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inmephistophelesvents · 11 months ago

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An Artist’s eye-Ryoshu/Hong Lu(Horror)

Summary: Ryoshu had always had an eye for things she found beautiful, so it was no surprise she took an interest in the blue eye that was nestled in Hong Lu's left eye socket.

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The scent of cigarette smoke hung heavy in the air, so thick and heavy Hong Lu could practically taste it on his tongue. No matter how much Hong Lu had visited this room nor how much he smelt it the scent always seemed far too harsh for his nose.

He squeezes his eyes shut as a hand firmly grips his chin and a glass cup is brought to his lips, a bitter poisonous taste not so dissimilar to floor cleaner coats his mouth. The first swallow leaves a harsh stinging burn dancing along his mouth and throat like pure fire.

So it’s no surprise when he begins coughing harshly, a sharp sting burning his airways as tears spring into his eyes. The cup disappears from his mouth as he continues coughing, a noise of irritation comes from the person who’d been holding the cup to his lips, a soft tch noise.

That hand that’d been gripping his chin firmly turns rough, painful. Slender, calloused fingers practically digging into his jaw as his face is wretched up, meeting sharp red eyes set in a glare.

Ryoshu scowled in distaste and annoyance, her lips twisted around the cigarette in her mouth. She takes a long drag and Hong Lu’s eyes slowly trace along it watching through slightly blurry vision as the paper turns to ash burning up to nothing. She lowers the cigarette from her lips and exhales softly, the thick smoke blown into Hong Lu’s face.

The effect is immediate with Hong Lu coughing once more as that heavy rich scent dances along his airways. Stealing the air from his lungs.

And yet the grip on his face doesn’t loosen even slightly. “Waste another drop and it’ll be your blood spilled on the floor.”

When Hong Lu doesn’t answer right away the grip on his face tightens painfully, and he can’t help but think he hears his jaw creak ever so slightly.

“D. Y. U.”

Hong Lu manages a small nod as he does his best to blink away the tears in his eyes, his slightly muddled mind managing to work out the woman’s acronym.

He wants to point out that she has already spilled his blood more than once, and that she’ll spill his blood once more soon but he doesn’t instead he looks up at Ryoshu from his spot on the wooden chair.

At the moment they were in her room aboard Mephistopheles, following their usual ritual each week. Hong Lu sat on a wooden chair, wrists bound tightly behind his back with a vibrant red rope twisted and tied in oddly beautiful knots.

The soft white glow of the moonlight illuminated the room, something that was odd to Hong Lu even in his own room considering they were aboard a bus. Although considering things he had a feeling that answer would forever allude him.

Ryoshu was in front of him, half standing and half kneeling one of her legs drawn up and resting between Hong Lu’s legs on the wooden chair as she leaned over him. Even though the two of them were the same height it almost felt as if she were towering over him.

“You people drink this,” Hong Lu exclaimed in alarm as well as confusion. It was the first time the woman had given him anything before starting her usual work, so Hong Lu had been rather surprised and curious when the woman had held a glass of copper-colored liquor that smelt strongly of medical rubbing alcohol to his lips.

When he’d asked what it was and she simply said liquor. Hong Lu however had never had any alcohol that tasted or even smelled like this. He’d had the world's finest wines created only once every hundred years and given a boost with K Corps medical technology to ensure longevity even when opened.

And yet despite that never once had he tasted liquor that was made from what seemed to be a mix of kerosene, rubbing alcohol, and brown food coloring at least from what Hong Lu could guess.

A soft snort of amusement leaves Ryoshu’s mouth, a slight smirk tugging at her lips. “A delicate tongue may as well be left to rot,” she told him as her grip on his face loosened for a moment.

She cups his cheek for a moment, her thumb oddly gentle as she brushes it beneath his blue eye brushing away some of the tears there. If it had been another sinner, maybe Rodion or Gregor, maybe the actions would seem warm, comforting, and sweet; however having been through this a few times now, Hong Lu knows what she’s truly doing.

Appraising him.

“Up,” she orders and Hong Lu follows them silently, his eyes looking upward into her own. Her gaze is incredibly critical, and harsh as they search for any imperfections.

Her expression is rather neutral despite that, the cigarette dangling from her lips filling the air between them with the scent of rich heady smoke. The room is quiet save for their soft breathing, Ryoshu’s is calm and faint while Hong Lu’s carries a slight rasp to it from his coughing fit.

Hong Lu can’t help but stare into those red eyes looking at him so critically, so seriously as if he were a piece of artwork to be appraised or destroyed at the artist’s discretion, and truthfully to Ryoshu he was.

