duty with an emotional distance, and the Order of Templars prefers soldiers with religious fervor and absolute loyalty over paragons of virtue who might question orders when it comes time to make difficult choices. It is this sense of ruthless piety that most frightens mages when they draw the templars' attention: When the templars are sent to eliminate a possible blood mage, there is no reasoning with them, and if the templars are prepared, the mage's magic is all but useless. Driven by their faith, the templars are one of the most feared and respected forces in Thedas” (Codex: Templars). Likewise, a Chantry official confirms that the Templars are both “the watchers of the mages and the martial arm of the Chantry” (Codex: Seekers of Truth). In Dragon Age Origins, the (unwillingly) Templar-trained Alistair elaborates, “Essentially they’re trained to fight. The Chantry would tell you that the templars exist simply to defend, but don’t let them fool you. They’re an army... The Chantry keeps a close reign on its templars. We are given lyrium to help develop our magical talents, you see… which means we become addicted. And since the Chantry controls the lyrium trade with the dwarves… well, I’m sure you can put two and two together... The Chantry usually doesn’t let their templars get away, either.”

In response to Threnhold’s intolerable restrictions on the Orlesian navy’s movements in its traditional sphere of influence, Divine Beatrix III, an acknowledged “friend of the emperor” (and predecessor to Divine Justinia V of DAI), ordered the Kirkwall Templars under Knight-Commander Guylian to force open the Waking Sea. Viscount Threnhold retaliated for this obviously-illegal military interference by ordering the Templars expelled from Kirkwall and later executing the knight-commander. Then-Knight-Captain Meredith Stannard led the remaining Templars to storm the Keep and arrest Threnhold before appointing a weak viscount unwilling or unable to resist her control.

From Kirkwall: City of Chains by Brother Ferdinand Genitivi (Codex: History of Kirkwall: Chapter 4):

Taxes were crippling and Perrin Threnhold used the ancient chains extending from “the Twins” standing at Kirkwall's harbor—unused since the New Exalted Marches—to block sea traffic and charge exorbitant fees from Orlesian ships. The Empire threatened invasion following the closure of the Waking Sea passage, and for the first time, the Chantry used the templars to pressure the viscount. Until that point, the templars had done nothing to counter the Threnholds even though, as the largest armed force in Kirkwall, they could have. Knight-Commander Guylian's only written comment was in a letter to Divine Beatrix III: “It is not our place to interfere in political affairs. We are here to safeguard the city against magic, not against itself.” The divine, as a friend to the emperor, clearly had other ideas.

In response, Viscount Perrin hired a mercenary army, forcing a showdown with the templars. They stormed the Gallows and hung Knight-Commander Guylian, igniting a series of battles that ended with Perrin's arrest and the last of his family's rule. The templars were hailed as heroes, and even though they wished to remain out of Kirkwall's affairs, it was now forced upon them. Knight-Commander Meredith appointed Lord Marlowe Dumar as the new viscount in 9:21 Dragon and she has remained influential in the city's rule ever since.

Given that this was written by a Chantry scholar, the self-justificatory rhetoric surrounding the viscount and the Chantry-instigated coup ought not be surprising. It appears, however, that in Kirkwall itself popular perceptions of Viscount Perrin Threnhold are in fact fairly polarized.

Whereas Brother Genitivi calls Perrin’s father Chivalry Threnhold “a vicious thug who took power through a campaign of intimidation” and Perrin Threnhold “even worse,” an unnamed servant writing 7 years after the coup paints a rather different picture (Codex: Viscount Marlowe Dumar):

What happened to Viscount Perrin Threnhold was a travesty. I served in the Keep, and my blood boils when I hear people call him a tyrant. He was a good man who tried his best to free Kirkwall from the control of those who use power for their own purposes. It's always been that way here, hasn't it? Long ago it was the Imperium. Then it was the Qunari, then the Orlesians, now the templars... when have we ever ruled ourselves? He tried to kick those templar bastards out and give us real freedom, and what did it get him?

Whether Threnhold was an evil tyrant or a nationalist hero (or both or something else entirely) is beside the point, however. He was not overthrown for mistreating the citizens of Kirkwall; he was overthrown for opposing Orlais and the Templars (acting as an arm of Orlesian imperialism and in defiance of their official duties). Seneschal Bran, himself no fan of either Threnhold or the Templars (and the only character to ever discuss the coup out loud), points this out in an easy-to-miss optional conversation in Act 3.

Hawke: What happens if they [the Templars] don’t like the [nobility’s] choice [of viscount]?

Seneschal Bran: Do you know how Viscount Dumar’s predecessor, Perrin Threnhold, left office? He was a tyrant, certainly, but his rule was not ended until he actively sought to expel the templars. “The good of all” is inexorably tied to what is good for the templars.

It’s unclear whether Knight-Captain Meredith was acting on her own initiative in toppling Threnhold or whether she received prior encouragement from the Chantry, but either way, what is certain is that the Chantry moved quickly to legitimize her actions and bolster the new order. Moreover, the intent to seize power for the Chantry and its military forces rather than “liberate” Kirkwall from the depredations of a tyrannical viscount can be seen in the way they illegally imposed their own viscount (one kept submissive through threats of violence) rather than allowing the people to choose or at the very least following accepted selection procedures (i.e., allowing the nobility to vote on the next viscount). Indeed, this refusal to let the nobility select the viscount as per tradition is the basis of Orsino's protest at the beginning of Act 3.

In any event, Grand Cleric Elthina, as the highest-ranking representative of the Chantry in Kirkwall (appointed to her position by Divine Beatrix III herself around 20 years before Act 1) and thus exercising authority over its Templars, presided over the show trial at the end of which Threnhold was imprisoned and later murdered in his cell. Then she rewarded Meredith with a promotion.

According to the codex for Knight-Commander Meredith:

She is credited with removing the previous viscount, Perrin Threnhold, from his position after he attempted to have the templars expelled from the city in 9:21 Dragon. The acting knight-commander was arrested and executed, and Meredith led a group of templars into the heart of the Keep to capture Threnhold. He was tried and imprisoned three days later by Grand Cleric Elthina and died from poisoning two years later. Meredith was subsequently elevated to her current position.

While merely implied here, Elthina is explicitly confirmed to have given Meredith the position of knight-commander in the first place in World of Thedas vol. 2 (p. 193):

Following Threnhold’s arrest, Grand Cleric Elthina appointed Meredith as the new knight-commander. At Knight-Commander Meredith’s suggestion, a new viscount was chosen: a man named Marlowe Dumar.

Then in blatant violation of Kirkwall’s own laws and traditions -- again, dictating that the viscount be chosen by the nobility -- the Chantry had allowed newly-installed Knight-Commander Meredith to select the new viscount. If approached in the Templar-occupied Viscount’s Keep and spoken to in Act 3, Seneschal Bran will explain:

Bran: When a line is judged unfit, or ends, we appoint from Kirkwall’s elite. Or we would, if the situation was normal. But it is not.

Hawke: Who nominates a new viscount?

Bran: A consensus of the nobility. Normally. And a willing nominee.

It seems to be the general consensus that Marlowe Dumar was chosen specifically because he was weak and willing to play the role of Templar/Chantry puppet (a subheading in Dumar’s WoT v2 entry even explicitly calls him “The Puppet”). Meredith, after all, is not only responsible for his appointment but has been threatening him into compliance from the very beginning.

Again, Brother Genitivi writes quite bluntly:

Knight-Commander Meredith appointed Lord Marlowe Dumar as the new viscount in 9:21 Dragon and she has remained influential in the city's rule ever since.

And quoting once more from the unnamed servant:

Now the Chantry has chosen Lord Marlowe Dumar as his replacement. After weeks and weeks of arguing, after telling the nobility that they would be choosing their viscount, after everyone saying it was time to use a new title—why not "king"? Why keep using the name imposed by the Orlesians? And after all that, the Chantry chose him. I suppose I can see why—everyone thinks he has the spine of a jellyfish, and it does seem that way.

Truly, he has the templars on one side, the nobility on the other, and everyone expects him to solve all their problems—yet he has no power to actually accomplish it. He keeps the peace as best he can, and I think he does a good job even if no one else does.

Likewise, to quote from Marlowe Dumar’s entry in World of Thedas vol. 2 (p. 184-185):

The new knight-commander, Meredith, appointed Marlowe to the seat, much to his surprise. Just before he was crowned, he met in private with the knight-commander at the Gallows. Marlowe was escorted, surrounded by grim templars, to Meredith’s well-appointed office, and there, she explained her reasons for the choice. Kirkwall was filled with entitled degenerates... “With my help, you will turn this city around,” she said. “We will be allies.” Meredith’s message was clear: Remember who holds power in Kirkwall. Remember what happened to Threnhold when he overreached. To drive her point home, she presented Marlowe with a small carven ivory box at his coronation. The box contained the Threnhold signet ring, misshapen, and crusted with blood. On the inside of the lid were written the words “His fate need not be yours.” Marlowe ruled Kirkwall without incident for almost a decade, in no small part thanks to Meredith’s backing. During his reign, the templars grew even more powerful, and the knight-commander’s influence was evident in almost every one of Marlowe’s decisions.

And from Meredith’s entry in WoT vol. 2 (p. 193):

Meredith presented Dumar with a carved ivory box at his crowning. All present witnessed the viscount going white as a sheet as he opened it... It is not known what the box contained, but the reaction from Dumar made its importance to him obvious. What is certain is that Dumar never openly or strongly defied the templars. Over the course of his reign, Meredith’s grip on Kirkwall grew ever tighter, and Dumar’s failure to act absolutely contributed to the events that led to the mage rebellion.

According to Lord Bellamy, “a longtime political ally of Dumar’s” (p. 193):

“Dumar had a good heart. A good heart and a weak will. On his own he might have made a good leader, given time. But he wasn’t on his own. The knight-commander was always there, looking over his shoulder. She let him know she was watching, that he wore the crown at her sufferance. Meredith appointed him. This was a nobleman of only moderate wealth, with little influence. She knew she could control him and there was little he or anyone else could do about it.”

Ultimately, the coup not only secured Chantry control over Kirkwall but furthered their (and the Orlesian Empire’s) geopolitical interests in the Free Marches as a whole. After all, the “Free Marches is [sic] best known as the breadbasket of Thedas. Its farms along the banks of the great Minanter river are the source of much of the continent’s food” (World of Thedas vol. 1, p. 65), and as with many a real-world “breadbasket,” its natural abundance and misfortune of lying between multiple empires had made it the target of one invasion and occupation after another. After the slave revolt of 25 Ancient toppled the Tevinter Imperium’s hold over the region (see Codex: History of Kirkwall: Chapter 2), the city-state of Kirkwall fell to Qunari invasion in 7:56 Storm, then invasion and occupation by the Orlesian Empire in 7:60 Storm, and finally gained its independence about 45 years later in 8:05 Blessed (see Codex: History of Kirkwall: Chapter 3). Prior to the Chantry-instigated coup, Kirkwall had enjoyed independence under a locally-chosen viscount for around 115 years, with Viscount Perrin Threnhold himself ruling for 7 years.

Other city-states of the Free Marches have likewise fallen under the Chantry’s sphere of influence (if not outright control):

Starkhaven is ruled by the Vael family. According to the codex for The Vaels, “They remain devout, dedicating at least one son or daughter per generation to become a cleric in the chantry.” The sole potential heir to the throne of Starkhaven is of course our DLC companion Sebastian Vael, “The Exiled Prince.” To quote from his first codex: “Sebastian Vael is the only surviving son of the ruling family of Starkhaven, which was murdered in a violent coup d'etat. Sebastian cannot forget the irony that he still lives only because his family was so ashamed of his drinking and womanizing that they committed him to the Kirkwall Chantry against his will… Since then, his belief in the Maker and His plan for Thedas have been unshakable. Embracing his new role, Sebastian took vows of poverty and chastity to become a sworn brother of the Chantry... until word of his family's deaths forced him to take up worldly concerns once again.” Elthina appears to have been playing mind games with Sebastian from the very beginning -- first she agrees to have him confined in her Chantry, then poses as a secret benefactor helping him escape from her clutches, with the revelation of her identity as said pretend benefactor leading him to embrace her authority and the life of a Chantry brother with genuine enthusiasm (see the Sebastian short story or his WoT v2 entry for details). After his family’s murder, Elthina urges him to remain with her rather than reclaim the throne. Yet when he gives up on seeking the throne and actually does attempt to return to the Chantry during “a crisis of faith,” he is “turned away by Grand Cleric Elthina, who believed he had not yet committed fully to either course” (see Codex: Sebastian - The Last Three Years), leaving him confused and even more under her thrall than ever.

Ostwick is dominated by the devout, staunchly pro-Chantry Trevelyan family. According to the codex for Trevelyan, the Free Marcher: “It is an old and distinguished family, in good standing among its peers, and with strong ties to the Chantry. Its youngest sons and daughters—those third- or fourth-born children with little chance of becoming heirs—often join the Chantry to become templars or clerics.”

Tantervale is certainly... special. According to WoT vol. 1 (p. 71): “Chantry rule is all but absolute in Tantervale, earning the city its dour reputation. The city guard is obsessed with enforcement. A street urchin would get a year in the dungeon for something that would get him a pat on the back in Orlais” (p. 71).

But let us return to Kirkwall, shall we?

"The Puppet”: The Reign of Viscount Marlowe Dumar (9:21-9:34 Dragon)

Viscount Marlow Dumar’s status as an impotent tool of the Chantry and its Templars appears to be common knowledge in Kirkwall. Various characters, from city guards to lowlifes like Gamlen, casually refer to Meredith as if she is head of state and defer to her authority.

Immediately upon approaching the gates of the city in the first quest of the game, The Destruction of Lothering (Act 1), the following exchange occurs:

Guardsman Wright: So Knight-Commander Meredith wants us to sort you all out. Most of you are getting right back on your ships, though.

Hawke: That's a templar title. Why would a city guardsman answer to the templars?

Wright: We don't answer to her... but she's the power in Kirkwall. Don't know what would happen if the viscount went against something she wanted... But he's sure never taken that chance.

Likewise, if asked about “the word on the street,” Corff the bartender remarks as early as Act 1, “People say Meredith's the real power in Kirkwall, not the Viscount. Even Dumar answers to her.”

Ordinary citizens appear terrified of Meredith, and with good reason. During the quest Enemies Among Us (Act 1, set in 9:31 Dragon), we get the following exchange with the sister of a Templar recruit:

Macha: I pleaded with him not to join the Order, but he wouldn't listen. You hear dark rumors about the templars and Knight-Commander Meredith. And now my brother is gone.

Hawke: (“Are templars so bad here?”) In Lothering, some templars died protecting villagers. I never heard any dark rumors.

Macha: And those are the stories my Keran adored. But it is not like that here, serah. There is a growing darkness in the order. They prowl the streets in packs. Hunting. And now, they say their duties put them above us, that they have the right to... take people from their homes. It is frightening.

Hawke: (“Tell me about Meredith”) What do people say about Knight-Commander Meredith?

Macha: Oh, she has many admirers. They laud the service she does in keeping the mages in check. But others say she is terribly fierce and utterly without pity. That she sees demons everywhere. It is dangerous even to whisper such things. People harboring escaped mages just disappear. Templars interrogate and threaten passers-by. My friend has a cousin who’s a mage, and she says he was made Tranquil against his will. You hear more with each passing day.

Of course, Knight-Commander Meredith’s reign over the Gallows was notoriously brutal long before she came into contact with Red Lyrium. Writing 3 years after the coup (but 7 years before Act 1), in 9:24 Dragon, Brother Genitivi remarks that "Kirkwall has been a tinderbox since becoming the center of templar power in eastern Thedas." As early as Act 1, mages in the Gallows can be heard crying out, “This place is a prison,” and “Knight-Commander Meredith would kill us all if she could.” When asked if mages are imprisoned, the guardsman replies, “Used to be, back in the Imperial days. They kept slaves here until the rebellion. Now the templars run it and use it to lock up their mages. Guess not much has changed” (The Destruction of Lothering, Act 1). Karl Thekla’s final letter before being turned Tranquil (with such illegal uses of the Rite having been repeatedly reported to Meredith) “said the knight-commander was turning the Circle into a prison. Mages are locked in their cells, refused appearances at court, made Tranquil for the slightest crimes” (Tranquility, Act 1). If Hawke questions the truth of these accusations, Anders responds, “Ask any mage in Kirkwall. Over a dozen were made Tranquil just this year. The more people you ask, the worse the rumors become.” (Elthina also appears to be aware at least to some extent of the subsequent ambush, in which a Tranquil Karl was used as bait to ensnare his former lover).

According to the short story Paper & Steel (focusing on Samson): “Under Meredith, freedom was a cruel dream for Kirkwall’s Circle mages. They were often locked in their cells, watched night and day by templars who were told any step out of line was suspicious. All those young magelings, told that magic was a curse, that they were dangerous, and that they had to be shut indoors all their lives looking out through those windows. Some went mad. Others, mad or not, tried jumping.” And from First Enchanter Orsino’s entry in World of Thedas, vol. 2 (p. 195): “Every time a mage died by their own hand, Orsino would hear Maud’s final words to him: 'This is no life.’ The templars didn’t seem to care about the suicides. Most had the courtesy to say nothing at all, but some would snigger when they thought no one was listening. 'One less to worry about.’ ‘The only good mage is a dead mage.’ Orsino’s anger at the templars grew...” (Note that this began long before Orsino became first enchanter in 9:28, three years before the start of the game). It's also worth noting Knight-Captain Cullen Rutherford quite explicitly attained his position as second-in-command of the Kirkwall Templars position because of his anti-mage extremism, later including violence against those perceived as mage sympathizers and their families.

To name more specific abuses, the Gallows features whipping posts (with dialogue confirming the reliance on whipping) and multiple other medieval torture devices, including a rack, a pillory, and iron maidens. We also see numerous references to casual beatings, sexual assaults, forced Tranquility and facial branding, long-term confinement in dark cells, and permanent family separation (e.g., Emile du Launcet). Escape attempts are typically punished with summary execution, according to multiple sources (e.g., Ser Thrask, Ser Karras, Grace). According to Ser Thrask, the most sympathetic Templar (besides Carver), kindness to mages would be a "badge of shame" among among his colleagues. For more, I recommend checking out the “DA2 mage rights reference post” by @bubonickitten. Again, note that these are cruelties largely occurring prior to or during Act 1, long before Meredith started going insane due to Red Lyrium.

If Feynriel is forced into the Circle at the end of Wayward Son (Act 1), the ex-Templar Samson says, “I hear they got your boy Feynriel locked up in the Circle. Bad business, that. It ain't all templars that're bad. It's hard luck being born a robe, but most places, they make it work. That bitch Meredith runs the Order in this town like her private army. You don't toe the line, you end up on the next corner here in Darktown. I don't think you got to hate mages to love the Order. But Meredith don't agree.” Samson, it should be remembered, had been expelled from the Templar Order for passing love notes from the mage Maddox to his lover. For the crime of “corrupting the moral integrity of a templar,” Meredith ordered Maddox turned Tranquil. According to Cullen in Before the Dawn (DAI), “Knight-Commander Meredith wielded the brand for far lesser offences, believe me."

Ordinary citizens appear to be well aware of at least some of Meredith’s reign of terror in the Gallows, given that various NPCs (including some who do not personally know any inmates) will refer to it. During Tranquility (Act 1), for example, a mob of Ferelden refugees threatens the party over fears that the latter intend to turn in “The Healer of Darktown” to the Templars. One exclaims, "We know what happens to mages in this town. And it ain’t gonna happen to him." Moreover, the knowledge is sufficiently widespread as to have reached faraway countries. A note dated 9:35 (set between Acts 2-3) from a mage of the Hossberg Circle in the Anderfels expresses utter horror: “I have heard that in the Kirkwall Gallows, mages are locked in their cells with barely room to stretch, let alone exercise. I can promise you that any mage of the Anderfels would be stark raving mad after a week of such treatment... No wonder Kirkwall has such trouble with blood mages” (WoT v2, p. 173).

And through all of this, Meredith has the support of the Chantry and more specifically Grand Cleric Elthina.

Not only did Elthina appoint Meredith to her position in the first place (WoT v2, p. 193), but if asked her opinion on Meredith in Act 1, Elthina snaps, “Gossip is a sin, child. Knight-Commander Meredith has an admirable devotion to her duties. It is not my role to form opinions on her character.” An odd statement to make about a subordinate, since Meredith reports to her directly (as knight-commanders legally do to the nearest grand cleric). The codex for Knight-Commander Meredith confirms at as of the end of Act 2, “she enjoys the grand cleric's full support and has free rein in Kirkwall as the commander of its most powerful military force.” According to Elthina’s codex, many claim that Elthina “allows Knight-Commander Meredith more leeway with each passing year.” According to World of Thedas vol. 2, which tries to put a more positive spin on Elthina’s role, her detractors “say her stubborn refusal to exercise her Chantry-given authority allowed the conflict between the templars and mages to escalate, finally resulting in the disastrous mage rebellion of 9:37 Dragon... Since Elthina was loath to exploit her authority as grand cleric, she refused to order either the mages or templars to stand down when tensions flared. Many believe that she could have forced one side to retreat by showing her support for their position, but Elthina refused to take sides” (p. 196-197). This is at best an abdication of responsibility to dependents for someone intent on remaining in power.

Moreover, Elthina’s dominance over Kirkwall appears to depend in large part on at least appearing to manage Meredith and her troops. According to her codex, “People frequently turn to her to mediate disputes—particularly those involving the powerful Templar Order, over whom she holds authority as the Chantry's ranking representative.” So Meredith as military leader rules both the Circle and the city-state through fear and violence, while Elthina maintains her power by playing Good Cop to Meredith's Bad Cop. Both then maintain a pretense of legality and legitimacy by fronting Viscount Dumar as the public face of the regime.

And this dual-power system works quite well for them -- at least until Meredith starts losing her mind under the influence of the Red Lyrium idol.

[A link will later be provided for Part 2 on Escalation and Direct Rule. If I ever do get to it 😭😭😭]

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maykitz · 4 months ago

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i was reading about police interrogation tactics and on the topic of confessions the book discussed several studies about false memory i haven't looked into yet, but in one they apparently managed to implant artificial memories in 70% of test subjects with relative ease. the subjects weren't lying (the experiment was set up so that they'd have to expect to be immediately caught), they became incapable of not lying. by slipping the persuasive presentation of a false memory into a reminiscence about real memories across 3 interrogation days the subject's brain eventually connected all stories and made them indistinguishable for most participants. they appeared to believe the introduced memory as much as their real ones.

the brain's separation of plausible imagination from genuine memory is much much weaker than often believed, even if the imagination is introduced from outside. it's constantly observed that people unknowingly, involuntarily fill in the gaps of true memories with imaginary information because our brain uses any source available to present full pictures if we want to remember something. similarly to the experiment above they managed to implant memories of fake events at a real disneyland visit, even including a meeting with charles III, in a bunch of nz schoolkids. and these were voluntary, friendly interactions disguised as simple studies about childhood experiences. imagine the effect when the pressure and hostility of police custody is added. if they get the necessary free reign they could make you confess to the jfk shooting if you were born in '62 and attending the event in a stroller

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peachdues · 1 year ago

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Phantasmagoria (Part III)

Tell Me to Stop (Sanemi’s Version)

Sanemi x F!Reader • Modern AU • NSFW

A/N: read the fucking warnings before you report.

