-𖦹AE'S CANVAS°𖦹″̮

Honestly, Shoko might be one of the Queen’s most favored healers- but you really think she’s been neglecting the health of her eyes lately. Daring to elbow her in the side, “Don’t jest!”

She snickers, and you’re sure you detect the nearby daughter of a merchant family haughtily sniff your way—“I do no such thing.” Though, not for too long, fortunately for the two of your necks, because just then Duke Nanami’s stepping into clear view of the party - and you’d never glimpsed so many aristocratic mouths drop.

So many ladies (and some gentlemen) fluster, and so many older heads of families water at the mouth like they’d just spotted the most delectable prey. 

Understandable, however.

Because if Nanami was thoroughly agreeable to your eyes in the few peeks you’d stolen at him- then he was almost other-wordly now.

With the most charming, tidy golden hair pushed back, a few curls coiling at the nape of his high collar. A towering stature that made even the most accomplished generals hunch in on themselves, and you nearly audibly gulp at the broad flex of his arms within his navy jacket. Stern. Stoic. 

His molten, intense eyes peek over thin-rimmed glasses at the buzzing guests ahead, and you swear that they begin to stray somewhere near you—

“Heavens! Must I repeat myself, you common scullion?”

Ah, at the way Marquess Zenin Naoya was saddled right behind you and spitting hellfire, surely. 

You rush to bend into an apologetic bow, so low that the knobs of your spine start to ache- “Please forgive my impudence, My Lord-”

“Have you nothing between your ears but lint?” He’s growling, spindly hands tightening on his empty goblet of wine until you hear the silver material creak. And it’s hitting you right then n’ there that in your haste to ogle Duke Nanami, you must have failed to heed Naoya’s calls for more drink-

He turns his sharp profile to the side and spits on a patch of clean-cut grass, “A servant that knows not her place is no better than dirt. What do you gawk at like so?” 

“N-nothing, My Lord.”

And you can only watch, in slow-motion terror, as Naoya flicks his beady gaze behind you- and his sour face tenses at the vision of the tall newcomer that’d easily - and very obviously - ousted his mantle as the most eligible bachelor present. “That ol’ duke? Heh- dreaming that he’d bed a wench, did you?”

“Forgive me, sir, it was not my intent to give offence.” You’re breathing out, first clenching as you feel the withering looks that were starting to prop up around you two. Everybody loved a scandal. Trembling hands reaching out for his cup, “I-if you would allow me to just refill-”

“Don’t touch me!”

CLANG!

It happens all at once. 

The heavy goblet clatters to the floor, a warm chest nuzzles your back, and a strong hand was locked right around Naoya’s raised wrist. Right before he could strike. 

“It seems her highness’s liquor is exceptionally strong.” Nanami’s deep baritone sounds above your head and makes your skin bead with a blanket of goosebumps. 

And it’s slightly husky. So attractive. 

Especially when he’s tilting his head down so close, something primal in his eyes that made it feel like he was on the very verge of devouring you whole. Right there in the middle of the bustling garden party. Humming sternly, “Yuji, please escort our impaired marquess somewhere ah…quieter.”

“Y-yes, Nanamin- I mean, Your Grace!”

You’re watching, speechless, as a younger boy with the most vibrant head of pink locks runs up from behind and grabs onto both of Naoya’s shoulders to bodily steer him away from you.

He must have been stronger than he looked, clearly, because the proud heir was being lugged away like a sack of potatoes no matter how much he squirmed and fought - much to the amusement of the party-dwellers. And you.

But you’re quick to bite back your startled laughter once you’re realizing that Nanami Kento was still holding onto you. And not just stood behind- you must have stumbled amidst all the commotion because he had a large hand gripped onto your hip to steady you.

You were in his arms. 

Gasping, “O-oh.” You couldn’t have broken off faster from him, knees strangely weak as you’re forcing them into yet another curtsy, “I am so-”

“My deepest apologies, Honorable Miss.” The duke beats you to it, a strange smile playing along his stern lips as he bends into an even deeper bow. “I should have asked prior to touching a lady.”

“A-a lady!” You’re squawking, in what was most definitely an unladylike manner. Hands wringing to gesture him to straighten as much as you could without it being seen as defiance against one of the crème de la crème of nobility. “I assure you I am no such thing, Your Grace.”

Just then he kisses the back of your hand in greeting, “Please, call me ‘Nanami’- or ‘Kento’, should you wish, ma’am.”

“It- it is beneath you to be designated that by me-”

“I insist.”

And if everyone here was watching the upending chaos before, then they simply couldn’t remove their eyes by now. 

Whilst Nanami - still bowed - only tilted his head up with a smile, looking at you through his long, pale lashes.

You lift the humble fabrics of your working dress, a thick, dark-colored wool that marked you different from the tittering daughters of the upper-class. “B-but I am only in service to her highness.”

“Is that so?” And you’re breathing a sigh of relief as he stands back to his broad, proud figure- finally, he’s understood and would prance off as all young bachelors did to- “For I only gaze upon the most beautiful lady that has graced the floor this evening, and my blessed gaze.”

What?

“Have a charmed night-” Nanami has a dimple- he has a dimple that winks from the side of his grin as he turns and nods down with the velvety brim of his hat. “-My Lady.”

My Lady.

Utahime’s hands clap down on your rigid shoulders. “Sole heir to the Nanami fortune. Rich, handsome, aware when to cease talking.” Her low whistle rings in the air- tinged with such scandal, “Fiend seize it! I should hasten to practice your new title then, Duchess Nanami.”

“You have a lamentable deficiency in wit-”

Utahime, reputably sensible tutor to the offspring of the royal ladies-in-waiting, and known blockhead around your little trio. “And you have a lamentable deficiency in eyesight.” Sighing, “The look he bestowed upon you, my dear…”

“Or would it be ‘My Lordliness.’” Shoko croons in as well, sipping on a flute of bubbly champagne definitely not meant for her. “Oh-so-beautiful wife of Duke Nanami-”

“Attend to your duties!”

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Dearest gentle reader,

It has come to my attention - and certainly to that of all the ladies who frequent the halls of Mayfair - something for which you should do well to brace your hearts. Whispers spread that the most eligible bachelor of the season, gentle Duke Nanami Kento, erupted quite the scandal during her majesty’s garden soirée by fixing his much sought-after attentions upon none other than a humble chambermaid. 

Yes, you read that correctly, dear reader. For someone reputed in the upper echelons of society for being as stoic as he is handsome, Duke Nanami shares his first spark of interest as he searches for a bride this season.

So heed this author’s advice; as the famed noble resides in the royal palace for the rest of his stay, keep an eye about. For you may just be lucky to be named Duchess of the House of Nanami.

Yours Truly,

Lady Whistledown.

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“This is preposterous!”

“It is absolute truth-”

“It is a sham is what it is.” You’re nearly crying out as you shove Lady Whistledown’s latest scandal sheet back into Shoko’s arms. “He- the duke never fixed his attentions on me.”

And your best friend didn’t spare you a word, only a long, narrowed stare of her intelligent eyes that made your stomach twist. 

Did Nanami fix his- no. While you and Shoko huddled into a hidden alcove within the sprawling walls of the palace to read the latest on-dit gossip, you smacked yourself back into reality. 

The nobility often did have nothing much to entertain themselves with outside of fanning scandal. He was powerful. He was attractive. And he has as many prospects as there were knights in this palace, surely!

Because - of course, for the universe did love to laugh at your expense - he’d taken residency in the palace until the season ended, as one of the Queen’s guests. 

Days later you could count every look, every smile, every bow- goodness, there was that one time that you’d been placing cutlery along the winding royal dinner table. Only for Nanami’s engulfing fingertips to brush against yours and make your skin scorch with his whisper, “Thank you, my lady.”

You’re almost befogged why that wasn’t splashed across Lady Whistledown’s writing- chambermaid loses her wits, hear ye!

“Wh-whichever way one looks at it.” You’re stammering out, realizing that you’d been quiet for much too long. “His grace is simply raising some kind of mischief.”

“Certainly.” She was not certain.

“Just you wait- by the end of this season, Duke Nanami will be married to a lady of high standing and I shall–”

“Be disengaged?” That wasn’t the monotone, sarcastic voice of your longest friend.

It was something masculine, something amused. And it was emanating right from the open space of the corridor reading up to the alcove. 

You don’t have to turn your head to realize who it is - Nanami Kento. 

Though, you do turn anyway. And you almost regret it when you’re stuck by the sheer intensity of his stare, of his face leaned down so close. So intimately that you can’t stop yourself from flitting a sharp glance down at his plush, curving pink lips. 

Perhaps Lady Whistledown wasn’t all that wrong - especially about him being handsome…

“Apologies for startling you, ma’am.” Nanami cuts your traitorous thoughts short by slowly tilting something flat and cream-colored in one hand. “Permit me to explain- will you hopefully be disengaged to attend the upcoming Royal Diamond Ball? Perhaps?”

You’re bowing, confused. “Y-yes, Your Grace. I shall be of service during her highness’s ball.”

It was only the most anticipated assembly this entire year, the annual gathering right in the Queen’s Great Hall to announce the diamond of the season. 

And in only a week, every single servant of the palace was to work themselves to the bone - welcoming, chaperoning, making note of the newly-made unions to titter over much later. 

“Ah, allow me to clarify.” Rubbing a free hand behind his neck, the famed Nanami Kento almost looks…sheepish. “What I meant was- might you be disengaged to…” Staring right at you, hypnotic. “-join me?”

“…What?”

“Of course, it would be no trouble at all if you can not spare a moment, I should be happy to merely converse with you.”

It slips out- “Th-that’s madness. All those ladies-in-waiting-”

Then he’s clasping your hands, he’s pressing the invitation in- but, more importantly, he’s holding you. “And yet, I would like nothing more than the pleasure of your company.” Close. Too close. His breath wafts your lips, “I hope this is not too forward of me. But should you let yourself, trust that I will take care of everything, My Lady.”

And just as soon as you think he’ll kiss you - how uncouth (though, you admittedly wouldn’t complain) - he bends at the waist to gently grasp your hand. 

“Everything.” Whispering a soft kiss into the back, Nanami lingers his lips - his gaze - for a long while. “I await eagerly for your word.”

He’s gone almost as softly, and sweetly, as he’d appeared.

Taking with him the scent of golden caramel, and the racing beat of your heart. You swear you’d have been stuck within the alcove staring behind his muscular back until nightfall had it not been for Shoko.

“So…” She plasters a wry smile once you’re turning her way, invitation trembling in your grip. And you’re noticing that upon its envelope dazzles swooping calligraphy of your name, almost certainly written by him. “Would you prefer ‘Your Gracefulness’ or ‘Duchess Nanami’?”

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.

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Dearest gentle reader,

The ton is abuzz as her majesty the Queen’s Royal Diamond Ball nears closer. And the sole heir to the house of Nanami is certainly no exception. 

This author hears directly from a reputable source within her highness’s Chamberlain Office that Duke Nanami Kento was uncharacteristically fastidious in securing himself an extra invitation. Most claim this as confirmation of his grace’s dedication to finding a bride, most also claim they’d seen the aforementioned, infamous chambermaid being handed it.

Take care of artifice; but such intrigue of a commoner attending the most prestigious ball of the year may be much more than my readers may be able to bear.

So, ladies, grab your finest gowns and shortest shawls to make haste for a chance to snag the eligible bachelor’s heart once and for all this season! And I shall, of course, be in attendance to report on all the scandals that unfold.

Yours Truly,

Lady Whistledown.

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“I look…”

“Enchanting.” Utahime nods. 

“I was thinking more toad-eaten.” You have to mentally remind yourself to close your maw and do your very best not to gape at the reflection in the decadent mirror displayed in front of you. 

Despite your words, even you couldn’t deny that the deep, sapphire-encrusted gown you were donning made you look every bit the noblewoman that you weren’t. Its Empire waist snugly crowning the flowing muslin, sleeves fashionably puffed, with tasteful gold jewelry that you wouldn’t have so much as dared to look at let alone be dolled-up into.

It was made for you.

Quite literally. Utahime had been the one to write your letter of acceptance to Duke Nanami (after shrieking herself hoarse in excitement first.) And through a week of hushed conversation with his grace, the ball evening had crept up closer and you had an army of modistes and maids knocking at your servants’ quarters.

Scrubbing you raw, painting your face, slipping you into a dress he’d ordered tailored to your exact measurements- how did he even know?

Shoko had to let you use her office, and she was deriving her payment back for it by beaming at the sight of you. “And I was thinking more Duchess of the house of Nanami-”

“Cease!”

“Ah, so you observe? You are noble in all but title already.”

Whilst Shoko and Utahime - the traitors - burst out into peels of laughter, you’re left fiddling with the silken coverings of your gloves. “You…you don’t suppose he’s making a mockery out of me, after all?”

That makes them quieten down, and Utahime hugs your shoulders in a way that thoroughly displeases the attendants and their ruffles. “You shine everyone else down, my dear. He should be lucky to have such a lovely date this evening.”

“Quite so.” Shoko nods, “And should he dare fool around, I have long sought a specimen upon whom to test my latest scalpel-”

“Shoko!”

“Do let me join.”

“U-um, ehem.” The tense, honestly frightened clearing of Itadori, his protégé’s, throat cuts your morbid conversation short. And as he looks at you, the poor boy blushes- whispering something shapes strangely like a little—“Divine.”

Before you know it, you’re being escorted down the high-ceiling corridor just as you’d always watched the sisters and wives of nobility being guided so. 

It’s a pathway more than familiar to you, yet seems so foreign once you approach the grand, imposing double doors opened to the ballroom. It was a magnificent thing; one of the Queen’s proudest possessions - with diamond chandeliers that dripped yellow light like a second sun, and a grand polished staircase kissing down from the doorway to a dance floor at the bottom.

Faint orchestra and chatter tainting the sparkling atmosphere, you breathe in nervously and even the flower-scented air seems too expensive for you.