Her calloused thumb traces carefully along the area just beneath Hong Lu’s eye with a foreign gentleness that she usually didn’t carry, a harsh world produced even harsher people after all.

Hong Lu finds himself glancing away more out of reflex and habit than anything when she uses her thumb to pull down his lower eyelid but her words have his gaze snapping back to her as if locking on to her.

“L.A.M.”

Another acronym, this one easier to figure out than the last, ‘Look at me’, and just like the last one of ‘Do you understand’ Hong Lu complies with the order.

Ryoshu murmurs something he can’t hear despite their proximity before she pinches Hong Lu’s top eyelid between her fingers, it is at this moment that Hong Lu can feel it, the warm almost buzzing sensation of the alcohol in his veins springing to life.

It's strangely warm, comforting in a weird way despite the fact that it sets his veins alight like a fire to dry brush. When he grimaces he hears another soft snort leave Ryoshu’s mouth, and as his eyes look up at the woman once more he isn’t surprised at the look he sees in her gaze.

And Hong Lu recalls seeing the look once or twice on his brother’s face, right before he ripped the wings off of a few moths he’d captured because he could.

It was a gaze that never failed to send a strange sensation of fear dancing along his skin like needles of ice. His heart feeling as if it were suddenly in his throat, clogging it and causing it to ache. Truthfully it reminded Hong Lu faintly of the few times he’d been poisoned in the past both before he joined the Limbus Company as well as after when dealing with and suppressing abnormalities.

Each breath he takes seems to send fire dancing along his throat and swirling in his lungs, Hong Lu grits his teeth as Ryoshu releases his top eyelid, her hand returning to his chin, her expression neutral despite the pain clearly twisting at his features.

Her gaze carried that same morbid amusement and glee that had cold fear chasing the burning sting in his veins, but also something else as well.

Hong Lu swallows and thinks he can taste iron faintly in the back of his throat, the scent of it filling his nose alongside the sharp near scent of cigarette smoke and ash. Something warm trickles from his mouth and Hong Lu nearly jumps when Ryoshu’s thumb brushes over the corner of his mouth.

He can’t help but watch slightly mesmerized when she pulls her thumb back revealing a slight smear of red sitting on it which she brings to her mouth. The red smear disappears with a quick lick of her tongue, and Ryoshu gives a soft hum closing her eyes as if appraising his blood as well.

A soft chuckle leaves her mouth after a moment or so before she turns to look at him once more. “Burns right,” she asked despite knowing the obvious, clearly wanting to hear the answer from his own lips.

Hong Lu opened his mouth but closed it when more blood seemed to fill his throat, instead settling for a quick nod.

Which has a rather loud yet clearly amused chuckle leaving Ryoshu’s mouth, almost bordering on a low laugh before she turns grabbing the nearly finished glass of liquor, bringing it to Hong Lu’s lips once more.

“Drink then.”

It’s painful truthfully the alcohol stinging and burning his throat as if it were tearing it open, tears gathering in Hong Lu’s eyes as he sips at the liquid.

Bitter poison mixed with the heavy taste of iron coating his mouth and throat, this time he has the faint thought that it tastes slightly sweet in its own way.

There are no threats this time when more of the liquor spills from the corners of Hong Lu’s lips mixing with the blood as it trickles from his lips.

The mess of red and copper moves slowly and Ryoshu watches it glimmer like jewels beneath the moonlight before it drips onto the floor.

As Hong Lu drains the glass with one final sip he can’t help but notice a strange numbness spreading throughout his body, and yet despite that the burn remains intact in his lungs.

He slumps forward, blood and liquor dripping from his mouth onto his lap as Ryoshu draws back for a moment.

Each breath Hong Lu takes has him feeling as if the smell of cigarette smoke were tearing into his lungs allowing the heavy iron scent of his own blood to fill the air.

The rest of his body is numb though, the pins and needles dancing along every inch of his skin before slowly fading away leaving cold stillness in their wake.

If Hong Lu could have truthfully he would’ve been shivering, curling in on himself as a chill seemed to worm its way through his veins deep into his bones, and yet the heat in his lungs remains although it does little to keep him warm.

All he can do is sit there, paralyzed watching his blood drip lazily onto his lap and carpet, his vision blurry focusing and defocusing much like a camera.

It isn’t long before Ryoshu returns, this time though she cups his cheeks tilting his face up and Hong Lu’s body follows limp and listless. His harsh labored breathing filling the air between them.

At first, he thinks Ryoshu is about to start her usual work, expecting the sight of a knife or scalpel at his blue eye, but instead, the woman leans forward a bit, her tongue darting out to lick the blood and alcohol at the corner of his mouth. A satisfied hum leaving her mouth as she savored the taste for a moment.

