#vraisetzen

[vraisetzen]

𝑼𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝑯𝒊𝒔 𝑺𝒑𝒆𝒍𝒍 – 𝑨 𝑲𝒐𝒌𝒖𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒃𝒐 𝒙 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝑰𝒏𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒕

Summary: Kokushibo practices; you watch.

Tags: NSFW, 18+, Smut, No use of (y/n)

Author's Note: A short writing practice to assure myself that I, in fact, still can write. Enjoy!

Sometimes, you wake in the middle of the night, and — realising that Kokushibo is not beside you — you find yourself prowling through the dark, unlit halls of his dwelling, peeking through paper doors and pressing your ear against shutters.

And every time you will always find him there, in the final room at the end of the path, his silhouette softly traced by the flickering of candles, its flame wavering to the gusts of wind sent forth by his sword as Kokushibo practices.

You are riveted by the way he moves — surely and silently, swinging his blade in a single arc to meet just a hair's breadth away from the marionette.

Kokushibo is strong, stronger than anyone, anything you have ever seen — this creature of the night who has lived for so many untold years and honed his art to perfection, and you never cease to be amazed by his craft, coming to a stop just shy of the room, crooking your head slightly over the gap in the doors.

There are no flaws, no openings to be discerned in his advance; the certainty of his stance, matched by the rippling of his hakama as he draws back before lunging forward once more in a different swing, the fabric coiling around his thighs–

Those thighs that you have straddled on countless nights as you rode him to pleasure, watching the monstrous countenance below your body give in to the slick, plush embrace of your sex.

How his eyes never leave yours, in the same manner as he is concentrated on the marionette now. His hands that grip his sword as deftly as he handles you, rough calluses that press up against the softness of your skin as he guides you over his cock, each plunge sending you into the warm, honeyed pools of pleasure.

A shiver shudders through your body as you close your eyes, letting your visions pass — no, it will not do for you let your thoughts take control of your faculties now. Kokushibo did not appreciate distractions during practice; he will certainly not be keen on satisfying your urges while he belayed his repetitions.

Or will he?

It was difficult for you to tell, for he did not require rest. With his demonic constitution, Kokushibo could continue without exhaustion, just as how over and over he repeats his motions: side step, sweep of the arm, bringing the sword down, stopping just before the marionette; then, back step, retreat, an undercut, blade slicing through the air. Behind the weight of his motions — light as air, dense as fog — like the collective knowledge of an immortal being, one that can only come with experience.

Just as how he carries you into his arms, folding you at the hip to ease into your sex, your cries breaking into a whine as the tip of his cock brushes that delicious spot inside you.

Your body is a manuscript to which only he can read, and he thrusts purposefully into your core, slipping against your aching walls, coaxing moans from your throat and bestowing sharp, biting kisses across your collar and down to your breasts...

You chastise yourself for getting carried away with your flights of fancy once more. But as you shift yourself to kneel more comfortably on the floor, you feel arousal clinging undeniably onto your sex through your nightclothes.

Your lips catch between your teeth as you fight back a whimper, and then a sigh. Clenching your hands into fists, you concentrate on the sight before you, adamant to ignore the stirrings of pleasure that have unfurled at the mere sight of your lover at his mettle.

From beneath the wide sleeves of his kimono, you can see his forearms; sinew tightening beneath the weaving of veins, green and blue against his pale pallor. There was something indelible about seeing this display of strength and confidence; though you are ignorant in the matters of swordsmanship, the most primal part of you knew danger when you saw it.

More than his being a demon, Kokushibo was an predator, and you his willing creature.

And in many ways, it mirrored his domineering ways in the bedroom when it was just you and he.

Those three pairs of eyes that will not let you out of his sight as he chases your pleasure, running circles around you with the barest flick of his fingers and the nimble swipe of his tongue until you are breathless, protesting for more.

Your slim fingers curling around his arms as he finally moves on top of and inside you, sliding in one motion until he is tuck to the hilt. Your knuckles turning white as you parted your legs further to receive him, your back arching into his heated ministrations.

This time, you do not cast these intruding thoughts aside, indulging a little more as you admire his posture. You could lose yourself in him for hours if your human body could allow it — your sex throbs at the mere thinking of spending the rest of the hours with him, as you wonder how he might take to you being here, watching him. In this dwelling of his, you cannot tell dawn from dusk, only wakefulness and sleep, you and him.

"Do you intend to sit there all evening?" he asks suddenly, breaking your reverie. It takes you one, two seconds to realise he is speaking to you, and then embarrassment washes over as you respond in what can be barely construed as a squeak.

I was only passing by, you try to explain, but the doors slid further open with a bang as Kokushibo takes a step forward to you in a split second, his stature towering over your kneeling form. You look up at him, eyes wide and body frozen at the sudden scrutiny.

Or perhaps he might be kinder than you realise. A beast though he may be, even the most basest of creatures have their needs. And it becomes all the more apparent as his gaze rakes over your body: the strands of your hair that cling to your forehead from stooping in the stuffy hallway, the tense set of your shoulders and knees as you swim against the rivers of your arousal.

"It is just as well," Kokushibo says after a beat. He loosens his own collar as his eyes settles on the open neck of your nightclothes, which betrays but a tiny sliver of your breasts.

With another tug, Kokushibo eases himself of his kimono, and you are regaled with the sight of his bare chest; his perspiration catches the dull light of the candle, its sheen bringing the smooth muscles into sharp relief. You lick your lips as you imagine its salt on your tongue, before letting your gaze lift to his face gingerly, testing the waters.

In a flourish, Kokushibo grabs you by your arm and pulls you to your feet; before you can protest, he is steering you towards the centre of the room.

"I was starting to wonder when you might wake," he continues, tipping you back with a simple nudge of his finger on your shoulder. Your legs crumple as you sit obediently on the floor; Kokushibo parts them with a firm hand on your knee as he descends on you, closing the distance between your bodies. He nudges his hips against yours, and you feel the tent in his hakama, heavy and hot in the valley of your sex.

The thick spell of his musk — raw, animalic, like a beast in heat, floods your senses. You palm his chest, the pads of your fingers catching on sticky sweat and gooseflesh. Kokushibo grouses as he dives for your neck, unfastening your clothes with ease. You respond to him readily, slipping out of the fabric like clockwork to give him your bare body.

The spark he sends across your bodies is pure electricity, far brighter than the new fangled lights they have on display in the city. It is neither daylight nor moonlight, but an abstract under which you contend with basking, a tantalising glow of the inferno that is to come.

This too, you think gaily, is practice.

For more of my writings, check out my AO3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vraisetzen/pseuds/vraisetzen

[kotoffeya]

Inspired by Notte Stellata (author @vraisetzen )

[gojonanami]

https://www.tumblr.com/vraisetzen/760157629296345088?source=share

Aww, Sab, look at this! It’s super duper cute 🥰

link

omg I think I saw this before but it’s so so cute and detailed 😭😭

also poor zenitsu hahha — also I just noticed douma and shinobu 😭

[vraisetzen]

HII! I hope you are doing well🤍

I was wondering if you could do a Douma fic where him and the reader play a game of hide and seek. I feel like Douma would thoroughly enjoy the thrill of the hunt. But when he finds them (and he will), well..

I leave that up to you😈. If you are interested of course! No pressure! Have a lovely day/night❤️❤️

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑬𝒅𝒈𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝑬𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒚 — 𝑨 𝑫𝒐𝒖𝒎𝒂 𝒙 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝑰𝒏𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒕

Tags: 18+, NSFW, Smut, Very light bondage

Author's Note: Sorry this took me so long! I had a ton of fun writing this, and it definitely got me back into the mood of writing for Douma. He's such a wonderful character, and so different for Kokushibo; and I wanted to explore how his followers would perceive him. Enjoy!

"I can hear you!"

Douma's giggles rang through the forest like a peal of bells, the notes of his childish taunt lingering in the air as you held your breath, pressing your back against the large rock you had found.

Each stir of the leaves raised the hairs on the back of your neck as you strained your ears for the sounds of any footsteps, and your eyes straining into the darkness for the sight of a darting shadow between the trees. Somewhere, a small creature — some deer, fox, or squirrel — skittered across the forest floor, an errant twig snapping beneath its lightfooted canter.

When you were certain that you were not being watched — and there was no way for you to be absolute on this judgement save for the calm beat of your heart pressing you on — you slipped away from the shelter of your hiding spot.

Immediately, you hear footsteps behind you, along with a flash of white gold; Douma was an expert predator if he needed to be, and in this moment he had ceased all teasing to pursue his you. Goosebumps traversed the length of your arm as you pushed yourself forward senselessly, going forth to where the night stole through the cedar crown in a scintillating dance of illumination.

The wind danced through your hair, the comb securing your knot in place having slipped and fell somewhere on the forest floor; there was no time for you to recover it, however, as you shunned low branches and skipped over rocks. Hitching up your kimono, you gained a longer stride, the weight of Douma's eyes on you spurring you forth.

Before you, the trees thinned out into a clearing, and as you stepped into the wide, irregular circle, you felt the cold crisp air fill your lungs. Whether by exhaustion or sheer awe, you sank into the ground, your eyes drawn to shower of stars that drenched the earth in its illumination. Beneath its magnanimity, you could only close your eyes, and bathe in its ceaseless pour.

How long has it been since you saw the sun? There were only candles and curtains in the abode where you lived, and you yearned for the warmth on your skin. In its absence, you learned to be content with its inverse: the coldness of the night and its unchanging atlas of constellations, true and constant.

Behind the drawn curtains of your lids, you saw a pair of eyes that were not your own: bright and youthful and green as a summer's glade.

"Pinky promise, pinky promise..."

"One day, we'll leave this place," Kotoha whispered, her hand drifting from where it stroked the soft hairs of her child's head as he nursed on her breast. "I promise."

The smile on her face was soft and serene — yet you could discern the strength beneath it, that undercurrent of determination and rage. Her hands, too, were brimming with a restless warmth, and it flooded your heart with an unspeakable disquiet as you watched through half-lidded eyes, pretending to be asleep.