Massive TW: grief • loss of a parent • canon character death • drug and alcohol abuse • panic • references to previous attempted S/A • violence between characters • more descriptions of Douma getting his ass kicked (still deserved) • situation requiring a hospital

CW: 25k words. MDNI. explicit sexual content ahead • multiple creampies • oral (f! and m!receiving) • face sitting • swearing • angst with a good ending • non-sexual intimacy

Oh boy. It’s done.

This one is super personal to me, so I really hope you guys enjoy. Thank you for showing this story your love, I adore you all.

Without further ado!

Sanemi’s Playlist

PART ONE • PART TWO

(Sanemi’s POV)

The Party on 52nd Street

Sanemi couldn’t bring himself to say that he regretted how he’d ended up in handcuffs. Sure, his knuckles were bruised to shit and covered in blood that was and was not his, but at least his face was still a hell of a lot prettier than the sniveling, cowardly asshole curled onto his side on the gravel outside his house.

Granted, the severe swelling of Douma’s face was because of Sanemi, but truthfully, he thought it was an improvement. By the time Sanemi had been yanked off of the barely conscious, campus-resident creep, those freakish, multi-colored eyes had been so blackened and swollen, it was a wonder that Douma had even been able to see the cops swarming his living room at all.

Sanemi knew the only reason his ass wasn’t being thrown into the back of the police cruiser waiting out behind Douma’s hell den was because Tengen had been the one to escort him out. And, because the local police had been itching to bust Douma for his little drug operation for months, Douma had been hauled out as well, handcuffed for good measure (and for insult) by Tengen.

It also helped that Douma was a dumbass, who’d sent the incriminating photos of his assault on Y/N to the groupchat that included all three of Tengen’s partners. Once he was sure they were safely out of view of spectators and witnesses giving statements to the other responding officers inside, Tengen took care to slam the greasy asshole to the ground, getting a few good kicks in as Douma curled pathetically against the asphalt.

“I will sue your ass,” Douma wheezed as he struggled to catch his breath. Through the purple black swells of his eye sockets, Sanemi could just make out the sliver of jewel-toned irises as they glared in his direction. “The whore fucking wanted it rough.”

Sanemi lunged for the cowering bastard where he lay, ready to stomp the fucker’s face in once and for all, but Tengen roughly threw him back against the side of his cruiser before he could.

“He’s trying to rile you up. Don’t fall for his shit,” Tengen’s magenta eyes were full of warning as he held Sanemi back. “He was stupid enough to send proof of the assault; ain’t no way in hell anyone buys that it was consensual.”

But Sanemi could only see red, the image of Y/N’s tear-streaked and terrified face burned permanently into his brain, worse than any scar that he bore on his skin.

“I don’t give a fuck, it’s working,” Sanemi snarled, struggling against Tengen’s iron-clad grip on him. “I want him fucking dead.”

“Y/N needs you not to be in prison. Don’t you two have something goin’ on?” Tengen shot back hotly. The young cop’s words stilled Sanemi’s struggle against the police cruiser, his fury deflating slightly.

As Kyojuro’s car had jumped the curb in front of the house, both boys agreed to split up once inside the house. Kyojuro was tasked with retrieving Y/N from wherever Akaza had hid her, because Sanemi had viciously vowed that he would be the one dealing with Douma.

And so, he had.

Party attendants had taken one look at Sanemi’s stony face as he’d made his way through the house to the main living room and parted, not wanting to be caught in the crossfire of the violence promised in his eyes.

He’d found Douma, standing back near the speakers that crackled with some out-of-date, heavy bass music, laughing like he hadn’t a care in the world. Those monstrous eyes had met Sanemi’s for only a split second, but the delighted malice they beheld was enough to make Sanemi want nothing more than to make the monster bleed.

Douma’s answering smile had been brief, unable to withstand the smash of his fist as the enraged Sanemi knocked him to the ground and lunged to pin him down.

Kyojuro’s car was long gone by the time Sanemi and Douma had been dragged out of that party house of horrors by Tengen in handcuffs, Sanemi smirking at the way Tengen kicked at the whimpering bastard’s feet every few steps. But that meant that Sanemi had no idea how Y/N was even doing – or whether she’d sustained more serious injuries than what Douma had shown off.

He didn’t want to think about what else might have happened in that room. If he did, Douma would surely not survive the impending ride to the police station.

Sanemi knew, however, that Tengen was right, however much it pissed him off. Y/N was the priority here, not him or his righteous, violent fury. He would restrain himself – for her. Nonetheless, Sanemi felt a rush of gratitude for the young cop, who, despite cautioning Sanemi away from ripping the cretin apart once and for all, spat directly on Douma’s bruised, bleeding face.

Half an hour later, and Sanemi was being escorted by his friend through the familiar sliding doors of the police station. It took only five minutes of him speaking with two other detectives before he was strolling leisurely back out of the station and into the small parking lot with Tengen, who offered to drive him back to his apartment.

All it had taken was for Sanemi to whip out his phone to show them the picture Douma had sent of Y/N around for them to agree that the benefit of letting Sanemi go outweighed the burden of booking him; besides, the baggies of Wisteria they’d found on the famous party-thrower meant they’d caught the larger fish anyways.

If it weren’t for the looming threat that Douma had perhaps inflicted far more harm upon Y/N, Sanemi almost would have felt good striding out of the busy police station, but the fact that she might be with Kyojuro at a hospital somewhere, in need of treatment, sat in his gut like an icy stone, tempered only by the murderous rage he still felt.

In his stewing, Sanemi almost didn’t realize that Tengen was speaking to him.

“Look, I’m not sayin’ I don’t get your reasoning. I do,” Tengen said lowly, pausing near his cruiser to face Sanemi, though his eyes scanned the parking lot to ensure unwanted ears weren’t listening in. “Frankly, if I didn’t have my job to worry about, I woulda let you keep going. He deserved it.”

“But I don’t wanna see you falling back into old habits.” The young cop sighed, clapping Sanemi on the back. “You’ve been doing so well.”

Sanemi grimaced. “I’m not,” he bit out darkly. “This wasn’t about me. It was about her.”

Tengen eyed him incredulously but sighed. “It’d do you good to remember that. You can’t work things out with her if I’m haulin’ your ass to prison.”

Sanemi didn’t have the heart to tell him he’d long since fucked up any chances of working things out with Y/N.

----------

“This is the third time you’ve been brought in this month,” the young cop chastised him, crossing an ankle over his knee as he folded his massive arms across his broad chest. “And we’re only two weeks into December.”

Sanemi grimaced as he shifted in the dingy metal seat, his wrists going numb behind his back as the metal of the handcuffs around his wrists dug into his skin. He scrunched his nose, trying to stifle the drop of blood sliding down from his nostril before it could reach his mouth, though without much success.

He was growing more agitated as he waited on his best friend to come collect him – yet again, from the Ubayashiki police station, but Kyojuro had yet to show.

“Listen – Shinazugawa, is it?” The cop had a peculiar shade of silver hair, and a cursory glance-over by Sanemi revealed that he had an apparent penchant for fuschia eyeliner, an almost perfect match to the hue of the discerning eyes which watched him. “You’re a student at Ubaya-U, right?”

Sanemi only nodded, ducking his head down to avoid holding the officer’s gaze for too long, lest he see how dead the nineteen-year-old truly felt.

“My name’s Uzui – Tengen Uzui -- I graudated last year,” the man called Uzui said, somewhat proudly. “So I know you’re a smart kid, but you can’t keep getting hauled in like this. You’ve got too much goin’ for ya.”

Sanemi finally made a sound. “I got nothin’ going for me,” he scoffed, finally lifting his eyes to meet Uzui’s stern face. “Spare me the ‘you’re better than this,’ crap.”

Uzui only rolled his eyes. “Look, kid, whatever happened to you before you got here, you’ve gotta deal with it – but not like this.” Sanemi opened his mouth to snap back, but the young cop paid him no mind, only continuing his lecture. “I’m not gonna ask, because frankly, I don’t care that much. But I know a good kid when I see one, and I don’t think you want to live this way.”

Uzui sighed. “Surely you’ve got someone in your life you wanna do right by? A parent, or a girl, maybe?”

Sanemi’s already sour mood dampened even further. He was about to bite out that no, he had no one, when Kyojuro finally pushed through the doors of the police station, amber eyes scanning the intake area until they narrowed in on him.

And he looked tired. So goddamn tired, that for once, Sanemi felt something other than the numbness he’d felt slowly swallowing him whole over the last three months.

He felt guilty; he’d forgotten, that while he may not have cared about his own stupid actions affected himself, he did care about how they impacted his best friend. Sanemi’s only friend, really, though that was entirely his own fault.

But Sanemi’s guilt could not stop him from checking back out as Kyojuro walked over and spoke in a hushed voice with Uzui, both tossing concerning glances his direction every few minutes. Before he knew it, Uzui was standing and unlocking the handcuffs from around Sanemi’s wrists, the latter’s shoulders relaxing as his arms were released from behind his back.

“I’m letting you off with a warning, but with a condition” Uzui said simply, tossing the handcuffs back onto his desk. The young cop produced a small, white card from his pocket and pressed it into Sanemi’s hand. “I want you checking in with me every couple of weeks. We can do it here, or wherever you want – but it ain’t optional.” Uzui smiled wryly at the baffled look on Sanemi’s face. “Think of it as an unofficial probation. Until you settle down a bit.”

Uzui parted with a shake of Kyojuro’s hand and a wink at Sanemi before sauntering off down one of the adjacent hallways abutting the intake area, leaving the two boys behind.

Sanemi shoved his sore hands into his pockets, barely noticing the stinging in his bleeding knuckles as they chafed against the fabric of his pants.

“I can’t keep doing this for you, Sanemi,” Kyojuro’s voice said quietly from beside him, and Sanemi’s head snapped over to his friend. “You’re destroying yourself. I can’t just sit by and watch it.”

Deep down, Sanemi knew his friend was right, and he was a little afraid that he risked losing the fiery blonde for good, just as he apparently had lost his other best friend, though, it wasn’t like she’d been around after…after he died.

But if Sanemi lost Kyojuro for good, he’d truly have no one left, and so, he fingered the card that Uzui had given him as it sat in his pocket, and resolved he would try; if not for himself, then for the last person on earth who still gave a shit about him.

-----

Later, the nineteen-year-old managed to stumble his way back to his dorm and he collapsed in his bed, not bothering to nurse his bleeding nose or even change out of his dirty, rumpled clothes. His knuckles stung and his body ached from the scuffle, but he found that he much preferred the throb of the bruises blooming across his body to the deep numbness he felt in his heart.

As he began to slip into a dreamless slumber, a pair of pretty eyes and a sparkling smile that had once filled him with so much warmth flashed through Sanemi’s mind. If he concentrated hard enough, he thought he could just recall the sound of her laugh, though it had been months since he’d last heard it.

He frowned as he tossed and turned in his bed, desperate to throw out thoughts of her, because she tended to disrupt his sleep and to make him feel even lower than he already knew himself to be.

And he didn’t want to think about what Y/N would say if she could see him now.

Though, Sanemi supposed, that would assume she would give enough of a shit about him to have an opinion on him at all.

He winced at the thought, so callous and bitter. He didn’t truly mean to be so cruel to her, even in his thoughts; he knew she didn’t deserve it. Sanemi knew it was his fault things had gotten as bad as they were between them – knew it was because of his piss-poor reaction to her admittedly badly-timed love confession that had driven her away.

After Genya’s death, Sanemi hadn’t much of a heart left that he could claim, but he’d known that whatever of it remained surely belonged to her, just as he always had. So, he’d tried to reach out after his brother’s funeral, during one of those rare moments of clarity when he wasn’t just existing on autopilot, detached from the world around him, but she’d never responded.

Her silence had been slowly needling him to death by a thousand sharp pricks to what remained of his pitiful heart, threatening to whittle it away entirely.

Sanemi imagined himself a pendulum that couldn’t decide whether he was angrier at himself or at her; forever swinging between his shame for lashing out the way he had at the train station and anger with Y/N for thinking his reaction had anything to do with her at all.

He’d never imagined himself worthy of Y/N – his best friend, so beautiful and intelligent and kind-hearted, even though he’d been so stupidly in love with her since they were small children. He’d always been too rough, too scarred, too…much. But he’d hoped, no matter how foolishly so, that perhaps one day, he’d work himself up to being worthy of her, be the reason she smiled and laughed and loved.

But, as Sanemi felt his stomach squeeze uncomfortably at the memory of her tear-streaked face, staring at the platform before the train he’d boarded, he was reminded that one couldn’t be worthy of the person they loved if they insisted on shattering their heart like a piece of glass.

-----

In the absence of semi-regular beatdowns, Sanemi had found other ways of distracting himself from the gnawing pit of despair and loneliness that was swallowing him whole, day by day. At the start of the spring semester, he’d finally hooked up with a girl in his mathematics seminar, and then began sleeping with another a month later. For months, he’d alternated between the two, thankful that neither of them had been interested in pursuing what he could not give them. And he’d enjoyed himself, because yeah, sex felt fucking good, but at the end of each affair, he hadn’t been able to shake the way his stomach clenched with the deep-seated disgust and oily squeeze of guilt.

Guilt, because he’d felt like he’d betrayed her, which was ridiculous considering she wasn’t his even if he’d always been hers; even if he knew, deep in his soul, that he always would be.

-----

A few nights later, he was out grabbing dinner on campus with Mitsuri and Obanai, the two lovebirds happily holding hands the entire evening, when they passed Shinobu crossing the green, ignoring her roommate’s kind greeting.

Though, Sanemi reasoned, she’d likely been trying to avoid having to make eye contact with them, so as to conceal her new black eye. While Sanemi would never raise a hand to a woman himself, that hadn’t stopped him from feeling a small bit of satisfaction at the memory of Makio stalking right up to the petite pharmacology student and nailing her square in the face.

In retrospect, Sanemi didn’t know if it was fair to blame Shinobu for Douma’s actions, but it was clear Makio did. Given the general iciness of the group toward the young woman who’d garnered a reputation for dealing Wisteria around campus, it seemed as though the others did, too.

He’d decided to withhold his feelings towards Y/N’s roommate until she, herself, indicated how she wanted to approach their friendship. It was her call to make, given that she was the one who’d been the target of Douma’s retribution.

Not that Sanemi would know of Y/N’s thoughts on the matter anytime soon; they hadn’t spoken since that morning in his kitchen, and she’d not returned any of his texts or calls in the days since the incident at the party. He knew she likely needed her space, so after the third straight day of no response, he resolved to give it to her.

It was hard to accept her radio silence, because it sent him right back to that feeling he’d had last year when he’d been urgently trying to find her after he’d learned her mother had died, and he feared she would disappear yet again. However, the group was set to go to Tengen’s family’s lake house that weekend for one last summer hoorah before classes began once more, and Kyojuro had already confirmed that Y/N was planning on going.

All of them were, except for Shinobu and Giyuu, according to Mitsuri that night as they ate too-greasy food at their campus grill. The pinkette sheepishly admitted she’d spoken with her roommate the night prior, and both agreed it was probably for the best that she stay behind, especially since Y/N was going. The pair of friends, though they lived together, hadn’t spoken since the Douma incident, either. Giyuu wouldn’t have gone without Shinobu anyways, but he was already out of town visiting his sister and her new husband.

So, Sanemi was left to anxiously anticipate the upcoming weekend. The thought of being at the Uzui lake house with Y/N filled him with both longing and dread, especially because he simply did not know the extent of the harm she’d suffered at the hands of Douma.

He’d known that she and Kyo had talked and worked things out – but Sanemi knew his friend wouldn’t divulge details without her permission, so Sanemi hadn’t tried to ask, wanting to respect both of his best friends’ boundaries.

The not knowing, however, was slowly eating him alive; he’d wanted to kill Douma that night, and truthfully, he thought he still might, if the opportunity presented itself.

Not that he was one to claim moral superiority over the bastard; not when he’d spent the better part of the last two years as one of the direct causes of Y/N’s emotional pain.

-----

“It’s Mrs. Y/L/N – she … she died. Last week. The funeral was yesterday.”

-----

Kyojuro’s words split Sanemi’s heart clean in half. There had only been one other time in Sanemi’s life when he’d felt the earth beneath his feet split open and swallow him whole, and that had been when his foster mother called him to tell him his little brother was lying in a morgue with a bullet hole in his chest.

But Sanemi found himself free-falling back into the earth’s molten center, and he couldn’t help but think he deserved to burn away inside its fire, because he’d failed yet again to be there for someone he loved.

Tears burned in his eyes as memories of Y/N’s mother flashed vividly through his mind, a slideshow of kindness and love that he’d been so grateful to receive from the young mother in the wake of his parents’ deaths.

For the first few weeks following the Shinazugawa boys’ discharge from the hospital, Mrs. Y/L/N had been a stand-in mother to them both, and they’d clung to her like dew on grass, craving her motherly comfort and assurance in the wake of the violent collision which had killed most of their family.

She’d been the one to apply ointment on his and Genya’s scars every night, her hands so warm and gentle to make up for the light sting of the medicated salve as she dabbed it delicately against their skin. She’d been the one to make their bag lunches for school, always making sure to pack extra for his younger brother, who never seemed to be full no matter how much he ate.

And now, she was gone. And he hadn’t even known she was ill.

That night, Sanemi sat on the floor of his shower and cried.

He cried, because his still-mending heart had been re-broken with the news of the death of the closest thing he’d had to a second mother.

He cried, because he’d failed to be there for someone he loved yet again, and Y/N had shouldered the death of her mother and the burden of planning a funeral without her two childhood best friends to lean on, and that wasn’t fair.

But even through his tears, Sanemi felt his resolve harden. He’d failed to be there for his brother when he needed him most; he’d failed to be a decent friend to Kyojuro, in the months following the younger boy’s death as he reeled from the pain of the loss. But he would not fail again; he swore he would find her and be there for her going forward. He would track her down, and he knew she might curse at and rebel against any offer of help, but he wouldn’t balk; he’d do anything, be anything for her, if it meant ensuring she wouldn’t fall into the infinite void of despair and grief that he had.

And maybe, just maybe, he’d prove himself worthy of being her friend once more.

-----

The Uzui family’s summer house was a sprawling manor that abutted a pristine, turquoise lagoon of a private lake, complete with a secluded beach area and a large section quartered off for bonfires, should the group of college-aged guests decide they were sober enough to light it.

The house itself was three levels, with a basement and a half-loft. The considerable size of the estate meant, plus the fact that several of them would be sharing rooms with their partners – Hinatsuru, Makio and Suma all sharing one with Tengen, and Obanai and Mitsuri sharing another – meant that Kyojuro, Sanemi, and Y/N each got their own private guest room.

Sanemi had no interest in being anywhere near the room with Tengen and his three, equally loud partners once they all retired for bed later that evening, and so, he’d claimed the room on the first floor, located just down the hall from the grand kitchen, decked out in new, state-of-the-art stainless-steel appliances and marbled countertops. Kyojuro and Y/N had both taken separate rooms on the second floor, apparently sure they wouldn’t be bothered by the sounds that were sure to emanate from their host’s room until the wee hours of the morning.

They’d arrived only an hour earlier, barely setting down their bags before everyone began to change into their swimsuits to head for the sun-warmed water before nightfall, the girls eager to work on their tans. Now, as Sanemi strolled alongside the sandy shore of the lake, only Y/N remained on land, lounging out on one of the luxurious beach chairs the Uzuis had installed in a finished seating area about fifty feet from where he stood, gazing out at the group’s newest couple as they splashed in the water.

A pang of jealousy reverberated through his chest as Sanemi watched Y/N’s pink best friend giggle in the arms of her new boyfriend as he swung her around in the shallow of the lake.

Ever since Obanai had finally confessed his feelings – and his fears – to Mitsuri, the two of them had been joined at the hip, the dark-haired boy's eyes perpetually clouded in bliss every time the vibrant girl fluttered her eyelashes at him or pressed against him to whisper softly in his ear before kissing his cheek.

-----

“If you can’t be honest with her, you’re going to lose her,” Sanemi said quietly as the two men stood at the bar, both nursing sodas as they watched the objects of their heart’s desire dance wildly and carefree on the Kizuki dance floor.

Obanai looked over at him, his eyes full of the kind of pain that he’d come to know far too well over the last few years. “Maybe it’s for the best,” he said quietly. “I’m not good enough for her – I don’t want to hurt her.”

Sanemi felt like he was talking to a mirror. “You’re already hurting her,” he took a sip of his ginger ale, though he hardly tasted it. “Cause you’re breaking her heart by staying away.”

The tortured boy’s misery was palpable as he looked back to where Mitsuri danced, lively and carefree.

“You’ll regret it as long as you live if you don’t tell her now.” In his mind, he saw only Y/N’s face as she transformed from the smiling girl of his memory to the cold, numb woman of his present. “Trust me.”

-----

He was happy for them, truly; but he couldn’t deny feeling a little jealous of the couple. After all, they both got to be with the person they loved.

Sanemi knew he had no one to blame but himself, but still; he wished he hadn’t fucked it all up with Y/N.

When Sanemi discovered the speckle of blood on his sheets the morning after he’d first brought Y/N home, he’d barely made it to his bathroom before throwing up.

It was too grotesque – the thought that the Wisteria had made him lose control so badly that he’d made Y/N bleed was too much for him to bear.

But the reality had been far worse than a simple case of lost control under the influence of an experimental drug and alcohol.

Far, far worse.

-----

(Three weeks earlier)

“Oh please, we all fuck each other here,” Mitsuri laughed, and Sanemi rolled his eyes.

The pretty, bubbly girl was unshaken by Sanemi’s terse rejection of her offer to join her and Obanai in the back of Tengen’s Volkswagen van for a “good time.” Though, whether her unflappability was from the drink she nursed in her hand or from an unshakeable confidence, developed over a lifetime of being beautiful and adored, he couldn’t say.

“Well, actually,” the pinkette chewed on her lip for a moment, in thought. “I guess that’s not totally true. Y/N didn’t sleep with anyone until you, Shinazugawa.”

Sanemi’s hand, which had been reaching for his plastic cup full of water, froze mid-air.

“What.” His voice was hard, monotone.

The pink-haired girl was oblivious as she laughed. “Yeah, that’s why Makio called you ‘The Cherry Popper,’ that one night - since, y’know, you were Y/N’s first.”

Sanemi felt his vision tunnel, his heartbeat loud in his ears as it thudded uncomfortably against his chest. Something pressed against his lungs, making it difficult for him to breathe as the weight of Mitsuri’s confession settled over him.

All this time, he thought he’d simply been too rough with Y/N, under the influence of that cursed Wisteria.

But this was worse.

He’d assumed Y/N had already lost her virginity when they slept together. She’d had no hesitance in stripping him of his clothes, had begged him to go hard, and fast.

But now, as Sanemi’s breath came rough, he’d wondered if he’d misinterpreted her screams of pleasure — had they been cries of discomfort?’

Or her nails digging into his back — he’d assumed they were to spur him on, to beg him to go faster, but what if she’d been clawing at him to slow down? To stop?

If he’d known, he’d never would’ve done it — not like that, not when he was so blitzed out of his mind that he couldn’t make sure she received the kindness and gentleness she deserved.

It should’ve been special; she should have known how special she was to him. Instead, he’d fucked her no differently than any other hookup he’d had.

Was he no better than his father?