However, unlike Hong Lu, she remained unaffected by the seemingly tainted alcohol. Maybe she truly was a monster.

A smirk twists at her lips, glee dancing in her eyes as she gazes down at him.

Hong Lu doesn’t remember closing his eyes for a moment, his consciousness attempting to drift away but he opens his eyes when the room seems to sway and it takes him a second to realize Ryoshu is carrying him or rather dragging him to the bed.

“H-hurts…” he manages to croak out his voice lower than a whisper, the words garbled due to the blood choking his throat and the numbness paralyzing his muscles.

This is the first time Hong Lu has complained about the pain, or rather the first time he truly felt the need to. Pain often didn’t matter much when you could be revived as the sinners could be, and to Hong Lu, it was something that mattered even less.

It wasn’t anything to complain about when you couldn’t change it, that was something Hong Lu had learned very early in life.

Pain for him was a familiarity and a sort of twisted comfort in his own right. Perhaps that’s why he had sought out Ryoshu weeks ago.

He could’ve chosen someone with a more medical-esque background for this Yi Sang or Faust perhaps although he had a feeling both would deny him his request. For a steady hand, he could’ve gone to Mersault or Outis although those two wouldn’t give him the chance to voice his request more than likely.

If he had gone to Heathcliff he would’ve gotten the brutality he sought so why did he go to Ryoshu? Then again Hong Lu knew exactly why.

The cruelty that danced in the woman’s eyes that often followed the precise slices of her weapon much like a brush to a canvas or a painter’s knife destroying a creation deemed unfit under criticism.

It was a warm cruelty that burned with a strange passion much like the flame that lit the woman’s cigarettes.

Hong Lu would be lying if he didn’t admit that that cruelty had brought with it a comforting sense of familiarity.

And yet some small part of him that he hadn’t burned away in that cruel flame as a child still remained.

That fear…

He looks up at Ryoshu when she returns to his side for a moment, carrying a medium-sized leather pouch, something that was spotless and in immaculate condition despite the rest of the room.

Much like her katana, Ryoshu seemed to take incredible care to keep that pouch in decent condition.

“Means it’s doing its job,” she snorted, rolling her eyes slightly as she removed her cigarette from her mouth.

She turned a bit, grinding the cigarette into Hong Lu’s clothed thigh to put it out. “Feel that?”

Surprisingly Hong Lu hadn’t, he couldn’t even feel himself breathing despite that searing burn in his lungs. If he could have he would’ve shook his head, instead he can only lay there like a doll, the rope still binding his wrists as he lay on his back.

The world around him has faded into a blurring smear of colors, but one singular thing stands out with startling clarity.

Ryoshu.

He can see her perfectly or rather nearly perfectly, her form is blurry around the edges as if she’s stepped out of an oil color painting.

He watches her as she readies her tools with a practiced hand, before eventually turning back to Hong Lu and reaching out. As usual, she removes his hair from its ponytail allowing the long black strands to fan out beneath him and spill over his shoulders.

For a moment he and Ryoshu merely stare at each other, and Hong Lu takes note of the look in her gaze like a painter staring at a blank canvas trying to decide where the first brushstrokes should go.

It isn’t long before Ryoshu seemingly makes a decision and Hong Lu’s gaze seem to snap into focus for a brief moment, eyes going to the scalpel being held up to his eye.

The shiny gray metal of the slim blade glints in the moonlight, hanging over his eye like a guillotine. If Hong Lu could have, he would’ve held his breath knowing the pain that was about to occur from the previous times Ryoshu had done this.

And yet strangely enough somewhere inside of him, the thought of that horrible unpleasurable pain excites him.

Comforting and familiar in its own right.

The urge to look away, to close his eyes on reflex practically thrashes in the back of his mind and yet he’s unable to, forced to stare down his fate without hesitation.

The first slice brings a strange incredibly faint pressure, but no pain and barely any sensation creating a strange sense of fear and disconnect in its own right.

He can see the blood coating the scalpel, the soft clumps of flesh clinging to the edge of the blade as Ryoshu worked, blood lightly splattering across Ryoshu’s face.

Her gaze is critical yet fierce, her expression serious and her lips missing their usual cigarette currently twisted into a scowl as she worked.

The heat in Hong Lu’s lungs feels as if it’s searing them into nothing, only pure ash remaining behind and a weak gurgling broken whine drifts from his bloodied lips.

The world feels like a blur around him, pale moonlight mixing and distorting everything it seemed to illuminate. He couldn’t tell if the scent of iron filling his nose was the blood running from it or his eye.