"Caught you!" Douma's giggles interrupted your thoughts, and you opened your eyes. The crescent moon a scintillating diadem behind him, Douma looked down at you, his gold hair feathering around his face as he tinkered with the golden fan in his hand. From where you knelt before him, he could not be any different from a god that had descended from the Heavens, whose smile was at once full of mercy and without.

Is this not the eternal paradise you were promised?

You touched your cheek, and found your fingertips wet with tears.

"What's wrong?" he asked, crouching down beside you and wiping your cheek with his thumb. Despite the softness of his hands, his long nails were sharp against your flesh. His voice dropped to a sweet, hushed whisper: "Did I scare you?"

His hand wandered from your face, dancing along the starched collar of your kimono to your obi; all the young, unmarried women of the sect wore their knots in the front, and Douma undid it with familiar precision. The belt tumbled into the grass, and he shrugged the layers of tanmono and linen until you shivered beneath the cold night air.

Douma's lips were ice against your warm, flushed skin as he kissed your neck, tongue tracing over your pulse. His hands cupped your breasts, kneading the supple flesh and toying with the pricked nipples. To this, you mewled, and earned yourself a faint chuckle as Douma traced over your ear.

"Let's have a little fun, shall we?" he asked, dragging his forefinger down the trembling planes of your stomach.

Sparing no hesitation, he dipped further beneath to your loins, where you anticipated the trail of his hands along your sex; it dripped readily and knowingly even before he reached your seam, and a trill fell from your lips when he teased you over your clit in tight circles and broad strokes.

"Such a good girl," Douma purred, his lips brushing over your temple to give each of your closed lids a soft kiss. His arms tightened around your body, keeping you close to him. "You shall be duly rewarded for your piety..."

Your eyes fluttered open to see his opalescent gaze studying the softness of your face, the words etched within them darkening as you felt his manhood stir against your belly. Without another word, Douma pushed you back onto the grass before crawling between your legs; your kimono bundled around your hips as he propped his shoulder beneath your knee.

His long nails clinked against the metal clasps of his buckle; Douma took his time as he unfastened his trousers, pulling them just enough for his cock to pivot free from its guard. The sillage of honeyed white florals envelops your body as he pins your hand above your head, securing it with the belt he just unwound.

Not that you would run away from him; just as how he chased you through the woods, this was all rehearsal, a dance before the days to come, when he will take his most faithfull followers with him.

A land without pain nor worry; neither anger nor sadness — peaceful and content as a still lake reflecting the heavens for all of eternity; it would weld with the pleasure that flows and ebbs through your veins as Douma cajoled himself into your depths, its sweet, throbbing tightness drawing a low growl bubbling in his throat.

And yet, Kotoha had been happy, had she not? She had a child, and she was always singing to him; songs that you have never heard...

Perhaps this was why she was shunned from the doors of salvation, you thought; unlike her, you sang only the praises for eternal paradise — and you were happy to be here, to breath the air of your saviour who now panted over you. His long hair tickled your nose as he nudged that sweet spot inside you, the insistent burrow of his cock teasing you ever closer over the precipice. His nails, too, carved into your shoulder as he steered you over his length again and again, each thrust bringing you a thrill unlike any other.

"Douma-sama," you begged, your bound wrists straining against his belt while your hips met his relentless thrusts. Through the haze of mounting euphoria that melted you into Douma's arms, you felt the soaring creast of your peak on the horizon — to first of many to come, for sure, so long as the night was young and your pliant body beneath him.

"Come for me, darling," he beckoned, hand disappearing once more between your legs to stroke your clit in time with the shove of his hips.

And you answered the call of your saviour, serving your flesh and its joys into his arms and bared teeth; his brilliant, gem-like eyes that glittered even in the absence of light was the path on which you had devoted yourself, and following its trace you found its intense brightness inside you — white-hot lashes of pleasure that swept through your body in unceasingly waves, each sending you in a quivering tangle of breathless cries and arching hips.

If this was paradise, you would never desire anything else again; in its benevolence — no, in Douma's benevolence, you were buoyant and resplendent, a shining balefire of faith and longing. Douma purred and tucked his face into your neck; he was still stiff, and would be as long as he was adamant to bring you to climax once more, until you would forget all worldly woes and thoughts of straying even an inch from him. You would be his to take, to possess — unlike the others who left and disappeared; unlike Kotoha and her child.

Afterall, why would you leave, when you were on the edge of eternity?

Thank you for reading!

For my longer writings, visit my AO3 below:

[vraisetzen]

Hello! May I request a short fic or hcs, not directly connected to your long fic, on obsessive/possesive, yandere stalker!au Kokushibo and female reader whose naturally charming & tends to flirt and tease anyone around her to no end😭 (can be both sfw and nsfw, since I don’t think Koku would appreciate his dearest giving away her attention to anyone but him~)

I tried to send a similar request before but it didn’t let me for some reason ;(

𝑾𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑶𝒏𝒆 𝑳𝒐𝒐𝒌 — 𝑨 𝒀𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒆!𝑲𝒐𝒌𝒖𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒃𝒐 𝒙 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝑰𝒏𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒕

Author's Note: Thank you for the lovely ask! I actually received two requests for Yandere!Kokushibo; this is my first time writing a yandere fic, and I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it!

Tags: NSFW, 18+, Smut, Stalking, Obsession, Mentions of death and violence, Yandere!Kokushibo, No use of (Y/N).

Summary: The light in your eyes was both fire and ice to him.

No one could fault a man for being too good at his metier, and as a bodyguard to one of Japan's most prominent politicians, Kokushibo had spent years honing his craft — disposing unwanted rivals, eliminating bothersome targets, ensuring the safety of his charges.

His hands grazed along the small of your back, playing you as a harp while you sang his name in pleasure. You, pinned to the floor as Kokushibo plunged into your depths, relishing every pulsating heat that enveloped his length — you must know, by now, how he worshipped at the altar of your body, your very existence the only thing he ever desired.

"M-more, please," you wailed, looking back and regaling him with the sight of your parted lips and flushed cheeks. "I need more-"

And there it was: the glittering stars in your eyes, just like the very first time you caught Kokushibo's attention — a supernova in a sea of lesser constellations that seared forever into his memory.

The only problem was that the light of the stars graced everything in its vicinity without prejudice.

The curl of your lips that you gave easily to your colleagues as you asked them about their weekend; the radiating heat of your body when you sat next to them and leaned in every so slightly; the tendril of your hair around your finger as you listened to a neighbour's complaints with a soft pout; the perfume on your skin that lingered for hours in a room after you made your leave, capturing the attention of those caught in its haze.

He could not stand the fleeting moments when you cast your eyes on another; the biting, Siberian frost that sawed into his bones, casting a mantle over the lava that burnt and ripped away in his guts as he saw you flounce from friend to colleague to acquaintance, speaking to them with a tenderness that should never be heard by anyone by himself.

Fire and ice — the twin spears that plunged through his faculties of reason and instinct, tearing him apart at the seams even as he betrayed nothing on his steely surface.

Kokushibo was nothing if not methodical, and he needed no grand gestures, no dramatic declarations of affection: an orchestrated encounter at a cafe when you stumbled into him and spilt coffee all over his shirt, a rehearsed rendezvous at the laundromat where he had the perfect amount of spare change while you scraped along the bottom of your purse.

The draping of a cloak of chivalry around your shoulders, pulling the wool over your eyes in one fell sweep of his hand — the back of which noted every detail of routine — as you traipsed gaily over the daisies outside the lion's lair.

After all, to be blind meant devoting oneself utterly to the hand that guided it through the dark, and now that he had lent you an inch, you were more than willing to present him with a mile:

Your breathless moans as he pinched your pert nipples, your essence that lavished over his cock. You were resplendent as the beads of sweat that rolled down your shoulder caught the glare of the lamp, the curve of your back vulpine and graceful as you raised your hip to meet his thrusts.

Would you be blind too, to your diminishing satellite of admirers? Kokushibo cautioned you as much about their hidden intentions: Don't give your number away so easily; don't wear that dress; call me when you get home — he knew worst of the men who would mistake your smiles for affection, your teases for flirtations, and your touches an invitation in his line of work, and he need only to defer to his experise.

As a consummate professional, only he could protect you from these dangers that lie in wait. He could stopper it before they took you away from him, and you would never notice they were there.

The crimson that soaked Kokushibo's hands and crusted his nails, the same hands that now dug into the dimples on the side of your hips as he thrusted further inside your sex;

A flick of his wrist on your clit — the same rhythm as when he snapped the spine of the konbini cashier who you dared share your smile after you made your payment;

The tug of your hair around his fingers — reminiscent of the fibre wire that coiled around the neck of a older salaryman to whom you had been kind enough to offer your seat on the train;

The give of your thighs as he spread your legs further apart — a mirror of his hands on the back of a waiter who smiled as you complemented the tiramisu, his eyes lingering on your glossed, pillowy lips;

Would the wetness between your legs should be enough to wash off these stains?

"Kokushibo," you whimpered, in the moment he brushed against that spot inside you, making you squirm beneath his tight embrace. Your mouth dropped in a circle as he teased your clit once more, sending sparks of thrill dancing across your tense, quivering frame.

How perfectly he fitted inside you, the contours of your body moulding seamlessly against his hands — as if the gods themselves sculpted you for him to hold and possess.

Kokushibo slipped an arm across your front, tossing you to lie flat against the carpet. Red, crescent marks dotted across your collarbone, with others blooming into scarlet flowers where he had sunk his teeth into your softness — the sweet ambrosia of your arousal when drank from your sex, the tenderness your skin as it broke beneath his canines.

Come morning, when those blossoms have withered into violet bruises, you will never know another's man touch on you; Kokushibo will make sure of it himself. He would hide you away from the harshness of this world, and savour every inch of your body with his hands and mouth — as the French did with the caged ortolan, draping their heads with linen to shield their decadence from the judgment of God.

Why would you need to be anywhere else? Or seek the arms of another? He alone was perfect for you, as you were perfect from him.

Your ankles crossed behind his neck, unspoken bliss wild in your dark irises. The cadence of your moans soared as your nails clung to the broad sweep of his back, the pistol of your loins gaining an impatient edge.