He’d been so elated that she’d responded to his kiss with enthusiasm, that admittedly, he’d lost his ability to reason. He’d pined for her for so long — years really — that the moment her lips had met his, all rational thought had flown from his head. And his heart had nearly stopped in his chest when she insisted that they keep going, when she’d laid back against his sheets and told him she needed him.

He’d hoped she would’ve felt some of the happiness he had, when she awoke the following morning; he’d hoped that he’d be able to make her breakfast, and then the two of them could talk and he could apologize for every stupid thing he’d done over the last two years. Maybe she would’ve forgiven him. But he’d gone and fucked that all up.

Because when he awoke, all that was left of her was her blood on his sheets.

-----

(Y/N’s POV)

Y/N watched her friends sprint into the shallow of the turquoise lake with a small bit of envy. She wanted, so very badly, to join them, but she’d miscalculated the coverage that her swimsuit afforded her, and to her horror, she’d realized that the mark Douma’d left on her would be on full display the moment she removed the oversized button-down she’d used as a cover-up.

“Y/N! C’mon!” Mitsuri entreated her as her head popped back up from under the surface of the water, her hair tinged a dark pink from the water.

Absentmindedly, her hand raised to the spot where Douma had soiled her and rubbed, the slight pain from her stimulation of the still-healing wound forcing her to remain in the present instead of back in that blasted, dark bedroom.

“I think I’ll work on my tan for now!” Y/N called back, plastering a wide, fake smile on her face to assuage any worry. Not that she needed to, because before Mitsuri could question her further, Obanai snuck up from beneath her and raised her out of the water on his shoulders, the pinkette laugh-screaming as she flailed about to keep herself upright.

A crunch of gravel next to her caused her to tense, because she knew that all of her other friends were accounted for, splashing about in the serene crystal of the lake.

All of them, except for him.

Sanemi said nothing to her as he drew up next to her, though he maintained a respectful distance. He too, watched their friends laugh and play in the water for a moment, his hands shoved in the pockets of his red swim trunks.

Y/N tried to be sneaky as she allowed her eyes to roam the sculpted plains of his exposed torso, marveling at the muscle that seemed to be carved from stone. Since the summer, he’d gained a bit of a tan, his skin now a lustrous nutty gold, that, against the white blonde of his hair, created an attractive contrast that made her mouth water.

God, he was beautiful; it pissed her off.

The tension between them was electric, as neither wanted to be the first to break the silence growing ever louder between them.

“No one will stare, y’know,” Sanemi caved first, though he did not tear his eyes away from where they were fixed resolutely on the horizon beyond the lake. “They all want you to feel comfortable, so they won’t look.”

Y/N was about to snippily ask him why he was butting in on her business, even though her irritation was because he’d read her mood so easily – too damn easily, for that matter. She tilted her head up, readying her venom, but before she could bite, the words died on her tongue.

Sanemi’s tan hadn’t been able to obscure the scars of varying lengths and thickness which crossed his chest, forearms, and half of his face; if anything, his sun-kissed skin only made the silvery, jagged slashes stand out.

As she’d looked up at her former friend, she was reminded that he knew exactly how she felt at that moment – had felt that insecurity, every day, since they were eleven and a drunk driver had slammed into his parent’s station wagon, killing everyone but him and Genya.

I don’t care if you have scars! She’d told him, once. I’ve always thought you were…were..pretty!

She winced at the memory, but painful and intrusive though it was, she still couldn’t find it within her to throw his attempt at reassurance back in his face. Y/N’s heart might have been a lowly, misshapen, shriveled lump, but she still had one.

And besides, she wouldn’t lie to herself; his words had soothed some of her anxieties, damn him.

“Thanks,” she said softly, and she gave him a small, tentative half-smile. She hated the look of hope that flickered to life in his eyes at the sight.

She hated the guilt that sunk into her gut even more.

-----

It was late and she was restless.

Most of the house had already retired for the night; Tengen had disappeared with his three girls, and Obanai and Mitsuri had snuck away back to her guest room, giggling softly, as the pair had been unable to keep their wandering, eager hands to themselves.

Y/N stayed up a little longer with Kyojuro, laughing and talking about everything and nothing as Sanemi lingered awkwardly by the shore of the sprawling lake that sat before the Uzui family’s handsome summer home. By the time Kyojuro had yawned, the moon hung high in the sky, and even the chirping night cicadas had long fallen silent.

She’d hoped that returning to her own guest room – located on second floor of the Uzui home – would trick her brain into thinking she too, was tired; but hours later, she’d realized, grimly, that she’d not be enjoying such luck.

And so, she’d found herself braced over the pristine kitchen sink in the Uzuis’ kitchen, unable to shake the incessant nag of sleeplessness that prickled under her skin.She’d thought herself alone, until a noise over by the entryway caught her attention, her eyes flashing over to see who’d joined her in her restlessness.

Y/N’s stomach roiled at the sight of Sanemi standing there, shifting his weight from foot to foot, as though he too, would rather be anywhere but there at that moment.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I couldn’t sleep.”

Y/N shook her head, busying herself with dumping out her water glass and rinsing it out. “Neither could I, I guess.” An awkward pause ensued, only disrupted by the squeak of the faucet as Y/N wrenched it off to towel off her drinking glass.

“I tried calling you – last week,” Sanemi said carefully, leaning against the door jam, his arms folding loosely across his chest. “But I never got an answer.”

Y/N chewed on her lip, wincing slightly. She didn't want to admit that she hadn’t really returned anyone’s calls, but that was because she’d spent the majority of the week hunched over her toilet, alternating between dripping with sweat and half-freezing to death as she weathered through the brutal withdrawal from Wisteria.

She wasn’t ashamed per se – but admitting she’d gone through withdrawal meant admitting that she’d become reliant enough on it to have a physical reaction to cutting herself off from it, and that meant admitting she was weak.

“I was…dealing with a lot,” she decided after a moment. She realized that she was oddly grateful that Douma’s assault on her had been the catalyst for her stopping her Wisteria misuse, given that it gave her away around talking about the pitiful way she’d spent the last seven days.

Besides, it wasn’t like it was a lie; between puking her guts out, she’d spent a lot of time replaying the events that had led her to Douma’s bedroom, terrified and crying.

“A-and are you – you okay?” He stuttered, fidgeting with the drawstring of his sleep pants, twisting it nervously around his finger.

Y/N exhaled but gave him a half-smile that was almost genuine. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

Sanemi continued to shift nervously in the door, as though he wanted to ask her something else, but was warring with whether he should.

Ultimately, he decided to risk it. “Did he -“ Sanemi’s eyes screwed shut, and when he opened them again, he was fixed on a point over her shoulder, as though the question on his tongue was too much for him to risk meeting her eyes.

“Did he… hurt you,” Sanemi hesitated, his voice quieting to a whisper so soft, Y/N had to strain to hear it. “In a way I can’t see?”

Y/N’s eyes widened, her gaze softening as the weight of his question settled. “No, Sanemi, he didn’t. I promise.”

Her hand jumped absentmindedly to the faded mark where Douma had bit her and rubbed. “He wanted to, that much was clear, but Hakuji…Hakuji came just in time.”

Sanemi’s shoulders curled inward as he relaxed, and to Y/N’s heartache, she saw him nearly shaking under the weight of his unshed tears. “I’m sorry — I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”

Y/N’s eyes hardened, and she let out a sardonic laugh. “That’s what you’re sorry for?”

She shook her head. “Why in the world would you have expected to have been there, Sanemi? You weren’t there any other time I needed you.”

“That’s not-“

“Too bad that’s the only thing you’re apologizing for,” Y/N sighed. “If only you would be sorry for the pain you’ve caused me, not for someone else hurting me.”

Sanemi’s gaze was hard, if not a little weary as he considered her words. “Okay Y/N, you’re right. It’s past time for us to do this,” he walked to the door that led out to the patio area, a little away from the house. He looked back to her, and in response to the eyebrow she had raised in question, he exhaled. “We’ve gotta have it out.”

Y/N did not move from her spot, standing with her back to the stovetop burners, merely crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him, her hip jutting out. “I’m not going anywhere. If you want to do this, we can do it right here.”

“Fine,” Sanemi bit, voice stony as he folded his arms across his chest, matching her stance. “Then go ahead.”

Y/N merely raised an eyebrow at him, keeping her mouth clamped tightly shut. She refused to let him order her around, to let him goad her into being vulnerable after two years of nothing from him.

Sanemi watched her expectantly for a moment before sighing. “I guess I’ll start,” and he rubbed at his tired eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me it was your first time? That night?”

To Y/N’s shock, Sanemi looked genuinely upset, and she despised the way it made her ache. For all her attempts to keep him forever at arm’s length despite her need for him, the first sign of his pain was enough to make her want to fall to her knees.

But she kept her face neutral, disinterested. “Why does it matter?”

“Because I-,” Sanemi hesitated, his fingers curling against his palms, hands forming fists. “You should’ve told me.”

This conversation was nearly impossible to have sober, and for a brief moment, Y/N craved the sweet oblivion of flashing neon lights and pounding music and purple pills.

“It was none of your business,” Y/N decided, fingers toying with the ends of her hair as she avoided his gaze. “It was my decision.”

Sanemi opened his mouth as though to argue with her, but she cut him off. “God, this is so like you, isn’t it?”

Her fists clenched, and the anger she’d so carefully kept tucked away inside her began to bubble over. “Is it some weird male possessive thing? You fucked me, so now you think you have some kind of claim to me?”

“I care about you, you idiot, and I thought I’d hurt you,” Sanemi replied hotly. “If I’d’ve known, I wouldn’t have done it at all.”

“It’s not about you caring for me,” Y/N snapped. “Admit it — you feel entitled to me.” You’ve always felt entitled to my affections, ever since we were kids.”

Her leg began to bounce with her irritation. “You’d get huffy if I showed the slightest bit of affection to any other boy — don’t try to deny it. You’d cross your arms and get all broody and it fooled no one.”

Y/N laughed, though it was without humor. “You’re a possessive, jealous asshole, who keeps me around because I stoke your ego. You can’t tell me you never thought, not even once, that I had feelings for you.” Y/N’s eyes burned with angry tears.

“Of course I thought it,” Sanemi shot back. “You think I was that fucking blind?” He cracked his knuckles, an anxious tic he’d had since they were small. “You think I didn’t see the way you looked at me, like I was your goddamn favorite person? How could I ignore that?”

Sanemi shook his head. “Did you ever stop to think, for one moment, that maybe I didn’t say shit because I knew — have always known — that I’m not fuckin’ good enough for you? You’ve always been the smartest out of the three of us, Y/N — but did that thought ever cross that pretty head of yours?”

“That’s such a bullshit fucking reason,” Y/N said, exasperated. “Spare me the ‘I’m not good enough for you’ crap, Sanemi. This isn’t a fucking novel,” Y/N ground her toe into the expensive, stone tile of the Uzui’s kitchen floor in frustration. “Because for all your talk, nothing changes the very simple fact that you cut me off like it was fucking nothing. Like I was nothing.”

Sanemi’s jaw went slack as he gaped at her. “Is that how you remember it?”

-----

“Though, I guess it would’ve been hard to know it was you, anyways.”

-----

(Nine Months Earlier)

As he lazily strolled to his next class, Sanemi’s eyes casually roamed amongst the faces of fellow students as they brushed by him, heading in the opposite direction, when something caught his attention. Or rather, someone.

That someone was a wisp of a person, hunched over and curled into themselves like a wounded animal. From the cursory glance he gave them, Sanemi could see that the student was one, a girl, around his age, and two, looked as though she was about to blow away in the brisk, November wind.

He almost passed her without another thought, when her eyes lifted briefly and collided with his, and Sanemi felt his stomach drop, though he couldn’t explain why. Perhaps the flip in his gut had to do with the deep-set shadows beneath the girl’s glassy eyes, or the heavy hollow of her cheeks, as if she’d not known rest or a decent meal for months.

As quickly as her eyes met his, they lowered again, and the girl brushed past him. Sanemi kept walking for a few steps, content to let all memory of the girl fall into the recesses of his mind.

But her eyes. Something about her eyes made his mind snag, pulled at something in his chest that urged him to stop, turn around, and go back to her.

He stopped; he stopped, in the middle of the crosswalk, though the light was quickly ticking down the seconds he had to finish crossing the busy intersection, because he knew those eyes, even if, to his horror, he hadn’t recognized the face, so worn and thin under the crushing weight of her grief.

He knew those eyes, because he’d spent his entire life loving them.

Sanemi whipped around, eyes frantically scanning the dissipating crowd of students in search of her once more. Though his next class was in the opposite direction, he sprinted back across the street to where she’d been walking, calling her name as he darted in and around scowling students, annoyed at the panic-stricken man calling a name that wasn’t theirs.

He felt the burn of his frustrated and desperate tears begin to sting his eyes as he realized, to his torment, that Y/N had evaded him once more, vanishing like smoke in the wind.

Sanemi felt the familiar howl of crippling, raging despair gathering like a violent sea wave in the midst of a storm within him rearing its ugly head to smash him to bits against the rocky shore of his anguish at the realization that Y/N hadn’t just lost her mother.

She’d been suffering. For months.

And he hadn’t known; hadn’t been there for her to lean on, to make sure that she wasn’t bearing the entirety of the weight of a sick parent by herself, only a nineteen-year-old girl. So stuck in his own grief over Genya he’d been that he hadn’t known the depths of Y/N’s endless distress.

He’d abandoned her, and now, the woman he loved was a shell of her former self; a living ghost, forever out of his reach despite always haunting the corners of his shredded heart.

Any thought of his upcoming class faded from his mind as he began to stumble towards Kyojuro’s apartment, desperate to share the news with someone, anyone, who would understand the depth of his despair, and Sanemi broke down into tears.

-----

“And where have you been hidin’ all this time?”

“I’ve been right here.”

“Nah, you haven’t.”

-----

(Six Months Earlier)

“It’s been months, Sanemi, and we haven’t caught so much as a whisper of her,” Kyojuro’s voice was heavy with resignation as the blonde looked pleadingly at his best friend.

The muscles in Sanemi’s forearms flexed as his grip on his phone tightened while he fiddled with it. “We haven’t looked everywhere – have we tried the Pillars?” Sanemi began searching the address for the nearby apartment complex where over two-thirds of the Ubaya-U upperclassmen student body resided.

Kyojuro shook his head. “The Pillars house over two thousand units – we can’t just start going door to door. We’d look insane.”

But the silver-haired man didn’t reply as his eyes narrowed at his screen. “I’ll bet most of the students are in the same building – most residents don’t wanna put up with a bunch of noisy, drunk college kids.”

Kyojuro only looked at his friend in pity. “Maybe she doesn’t want to be found, Sanemi. Not by us, at least.”

Sanemi finally looked up from his screen and cringed at the docility in his friend’s eyes. “What do you suggest we do, Kyo?” He tossed his phone on his kitchen table in annoyance. “Just give up? D’you really think it’s best to just leave her by herself?”

“You don’t know for certain whether she is alone, though,” Kyojuro countered. “She might’ve found her own group here. Maybe she already has support. Maybe she doesn’t need us anymore.”

Kyojuro’s words hit something soft within him that he hadn’t realized had been left unguarded. For deep down, one of Sanemi’s many fears had always been that Y/N would one day outgrow him, though he’d always maintained that he wouldn’t hold her back should the day come.

But that wasn’t what happened; Sanemi had checked out after Genya’s death, and had only snapped back into reality a few weeks before the news of Mrs. Y/L/N’s passing had reached his ears, threatening to send him back to that dark, lonely island amidst the never-ending sea of his grief.

All he wanted was to make sure Y/N hadn’t been marooned on her own isle. As long as she had someone, then Sanemi could accept that he’d fucked over any chance he’d had of remaining in her life, in any capacity.

But until then…

“We don’t know for sure,” Sanemi said hoarsely, leaning back in his kitchen chair, the worn wood creaking slightly under his weight. “And until we do, I ain’t risking her being left alone to deal with this.”

Kyojuro looked at him with such pity and sorrow that it made him want to squirm. Refusing to meet his friend’s fiery, discerning gaze, Sanemi reached to pluck his phone from the table once more, scrolling through his phone contacts list, scanning the names.

“D’you think she might still be in contact with her old roommate?” He asked though it was more of a rhetorical question, given that he’d already begun drafting a message. “I’ve gotta catch my train here in an hour – but we could always try texting her.”

-----

“D’you really think I didn’t try to find you?”

-----

(Three Months Earlier)

“Three – you’re dating three women?” Sanemi asked, equal parts stunned and impressed.

The suave, silver-haired man nodded, a dreamy grin spreading wide across his handsome face. “Sure am,” Tengen produced a sleek black phone from the pocket of his joggers, and opened his social media profile to search a username. “Suma, Makio, and Hinatsuru. They’re all seniors at Ubaya-U, and roommates.” Tengen wiggled his eyebrows. “Which makes life very convenient for me,”

Sanemi met Kyojuro’s ochre stare as Tengen scrolled, as though waiting for his friend to call bullshit on the young detective’s brag, but the blonde only nodded.

“Hold on, they all went out with a few friends the other night, and I think Suma uploaded a pic with all of ‘em,” Tengen’s eyes narrowed in on what Sanemi assumed was the girl’s profile, scanning. “Aha! Here,” he held his phone out for the two boys to inspect, a proud, smug smile etched into his handsome face.

The photo was of five girls, three of whom Tengen identified as “his girls.” One of the remaining smiles was that which belonged to a girl with curious pink and green hair, wearing what could only be described as rave attire, given that most of her considerable body was exposed, even under the dim light of the club. As for the remaining girl --.

Sanemi’s stomach dropped as he looked closer at the image on Tengen’s phone. For there, sandwiched between the pink girl and one of Tengen’s partners, was the girl who’d held Sanemi’s heart since the day they’d met in preschool.

Y/N.

Only, she didn’t look like herself, not really. The sultry smile she gave the camera didn’t quite reach her eyes, which held that hollow, deadened look of someone who’d long since lost their will to live; who’d long since stopped caring they had.

Sanemi was only able to tear his eyes away from the image of Y/N’s frozen not-smile when Kyojuro pressed his elbow into his gut. He looked back to Tengen, who watched him with an odd expression, and sheepishly, Sanemi realized he’d snatched the phone right from the young detective’s hand.

“Sorry,” he muttered, handing Tengen back his cell. “I’m just surprised. It’s been a minute since we last saw her.”

“Who?” Tengen frowned, looking back at the photo, before recognition lit his eyes. “Oh! You mean Y/L/N? You two know her?”

Sanemi found it difficult to speak, so Kyojuro answered for him. “We grew up together back home. We haven’t really seen or heard from her in a while,”

Tengen hummed disinterestedly, apparently aloof to the way Kyo’s voice had cracked. “I’ve met her a few times – Suma dotes on her.” He smiled as he clicked off his phone, leaning back in the booth. “She’s been over to the girls’ place a few times before, and she seems pretty cool; kind of a party girl, though.”

Sanemi gaped at him, finally finding his voice. “She’s a what?”

Tengen shrugged. “Yeah, one time I met up with their friend group at one of the clubs downtown – the Kizuki Lounge, I think? – anyways, she and Makio decided to have a drink-off, and it ended with my ass having to carry them both out to the car and drive ‘em home.” He chuckled, shaking his head at the memory. “They argued the whole drive back about who won.”

Both Kyojuro and Sanemi sat in dumb silence as the silver-haired man leaned in, his voice lower than it had been. “One of their friends – she wasn’t in that picture just now – but apparently she’s some sort of chemistry whiz. Made a new drug that’s like ecstasy, but lasts longer and has an easier come down.” A conspiratorial smile spread across his face, a devious light in his eyes as he whispered, “The girls swear it helped give them the most intense orgasms of their life. I kinda wanna try it out for myself.”

Tengen leaned back and winked. “Are either of you interested? Even if you don’t want it, you should try hitting up the Kizuki every now and again. Most of Ubaya-U’s student body goes to party there during the summer, and they tend to offer decent deals on drinks.”

Sanemi had frequented bars, but never clubs, and Kyojuro rarely found himself in either. However, if Tengen’s comments about Y/N were to be believed, it was more than likely she was a regular patron of the local joint. She’d managed to evade every other attempt to get in touch with her, but perhaps meeting her on her turf would give him the opening he’d been desperately holding out for.

And Sanemi wasn’t about to waste the opportunity to find out.

He took a swig of his coffee before setting it down, meeting Tengen’s stare evenly, though he fought to conceal the way his hands trembled. “What are you doing this Friday?”

-----

“I looked for you – everywhere, I looked for you.” Sanemi promised, his voice trembling as he pled with her. “Y/N, I knew what you were going through – I know what it’s like --,” his eyes begged her to just listen, but she couldn’t, not when she’d spent so long staying so silent.

“You have no idea!” Y/N burst, and for the first time in two years, she spoke of the night her world had ended, even though for everyone else, it kept spinning.

“I was alone when she died! It was just me in that hospital room,” Her tears flowed in a steady stream down her face, though her voice remained steady and sharp. “I was moving her hand over my hair because I knew I would never again get to feel her stroke my head whenever I was sad or stressed. It was so fucking late, and I was so tired, but I felt something shift, and I looked at her and watched her take her last fucking breath, Sanemi!”

Y/N ‘s hands wrung in her grief. “I had to call the nursing attendant and tell them – even though I could barely speak, I had to tell them my Mama stopped breathing.” As she spoke, she saw only the image of her mother in that damn bed, still and pale, and her mother but no longer.

“And do you know what happened next? They told me I needed to leave and sign fucking paperwork,” She laughed, derisively, though she only cried harder. “I had to sign fucking release forms and then they just – told me goodnight. I walked to my car. Alone. I drove home. Alone. Without her.”

“I was with you when you found out about Genya – we made sure you weren’t alone! But me? Who was there for me?” Y/N was sobbing into her hands, her shoulders shaking with the weight of all the bitter loneliness she’d been forced to endure over the last two years. “Where were you?”

“Y/N, I get it, I do –,” Sanemi began but Y/N shook her head.

“No, Sanemi, you don’t understand!” Her voice was no longer angry, but pleading, begging him – anyone – to understand just how much she’d been struggling and for how long. “Every night when I close my eyes, I see her, lying there. I hear the beep of her oxygen monitor going haywire because she wasn’t breathing, and I see her take her final breath. Every night, over and over, and I just want it to stop.”

Y/N slumped back against the kitchen counter, exhausted and defeated. “You asked me where I’ve been the last two years, and you were right – I haven’t been here; because I’m still there –in that hospital room. I never left.”

Her sobs finally quieted beneath the press of her hand to her mouth as she tried to stifle the hysterical way her breath struggled to catch. “And I don’t think I will ever leave. It’s been two years, Sanemi, and I’m still sitting there, right where I lost everything.”

“So yeah, I was desperate for an escape. Because, that next day, I woke up, and for some reason, morning, still came, even though my Mom would never again see another sunrise, and even though my world had been obliterated,” Y/N’s voice quieted to a near whisper, her voice hoarse from her tears. “And everybody else just moved on. I wanted to pretend that I had, too, even if only for a little while.”

“I was alone,” Y/N cried softly into her hands. “I’m still alone.”

When Sanemi spoke, his voice was rough and cracked. “I know I left you alone then,” but for some reason, his validation didn’t soothe her the way it had with Kyojuro. “But you’re not alone now – I tried, so hard, Y/N, to find you and make sure you were okay, and I failed,” His eyes shone with his own unshed tears. “I refuse to leave you alone, now. I know that probably pisses you off, but I can’t – I can’t leave you, not when I know --,”

“It’s too late,” Y/N interjected, lifting her head up to meet his eyes. “You can’t just waltz back into my life and decide you care now, not after all this time.”