That blue eye that always sparkled like a jewel it was no wonder Ryoshu took an interest in it, to Hong Lu it was perhaps the most disgusting part of himself however. A deep-seated fear awakening whenever his eye seemed as if it would begin glowing.

Another reason he sought Ryoshu out, why each week or so when that eye seemed as if it was regrowing and reforming for some strange reason he would return here.

Ryoshu was an artist who valued beauty in the form of cruelty, it was an easy choice for Hong Lu. If she wished to have that horrible eye for whatever artwork she may create then he didn’t mind, and in exchange, he got to experience that familiar cruelty and pain that eluded him.

But most of all he got to feel that comforting yet horrible fear that was a rarity for him nowadays. He didn’t care what Ryoshu did with the eye once it was removed, as long as it was gone, if only for a little while.

As long as he was free.

Hong Lu feels as if he drifts slightly into unconsciousness for a moment, his thoughts scattering to the wind and as he looks up at Ryoshu he notices that the left side of his vision is black, merely a void.

A sign that the eye had been removed, he tries to smile when he sees Ryoshu holding the eyeball that she tore and carved from his skull up to the moonlight, a wide almost manic grin that was rarely if ever seen on her face.

For a moment she turns it this way and that, her movements extremely careful and hesitant, the cord of severed nerves attached to the back of the eyeball practically wrapping and dancing along her fingers as she moved.

Despite seeing the sight a few times at this moment, Ryoshu had a look of slight awe on her face and Hong Lu wished he could see what she saw, instead of the hatred and disgust that sat within in his heart at the moment.

Hong Lu slips into unconsciousness once more before he even realizes it, this time when he opens his eyes he can see Ryoshu carefully cutting into the eye she removed from him.

The organ has been cleaned apparently and now sits shimmering faintly with its signature blue glow as Ryoshu works at the nearby table.

Hong Lu reaches up with a shaky hand, pins and needles dancing along his skin as his fingers brush lightly across the bandages covering his eye. And he grits his teeth when pain shoots through his skull in the form of a violent throb as if a spike were being driven through his skull the empty socket throbbing in time with his heartbeat.

A soft broken hoarse giggle drifts from between his lips, a sharp stabbing sensation dancing along his abused throat as he forces it to work. Noting that his hands had been untied.

Ryoshu doesn’t look up at him as she carefully sticks the long pins into the spreading board, something even Hong Lu has seen before.

A display case that collectors often used to hold insects. Each time she removed his eye he would awaken hours or minutes later after passing out from the pain to her carefully carving and flaying it, as if she were a chef handling the world's finest one-of-a-kind meat.

She was always careful to make sure that the eye was persevered but mainly the iris, where that beautiful alluring blue glow was located.

Hong Lu attempts to move, to rise from the bed, or even sit up, and truthfully considering how many times he’s done this routine he should know better then again some things escaped even him.

Instead of sitting up like he intended to, he finds himself falling from the bed with a broken whimper raspy, landing in a heap on the floor on his side. His world spins and he sees stars burst before his eyes, his head throbbing as if Heathcliff had taken his signature bat to his skull.

Alongside the dizziness comes swirling nausea, and Hong Lu’s body shudders with a harsh retch, the man frantically doing his best to at least make sure none of his own stomach contents got in his hair.

The liquor he’d drank burning fiercely on the way back up as the vile liquid having lost its copper coloring now tainted with bile and the blood he’d swallowed as it splattered and splashed across the floor, nearly the color of coffee grounds. Red blotches of blood standing out rather colorfully in the mess.

He can feel Ryoshu’s eyes practically boring into him at the moment, witness to his humiliating disgusting display and Hong Lu can’t help but feel his face burn ever so slightly.

His humiliation only furthered when spares a shaky glance at the woman through his curtain of hair, noticing her mocking and amused sneer as she watched him from her chair, having momentarily paused her work to take a drag off of her cigarette that rested rather precariously on the pile of cigarette butts already in the ashtray.

“Weakling,” she snorted, and Hong Lu glances away when her words seem to sting unusually so, the words reminding him far too much of his brother’s.

Taking a deep breath simply trying to breathe through the nausea and pain swirling through his entire body as he manages to climb to his hands and knees. His limbs tremble beneath him, as if threatening to give out at a moments notice. And Hong Lu finds himself being faintly reminded of when he saw a small newborn deer one snowy morning at his family’s estate.

He’s sure he must look quite the mess at the moment, his clothing splatter with blood, the gauze and bandages taped over his missing eye, blood, and bile coating his lips, not to mention the dried blood on his face. His hair free from its usual careful ponytail and surrounding him like a long curtain.