"Don't stop," you cajoled, a whimper caught in a hiccup as Kokushibo felt you tense beneath him, your thighs trapping his face in a serpentine coil. The slick heat of your sex enveloped his cock tightly while you reached your climax to shuddering gasps, biting the back of your hand to hide your unrestrained moans.

And there it was once more: the sparkle in your eyes, brighter than before while you rode out your high. The heat of your gaze, together with clenching of your walls was enough for him to spill, too, in a mess of groans buried into your hair. You shivered at the dousing of his cum in your depths, your pleasures mired in a dripping, obscene mess that seeped from your entrance.

Behind closed lids, Kokushibo could behold the afterimages of your torched gaze, and he would do whatever it takes to keep them there, until it became a part of the inferno that raged unabated inside him, stoked by every single distraction you referred your attentions: friends, family, strangers — as he opened his eyes to look down at you, before kissing you.

He would have it — your heart, body, and soul — until nothing remained for anyone else, not even yourself.

"All mine," he whispered against your lips.

For my longer writings, visit my AO3 here.

[vraisetzen]

Ooo I see! Glad to be the one who asked then 🤭 how about Kokupuffs reaction to reader getting hurt/wounded by another demon whilst she was away on a mission as a hashira (more-so if thought to be followed in the same storyline of one of your written work ‘Notte stellata”; when Koku’s twisted need and lust for the reader just began, like in the early chapters, seeking her out at night, only now finding her returned with wounds from an earlier encounter, the other demon’s scent reeking off of her, almost replacing his own markings upon her body..? (As if it’s some pest messing with HIS ‘prey’, if it makes sense)

Or, perhaps, any smutty, yandere type short fic of Michi in a modern au setting and reader? (TBH, would love to see more yandere Kokushibo or Michikatsu x reader fics/hcs💔 love to see just how they’d depict he’d act..)

𝑼𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝒀𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝑺𝒌𝒊𝒏 — 𝑨 𝑲𝒐𝒌𝒖𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒃𝒐 𝒙 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝑰𝒏𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒕

Authors's Note: Thank you for the request! I recently completed a Yandere!Kokushibo fic (that you can find here, if you have not seen it!), but I also wanted to go back to your first prompt, which was too good to pass up — writing Kokushibo in the early parts of Notte Stellata was such a throwback!

Tags: NSFW, 18+, Mature content (steamy, but no smut), Mentions of blood and wounds, No use of (Y/N), Early Notte Stellata interlude — but it can definitely be read as a standalone!

Summary: Kokushibo is a little more possessive than he would let on.

One of the things you dreaded the most after a mission was tending to your wounds; even though you were a Hashira and therefore escaped the worst of any demon attacks, especially those on the lower end of the hierarchy, it was inevitable that you returned home, some way or another, with a scratch or two — nicks on your arms from snagging your sleeve against a thorned bush, scrapes on your knee from dodging a Blood Demon Art.

It was part and parcel of your creed, and you had long become accustomed to sitting in the darkness of your kitchen, lit by the flame from the stove, as you dabbed these small wounds with a soaked linen cloth of carbolic acid before wrapping them up in bandages. Unlike Sanemi, you took no pride in the scars that littered your body; as a young woman, they invited too many unwanted stares and questions from older women in town, and thus you took extra care for them to heal properly.

The back doors to your kitchen swung open with a bang, shaking the windows and rattling the pots in a frazzled din. Startled, you turned your hear around in fright, eyes wide as you beheld the silhouette that stood in the whipping wind and the light of the moon, hands hovered between tucking the bandage around your arm and throwing the bottle at the intruder.

Kokushibo crossed from the moonlight into the threshold of your house, his grand stature partly aglow by the same flickering balefire that cast your wounds into clarity. Gathering yourself, you returned to your bandages, slipping the knot beneath the layers as you kept your eyes on him. Though Kokushibo never extended you the courtesy of a greeting on his visits, his silence, coupled with his wandering gaze as he took in your presence, seemed to precede something withheld on his end.

There was a sizzling tension in the air not unlike the running currents you felt when standing beneath an electric lamp — a trepidating heatwave that lingered closer to your skin than static. The layered strands of Kokushibo's hair stood in a dark halo around his fearsome countenance, the all-seeing look of his eyes depthless and revealing not a single word. Your gaze studied his dark expression, breath hitching as you cleared your throat, breaking the spell of silence that fell over the two of you.

"It's alright; nothing more than a scratch," you assured to nobody in particular; you had no idea why you chose these words — only that you felt the need to shatter the frost that had glazed over the both of you.

Kokushibo took a step forward, the hem of his hakama brushing against your bare calves as he glared down at you; typically you would have caved under the intensity of his overwhelming presence, your knees folding beneath the weight of his unnatural gaze, but you kept your feet planted firmly on the floor, your hands curling into fists.

"Would you like to wait inside?" you added — another redundant statement. "I'll be re-"

A squeak escaped you when Kokushibo suddenly lunged for the juncture between your neck and shoulder, burying his nose into your collar and taking a seething breath. His exhalations fanned hotly over your skin, and at once you clung onto the front of his kimono to stop yourself from being knocked off your feet.

"Wha-?" you eeked out, but your words were cut off by him once more as he gritted into your ear:

"Who was it?" he demanded, arms wrapping around your back as he tugged you close against his broad chest, the heat of his body seeping through both your clothes. A trickle of sweat rolled down your neck as you released a shuddering breath, words failing to come forth.

"Who?" Kokushibo pressed, the thrum of his baritone sending a shiver down your spine.

Then, without warning, he placed his lips over a nick on the side of your neck, drawing a hiss from you as the sting of his tongue painted over the salty tang of broken skin. The groan that escaped his lips was one of displeasure as Kokushibo tightened his grip on your shoulder.

You knew instantly what he was referring to — the demon who had drew these nicks and grazes on you. In truth, it was no more than a lowly creature, dispensible with a few draw of Breaths and the quick slash of your blade; but he had been rather troublesome, his Blood Demon Art being some small, seed-like bullets that he expelled from his clawed nails. You had managed to dodge most of them, but the ones that had caught on your uniform had dug into your skin, stinging as much as an ant's bite.

Could the lower demon have left his scent on you? An Art, perhaps, for him to mark his victims and trace them in the event they tried to escape? As far as you were concerned, you could not smell a single offensive note on you. Kokushibo's response, however, suggested otherwise. His scarlet irises glowered at you as he expected your answer.

You took a deep breath, hands loosening from the front of his kimono. "Just a demon. A weak one."

"And you killed him," Kokushibo said, more as a confirmation of fact than a question.

Despite your flustered state, you were rather affronted by the insinuation of his words. "Of course I did — I am a Hashira, you know."

"Good," Kokushibo groused, angling his face to bestow a line of kisses across your jaw, each more insistent than the last. His hair tickled your chin, while yours on the nape of your neck prickled in anticipation when he finally landed on the corner of your lips. "Because I would have killed him myself had you not."

With those words, he sealed his lips over yours, stealing any words of protest from you. His fingers brushed up your arm to where you had tucked the knot beneath the coil of bandages, unfastening it with a dismissive flick of his wrist. The strips of cloth fluttered down between your feet.

Kokushibo took a step forward, and then another — cajoling you back until your tailbone hit the wooden counter. His hands were impatient, but sturdy, as they undid the silver buttons of your uniform and revealed your pallor beneath: smooth, though marked by small flecks of red from where the tiny cuts had already dried. Conscious of how he was looking unflinchingly at you, you hovered your hand over your front, uncertain of how to proceed as your ear suffused a deep pink.

It's not as bad as it looks, you wanted to say, although you know that your wellbeing was the least of his concerns. The darkness of Kokushibo's gaze deepened as he edged forward, placing his parted lips on your neck once more; this time, you felt the scrape of his canines on your skin, and you tensed in anticipation.

Yet, the sting of his bite — so familiar when he decided to be rough with you — did not come. Instead, Kokushibo suckled over the small marks peppered over your skin, breaking them again with his lips as if drawing poison from a wound; he lavished wet kisses over them as he drifted over your front, ripping your underclothes with the ease of running his fingers through a field of silvergrass.

One by one, he pored through each mark no matter how small, leaving no patch of your skin unturned as he tasted the fresh scars and replaced them with his own. On your thigh, you felt the twitch of his cock as it stirred with arousal — and once more Kokushibo growled, this time rich with hunger and lust. The bare salt of your skin, together with the tang of your blood, was an alchemical potion of desire, turning his irritation into shadowed passion with each bite and lick.

You released a shuddering breath as he coaxed you backward still, his hands slipping from your perked nipples and the tense planes of your belly to the back of your thighs. In one heave, Kokushibo guided you onto the table; keeling backward like a cornered lamb as he encroached forth, you spread your legs for him to stand between them.

You dared not cast your eyes down to your front despite the cloud of desire that shadowed your bodies for fear of glimpsing the bruises he left over in place of marks you gained. Instead, you met your gaze with his and licked your lips, your pants coming in sharp bursts.

Tipping your chip with his index, Kokushibo kissed you fiercely on this mouth — the table creaked beneath your weight and his sudden movement, and you clung onto him for fear of tipping over. But he remained steadfast as you seized the opportunity to divest him of his kimono, shrugging them inelegantly over his shoulder and tugging them down his arms.

With a careless toss, you threw his clothes to the side, and instantly hear glass crashing.

Pulling away sharply, you looked over to find that, in your haste and clumsiness, you had brought both the bottle of carbolic acid and Kokushibo's clothes to the floor. The air reeked of antiseptic, and you pushed yourself up with your hands.

"I need to clean this up," you muttered as Kokushibo leaned forward, nonchalant to the mess you made.

"That can wait," he beckoned, a hand firm on the small of your back to hold your frame against his. As if to reiterate, you felt the pulse of his erection along your inner thigh, in tandem with the first twinge of arousal in your sex. "Come."

His offer was almost impossible to resist, and you felt your arms slacken for a hair's breadth before clearing your addled thoughts with a few forceful blinks. Palms on his chest, you said: "No, I have to — there's glass all over the floor. What if we hurt ourselves?

"I won't."

"But I could."