Itadori hands the chief footman your invitation - something that makes the latter’s bushy eyebrows raise as he recognizes your name. And then the boy squeezes your hand before he leaves you off at the edge of the entrance, “His grace will be utterly bewitched, My Lady. He already is.”

Oh- what?

In the blink of an eye, he’s melted back into the crowd of other youngsters networking outside. And with nearly every guest already inside - you could only descend.

Down.

Down.

Down, the massive carpeted staircase- and it felt like every pair of eyes were on you. Most stopping mid-dance. Some whispering behind their fans. 

And one, Nanami Kento, staring at you breathless and awestruck where he’d been politely conversing with the Queen herself, and a gaggle of entranced admirers. But he only had eyes for you.

Almost frozen. Almost shocked-

Enough so that your satin-covered feet were just a few steps away from reaching down to the marble ballroom floor before you’re thinking of turning right back around and running-

“You.” A hand on your wrist, a soft pair of lips on the back of your hand. Nanami Kento had broken through just about every rule of aristocracy to storm through packs of nobles and catch your wrist before you escaped. 

And when he kisses you, it felt like he was finally breathing for the first time after years. “I had- I had not dared to hope that you would truly appear.” Staring at you through thick, golden lashes as he bends deeper into a bow. “You have honored me with the presence of the most beautiful lady to ever grace these floors.”

Languidly, you’re twisting your body back to face him - to face the crowd - and the way that the distracted orchestra has to begin their slow quadrille from the top, several teary debutantes looking between you and Nanami before shoving their faces into their fans, and even Lord Naoya was casting great attention.

Muttering.

‘Might I inquire as to that lady? Does she have prospects-’

‘Do tell- is it true what Lady Whistledown’s paper said- Bollocks! I wanted to bed Duke Nanami.’

‘My, the chambermaid? The scandal! Oh, but they are a most remarkably striking pair…’

You’re gasping when you catch a glimpse of her highness shifting on her throne to peer over curiously. Nanami had authority- but this?

Gulping, “Is this…is this folly really alright?”

“Oh, My Lady.” He fixes you with a lingering look, “For you, nothing would be folly. May I have this dance?” 

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.

.

“M-mmm, Your Grace-”

“What did I tell you, My Lady?” Nanami’s hot, simmering pant tingles your lips as he’s lavishing you with the swirling edge of his tongue. “Call me Kento.”

And you didn’t have any reason not to.

Well, first of all you two were far, far from any of the prying eyes of the ball by now - tucked away inside the empty, luxurious royal office allocated to him by the Queen. And then he had you pushed against the corner of the wide mahogany table in the middle- hands fisted into your gown, mouth searing against yours. 

Nanami flicks the slimy edge of his tastebuds between your spit-glossed maw and groans once you’re eagerly sucking. Gasping. Heaving. “O-open your mouth.”

You’d just made the stern, stoic Duke Nanami stutter. And the thought itself is enough for you to knit your brows together and unhinge your jaw even further, “Like this?”

“Wider.”

“Mmm- like-” A glittery ribbon of saliva slicks down the corner of your lips the moment he’s parting his plump, puckered mouth and kissing you in a way you’d never even heard of. “-this?”

So primal. So heated. He’s huffing out a clouded breath through his flared nostrils, and you’re all but melting with each sleazy scour of his tongue. 

“Yeah, wider. Lest I be thought ungentlemanly-” With a thumb latching onto the point of your chin, he has one hand angling your face, and the other curving ‘round your waist to support your weakening knees easily. “Suck on my tongue, ma’am.”

Kissing you and kissing you like he’s parched and every drop of sweet, syrupy water was just drooling from your mouth.

Your whirling head barely even realizes when Nanami has you softly falling back onto the frigid surface of the table. Splayed out completely. His beefy forearm eases the impact, mouth decorating with a few strings of spittle when he’s pulling back with a dampened pwah!

Lungs still clouding out in scorching breezes, “If you would allow it, My Lady.” And you’re whimpering when the doughy mountain of his palm comes rovering down your front. Not resting for a split-second until it was right between your poor legs- “I confess, not a morsel crossed my lips throughout the ball- and I find myself quite famished.”

You’re gasping, trying to close your legs- but it’s like his palm was glued to your drivelling core. Hungry. Desperate. “B-but it is beneath your touch to do such a thing-”

“You’re never beneath my touch.” You swear you catch him look down at your clothed cunt and gulp. Fawny irises dark and dilated, “Never.”

And almost as if he’s proving his point, his free, left hand clasps around your own and flies down gingerly to the absolutely massive bulging tenting Nanami’s trousers.

Oh.

He groans.

Oh.

And he’s looking at you through narrowed, predatory eyes- words so gentle even though the way the thick cylindrical curve of his erection was anything but. “See how you make me?” And with a teary nod, your hips find themselves bucking- “Witness how you- ah.”

Rutting. 

So carnally, with your gown and chemise falling back, it makes Nanami snap his half-lidded eyes down at you like he’d just stumbled upon a five-course meal. A predator blood-thirsty for prey.

Drooling in a thin, slow trail, he hastily wipes it away like a gentleman. He wasn’t just famished - he was starved. 

And by the way his touch shakes ever-so-slightly on your body, it’s a damn miracle that he hasn’t just lost it right now. “We wouldn’t want to waste your talents on just my hand, ma’am.”

Before you can even begin to wonder what his cryptic words meant, Nanami’s making use of the years of his noble training in combat.

Flipping your two positions, laying himself out on the far table, clinging onto your squirming waist to seat you right above his heavily respiring mouth. With your chemise tugged off with one hand, he’s stealing a good look at your naked, geysering pussy and moaning–

“I-I really am quite famished.”

And his voice breaks.

Making you jerk your hips in a slight gyration- unsure where to rest. “Wh-what are you going to- oh.” Whimpering, once he’s planting a firm kiss near the inner parts of your thighs where slick travelled like an adhesive sheen. Only pushing your gown to bunch upwards, “Please!”

“I shall be having my dinner, My Lady.” Lurching you ever-closer, he had your knees straddling each side of his face and it still wasn’t close enough. “Bon appétit.”

All five of his coarse fingerpads digging into the cheeks of your ass, he flicks his wrist and drags you straight into the gaping cavern of his maw. His glistening tongue was propped out just right to spank the surface of your pussylips on his tastebuds. 

“A-ah.” Thighs trembling, it feels so strangely and erotically wet with him salivating all over. 

He feels a slippery splosh of your juices leak from your slit and straight into his gullet, the creamy taste flooding up his tongue. “O-ohhh–” Savoring. “Has anyone ever made you feel like hah- this?”

“N-not at all, Your Gr-”

“Kento.”

“K-Kento–!” It’s all that you can squeal when the flexible tendril of his muscle crowns your hole and you’re seeing stars. His tongue is just so long n’ girthy that it makes your poor, filthy entrance clench when he’s slipping just an inch inside. “Fuck- n-ngh- fuck–!”

“Charmed you’re enjoying, ma’am.” And he sounds so genuinely elated - breathy, shaken - at the pretty moans falling from your mouth like music. 

Though, it’s not enough.

It might never be enough, so the duke can only prop up slightly on one of his strong elbows just to angle his mouth into the perfect French kiss with your cunt. Slapping his tongue right over the puffy folds of your pussy, he’s licking and licking each stray bead of slick bubbling out of you until you’re all tender and glossy.

Only then is he wafting his right thumb vertically down your cute slit, “Though, not to overwork my dear lady- but might you mind lending me a…hand?”

You’re snapping your head down so fast that your chin knocks against your heaving chest, “Wh-what do you need, Your- ah, Kento?”

“Oh, nothing much, my darling. Just…” Tilting his head, Nanami’s rendering you stupidly dizzy each time he twists the callused knob of his thumb in and out of your folds. “Spit in my mouth.”

“Wh-would that be appropriate?” He was filthy.

Feral. “I would love nothing more.”

And he meant it- he truly, completely, and utterly meant it. You’re watching his prominent Adam’s apple bob greedily once the bead of pearly saliva bubbles between your lips and dead-on into his mouth. Only swirlin’ inside for a mere second before spitting right back into your polished cunt. Hard. 

Letting the fat wad slip between your lips, and Nanami doesn’t waste a single second before pushing his rugged middle finger inside your hole. 

“There we go.” Gazing in pure lecherous wonderment at the way your needy ring of muscle was swallowing him up, every single solid inch right down to his mountainous knuckle. What a tight fit. “There- there, atta girl.”

“It just feels so- ngh- so-” You don’t even know how to control yourself, hips jerking back and forth, back and forth, back and forth until the globes of your ass strike his chin and make you keen. “Ah!”

“Eeeeeasy does it, ma’am.” 

And he’s still grunting your name out with that title- even as he’s pryin’ apart your bloated lips and sticking in yet another digit. The fat ends of his index swiping across, engraving his family signet ring against your very walls-

“This is only a prelude, darling.” You’re flinching at the chilling scrape of the band on his second finger, and he grins. Glueing that very grin against your throbbing clit, he spits again- “Only just getting started.”

“Fuck- fuck!” Going against every policy you’d learned in polite society, you’re throwing your hips back and gyrating out looong sloppy drags of your cunt. 

Straight from the treacly base of your pussy to where Nanami was nuzzling your sensitive clit with his nose. Again. And again and again- the duke’s kiss-bitten lips were burning and he’s still craning his neck for more. Panting, “Make a mess of me, My Lady. S’what I’m hah- here for.”

“N-ngh, it feels so gooood, Kento.”

And you don’t even have any inhibitions about that little slip-up of titles anymore, back arching into a perfect curvy ‘S’ shape at the way he’s salivating all over your pussy.

Rovering the ridged edges of his tongue in a cutesy lil’ heart over your clit, pressing down just enough pressure on it like a button. And it’s exactly what he needs to make you gasp, your hole winking- so that he can easily slide-slide-sliiide a third finger in with a resonating squelch!

“So wet. So divine.” He’s groaning at the sight of you suckling in on him and all his inches. Fitted in so deeply that your orifice is struggling to even squeeze, thighs clamping over his sweaty temples. Feeling inside you. Searching. “I must ask that you ruin me, darlin’. Ride me faster.”

Thighs aching, breaths shortening. His metal glasses thump the scorching front of your cunt and you whine. 

“Faster.”

“P-pleeease!”

It’s like he’s ravaging your pussy with his thrusts, blond brows furrowing in so tight as he’s leaning in even closer. Tuggin’ apart your folds, he’s discovering every sleek, leaking inch of your cunt like he didn’t have enough time. Never would.

And it’s with only spank after spank of his metallic ring that he’s somehow skidding it right down your saccharine walls and directly into your g-spot. “H-here.”

“There.” Even with the kaleidoscope of tears dazzling your vision, you can make out the completely pussydrunken grin that smears across his face. 

Rutting up against the swollen slope of your pussy, he laps up every sodden ounce of slick that escapes you once he hits his slimy target. “With greater fervour now, My Lady.” Your throat clogs up every time he reels his fingerpads down to the curvaceous edges and slams back in. “Harder-”

You grip onto the straight ends of his deltoids, flexing with muscular strength. “I-I’m not sure if that is possible-”

“Do not be gentle with me.” And it almost sounds like a command. Though he’s acting upon it like it’s a complete beg- swerving his palm to sticky clammily onto your left ass cheek and pushing you. “Let yourself hah- go. Give me all of you, I beg.”

You had the most powerful, stoic duke of all the season begging. 

And he needed it- he was toying with the lacy circle of your garter and snapping it down onto your flesh with a flick of his fingers. 

Only to make you wetter.

So wet with sappy, meady slick that he’s gulping down like his favorite liquor- splashing down between his lips and making him more n’ more inebriated by the second. 

Glasses still on. Pumping his hips up into the empty air, all he could do was fuck his fingers into your hotly-glossed walls and pretend he’s doing it all with his aching cock. “Do you think you can handle a fourth, darling?”

Gasping, “P-perhaps-”

“Then…brace yourself…”

You couldn’t brace yourself. You couldn’t even intake a steady breath even if you tried. 

Because while you’re perching your dripping pussy near the line of his straight nosebridge, Nanami’s slipping in the coiled edge of his lengthy tongue. Not his fingers. His tongue. 

In addition to all he was rummaging your melty insides with, he swabs over the texture of his tastebuds down where you were the most delicate and strokes his tongue inside—

“Sh-shit- shit shit shit-” Your mouth juts out into such an adorable pout that makes the man beneath you thrusts his rugged hips upwards. “I-I think I’m…close, Kento.”

“S’that so? Gonna cum?”

So difficult to even breathe when he’s strobing his fingertips down your bulging g-spot, already battered and bruised with the slamming impacts. With the way he swats the side of your thighs stinging with your garter, “Mhm—hck!”

Probin’ every velvety nook and cranny with his touch, Nanami can’t have you on his weeping cock so he’s twisting all his three- now four fingers, and his tongue inside until his wrist aches. His jaw strained. Tastebuds raw, just as much as your pussy was.

“The orchestra is playing, you can be as loud as your heart desires. Say the words, ma’am- I beg of you to please just hah! say the words.”

It makes your vulnerable lips tremble just to formulate the next few scandalous words, never before having been so fucked-out. “Y-yes. Yes, please. Gonna…cum.”

And you swear that the ever-sensible Nanami Kento is gurgling out a wet giggle right between the space of your puffy pussylips, sending white-hot shockwaves down your bowed spine. “I would be-” He wetly gasps out, before slapping his handsome features right back down. 

Addicted. He can’t even move. 

“I would- hah- I would be quite-” And his spectacles dig in deep until the metal surface sizzles against your core, pushing and pushing himself back. His tongue’s going wild, stirring around with the wettest slurps. “I would be quite offended if you didn’t, my love.”

He doesn’t just mutter the words - he’s biting them right ‘round the perky knob of your clit. Teething his glinting canines just hard enough while he’s slipping his tongue back out - right on time, right at the very second to tastefully receive the way you throw your head back and squirt.

Hot. Hard.