“It was never about me not caring,” Sanemi sat down in the seat opposite from her, his head braced between his hands as his fingers tugged at his hair in frustration. “I don’t get why you can’t understand that.”

She gaped at him. “You stopped talking to me because I said I was in love with you – I fully understand that it was piss-poor fucking timing on my part, but you tossed me aside like garbage.”

Sanemi’s head snapped up, his eyes wide. “You think that’s why I stopped talking to you?” And suddenly, devastation pulled at his face as his shoulders sagged. “Y/N – that was never the reason --,”

“What other reason was there, Sanemi?” Her tears had dried, but the gnawing ache in her chest only deepened at the look of his despair, because, angry as she was with him, she would never wish him to be in as much pain as he appeared to be in right then. “Even if you weren’t really that angry, it doesn’t change the fact that you stopped speaking to me because of it,”

“Y/N – that’s not –,” Sanemi began, but Y/N wanted no part of it, and she could tell they were only gearing up for another fight. She opened her mouth, ready to unleash all of her acidic, biting remarks about how comfortable Sanemi had been to use her, knowing that she was probably still in love with him, when he spoke once more.

“You aren’t the only one who has been grieving.” Sanemi’s words hit her with a force that knocked the breath from her lungs, and the fight from her blood.

“I lost the last person I could call ‘family,’ too, Y/N.” Sanemi spoke with a brokenness that she knew only she recognized as grief – boundless and all-consuming. “I failed as your friend, that’s true,” Sanemi’s voice quieted to a whisper. “But I failed as a brother, first.”

-----

(November, 2 months after Genya’s death)

Sanemi laughed as the enraged bar patron’s fist slammed into his nose. The blow wasn’t hard enough to break the bone, given his intoxication, but it was enough for Sanemi to taste the blood as it dripped into his mouth.

“You’re fucking crazy,” the man spat, stumbling slightly.

Sanemi’s grin only widened. “I bet your wife would like some crazy in her life. You look as dull as a sack of shi-,” his taunt was cut off as the man landed another sharp to his gut, the breath wheezing out of him as Sanemi felt something inside him crack.

Probably another rib, he groused, gritting his teeth slightly. Just down the darkened alley, Sanemi could see people slowing down, watching as the balding drunkard threw lazy and disjointed punches at the bloodied, laughing man, and he knew it was only a matter of time before the cops were called. And Sanemi, to his annoyance, had promised Kyojuro he would try to stop needing the blonde to bail his ass out of jail every other week. He hadn’t known why he’d made such an inane promise to his best friend in the first place; it wasn’t as if he mattered.

Because the days following Genya’s death had blurred into weeks, which bled into months. For Sanemi, life became marked by the amount of time that had passed since he’d become the only Shinazugawa left on earth.

Since he’d last been someone’s brother.

Two days. Twenty-three. A month. Four months. Nine. A year.

Life post-Genya was a series of blurs; droplets of water on a page that smeared ink into something vaguely recognizable, but ultimately rendered useless.

Just like him.

For so long, his identity had revolved around being Genya’s big brother — his Aniki, as the boy had affectionately called him.

Could one still be an older sibling when they had no sibling left?

Genya had been Sanemi’s pride and joy. He’d been eager to get settled into college, to get his own place so Genya wouldn’t have to share a bunk bed with other kids the state had squeezed into their foster home. He’d lined up jobs to ensure he could buy Genya whatever food he wanted, whenever he wanted it, because Genya was always hungry, and their foster parents had never seemed to have enough to go around.

But then, Genya had wound up dead, and Sanemi hadn’t even been there to protect him. What kind of big brother was he, if he couldn’t even be counted on to be there when his little brother needed him the most?

He didn’t even get to say goodbye. He’d left his brother only a couple of weeks prior, with a promise to come and visit him as soon as he could. Genya had tried his hardest to stifle his tears, but despite his brother’s somewhat hardened appearance, thanks to the scar that cut across his face, Sanemi knew Genya was a sensitive boy, prone to wearing his heart on his sleeve. So the elder Shinazugawa had pulled his brother in tight, ruffled his hair, and told him he’d see him soon.

It had been a lie; the next time Sanemi saw Genya, the fourteen-year-old was a body on a metal table, awaiting Sanemi’s approval to be sent to a funeral home for burial preparations.

And so, the days passed in one, monotonous, never-ending cycle. Wake up; stare at the ceiling; force himself to eat, shower, and go to class. Then, Sanemi would grab his fake ID, head to a bar, take a few shots of some burning, acidic liquid, and then identify the meanest, biggest thug in the joint and pick a fight. He’d let himself get beaten to a bloody pulp and then he’d limp his way home, barely making it to his bed before passing out in the sweet stupefaction of oblivion.

Occasionally, he’d wonder why on earth he was the one who was left alive; why fate had demanded Genya’s life and not his, because Genya had so much more to offer the world than he did.

After all, Genya hadn’t even picked the fight between the two boys from their old foster home, and he’d still ended up dead.

The time never seemed to stop even though his little brother’s heart had; and with each passing day, Sanemi felt himself growing number and number. As the pulsing ache between Sanemi’s ribs dulled, he mused that, with every moment that passed, he was growing closer to becoming just like the little brother who now slept six feet under the frozen ground of the cemetery plot that also now housed their parents and other siblings.

Nothing more than a corpse.

If only it had been him.

It should have been him.

-----

“After Genya died I —,” Sanemi hesitated. “I wasn’t a good person, Y/N. You didn’t need to see me like that.” He ran a hand down his face, his weariness a heavy shadow beneath his eyes. “I’m honestly surprised Kyo stuck through it as long as he did.”

“I fucked up, I know that.” He admitted, his eyes shining with his own unshed tears. “I was an asshole to you, and I could’ve done more,”

Sanemi’s voice dropped to a whisper. “But I needed you, too. And you vanished. You told me you loved me and then you vanished. And it was like losing another person I loved all over again, and I’d barely started mourning Genya.”

Y/N felt her stomach drop to the floor and her vision tunnel. The weight of Sanemi’s words slammed into her with cataclysmic force, and she shot out a steadying hand against the counter to keep her knees from buckling.

She remembered now, the point at which she’d fucked it all up; and he was right.

Y/N had felt abandoned by her friends, but she’d forgotten that it was she who distanced herself from Sanemi first; that she’d done so to protect her own stupid pride and heartache after his apparent rejection of her love. She’d evaded him first, because she’d assumed that was what he wanted, even though he’d tried texting her once. She’d neglected to consider that perhaps, his ignorance of her hadn’t anything to do with his anger that she’d dared to confess; that perhaps, his neglect of her had been part of a general disconnect from the world, in the wake of it taking yet another person he loved away.

At the time, Y/N hadn’t understood what it meant to grieve; hadn’t been able to comprehend the ways in which it could engulf someone like a wildfire before they could ever see the smoke.

He’s dealing with a lot right now, Kyojuro had told her, sternly. But perhaps Kyojuro’s admonition hadn’t been that at all; perhaps it had been a tired, desperate effort to remind her that Sanemi’s introversion from the world had nothing to do with her at all.

“I’m sorry,” Y/N gasped, her hands shaking. “I didn’t realize – I just knew I felt alone. All I wanted was you, Sanemi. I didn’t care how. I just wanted my friend.” This time, Y/N did not try and steady her voice as the tears welled up in her eyes. “I needed you — I needed my ‘Nemi. But you weren’t there – I-I didn’t think-,”

“I promise you, I wanted to make it right. I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did at the train station,” Sanemi gave a great sniff, lifting his head to meet her eyes. “When I snapped out of it, I tried so hard to find you by then, it was too late; you were gone,” His tears fell fast and hot down his face. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, Y/N.”

“I failed you; I know that --,”

But the girl shook her head, collapsing back against the kitchen counter. “We failed each other.” She wiped her cheeks, her arms winding tight around her middle as she tried to hold herself together even though the weight of the words that followed threatened to tear her apart at the seam for good. “And I don’t know how to fix this – how to fix us.”

Sanemi leaned back against the table, opposite her. “Maybe we can’t…maybe we can never go back to the way things were.”

Even as he said it, Y/N’s heart seized. She knew he was right, but she wanted so very badly to believe he was wrong; wanted to believe there was still a them to salvage.

“That doesn’t change how I feel about us,” Sanemi continued. “And that doesn’t mean we can't try to make something new.”

His words, so brutally honest and yet hopeful, tugged at the bleeding, mangled pieces of her heart. For the first time since they’d reunited, Y/N felt as though she could finally see him – all of him – and he broke her heart, and not for the reasons she thought he had before. The remnants of her heart ached for him because he looked just as broken and lost as she was, and she realized that perhaps, they hadn’t meant to hurt one another. Perhaps, they’d both been merely victims of their own grief.

All Y/N knew was that she was tired, so very tired of running from him, especially when he’d always been inevitable. And she wanted, more than anything, to ease some of the burden that she’d failed to notice he’d been struggling to carry, too consumed by her own grief and pain and rage.

Sanemi’s stare was weary as she slid off the counter and approached him timidly, hesitating just once before winding her arms around his neck and kissing him, gently.

She kissed him because she did not know what else she could do at that moment. There were no words she could say, no promises she could offer him, other than this small act of physical comfort.

Sanemi kissed her back, soft, though the hand on her face felt more like an effort to restrain himself from going any further. Y/N’s suspicions were confirmed when he broke away from her lips, panting slightly, and moved when she tried to reconnect them.

He pressed his forehead against hers. “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he murmured, apologetically. “We’re both all worked up.”

Y/N opened her eyes and peered up at him, nodding. He was right; of course, he was right, but his rejection stung anyways.

He must have sensed it, for he pressed his lips tightly against her forehead, his thumb stroking her cheek. “Let’s just take some time, okay?”

Her lips trembled with the effort to keep herself from crying once more, but she nodded, nonetheless. Briefly, Sanemi’s lips brushed her forehead once more, before he pulled away, and silently retreated to his bedroom, leaving Y/N in the dim light of the kitchen.

-----

The next day and a half passed without event, and Y/N was grateful for it. She’d managed to smile and laugh with Mitsuri and Kyojuro, and goofed around with Tengen’s beautiful girlfriends, but her heart remained heavy in her chest.

Though, it wasn’t an unwelcome weight, even if it made her uncomfortable at times. The fallout from hers and Sanemi’s talk two nights earlier had been both the final knife to her blackening heart and its bandage, and she’d been left to work through the complex tapestry of her feelings towards the man who’d held her heart before she’d even known she’d given it to him.

Such thoughts, however, had not quieted. It was just after midnight when Y/N gave up on trying to sleep. The house was too large and too quiet, and it made the thoughts in her head all the louder and sleep all the more evasive.

With a sigh, she kicked free of her blankets and rose, padding out of her temporary bedroom and into the dark, silent hall of the Uzui lake house. Trust that Tengen, of all people, would come from a family that not only had a summer house, but one large enough that each of her friends had been afforded their own private bedroom for their short weekend.

Clad in only a pair of black boy-shorts and a matching, cropped tank, Y/N clandestinely made her way down towards the large staircase which led to the first floor, but paused before beginning her descent, as she remembered that Sanemi’s room was on the first floor – just before the kitchen.

He’d wanted space, and she’d given it to him. Over the last two days, the pair hardly spoke to one another except for, when necessary, by virtue of the group’s activities under the sun. It hadn’t been out of any malice or anger, not like before. Rather, it seemed that their mutual avoidance of one another had been born out of a curious shyness that had bloomed between them, as both worked through the snarled tangles of their hearts.

If she went to the kitchen, as planned, there was a chance she’d wake him, and even if every fiber of her body missed him, the last thing she wanted was to be the cause of his loss of sleep – at least, more so than she’d apparently already had been.

On the other hand, she was thirsty, and there was a restlessness buzzing beneath her skin that would not quiet, that hadn’t quieted since she’d given up those treacherous lilac pills.

Y/N decided to take her chances, resolving not to turn on any of the stair lights or the light in the kitchen, instead navigating only by the dim light of her phone as she eased her way down the polished wood stairs. She held her breath as she slipped past the door that led to Sanemi’s room, as though the very sound would risk disturbing the handsome man slumbering within.

Once in the kitchen, Y/N blindly felt around for the cupboard containing sparkling glasses and managed to fill one with water without making a great deal of sound. Using the light of her phone screen, she managed to hop up onto the cool, marbled countertop and leaned back against the cabinets as she nursed her drink.

For the last two nights, sleep had evaded Y/N because of the way Sanemi’s words had played, over and over her head, a never-ending tape that showcased her own selfishness on a loop.

You aren’t the only one who has been grieving, he’d told her, brokenly.

He was right, and she was horrible.

For as long as she could remember, Y/N had always feared being selfish. She didn’t know where the deep-seated aversion to looking after he own self-interest had come from, but it was one that was so deeply ingrained within her that she’d long since stopped trying to overcome it. Instead, she’d found herself always trying to do the best for other people, desperately trying not to put herself over her loved ones, for fear they would leave her the instant she did.

When she’d found out her mother was going to die, she’d been left by the doctor to break the devastating news as her beloved mother lay in that hospital bed, fighting so hard to keep her oxygen levels up so that she could get out. Her mother had been asking Y/N to describe all of the autumnal decorations she’d seen go up in town, as though the prospect of seeing fake leaf garlands and pumpkins would be enough to make her lungs work properly once more.

For as long as she lived, she would never forget the broken disbelief in her mother’s eyes as Y/N had tearfully told her she would not live to see the end of the week.

“I thought I had more time,” her mother had wheezed, brokenly, clasping Y/N’s hand as tightly as she could with her dwindling strength.

She’d looked so scared, so lost, and what had Y/N done?

Y/N had cried; sobbed and had been utterly unable to stop. Her mother had needed comfort, and she hadn’t been able to toughen up and stop crying.

I’m sorry, Mama, she’d bawled, I can’t stop crying, I’m so sorry.

Her mother, with tears in her own eyes, had only shaken her head. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

As though it were her fault she was dying; as though Y/N didn’t know that if death were a matter of will, her mother would be here, on earth, with her still.

In her mother’s most desperate moment, Y/N had been utterly incapable of providing comfort, instead needing to be comforted, like the child she’d been. It was despicable; she was despicable.

To her horror, she’d been nothing but selfish. So, so very selfish, for being unable to check her emotions when it mattered most. And her mother had barely been conscious after that final conversation, which meant Y/N hadn’t been able to apologize for making her mother comfort her in her hour of greatest need. But Y/N had added that great regret to the list of things that would likely haunt her for the rest of her life, hopeful that maybe its presence on her list of regret would serve as a warning for her in the future.

It hadn’t; because Y/N had fallen right back into the sticky trap of her own selfishness and had failed to account for all the ways in which Sanemi had been suffering, right alongside her.

Worse, she’d relished his suffering because she’d thought she’d been the cause of it, and it had felt so damn good to finally get him back for the two years of hell she’d endured, never realizing that he’d been burning, too.

They’d been victims of a shitty hand dealt to them both, but too young and too stupid to be able to see the world outside of their own heads. And now, she had no idea where things stood between them.

Deep in thought, Y/N did not sense the shift in the air that signaled another was stirring until the kitchen light flipped on, and Y/N’s head shot up to see the person she’d most wanted to both see and avoid.

Sanemi looked just as surprised to see her, perched on the kitchen counter. His hand still lingered on the light switch, and his eyes were wide. He seemed to realize he’d been staring, and he quickly looked down to his feet, the faintest trace of red crossing his cheeks.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Couldn’t sleep.”

Y/N huffed a watery chuckle, wiping quickly at the tears that clung to her cheeks. “Neither could I – just a little restless, I guess.”

There was so much she wanted to say, and yet, she couldn’t think of a single word to speak, as he continued to hover by the light switch, uncertainty turning his muscles rigid. An awkward silence ensued as Y/N gave a great sniff and tried, but failed, to fake an ‘everything is fine’ smile.

Not that she would’ve been able to fool him anyway, but still, she mused, it would’ve been nice to try.

“I’m sorry – I’ll go back to my room,” She put her water glass down by her side and braced her hands against the edge of the counter to hop down, but remembered that she was still only in her underwear. It was foolish, she knew, to feel suddenly self-conscious being so exposed in front of him, given that Sanemi had spent the entire summer exploring every nook and cranny of her body with his mouth and hands, but the emotions of the weekend still weighed heavily on her – made her feel vulnerable.

Especially under the microscope of his burning stare.

Sanemi didn’t respond, nor did he comment on her failure to move off the counter. Instead, he only continued to watch her as she wiped at her cheeks, that fathomless heat and longing and hurt in his stare.

“I’ve always hated seeing you cry,” he finally murmured, and Y/N was surprised to see that he had inched closer to where she sat, perched on the kitchen counter.

A door was opening, and Y/N found herself wondering if she should walk through it or remain here, where the line between them was tenuous, but a line nonetheless; safe, and capable of being enforced, if she needed to run.

Y/N recalled a conversation they’d had about Mitsuri and Obanai before the pair had begun dating – back when they, too, had been chained to their own doubts of the other’s sincerity.

They should let themselves try, he’d quietly insisted.

She’d rebuked his words, only to find herself eat crow later; Mitsuri and Obanai had let themselves try, and now they were together, mending and growing as one instead of as two.

Maybe they could try, too.

“But why?” Y/N pressed, because though she’d decided at that moment to walk through that door with no reservations, she still wanted to hear him say it; wanted an explanation, after all these months.

“You know why,” was his only reply, his voice growing hoarse as he drew up within an arm’s reach of her.

Y/N shook her head again, but Sanemi did not stop; his hands boxed her in on the counter, one thick forearm coming to brace on either side of the kitchen counter, thumbs just grazing her thighs.

“You know why,” he insisted.

Y/N finally lifted her eyes to his, the last wavering thread of her resolve dissolving as she beheld the timid, pleading sincerity in his stare.

She exhaled, softly, but she did not move away from him.

“Then show me.”

She’d never seen Sanemi look so shy as he lifted one hand to cup her delicately under the chin. As he leaned in close, Y/N felt a curious tingle in her stomach that only grew in its intensity as his lips – so warm and soft – brushed against hers.

It was butterflies, Y/N realized as her eyes closed, that she’d felt fluttering in her stomach as Sanemi kissed her, because it was everything their first kiss should have been. It was not rough and sticky from mixed drinks and being pressed against dirty club walls in the dark, like the act itself was a shameful secret driven only by lust.

It was gentle, and soft, like the first fall of snowflakes against her cheeks. It was warm like a summer breeze, gently messing the tendrils of her hair against her bare shoulders, as it caressed her skin and promised precious moments of levity and of peace.

Sanemi’s lips moved against hers, still so gentle, and Y/N felt not just the love she’d come to accept he held for her, but also his hope, as tentative and uncertain and yet as eager, as a newborn fawn taking its first shaking steps in the spring.

It was everything; he was everything.

Their kiss grew more heated as they both grew more desperate to consume one another, the desire to make up for all the time lost between them morphing into a base need, as though their minds knew they needed the other to help put themselves back together again; to make themselves whole.

Sanemi’s hands found the sliver of skin exposed between the top of her underwear and the bottom of her tank top, and Y/N moaned, her legs wrapping around his hips to lock her closer to him as she let Sanemi engulf her in his strong, sturdy arms.

He lifted her effortlessly from the counter, his lips never leaving hers, and he began to walk them toward his bedroom. As Y/N’s legs wrapped eagerly around his waist, and her fingers tightened their grip in his hair, she found herself grateful that his room was just around the corner.

His tongue danced slowly with hers as he nudged the door to his room open with his foot and blindly pushed it shut once they were safely inside.

Sanemi’s lips dropped to her neck as he carried her to his bed, laying her out beneath him as his hands skimmed under her tank top, rough fingertips gliding up the sides of her bare waist until his palms rested against her breasts, rolling the mounds between his hands until she was moaning into his mouth, her wetness gathering quickly in her underwear as Sanemi pressed his groin against hers and rolled.

He made quick work of discarding her sleeping top, his mouth closing around one of her nipples as he gave it a hard suck, his hand cupping the other to roll her stiffening nipple between his fingers with a surety that had her whining and tugging at his hair, begging him for more.

Y/N’s fingers clawed at his back, eager to tear his t-shirt from his back so that her hands could greedily roam the stony ridges of his back, his chest. Sanemi groaned as she raked her nails across his shoulders, and he nipped her breast in response for making his way down to where her underwear struggled to conceal her arousal from him.

His tongue grazed over the thin scrap of fabric that separated her bare cunt from his waiting mouth and he groaned, his fingers digging into the sides of her thighs. “I can taste you through your damn panties,” he growled, his eyes dark as they lifted up to her face, flushed bright pink as she watched him slowly drag his tongue up her clothed slit. “Are you that needy for me already, baby?”

Sanemi withdrew himself from between her legs, and Y/N thought she’d fall apart at the loss of his warmth above her. Any protestations she had bubbling in her throat, however, died, as Sanemi shoved his sweatpants down his legs, his thick length springing forth and bouncing against his navel.

No matter how many times she’d seen it, the sight of his cock, long and with considerable girth, with a pretty, mushroom-like tip that grew an angry red the longer he went without stimulation, never failed to make her mouth go dry.

“Let me take care of you, sweet girl,” he cooed, slowly kneeling before where she laid sprawled on his bed as his hands smoothed up her thighs to the bottom of her underwear. Gently, his fingers curled under the fabric and began to slide them down the length of her legs, until he’d pulled them away from her feet.

Before he returned to her, he balled the discarded cloth in his hand and brought it to his nose, eyes closing as he inhaled deeply the scent of her arousal, a soft growl reverberating from the back of his throat as he opened his eyes, amethyst irises full of heady want for her.

“Fuck, I’ve missed that,” he said quietly, his movements slow, teasing, as he knelt on the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight, as he settled between her thighs.

Y/N huffed a shaky laugh. “It’s been two weeks, you nymphomaniac,” though she nearly gulped at way his eyes darkened as he exhaled softly along her glistening, throbbing core.

Sanemi sat back from her, eyes roaming her bare body as he considered her words. “You’re right, it’s been two weeks,” he said evenly, as his hands slide under backside, lifting her up to work himself under her until she was perched on his abdomen, its rocky ridges brushing deliciously against her bare folds.

“W-what are you -!” Y/N’s question was cut off as Sanemi’s broad, warm hands gripped under her thighs and hauled her up his torso, bringing her to hover just above his face as he settled beneath her.

“It’s been too long,” Sanemi grunted, his voice like gravel with his desire. “I need this. I need you.”

His strength had always greatly outmatched her own, but Y/N did not try to struggle as he lowered her bare cunt onto his mouth, his hands braced on her hips as he pushed her full weight down onto his face, groaning loudly as her essence enveloped him.

Sanemi’s head had spent a great deal of time between her thighs since the start of the summer, and yet this was somehow far more intimate.

Intimate, because she was utterly helpless as he held her throbbing core flush against his face, his arms caged tightly around her thighs, prohibiting her from moving away even if she’d wanted to do so, as he devoured her.

From beneath her, Sanemi let out a deep groan as his tongue sank between her folds and began lapping at her. Sanemi’s expert tongue wove in and out of her folds, periodically grazing over her entrance with such teasing fervor that Y/N felt her lower abdominal muscles seize, and she could not stop her hips as she began to grind into his mouth, her head tossed back.