The kitchen was stark silent as Kokushibo took in your words, and you wondered if you might have taken a step too far; his eyes, amber with dilated irises, seemed more frightening than ever, though you could now read beyond the words carved on them. He was not angry, no; he had not been when he had seen those marks on your body, and while he might have been bristled by this unexpected interlude, you remained silent and firm.

Eventually, Kokushibo took a step back; he shirked himself of his underclothes, and retreated further until you could slide off the table. Briefly, you looked up at him through your lashes, and caught a clandestine second where his eyes dropped for a split second to your body, the language behind his gaze unchanged, a tome's worth of words that you have only begun to decode. But with a flutter of his lashes, you found it indecipherable once more, their definitions slipping from your outstretched fingers.

You contented instead with grabbing a rag from the counter to sop up the spill.

"Don't keep me waiting," he said, with hardly a glance back at you, slipping past the kitchen doors to where your bedroom awaited.

Thank you for reading! For my longer writings, visit my AO3 here.

[vraisetzen]

𝑨 𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒔𝒄𝒆𝒏𝒕 – 𝑲𝒐𝒌𝒖𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒃𝒐 𝒙 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓

Summary: As Kokushibo does the laundry, he stumbles upon a pair of your underwear.

Tags: NSFW, 18+, Modern/KimeGaku AU, No use of (y/n)

Author's note: A short writing exercise. And I've been obsessed with writing about men jerking off lately...

It comes as little surprise that Kokushibo is fairly adept at doing the laundry – as Kibutsuji Muzan's designated secretary-slash-bodyguard-slash-handler, he is more than accustomed to managing his employer's collection of silk shirts with Italian labels and wool trousers with double pleats and monogram stitching along the inner lining.

When it comes to your clothes and his, Kokushibo has a system down pat, from sorting out dyed fabrics from his dress shirts, to polyester blends from cotton fabrics, and special netting bags for delicate garments. It was a language that only he spoke, with a frazzled attempt once on your part to take over the chores leaving him more than a little disgruntled as you turned his white boxers a darling shade of baby pink.

Hence, it has become a routine for him to find himself kneeling by the washing machine every Sunday, pawing through the laundry basket quietly and efficiently. His shirts and your pyjamas; your shorts and his gym towels. He tosses them into the washing machine, making a mental note to himself on how high he would have to set the water and rinse levels when he is finished.

And then, Kokushibo comes to your intimates – this is not foreign domain to him either. At this stage in your relationship, he is more than familiar with what you wear: the wireless bras, a unisex thong that your friends gave to you as a joke on Singles' Day, lacy pieces that you wear infrequently on special occasions. Kokushibo finds nothing embarrassing about this; he has already seen you in a far more revealing state, and this is, once again, routine.

What is not routine, however, is the strange curiosity that takes root inside him as he holds your panties in his hand, pausing for a long second. It is nothing special – a grey hipster that is a little loose around the elastic from wear – but Kokushibo hesitates as he lingers just over the metallic ring of the laundry drum. Perhaps it is the piece's simplicity; something you throw on without caring for seduction or looking pretty, something that is just there as you go about your day, beneath your clothes, something you hardly think about.

Kokushibo turns the underwear inside out, where there is a slightly darker mark on the crotch, the remnants of you on the cloth. A shot of arousal twinges through his cock as he wonders if you have ever fantasised about him while wearing this particular pair, staining the cotton with your wetness while you are at work.

Did your cheeks flush with the thoughts of him pummeling into you, stifling your moans through clenched teeth and bitten lip? Did you need to excuse yourself from the presence of your colleagues, escaping into the bathroom, checking each empty stall before choosing the one at the end? Did your hands tremble as you fumble with the lock, before pressing your back up against the door as you lift your dress up and slide your fingers into your aching depths?

Kokushibo presses his nose up against the underwear and inhales, and is greeted by the faint scent of sweet-salty musk – the same notes that he finds when he dives between your legs. His hand reaches for the tent in his trousers, rubbing himself through his sweatpants. This feels wrong – debased, even; jerking off to your underwear like some pervert lurking around the laundromat.

And truthfully, if he wanted, needed, you so badly, then you are but a text or a phone call away; but as Kokushibo growls into his hand, thinking about the silky wet of your folds, the threads of glistening juices that clings to his fingers as he strokes your cunt, there is very little regard on his part on what is right. And right now, he is stroking himself swiftly and firmly; it is not like how you do it, with your languished motions and endless patience for teasing out his pleasure – but he is not here for prolonged foreplay. The rough texture of his sweatpants makes for excellent friction, and he runts up against his hand, angling himself precisely to glide his cockhead over the fabric.

It does not take long for him to climax, and he does so with a jerk of his hips and a ragged growl into the inside of his boxers. A dark patch blooms over his sweatpants, mirroring the faint mark on your underwear, and for a few seconds Kokushibo simply stares down at his lap, dazed by the quickness which he brought himself to completion. His cock is still twitching weakly as he thinks of you, and what you will say if you were to come through the doors right now, arms full with the groceries for the week ahead. Will you scold him for making a mess? Or will you let him bend you over the washing machine, paper bags and laundry basket equally forgotten?

Alas, these questions will have to wait as Kokushibo gets up on shaky feet. He pulls off his trousers and boxers with his clean hand and washes them in the basin; and when he comes back, he gives the offending piece of garment – that wicked, ordinary pair of grey panties – a final look before chucking them all in the wash.

For more of my writings, check out my AO3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vraisetzen/pseuds/vraisetzen

[vraisetzen]

Can I make a request on kokushibo? I would like a headcanon about his ideal partner or romantic/sexual setting. Your writing is beautiful and inspiring! Take your time and rest well, have a good day!

𝑲𝒐𝒌𝒖𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒃𝒐: 𝑯𝒊𝒔 𝑰𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒍 𝑷𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒏𝒆𝒓; 𝑹𝒐𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑺𝒆𝒙

Author's Note: Thanks for the request, Anon! This was really fun to write — I've always had personal headcanons about Kokushibo and his ideal partner, and how he would behave in a romantic/sexual setting, so it's nice to finally write them down!

Tags: NSFW, 18+, Descriptions of sex (but not PWP)

Kokushibo's Ideal Partner

A dignified, fearsome, and authoritative demon of few words, Kokushibo is shrouded in mystery, and even when he chooses to speak, his words and actions are careful and deliberate, betraying nothing personal.

Bearing this in mind, it can be easy for many to assume that Kokushibo — tall, dark, handsome — would seek a partner similar to him. A femme fatale type, if you will; someone confident, alluring, and radiating as much mystique and sex appeal as he does. After all, we are drawn to those most like us, and Kokushibo is attracted to power and ambition.

But it is worth remembering that the human parts of Kokushibo informed his psyche as much as his demon self. A charming, glamorous lover might pique his interest for a night or two, but as a former samurai of the Sengoku period, what Kokushibo desires is someone stitched along a more traditional cut of cloth: a quiet, gentle soul who belies a firm determination and resilience.

Still, Kokushibo is not merely looking for a Yamato Nadeshiko — he does not seek subservience in a partner, nor does he want them to blindly follow his words. In fact, Kokushibo would very much prefer someone who can stand up for themselves, even to him. Because dominant though he may be, Kokushibo enjoys the push-and-pull of proving himself and his place in a relationship, the hard-sought feeling of satisfaction when he knows he has won over his dearest's heart — and this will not be possible if they were too soft on him.

In that vein, Kokushibo's ideal partner should also be someone who is his intellectual equal. They need not share the same interests, but they need to be competent in their knowledge of the arts — from classical literature and poetry, to history, and painting. At the very least, they should express a curosity for the traditional arts and its refinement, for there is nothing more he finds disagreeable than superficiality, or an unwillingness to better oneself.

At the same time, Kokushibo recognises hard work and determination; consider the respect he had for Akaza, or the other Hashiras he fought — while they may not possess his strength and abilities, he finds their resolve remarkable. It should thus follow that he would desire a partner who is uncompromising and displays an inner steadfastness.

And he finds beauty in the tiniest of details too; Kokushibo's dearest may not be the most attractive (though it would certainly be a positive if they were so), but a certain features of theirs: the creases in the corners of their eyes when they smiled, the gasp they made when they are pleasantly surprised, or the softness in their gaze as they watched children gathering around a candy vendor during the summer festival.

It is precisely for these moments of rare beauty that Kokushibo enjoys making his dearest happy through small gestures of affection: it could be a quick peck on the cheek in public when no one else is looking, or perhaps a surprise gift of books, kanzashi, or hand-spun candy when he passes a store and imagines the look of surprise and the gleam in their eyes when his dearest receives them.

Romance and Sex:

In all, Kokushibo isn't prone to grand gestures of affection; this was how he courted you too. Quiet though he may be, Kokushibo was not easily daunted. The moment he was certain of his affection for you, all he did was seek the right moment to tell you how he felt. He would not go about the cliched manner of declaring his feelings beneath a cherry blossom tree, or wax lyrical in a long-winded letter. Rather, he would be quite composed and formal — after all, he had already done this before as a human — preferring to confessing his feelings while you sat across him, expressing his desire for courting you in the clearest terms.

(And you, so besotted by his intensity, the uncompromising manner with which he carried himself — there was no mistaking his sincerity for a fling or dalliance; while he cannot, and would not promise you the world or its wordly riches, what he would give you in its stead would be himself).

Once your courtship began, he would prefer to show his love through simple deeds: a quiet night spent beneath the stars, long walks along winding paths where there is no one else save for the rustling of trees and the skitter of nocturnal creatures. He could spend hours in silence, basking in the joy of being by your side, or if you wished, a long, meandering conversation about the songbirds of the season, and how they complemented the blossoms that dotted the branches of the trees that hung above you.

Occasionally, he may enjoy a picture show with you; you may grab his hand in fright at a thrilling action sequence, which brings him amusement and a slight hint of pleasure, for he enjoys returning the gesture in reassurance, his palm resting softly on your arm. Wasn't it exciting! you would exclaim, after the film was over and you two had streamed out of the theatre. Kokushibo had little to comment, for he had been too distracted by the sights of those lights flickering across your features, eyes alit with wonder.