It feels like your entire body’s caught on fire and no matter how much you’re slobbering your hips to the front n’ back, it only makes the sensation worse. 

Your eyes water, mouth hanging open stupidly. “Yes- yes yes yes yes- I’m cumming-” Thighs trembling down upon either side of his eardrums at the friction- tight, and he doesn’t even care. “I-I’m cumming.”

“Squirting, My Lady.” Nanami corrects you, gently. Though, it’s a fucking miracle he even had the patience to considering that he’s gasping and panting for air but only pushin’ himself closer to the oodles of cute slick seeping out from you. 

He doesn’t even care. 

Doesn’t even need air- not when he can perk his head just right and push against your thighs. Wide maw unfastened gluttonously ajar to let the thick trickles of sap drip into his mouth after each zap! of bliss. Drowning him. 

Mouth sagging further open, lungs screaming at him. So many bucketloads of syrupy sweet sap that sprays his features until they’re all glittery. “Squirt- oh. You’re- ngh-”

And something’s breaking at the back of his throat when he’s roaming his dexterous, looong tongue between the plumpness of your pussylips, and you’re taking him in so easily.

Overstimulated till you can let off only whines n’ sobs when he’s lazily dabbing his way inside your quivering hole. 

“I’m so ruined, Kento.” Riding and riding. He wanted you to use him and you were- “It feels s-so strange.” The peak of your high was one big wave, and it tingles underneath your skin and makes your eyes roll. 

Never - even during all those long, lonely nights with your hand slipped underneath the covers - did it ever feel like this. Never were you leaking your essence this much, with your sappy juices falling all down the sides of his rosy red lips. “Never f-felt this ngh- way before, Ken.”

And that makes him groan.

Slowly, gingerly - almost like it hurt for him to detach his hungry lips with yours, he’s pulling you off with one hand stuck to your hips. Surging backwards with- no, he can’t surge backwards.

The duke’s planting one more firm kiss onto your cunt, open-mouthed. And then jerking back- and forth. Another kiss. Another repeat until about five times later and he’s finally ready to say goodbye to your sweet, overspilling pussy. 

But he’s not done with his little show- oh, the moment you’re finally spying a good, long look at him, you think you might cum again from just that.

Because Nanami Kento was ruined - blond hair astray, spectacles drooping down his nose, your pussy juices worn all over from the apples of his blushin’ cheeks down to his jawline like a lewd medal.

Waterfalling between the curves of his pectorals, gleaming wherever his pale skin was flushed. He looked as if there was a part of him that was feverish - barely even registering what he’s doing once he’s tugging off his slick-glazed glasses and sucking those pearly beads off of the frame.

Licking his completely wet glasses clean, Nanami tilts his head with a grin like he’s never been more accomplished. “I only live to please you, ma’am.”

“But that’s not fair.” You huff out a stubborn breath, shuffling down his tall body to try and cup the bulging outline between his legs that almost looked painful. “I, too, wish to-”

“Tonight is not the night, I’m hah- afraid.” He’s cleanly cutting off both your plea and your palm. Instead bringing up your shaky hand to kiss the inside of your wrist. Gloves off, his eyes primal and dead set on you. “I could never ask you to get on your knees. Tonight, I only ask that you let me drive you wild, darling. Let me devour you whole.”

And he meant it.

Oh, within sultry seconds Nanami was moving himself off of the tabletop and standing adjacent. Tall. Strong. Not letting you lift a single finger before he loops two hands underneath your thighs and draaaags you to the very edge.

Moistened thighs pasting to his obliques, “Pray, allow me to see to it. To everything.”

And you just wanted to rip the gossamer fabric of your dress off, but Nanami was oh-so-delicate with his hands all over you. Even though he’s fitting himself animalistically between your lewd legs and rutting-

“Why-” His breath catches once your petticoat and stocking are peeled off, both thumbs spreading your swollen pussylips like a lotus. Completely exposed now. “-hello, my love.”

Your mouth parts when you’re realizing that he’s not just talking to you- he’s talking to your cunt. Maw stretched into a smile so utterly lovin’, Nanami keeps that same dopey grin on as he’s leering his face down to spit. 

Again.

“Please, Kento.” You’re bucking your hips up impatiently, still shaky with the aftershocks of your high but you wanted more more more. Needed it. “P-put it in.”

He groans- oh, was it him that taught your sweet mouth to say those words. Corrupting you with every second he’s drawing soppy circles on your wet outer pussy, the duke can only tear down his dress coat and his trousers. Careful with yours but he was ripping his own clothes off. “As you wish, my darling.”

It’s just then that he’s finishing tugging down his sensually tight breeches—and you’re drinking in all of him. And fuck- was it a sight only for your most light-skirted dreams.

Because Nanami Kento was naturally chiseled, to the point where you could count each of his eight washboard abs. Every dip and muscular curve of his hardened front just tensed when the cool air hit him, leading a path of gold along his middle. 

A light happy trail down, down, down to where his red n’ aching cock sat heavily, so hard that his bulging tip looked just about ready to burst. Eight maybe even nine inches long, and so girthy that it made your mouth drop as if you wanted him fitted inside already. 

 You’re watching as his pre-glazed tip only coats an even more glistening layer of sap at your sinful attention. Trickling all the way down to his tightening balls, “You’re staring—”

“C-can you blame me?”

“I suppose not.” And the warmth of his towering proximity hits your body like a furnace, making you squirm restlessly when Nanami’s leaning over the edge of the table to tap-tap-tap his thick cockhead down between your legs. Rock-hard. “Brace yourself, ma’am, mhm?”

Then he’s splitting you apart-

And then he’s arching his sculpted shoulders to cage you underneath him and swearing–“Fuck.”

The first time ever that you’re hearing him spew profanities, just barely slipping the pointed globe of his shaft past the texture of your tight, hot cunt was ruining him. 

“I-I apologize, My Lady.” It was making him gasp, “I apologize, how uncouth of my character. I didn’t mean to-” It was making him urgently snap his head down in panic and watch with primal awe as he ruts- deeper. “F-fuck!”

“Oh my god-” You’re throwing your head back at the pressure, only to be grappled back in by Nanami just so that he can sliiide his lips across yours. Open-mouthed. “H-how are you going in so deep-”

“I cannot help myself.” Grunting, Nanami doesn’t even feel the stinging pain when he’s slamming his capped knee down on the plane of the desk. Angling his slender hips to shove the slimy crown of his tip into your gooey entrance, “It’s simply- it’s just-”

And Nanami Kento, so articulate and calm, doesn’t have the damn words anymore.

Stuttering, falling over his panic to thrust in and in between your trembling legs. He feels the cute rimming circle of your cunt tighten ‘round his fattened girth, and snaps his head down in panic. Spitting. “I-I must have it fit inside, darling. Please, allow me just the tip, at least.”

“Will- ngh! will it even-”

“Of course.” And he’ll apologize for interrupting your sentence later - much, much later. 

But for right now, the only thing that sparks in his fuzzy mind was to raise his toned left forearm up to your drivelling maw. Where you start gnawing wetly down on his skin, he spits- 

“Bite down. Harder.” Hips sloppy, knee hiking up even further to maze his flared cock inside. You feel your elastic hole stretch a wider diameter as he’s slipping yet another solid inch in. “Come now, harder. You can ngh- take it.”

“It’s going in.” And you don’t know whether you wanted to slam your hips forwards or jerk vulnerably at the sheer weight of his body leaning down. 

He breathes, “Yes- yes.” The breeze of his pants fanning your face, making your entire body erupt in flames by the time he’s squeezing past the tender slit carved onto his shaft. Cementing the bulging edge of his cocktip to the roof of your pussy with a raw sluuurp. “I have you. shall not let you fall- bite.”

And it’s all that you can do.

Because Nanami’s fucking you into office table like he wanted you to splinter straight through. 

The half-lidded peripherals of his eyes latching onto where you were speared open like he was watching his personal show, “I hope you know…I’m no- hah- easily satiated man, my love.”

“Wh-what do you- fuck!”

Just on cue, he’s slamming the lines of his hardened hipbones against your inner thighs and making you recoil back near the edge of the table. Dangerously. Barely even giving you a second to pick yourself back up before he reaches over to lace both his rugged palms on top of your clammy scalp. Intertwining. Holding you there. 

‘Just the tip’ he said. And yet here he was, pinning you down just to bully his vein-covered length between your snugly stubborn lips. 

“Do not think to run from me-”

“Could never- ngh- could never-” You’re babbling easily at this point, because the curvy trails that his veins left along your walls were only driving you mad. “Just want more, Kento.”

“…Pardon?”

You blink your teary eyes up at him in a way that makes his throbbing girth fatten up, every ounce of blood in the duke’s head rushing to the ballooned-up knob of his tip. “M-more, I say-”

“More.” He’s echoing out, more to himself. Higher-pitched. Almost tasting the pure need in that one word, and the very repetition makes him half-thrust straight into the goopy depths of your pussy. “More…more.”

Nanami pants out a husky giggle—“More.” Oh, he’s just so in love with the way your cunt was struggling to swallow him whole n’ yet squeezing as you try. He leans back down and spits once more, thoroughly ungentleman-like. “Forgive my haste. You just m-make- me-”

And you swear you hear the tail end of that particular sentence break off into a whine once he’s finally, finally bottoming out. 

So sensitive that all it takes is one, two, three lucious swabs of his drivelling orifice to get you to cum. Throat torn with hoarse moans, head throwing back- “I’m- once more…?”

“F-fuck. You are.” Easing in the girth of his cockhead to be spanked against your cervix and make you see stars. Nanami’s already flooding your pussy with a pour of his scalding hot precum. “What a wonder this enchanting body is for me.”

Again. He has you orgasming all over him again.

He’s feeling just a twinge of disappointment in himself for not making you squirt yet another time- but the night was still young. And your sappy cunt was already so wet, with beads of sparkly juices smearing down his happy trail every time he’s whipping his hips forwards.

Slam after slam. 

Your entire body twitches with startles of euphoria, mewling. “Th-there’s so much- so- ah.”

Ah, how he would love to reach his hands over and wipe away the glistening tears streaming down your pretty face. 

But no, right now he had them locked on top of your head and was using the leverage to pound you stupid. Harder. Spiking the peaks of your high with each thorough probe of his stout, mushroom tip. “I know. I know I know I-”

CRACK!

Oh. 

The desk.

It takes a split-second for both your hazed minds to realize that the ancient mahogany table was sagging on one end, Nanami’s raw natural strength too much for it to handle. And then not even that for him to pull out his cock with a wet plop! 

Manhandling you down onto the hardwood floors like a doll, on all fours. It’s such a sinfully new angle to have him looming behind you, tense core plastered against your back once his lengthy cock siiiinks in-

Orgasm still dwindling, entire body shaking. “Fuck- nghhh- fuck, Kento–!”

“You are doing so well, darling.” One hand glues onto the side of your left ass cheek and tugs you back down with his grip. The other carefully rovers just underneath your tummy, “M-makes it so easy to wish to hah- give away to my inclinations.”

A primal sob wrenches from your throat when you’re feeling the slimy drag of his globular, pointed tip. Drawin’ out a zig-zag down and down where you were most delicate, until he reaches the target of your cervix, spank! “Th-then proceed- I beg of you.”

You didn’t know what those guttural words would mean. You didn’t even know if you would make it out alive- but right now you’re starting to doubt it once Nanami gasps.

Once he’s slamming one of his flattened feets by the side of your thigh, deeper. The raw, sensual feeling so much that he can’t control himself. Rutting and rutting away as if he’s gone feral—

“Is this to- to your liking then, ma’am?” The duke’s gurgling out through a translucent froth of spittle, splat-splattering right down the middle of your arched spine. “H-how about now?”

He shutters his eyes furiously and rams the remaining few inches of his cock. Bottomed out and still trying to probe even deeper inside, so all he can do is plant his sock-covered foot over the top of your head and press. Bending. “N-now?”

“I adore it—” You’re keenly whining, “Love it- ngh- please.”

Proudly, Nanami dares to snicker as his left thumb brushes down the plump, roaming tummy bulge he was fucking into you. Pushin’ down just on the curvy tip of where you could feel his split-ended cockhead thrashing your poor insides. “And I should love to hah! make this gorgeous cunt mine- make you mine.”

And he was a man of action.

It was high time you realized that, because within exactly three repeated swats of his plummy, rose-colored shaft- he’s discovering your g-spot. He’s kissing that bullseye with a looong, soppy glide.

“Though…that is what I am doing, that should be no hngh- sham.” 

Feeling all the crimson rush to your head, he presses down just as his aching hot cock presses in. “It’s- it’s just- fuck.”

Faster. Harder. So sloppy that the planks of the floorboards start to sing out in singing creaks of protest, soiling with a trickle of syrupy precum and slick being poured from straight between your legs. Constantly. 

Rubbing himself swollen n’ redly raw on the cavern of your tight pussy, Nanami doesn’t even want to blink to break his staring contest with your bulging pussylips. 

Milking himself. 

The sweetest smooch for your sweetest spot, Nanami coos as you shake- struggling to keep your weakened arms straight as you hold yourself up in this lecherous position. “Come now.” Your overstimulated vision spots with pure white as he darts the hand at your stomach to loop around your throat like a necklace - a headlock. Springing you upright—“I have you, My Lady.”

Spittle waterfalls in embarrassing bucketloads from your mouth and stains the front of his beefy forearm, squeezing your airway. Dilated pupils swirlin’ stupidly every time his strawberry divot circles the entrance to your womb. Squealing, “Y-you…ngh!…mm–”

“Hmmm—?”

“You- hck! please, Ken-”

His warm, ravaging cock was so big that the constant stretch of your walls finally had you stupid. Your brain nothing but a pulp of melted mush every time he snaps his clammy hips to your ass with a stinging pap! of skin-on-skin.

 “Me…I’m-” And it’s like each time the puffy veins decorating each side of his overworked shaft gets squeezed, Nanami finds himself seeing stars. Sweaty, bulging biceps tightening on your throat even harder- you scream. “I have you, My Lady- I’m yours.”