A sharp prick against her inner thigh had Y/N’s eyes flying open as she looked down, surprised to see Sanemi licking the inside of her thigh where he’d nipped her. Even in the dark, Y/N could see the moonlight reflecting off his lavender irises he held her gaze, the hands around her thighs tightening and Sanemi slid his hot, silken tongue into her opening.

Y/N’s responding moan was loud, wanton, her head falling back as her hips ground down into his mouth as she began to ride his tongue. Below her, Sanemi groaned, his laps and sucks at her most sensitive area growing louder as he greedily slurped her juices.

Y/N began to feel that coil deep in her stomach grow tighter as her clit began to pulse and throb against Sanemi’s relentless tongue and lips. One hand slid under her to play with her entrance, his rough fingers circling her opening, sliding into her until his first knuckle before withdrawing, teasing her as her hips bucked wildly against his face, as she grew more desperate for him to fill her.

“Sanemi – p-please,” Y/N begged as his deft fingers avoided sinking into her spasming heat once more, a small scream of frustration tearing from her throat as he continued to tease her.

Though her white-haired lover was prone to continue teasing her, the grip around her thighs tightened as Sanemi pressed her harder against his face, his tongue thrusting in and out of her as his teeth grazed her aching bead over and over. Y/N’s cries grew louder, closer together, as the rough stubble of his jaw scraped against her sensitive flesh.

It was too much; with a sharp cry, Y/N’s thighs seized around Sanemi’s head as she felt a rush of her juices gush out of her, coating his face. The vibrations from Sanemi’s groans of satisfaction intensified the ripple of pleasure that rocked through her, and Y/N could not stop herself from grinding even harder against him in a desperate attempt to prolong her release.

Y/N fought to keep herself upright as she bucked against his face, but the sensation had become too much, and she found herself falling back against his legs. Sanemi didn’t seem to mind, his arms remaining tightly locked around her lower hips as he continued to rock his face against her core, her thighs shuddering around his head at the scrape of his stubbled jaw against her heated, sensitive flesh.

She turned her head and was surprised to see how close Sanemi’s cock was to her face, standing thick and tall as it bounced proudly against his abdomen with every flex of his stomach muscles and thighs as he continued to eat her out like she was his final meal.

Y/N’s lips went dry as her eyes took in the leaking, red tip of him, so demanding and eager, and yet he’d been utterly content to ignore his own need in favor of satisfying hers.

She struggled against his iron-like grip on her hips, trying desperately to turn so she could take him fully into her mouth, but he was too lost in her cunt to realize she wasn’t trying to get away; she wanted him, wanted to pleasure him as must as he insisted on pleasing her.

“Sanemi,” she whined, trying to turn once more, but his arms only tightened around her, a growl of warning reverberating from his chest.

Straining, Y/N leaned as close as she could to his aching cock and stuck her tongue out, just managing to graze the side of it before she had to pull away.

It was enough. At the first caress of her wet tongue against him, she felt Sanemi freeze beneath her, his tongue momentarily pausing mid-thrust into her core as he realized what she was trying to do.

“Fuck this,” he muttered, finally tearing himself away from her lovingly abused cunt and throwing her off him to the side, her breasts bouncing as she settled against the mattress. “I need you – now.”

Sanemi covered her body with his own, her legs falling to the side with practiced ease as she accommodated his hips. Despite his gruff words, Sanemi bent down to kiss her softly, his lips warm and gentle, as one hand rose to caress her cheek. Y/N locked her arms around his neck, happily sighing into his mouth as his tongue slid between her lips to stroke hers, each caress making the fire in her lower belly burn hotter and more urgent.

Sanemi shifted, keeping one hand on her face as the other moved to grip him at his base, aligning himself with her entrance. His eyes flitted back up to hers one more time, seeking her permission, and it made Y/N’s heart seize. Even after more than two months of sleeping with her, he still insisted on ensuring he had her approval.

Had she been able to form a coherent sentence, she would have begged him to take her, but she’d long since lost her ability to speak thanks to Sanemi’s skilled hands and mouth, and so, she only rolled her hips towards his impatiently, whimpering with her need.

Sanemi groaned in response and the hot, flared tip of his aching cock pushed into her. Ordinarily, Sanemi took his time working his way inside her, given his considerable size and girth; but, thanks to the way he’d insisted she ride his face, Y/N’s core had become impossibly slick that Sanemi sunk into her molten heat in a single, fluid motion, not stopping until his base was pressed flush against hers.

A hitched breath blew past Sanemi’s lips as he buried his face into the crook of his neck. He locked one arm around her upper back, the other encircling her thigh to hold her open for him as he began to rock into her, sloppily and hurried, as though he were getting lost in the feeling of her tight, soaking heat as she clenched around him.

“S-Sanemi!” Y/N gasped, her fingers burying themselves into the pale cornsilk of his hair as she tugged, eliciting a deep groan from the Adonis that ground into her from above with abandon.

Y/N’s hips moved of their own accord as she desperately sought to meet his frenzied thrusts, circling and pushing against him as Sanemi’s cock hit that spot within her that made her toes curl and her stomach dip. She was as wanton and desperate as he was, though the harder she moved against him, the more needy she became.

She needed him to be closer; so much closer.

“’Nemi,” she cried, begging him though she did not know what she begged for, as she moved her hands from his hair to rake her nails down his back, needing him to do something, anything to bring her closer -.

Sanemi locked a steely arm around her middle and in one fluid motion, flipped them, bringing Y/N atop him.

Both groaned in unison as the new position allowed Sanemi to reach even deeper within her, and Y/N felt nearly intoxicated by the sensation of being filled and stretched to her limit. Sanemi’s hands braced at her waist as he began to help her roll her hips against his, his head falling back as his eyes fell shut in bliss, a deep moan falling from his mouth.

Tears stung Y/N’s eyes as she ground against him because she understood what his actions meant even if he’d not uttered a word.

Sanemi Shinazugawa said he’d never let anyone ride him.

But he wanted to be hers.

So, with an unfamiliar yet welcome warmth spreading through her chest, Y/N began move, her hips softly rolling and grinding against his as she braced her hands against his rocky abdomen, fingers digging in slightly as she tilted her head back and moaned his name, loud and unrestrained.

“Nemi,” Y/N gasped, her hips rising and falling and grinding against him with a fervor beyond her control, as she could not get enough of how it felt to fuck herself on him. “Am I — ah — doing this right?”

A loud groan from deep in Sanemi’s chest was her only answer, as her lover lifted his head from where it’d been thrown back against his pillow as he basked in the feeling of Y/N’s silky cavern milking him for all he was worth.

“Baby, I don’t think you could do wrong if you tried,” he grunted, his voice trembling with his unbounded desire.

She was inclined to agree, because god, even after months of being fucked by him, none of those previous encounters could compare to the way he was making her feel right then, his warm, sturdy hands braced on her hips as he helped guide her up and down his hot, steely length, the room filling with the sound of their skin clapping as she bounced and ground against him.

Y/N’s hands found his at her waist and she pulled them away, in favor of tightly interlocking their fingers as she increased her pace, bringing herself up off his cock before dropping her hips back down again for a needy grind, her walls fluttering around him with each push and pull against him.

She fell forward slightly, pressing the back of his hands down into the mattress and holding them there, just over his head, their fingers tightly interlocked together. She shifted, so that she could brace a little of her weight into him, pressing them even harder into the soft bed as she increased her pace, rolling into him faster as she circled her hips around him.

With his hands pinned above his head, and his eyes squeezed tightly shut as a needy moan echoed from his throat, Y/N swore she’d never seen sight more beautiful than that of Sanemi completely at her mercy.

“I want to finish like this,” Sanemi’s voice had an uncharacteristic desperation in it that bordered on begging, he threw his head back harder against his pillow, the tendons in his neck tensing as he groaned unrestrainedly for her. “Please, Y/N –,”

She only ground down against him harder, his pleas choking off in his throat as his fingers dug harder into her hips. “Sh-i-it,” Sanemi groaned out, his hips thrusting wildly up into her, so lost in just how deep he could reach within her vice-like, silky heat.

Guided by pure instinct, Y/N released his hands and sat up, her own drifting behind her as she began to fondle his swollen, heavy balls while she continued the relentless pull and drop of her hips up and down his throbbing cock.

“Fuck!” Sanemi bucked harshly up into her, his head pressing harder against the pillow beneath him as the muscles in his neck strained, his eyes falling shut in his bliss. One of his hands found its way to her lower abdomen, pressing down slightly so she could feel him pressing against the front wall of her core, Y/N’s voice cracking as she moaned. His other hand lowered to where they were connected, and he began to swirl his thumb around her aching clit, his ministrations causing the walls of her cunt to pulse and constrict around him as her end neared.

Y/N’s thighs began to burn with exhaustion as she bounced up and down his cock, but she could not stop, not until she reached the dizzying height of her pleasure that was quickly coming on the harder she rode him.

Sanemi, however, appeared to sense her growing tiredness. “C’mere,” he said gruffly, one hand lifting to cup her face as the other shifted to press against the small of her back, guiding her to lay flush against him as he claimed her mouth with his own and began to thrust up into her, holding her securely against him.

Y/N groaned into his mouth, as their new position allowed Sanemi to hit a spot within that had her seeing stars as he kept her crushed against him, his tongue dancing languidly with hers. The hand on her lower back moved so that his arm could wrap around her waist and embrace her, as his other hand moved from her jaw to brush a lock of hair back that had fallen in front of her face.

“N-Nemi,” Y/N whimpered, her hips beyond her control as they dropped and rolled and ground against him, in desperate search of her release.

“I know, sweetheart. I know,” Sanemi’s voice was raspy, his arm tightening on her waist in a poor effort at restraint. “I feel it, too.”

Sanemi began thrusting up into her spasming cunt, a renewed string of curses falling from his mouth as the messy sound of Y/N’s honeyed core filled the room. Y/N felt herself begin to tighten around him, the thighs trembling against either side of his waist as she slammed herself back onto him, her cries growing louder as Sanemi brought her closer to her peak. His hips began to lose rhythm as he wildly jutted into her. Y/N’s eyes were squeezed shut as she began to babble, alternating between cries of his name and nearly incoherent pleas for more.

Sanemi’s hand found hers and brought it up against his chest, holding it tightly as his other arm cinched around her waist. “Let go for me, baby,” his voice was hoarse as he leaned up slightly to brush a kiss against her lips.

One, strong grind of her hips later, Y/N shattered around him, her inner walls seizing him like a vice as she tipped her head back and wailed for him, so pretty and so completely undone by him that she did not think she could ever be put back together and be wholly her own, without his touch forever imprinted on her skin, or upon her heart.

She knew, at that moment, as Sanemi’s grunts turned into loud, unrestrained moans as he bucked wildly into her, that running from him had always been futile, because she’d only ever been running in circles, only to find herself as she was then, right back on her knees before him, utterly his.

The difference was, she realized as he gave one last mighty push of his hips up into her still-spasming core, his seed shooting into her with blinding force, as a strangled shout-cry tore from his throat and his fingers seized around hers against his chest, that he’d been running in the same circle, too, just in the opposite direction. But now they’d run out of track to tread, and he’d smacked right into her, knocking both of them off their axes, stumbling and spinning together until they’d finally hit the ground, with only each other to face and nowhere else to run; and she was tired of running, anyways.

Because she knew, as Sanemi’s hips finally stilled against hers and she collapsed against his chest and he on the bed, leaking cock still nestled between her legs, that she loved him.

She loved him.

-----

Neither of them spoke for a long while, both panting hard as they caught their breaths.

“You said you think I’m possessive — maybe I am,” Sanemi said after a long moment, as the two came down from their mutual highs. “But it’s because I want to be yours. I’ve always been yours.”

He paused before continuing, his arms around her tightening. But when he spoke again, his voice was perceptibly softer, more timid, as though afraid of her rejection. “And I want you to be mine, too.”

Let him into your heart, and he will gladly give you his.

Y/N’s hand found his at her waist, and gently, she removed it. As she brushed her lips over the calloused pads, always so soft whenever they touched her, she lifted her gaze to his.

“You are mine,” she repeated softly, before moving his hand to press against the valley between her breasts, where her heart beat strong against her sternum. “And this has always belonged to you.”

Sanemi’s cheeks burned red as he bent to graze her lips with his, his hand still pressed against her chest. So innocent and chaste was the kiss that it was easy to forget that his cock remained buried within her, his seed still gathering on the sheets beneath them as it trickled from her.

Sanemi’s thumb stroked the skin of her sternum absentmindedly. “What comes next, Y/N?” He murmured, his eyes tracing over the features of her face as she rested her cheek against his bicep. “What do you want this to be – what would make you happiest?”

Y/N thought for a moment and weighed all of the emotions that had sat heavily in her chest for the past two days – the past two years – untangling each knot and snarl that had formed to obstruct the heart of her true desire.

When she spoke, her voice was as soft as a feather.

“I want to be with you. I’ve only ever wanted to be with you. That hasn’t changed.”

Sanemi’s eyes widened with a hope she knew he’d not dare let himself feel ever since their fateful reunion at the Kizuki. “So you’ll stay? With me?”

Y/N’s answering smile was wide as she leaned up to brush a gentle kiss against his lips. “Yes, ‘Nemi. I will stay.”

And for the first time in two years, Y/N felt just as hopeful as him.

“Can I kiss you again?” Sanemi breathed, staring down at her in awe, as though he could not believe that she was real, despite having just had her in the most real way he could have.

Y/N didn’t answer, instead raising her lips to his, as she threaded her fingers through his hair to hold him close to her. Sanemi responded with a soft groan and pressed himself into her. His cock began to twitch to life within her once more as her tongue slid into his eager mouth, gliding alongside his own.

She moaned into his mouth as he began to roll into her, her legs falling to the side to accommodate his body as he settled himself between her thighs. But Sanemi’s warm, rough hands slid underneath her backside and shifted her to lay on her side next to him, her chest pressed flush against his as he began to rock gently into her.

Y/N lifted her leg so that it wrapped around his hips, and Sanemi groaned, one of his steel-like arms wrapping under her upper thigh to hold it in place. “That’s my girl,” he murmured, his lips trailing along the underside of her jaw and down her throat. “Just focus on me, baby.”

The hand of the arm gripping her thigh moved to splay across her backside, pushing her against him as he rolled into her. A cracked moan broke from her throat as Sanemi began to massage her cheek in time with the slow, languid pump of his cock into her, the walls of her cunt tightening around him.

They continued to rock into one another like that, softly groaning and gasping every time Sanemi’s hips stuttered against hers, or every time Y/N’s nails sunk harder into the muscular slope of his back, so lost in the feel of the other’s body that Y/N was sure she did not know where she ended, and he began.

“Sanemi,” she cried, because the feeling of him this close, of him being this gentle, was so overwhelming to her because it was more than just fucking. This was them, raw, and unguarded, moving imperfectly against one another and letting their bodies speak in the words their mouths had not.

“It’s okay, baby, I’m here. I’m right here,” he promised, his lips brushing against hers once, twice. His arm tightened around where it gripped her upper thigh, hand splayed across her backside, as he rocked harder into her, both of their ends rapidly approaching. “I’ve got you.”

Y/N pressed her lips desperately against his, needing him to soothe the ache that grew in her core as she drew near the summit of her pleasure. She hitched her leg higher up on his hip to allow him to push deeper into her, and her eyes rolled into the back of her head as she felt Sanemi’s balls begin to tap against the curve of her backside as he picked up his speed.

“Come with me,” Sanemi grit out, his brow pinched as he stifled another groan. Y/N chased a bead of sweat as it rolled down his neck, mewling in agreement as she tugged him closer, pressing her chest flush against his.

“I’m close – fuck, I’m close,” Sanemi gasped, his lips crashing down against hers, his teeth tugging at her lip before he pulled away. “Are you?”

Y/N nodded desperately, as a long, high-pitched whine tore from her throat. “I wanna cum – ah – Sanemi, please, I want to cum.”

Sanemi’s hurried thrusts up into her melted into rutting, as his thick length hardly slid out of her sopping and spent heat. “Eyes on me, baby,” he managed, his fingers digging into the plush of her ass as he began to twitch inside her – a sure sign he was mere seconds from his peak.

With great effort, Y/N opened her eyes and met those violet eyes that she loved so dearly, and Y/N’s climax slammed into her with a force that had her crying out. She was the rough, coarse wave that crashed and broke around the steady rock that was Sanemi.

His free hand fumbled for hers, bringing it close against his chest, fingers tightly locked together. Her eyes still locked with his, Sanemi’s soft grunts turned to loud, wanton moans, his thrusts sloppy and jerky, as he came in time with Y/N, filling her with his hot, thick seed until it spilled over where they were connected, staining the sheets beneath them.

Sanemi did not stop pumping into her, could not, as he continued to unload within her, the hand on her ass locking her against him as his hips finally stilled against her with a final, strained cry of her name.

He collapsed against her, his full weight bearing down on her as they struggled to catch their breath. After a few moments, Sanemi shifted like he was going to pull out of her and away, but Y/N whined in protest.

“’Nemi,” Y/N panted, her arms locking around his back and holding him to her as she circled her hips against his, Sanemi hissing as she began to overstimulate him. “Please, can we stay like this for just a little longer?”

She hardly recognized the breathy, needy tone with which she spoke. For so long, she’d denied herself of any intimacy with him that extended beyond allowing him to cum in her, always pulling away and fumbling for her clothes the second his climax ended. But now, Y/N could not bear the thought of tearing herself away from him, because she belonged to him, and he finally belonged to her.

Sanemi’s hands dug into her waist as his head dropped into the crook of her shoulder to bury his face into her skin. She felt him inhale deeply, as though she was the air he needed to breath, and he nodded, apparently unable to form any words as he came down from his high.

After a few, quiet moments, the air around them only occasionally disturbed by the sound of their breathing, Sanemi answered her. “I will always want you to stay.”

-----

Y/N did not remember the last time she’d slept more peacefully than she did that night wrapped in Sanemi’s arms.

When the bright light of the sun finally broke through the gossamer-like curtains hung on the guest room window, Y/N sleepily blinked herself awake, turning to bury her face into the mattress to hide away from the bright, unrelenting light of morning. But what lay beneath her cheek was not the feather-plush soft of the luxurious mattresses the Uzuis had in every room of their summer home; it was rocky, hard muscle covered by warm, scar-speckled skin that made up the man she loved with every fiber of her being.

Sanemi groaned as he felt her face press against his upper abdomen, his hand raising to caress up her spine as he drew his other arm over his eyes to block out the sun. “’S too early,” he protested, drawing a light chuckle from Y/N.

“We have to leave soon,” she whispered, pressing a kiss against the rigid plane of his abdomen before trailing her lips down to where his cock was already beginning to stir. “Let’s at least enjoy the morning.”

Sanemi did not protest as she ducked beneath the covers to take him into her mouth, sighing happily as his hands softly stroked her hair while she bobbed up and down his length. Sanemi, however, was too impatient to feel Y/N’s walls around him once more, and lasted only a minute before he tugged her up his torso and sank her down onto him, his face buried into her neck as his teeth bit into the sensitive skin of her throat.

Y/N spent the remainder of their morning fucking herself once more on Sanemi’s stiff length, relishing the way his broad hands slid under her thighs as she rode him to lift them up so he could watch himself thrust up into her, admiring the way his cock glistened with the pleasure he helped to give her.

A couple of hours later, the group of friends loaded up their respective cars, Tengen and Obanai grumbling under the bright light of day as both fought of their mutual hangovers from the previous night’s inhibitions.

Though Y/N was set to ride with Mitsuri and Sanemi with the boys, neither of them could conceal the small, contented smiles they bore as they loaded their bags into the trunks of their cars, the pair occasionally sneaking a furtive glance at the other, smiles only broadening as their eyes met.

Just before Y/N opened the passenger door of Mitsuri’s vintage Volkswagen, she felt a pair of fingers, rough yet warm and familiar, brush shyly against her own.

“Text me when you guys get back, okay?” Sanemi murmured. On the other side of the car, Mitsuri’s jaw fell open, and her jade eyes gleamed with poorly-concealed excitement.

Y/N closed her hand around his and jerked him down, muffling his grunt of surprise as her lips met his. “I will.” She said as she released him, Sanemi’s cheeks turning pink as he grinned back at her. His hand closed around hers where it rested on the door handle of Mitsuri’s car, and pulled it open, holding it for her as she turned and lowered herself into the passenger seat.

Mitsuri practically tripped over herself as she scrambled into the driver’s seat, though she restrained herself from squealing until the door was shut safely behind her. Keys turning in the ignition, the pink-haired girl turned to her best friend, nearly vibrating with excitement.

“Tell me everything. Now.”

Y/N laughed as the pinkette pulled out of the manicured driveway of the Uzuis’ lake house, and she began to fill her friend in on everything that had changed between her and her childhood best friend.

-----

The lightness that Y/N felt leaving the lake house lasted the entire drive back home with Mitsuri in the latter’s car, her chest feeling full and warm as the two scream-sang along to every song on Mitsuri’s playlist.

The sun was nearly setting by the time the pinkette parked her car in front of their apartment building, the pair having stopped to grab sushi for dinner for themselves. As the two exited Mitsuri’s car, Y/N noted Shinobu’s small, purple sports car parked at the far end of the lot and smiled to herself, knowing her friend was home, where they could talk. As they’d picked up their to-go order from the sushi restaurant down the street, Y/N had made the last-minute decision to grab one of Shinobu’s favorite rolls, having resolved to talk to her other roommate and work things out between them.

Not that there was truly anything for them to work out – Y/N had concluded she didn’t blame her friend for what had happened; Y/N had made her own choices, as had Douma.

The pair of best friends giggled as they walked up the steps to their apartment, takeout bags in hand, ready for a night of relaxing on the couch with sushi, some facemasks, and trashy reality television. Y/N’s key unlocked the front door, which swung open to a darkened apartment. Her fingers flipped the kitchen light on and the sushi bag in her hands dropped to the floor.

For there, sprawled on the linoleum by the kitchen counter in a puddle of her own vomit and blood, was Shinobu.

She wasn’t moving; it was hard to tell if she was breathing.

Everything seemed to slow down and speed up all at once. One moment, the two young women were laughing and talking as they returned from a life-changing weekend at the lake, and the next, Mitsuri was screaming while Y/N heard nothing but the strong roar of panic echoing in her ears.

“Call an ambulance!” Y/N managed to bite out at her hyperventilating friend as she dropped to her knees beside her unconscious roommate, her hands shaking as she tried to feel for a pulse. “Mitsuri!”

As the pinkette scrambled for her phone, Y/N took note of the odd violet hue of Shinobu’s vomit and the sickly-sweet scent of flowers and synthetic fruit.

With trembling hands, Y/N brushed back a strand of her friend’s inky-violet hair that had fallen in front of her face. There, mixed within the dried blood beneath Shinobu’s nostrils, was the faintest trace of lilac.

Wisteria.

Over the roaring in her ears, Y/N vaguely heard Mitsuri crying into the phone with the emergency dispatch operator.

“She’s twenty,” Mitsuri sobbed. “We don’t know what happened, but it might’ve been an overdose. But there’s blood, too.”

Her pink-haired friend was right; there was an alarming amount of blood, dark and sticky, that had pooled beneath Shinobu’s head. Y/N suspected she’d hit her head on the edge of the counter, either because she’d tripped or because she’d passed out and hadn’t been able to catch herself, but Y/N couldn’t tell where the wound was, and she was too afraid to risk moving her friend’s head and worsening her injuries.