At the very beginning, Kokushibo would take things slowly — a soft cradle of your cheek here, a hand on your lower back to guide you down the streets. He did not wish to frighten you by going in too strongly; although if you showed a desire for something more, he would not hesitate to give you everything. Afterall, the push and pull of romance was very much akin to the footwork of swordsmanship — one needed to know when to charge forth and when to pull back; and in that arena, Kokushibo was a master.

But when you did show him that you were ready for something heavier and darker, Koksuhibo would be more than happy to show you what it was exactly he had amassed in those four hundreds years: between the sheets, Kokushibo would be a dominant partner, proud of his experience and the pleasures he could give you. If you were inexperienced, he would be a generous teacher, guiding you to understand the joys of the flesh; if you were experienced, he would delight in surpassing every lover you had before him through skill alone.

Ever a traditionalist, Kokushibo would be partial towards a missionary position; he enjoyed, most of all, the expressions you made as he made love to you. The flush which radiated across your cheeks and suffused your neck and chest, the tense grip of your fingers on his shoulders, the tremble of your thighs while he moved inside you — here, he would have a front row seat to your performance; a much more riveting cinema than the picture shows that you enjoyed. He would remember the manner you called out his name, the breathless hitch of your voice as he railed inside you, coaxing himself deeper with every thrust; in the privacy of your coupling he cherished each response you gave him into memory — one he would revisit with his hand should you be unable to fulfil his needs at the present moment (though he would always seek to find you first).

On the occasion you decide to hold the reins, Kokushibo would not mind you straddling him either; he need not move much while he laid below you, observing the wanton pleasure glazing over your eyes while you rode him, head thrown back as your hips found his again and again. His hand would find rest on waist, caressing the soft flesh of your body and cupping your breast in his palm. The impatient stuttering of your hips would grow erratic as you neared your climax, your cries long since incoherent and more akin to the mewls of a helpless creature. Your knees would lock around his sides, hands finding purchase on his chest when you finally hit your peak, your sex throbbing along his length as you rode out your pleasure — persistently at first, before becoming clumsier as your body sparked with oversensitivity. Spent, you would lie supine against him, your breath shallow as exhausten overtook you, hair clinging to the slick sheen of sweat over your forehead.

Still, Kokushibo was not someone with a lot of kinks; he would indulge in something a little different once in a while — a bit of choking, a bit of bondage (mainly tying you up by the wrists and watching you struggle as he teased you little by little with his hands and tongue, going from your pert nipples and down between your legs), a bit of degradation — especially if his dearest asked for it, but he would loathe to see her in distress, even if it were consensual. To him, sex was something sacred and profound, to be partaken with utmost respect; and your body, to that end, was a temple of pleasure to which he devoted himself with conscientious duty.

And that was the philosophy in which Kokushibo carried himself in regard to love — with firm conviction and uncompromising devotion. In the same manner that he dedicated himself to the ways of the sword, he treated the affairs of the heart and flesh with care and precision; indeed, to be Kokushibo's better half (and he would not shy away from the use of this term, because he truly believed that his dearest would complete him in aspects where he was imperfect) would be to share his heart, body, and soul — inasmuch as he would have certainly stolen yours.

[vraisetzen]

𝑨 𝒕𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖 – 𝑲𝒐𝒌𝒖𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒃𝒐 𝒙 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓

Summary: Kokushibo wakes up from a dream about you.

Tags: NSFW, 18+, Modern/KimeGaku AU, No use of (y/n)

Kokushibo opens his eyes, the muddled colours of his dreams swimming into and eventually replaced by the dull greys of the bedroom. He shifts slightly on the sheets, long hair rustling on the pillows as he tries to revisit the images that flooded his mind all but a few seconds ago — now, they seem to linger beyond his fingertips, slipping away from him.

Your curves, the softness of your skin, the scent of your hair that billows softly into an elusive cloud as you disappear into the realm of his unconsciousness.

Distantly, he is aware of a nagging ache in his groin, the pulsing of an arousal that brings his cock to full mast. In the back of his mind, he curses you and your name — the reason why he has been unable to rise peacefully in the past few days ever since you appeared more frequently in his life.

The pointed dip of your Cupid's bow, stretched taut as you swallow his cock; the wrapping heat of your throat as you inhale and moan along his length; and most of all, the furtive, slick depths of your sex as you astride him, knees trapping his hips — your head thrown back as you surrender to pleasure, the arch of your back trembling beneath his hands.

These hands that now have nothing to hold onto as he grasps firmly on his cock, a pitiful imitation of the heat he can only imagine you giving him. There is nothing honourable about this — jerking himself off to someone he has only met on a few occasions — and he knows. But Kokushibo cannot help himself as a groan falls from him, sliding his hand along his length.

How will you stoke the fires of his erection? Your hands were small, delicate things, a sharp chiaroscuro against his wider, callused ones. Would you drag your fingertips under his frenulum to tease him, as he does now? Or will you cap the flat of your palm on his cockhead, playing with the splash of precum that glistens over the reddened tip? Kokushibo thrusts into his hands, hips stuttering as he envisions once more the tightness that you have given him in his dreams — of your lips, your hands, and your cunt. The sharp, stilted moans as you try to take him whichever way you can, your eyes shut first in pain at his size before easing to pleasure, the waterline of your lashes soaked with tears.

And it is to this enveloping desire — both to have you and have you have him that Kokushibo comes with a strangled groan. His climax spills over his fingers messily, creaming over knuckles and threatening to make a mess over his boxers and sheets – if this were you, he wonders dimly even at his peak, would you lick and drink every drop of his seed while look up at him? Eyes wide and tongue rough as it drags across his skin?

This, he cannot know as he slumps back on the bed, body releasing the final ebbs of tension as sated clarity follows in the wake of his pleasure. The cool air of the air-conditioning prickles the hair of his swear-soaked skin, and brings into relief the stickiness of his spent. Kokushibo looks down at the mess that has drenched his groin and sighs.

He cannot keep waking up like this — he must do everything in his power to find you once more, and make you his.

For more of my writings, check out my AO3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vraisetzen/pseuds/vraisetzen

[vraisetzen]

V, you’re doing requests? Oh my gosh, I love your writing so much, I feel like I just… have to be cheeky and use this opportunity 🤭💕 my hunch is to say that I’d love for you to write something that inspires you, but I also won’t lie and will admit that I’m really craving some… boyfriend Koku related story? Perhaps in a modern setting too 😀 and because I’m… a bit greedy, I’d like to request semi-longform 🫣❤️🫶

𝑻𝒐 𝑯𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝑯𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝑵𝒐𝒕 — 𝑨 𝑲𝒐𝒌𝒖𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒃𝒐 𝒙 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝑰𝒏𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒕

Summary: Business trips are long, tiring affairs, and while absence only makes the heart grow fonder — both you and Kokushibo are adamant to make things work.

Tags: 18+, NSFW, PWP, Smut, Phone Sex, Modern AU, Boyfriend!Kokushibo

Author's Note: Thank you for the lovely request! I loved writing every moment of this ficlet — you can certainly read this as a standalone, or within the Kimetsu Gakuen AU, or the modern office AU that I wrote a while back. Enjoy!

"How was the meeting?"

"It went well." Kokushibo's voice was distant, and softer than usual. "We made good progress with the board of directors from the Teikoku Blood Bank, so that man thinks we can move on to the next step of negotiations tomorrow."

"That sounds good," you noted, lying on your side as you gazed out the window.

Through the sheer curtains, you could see the waning crescent looming over the city skyline, its faint glow surrounded by the twinkling of stars. Amongst them, the blinking of a satellite persisted — you cradled the phone between your cheek and shoulder, and wondered if Kokushibo could see the same moon and scatter of constellations that you did right now through his hotel room window.

As Kibutsuji Muzan's trusted second-in-command of the department, business trips were part and parcel of Kokushibo's duties, with him often acting as emissary and secretary for the division chief while the latter wove through networking luncheons and business drinks at cabaret lounges. And though they never lasted more than a week, you always made it a point to call him at the end of a long day if he was not too busy or tired.

It was not because you were afraid of him straying — Kokushibo often kept to his room in the evening whenever possible; and all you simply wanted was to hear his voice. On his part, your boyfriend more than welcomed these casual chats as you idled from one topic to another the way you would if he was right beside you. It was a point of familiarity, a semblance of home away from home.

"So that's two nights down and two more to go," you said absent-mindedly, your words trailing off as you yawned. Kokushibo was a few hours behind you, and you had been chatting longer than usual tonight.

"Are you in bed?" Kokushibo asked.

"Are you not?" you parried, stealing a glance at the digital clock on your nightstand. Quarter past one. Usually, you would be tucked in your sheets at this hour, but your phone felt particularly heavy in your hand tonight, and you were reluctant to hang up.

"I am."

"Then you probably should go to bed early," you suggested, with no intention of ending the call.

"I won't be sleeping any time soon," Kokushibo said. "I have emails to reply."

You hummed in understanding, and said: "Then we can keep going until one of us falls asleep then."

There was something strange in the air after you said those words, one on which you cannot quite place your fingers. It was rich with implication and unspoken intent, that you felt lingered on the tip of his tongue, waiting to spill; Kokushibo was not a talker, and he could very well be tired after a long day of work, but you felt that same pressing need from him to stall for however long you both could, and so you waited.

In the static silence, Kokushibo asked: "What are you wearing?"

"Hmm?" you replied, gazing down at your nightclothes despite knowing very well what you picked earlier this evening after coming out of the shower. "Just a shirt and an old pair of shorts."

"Which ones?" he pressed.

"Oh, you know," you began, picking at the frayed ends of the shirt and studying the design. You were happy for him to ask the questions, if you had an inkling of where he was bringing you. "The one with the donuts; nothing fancy."

"Right." The line crackled as you heard him take a deep breath, and you turned to lie flat on your back. "And beneath that?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Humour me."

"Well..." you drifted off, toying with the elastic waistband of your shorts as you drew out your answer.

"You're not wearing anything, aren't you?" Kokushibo interrupted before you could elaborate.

You were suddenly quite glad of the distance between the both of you as your ears took to a furious scarlet, shifting up to prop your back against the pillow.