He was sure if someone saw him at this moment they’d mistake him for some abnormality or common mongrel on the backstreets, a thought that left a bitter taste not unlike the poison he’d ingested dancing on his tongue.

Ryoshu didn’t seem angry at the fact that he’d vomited on her floor, then again Ryoshu seemed to decide what angered her based on the roll of a roulette. Many people would have an easier time predicting where an ant would place a single grain of sand.

Hong Lu’s eye widened when the woman raised two fingers and curled them, beckoning him over. “Come mutt,” she said as she tapped her thigh as if beckoning a dog to come rest its head on her lap.

Hong Lu frowned for a moment, while the thought of being referred to as an animal left a bad taste in his mouth he truly couldn’t protest when he was in such a humiliating and pitiful state.

And he could see the cruel glee flare to life in Ryoshu’s eyes as he slowly began making his way to her, crawling across the floor as he fought against the pain wracking his body.

Ryoshu crossed her legs, her work forgotten for a moment as she rested her chin on her hand watching Hong Lu with interest as he slowly crawled toward her.

Beauty found in cruelty could be a marvelous thing when done with clear thought and care, it was both a display of human self-indulgence and the rampant wish to create but also the malicious human wish for control and power.

Passion could be found behind cruelty when done from the flames in a person’s heart, their drive. It could be warm and searing hot like the flames of a candle or branding iron pressed to the flesh, or colder than ice callous and controlled.

Ryoshu was an artist who reveled in this crafted, mastering it the best she could, she didn’t do it carelessly as some thought she did.

No, she did it with purpose and care, but also passion.

A twisted passion but passion nonetheless.

Cruelty always had a reason after all, no matter how small and to her that made it beautiful.

She could feel a slight smile tugging at her lips as she watched Hong Lu crawl towards her on his hands and knees, his once graceful moments now clumsy and barely coordinated as he simply did his best to drag himself forward.

The blood dried on his pale face, the slight glaze to his eyes as he did his best to overcome the pain and weakness in his body. The gauze layered over his wound, and the bile and blood coating his lips.

His hair practically draped over his body like a blanket and finally, the shame and humiliation that burned in his grey eye.

A once perfect portrait with not a single blemish perfect to all who observed it, now beat and broken laying before the artist that had so critically judged it and destroyed it.

It was adorable in a strange way if Ryoshu had to admit it for some reason, although odd.

Hong Lu makes it to Ryoshu’s side, his entire body trembling as he practically slumped in front of her, resting his forehead on the leg she’d tapped when she’d beckoned him over.

A soft raspy chuckle came from the woman above him as she smirked down at him, causing Hong Lu to shakily raise his head slightly exhaustion wearing his body down like lead.

“Good mutt,” she simply told him her attention returning to the project she’d been working on on the table.

A hoarse raspy thready laugh, barely above a whisper escaped Hong Lu’s mouth a look of curiosity on his pale face. “How many…is that now?”

Forcing out each word seemed to squeeze the air from his lungs, making his head spin. And he can’t help but slump forward slightly when his strength seems to drain away bit by bit.

Ryoshu gives a soft hum as she continues working, not answering Hong Lu’s question as she works. That was normal the woman often being so engrossed in her creation that nothing else seemed to exist for her.

Hong Lu is only aware of the pain and dizziness, both working to disorient him, so it's no surprise when he finds himself drifting into unconsciousness the pungent scent of cigarette smoke drifting down into his nose.

A sharp thump against his bandaged wound has him jolting awake with a gasp, the pain caused by Ryoshu flicking the area with her fingers causing a jolt to his system like a live wire.

Ryoshu is silent as she carefully holds up the display case for him to see as she usually did. And there inside the display case, pinned down in the insect spreader is his eye.

The once spherical organ now flayed down paper thin under a careful hand, pieces removed with the precision of a surgeon all to create the paper-thin blue and white butterfly that now sat pinned in the case. It truly was a work of art, the pupil being used to create the insect’s head, while the irises had been carefully trimmed so that the blue would trace along the top of the wings, the white body.

“Five,” is all Ryoshu murmured not waiting for Hong Lu’s input as she began to examine her own craftsmanship.

Hong Lu gives a soft raspy strained giggle doing his best to fight off the drowsiness trying to take him. “Ahhh…so many~ After seven…more times they’ll be…one for each sinner,” he said his words slurring as he swayed slightly.

Ryoshu merely gives a soft hum her eyes still on the display case, although she does look at Hong Lu when he falls to the floor unconscious. A snort leaves her mouth as she places her cigarette off to the side as well as the display case, both treated with incredible care and gentleness.

“Weak brat,” she huffed as she rolled her eyes.