Your hole gaping, thighs wet. Just taking everything he’s giving as he finally cums—and you do, too.

Though, you’re not registering it at first. 

Not when that leaky hole at the very end of his cherry-red shaft pipes out a creamy icing of cum, layering thickly across every inch and cranny of your rummaged insides. Pump after pump- each one has your pathetic pussy overspilling with so many knotted wads of seed, and yet he always had so much more more more-

“O-oh.” He’s grunting out, feeling a particularly big splash of sap at the base of his cock- and it’s only then that you’re both realizing that you’d just squirted. All over again.

It’s traveling down like a flood between your thighs, painting a glistening ring on the tawny curls at his hilt. Soaking him utterly n’ completely that Nanami finds each thrust to let off the most primal sluuuurp! 

“You- you really are the most beautiful hck! lady that has graced this Earth, my love.” Your gaze, your smile, that soul. It was your soul he found most beautiful, the instant he laid his eyes upon you. 

He simply knew.

“Y-yet, I’m a chambermaid-”

“I care not.”

“You’re just-” It’s a damn wonder that you even could still speak by now, because every rubbin’ massage of his fat cock only left your mind blank. “-saying- mmm- saying that, Kento.”

“I fear you are mistaken.”

His veins indent your walls with lightning bolts, his cum cobwebbed across your spongy cervix and was splashing after each jackhammer. 

Nanami drills into you low and slow now just to help your dripping wet cunt suck him dry. Loving the cute, velvety way you were clamping around his rovering shaft tiredly, “Only allow me to prove my ngh- heart.”

You’re so fucked-out that you’re barely even flinching when he’s finally freeing you of his sinful headlock. Taking mere nanoseconds to pluck that infamous House of Nanami signet ring off of his finger- and pushing it straight down the ring finger on your left.

An engagement. A promise. 

“I shall get you another ring- one that is proper, one you deserve, when- if you shall have me, My Lady.” The smoky tone of Nanami Kento’s bass tickles the side of your stinging throat, almost a purr. “I swear it upon my word-” He guides that very same boneless hand of yours to cup his plush, thumping left pectoral. “-and my heart, to forever keep you the most beautiful lady upon this Earth. You shall never want, for I pledge to you my body, my soul for your happiness.”

You whimper, thighs still shaking with your high. Tears slipping down your face that he kisses away, “I-if you’ll have me, Your Grace.”

“Kento.”

“Kento.”

And by the time the last of his wadded ounces of cum had finished spraying out, Nanami pulls his hips back with a bellowing squelch that makes your body heat flare. Such a creamy mess of ivory glossing your pussylips that he’s taking one glimpse at and gasping-

You mewl, “K-Ken, what are you-”

“It seems…” He drawls, manhandling you spread-out onto your back with his sculptured hands. Snaking his face down to mouth a hot puff over your swollen folds that stick together. Tasting. Drooling like he’d just happened across his favorite dessert. “-that the ball is far from finished, my wife.”

.

.

.

Dearest gentle reader,

It seems we have a rather special (and scandalously romantic!) special announcement. Yes, whilst your lips were whispering at her majesty the Queen’s Royal Diamond Ball the previous night, those of his grace, Duke Nanami Kento, have certainly been up to worse. 

The ton reached new heights of hysteria over Duke Nanami’s attendance of the ball with his lovely chambermaid acquaintance. This author personally confirms that her highness’s royal orchestra was barely audible over the sound of shattering hearts!

However, if this was where the story ended, dear readers, we would still possess our wits. Not only had her highness titled this unnamed belle of the ball as the Diamond of the season; aforementioned diamond was not in audience of her naming!

Where was she, you might ask? Why, nowhere else but bedding a certain handsome duke—or so palace patrol whisper amongst the halls. 

An impatient dalliance or stirring the pot? You tell me, dear reader, though it certainly doesn’t help that said new diamond was spotted near the end of the evening with both a real diamond and the Nanami signet ring upon one’s betrothal finger!

 It’s said that the House of Nanami - and particularly a once-stoic Duke Nanami Kento - has been exceptionally lively in preparation for the blessed union and his new bride.

On the other hand, this author shall have to purchase new robes for a summer wedding. 

Yours Truly, 

Lady Whistledown.

A/N. Tell me why it was SAUR difficult to write in regency speak I feel like I don’t even know this language anymore pls-

•••

the memory was a shard of glass in your gut. he’d stood right there, by the door, his bag slung over one shoulder, his face — the face you loved with a terrifying, all-consuming ferocity — etched with a worry that wasn’t for you.

“it’s emcee.” he’d said, voice tight, not meeting your eyes. he’d shown you the letter, the crisp, anonymous paper that felt like poison in your hands. threatening black ink: we will take what you love most. “they’re targeting her. this has ever’s fingerprints all over it. i have to go. she’s in linkon, all alone. you understand, right?”

you’d understood, of course. you’d understood with a clarity that shattered something fundamental inside you. emcee, his childhood friend, his first love, the sun around which his universe had once orbited. the girl you’d somehow, miraculously, momentarily eclipsed.

you, the isekai’d anomaly, the unexpected variable who’d charmed the hero away from the destined heroine.

or so you’d foolishly believed.

“caleb.” you’d whispered, your hand finding his, your touch pleading. “the threat… it could be ambiguous. what if it’s…?”

what if it’s me? the words died in your throat, too pathetic, too needy to voice.

he’d squeezed your hand, but it was an absent gesture, his mind already a hundred miles away in linkon, at emcee’s side. “don’t be silly. ever is after her unique evol, her potential. they’ve wanted her for years. you’re not...”

not important.

 “i’ll be back as soon as this is sorted.”

he’d kissed your forehead. a kiss of duty, of distraction. not the deep, desperate kisses that used to leave you breathless against this very door. then he was gone, the click of the latch sounding like the snap of a bone.

•••

the first week was worry. the second, a slow-burning anxiety. the third… the third was the quiet, suffocating descent of doubt. your calls became less frequent, his answers clipped, always with her in the background. you could hear her laugh sometimes, bright and familiar, a sound that used to bring you joy but now felt like a twist of the knife.

“hey, can’t talk long.” he’d say, voice lowered, a tinge of irritation in his tone. “she’s… she’s really scared. i have to be here for her.”

who’s being here for me? you’d scream inside your own mind as you hummed and hung up the call.

the apartment, once a cozy nest of shared moments, now felt like a museum of your own naivety. you knew you had no place in caleb’s life. heck, you had no place in this world, but something gave you hope.

that hope seemed to have been misplaced.

•••

you were brushing your teeth, staring at your own hollow-eyed reflection in the bathroom mirror, when the lights flickered and died. not just yours — the entire building plunged into an unnatural, swallowing darkness.

the hum of the city outside vanished, replaced by a silence so profound it rang in your ears.

your heart jumped into your throat. power surge, you tried to tell yourself. city grid issue.

but the air changed.

it grew cold, sterile, smelling of antiseptic and something dangerous — something like charged metal, like the air before a lightning strike. you stumbled out of the bathroom, your bare feet cold on the floorboards.

a soft, blue light emanated from your living room. not the warm glow of a screen, but a cold, clinical luminescence. two figures stood there, clad in sleek, black uniforms with a single, stark insignia on their chests: ever.

your breath hitched, frozen in your lungs.

“subject located.” one of them stated, the voice filtered, genderless, and devoid of any inflection. it was the sound of a machine confirming a command.

a whimper escaped your lips, dry and pathetic. you took a stumbling step back, your shoulder hitting the doorframe of the bathroom. the cold of the wood seeped through your thin sleep shirt.

they’re here for me.

the realization didn’t dawn; it detonated.

it wasn’t a suspicion anymore. it was a truth, sharp and jagged, carving out your insides. the letter, the threat... caleb had assumed. he had decided. he had looked at you, heard your unspoken fear, and dismissed it with a distracted kiss.

he had deemed emcee’s potential, her history, her place in this world’s narrative, more worthy of protection than your entire existence.

grief, black and tar-like, surged up your throat, mingling with the unpleasant taste of panic. it wasn’t just the fear of the agents, of the unknown horrors ever represented. it was the utter, soul-crushing betrayal. he wasn’t here. he was in another city, playing guardian to another, while the real threat slithered through the darkness he’d left you in.

you had been assessed and found lacking.

“stay back!” you screamed, the sound raw and ragged in the consuming quiet. you grabbed the first thing your hands found — a heavy ceramic mug from the sink, a stupid gift you’d bought together at a street fair.

you hurled it.

it was a laughable act of defiance. one agent simply shifted their head, and the mug shattered against the wall beside them, exploding into useless, dusty shards. the sound was obscenely loud.

“do not resist.” the same voice droned. “compliance minimizes discomfort.”

discomfort. the word was so chillingly clinical it snapped something inside you. pure, animal fear took over, burning away the grief for a single moment.

you turned and ran.

not towards the front door — they were between you and it. you fled deeper into the apartment, into the bedroom. a dead end. your mind was a frantic, skittering thing.

the window?

the fire escape!

you’d never used it, always complaining it was rusted shut.

you fumbled with the latch, your fingers slick with cold sweat, tearing a nail down. behind you, you heard the soft, synchronized tread of their boots on the floorboards. no urgency. they had all the time in the world.

“come on, come on!” you sobbed, yanking at the stubborn metal. it gave with a shriek of protesting iron, and the wet night air blasted in, the misty rain kissing your feverish skin. you scrambled forth, but only one leg made it out.

a strong arm wrapped itself around you, dragging you back in with force.

“ahh!”

as you turned, a third figure melted from the deeper shadow of the bedroom doorway. you hadn’t seen them enter. this one was taller, stronger, their presence a deeper chill. they moved with a predator’s grace, while the other two stood sentinel, blocking your retreat back inside.

“caleb…” you whispered, the name a broken prayer, a curse, a plea. it was all you had left. his name was the anchor to this world, to your heart, and he had let it go.

a broken sound, half-sob, half-laugh, escaped you. “he didn’t even consider it.” you breathed, more to yourself than to them. the rain mixed with the hot tears finally spilling over your cheeks. “he left me here for you.”

they closed the final distance. you swung a fist, weak, desperate, but they caught your wrist with an effortless, gloved hand. the grip was like iron, cold and unfeeling. with their other hand, they produced a small, white cloth.

the smell hit you before the cloth did — a sickly-sweet, chemical odor that clawed at the back of your throat. chloroform.

the last of your strength fled, replaced by a paralyzing horror. this was it. not a battle, not a capture, but an erasure. you would disappear from this apartment, from skyhaven, from caleb’s world, and he wouldn’t even know where to look.

he’d been searching the wrong city, protecting the wrong person.

 “sleep now.”

•••

consciousness returned not as a gentle dawn, but as a violent, chemical sunrise behind your eyelids. your head throbbed, a sickening drumbeat against the inside of your skull. the sweet, cloying scent of the chloroform still lingered in your sinuses, but it was now undercut by something sharper, cleaner, and utterly repulsive — the antiseptic sting of a sterile environment.

you tried to move, and the world snapped into a brutal, fluorescent focus.

you were upright, strapped to a cold, metallic chair. thick, padded restraints bit into your wrists, your ankles, your torso, holding you in a cruel parody of an embrace. panic, cold and immediate, lanced through the lingering fog. you gasped, the sound loud in the unnerving quiet, and strained against the bindings.

they didn’t give an inch, only creaked softly, a taunt in industrial polymer.

your eyes darted, taking in the nightmare.

the room was a blinding, seamless white — walls, floor, ceiling — a void with no shadows, no corners to hide in. it felt less like a room and more like the inside of a giant, sterile egg. the only features were the swarm of medical equipment encircling you like mechanical vultures. silvery robotic arms, tipped with needles, probes, and sinister-looking clamps, were frozen in place, poised. monitors with undulating green lines and cryptic numerical readouts glowed softly. wires snaked from panels in the floor to nodes stuck to your temples, your chest, the inside of your wrists, their touch cold and alien.

where am i? the thought was a scream in the silent chamber. caleb. caleb, where are you?

but the name that had once been a talisman now felt like a boulder on your heart. the memory of his departure, the weeks of silence, the cold dismissal — it all came crashing back with the force of a physical blow.

he wasn’t coming.

he didn’t even know you were gone.

the singular door in the wall, also white and nearly invisible, hissed open.

a man in a pristine white lab coat stepped through. he was middle-aged, with thinning hair scraped neatly across his scalp and wire-rimmed glasses that reflected the room’s harsh light, hiding his eyes. he held a digital clipboard, a sleek tablet, and his fingers tapped against it with a rhythm that was both bored and precise.

he didn’t look at you at first, absorbed in his notes, as if you were just another piece of equipment in the room.

then he stopped, a few feet away, and lifted his gaze.

his eyes, when they finally met yours, were a flat, pale grey. devoid of empathy, curiosity, or even malice. they were the eyes of someone assessing a failed experiment.

“ah. subject is conscious.” he stated, his voice a dry, thin thing. “vitals are stable. elevated stress markers, of course. typical.”

“who are you?” you managed to croak out, your throat parched and raw. “what do you want with me?”

he ignored your questions, stepping closer. he reached out, not to you, but to a monitor beside your head. he adjusted a dial, and a fresh, sharp prick of pain lanced through the node at your temple. you flinched, a small, trapped sound escaping you.

“useless.” he murmured, more to his clipboard than to you. “a complete miscalculation.”

a spark of defiance, born from sheer terror, flickered in your chest. “let me go.”

this time, he looked at you. a slow, condescending smile stretched his thin lips. it was a horrible expression, devoid of any warmth.

“let you go?” he echoed, a laugh like rustling paper following the words. “and waste all the resources it took to pluck you from your dreary little apartment? the planning? the risk of deploying operatives for a null-value subject?” he shook his head, clicking his tongue.

“no, no. the waste isn’t in keeping you. the waste was in acquiring you in the first place.”

he leaned in, and you could smell the stale coffee on his breath. “you see, our intelligence — our very expensive, very precise intelligence — suggested you were a significant emotional variable for colonel xia. a leverage point. a weakness.” he snorted.