"And what makes you think that?" you parried, the sensation of worn polyester stark against your bare skin. The slow buzz of Kokushibo's hum across the line drew shivers down your spine.

"It's been two nights," he explained slowly, his timbre a soft growl. You heard the rustling of bed sheets as he shifted on the bed, the sound of old springs creaking beneath his weight.

He leaves the words hanging, transmitting them across oceans and timezones even though you are miles apart. Lightly, you tickled the sensitive skin over your inner thigh, taking a shuddering breath as you recounted his words in your head.

Two nights — it was not a long time by any means, and certainly you have been away from each other for longer. The temperature of your room seemed to have risen by a few degrees, and you kicked off the sheets as well. What was that saying? That absence makes the heart grow–

"How wet are you?" he asked again, without missing a beat.

The assumption in his words were apparent, but you did nothing to quell his accusation; between your legs, the warm wash of arousal clung to the threadbare fabric of your shorts. You pressed an experimental finger against your cunt, and drew a silver thread of wetness.

But you were too embarrassed to answer; too embarrassed to make plain the desperation gnawing away at your bones. You wanted to tear off your sorry excuse of pyjamas — and that you did, discarding the thin clothes across the half-empty mattress. Your skin was fire across the icy-cool sheets; and as you reclined back on the bed, you set your phone beside your head on the pillows, turning the speaker on.

You closed your eyes, and imagined Kokushibo's hands on your sex — the callous on his fingertips that gave just the perfect amount of roughness on your soft skin, the insistent pressure he would apply to your clit as he traced up from your dripping core to your seam.

Your smaller, slight fingers were no substitute for his deft ministrations, nor were they an adequate replacement for how he was attuned to every note of arousal in your body; but the nearness of his voice, the static ricket of his breathing through your phone was a sufficient approximation for his being right next to you.

Through the receiver, you heard a strained groaned, and wondered if Kokushibo thought the same: how his hands would never compare to your tight, throbbing heat; that even if he could spit into his palms to ease the friction, he would much prefer sinking into your sultry wetness — the sound of which filled the room at present as you smeared your essence across your sex before coaxing your middle and ring finger within.

"Tell me how you feel," Kokushibo rasped, as you threw your head back on the pillow and gasped.

Massaging that sensitive bundle of nerves along your walls, you sighed: "It feels– it feels good, but..."

"But?"

"It's not as good as when you do it..."

"I see..." Kokushibo began, and you brought your free hand to your breasts, pinching your nipples. "And what would you want me to do?"

Through the haze of pleasure, your eyes rolled over to the call screen, over the small photo of Kokushibo that you had taken as his caller ID: a Mannerist portrait of long hair and pale skin, his stern brows softened in a rare moment of distraction as the colours of sunset poured over his oblique profile. That cold elegance, so at odds with the wanton conversation you were both sharing.

"I want you inside me," you admitted, biting back a whimper as you nudged against that same spot again. Dropping your other hand between your legs, you brushed your clit in time with your fingers.

Shutting your eyes, you imagined that it was not your hands on your body but rather Kokushibo — his cock, wide and warm as they split you open, stretching you along your clenching walls; the throb of his erection that struck you perfectly each time he pistoned his hips into your writhing form.

Your soft cries joined the ragged growls emitting from the phone as Kokushibo listened to your keels and the wash of your arousal on your fingers; could he hear, from your fervent moans, how much you craved him? Did he feel the same dissatisfaction as he gripped himself by the base of his erection, stroking his length to each of your breathless gasps, so as to join your pleasure in unison?

"Don't hold back," he grunted. "Tell me everything..."

Licking your dry lips, you pushed through the haze of pleasure to admit: "I wish — I wish you were here; I want you to touch me, and fuck me, and come inside me-"

"Shit," Kokushibo seethed, a rare break of composure as you continued to beg for him. He could not see you, but he knew as well how you were likely writhing on your shared bed, back arching as you came undone at the behest of your fingers. "When I come back-"

"-I'll let you do anything you want," you finished his words, tilting your hips to better slip your fingers into your depths. You were close, so close — and you would be closer if Kokushibo was here, tongue and hands and cock and all, pinning you beneath his frame; not even your best fantasies could replicate that torrent of heat that radiated from his body as he bruised into your core, skin smoothing against skin, sweat-soaked and flushed with impending climax.

Already you knew what you wanted to do, and want you wanted him to do when he returned — you could take his length into your mouth, and he could lick every drop of your essence. Savour every missed drop, making up for lost time; you would not even make it as far as the bedroom if you pounced on him in the cramped entryway of your flat, then the sofa, the kitchen counter. He could hold you against the wall, your body folded at the hip as your ankles found leverage on his shoulders, your petals pink and soaked for him to push easily inside your cunt without resistance.

"Come for me," he would command, and you would let go of all inhibitions and frustrations, the surge of your orgasm striking your body as a lightning in a vast ocean of pleasure; stars and sparks clouding your vision as it scorched through your veins, as bright and incandescent as the dawning sun in that fleeting moment. Thrashing beneath his continued thrusts, you would feel the spill of his seed, hot and thick, in your tightening depths, cajoling him for all he was worth, your pleasures coming together one potent potion of lust.

Your fingers drew to a gradual stop inside your sex, the clenching of your walls fading to a faint pulse as you descended from your high. You heard a faint squelch as you withdrew your hand, and studied the rivulets of your arousal trickling down your fingers. Just yours, you could not help but be reminded, as you searched the sheets for your forgotten phone. The call was still on, and you heard a rough panting that made you sizzle with want.

"I miss you." Your voice was small and timid against the enormity of your desire.

The line was silent for a moment before Kokushibo answered: "I won't be long."

You better not, you wanted to say, but decided against it. Studying your mottled reflection in the glass — bed head, bare skin — you chose instead to hit a logo in the bottom of the screen, just beside the speaker. Three dots skittered in an undulating dance as the call reconnected, and then:

Kokushibo raised a brow at you as you gazed at him through the video call, your attention falling first to his chest, and how they shimmered with a faint sheen of perspiration. He, too, swept his eyes over your tousled state; they dropped a fraction of an inch down to your naked body as you raised the front camera. Holding your fingers — still glistening with your juices, you licked them clean for him one by one.

"My phone's dying," he told you when you were finished. You took in his parted lips and how his Adam's apple bobbed up and down along the firm column of his throat, knowing he longed for the taste of your musk on his tongue. Still, Kokushibo sat up straight on his bed, the hotel mattress protesting beneath the sudden movement.

From this angle, you could see the half-mast of his cock, poised and ready for your taking; if only you could...

"So we'll just have to make this a quick one, my dearest..."

Thank you for reading!

For my longer writings, please visit my AO3 here.

[vraisetzen]

hiii i absolutely love your work! i’ve reread your fics like a thousand times 😭😭 could you maybe write about michikatsu/koku x reader in a modern office setting?

𝑨 𝑯𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝑫𝒂𝒚'𝒔 𝑵𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 – 𝑲𝒐𝒌𝒖𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒃𝒐 𝒙 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝑰𝒏𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒕

Summary: A late night with Section Chief Kokushibo reveals a lot more about him and yourself than you realised.

Tags: Slightly suggestive, Pining, Modern AU (Non-Kimetsu Gakuen).

Author's Note: I'm sorry this took so long! I've hit a dry spell lately with writing, but I didn't want to disappoint all of you lovelies who sent in these wonderful requests, so I just spent a little more time making sure things were alright. There's no smut here, but I thought it would be cute to envision Koku in a modern, but non-KimeGaku setting!

You felt the gust of wind comb through your hair, before the inevitable smack of the papers on your desk as your manager bore down on you.

"What is this?" Kibutsuji Muzan demanded, running his thumb across the pages before letting the annual financial records for the company flop down on your table once more.

"Your errors have just cost us our budget forecast for the next two years; do you realise the shitstorm you have gotten our entire department into?" Muzan continued while you dropped your gaze, your bottom lip caught between your teeth as you fought the scorching heat burning through your cheeks. The office had gone painfully quiet, while you combed through the disarrayed thoughts in your head for an explanation.

The thing was, you could not remember what it was exactly that you had done wrong — Daki and Gyutaro had thrown you into the lion's den without so much an instruction for what it was the higher-ups needed, and it was not until you pestered Douma, your desk neighbour, by way of a strawberry frappucino trenta and a half-baked cheesecake did he finally told you that you just need to analyse the P&L statements against the EBITDA figures, while considering last year's debt to equity ratios, dummy.

And clearly, judging by how the blond had gone strangely silent as he tapped away on the instant messaging window on his laptop — you could not help but wonder if this was all part of an elaborate hazing ritual, with you as the newest arrival to this company, not knowing anyone or if they were being sincere with their every word and deed.

"I want this done by tomorrow morning," Muzan ordered, barely giving you a moment to collect your thoughts.

"But-!" Your eyes strayed to the towering stack of papers as it swayed and slumped over your desk, numerical figures splashing across the table.

"I won't have any excuses," Muzan said, his turning on his heel. There was a coldness to the sharpened edge of his tone that promised a something more than a reprimand should you decide to speak back, and you let your words wither in indignation and frustration on the back of your tongue and you swallowed the lump that had formed in your throat.

This wasn't fair. None of it was. Your eyes swept with accusation to Daki, who had reverted her attention the glass file as she studied the gel tips of her nails, and her brother who slumped over his desk, his weed-like hair covering his eyes from your gaze.

"Kokushibo," Muzan ordered as he fished his jacket from his chair and fixed it over his shoulder, the sleeves swishing around his sides as the wings of a bat. "I'll be out to meet some clients today. Make sure everything's in order."

"Yes, sir," Kokushibo replied, fixing his reading glasses as he walked the division chief to the door.

Mumbles of Take care, buchō and Thank you for your hard work, buchō purled through the office as Muzan took his leave with nary a glance back at his juniors. As soon as he was out of earshot, however, the office burst into life once more as Douma stretched his arms like a prima donna belting the final notes of a torch song, and announced:

"Drinks! Who wants drinks?"

"Oh, me!" Daki exclaimed, tossing the file into her handbag and snapping it shut. "I heard there's a new spot just around the corner."

"The Thirsty Fish?" Gyokko asked, his wide, slimey eyes bulging further than ever as he considered the offer. "Count me in."