“Is she breathing?” It took a moment for Y/N to register that Mitsuri’s question was directed at her. “Y/N is she breathing?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered, “I don’t know, Mitsuri.” And, because she was panicked and scared, and utterly useless, Y/N began to cry. “I can’t tell; my hands won’t stop shaking.”

“I can’t tell.”

-----

Half an hour later, Y/N stood against the wall of the small waiting area in the emergency room, leg bouncing in agitation and anxiety. Beside her, Mitsuri sat with her head in her hands as the two waited for any news as to their friend’s condition.

The outer doors to the emergency room slid open and the girls were joined by Hinatsuru, Makio, and Suma, the latter of whom was crying softly to herself. A few moments later, Obanai arrived, face severe, aiming straight for the pinkette as he crouched before her, covering the hands she had buried in her hair with his own and pressing a kiss to the crown of her head.

The waiting room had become too crowded for Y/N’s frazzled nerves to handle. She tore herself from the wall against which she had been fixed, opting instead to pace the hallway between the waiting area and the main hospital. Makio may have called her name, but the roaring in Y/N’s head had become too loud, the jitter under her skin too incessant, for her to remain still in the waiting room a second longer.

Y/N finally exhausted herself enough to slump back against the wall, the passing sounds and beeps of the hospital only faint echoes in her ears. But then there were thunderous footsteps walking quickly toward her, and Y/N’s eyes lifted just in time to see Sanemi’s stormy face as he reached for her.

He crushed her against him, one hand buried in her hair as his other arm wrapped around her waist, holding her to him as though he needed to assure himself that she was real and there, and not the one getting her stomach pumped on the other side of the sealed emergency room doors.

His lips pressed hard against the top of her head, Sanemi inhaling deeply before pulling back from her, his hand rising to cup beneath Y/N’s jaw so he could tilt her face up toward him, those lilac eyes scanning her frantically for any sign of external injury.

“I didn’t know,” he said hoarsely against the crown of her head as he pulled her back against him. “Tengen called -- only said an ambulance was being sent to your apartment – that a twenty-year-old woman had overdosed.”

Y/N shook her head against his chest, breathing in his comforting scent and allowing it to still the jitters crawling beneath her skin. “I haven’t used in a week, Sanemi.”

Her – boyfriend? paramour? exhaled shakily, his arms tightening around her. “I was scared. After last night, I-” Sanemi swallowed thickly. “I was worried you regretted it.”

Y/N closed her eyes as she let herself melt against his stabilizing warmth. “Not you,” she murmured, “Never you.”

-----

An hour later, Y/N stood in her kitchen, chest heaving as she looked at the wreckage of Shinobu’s bender scattered around her.

There was an empty bottle of peach vodka lying on its side on the floor. Lilac residue was smeared on the kitchen counter, likely the result of Shinobu having snorted it the night before. A puddle of her vomit, streaked with purple, still lingered where the petite woman had lost consciousness.

Sanemi came around the kitchen counter, his hand resting at the small of Y/N’s back as he guided her away from the cabinet below. He bent to pull out a bottle of bleach and a roll of paper towels, as well as a pair of cleaning gloves that he pulled over his scarred, callused hands, and he set to work scrubbing at the floor.

Y/N watched him for a long moment before she moved to begin rounding up all of the bottles of liquor and wine that had been stashed in their apartment. One by one, she dumped their contents into the sink and chucked the empty containers into the garbage.

Next, Y/N gathered up all traces of Shinobu’s Wisteria from their various stash spots around the apartment. It had taken her a while to hunt through pharmacology student’s room, given that the young woman had become rather adept at squirreling away those poisonous little pills. Over the course of an hour, Y/N had managed to locate every little baggie and loose pill shoved under her friend’s mattress, tucked into her sock drawer, and slotted between pages of textbooks she’d never opened.

She’d stood over the toilet where she’d flushed them for a long while after the last of those lilac devils had swirled down the drain. It was not until a pair of warm, comforting arms encircled her from behind that Y/N was aware of the tears slipping hot and fast down her cheeks.

Sanemi pressed a soft kiss into the back of her neck as she cried, allowing her to press her face into his muscled forearm until her sobs had quieted, before he turned her around. He’d kept one hand on her shoulder as he leaned to tug her shower curtain open and turn the water on, before returning to her. Slowly, and with more gentleness than Y/N thought she deserved, Sanemi began to undress her, chucking her vomit and sweat-stained clothes into her laundry bin before helping her into the shower.

Y/N stood numbly under the hot spray of the water as she waited, the sounds of Sanemi’s belt and pants hitting the cold tile of the floor before he parted the curtain and stepped into the bathtub with her.

The moment he’d re-oriented the shower curtain to close them in, Y/N melted against him. Sanemi’s hands came to her waist, gently turning her so that her back was to him, as though he knew she was losing the battle against the weariness that had seeped into her bones. His arms locked tightly around her, he guided them to sit on the floor of the bathtub. He situated Y/N between his legs, her back resting against his chest. One arm was wrapped around her upper shoulders, holding her to him, as the other wound around her waist from behind, gripping her hand in his. His lips found the juncture between her shoulder and neck, brushing softly against her wet skin once before he buried his face there and held her, as the hot water beat down upon them.

They stayed like that until Y/N could no longer tell whether the water on her face was from her tears or the spray of the shower nozzle above.

Only after the water had begun to cool and their fingers had turned wrinkled did Sanemi help her stand, reaching behind her to shut the shower off.

Sanemi stepped out first, grabbing a towel from where it hung on the back of her bathroom door, to secure around his waist. He then produced two more from Y/N’s bathroom closet – her two fluffiest – and held them under his arm as he used his free hand to help Y/N out of her shower to stand on her bathmat.

Had she’d any tears left, Y/N was certain they would have been shed as Sanemi gently toweled her hair and body try before he scooped her up and carried her to her bedroom.

Sanemi set her carefully on the edge of her bed before leaving to return to her bathroom once more. Y/N’s eyes were fixed blankly on the carpeted floor of her room, her mind blank and that howling numbness that had become her constant companion over the last two months threatening to swallow her whole once more. She barely registered Sanemi’s return to her room until he, in all of his shower-dampened glory, knelt at her feet, with a bottle of her favorite lotion in hand.

Wordlessly, Sanemi pumped some of the lotion into his hand and began to gently massage it into her skin, starting at her feet and working his way up her legs. Once he’d reached the tops of her thighs, he repeated the action once more, carefully taking the time to ensure that he worked the lotion on every part of her body. With every stroke of his hand against her skin, Sanemi chased away that encroaching numbness, replacing it with the warmth of his adoration and love for her.

“Have you eaten today?” Sanemi’s voice broke the comfortable silence that had settled over them.

Y/N shook her head. “But I’m not hungry – really,” She urged as Sanemi opened his mouth in protest. “Can we just – just lay here?” She patted the soft down of her bed, motioning for him to join her.

Sanemi nodded, rising to turn towards her dresser to pull out a pair of underwear for her and digging out a pair of briefs of his that he’d let her borrow as pair of shorts after one of their earlier trysts.

Once both had pulled their respective pairs of underwear on, Sanemi squeezed himself into the small crevice between her twin bed and her bedroom wall and held out his arm in an invitation that Y/N did not hesitate to accept.

She curled against his bare chest, warm against her own naked skin, and wrapped her arms around him, holding him close as she sighed deeply, inhaling his scent and allowing it to wash over her, and still her mind.

Sanemi’s hands absentmindedly stroked her hair, his lips periodically pressing against her hairline as she began to doze in his arms. Just before the exhaustion commanded her to fall into sleep’s embrace, she spoke.

“I meant what I said earlier – I haven’t used Wisteria in over a week. I stopped drinking. I’m done, Sanemi. I swear it.”

Her face was pressed against his pectoral, so she did not see the tears of quiet, exhausted relief that filled his eyes as he pressed his lips against her forehead once more. “I know. Kyo mentioned on the way back that you’d been dealing with withdrawal for the last week. That it was why you weren’t answering your phone.”

Sanemi’s arms tightened around her as she began to drift off. “I’m proud of you, Y/N.” And then, he added in a voice so quiet that she almost didn’t hear it before sleep’s sweet lull pulled her under. “Thank you for choosing to stay.”

-----

She slept soundly through the night once more, until Sanemi awoke her in the early hours of the morning with his head between her legs, Y/N gaining consciousness just in time to come on his tongue. In the throes of her climax, Sanemi replaced its position at her entrance with his fingers as he dragged it up her messy folds so he could suckle at her clit.

Sleepily, Y/N clawed at his back, an impatient demand for more falling in the form of a whine from her lips, and Sanemi complied. He turned her onto her stomach and his cock found its way between her thighs as he began to fuck her from behind, his hips setting a leisurely pace as they slapped against her ass, Y/N’s soft moans only growing in their vibrato as he brought her to orgasm yet again, his warmth flooding her shortly after as he sighed her name.

They remained in bed for another few hours, talking and holding one another, trading lazy kisses and gentle caresses because they could not get enough of touching each other like they were right then – soft and meaningful, because Y/N and Sanemi were now a them, rather than two people who alternated running from the other.

Sanemi, it seemed, especially couldn’t keep his hands off her, which she found amusing, given that as children, Y/N was always the one who initiated any kind of affection with him, though she suspected that his begrudging acceptance of it had really been a front to conceal his true feelings.

His hand was smoothing up and down her bare thigh as she stroked his hair, his eyelids fluttering shut against her touch, when his phone rang from its place on her nightstand. Groaning, Sanemi blindly felt for the buzzing device, answering it only with a grunt as he kept his eyes locked on her, his hand still gliding up and down her shin.

His brow furrowed in seriousness, and he nodded, as though whomever was on the other end could actually see him, before he muttered a soft, “thanks, man,” and clicked the phone off, tossing it back onto her covers.

“That was Iguro. Shinobu is awake, and they’re allowing visitors.” His eyes were full of a quiet concern as he regarded her gently. “Are you okay to go right now?”

Y/N was already making her way out of bed, nodding. Of course she was okay to go – she needed to go, needed to assure for herself that her friend was awake and knew she was supported.

She dressed quickly, donning only a matching black workout set and sneakers before pulling a jacket over her bare shoulders. Sanemi merely tugged on the clothes he'd worn the day before.

“I’ll stop at my place on the way back,” he added, a faint blush coloring his cheeks. “If you want me to stay again tonight, that is,”

Y/N turned away so he wouldn’t see the small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as she quieted a laugh, so as not to make him feel embarrassed. “I want you to stay.”

Sanemi drove them, though he kept his hand firmly locked around hers the entire ride. Ever since they’d began their physical relationship back at the start of the summer, she’d been adamant that she wouldn’t allow herself to accept any affection from him if he didn’t have his cock buried inside of her while he gave it. It seemed too risky at the time, as though allowing him to care for her would blur some line she insisted had already been drawn, even though she’d been the one to hold the stick marking the ground.

Now, in hindsight, she couldn’t believe she’d denied herself of his intimacy for so long – not when it felt this good to have his steadying, grounding warmth wrapped firmly around her hand, his thumb running over her knuckles as he smoothly worked the steering wheel with his free hand.

This -- whatever this was. It was good.

-----

By the time Sanemi drove them back to her apartment, the evening sky was beginning to shift from a pale blue to a creamy orange, the sun beginning its descent towards sleep for the night.

Y/N, herself, felt an exhaustion so heavy, she wondered whether it had infiltrated the marrow of her bones. Her head ached slightly after a solid hour of crying with Shinobu, the latter offering apology after apology as Y/N held her trembling form close, shushing her with assurances that she’d never blamed the pixie-like girl for what Douma had chosen to do just a few weeks earlier.

Shinobu had confessed she hadn’t been trying to harm herself – not really, anyways. Rather, she’d been so overcome by her guilt and self-loathing that she’d stopped keeping track of just how much alcohol she’d been drinking or how much of her accursed Wisteria she’d been ingesting. The cut on the side of her forehead truly hadn’t been that deep, but it had been the result of a fall she couldn’t break, just as Y/N expected.

Y/N had sat, curled beside her roommate and dear friend, for another couple of hours, until Giyuu materialized in the doorway, deep-set shadows under his eyes and breathing hard, as he took in Shinobu’s vulnerable form, hooked up to various hospital machines, with a thick bandage wrapped around her head.

Y/N had quietly untangled herself from her friend and quietly exited the room, patting Giyuu’s shoulder as she passed him, though the ravenette did not acknowledge her, far too focused on his crying girlfriend as he wrapped her in his arms and held her tightly against his chest.

As they’d walked back to his car, Sanemi told her that Giyuu had driven straight through the night from his sister’s the moment he’d received word of Shinobu’s condition, too frantic to be by her side to even stop for food or rest.

Sanemi swung by his apartment, as he promised, and emerged a few minutes later with a bag full of his clothes and toiletries before he drove the rest of the short drive back to her shared apartment with Mitsuri and Shinobu. Her best friend, however, had decided to stay over at Obanai’s, and given that her other roommate was unlikely to be discharged before the following day, Y/N and Sanemi had her apartment to themselves once again.

After a dinner of vegetable omlettes, prepared by Sanemi, the pair fell back into Y/N’s tiny twin bed, both exhausted from the excitement and stress of the previous four days. Y/N, in particular, had felt more emotionally zapped than she had in a long while, having spent the majority of the holiday weekend crying for one reason or another, and wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of her evening wrapped securely in Sanemi’s arms as she listened to his heartbeat lull her to sleep.

She’d stripped herself of her clothes, leaving herself in only her thong, as she pressed herself against Sanemi’s bare chest. Sanemi, however, could sense her weariness, and so they did no more than kiss every now and then, both merely content to simply hold the other and bask in their shared warmth.

“Thank you for being here for me – yesterday and today,” Y/N murmured quietly, her lips grazing his collarbone.

Sanemi’s fingers brushed under her chin as he tilted her face up to meet her eyes. “I told you already, I’m all in. Whatever it is you want from me, I’ll be it.”

Y/N smiled wryly at him as her eyes roamed his face in consideration. “So, does that mean we’re official? Are we boyfriend-girlfriend?”

His responding smirk made her thighs squeeze together as he leaned in close to her face. “You can call me whatever you want, baby,” he kissed her nose before lowering his lips to hers, though he held back, teasingly. “And for however long as you want.”

She giggled as he kissed her and it felt like coming home, and Y/N couldn’t remember the last time she felt like she’d had one of those.

He broke away from her after a moment, hand coming to a rest against the side of her head while his thumb stroked her cheek, a profundity creeping into his eyes.

“I love you, Y/N. With all my heart.”

Y/N thought her heart would fly out of her chest as Sanemi repeated the words she’d uttered to him nearly two years prior. She thought hearing them would cause her to clam up, that they would send her careening back to the dark, lonely hole she’d spent the last half of her university experience trying desperately to claw out of, but they did not.

Instead, Sanemi’s words – her words – mended something within her that she’d long thought to have been irreparably broken. There was no emptiness left in her, no gnawing wound; it had been healed by him and his earnestness, and she only felt her love for him. Love that made her feel pretty, soft, and new, mending her broken heart with its golden light.

“I never stopped loving you,” Y/N’s voice grew thick with the tears that filled her eyes. “Please know that. No matter how mad I was, no matter how low I felt, I always knew I loved you – and I still do.”

Sanemi’s answering grin was so beautiful, so bright, that she wondered why she’d waited so long after making up to say it. His smile made her feel as though she could soar through the sky, breathless and wild and free.

Once upon a time, she’d believed love was pretty; she imagined it would be soft, pink, and shiny and make her feel warm and pretty in return.

Then, as an adult, she realized that love was pretty, but not in the way she’d imagined it would be when she listened to stories of princesses and their knights as a little girl. Love was a blur of many hues, some soft and bright, but some dark and harsh too, melding together to create a kaleidoscope of light and shadows. And it was because of this phantasmagoria of joy and pain and laughter and sadness that love was so beautiful, and so worth fighting for, because in the end, finding herself in the arms of the only person she’d ever loved outweighed any of the heartache which preceded it, and it would be worth whatever heartache was sure to come.

Because loving Sanemi Shinazugawa was worth it all.

EPILOGUE – 2 months later

The sun was golden and bright and the air as crisp as an apple as the couple de-boarded their train at the small station in their hometown, hands clasped tightly together. The blazing heat of summer had quickly given way to October, and the autumn harvest brought with it a new tiding of ruby and ochre yellow leaves.

Y/N was grateful for the loose sweater she’d worn — stolen from Sanemi’s dresser one day several weeks earlier when she’d insisted she needed his scent to take back to her apartment with her, to help her get through the first wave of reading and papers she’d been slammed with. Initially, Sanemi had protested with a grumbled “fuck off,” as she’d tried to lay claim to his favorite sweater.

He’d change his tune rather quickly, however, when his girlfriend then donned the garment whilst giving him what he later called “the best head of his life.” And so, the worn, dark gray sweater had remained safely in Y/N’s care.

As the train doors slid shut behind them, Y/N took a deep, steadying breath, mentally preparing herself for the reason they’d risen early that Saturday morning to return to their sleepy hometown.

The gentle squeeze of Sanemi’s hand around hers as he brought their interlocked fingers to his mouth for a sweet kiss, helped abate some of her nerves and grounded her.

“You ready?” He murmured, his eyes warm and so full of love and concern for the woman beside him that Y/N felt her heart lurch.

She smiled at him, softly, and rose on her toes to press a chaste kiss against his lips. “I’m ready.”

The advantage of living in a small town — no more than a village, really — was that nearly everything was within walking distance, as long as one did not mind a few steep hills here and there. And so, the couple set off from their town’s small train station, towards the grocer to pick up flowers — two bouquets, one for each grave that marked the final resting spot for their loved ones.

Autumnal arrangements in hand, the pair walked in a comfortable silence up the hill leading to the cemetery.

“Genya’s with the rest of my family,” Sanemi said quietly as they passed the iron-gated entrance that gave way to the sprawl of headstones that lined the grassy hilltop. “They’re just over here.”

Y/N nodded, squeezing Sanemi’s hand in assurance as her boyfriend led her up a small trail to a row of graves gathered beneath an old willow tree.

When Sanemi had shared with her that he made this bi-weekly sojourn to visit and lay flowers on the graves of his family, Y/N had cried. She’d held him tightly, offering a litany of apologies for not being there for him more, for the fact he’d been doing it alone.

He wouldn’t hear of it, insisting that she hadn’t anything to apologize for, which only made her cry harder.

A hush fell over the pair as they drew up upon the Shinazugawa family graves, Y/N’s heart breaking a little more as her eyes scanned each name, the life spans etched into the stones far too short.

Wordlessly, Sanemi plucked a flower from the bouquet he carried and laid one at the base of each gravestone, repeating the process until no more flowers remained. Once the last flower was placed, just over Genya’s grave, Sanemi straightened, gripping Y/N’s hand tightly in his own as his other lifted to wipe at his eyes.

“He’d be over the moon, ya know, that we’re finally together,” Sanemi murmured, his voice hoarse with his grief, nodding at the last stone bearing the name of his beloved brother. “He used to give me all kinds of shit for not making a move sooner.”

“He always was wise beyond his years,” Y/N sniffed quietly, her own tears slipping freely down her cheeks. “He used to pester me about it, too – would always ask if I was single, and if I said ‘yes,’ he’d mention that you were also single.” She huffed a watery laugh as the image of the boy’s smiling face flashed through her memory. “Though, I think he did it more so to tease me, because I’d always turn as red as a tomato whenever he’d mention it.”

Sanemi smiled softly as he squeezed her hand. “It’s a family trait, I s’ppose.”

The couple remained at the site of Sanemi’s family’s graves for a little while longer, the last living Shinazugawa tucking his girlfriend tightly into his side as he held her close, her warmth helping to keep him anchored here, to life, rather than wishing he slumbered beneath the hardening ground with his family.

Eventually, they agreed to make their way toward the other grave that had drawn them there, Y/N taking a deep, steadying breath as she prepared herself to visit her mother’s final resting place for the first time since her death.

“I think the map said she’s over this way,” Y/N nodded at a small, winding path that led down a gentle hill to the south of the Shinazugawa plot. “I remember I wanted her over there by the walnut tree – she loved them in the autumn.”

Sanemi nodded and let her lead the way, her fingers clutching tightly around the bouquet in her hands as she drew nearer to the tree which marked her mother’s plot, her stomach twisting with anticipation.

Because she knew, the moment her eyes settled on the stone with her mother’s name and dates of birth and death, that reality would hit her all over again; but she persisted, for the sake of her mother, who’d loved her more than anything.

“Mr. Shinazugawa!” A voice called, and both looked over to see the old cemetery caretaker waving in greeting as the pair made their way towards the section where Y/N’s mother rest.

“Good morning, Mr. Urokodaki,” Sanemi answered, nodding respectfully in greeting. “I can’t believe they have you working on the weekends.”

The grandfatherly caretaker chuckled. “Only the departed sleep; I do not.” He shifted the rake he was holding from one hand to another as he wiped his brow. “It’s been a few weeks since I last saw you!”

“School has kept me busy, sir.” Sanemi’s hand around hers squeezed and Y/N smiled softly.

“Well, I had a feeling I’d be seeing you soon, so I went ahead and cleared any leaves off Mrs. Y/L/N’s grave for you – and I took the liberty of clearing out the flowers you brought last time.”

Y/N’s breath died in her throat as she looked between the old man and her boyfriend, her eyes wide.

Mr. Urokodaki appeared to mistake her shock for confusion. “He’s such a kind lad, your friend!” The old man smiled warmly at Sanemi, before continuing his explanation to her. “He brings flowers not just for his family, but for a woman he knew growing up – like clockwork, every two weeks, for the last year. That’s why I was worried when he didn’t show up last week!”

Sanemi chuckled softly. “I’m back to the regular schedule now, sir!” And he bid the old caretaker farewell. He turned back to his girlfriend, but froze at the expression on her face, mouth slightly open and eyes as round as saucers.

“Y-you, you’ve b-been,” she stuttered, her eyes welling with tears as she began to shake.

Sanemi hesitantly reached for her, brushing her hair back behind her ear. “I’m sorry. I know I should’ve asked, first, but we weren’t talking yet, and I wanted to make sure --,” Sanemi’s explanation was cut off with a small mmph! as Y/N grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and hauled his mouth down to hers.

After a long moment, she broke away. “T-this whole time, ‘Nemi — you —,” Y/N could hardly speak through her tears. Sanemi’s arms wound tightly around her waist, locking her to him as she buried her face into his neck.

Her boyfriend’s lips found her side of her head and he smiled softly into her hair. “Tch, idiot,” he said, affectionately. “I told you already — there hasn’t been a single moment that’s gone by that I haven’t loved you.”

“And I loved her, too.” He added quietly after a moment.

Sanemi’s words only served to make her cry harder, her arms tightening around his neck as she poured every ounce of her love and gratitude into the force with which she hugged him tightly against her.

Y/N couldn’t stop herself from peppering his face with kisses, as Sanemi’s smile stretched wide across his face. The brilliance of his happiness was nearly blinding, but Y/N knew she would never desire to look away from it – from him.

Y/N pulled back to study his face, her hand coming to rest against the side that bore his scars, her thumb gently stroking the one that crossed his nose. “I love you,” she whispered. The tears still shone in her eyes, but beneath them lay a fierce sincerity. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

His lilac irises glimmered with his own emotion at her words, and his hand reached to intertwine with hers once more, the other lifting to brush the last, errant tear that escaped down her cheek.