“imagine our surprise. imagine my professional embarrassment.”

your blood ran cold. “caleb…” you whispered.

“caleb.” the doctor mocked, his voice lifting to a falsetto of pathetic imitation. “oh, caleb, save me!” he dropped back into his own dry tone. “he doesn’t even know you’re here. our surveillance in linkon shows him quite… preoccupied. playing the devoted protector. buying coffee, standing guard outside a door, sharing cozy little meals. all for her. for emcee.”

each word was a needle, meticulously inserted. you could see it. you could see it with devastating clarity because you’d heard it in his distant voice on the phone. you’d felt it in his absence.

the doctor was just painting over the picture you’d already been bleeding onto for weeks.

“the plan...” the doctor continued, straightening up and resuming his tapping on the tablet. “was elegantly simple. snatch the beloved, watch the hero unravel, use his predictable, desperate attempts to rescue you to lure him into a trap. classic. effective.” he paused, his grey eyes locking onto yours with chilling finality. “it appears we snatched the wrong beloved.”

the air left your lungs in a slow, painful exhale. the room seemed to tilt. the monitors beeped a little faster, betraying your crumbling heart.

“he doesn’t love you.” the doctor said, not with cruelty, but with the utter certainty of a scientist stating a proven fact. “oh, he might have enjoyed your company. found you a pleasant distraction from his weighty, noble burdens. but love? his heart, his destiny, his purpose… it’s always been with emcee. anyone with two brain cells to rub together could see it. except you, apparently.”

tears welled, hot and shameful. you fought them, biting the inside of your cheek until you tasted blood. you wouldn’t cry in front of this man.

you wouldn’t.

“you were a placeholder.” he sneered. “a temporary distraction. you thought you could outshine a bond forged in childhood? with the way he is acting? how dumb can you be?”

dumb. naive. stupid.

the words echoed the toxic whispers that had haunted your darkest nights. he was giving voice to your deepest insecurities, the fear that had trailed you since the moment you woke up in this strange world — that you didn’t belong, that your happiness was borrowed, that you were living on stolen time.

“i love him.” you breathed, the confession torn from you, weak and pathetic.

“and what of it?” the doctor snapped, his feigned calm finally cracking into sharp irritation. “your love is irrelevant. it is a null data set. it changes nothing. it moves nothing. he is not coming. he is not looking. you are here, strapped to a chair, and he is there, holding her hand because she had a nightmare about the big bad ever.” he threw his hands up in a gesture of exasperation.

“do you comprehend the operational waste? the man-hours? i have budgets! i have timelines! and i am now left with a useless,weeping subject who is of no value as bait and of only marginal interest!”

he took a step closer, looming over you. the sterile light glinted off his glasses, turning them into white, blinding orbs. “you are a mistake. a smudge on my otherwise impeccable record. and i do not tolerate mistakes.”

the verbal punishment began in earnest, cold, analytical, and designed to flay you open.

“the only thing you have succeeded at…” the doctor mused, his voice dropping to a venomous whisper. “is wasting my time. and for that, i can assure you, there will be consequences. if i can’t use you as bait, i might as well make you my extension.”

he turned and walked back towards the door. before he left, he glanced over his shoulder, his final words delivered with chilling, surgical precision.

“you will do the only thing you're good at — watch xia from afar.”

the door hissed shut behind him, leaving you alone in the blinding, silent white hell.

the sob that finally broke free was a ragged, ugly thing, muffled by the sterile air. you strained against the restraints until your muscles screamed and your wrists burned, but it was futile. the monitors beeped on, charting the catastrophic collapse of your heart rate, your spike in cortisol, your sheer, utter despair.

“c-caleb…”

the betrayal was a cold knife, twisted deep, not just by caleb, but by your own foolish heart. you had trusted. you had believed. you had loved with the desperate fervor of someone who knew, on some level, they were living a lie.

you were alone. you had always been alone. the love you’d clung to had been a mirage, and now you were stranded in the desert, with vultures circling overhead. as you stared into the featureless white void, the only thing left was the deafening, heart-shattering sound of your own love, echoing back at you as nothing more than a worthless, wasted sigh.

•••

the white void became your world. time lost all meaning, measured only in the hum of machines, the occasional, terrifying whir of a robotic arm calibrating itself, and the slow, cold drip of nutrients and sedatives through an iv line into your arm. you drifted in a haze of chemically-induced calm, punctuated by moments of sharp, lucid agony when the reality of your situation would crash over you anew.

days? weeks? it was impossible to tell.

the doctor returned, always with his tablet, always with that look of detached assessment. he never gave you a name. he was just the scientist in your mind, the architect of your silent hell.

one session began like the others. the hiss of the door, his soft-soled shoes on the seamless floor, the glare of his glasses.

“today, we check the repurposing.” he announced, his voice devoid of ceremony. two technicians in grey scrubs flanked him, their faces obscured by masks. “the initial surveillance chip is now in place. we will establish the connection to your neural pathways.”

you thrashed against the restraints, a raw scream tearing from your throat. “no! take it out!”

he didn't even flinch.

a nod to a technician, and a cold pad was pressed against your neck. a jolt, not of electricity, but of something deeper, a neural static that scrambled your thoughts into slurry. your body went limp, your screams dying into choked gurgles.

you were conscious, but trapped in a paralyzed shell.

you felt, rather than saw, the approach of the robotic arm. it moved with a smooth, insectile grace. a low whine filled your ears, a sound that vibrated in your teeth. a pinpoint of red light appeared on your neck, between your shoulders.

it was cold.

then, the pain.

it wasn't a pain of cutting or burning. it was an invasion. a feeling of something thin, impossibly hard, and icy being threaded through the bone of your skull, into the soft, wet universe of your mind. it was a violation so profound your psyche recoiled, shattering against the walls of your own skull. you couldn't scream. you could only watch from the prison of your own body as the monitors went wild.

the scientist observed the screens, nodding with approval. “neural pathways accepting the probe. good. begin the memory cataloging. we need to establish a baseline before we start editing her memories.”

editing.

the word echoed in the hollowed-out cavern of your mind.

the invasion shifted. the cold probe became a searchlight, spearing through the dark waters of your memories. you were forced to relive them, not as a participant, but as a spectator strapped to a chair.

the memories — mostly of you and caleb — played out, one after another, a beautiful, heartbreaking film of the happiest moments of your life. each one was dissected, labeled, and filed away by the icy presence in your head. it was the ultimate humiliation; to have your most precious love story treated as data points in a lab report.

then, the probe dug deeper.

past the memories of this world, past the moment you woke up in a skyhaven clinic with no identity and a head full of knowledge about a world that shouldn't exist.

“wait!”

it plunged into a deeper, older layer.

a flash of a different sky — blue, with a yellow sun, not skyhaven’s. the sound of laughter, a mother’s voice calling a name that wasn't the one you used here. the smell of rain on dry earth, of pages in a physical book. a cramped, cozy bedroom plastered with posters of bands that didn't exist here.

the soul-crushing weight of deadlines, the glow of a phone screen late at night, the comforting escape of a game — a specific game. characters moving on a screen. a story unfolding.

caleb. pixelated, handsome, heroic. text boxes of his dialogue you’d read a hundred times. your own hands on the screen, making choices, guiding him, loving him from a distance across an impossible void.

the probe hesitated.

the scientist, who had been monitoring the data stream with an expression of bored efficiency, suddenly stiffened. he leaned forward, his eyes widening behind his glasses. the flat grey was replaced by a spark of intense, voracious curiosity.

“what is this?” he murmured. he manipulated his tablet, commanding the probe to focus, to amplify.

the memories of your past life flooded the neural feed. your death — a stupid, mundane accident, a screech of tires, a blinding impact, then nothingness. then the waking up here, in the body of a stranger, with the haunting, joyous, terrifying knowledge that the fictional world you’d loved was now your reality, and the fictional man you’d loved was flesh and blood.

the probe withdrew.

the paralyzing field released you. you sagged in the chair, gasping, tears and sweat mingling on your face. the violation was total. they had seen everything. not just your life with caleb, but your true life.

your secret.

the scientist stared at you. for a long, silent moment, the only sound was your ragged breathing and the hum of the machines. then, slowly, a smile spread across his face. it wasn't the condescending smirk from before. this was something else — awed, hungry, and deeply, deeply unnerving.

“a trans-dimensional psychic imprint. a consciousness migration. or… simpler…” he took a step closer, his eyes raking over you as if you were a newly discovered, priceless fossil. “reincarnation. with full, conscious memory retention. from a reality where our world… where colonel xia… is fiction.”

he let out a low, incredulous laugh. “astounding. the implications… the metaphysical vectors alone…”

the fear in you curdled into something new, something even colder. he wasn't just interested in you as leverage anymore. you were a specimen.

he circled your chair, his mind racing, almost talking to himself. “this explains the anomalies.” he stopped in front of you, his gaze piercing. “you knew him. before you ever met him. you loved a story, a fantasy.”

the words were a physical blow. he was taking the most profound, terrifying, and beautiful truth of your existence and reducing it to a clinical pathology.

“you fell in love with a character.” he stated, his voice dripping with a newfound, grotesque pity. “and then you were dropped into his world, and you actually believed you could step into the narrative and change the ending. you thought you could replace the heroine.”

he threw his head back and laughed, a dry, crackling sound that echoed in the white room. “oh, this is too rich. the pathetic grandeur of it! to have the knowledge of a god — the script of his life — and to still fail so spectacularly!”

“stop it.” you whispered, your voice trembling.

“stop?” he leaned down, his face inches from yours. “why? i'm finally appreciating your true value. you're not a worthless variable. you're a case study in futility. you knew every beat of his story, every trauma that shaped him, every line of dialogue that would make him open up. you had the ultimate cheat sheet. and yet…” he gestured broadly at the room, at your restraints.

“here you are. he still chose her. he still left you. your foreknowledge was worthless. your love, born from pixels and text, was no match for the gravitational pull of his code.”

each sentence was a masterfully aimed dagger, finding every hidden wound of insecurity you’d ever harbored. the fear that your love was somehow less legitimate because it began in another world. the terror that you were just an obsessed fan who got lucky.

he was weaponizing your origin story.

“you're wrong.” you choked out, but the conviction was gone.

his words had the ring of terrible truth.

“am i?” he straightened up, tapping his tablet.

a screen flickered to life on the wall.

it was a live surveillance feed, grainy but clear. a cozy linkon apartment. caleb was there, moving around a kitchen. he was smiling, a soft, easy smile you hadn't seen in months. he handed a cup of tea to emcee, who was curled on a sofa, wrapped in a blanket. she took it, her face glowing with gratitude and something more intimate. he sat beside her, not touching, but his entire body was angled toward her, a fortress of protection and care.

you couldn't look away. it was the confirmation of every nightmare.

then the screen changed to the lab… from your perspective.

“the live feed from your ocular implant is already coming in clearly too.” the scientist said conversationally. “but we need to ensure you don't… interfere. or break. so, we'll be modifying the recent memories. a few tweaks. softening the edges of your… volition. making you more accepting of your new role as our passive observer.”

horror, deeper than any you had felt yet, froze your veins. they weren't just going to watch through you. they were going to rewrite you. to make you a willing vessel.

“no… please… you can't…”

“i can.” he said simply. “but this… this changes things.” he paced again, the wheels turning. “a consciousness that has already crossed the void of death… it's uniquely malleable. resilient in one way, fragile in another. i almost wish to keep you here forever.”

“but i cant.” he stopped and looked at you, his expression shifting to one of chilling calculation. “or…?”

his eyes suddenly shone with a lightning-like luminescence, frightening and powerful.

“i mock you for your pathetic fantasy.” he said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “but what if i could make it real? not the messy, painful, rejecting reality you currently endure. but the fantasy you dreamed of when you stared at that screen.”

your breath hitched. a treacherous, desperate spark ignited in the wasteland of your heart.

a spark that shouldn’t be there.

“what… what are you saying?”

“i'm saying your knowledge of him is a database of unparalleled depth. you have it all now. every moment that made you love him. but your consciousness — your ego, your fears, your pathetic grief — it's what's failing you. it's what causes him to pull away. your human weakness, your need, your… lack of code.”

he moved to a console and brought up a schematic. it was a brain, overlaid with a glittering, synthetic neural network.

“we can integrate a code. we can build a new behavioral matrix for you. one that is optimized. one that knows exactly what to say, when to touch, how to be perfect. not a desperate, love-starved transplant from another world, but the ideal companion. programmed with the love you feel, but stripped of the neediness that repels him.”

don’t listen to him.

he turned back to you, his eyes gleaming. “we can make caleb xia love you. truly, devotedly, unconditionally. not by changing him, but by perfecting you.”

don’t listen, don’t listen, don’t–

the offer hung in the sterile air, a glittering, poisoned apple. it was everything you had ever wanted. the end of the heartache. the certainty of his love. to have the fantasy made flesh.

but the price…

“it would require a gradual integration.” he continued, his voice hypnotic. “we'd start small. editing your emotional responses to be less… volatile. then, layer by layer, we'd replace your organic consciousness with the synthetic matrix. you'd still be you… in a sense. your love for him would remain, purified and amplified. you would become efficient. perfect. and he would love you for it.”

he would?

he saw the conflict tearing you apart — the desperate, dying hope warring with the last shreds of your self.

“think of it.” he whispered. “no more waiting by the phone. no more watching him choose her. no more feeling like a ghost in your own life. you would become the heroine of your own story at last. all it costs is the part of you that is… broken.”

you looked back at the screen, the one that flickered back to linkon city. caleb was laughing now at something emcee said, his face alight with a joy that had once been yours. the betrayal was a fresh wound, salted by the scientist's words.

you are broken. your love is flawed. you are not enough.

a deep, utter loneliness swallowed you. the kind that screamed for relief at any cost. the fantasy the scientist painted… it was a siren song in the crushing silence of your despair.

to be loved by caleb. to have him look at you the way he looked at her on that screen. it was the dream that had dragged you across the gap between worlds.

your voice, when it finally came, was a broken defeat, barely audible.