"Akaza?" Douma flounced over to the desk opposite his, and was met with a blast of arctic chill as Akaza packed his gym duffle and left without a single word. "Oh well — guess it'll be me, Daki-chan, Gyokko, Hantengu-"

"-You guys can go ahead," Hantengu creeped across the office, cradling the bump on his head. "I don't feel too well."

"Okay, then me, Daki-chan, Gyokko, Gyutaro — and Kokku-chan! Wouldn't you like to join us? For the first time in a million years?"

"No," Kokushibo said, who returned to his desk with a set of ring files piled high in his arms. "And you will refer to me by my name only."

Douma inhaled sharply through clenched teeth at the jab. "So, that was charming," he noted, before turning to you. Your eyes dropped back to the documents on your table, your stomach churning in anger at their flippant exchange.

"And you..." Douma's fingers danced across the top of your monitor, skipping along the line of trinkets that you have secured in place. "Will stay here and finish your work, won't you?"

He tipped over the last trinket — two rabbits perched on a crescent moon, a good luck charm your best friend gave you as a graduation gift — sending it on a loud thud on your desk. "Oops!"

Without so as an apology, Douma slung his briefcase over his shoulder and joined the rest of the crew, their giggles and cackles filling up the hallway in a haunting jeer. You kept your gaze on the fallen ornament, a torrent of irritation and disgust tossing in your gut. Reluctantly, you gathered the files in your hands, and flipping through them without much thought for the figures that laid within it.

Where should you start? You had no idea where things went wrong. A glance at the clock on the wall told you it was past dinner time; you should be so fortunate if you could leave the office for breakfast tomorrow...

"Show me the files."

A shadow fell over your desk as you gazed up to find Kokushibo hulking over your desk. Taken aback by his sudden appearance, you shrank into your seat.

"You don't need to stay, Kokushibo-kachō," you stuttered, as he held out a hand expectantly for the documents. "It's my mistake, after all."

"And how do you intend on fixing that?" Kokushibo raised a skeptical brow before grabbing a stack from the dizzying tower of accounts and records. "You'd be lucky to go through half the stack before the sun rises."

And before you could protest, he began sorting through the pages himself, long fingers leafing through years of backlogs and data entries. You watched as he, with impossible efficiency and precision, surveyed through the figures, his eyes scanning between the lines of numbers. Around three-quarters through the files, he tutted, and pulled out Douma's chair to sit next to you.

The heat of Kokushibo's body radiated from his pressed suit; it rose in palpable waves as you sank back to your seat, angled towards him to receive any directions. There was a warm and pleasant scent about him; something clean and mossy and green like the morning mist that drifted along a still lake.

You have never exchanged more than two words with your section chief prior to this, your interactions limited to polite greetings and acknowledgements when you bumped into him in the hallway — there was something elusive about him from which you could not quite tear your eyes away. More than his impressive height and cascading ponytail, Kokushibo's controlled calm made him both intimidating and intriguing; a subject of much speculation and interest on your part.

"I'm going to mark out the mistakes while you'll key the right figures into the spreadsheet," he told you. "Pen?"

In the haze of his presence, you were slow to take in his words, your hands reaching more like clockwork than any conscientious effort for your stationery cup. Dimly, you noticed a glint of impatience flaring across Kokushibo's eyes, and he cut across your outstretched fingers to fetch the pencil for himself.

You jumped, the static between the contact of your fingers sending electricity up your arms and into the pulses of your heart like an ungelled defibrillator. His hand had been warmer than your expected; you thought that perhaps they would be cold like his words and exterior — a man who spared few words and even fewer displays of emotion, who turned the clogs and gears of this department as a well-oil machine, a commandeer that navigated the inclement disposition of Kibutsuji Muzan with a face and heart of stone.

Kokushibo, meanwhile, was unaffected, engrossing himself with the task in silence. With precision and accuracy, he marked out where you had first made your mistake, the flourish of his wrist making sharp, scratching noises on the paper. One by one, you noted every correction into your laptop, the cells churning out a different set of numbers that cascaded to the end of the table.

How would the rest of him feel, you wonder? What laid beneath that steely exterior, those muted expressions and sparse words. Could you find warm flesh and blood, a rapturous passion waiting to unfurl for the right person? From the corner of your eye, you studied the way his sinew twisted beneath his forearms as he scribbled on the paper; Kokushibo was a strong man — you have seen him heft boxes and lift ladders during the department's annual spring cleaning.

He could easily carry you too, and hold you close to him as you trembled beneath his cool gaze and wide frame. The strands of his layered tresses would tumble over his shoulder as he trapped you under his body, tickling your cheeks. Your breath would hitch as you caught his wandering gaze. anticipating the moment when he would peel open your clothes, dragging his calloused fingertips over your soft skin, and down to where you–

"What is it?" Kokushibo asked, noticing how you had fallen silent, your fingers hovering over the keyboard.

You blinked, embarrassed at having been caught with your thoughts adrift; hopefully they had not been plastered across your face for him to read. Shifting in your chair, you crossed your legs and straightened your back. "Nothing; sorry."

Suddenly conscious of every movement you made, you kept yourself a few significant inches away from him, eyes fixed on the numbers that melted into a puddle of fluster and discomposure.

The parting of the Red Sea. The walls of Jericho.

"You ought to conduct yourself with a little more resolve if you wish to continue working here," Kokushibo noted, continuing with the papers.

"Ah?" You looked up at him again — against the brilliant beacon of light from the lamp on Douma's desk, his profile stood partially in shadow as an eclipsed moon. Breathlessly rare and hopelessly distant. "Yes, kachō."

"Don't count on Douma or the others for help either, things don't work that way around here."

"Yes, kachō," was all you could offer again, although for good measure, you added: "Thank you for helping me."

"I'm not doing this for you," Kokushibo remarked, hardly missing a beat. His eyes were still on the papers as the tip of his pen tapped in an off-rhythm on the pages. "This is for the sake of our branch, and that man."

Of course, you reminded yourself. The bigger picture. You were well aware of what Muzan had told you when you applied for this role in this company: the cutthroat world of finance and banking, his mysterious and inexplicable rivalry with Division Chief Ubuyashiki Kagaya of the Wisteria branch. In this office, there was no such thing as camaraderie; even with Kokushibo's help as the both of you finished the night's task with three hours to sunrise, you knew it would be foolish for you to believe there was any goodwill behind his assistance.

Your task was crunching numbers and pushing papers, after all — whatever fantasy you could conjure from their inanimate form was pure shadow puppetry, fictive and speculative.

But there was a small part of you that held out for the momentary thrill of heat when Kokushibo's fingers brushed against yours — it could grow into an inferno, melting away at the frost and uncover what is beneath: flesh, and something tantalising still.

Yet, as you placed the stack of documents on Muzan's desk for his vetting the next morning, and trailed behind Kokushibo out of the office, he felt so near and so out of reach, as if the warmth on your fingertips was no more than the refracted brilliance of the cold moonlight.

The elevator was silent as it skimmed downwards, and you trained your eyes on your muddled reflection in its brushed steel doors; meanwhile Kokushibo had traded his glasses for a pair of shades, and it was difficult to tell on where his eyes were focused. In the enclosed space, his presence was enveloping and fervid, the cloud of his cologne now flooding your lungs with every small puff of air you dared yourself to take. Him, everywhere and anywhere — if you had only the nerve to take a single step forward.

Taking a deep breath, you said: "Thank you for helping me tonight, kachō. I hope I didn't inconvenience you in any way."

He hummed gruffly at your words. "Just don't make the same mistake twice."

His stolid answer left you a little dumb, and as you wracked your mind for something to say, the elevator doors yawned opened as it reached the basement carpark — there were only a few cars left, stragglers who were sharing a similar fate as you two. The heels of Kokushibo's shoes echoed in soft clacks as he stepped out of the lift; you prepared to dip your head in a bow when he placed his hand on the doors, keeping them ajar.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Kachō?" you asked, apprehensive. Your eyes raked over his face and tinted glasses, unable to read his expression.

"It's late; the stations have closed," he said matter-of-factly. He's offering you a ride home, you deduced — it was tantalising, though with this surprising advance, any pluck you just summoned to initiate conversation evaporated into thin air.

In a brief second of clarity, you found your thoughts in disarray, scattered as the numbers you left behind in the office. Much as you would love to test your hypothesis, you were in no state to behave rationally or with resolve; there was no telling if you might do anything out of impulse or foolishness, and risk finding by next morning a box on your desk, with a letter of dismissal typed in Times New Roman, font size 12.

"Oh, I couldn't impose," you took a step backward into the elevator, itching to jab at the buttons to close the door.

From over the top of Kokushibo's glasses you can see a brow raise in question. He must think you were stupid for passing up such an offer; knowing him, he probably was cognisant of where you lived from your application letter. An hour walk home in the cold night from the business district to the outskirts of town was something only someone as foolish as you would do — and he would know that part of you all too well.

It would do nothing to help with his impression of you: meek, scatter-brained, but it was the right thing to do, you tried telling yourself — the two of you were colleagues; specifically, Kokushibo was your senpai, one you were supposed to hold at a professional distance. To breach to ocean and tear down those walls would be a gross misconduct on your part.

"Fine," he said, removing his hand from the doors and letting them close as he turned away without a second glance back at you.

And you felt the ground give way beneath your feet, the cool robotic voice announcing the floor that you were headed; you slumped on the cool railings lining the walls of the elevator, hating yourself.

...To be continued?

Thank you for reading!

For my longer writings, visit my AO3 here.

[vraisetzen]

𝑼𝒔𝒖𝒈𝒖𝒎𝒐 — 𝑨 𝑺𝒖𝒘𝒂 𝒀𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒈𝒆 𝒙 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝑰𝒏𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒕

Status: One-shot ✅

Tags: NSFW, 18+, PWP, Oral sex, Hand jobs, Married couple dynamics 🔞

Read it here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58790608

[vraisetzen]

𝑵𝒐𝒕𝒕𝒆 𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒂: 𝑨 𝑲𝒐𝒌𝒖𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒃𝒐 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝑰𝒏𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒕

Status: Completed ✔️

Tags: NSFW, 18+, No use of (y/n)

Read it here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48799750/chapters/123102148

[vraisetzen]

AAAA i was wondering how michikatsu or kokushibo would demonstrate aftercare to the reader! that, or how either would display jealousy!