“C’mon,” he said thickly after a moment, “Don’t wanna keep your Ma waiting.”

Cries. Thanks for reading!

#demon slayer #kimetsu no yaiba #sanemi shinazugawa #demon slayer smut #kny smut #sanemi x reader #sanemi x y/n #shinazugawa sanemi #kny sanemi #kny sanemi smut #kny #kny x reader #kny fanfic #hashira #hashira smut #sanemi smut #sanemi x you

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niqhtlord01 · 6 months ago

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Humans are weird: Never War with Humans

( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps) Extract from “Fall of the Bezenite Empire, By Zimpara Tul”

“The collapse of the Bezenite Empire was a great source of confusion for the wider galaxy. Even more so when it was orchestrated by the Terran Alliance which had so recently sued for peace with them after a nearly three decades long war.

Ironically the downfall of the Bezenite’s was brought about by mere skirmishes between theirs and humanities respective settlers. They had each settled upon the world of Kimpara III but on opposite sides of the world. The terrain and weather patterns of the planet made extensive scouting impossible so for nearly four decades the two species went on developing their respective societies until by chance they ran into each other.

The meeting was far from cordial.

Both species claim that it was the other who initiated the war, either by a misunderstanding or openly hostile action. The resulting devastation to the planet ensured that the truth would remain forever shrouded in mystery as both sides brought increasing military might to the field.

Holding dominion of five star systems and three client races, the Bezenite’s were hardly a super power but in their small corner of the universe they had established themselves as the regional power. Humans on the other hand barely established themselves within their own system and had settlers in a nearby system establishing new colonies. It was expected that the Bezenite’s would use their superior technology to steam roll the humans and claim yet another client race. What had not been accounted for was the size of the human military industrial complex and the amount of war material they could produce.

Opening engagements saw Bezenite ships easily win against human ships even when facing 3:1 odds, but the humans were able to have the ships lost replaced by fresh ones within a matter of months. In terms of ground forces the Bezenites were vastly outnumbered by the humans who held a standing army of nearly 50 million compared to the roughly 8 million Bezenite forces. They had never needed a large army to police their territory so when the full force of the human war machine was brought against them they quickly found the entire length of their shared border under constant attack.

World’s that had never seen the scars of war were attacked overnight as human transports snuck through Bezenite patrols and deposited large invasion forces before retreating. This would have been a horrendous waste of manpower were it for the fact the Bezenite navy would not bombard a planet under their domain. This allowed the human’s a sudo-shield which protected them from orbital strikes and allowed them to conduct extensive ground wars.

As the war ground on Bezenite leadership became infuriated when the primitive humans occupied several border worlds and establishing forward operating bases. The empire’s military, likewise far technologically superior to humans, was not large enough to stabilize the entire front and increasing gaps began to open.

To remedy this situation the Bezenite’s began an increasingly total war footing for the first time in their people’s existence. Numerous recruitment offices were opened throughout the empire, even on client species worlds, to increase the total ground forces. Naval shipyards were constructed or expanded in the core regions drawing in hundreds if not thousands of new laborers to create even large fleets of ships. Even desolate moons were converted into self-contained factories as large scale industrialization projects were carried out on their surfaces to establish new manufacturing hubs.

By the thirty year mark of the war the Bezenite’s military now stood at nearly half of what the humans had at the beginning of the war and showed no signs of slowing down when the humans suddenly initiated peace talks.

The act alone blindsided the Bezenite’s leadership who had been planning out a protracted campaign for another five years to annex the human homeworld. This was derailed by the human’s sudden openness to discuss peace which was well received by the Bezenite civilian population who had grown tired of the more than quarter century of fighting. It was this desire to end the conflict that forced the Bezenite leadership to discuss terms of peace and eventually end the war; and in so doing hand the destruction of their empire.

While the industrial boon for war material had brought great wealth to the empire, it now faced a financial crisis as the war came to a sudden and abrupt end.

Millions of soldiers were now being decommissioned and sent back to civilian life to look for new jobs, which were scarce as the numerous military factories began closing down due to a lack of requested material. Orbital shipyards attempted to convert themselves into civilian manufacturers to stay open, but the demand for civilian crafts was not nearly enough to keep the majority of them open resulting in further layoffs.

What’s more, the Bezenite client races who had served alongside their overlords had been given a taste of the wider galaxy and now returned to their people. They spoke of the wonders from across a dozen worlds and of the ferocity of the humans who had checked the Bezenite’s advances. The once invulnerable image of the Bezenite Empire was shattered and now with returning soldiers with advanced combat experience many client races began revolting.

The Bezenite’s had never faced such a drastic shift in their economy before. Hundreds of thousands of their citizens were now out of work and protesting in the streets and with the sudden revolts of their client races the empire’s domain was further fractured. They attempted to rouse their military once more to quell the uprisings, but with the dishonorable manner in which many of their comrades had been dismissed after serving the empire so loyally the military was sluggish to react and the uprisings amongst the client races soon turned into open war.

Within the next five years the Bezenite Empire was a shadow of its former glory as civil war ran rampant. The client races had driven many of their former overlords from their territory and, having seen how well humans could oppose their former masters, reached out to the humans for alliances and defense pacts. The Terran government was all too happy to send aide and launched several new military missions into former Bezenite space; both to ensure the independence of their new allies, and to carve up their former enemies territories for themselves.

Unlike the Bezenite’s, the majority of the Terran military industrial complex was automated so the ending of the war did not have as severe an impact. When it came to the standing military forces only a fraction were let go due to old age or injuries sustained in the fighting. They had always kept their military at a high number so their budgets calculated the funds needed to sustain such a force at all times, meaning there was no mass dismissal of forces to flood the job market.

When the war had begun the humans knew that in a straight up fight they could not win against the Bezenite’s. Their technological superiority would ensure that the humans always took far more casualties. So a new plan was devised which would force the Bezenite’s to ramp up military spending, then at the peak of the war open peace negotiations and end the war entirely dealing a body blow the Bezenite economy could not recover from so abruptly. The following chaos caused by the economic collapse would leave them vulnerable and disillusioned with the empire as a whole presenting the humans with the perfect opportunity to resume the war.

At the end of the conflict the Bezenite’s had been driven back to their original home system while the Terran’s claimed much of their former territory, even going so far as to award some planets to the former client states which were now seen as galactic partners with the humans; sealing the foundation of a future Terran Empire."

#humans are insane #humans are weird #humans are space oddities #humans are space orcs #scifi #story #writing #original writing #niqhtlord01

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seonghwaddict · 10 months ago

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EYES DON’T LIE — iii. a worthy competitor.

synopsis. you've always resented jeong yunho, and you were positive that the end of high school would've marked the end of your rivalry and hatred. yet now you find yourself in the same crappy hotel as him. assigned to be right next to each other much like the good old times.

pairing. jeong yunho x fem! reader. genre. mini-series, fluff, slice of life, mature, academic rivals to lovers, non-idol au. chapter warnings. swearing.

word count. 2.1k. rating. pg-13

chapter ii. chapter iii. chapter iv.

yunho’s life post high school was blissful, to say the least.

he went to his dream university and just like you graduated as the top student of that year. not long after that he landed a job at a relatively large tech company and after promotion upon promotion, he became the multi-billion-won company’s CTO. He lived lavishly; a shining example of what he was able to achieve thanks to his determination and unwavering passion.

at least until all of that came crashing down.

because the CEO just had to get involved in activities that became the downfall of the company. unbeknownst to him, the CEO had been part of an underground piracy organisation and sold the private information of millions of users to malicious parties. when the news got to the police, well… it was chaos. law enforcement swarmed the headquarters to detain the CEO as well as anyone that was identified on the list of people involved. a mess that he had no part of.

in hindsight, yunho should be carrying more than the company card and a suitcase when traveling for business trips, during which all this news got out. but how was he supposed to know he’d go from a highly respected worker to jobless in a matter of 24 hours?

and so he found himself in a shitty hotel, paying with the few bills he could find after rummaging around in his bag. the company card declined when he tried booking a different hotel—the fancy one the company had paid for forced him to leave after they found out he was affiliated with that company. for obvious reasons, he had been confused until he checked his phone for the first time that day and found hundreds of notifications flooding the lock screen that depicted picture of him and his best friend.

speaking of his best friend.

as soon as got into his his temporary bedroom—aka the hotel room that smelled so odd he opened the window as wide as he could and stuck his head out to avoid the stench—he called the man he’s known since they were toddlers, ranting about the situation. unsurprisingly, he found the situation immensely funny.

“so you’re poor now?”

“no, mingi, i just don’t have my personal card. i’ll go withdraw money tomorrow morning.” yunho propped his camera up on the small desk opposite the bed, leaning back in the creaking wooden chair as he rubbed at his temples, dreading the oncoming headache he was starting to feel. “but i’m jobless, for now.”

mingi pursed his lips, nose scrunching as he looked at his phone screen, watching how distressed yunho looked. “how can i help you, then?”

a shrug was the first response he got. “just-” the rotating chair squeaked as yunho leaned a bit further to stare up at the ceiling for a moment before reverting his gaze back to his phone. “just talk to me about something else, distract me for now.”

“okay then,” the fake blond’s face brightened and a wide grin spread across his face as he sat up and leaned closer. “so, you know my boss hongjoong, right?”

and so the next ten minutes were filled with him gossiping about how his boss seemed to have the hots for a cute reporter. yunho listened, grateful to get his mind off his current predicament, but barely registered any words being said. he occasionally replied with agreeing hums or other reactions suitable for the context, but he couldn’t help but feel the tell tale signs of his body wanting to rest. mingi seemed to catch on as he paused his story and squinted at his phone screen, catching the way his best friend’s eyes drooped with fatigue.

“hello? earth to yunho?”

he stirred awake, snorting in a breath before yawning. he checked the time on his very expensive watch briefly before his eyes flickered back up to mingi.

“you look tired, man,” worry was written all over his face, sure he could already see dark circles forming under yunho’s eyes. “get some rest.”

“yeah… yeah, that’s a good idea.” yunho spoke through his yawn, hand covering his open mouth.

they said their goodbyes and ended the call. yunho sat in silence for a moment. he turned the chair, inspecting the bed. it was sad, small and pretty empty. wishing he was back home on his soft king sized bed, he poked the mattress, frowning at the firmness before pulling back and looking at the pillows. well, pillow. singular. while the mattress felt to stiff, the pillow the opposite. he got up to check the little closet for another pillow that he could stack on top to add some firmness, but to no avail.

after a moment of hesitation, he decided to ask the guy at the lobby if he could possibly have an extra pillow. before head for the door, he stopped in the bathroom, checking his teeth and brushing his hand through his dark hair, a little overgrown and resembling a mullet. he fixed the tie of his suit that he had yet to take off and left the bathroom, his hand wrapping around the door handle of the room and pulling it open.

as he stepped out, his temporary neighbour seemed to have just arrived. turning to greet the stranger, he stopped in his tracks just as she had.

what a perfect end to his day. the cherry on top, really.

truthfully, he hadn’t given you much thought after your high school graduation. (he actually did. a friend of his went to the same university as you and he’d occasionally ask him if he knew how you were doing). but seeing you now, he realised you hadn’t changed much. of course, you seemed to have a grown a tiny bit and you looked more mature, but those eyes—those soft eyes, so pretty, red and puffy through your tears—were undeniably yours. he recognised you before he recognised the state you were in, a sobbing mess. in all the years he had known you, he doesn’t recall ever seeing you cry. seeing you like this, with flushed and tear stained cheeks, made his head spin for a moment.

before he could open his mouth to say anything, you were gone. he watched the door of your room fall shut, followed by a thud from inside the room. what it may have been—a kick to the wall, a punch, an item thrown across the room—he wouldn’t have been able to tell as he stared at the door dumbly. he wasn’t sure how long he stood there, but what else was he supposed to do when he ran into you of all people in this obscure hotel and somehow ended up next to each other?

watching you disappear through that door reminded him too much of the last time he saw you.

though it had been a warm summer, it rained on the last day of school. having checked the weather, he brought an umbrella with him. but as he watched you stand front of the entrance of the school, alone and looking out into the rain without a jacket, let alone an umbrella, with a conflicted frown and nothing to protect you from the rain but the roof, he found himself caring about you. before he realised it, he stood in front of you, holding out his black umbrella and consequently getting a little wet.

you couldn’t help but stare at him, your gaze switching between his unusually sincere face and hand extending the red handle of the umbrella. you shook your head, insisting that you won’t take it, but he cut you off.

“come on, it’s just an umbrella, i have no problem walking home in the rain.”

“no, please, yunho, it’s your umbrella, i’ll figure something out. you’ll get sick.”

after some more back and forth, he offered a compromise. you could walk home together.

and that’s exactly what the two of you did. you walked side by side, squeezed together under the umbrella, droplets of rain occasionally hitting your right shoulder or his left shoulder. despite the weather, it was oddly peaceful. a steady conversation flowed between the two of you, free of any teasing or insults. you weren’t quite sure why he was being so nice, but you supposed it was the last you’d see each other before heading separate ways.

unfortunately, the two of you thought at the time, you lived in the same apartment building. while you lived on the third floor, he was up on the fifth. he decided it only made sense to walk you to your place first. unlike your walk outside, the short journey from the elevator to your front door was dead silent. even when you got to the front door, neither of you spoke for a moment until he cleared his throat, his voice almost… emotional?

“i guess this is it, huh?”

“yeah… i guess… have fun finding a better, funnier, smarter rival in college.”

“nah, i don’t think i’ll even bother.”

“hm? really? i thought you’re all about that competition.”

“yeah, but you’re the only person worth competing with.”

he’d never forget the way your eyes widened comically as you looked at him after that, a blush so faint it was easy to miss in this horrible lighting. maybe all the people saying you’d make a good couple were on to something. still, he knew you’d never see each other again, there was no point in trying anything. his cell phone rang, interrupting the tense silence. it was his mother, telling him to hurry and get home.

“i… uh, i have to go… but i’ll see you around, someday?”

you smiled, a smile so genuine his stomach did a cartwheel.

“i’ll see you around, someday.”

you stared at each other for a moment, stood across from each other in the hallway. he wasn’t sure what to do. should he hug you? should he just turn and leave? you seemed just as conflicted. after a long minute, you both extended your hands for a handshake at the same time. a small laugh was shared as your hands intertwined in a slow handshake, holding onto each other a few moments too long. his thumb rubbed over the back of your hand gently. he gave it a small squeeze before letting go and bowing his head, winking playfully.

“good luck out there, y/n.”

“likewise, yunho.”

and with the you disappeared through the front door, much like you had moments ago. though at that time you didn’t look so heartbroken. eventually he got himself to put one foot in front of the other and head to the lobby for his original mission.

he thanked the lobby man quietly as he was handed two more pillows, his mind still occupied with you. you’d think that whatever he felt for you on that last day would’ve dissipated by now, but that was quite the opposite. despite it having been so many years, seeing you again felt like a punch to his throat.

on his way back to his room, he thought about knocking on your door for a split second. in the end, he concluded you probably wouldn’t want to talk to him. he wasn’t sure what he would’ve said anyway. hey, it’s really nice seeing you again, by the way did i mention that i’ve realised i had a massive crush on you that time we said goodbye and those feelings haven’t gone away?

no, absolutely fucking not.

he nearly slapped himself at the hypothetical monologue, dragging himself to his hotel room. a soft thump resounded as he tossed the pillows on his bed before undressing and getting under the thin covers. the time it took for him to fall asleep was unclear as he stared up at the ceiling. whoever rented the room above him seemed to want to make a joke in the ground, thundering stomps making the ceiling and his open window shake.

had he not stepped out at that time to get pillow and bumped into you, he would’ve probably been cursing and swearing to himself to get out of this place first thing in the morning. but, considering who his current neighbour was, he couldn’t help but think…

would one or two more days really be so bad?

[ lilo's notes . . . ] hii sorry it took so long to update this, i hope this makes up for it 💔💔 we finally get a little gimped into yunho’s feelings!! yippee!! i’m sorry he comes off as a little stuck up near the beginning, but please understand he went from a luxurious suite to a hotel on the brink of falling apart; i think most people would be a little disappointed 🙏🙏 he’s not a bad guy i promise

[ networks . . . ] @cromernet @wonderlandnet

[ taglist | series + permanent . . . ] @yuyusuyu @diorwoo @loveyluv7 @ad0rechuu @h-nji @nakiiko @lelaleleb @moon-gyus @baribaaari @bvidzsoo @kunikku @kyeos4ng @sankatchu @mlink64 @yeosangsbbg @seonghwasbbgirl @likexaxdaydream @dreamingofyeo

#★ — › EYES DON'T LIE !#cromernet #wonderlandnet #yunho x reader #yunho imagines #yunho reactions #yunho angst #yunho scenarios #yunho headcanons #ateez x reader #ateez #ateez drabble #yunho drabble #yunho fluff #ateez fluff #ateez reactions #ateez imagines #ateez fanfic #ateez angst

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captain-joongz · 10 months ago

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Abraxas; Masterlist

Pairing: mafia boss!Min Yoongi x police office!reader

Genre: humour, angst, investigation themes, dark themes, enemies to lovers, slowburn, eventual smut, some fluff

Summary: My downfall ended up being a story in three acts. The introduction, the seduction, the damnation.

Or; Young and fresh out of police academy, I set out to take down one of the biggest gangs in Seoul. I didn't expect the whirlwind my life would become after meeting the one and only Min Yoongi. Caught between two worlds, it was hard to say whether I was pulled down or returned where I always belonged.

Current word count: cca 78k

Warnings: dark themes, talks of illegal activities, murder, sexism in the workplace, brief reader x OC, eventual smut, innacurate description of police work, some slight stalking (reader tailing Yoongi), each individual chapter will have its own warnings

A/N: welcome to my new and very first series! I will attempt to update this every month, so it's done quicker. Hope you enjoy your reading, don't be shy and feel free to interact!

Taglist is open! Let me know if you wanna be added ^^

Act 1;

Ch. 1 | Interlude I. | Ch. 2.1 | Ch. 2.2 | Ch. 3.1 | Ch. 3.2 | Interlude II. | Ch. 4 | Interlude III.

"That which is spoken by God-the-Sun is life; that which is spoken by the Devil is death; Abraxas speaketh that hallowed and accursed word, which is life and death at the same time. Abraxas begetteth truth and lying, good and evil, light and darkness in the same word and in the same act. Wherefore is Abraxas terrible."

- 3rd sermon, Seven Sermons to the Dead, Carl Jung

The First Companion | An Old Friend | Boy Warrior |

Act 2;

TBA

"The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas."

- Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth, Hermann Hesse

The Prodigal Son | Enemy of an Enemy is a Friend | The Golden Maknae |

Act 3;

TBA

"It is splendid as the lion in the instant he striketh down his victim. It is beautiful as a day of spring. It is the great Pan himself and also the small one. It is Priapos.

It is the monster of the under-world, a thousand-armed polyp, coiled knot of winged serpents, frenzy.

It is abundance that seeketh union with emptiness. It is holy begetting. It is love and love’s murder. It is the saint and his betrayer. It is the brightest light of day and the darkest night of madness.

To look upon it, is blindness. To know it, is sickness. To worship it, is death. To fear it, is wisdom. To resist it not, is redemption.

It is the delight of the earth and the cruelty of the heavens. Before it there is no question and no reply.

That is the terrible Abraxas."

- 3rd sermon, Seven Sermons to the Dead, Carl Jung

Epilogue

#bts fic #bts x reader #bts fluff #bts angst #bts smut #yoongi fic #yoongi x reader #yoongi smut #yoongi angst #yoongi fluff #min yoongi fic #min yoongi x reader #min yoongi smut #min yoongi fluff #min yoongi angst #bts mafia au #yoongi mafia au #abraxas series

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banjjakz · 1 year ago

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serial bereavement ; yuuta x gn/f!reader

Every first Thursday for the past six months, without fail, a single plot of ashes has been unlawfully exhumed from the cemetery behind Joenji Temple.

Or: As a rookie hire, you are partnered with Investigations Section 1 Officer Okkotsu Yuuta to investigate a law-defying, bone-chilling, uniquely disturbing case of obsessive love that threatens to shut down the entirety of Shinjuku.

part i. word count: 5.2k

warnings: rating & warnings WILL change; part i of iii; reader is referred to with she/her pronouns & has a vagina & breasts, but is never addressed with gendered titles [e.g.: "ms.," "lady," etc.]; eventual smut that is dubcon at best; horror-romance, in that order; themes of psychosexual horror; side satosugu [non-essential to plot]; i cannot overstate how abnormal this one is, even for me

the content of this fictional work is inspired by the video game "collar x malice" which belongs to the original rightful owners. i do not own or claim to own the rights to the collar x malice franchise. this written work does not represent the intentions, actions, or thoughts of any of the creators/owners of the "collar x malice" franchise.

‪♡‬ read on ao3 ‪♡‬

likes♡ / reblogs ↻ appreciated!

Every first Thursday for the past six months, without fail, a single plot of ashes has been unlawfully exhumed from the cemetery behind Joenji Temple.

The first incident was thought to be a freak accident, one of those strange, wild card crimes that confound local police and commandeer national attention. Pictures of the desecrated grave ravaged internet forums for weeks thereafter, sending chills down the backs of even the most stoutly atheist Japanese youth. An already horrific occurrence worsened all the more with the repeated presence of a seemingly random signature: there, at the bottom of the grave, in the very deepest point of the aged, black soil, laid a folded handwritten note. Upon unfurling the crisp creases, the Shinjuku Police Force Special Crimes Unit discovered that these were actually letters.

Love letters, to be exact.

Presumably penned by the perp, the characters were neat and clean – almost feminine in nature. So strong was the desire imbued into these letters that it seemed as though each individual brush stroke contained one thousand sonnets of unceasing, burning ardor. Clearly, the perpetrator yearned for the attention of their beloved.

That they would go to great lengths – immoral lengths, even – for just a three-minute story on the evening news, all so that their beloved might idly overhear the report as they prepare their dinner, idly chopping radishes to the soundtrack of a violent confession woefully fallen upon their deaf ears…

Well. It makes you squirm. You suppose that’s the point.

As a fresh-faced rookie of the Special Regions Crime Prevention Office, this is your first time on the job in the midst of such a sensational case. At first, your department was unsure how to label these crimes: neither killings nor injuries were incurred, and yet, the spiritual damage effected by the robbing of a Buddhist shrine’s graveyard was somehow worse than any brutal homicide. Eventually, the commissioner labeled these incidents as “Serial Bereavements” out of respect to the families whose deceased loved ones had been wrongfully removed from their final resting place.

After the first offense, local news stations reported the anomalous crime with a sick sort of fascination. Lovesickness was no foreigner in Japan, and although many screwed their faces up at the morbid displays of affection, so too did just as many turn up the volume on their televisions and lean just a few centimeters closer, eyes glazed with blue light, horror, mortification, and arousal.

After the second and third offenses, it was obvious that a pattern was beginning to emerge. Both incidents occurred on the first Thursday of the month, and both incidents were signed with the same achingly forlorn pages of desperation. In fear of exacerbating the perpetrator, or inspiring copycats, news stations and publications were not permitted to release the contents of the letters.

After the fourth offense, protests began to congregate outside of the Shinjuku Police Station, demanding an immediate and swift correction of the police’s incompetency in addressing the issue. When the first set of ashes had been disturbed, cherry blossoms still clung to the trees. By this time it was July, and the harsh glare of the summer sun beat unrelentingly upon the earth, as though reprimanding its inhabitants.