“...would it hurt?”

the scientist's smile was gentle, almost kind. it was the most terrifying expression you had ever seen.

“only at first.” he said. “and then… peace. and love. real love. the kind that lasts.”

you could have him. you could have the happy ending. all you had to do was surrender. to let them erase the wounded, betrayed, human part and replace it with something flawless and machine-made.

the tears that fell now were not just of grief, but of a profound, soul-crushing temptation. the anguished choice between a painful, real self destined for heartbreak, and a perfect, artificial one destined for love.

“don’t you want him to love you?”

in the blinding white room, stripped of everything, you hovered on the edge of annihilation, seduced by the very devil who had orchestrated your ruin. the only sound was the steady, rhythmic beep of the monitor tracking the vital signs of the person you were, and the person they promised you could become.

©pearlescenthoney 2025. do not copy, translate, or claim any of my writings or works as your own.

It must have been yours. There is a faint trace of grief and fondness that lingers in the corners of the cold stone. When you look into the coffin, there is no body. Age has faded all the colors within the tomb; it feels right to be someplace so colorless and void of life. It is as you are.

You would be content to stay here forever. But the call is strong and it wraps around your very reason for waking, pulling you into the world proper.

The world grates against your senses. It's all too bright and loud and busy, full of movement and constant change, every moment propelling into another, every organism growing and dying in equal measures. You let go of your corporeal form to lessen the impact the world has on you, drifting through it formless and invisible, observing all you come across.

Please, the call whispers, Please. Please.

Need fuels the call, desperation, a fear that tastes sweet and thick in your throat. The call whispers through the world and you are the only one to answer, claiming it as your own.

Tell me what it is you seek, you return. Your words echo through the fabric of the universe itself, settling to where it is needed.

Please. The voice clears and remakes itself into the form of a little girl, a human with a destiny so bright it hurts to look at. Here, now, she is still young and afraid, looking up at you with teary eyes. Her small hands clutch at another body, a child pale with death. The world resolves itself and you are before them in the smoldering ruins of a dungeon. You can feel Death sweep by, dragging along the newest souls to leave this mortal plane.

The child hiccups over a sob. She holds the body of the other child closer. "Who are you," her trembling voice demands even as her soul whispers please please please endlessly.

You called for me, you say, drifting down to kneel before her, your body solidifying enough to have limbs again. Four, just like anything else mimicking humanity. What is it you seek?

"Help him," she begs. "Help him. Please, he can't die here. He's the only one I have. I don't have anyone else."

You peer into her eyes and see a crown, hardship after hardship, a kingdom to which she will bring ruin or prosper. You see the boy, grown and alive, beside her, walking in step behind her, a distance pulling them apart. You see him dead, her growing up alone and jaded, the birth of an evil set to devour the world.

You want to let that happen. Hunger is your domain. It would be so easy to refuse her plea, to set her down that path and watch as she devours the world in her pain. It is your calling; that hunger, that void is your very existence. Allowing it to grow will bring you strength.

But you look down at the dead little boy and beneath the smoke rising into the sky, the stone rubble and bodies, the tears of a child who should not have to survive this—

Despite everything, a part of you remains human.

It is human enough to help her.

A price must be paid, you tell her, reaching down to cradle the head of the boy.

"What do you want? I don't have anything…"

Your Name, you whisper, sweet as anything. Give me your Name.

She hands it over willingly. You swallow it down and lock it tight within you. She is Nameless now, an absence she must build her identity around. Never shall anyone call to her, never shall a name be tied to her, never shall she be tethered to this world so tightly again. It gives you power, just enough to make the impossible change beneath your hands.

Void and hunger and a brief spark of life. The boy breathes.

You pour a little part of yourself into him; his spirit is too weak to survive without it, now that Death has taken him once.

It is complete, you say, fading away. The rest is up to you.

How interesting. To be awoken by a single call. To be able to push her into her burning destiny. To have the opportunity to change the fate of the world itself. And it all depended on whether or not you saved one child.

You leave them be. It took much energy to perform a miracle so far out of your domain. Life is not something you are meant to meddle with; you work within emptiness, darkness, the space between stars, endings and entropy. Life gives. You take, endlessly, a hunger that is never sated.

It would not be wrong to call you a monster.

Death comes to rest beside you at a quiet corner of the coastline. You explore your abilities now that you are awake to use them, pulling the void within you to eat away at the sunlight entering a small cave. The darkness within it deepens. It reminds you of your tomb; perhaps you should make this your new resting place.

You Are Awake,They say, a black crow flying off their shoulder to fetch a lost soul from the sea.

I am, you agree. Do you have need of me?

I Did Not Expect You To Awaken After Entering My Domain.

You nod. You also did not expect to wake up after you died. You certainly did not expect to wake up Other, no longer human. The memories you hold are hazy and faded; flashes of a full life, of the power you held and the fear others held for you. You remember choosing to die. You don't wish to remember anything more. The memories of your old life can disappear. You'll be happier that way.

I was called, you say. And so I answered.

You Took A Soul From My Grasp.

I was given a Name in return.

Death nods. A Fair Trade. Tread Lightly In My Domain. I Allow This, But No More.

There will be no more, you assure Them, I am Endings and Void and Hunger. Life does not become me.

Death laughs lightly, a hoarse sound that resembles dead trees shaken in strong wind. Life Is Far Too Kind To Resemble Any Of Us. They Will Be Happy With Your Interference. I Am Sure To Hear About It Next We Meet. They look at you without eyes, form shifting between a towering shadow and a skeleton wrapped in dead vines. What Shall You Do Next?

You consider the question. In the far distance, you can feel the piece of you embedded in the boy's soul be shaped by him, evolving with him as he grows and changes. He is alive and well and the hunger you embody is beginning to find a home in him.

There are no more calls for you. Entropy continues to eat away at the edges of the universe, swallowing stars and leaving black holes in its wake. It needs no guiding hand; all you must do is exist as the body in which you interact with reality and it will carry on as a force of nature.

I shall return to my slumber, you decide, I will rest until I am called again.

I Envy Your Peace, Death tells you, For I Shall Never Rest. Until We Meet Again.

Goodbye, Death, you nod, and They vanish, leaving to continue their never-ending rounds, gathering souls to deliver to the afterlife.

You turn your back on the sea and enter the cave. Your void has been eating away at it steadily, leaving it unnaturally dark. No sunlight can reach into it now. It is quiet and comfortable, the damp, cold stone similar to your long abandoned tomb. It is not a deep cave, going down and into the side of the cliff by a few meters. At the bottom, the stone gives away to the ocean, sweeping in from beneath the land.

The thin, weak connection you hold with the boy you brought back to life is steady. You send a little ripple of void down it just to feel him jump, a quiet little amusement before you return to your resting. There is no need for a being like you to remain in the world, so you settle down, release your grip on reality, and sink into slumber.

Time slips away. Time is meaningless to immortal beings.

Now that you have awoken once, true sleep is impossible. You are spread far and wide, in every emptiness, in every darkness, pulling the universe to ruin just for the sake of keeping balance with creation.

Sometimes you sink into the essence of rot, eating away at leaves on forest floors just to feel small. Other times you float between the stars, coalescing into a black hole just to enjoy the taste of light.

What happens to humans on the planet you reside on is irrelevant. You care little for them.

But they care for you.

Your little coastline cave is discovered and curiosity pulls brave souls to explore the unnaturally dark depths. They whisper of a slumbering god of destruction and ruin, who holds the power to destroy the very world.

A shrine is built for you, done with enough movement that you take note of it, becoming aware of the unwelcome changes being done to your place of rest. You idly consider having the darkness eat away at those humans, but let the idea fade away; it's too much work, and it would get their attention fixed on you, which is the last thing you need.

Then come the offerings: gold and jewels and food that crumbles to dust quickly in your half-awake presence. Nobles demand that you bring ruin to their rivals. Common folk beg for those who exert power over them to fall and wither away. Most requests you ignore, but occasionally there comes a a prayer that interests you enough to move.

You swallow the ambition of a king set on conquering the far shore of the continent and he is left an empty husk of a man. You steal away the softness of a child's heart to ease the pain and help them kill the orphanage directors that starve them. You make a castle fall completely, burying all the bodies it held, simply because a young boy, cast aside, wished for them to disappear.

You are not kind. You are fickle and bored and always so hungry.

Humans fear and worship you in equal measure. It does not take long for whispers of your unwanted shrine to spread, for more people to make pilgrimages to you in the hopes of catching your attention. It only takes a few years for it all to be too annoying to handle anymore, so you force yourself awake and leave your cave, searching for a new place to rest.

The other gods have been busy, leaving their marks across the world. In the distance, you can hear War bellow and laugh. Harvest sweeps by, leaving you plenty of fallen crop to feast on and you help the fields decompose, turn over the soil into something healthier for the next planting season. Death's crows fly overhead endlessly, forever on the move. You can feel Life dancing through the land, pushing new sprouts up through the earth and pulling animals and humans gently through the movements of Time.

As you drift through the world, you observe humans move through their fleeting lives. Some are untouched by the threads of fate, free to choose what path they wish to follow. Most of those humans are quiet and little, wanting for nothing, so you give them some of your hunger to turn their sights onto greater things. Other humans are so tightly wound by fate that it makes you recoil in disgust, sneering at their burning ambition; their hunger will consume them whole if you leave them be. Most you leave untouched to find their own ruin, but for some you see more that can come from them and rip out portions of their hunger to reclaim as your own.

It takes a few years before you are able to settle down again, fighting against your own appetite that demands you search for more to eat. Too much interference is troublesome, especially without the right motivation. Hunger is simply what you are, not a motivation that informs your decisions.

You find a nice mountain top and carve a resting place into the high cliffs, surrounded by nothing but strong winds and large birds that are more than happy to keep their distance.

You sink into sleep again.

The dreams begin then, something pulling your slumbering consciousness to observe a young man, just settling into adulthood, chase after a fate-woven girl. His armor is dull and cracked in several places, but his sword is well kept and sharp. His eyes sweep over his surroundings, keeping the girl safe as she sleeps. When he looks at her, his eyes are dark and dangerous and you can feel your own hunger rise up within him.

There he is, you think, looking at the once-boy-now-man you saved so long ago. He has grown up well. He has grown up strong. He has grown up hungry but his control of it is tight and unforgiving. You are pleased by this; you would not want part of your essence to be imbued in someone weak.

You dream in flashes: portions of fights against monsters, laughing with the girl as she leads him through a market, running from masked figures across the continent. He grows steadily, more and more jaded as time passes. He is separated from the girl. She is beyond the reach of your dreams and so you can only watch him worry and despair, taking down his enemies with greater violence than before.

And then, the call comes. His call.

Please, his soul screams, please please please.

You brought him back to life. You have a responsibility to him. You answer his call.

He is panting in the aftermath of a bloody fight, exhaustion weighing down his limbs. There are bodies around him, still warm, and Death stands off to the side, watching Their crows pluck souls from the corpses. They give you a single nod, but offer no words.

You acknowledge Them briefly, then take a moment to allow yourself to fully wake, pulled out of the dream by your connection to him. You body forms, growing heavy under the weight of reality, and you fill a space that was once empty.

It has been a long time since you were properly corporeal. It's hard to keep your features clear and unchanging, so you give up. Darkness rises up and drapes itself over you like a veil, hiding you from view.

For what reason have you called me, you ask, grimacing at the strange sensation of a proper voice moving the muscles of your throat.

The man whips around, sword raised, with a fierce light in his eyes.

"Who are you," he demands, an echo of the girl so very long ago.

You tilt your head to the side. You know me.

"No, I don't."

Perhaps a little reminder is in order, then. You pull at the void connecting you, reaching out to touch the essence you left in his death-soaked soul.

He jumps, then swears.

You laugh. Yes, you remember me now. Speak. Why have I been called?

He pales, swallows heavily. Then he says, "There's someone I need to save."

And what will you give me in return for my assistance?

"What do you want?"

Your Name.

His expression hardens. "I won't give you my name. But you may call me Caleb. Ask for something else."

Clever, you say approvingly, Then I want your hunger. Let it consume. Let it grow. I wish to see what you can do with it.

"So you just want to see what I can do?"

If that is how you wish to interpret that, then yes, you nod. I want to see what you can do.

"You—what are you?"

Hunger and Void. Darkness in empty space. Ruin and rot. I am the End of all, and the reason you breathe still.

Caleb lowers his sword, though his eyes remain guarded. "A god, then."

Or a monster. There is no difference between the two.

"No, there isn't." He runs a hand through his hair, then looks down at the cooling corpse around them. Death has since taken Their leave, always needed elsewhere, though the heaviness of their presence still lingers. "They took her. Betrayed us on the way back to Philos when we thought we were finally safe. I'm going to get her back."

Her. Yes, the girl desperate enough to give me her name. Very well, you give him a slight bow, a mockery of human politeness, I shall aid you in her rescue.

"She's Nameless because of you?"

Caleb, you say, relishing the way the shape of his name in your mouth makes him shudder, You live because she is Nameless. Had she not offered, I would have left you still dead.

He looks both enraged and terrified, subtly shifting back a step. He's trying to put on a brave face, but such facades mean nothing to you. He is one of Yours, tethered to you by a shared hunger. He can not hide from you.

But that is in the past. We need not revisit it. Lead the way, Caleb, and I shall follow.

…

He's heard rumors about a new born god of destruction. Part of him had been tempted to follow the whispers and find the shrine hidden along the coast with Pips. They could have asked for help in taking down EVER, of getting rid of the heartless king of Philos to help Prince Xavier onto the throne. They could have sought help in restoring Pips' Name so he wouldn't have to call her by a nickname, no matter how affectionate it was.