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑺𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑳𝒚𝒓𝒆 – 𝑲𝒐𝒌𝒖𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒃𝒐 𝒙 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓

Tags: 18+, NSFW, Suggestive, Aftercare, No use of y/n.

Author's Note: Thank you for this lovely request! I initially planned to write a headcanon list of how Kokushibo would show aftercare, but one thing led to another, so I just scrapped and wrote a short vignette instead! Enjoy~ ✨

The haze of spices always struck the back of your throat like a dish of sake on a cold, autumn's day — its warmth unfolding slowly through your veins, grounded by the calm stir of sandalwood that lingered with the salty musk left behind by your bodies.

The flame in Kokushibo's hand flickered, before snipping off in a wisp that carried a tendril of grey smoke from the incense sitting on the burner. His fingers still bore the sweet bitterness of cloves when he returned to your side, pulling you towards him. You obliged, letting him slip his hand beneath your kimono and stroking in one gesture from the side of your thigh to the nape of your neck, before settling back down again to the supple flesh of your rear.

You took a deep breath — basking in the sensation of your skin pressing against his. Between the dark fragrance of incense that clouded your thoughts and the comforting blanket of his presence, you were lulled partially to sleep, hanging on to wakefulness by the reminder of Kokushibo's hand

"Tired?" he asked, cupping your bottom and pressing you along the firm lines of his body.

Shaking your head, you lifted one heavy eyelid and drawled: "It just feels nice."

Kokushibo hummed in agreement, before leaning in to kiss you on your temple, and then your cheekbones; slowly, he left his mark down your neck and shoulder, each peck purposeful and yet meandering as he stalked the peaks and dips of your body with the careless ease of an idle wayfarer.

"But not too nice," you cautioned, when he strayed close over the curve of your breasts, the shock of his heated breath sending shivers down your spine. They crescented into goosebumps as Kokushibo chuckled against your skin.

"This heart is not a summer field," he recited, "and yet..."

Your respond was swift. "I thought you did not favour the verses of The Floating Lady."

"Indeed," he concurred, mulling over your appraisal with measured consideration. Meeting your gaze as he pushed himself up once more, he added: "But one finds poetic recollection in the most unlikely of moments."

"Is that so?" Losing your fingers into his tresses, you undid the twine holding them his tail together. Set loose, Kokushibo's tumbled onto his shoulders, and you held up the string, letting it dangle between your bodies. "And what if you and I are pulled apart as this cord?"

"Is that an invitation or a challenge?" he asked, winding his arms tighter around your body. You regarded him through the curtain of his fringe, taking in the way the strands fell into his eyes, barely concealing the red mark emblazoned across his forehead.

"One hopes," you surmised, lying back on the pillow and tugging him along with you, "that it may only remain an assumption."

The corner of Kokushibo's lips crooked in a small smile, and looming over your countenance you caught him eyeing your lips before flicking his gaze to your nose, eyes, and forehead. And it was in that precise order that he kissed you once more — tenderly, this time with more than a hint of restraint from the fervent manner his hands now wandered across your back.

"Don't hold back," you said, closing your eyes once more and submitting your body to him. The night was young after all, and the sun will not rise until he has traversed your body and found new definitions in its contours with the imprint of his lips.

He was not always like this, you remembered.

At the beginning, Kokushibo had been distant, even frigid, in the wake of your coupling; as the glow of your pleasures dissipated from your bodies and was replaced by the sobering coolness of wherever he had taken you, he would retreat from the hot, silky depths of your sex, the spill of his seed clinging coldly to your thighs as he pulled away. He would be seized with a strange tension as you laid there on the futon, your eyes gazing and watching his every move.

You did not expect him to be tender with you. After all, he paid allegiance to a different master, one that eclipsed his affections for you. As it were, his obligations to you were physical, and in that regard he had never been a disappointment. Passion and domineering were his ways, and for a man of his stolid nature you knew that you would not be the one to change him.

But there was always something in the air, on which you could not quite articulate. Was it hesitation? Or was that only wishful thinking on your part, when you would part ways beneath the silvery mist hours before the sun peeked through the clouds. You watched him as he clothed himself — the hadajuban, the kimono, the hakama. Layer by layer, Kokushibo's fingers, still bearing the traces of your essence, danced along the fabric, gathering knots and tucking hems with measured precision. His eyes, all-seeing and watchful, would avoid the path of your gaze, staring with resolution at someplace or something else.

You wanted him to stay, to remain in the comfort of your sheets and hold you in his arms as he did when he made love to you; to listen to the steady beat of your heart and how it stuttered when he whispered ardent promises into your ear, and to lull you to sleep with his soft, deep breathing.

These were merely the hopes of a young woman gazing at the shadow of his back against a rose-tinted, moonlit sky — the imminence of dawn, the inevitability of separation. You held your tongue for fear of inviting contempt, the very exhalation of your words akin to a chain that sought to pin a creature of solitude like him to your side. Ladies do not beg; they onlyntake what they are given — this was society's decree, and you had certainly taken enough from him: his body, his lust, his passion. If only you had the gift of alchemy, to turn the desires of the flesh into something that could withstand the glaring light of day, and persist even after the pleasure has ebbed its last from your veins — then you would have him by your side for as long as you would life

On his part, Kokushibo was nothing if not observant; he was not ignorant to the hearts of women, having broken many in a bid to remain distant and solitary. Neither was he unacquainted with the undefinable glitter in your eyes, true and constant as constellations as he pulled on his clothes and felt the rough, indifferent scratch of linen on his skin, for he too desired the softness of your touch and your body.

Kokushibo relished the way you melted into his arms, the adulation in your gasps; in his life, he has courted and bedded many women, but none of them could compare to the solace that you gave him, so much that he feared — and how ridiculous it seemed, for a man of his strength and status to be afraid — that once he acquired a habit for the honey on your lips and the wine of your sex, that he would not be able to leave. And like a hummingbird that has tasted nectar and forsaken its earthier appetites for worms and flies, he knew that he would be drawn willingly to you again and again for the comfort that only you can provide.

But what was a man without shelter? A ship severed from its moorings, its harbour diminishing to a needlepoint in the vast ocean.

Your fingers danced from kindle to porcelain with delicacy, and the ware tinkled gently as you laid the lid of the censer on the tatami. The sizzle of lit charcoal joined the chorus of crickets for a brief refrain before it was outshone by the down tempo of incense powder scattering over its embers.

The ease at which you moved paralleled the silky curl of rising smoke, and you did not notice how Kokushibo had stopped dressing himself. His eyes were trained on your body — half nude as you dragged your kimono over your shoulders, your bare legs peeking beneath the indigo linen. He felt a stir inside him: something unlike arousal or desire, neighbouring the fear he had sought so much to circumvent.

A step forward, followed by another — he crossed the room silently until he was behind you once more; you startled at the caress of his fingers across your jaw, bringing your hair behind your shoulders so that he may kiss you on the neck.

Thinking that he was perhaps unsatisfied, you made to shrug the kimono off, but he placed a hand over yours. You looked up at him in confusion.

It took him a long moment, drawn further by the indiscernible cast of his gaze across your countenance; how clear and bright it was when it was not mired by the pleasure he gave you, as if he was gazing into the light of the stars that shone behind him, cloudless and singular in its magnitude.

And now it stained a faint rose as he stroked your cheek, before bestowing a kiss on your lips. Not biting, not teasing — but something befitting of this innocence that he wished to witness and possess in addition to the canvas of your body of which he was well versed. With every press of his lips across your skin, he drew a new constellation to which he had not been privy — the sweetness of your body which tasted so different from when you were writhing beneath him in pleasure.

"Perhaps I will stay," he said, as he wove a new tapestry of affection across your shoulder. There was a birthmark that he had never cared to notice before, shaped vaguely in a lyre of the Occident.

"Tonight?" you asked, turning around to face him fully. The collar of his kimono had hung loose and open, and you spread your hand over his bare chest, cherishing its warmth and the slow but steady heartbeat beneath your palm. "Even if I cannot offer you pearls of tears that fall in vain?"

"All the better," Kokushibo returned, picking up your hand so as to pull you closer to him. You fell into his arms, your hands gripping his shoulder. "I am in no hurry to collect the morning's dew."

And with that, you allowed him to hold you; his response had settled that indefinable weight in your belly, resting somewhere between your heart and lungs. As you nuzzled into his frame, accepting his warmth and letting it permeate through your kimono and sinking deeper into your bones. This was a comfort and softness you had never imagined from Kokushibo, for all his fierce desires and fiercer ministrations; and it would be something into which you could fall easily, letting it drown all worry and doubt in your head.

For as long as you had him, and he you, there was little doubt as to where he would be in the nights to come — adrift in the atlas of your body, exalted by his touch and worship.

Thank you for reading! 💖

The poems referenced in this piece are: Koizumi Shikibu's "The heart is not a summer field..." and "A torn sash can be mended..."; as well as Sugawara no Michizane's Chinese poem on the Orihime and Hikoboshi.

For my longer works, visit my AO3 here.

[vraisetzen]

An update (on requests and hashtags)

Hi!

I have received and read through all your wonderful questions and lovely requests, and will be starting on them shortly!

For clarity and accessibility, I will be using the tag #vraisetzen for all my fics moving forward. However, excerpts written under Asks will still be tagged under #ask box.

Till then, thank you for your support!

xoxo, V ♥️

PS: this is a repost since I missed out important information in my previous post!

[vraisetzen]

An Update

Hi lovelies!

I'm so sorry to say this, but there won't be a new ficlet this week.

I have been very busy with work and personal matters, and my brain has been so scattered recently — I have ideas in my head, and I sometimes sit down to write, like, two paragraphs, but I did not manage to finish anything in time.

(It also does not help that I've gotten into watching a Twitch streamer and may have developed a parasocial crush on them)

I sincerely ask for your patience, and thank you always for your love and support!

xoxo, V ♥️