After the fifth offense, a special curfew was instated for all residents of the Shinjuku ward. No persons for any reason were to be out past eleven o’clock at night. This was punishable by immediate apprehension for questioning. The law was martial, but the law was necessary. Or so the commissioner claimed.

After the sixth offense, the police began looking inwardly, suspecting members of its own ranks. There was no possible way that a civilian could have been able to penetrate the immense security measures installed to secure the Joenji cemetery. Ropes and ropes of caution tape, nearly 24/7 surveillance, and daily K-9 rounds were still not enough to halt the perpetrator in their tracks. This could only mean one thing:

An inside job.

“Scary,” shivers Ieiri, mockingly, lips curled in a sardonic smirk around the length of her unlit cigarette. “You hear they think it’s one of us?”

You regularly have lunch with Ieiri Shoko, director of the Forensics department. She is as caustic as she is jaded, having served in an underrecognized role for far too long, wasting her prolific talents in an obscure government position with little excitement – save for, of course, highly-charged periods of reoccurring atrocities, such as the current case of the Serial Bereavements.

“Don’t even joke. We should be taking this seriously…”

The cooling September breeze has you huddling into your knees a little further. Enjoying lunch on the rooftop was a treat while it was still summer. But now, September has just torn a new page in your calendar and has brought with it an uncharacteristically crisp cold snap. It is Tuesday, the second.

“I’m sooooo serious,” Ieiri says after taking a rather dramatically prolonged drag from the now-lit cig. “Couldn’t be any more serious. Brr.”

Usually, Ieiri’s dry humor is an effective, if transient, salve to your ever-festering anxiety. But today is an exception.

“Please, just think about it for a second... To think that any one of the people we work with every day could be committing such heinous crimes…and for a romantic obsession, no less…it doesn’t frighten you?”

Ieiri exhales smoke, puffing lazily like a sated dragon draped over its hoard. “Nah. I seriously doubt anyone in our ward has the balls.”

Her vulgarity makes you blush. You’ve always been easy to fluster. “Ieiri-san!”

“How many times have I told you to just call me by my first name… jeez.” She ruffles your hair without even an ounce of care for how it makes you groan in consternation. “Too polite for your own good. Someone is going to take advantage of that, one day. And then where will you be? Calling for Ieiri-san to come save you?”

Somewhere, she’s strayed from the path of lighthearted teasing. You still under the weight of her calloused palm, peering curiously up at her through your lashes. “Um…well…”

And as soon as her touch had manifested upon you, just as quickly is it yanked away. “Anyways, call me whatever you like. Not like it matters, anyway.”

“I guess not…”

The rest of your lunch is finished in an unstable silence. Her final, rhetorical question rolls around in your mind, impressing itself upon your malleable brain tissue: Calling for Ieiri-san to save you?

But when would you need saving?

You’re a police officer, after all. You can take care of yourself.

If you couldn’t, why would you serve as an officer in the first place?

;

On the following Monday – the third of September – the director of the Investigations Unit summons you to the fifth floor.

After a polite (terrified) bow, you enter Investigations HQ. “Hello.” Please do not fire me. Please do not transfer me. Please do not publicly reprimand me. Please do not—

“Ah, thank you for coming. Wow, what a deep bow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a perfectly geometrical ninety degrees.”

Face burning, you avert your gaze to the marble floor. “Ummm…”

You’ve heard that the chief of Investigations, Gojo Satoru was an eccentric fellow, passing in and out as he pleased through the station, hanging off of the director like a second skin. It should come as no surprise that he is here to greet you, today. And yet, still does your thin skin prickle with humiliation, with shame.

Geto Suguru, director of Investigations, cuts in before his partner can continue. “Leave her alone, Satoru. She’s shaking. Are you doing alright today, officer?”

Embarrassed, you nod. Great. It hasn’t even been a full sixty seconds and you’re already embarrassing yourself in front of your superiors.

“Alright, alright. I’ll lay off. Only ‘cuz you asked, though! Hehe.”

“I’ve summoned you today to invite you to join a special taskforce,” Geto continues, unperturbed by Gojo’s wily eyebrow wiggles. “This taskforce will use unique means to investigate the Joenji Serial Bereavements.”

Your blood is paralyzed in your veins, cowed by the enormity of this proposal. “Sir…?”

“In the short amount of time since you’ve joined the Shinjuku Police Department, your conduct has been nothing but outstanding. You’re capable and damn impressive. And frankly speaking, officer, we need a fresh set of eyes on this case.”

There’s nothing else you could possibly say other than: “I would be humbled to join. Thank you.”

“Great, knew we could count on you. We’re keeping the taskforce small for confidentiality’s sake. You’ll be working with one other partner: Officer Okkotsu Yuuta from Investigations Section 1.”

That name… why do you know that name?

Then it hits you: Okkotsu Yuuta is the name whispered through the halls of the police department with awe, envy, admiration, and – occasionally – fear. He is a legendary detective with prowess in both tactical as well as strategical measures. His presence is felt rather than seen, as he is scarcely spotted within the physical walls of the department. However, what does not tangibly appear is nonetheless ever-present in whispered rumors and glamorized notoriety.

“O-Okkotsu-san…” you stammer, taken aback. “But…I’m sorry, sir. I don’t mean to question your judgement, but why have I been chosen to pair with Okkotsu-san?”

“Oh! He specifically requested—”

Gojo’s cheerful sentence is curtailed by a swift elbow to the ribs. While he recovers, Geto finishes the thought, “Okkotsu has requested to be paired with a rookie for this assignment to personally train them. Something about ‘personally ensuring the longevity of the Shinjuku police force,’ or the like. What a do-gooder, am I right?”

“Okay,” you respond, uncertain.

“Your first matter of business will be a visitation to the Joenji graveyard to look for any new leads. You leave in one hour. Okkotsu will meet you downstairs, in front of the building. Good luck!”

In a daze, you bow deeply once more. “Thank you. I will be sure to work hard.”

;

Unsure of what to expect, you linger in front of the armed entrance to the building, trying your best not to shift your weight from foot to foot in an obviously apparent display of anxiety.

It’s not that you’re the type to be starstruck! You are a sensible, no-nonsense, down-to-earth person. Celebrities have never appealed to you much, and idol culture continues to confound you.

In light of this, it’s quite difficult to explain the visceral, full-body reaction you have when you meet Officer Okkotsu Yuuta for the first time.

He is not superbly handsome. Good-looking enough to get street-casted? Sure. With some minor work, he might even be the jewel visual for an up-and-coming boy group. Young and fit, he is the picture of an officer steadily approaching the peak of their hotshot years. Plain, dark hair falls on either side of his forehead in a lopsided part, and his uniform is buttoned and put together, if only a little wrinkled. All in all, he is an average, considerably attractive young man in the Shinjuku police force.

And yet.

Eyes like pools of obsidian tether you to the spot like a spell has been cast upon your bones. Enchanted, your lips part, but no sounds slips through. The intrusive, overstimulating soundtrack of Shinjuku rush hour traffic fades to little more than background noise as your senses are held hostage by the void of quiet, negative space in the shape of a young man that stands in front of you.

His bow is deep and overly formal. He’s technically your superior… and definitely a senior-ranking officer. “A pleasure to meet you,” he announces to the concrete ground “I’m Okkotsu Yuuta, Investigations Section 1.”

“N-nice to meet you, Okkotsu-senpai. My name is—”

The cringe marring his otherwise untroubled face stops your words before his interjection is even voiced. “Ah, um. Just ‘Okkotsu’ is fine. We look to be around the same age, too, so I don’t mind. May I address you casually as well?”

Face burning, brain scrambled, you somehow remember how to speak. You give him an affirmative before pausing, perplexed. How did he know your name already?

Okkotsu specifically requested to be paired with a rookie…

Geto’s words float to the forefront of your mind, soothing your hummingbird heart. Surely, the director and chief of Investigations must have briefed Okkotsu on your file before you were cleared to accompany him on this special taskforce.

Normally, you are woefully naïve, a bumbling but well-intentioned junior officer. The unsettling nature of the Serial Bereavements have pushed you towards an edge you didn’t even know you could reach.

The thought of the assignment weighs down your fresh-faced bashfulness. Suddenly, the afternoon sun is less bright, the heat on your face concentrating into the precursor to a migraine just behind your eyes.

Okkotsu blinks once, twice. “Thank you for working with me on this case. Would you believe me if I told you that I’m a bit of a scaredy cat?”

Your eyes bug out of your head in disbelief. “Um? But you…” His reputation specifically includes the highest number of skillful takedowns, arrest totals, and successful confessions across the entire prefecture. A scaredy cat?

“I know how it looks. It would be quite embarrassing if anyone else knew… but I’m a pretty anxious person.”

With a refocused perspective, your gaze hones in on the smattering of purple bruises underneath his tired eyes which birth a cool webbing of veins sprawling down and out across his pale, gaunt face. You realize that his uniform isn’t actually wrinkled – it just hangs off of his thin frame, tucked intentionally to give off the illusion of a much bigger silhouette.

In him, you see a reflection all too similar: young, ragged, hungry, scared.

It’s not enough to set you completely at ease, but your lungs relax their hold on your bated breath, letting it go as slowly and reluctantly as a child forced to part with their favorite plush toy. “Me too,” you hum. “Um, nonetheless, I will definitely try my best to be helpful. I hope I will not slow you down Okkotsu-se—er, Okkotsu.”

“It’s not about fast or slow.” The service car pulls up and loiters at the curb where the two of you are still lingering. He opens the back door for you. This is the first time a polite young man your age has done that. You try your best to remember that you are literally at work, on the clock, about to investigate an especially morbid case.

Once ensuring you’re comfortably inside, he shuts the door and rounds the rear of the vehicle to slide into the leather seat next to you.

“What matters is that we can rely on each other. Fast or slow, we’re partners now… as long as we finish together, it doesn’t matter the pace.”

He rattles off the address to the department driver after dropping what is possibly the most insightful reassurance you have ever received in your life.

Okay. You can kind of understand why the entire department is obsessed with him.

“R-right. Thank you.”

The rest of the ride is spent in a silence two shades off from comfortable. Nothing is wrong, per se – but the both of your negative energies linger and interact with each other like animals of the same species encountering for the first time.

How odd, you think, to find someone like you, and who is unashamed – eager, even – to admit it. To embrace it.

;

The cemetery is small and would otherwise go unnoticed if not for the dramatic influx in attention following the past few months. Plain and unadorned, neatly kept, with no ostentatious monuments or memorials, as is befitting for the burial grounds behind a Buddhist temple. All in all, the scenery would be somewhat peaceful if not for the six disturbed plots of land where remains were once laid to rest.

This is your first time at the scene of the crime. Your rank is too low to justify visiting this high-profile area without clearance from a supervisor. Now that you’ve been assigned to a taskforce specifically investigating this case, it was necessary that Yuuta took you to observe the scene yourself.

Although there is a total lack of gore or rot, still does the sight of six empty graves provoke within you an acute revulsion. Perhaps it is the absence of any overt suffering, and the oppressing knowledge of the extended waves of unearthed grief spanning across multiple kin networks who must now lose their loved one a second time – this is what inspires the damp, fragile sheen pooling at your waterline.

“Hey,” calls a soft, gentle voice. Yuuta’s timid wave brings you back from your wallowing. “Before we left, I grabbed the letters from forensics. Thought it might be helpful to have while we re-assess the scene.”

Something he’d done entirely for your benefit. Conscious of your lack of experience with the case, you incline your head, grateful. It’s almost as though your gratitude makes him uncomfortable. He averts his gaze and hands over a collection of six plastic-encased papers. Despite their origins within deep, aged earth, each one is pristine.

Steeling yourself, you read February’s letter, the origin of chaos:

My Dearly Beloved,

Did you know that not even the moon and all her stars, nor the sun and all his days, burn as brightly as my heart does for you? There is a certain privilege that I have been blessed with in this lifetime: the privilege to admire you from afar while passing through your stratosphere when it is convenient.

But, unlike you, I am a flawed and impure creature. I am greedy. Each morning, I wake up with a hunger to do more than watch. I want to draw you near to my side. I want to feel your flesh. I want to know what your innards taste like. I want to bathe in your desire. I want to carve myself into your being, forever and ever and ever, so that in the next life, you will be born missing me.

Please look at me. I love you so terribly it defies the laws of life and death. You’ve awoken something within me. I hope you’ll take responsibility.

Nauseous, you shift the letter to the bottom of the pile, hands shaking, head spinning.

“How disturbing…” you can’t stop the words from leaving you, unbidden. “How can someone desire another person in such a way that it permits violence?”

Okkotsu studies you closely. “Do you really feel that way?”

Alarm coils like a snake cornered in the pit of your gut. Sharply, you snap your gaze to his still, calm face. As pallid and pockmarked with depression as the moon herself. “Excuse me?”

“Are you truly disgusted by this kind of love?”

Fighting to ignore your fight-or-flight response, you answer: “I don’t consider this to be love.”

Peculiarly, his face breaks out into a smile, clearing away the lingering cloudy expression. “And that’s why I’m glad we’re partners. I knew you’d have the right idea about this.”

“Most people condemn this crime…”

“But too many sympathize with a false motive,” he volleys back, dark eyes glinting with a strange intensity. “This isn’t a crime of ‘love.’ The perp doesn’t act out of affection. They want to own, subdue, and take what is not theirs. How is that love?”

“Exactly,” you affirm. “To be honest, those connections have always kind of unsettled me…even in shows, or books, or games, I could never look at the obsessive type.”

“Scary, aren’t they?”

This isn’t just a work case for him, you belatedly realize. His tense posture, his imploring eyes, his specification of partner – this is personal. Something about these occurrences strikes a chord deep inside of him, resonating so profoundly that it would not be enough to watch another resolve these crimes; no, Okkotsu is compelled to eradicate the danger completely, uprooting it from the source, destroying the danger with his bare hands, watching it dissipate with his own eyes.

“Mm. I’m glad we’re working on this case together, Okkotsu.”

He offers a small, benign quirk of the lips. “Me too.”

Your partnership progresses steadily from this first encounter.

Most of your daily duties are now fulfilled off-site, accompanying Okkotsu to various locations of interest, following potential leads, and occasionally conducting interviews. It’s been merely two days since the taskforce has been formed, and yet, you’ve been so preoccupied with your new assignment that it completely slips your mind to alert Shoko as to why you’ve been absent from your regular rooftop lunch dates.

You are mortified to open an aggrieved SMS from her on Wednesday morning:

Ieiri-san 08:15Oi. Are you dead

Me 08:16 Ahhhh!! I’m so sorry!!!! A new assignment is taking up a lot of my time. I apologize for not communicating. And for missing lunch. We can eat together today? I can bring you something? Whatever you like! I can make it!

Ieiri-san 08:20 Nah, none of that You’re probably overworking yourself already. No need for extra labor Just meet me on rooftop @ usual time

Me 08:21 Absolutely!!

It is surprisingly difficult to tear yourself from Yuuta’s side, as the two of you have been practically glued together from sunrise to sundown ever since embarking on the special assignment. He is reluctant to let you slip away for lunch, and as a result, you linger past a reasonable time to reassure him that you will be back on time.

When you are finally able to break away from Investigations HQ, you check the time on your phone only to realize that noon has rounded the corner with unanticipated haste. Hurriedly, you make your way to the seventh level of the police station building, embarrassingly conscious of your damp forehead and rapid breath.

“Sorry I’m late!!” Bursting through the metal door, you explode onto the rooftop, cloth-wrapped bento in one hand, and your furiously beating heart in the other.

It’s almost comical, how serene Ieiri looks, unbothered as ever as she leans against the railing with her trademark cigarette weaving in between her restless fingers. “Took you long enough. Been waiting for two days, now.”

“Ahhhh…”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding. You look like you’re about to piss your pants. C’mere.”

Face in flames, you stride over to pop a squat next to her. “I really do apologize, Ieiri-san. These last couple of days have been really hectic…”

“How so? You mentioned a new assignment. When did that happen?”

“Hmm, I’m not sure if I can talk about it…Investigations personally assigned me…um, not to be impolite or brag or anything! Just, I think it’s a little sensitive in nature, so—”

“Investigations?” She cuts you off, her dull timbre unusually sharp. “You mean those two idiots asked you to handle a highly classified criminal case? During your first quarter? By yourself?”

“Ah!! Geto-senpai and Gojo-senpai are quite eccentric, but they are very nice--!”

“No, they are not—”

“—and I’m not by myself! I’m partnered with Okkotsu Yuuta!”

If you weren’t such an anxious person who is well-practiced in the art of overanalyzing the countenance of others, you would surely have missed the way Ieiri’s eyes widen imperceptibly, the way her breath stutters on the next exhalation. She does not look at you for a beat. Two beats. She stares straight ahead at the exterior of the building when asks,

“You’re investigating the Serial Bereavement cases.”

“Ieiri-san…” you whine, head in your hands. “I’m, like, ninety percent sure no one else is supposed to know…”

“What, don’t trust me? Not like I have any friends around here to tell.”

“That’s, well. That’s not the point. Okkotsu mentioned that this was a sensitive matter, so…”

“Just ‘Okkotsu,’ huh?” She peers sideways at you. “No ‘senpai’? Wow, you two sure got comfortable fast.”

“No, please don’t misunderstand! Because honorifics make him uncomfortable, he asked that we speak casually!”

“I asked you the same.”

Her blunt response stuns you silent. It takes you several seconds to produce a response. “Well, yes. But that’s different…Ieiri-san is older…”

“Not by much.” Finally, she lights the cig in her hand. “Hey, let me ask you something.”

“Okay, please go ahead.”

“It was Investigations who put you on the case? Nobody else was involved?”

Hesitation halts your tongue. Mentally, you are transported back to that fateful day, just a little less than forty-eight hours ago, when your new assignment had been unloaded upon you.

“…I’m sorry, sir. I don’t mean to question your judgement, but why have I been chosen to pair with Okkotsu-san?”

“Oh! He specifically requested—”

Gojo was never able to finish his sentence, cut off by Geto’s strategically timed blow. Almost as though the chief was about to reveal something better left unsaid.

You may be a rookie, but you aren’t stupid. There’s a reason why you got this job, after all.

And if you can deduce this much, surely the next conclusion you land on isn’t so far-fetched:

Okkotsu must have personally requested you as a partner.

But the question is…why? You hadn’t been personally acquainted before you’d met outside of the station before heading to your first investigation together. He’s been nothing but kind and respectful – if a little unsettlingly intense, at times, but you think that’s just kind of how he is.

There must be an element that you’re missing from the equation, a piece of the puzzle of which you are not yet aware. It is for this uncertainty that you choose to disclose the truth to Ieiri.

“Okkotsu requested me as his partner.”

Obviously, she asked you for this information because something was dependent upon how you answered. Studying Ieiri’s reaction might be the first step towards unraveling this strange situation.

And react, indeed she does; again, it is quite muted, eroded by years of police work and other unspoken traumas you’re sure lie dormant inside of her mysterious, impenetrable depths. But perhaps it is because of your friendship that Ieiri’s micro-expressions appear to you more as the dramatic admission of feeling that they truly are.

A twitch of the brow, a purse of the lips. Her next exhalation of smoke comes fast and hard, expelled from her mouth in one decisive whoosh of toxic air. Usually, she pays special attention to the wind pattern so that she does not blow smoke in your face. It seems she’s thoroughly perturbed today; the fumes whip you across the cheek and you hack violently in surprise.

Your adverse response snaps her out of the momentary brooding. “Shit, sorry,” she mumbles, quickly removing the cig from her lips and smothering it on the ground. “You alright?”

“J-just fine,” you murmur after one final bout of ear-splitting dry heaves. “Can I ask you a question, now?”

“Shoot.”

“Is it a bad thing that Okkotsu and I are partners?”

Visibly, Ieiri must chew and swallow her initial retort. This is quite unprecedented behavior from the woman with little to no filter on any given occasion. “How are you finding it so far?”

“Well…he’s really considerate. And accommodating. Um, he even revisited the crime scene with me since I’d never been, and he let me read all the letters, too.”

“That’s funny,” says Ieiri, stone-faced. “How did he show you the letters?”

“He said he picked them up from the station before we left. I was quite surprised that he went through all the trouble of doing that, since those kinds of sensitive evidence usually aren’t allowed to leave Forensics…”

“You’re absolutely right. They aren’t.”

“Ah…Okkotsu must have special clearance…?”

“He doesn’t,” Ieiri deadpans.

“…I see…”

Her hands twitch at her sides like she’s itching for another smoke, even though the carcass of her most recent stick still smolders underneath the dagger of her high heel. “Well. You can do whatever you want with Okkotsu. Sounds like you’re in capable, dedicated hands.”

“Huh? Ieiri-san, wh—wait, where are you going--?!”

But before you can finish your panicked inquiry, Ieiri has already blown through the metal door, stomping her way back downstairs to the sixth floor where the Forensics Department awaits her gloomy presence. It’s unlike her to storm off mid-conversation. You’ve never seen her emotions rise above slight annoyance – and that level of frustration is reserved exclusively for the Investigations chief and director. What had you done to provoke even worse of an ire?

Riddled with guilt and anxiety, you wade through the rest of the workday in a foggy, unfocused haze. Okkotsu gives up trying to ask you what is wrong after his third attempt. When you eventually, mercifully fall into bed that night, unshed tears overflow past your clenched, trembling lashes, staining your pillow with sorrows you cannot speak aloud.

Upon waking up, you are granted no reprieve. It is Thursday, the sixth of September. The first Thursday of the month.

You don’t bother with something as trivial as breakfast this morning – not when the thought of what awaits you in the day ahead fills you to the brim with unbearable dread.

Arriving at the police station and getting briefed on the day’s events only confirms your worst fears: there has been another Bereavement at the Joenji graveyard.

This month’s occurrence is twistedly unique.

Accompanying the usual handwritten letter is a fresh, human heart, so red and wet, glistening with fresh gore, that it almost appears to be beating through the still stock photos taken by Field Operations upon first discovery.

Due to your increased status, you are granted clearance to read this month’s note before any other department can get to it. Ieiri is absent from the Forensics office when you rush off the elevator to the sixth floor. One of the interns retrieves the file for you, and you are equal parts eager and terrified to scan its plastic-encased contents.

My Dearly Beloved,

Aimless admiration has thus far sated my yearning soul. Seeing you eat well every day fills my spirit with a sense of completion. I am at ease to watch over you and ensure your wellbeing. But there has been a disturbance. I can feel your increased awareness, like a child opening its eyes to the world for the first time. Coupled with this awareness is a newfound distance between us. Things were going so well. Why now? Why pull away? This can’t be because of me. It must be someone else.

I think I know who.

What must I do to regain your undivided attention? How can I reclaim your primary affections? To experience even an inch of separation, a millimeter of remove, is for my body to undergo countless agonizing deaths.

Will you pay attention to me?

Will you notice me?

Will you choose me?

Look at me.

I serve my beating heart up on a platter just so that your gaze might befall it for the barest of breaths.

Recent events have shown me that I cannot stand idly by any longer while others sneakily and deliberately encroach on our relationship. I’m getting restless. I’ve been waiting quite patiently. Are you as antsy as I am? Soon, you’ll know me as all that I am.

I miss you. I see you every day and I miss you. Come back to me.

Before it’s too late.

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