He knew her name. Pipsqueak had a name that was engraved onto his soul, but all he can recall when he tries to revisit a memory of saying it is ̶̛̞̳͐͛̀̔̆͝m̶̢̨͍͙͕̘̮͇͈͔̘̓̀͌͘ͅx̷̛͙̊̇̐̓͝ỉ̵͓̑͌a̷̬̘̚͜͝ ̶͈̪̌̿́c̸̡̪̺̲̱͍̲͑͋́̃̋͊́͌͂̾̓͗͜͜ā̸̼͎̗͖͍́̆͐͐̈́̏͘͠͝x̴̫̩͂̓̌x̵̘̙͔̯͎̼̯͈̠̜͑ì̴̹̭̙̻̺̱̗̔͂̅́͌̈̚͘͝͝ẍ̷̢̢̣̳̥́̃̿̓̈́̓͂͛͛̇̈a̸̢͔͖͙͓̤͐͆͋͑͋̌̿̏͝ — just the thought of it makes his head pound.

Pips told him to give up on her Name.

"I'm happy with whatever you want to call me," she had said, "So stop making your nose bleed by thinking about it too hard!"

He should have pushed harder. He should have done the impossible. He should have given her name back so he would have something left of her.

It's all his fault.

Caleb had gotten too comfortable, too complacent. Everything had been going well; five years after being knighted, three years after she joined him serving under the Crown of Philos, time enough to form bonds and believe that the worst parts of his life are safely behind him. They're both so much stronger now, no longer the scared kids they once were, jumping at every noise in the dark and running from EVER. He thought that, as a knight, he would be able to keep everyone safe now.

He didn't think he needed to keep Pips safe from the very people they fought alongside with.

Now, betrayed and injured and furious about it all, he's back to where he was all those years ago: terrified and running away. They got separated, put in different missions before their fellow knights turned on them by order of the crown. Their ties with the disgraced first prince, Xavier, put a target on their backs and now Pips is gone and Caleb has never hated the crown more.

There must be a bounty on his head. He didn't kill everyone when he escaped and word must have spread by now. Everyone after him has worn Philos' emblem. He'd torn his own off, swearing revenge no matter the cost.

It had been easy to shut away his heart, to look upon familiar faces and kill them without hesitation. He doesn't feel bad about it. He doesn't feel anything but vicious satisfaction and he's sure, now, that there was always something monstrous about him, just biding its time to make itself known. He had a faint sense of it before, when they were kids and still growing up, but he had smothered it down and ignored it, desperate to play the part of Pips' kind, protective, fun older brother. Even as his own affection for her twisted and grew hungry, wanting her in ways that would make her look at him with horror.

There's no need to seek out this new born god of ruin; They found him instead, and Caleb can see his reflection in Their darkness. They are largely silent, only speaking when he speaks, Their words heavy with intent, a gravity that pulls at the weight of reality.

He understands now: he was always part monster, reborn with Hunger in his core. They brought him back to life, but They brought him back changed.

The thought that They can take away the twisted gift of life They gave him is terrifying. He refuses to die while Pips is still in danger, her fate up in the air. They are meant to be feared and he fears Them despite trying not to, but oddly enough, They're not… scary.

It is simply human nature to fear what is powerful, and mortals can never compare to gods. He's heard the legends of those who cross gods, who are punished eternally, who are changed. He's grown up to hearing bits and pieces of tales told around fires and in taverns of how the world is shaped by the rage and mercy of immortal beings. They are to be worshiped and feared in equal measures, fickle beings who demand more just to allow anyone to escape their gaze.

This god of ruin could care less for any of that, it seems. They demand nothing for him after the deal is made. They just follow, silently, leaving darkness dripping in Their wake.

Your mind is loud, They say suddenly, making him jump.

Caleb watches Them from the corner of his eye, unable to fully look away. It's uncanny, seeing this figure of darkness walk the same path as him, small and unfathomable. The dark veil that covers Them is thick, heavy as the night, concealing what lies beneath. Is there even a body under there? Or just darkness?

"Can you blame me?" he says, trying to make his voice even and unbothered, "It's not every day a god walks by my side."

They tilt their head to the side and a shiver of unease works its way up his spine. You are the one who called for me.

"I don't see how I did."

The soul tells no lies. You had need of me, and so I am here.

"Not sure I buy that."

What you believe matters not to me.

"Great," Caleb huffs, shoving a branch aside forcefully as he continues he's long walk through the forest. The god beside him just drifts through all obstacles. Leaves once dark green turn brown and brittle, falling to the ground as They pass.

He's tempted to ask for more aid. He can't do this alone, no matter how hard he tries. Evading EVER while rebelling against Philos is a suicide mission but it's one he has to undertake for Pips. He knows he's not coming out of this alive, but it will be worth it as long as he can make them all pay for what they've done. What's the point in having a connection to a god of ruin if he doesn't use Them to see this through?

Your hunger grows, They say, amusement deep in their voice. What is it that you are wanting so strongly?

If he's going to die anyways, he may as well take some more risks. "What would the price be for having you help me take down EVER? Or Philos?"

To what extent?

"Complete destruction. I want them all dead. I want them all to feel it. What will you take for this to happen?"

Suddenly, They're right in front of him, grabbing hold of his chin. Their hand is cold, fingers a deep black that fade as it moves up Their arm into something more human in color. It's startling to see something resemble humanity from Them when they're so monstrous and he can't help but stare at this sudden hit of a physical body emerging from beneath Their veil.

His heart pounds painfully in his chest. Though Their hand is gentle, it feels as though it takes his energy from him, leaving him weak.

What I want, They croon, for a desire so grand, is to consume and be consumed. To claim you as my own.

Caleb swallows heavily. "What do you mean?"

Other gods have priests and emissaries. Humans who move in Their name. Why should I not have the same? Be mine. Swear yourself to me and I shall grant you greater power to achieve what you hunger for. Let go of your restraint on the Hunger I have given you.

He doesn't know where he finds the strength, but he manages to force his body to move and wrench his face away from Their grasp. "I'll think about it," he bites out, fear resting bitter on his tongue.

They do not pursue. They allow him some distance and drop Their arm, hiding it from sight again.

Caleb wonders: why this form? From what he's heard of other gods, they make themselves large, imposing, impossible to ignore. They tower above mortals and change the world to their whims. So why does this powerful deity, of darkness and hunger, choose to be small?

If he didn't know any better, he would think Them fragile. The memory of that small hand, slim and gentle and colder than a corpse, cements itself into his mind.

Curiosity burns away at him.

But Caleb is practiced in biting his tongue, in playing his role, focusing on his task and nothing more. He pushes his need for knowledge away, grapples with what little he can control.

The important thing now is to find Pips and get revenge. Nothing else. His own growing hunger for more is nothing in comparison.

He struggles through each day, hiding as best he can. He sticks to quieter, smaller roads, choosing to go around towns in an effort to remain unnoticed by those who want him dead. Every part of him hurts and exhaustion weighs heavy on him.

It's an accident when he stumbles upon a group of EVER enforcers, no doubt sent to capture him again. Pips doesn't remember anything but the end, but their time with EVER was filled with pain and blood, cut open endlessly while a man blessed by a healing god twisted the power to ensure they could never escape through death. Caleb can pick them out easily, his entire body wired to recognized and attack them, striking first before they can make a move against him.

He's about to do the same, gripping the hilt of his sword as he watches them from behind a large fern, hate rising as he listens to them chat and laugh around a fire.

He's about to move, when he hears one of them say, "If we get them back and get a kid out of the woman, think they'll let me have a go with her? I've seen her a few times and man, she grew up fine."

They better not be talking about what he thinks they're talking about.

"Subject Aether is too valuable to be given to folks like us," another one retorts, "But if we were given a chance with Subject Chaos—"

"Him? Didn't know your tastes swung that way."

"Bet I could break him, you know?"

They laugh together, as if they're not talking about forcing themselves onto both him and Pips.

Caleb nearly leaps out and begins the slaughter when small, cold hands grip onto his shoulders and freeze him in place.

At ease, They whisper to him.

"I want them dead," he snarls, taking far too much effort to keep his voice low.

Yes. But a simple killing is not enough. Power floods into him suddenly, enough to make his knees buckle. They are the only thing keeping him upright as his sense of the world suddenly expands. Every darkness is so visible now, and sparks of life from plants and animals and even the enforcers draw his eye, igniting in him a hunger he hasn't felt since his first kill.

I shall give you a taste, the god of Hunger and Void and Endings whispers sweet in his ears, This is what my power can do for you. This is what it means to embrace the hunger. Go on, my Caleb, devour them.

He is bigger than his body. He moves without sound. The night rises around him, the shadows cast from the flickering fire twisting unnaturally among the bodies. They are flesh and blood and warmth that he is eager to feel against his tongue, his teeth. The void within him sings with pleasure, swelling until it is all he is, barely any of Caleb left as he descends upon them.

The god follows behind him, watching, always watching. They spare no mind for the screams or the blood spilling onto the ground. Caleb can feel their satisfaction, their own hunger pulling at his own until they twist into a macabre dance.

He blinks, and he is inside his body again.

The fire has gone out. His sword is on the ground, bloody. His hands are still dripping with it.

There are no bodies around him.

The taste of iron rests heavy on his tongue.

"What did I—" he tries, but his voice gives out, and then his legs, and he falls to the ground.

The god is kneeling on the ground and They easily pull his head onto Their lap, running a hand through his hair. It shouldn't be so comforting, but They touch is light and kind and he has not felt this safe in a very long time. They do not run from his darkness. They are his darkness, his sickest desires, the very worst parts of him brought to life and they do not flinch away from him.

There is no need for masks here; They see him in his entirety. Their power still flows through him, but it's less now. Not so overwhelming. It is familiar and the price of blood is well worth it. Caleb has not felt this settled in so long, not since he was still small enough to share a bed with Pips, curling around her in the dead of night.

He wakes in the morning feeling well rested. It has been weeks since he felt this good. There is no blood on him anymore, but he knows the last night was real; the ever present hunger in him is as close to sated as it's ever been.

They journey on, dodging bounty hunters and EVER and knights of Philos. The god never pushes him to accept Their proposition, to become Their paladin and fight in Their name, but the thought lingers in him. He has tasted Their power. He has tasted Them.

Old fantasies of licking the salt off of Pips' skin are fading, replaced with the need to rip his god open, to see all They have to offer. Gone is the longing to swallow down her sounds, to feel how she would move, helpless, in his grip while he devoured her. Instead, he wants for more of his god, to know Them as much as he can, to greedily steal Their affections and gentleness, to feel Their teeth on his throat.

Hunger like this cannot be stopped. It grows, endlessly, relentless in its desire to consume all that is around it. Caleb is just a vessel for this Hunger. He has always been a part of it, a part of Them. He understands that well, now, as he chases after whispers of Pips and Xavier, plotting to take down the current rulers of Philos.

They will need him to be strong when he finds them again. They will need a monster to put an end to the current Crown.

"I will agree to move in your name, so long as you see my desires granted," he says, one day. It's the first time he's put this into words, letting them escape the confines of his mind.

They are before him in a blink, black hands decorated with faint impressions of stars long devoured cradling his jaw. Caleb, They say. The weight of his name is different, heavier that it usually is. My paladin knight. Mine to devour.

A mouth splits across the veil, wide and full of sharp teeth. A thrill runs through him at the sight of it and he eagerly tips his head back, relishing the pain of having his throat torn in to. Power floods through him and Caleb lifts his head.

He bites back.

(The New Golden Age of Philos is a popular tale. It's spread far and wide when King Xavier's reign begins to near its end. People speak of an unfortunate child, tossed out when the first Empress died. The consort that took her place wanted him dead, and so he was left abandoned and trapped in an old castle full of her people, working to kill him.

The castle collapsed one day, leaving no survivors but him.

He grew up bitter and strong but with the love of his people giving him the willpower to keep going. He was joined by a Nameless who was able to twist the threads of Fate itself to ensure their success, and by a paladin of Ruin, bringing destruction to those who oppressed the common folk of Philos.

They are painted as heroes, people meant to become legends.

Caleb knows they are monsters: Xavier is cold to everyone but Pips, ruthless in all he does, Pips burns brighter than the sun and fears nothing, and he devours all in their path in the name of his god, uncaring for how his once beloved and her king watch him warily, always ready for him to turn that hunger onto them.

The thought felt disturbingly calm because, at least back then, there would have been an end to it all.

A part of you blamed that man—the ex-Zenin—Toji—for putting these thoughts into your head, because it was evident in the way that he looked at you and how bluntly he spoke, that he truly believed the words he preached. That Kenjaku was worse than the fate you could have secured with Naoya. Such an insight felt insulting, almost, but it wasn’t something you could deny outright.

And just as you were about to push yourself out of bed and wander, Kenjaku shifted beside you, his arms sliding around you and pulling you close before you had the chance to escape.

“Where’d you go earlier?” he asked quietly, his voice low and soft, concealing the concern behind his question. He did not like it when you wandered—he made this clear to you already—had he not already figured out something with the ex-Zenin, he would have reminded you a little clearer of what it meant to defy his instruction. However, even now, when he could sense that something was amiss, he knew to be gentler. Something was bothering you. He did not want to damage whatever fragile sort of thing existed between the two of you.

You shrugged as you lay. “I just went… exploring,” you muttered in response. “You were busy with that guy, and I didn’t exactly want to be around Zenins.”

“Oh?” he caught, amusement creeping into his tone. “I’d think that Toji would have thought the same.”

You didn’t reply.

“Are you not tired?” Kenjaku continued, his hands curling around you ever so slightly tighter as though to warn you that leaving him alone again was not an option.

You shook your head. “Well, I am… but I’m just having trouble falling asleep.”

“Ah,” he noted. “Because of today… or… because of something else?”

You bit your tongue, not wanting to reveal petty, trivial things like you having second thoughts.

“It’s nothing.”

Kenjaku hummed under his breath, neither agreeing nor pressing the matter any further for the time being. His hand remained firmly at your side, grounding you in a way that felt intentional. However, eventually, he shifted, an idea stirring into his mind. “Or, if you’re restless, we could do something about it.”

You stiffened at the idea—not out of disgust, no—but because of Toji’s lingering words pushing through the surface yet again. You thought about what refusing Kenjaku could mean and what could come from the consequences. The thought left you feeling unsettled. It was by now, after all, that you learned that things simply worked better when you didn’t interrupt the course that he set—when you followed after him blindly than seeking your own way. When you gave him what he already assumed on principle, it would be his in the first place.

Even if you did not mind, the thought made your skin crawl.

Rejection felt like something you should be entitled to.

You wondered then, if he had noticed the quiet way in which you started to distance yourself from him lately, if this was why he initiated at all, if this was why he felt more persistent than usual, because even if you were the type to so readily indulge in the chaos that seemed to chase him—you wanted to allow yourself to be difficult too. That way you could remain your own person. That way, you didn’t have to change entirely to retain what could still count as living.

“Not tonight,” you simply said, curling in on yourself, writhing free from his touch and away to the side.

Kenjaku went still, as did his hand, leaving it to hover right where it was. For a moment, he considered dropping the matter entirely and letting you rest like you apparently had so keenly wanted to, but something about your body language and tone just felt… off. It was like he could feel that it wasn’t just something you said in a moment, but something that built off something deeper, like resentment.

Which was something he did not want.

Especially not with you.

“It doesn’t have to be anything intense,” he murmured, his voice low and careful, and yet, somehow still devoid of force in his tone. He was simply probing, testing, giving you one last chance to remedy your rejection.

But you didn’t seem to budge on the matter. “I’m exhausted,” you emphasised, a yawn slipping from your lips just then. “We can do it when I’m not.”

The silence that followed somehow felt even heavier than before, like there was an unspoken distance that had settled in between you both and now seemed to be working to push you both away from each other. Again, he did not like that feeling, and he acted on his feelings for once, rather than on the manipulative cover he had kept up for so long.

“Do you not like me anymore?” he asked.

Your eyes snapped open, not expecting that question out of all the things he could say.

“What?”

His arm slid more firmly around you, reeling you in so close that your back pressed into his chest. The gesture was deliberate and possessive, as if he were reminding you of where you were meant to be.

“Don’t you feel anything for me?” he asked, pressing himself forward, letting you feel the hardness that had formed in his body. “Because I do.”

You gulped at the direction in which things were headed.

“I do like you,” you assured him, albeit sounding unsure. “What’s even bringing this on?”

Kenjaku was quiet for a beat, but then flatly continued. “Funny you should ask, considering you know exactly what you’re doing.”

Then, after a pause.

“Are you playing hard to get intentionally?” he accused.

You bit your lips and held back a response, not wanting to reveal to him that you were partially enjoying this, but the point of the experiment needed to hold strong, otherwise you were doomed to eternally wander just how he could react to important things—like trivial things—like things that were honestly mundane and little and everything else—just rejection—because you needed to know just what on earth you had gotten yourself into. Even if your mind was damaged. Even if you didn’t care about what followed after.

Kenjaku, too, was close to just letting go and pursuing what he wanted, because how was he supposed to simply ignore the fact that you were being so quiet and cryptical and elusive—potentially thinking about things that would further push him away. About things that could lead you to potentially doubting him further. About potentially finding the strength (and sense) to attempt leaving someone like him.

With that thought in his mind, he couldn’t help but react the way he did then, turning you over to your back and straddling on top of you; pushing your shoulders flat against the give of the mattress with his palms so that you couldn’t fight back. Moving your thighs apart and slipping his knee down the middle so that you couldn’t close him off with yet another rejection.

“You think that you can just push me away?” he challenged, brushing his hand past where it sat on your shoulder before settling around your neck, squeezing ever so slightly while his other hand dipped below his waist in the dark, coming to wrap around his already hardened cock. He stroked himself lazily, intentionally, letting you feel the movement as his knuckles swept across your skin—letting you hear how the fabric softly rustled in the dark.

Weirdly, this was exactly what you wanted. His actions were not putting you off.

Maybe Toji, therefore, was simply wrong.

Maybe it just meant that you both suited each other.

You—a broken thing—and the man on top of you—who had no interest in fixing you.

“I’m not pushing you away,” you yawned, though by now you were unable to mask the attitude surfacing in your voice, hinting to him that his suspicions were correct—that this was just a bit after all. “I’m just really tired.”

His lips curved at the realisation. “So, why won’t you let me help you relax, then?”

“Because you’re tired too,” you quipped.

Kenjaku scoffed at your response. “Oh? But what if I can only relax if my hands are on you all of the time?”

To emphasise his point, he moved his touch down a little, slipping down the bed and moving your legs apart with his hands. He lost interest in reaching you by force, much more keen to demonstrate to you that his touch—his yearning—was greater than just self-satisfaction. With that show, he drifted down entirely, his face coming to rest in between your thighs—his tongue already punching forward, eager to taste your soaked sex.

“You want this so bad,” he didn’t ask that time, but rather stated. His voice softened to a murmur as he settled into the rhythm, parting your lips with the spread of his finger, giving your clit a curious lick.

You blinked at how quickly the events seemed to be unfolding. “Yes, with some sleep—”

Though ever persistent, he ignored you flat out, settling into immediately sucking on your clit, causing your legs to stiffen from the intense sensation that he offered—that he seemed to be relentless in giving.

“A-ah—” you gasped out, your fingers curling into the bedsheets so hard that the fabric tore.

Pressing ahead, he lapped at the bud, moving away so slightly to build your arousal into a state of need. Above all, he didn’t care what you thought that you needed, so long as he could push you into a state of dependency all the time.

He felt himself grow more and more aroused, too—more than he had been in a long time, in fact—just the feel of you melting into his tongue after the whole display of what he perceived to be brattiness, all seemed to fade away. Combined with the reactions that you were giving him, the soft flutter of your increasingly desperate gasps, he couldn’t help but grow rock hard to the point of pain.

And as your pleasure rose and your stomach coiled to an extent that you could no longer bear—Kenjaku pushed you further than he had meant to—resulting in a surge of heat that surged through your body, allowing you to come undone right beneath his tongue, right then and there. Even as you met your limit, however, he did not relent in reacting to how hard you pushed him.

No. He would not let you slip away and off to sleep, instead he made good of flipping you over once more, over to your stomach that time and lifting your legs ever so slightly before easing his length into your now slick sex from behind. A soft sigh of pleasure left his lips as he did so, but again, he did not give you the luxury of relief.

Bringing you back down to press over the mattress, and caging you in with his body that blanketed yours—Kenjaku set into a rhythm that felt so brutal in its intensity—that it must have hurt you both. He kept his chin resting over your shoulder, breathing in the scent of you as he plundered into your heat; rutting into your core with a maddening, if not frenzied, fervour. The bed shook in the force that he delivered, and grunts and gasps spilt from somewhere deep in his throat before he could think to contain them. You couldn’t keep quiet either, though, your once soft and breathless gasps now echoing as whining cries from the way he pounded deep into you. Again and again. And again.

Then, with the heat of the moment and the coupled intensity combined, he did not last too long either; his movements growing erratic, sending him into the point of no return. Kenjaku, without meaning to, hilted himself as far deep into your cunt as he could fit, allowing him to spill inside. A rough groan of bliss trickled out of his lips, as did his release from your spent sex, and ultimately, he seemed satisfied.

Which only lasted for a moment, before the residual unease settled back in.

Something insidious that felt not like full regret, but something that he knew that he shouldn’t have pressed.

“Shit,” he breathed out, sighing as the thought took root in his mind.

He glanced down at you, in the now low light of the creeping dawn, taking note that you didn’t seem to be too upset, and that you were otherwise just on the very edge of sleep. Perhaps you were truly tired then, but it also seemed that whatever you had been thinking of earlier on had gone with the moment he took over.

So perhaps it was nothing, after all.

He cooled down a little by throwing off the blanket, sitting up with his knees slightly bent and his arms resting lazily at his sides.

Then, he settled back down next to you.

“Still awake?” he murmured.

You hummed, although only just. “Barely.”

Kenjaku nodded at that and tightened his hold on you, less in a way that felt possessive and demanding like before, but in a way that felt desperate then.

In the moment that he allowed himself to drift off after you, something close to conflict began to eat away at his mind.

Reminding him that just now, he had made a mistake.

One that he hoped would not set off anything fragile later on.

~~~

By the next time he had awoke, the daylight was prominent, cutting in through the shutters and catching his eyes at an angle that felt blinding. He stirred as the sun settled over his face, his fluttering open as he prepared to face yet another day, even if the events that unfolded had left him feeling uneasy in a way that he could not shake off.

His eyes flicked towards you, and the realisation settled in at once, making him freeze as he recalled the memory over just how… erratically he had acted the night before. It didn’t seem like you were otherwise too bothered, just fast asleep without anything appearing to addle you. He should have felt relief at the sight.

But he did not.

He could not.

(Because, what was that?)

Kenjaku ended up pulling back on instinct—away from you—keen to give you some space as he grappled with his own thoughts, only to find that the space that was left behind felt unnatural. The absence felt wrong in a way that he couldn’t fathom, and before he could think better of it, his hands were back around you, as if they had never left in the first place.

Maybe… it was fine?

He considered that much and tried to allow himself to settle again. You were not pulling away. You hadn’t tried to run from him during the night, nor did you argue after what he had forced upon you.

So, perhaps it was just his own paranoia catching up to him.

If you were still here, then that’s all that mattered.

Even if he had crossed a line the night before.

Then, after what felt like a second, but in reality was close to something far later, he snorted awake again. He wondered just how much time had passed since he had last dozed off, brushing out his hand to gain purchase of you beside him again, needing to feel for you nearby to relax again, to ground himself, only to feel a cold and empty space where you should have been.

Kenjaku sat up immediately.

“Wait—”

But then he heard it—water running somewhere down the hall, and at that, he allowed himself to lean back again. His shoulders dropped along with any sudden tension that had threatened to consume him. His fingers twisted into the sheets before falling flat again. Then, he screwed his eyes shut, a dry laugh escaping his lips.

“Fuck.”

He sighed, blinking his eyes open slowly, coming to stare at the half-open door. “Just what are you doing to me?”

And as you showered, he let the sound play away in his ears, taking in the way that it just felt so… ordinary and comforting in a way that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. It was a thought that came uninvited, creeping into his mind as he lay there alone in that quiet house, sitting there, relaxing in the dull calm of the morning.

A second thought slipped in:

What it might be like to live this way with someone who mattered.

Initially, he was quick to dismiss the very notion. He had already tried something similar before, back when he tried to fit into what was considered normal, but places like these—suburbs—had a way of wearing people down, which was exactly what happened to him. They were built to erase individuality and file down everything to make it so that life was clean and orderly and uniform. He knew early on that this type of lifestyle was unsustainable; that was all. It was nothing personal towards the person he knew, even if they did insist on a life like this. Maybe that’s why he was quick to lash out initially.

He, however, did not feel that way with you.

So, perhaps pretending wouldn’t hurt, if not for a while; it might even be fun. After all, this house was just a cover, in itself. Toji would take the fall when the time came, and then Mahito, too, would go under. He was where he needed to be in life, and things were going as he had hoped they would.

And yet, still, even now, he still struggled with something. There was the issue of that former prodigy poking around; the one who hadn’t let go of him, not even when he seemed content with moving on from Geto’s identity. That would be something he likely had to face, bringing him back to the very thing he already struggled to break free from.

He would deal with that later, though, when the time would come. For now, playing house with you was an easier prospect.

When you had come back from your shower, looking all fresh-faced and refreshed, he watched you get dressed quietly for a moment before bringing up a point. “I haven’t exactly been clear with you, have I?” he started.

You blinked blearily as you pulled a top over your head. “About what?”

He snorted softly. “About everything,” he said with a shrug, leaning back so that his back pushed against the headboard. “I know that these last few weeks haven’t exactly been easy to keep up with.”

You flashed him a brief smile that fell off quickly. “Yeah. Guess so,” you said, your voice coming out a little flatter than usual, even if you were unsure why. Maybe it had to do with last night, even if you did not understand why:

You wanted it to happen—so what was the problem?

Kenjaku, too, was quick to notice the shift right away from the way you moved and the tone you were using. It made him hesitate ever so slightly, but he pushed past it anyway.

“I’m serious,” he insisted, leaning forward with a sigh. “It was just… an unfortunate turn of events, I’ll give it that much. The initial plan was to have you tag along with me as I looked for answers, but with Naoya sniffing around, it made everything messier than it should have been.

Your breath caught as you felt guilty about that then, as if it were your fault. It was to an extent.

He continued, trying to keep his tone measured and neutral as he did. “But that’s alright,” he assured. “Maybe it happened at the right time? I’m not exactly an expert in this sort of thing either, and the whole nation was growing increasingly paranoid over where I would strike next. Sooner or later, someone out there would have figured out my pattern. I was probably a slip-up or two away from being put behind bars, anyway.”

You pulled on a pair of trousers next, listening as he spoke during the process.

“That alone already left me with a time limit,” he admitted. “So, maybe Naoya showing up gave me the foundation of a solution. I can just frame Toji and give him what he was after, anyway—food and a place to stay—letting him claim that he was copying after the killer to shelf the blame. After that, Mahito can take credit for the rest.”

You frowned as you registered one major flaw in his plan. “And what will happen when they’re both in jail, and the killings haven’t stopped?”

He laughed quietly, meeting you with a light scoff. “You think I can’t keep myself under control?”

You were about to reply, but then the answer caught in your throat as your mind drifted back to last night, recalling just how little room there had been to say no, even if you hadn’t entirely wanted to. You opened your mouth to speak, but then you closed it again.

Kenjaku narrowed his eyes at your brief lapse of hesitation, and his expression shifted into annoyance, albeit not with you. With himself, maybe.

“Something that I’ll be putting on hold,” he replied carefully. “At least for now. There’s a bigger issue right now, anyway. I need to get my act together for that.”

“For what?” you asked, tilting your head carefully as you brushed out your damp hair.

“That damned prodigy,” he said bitterly, the irritation clear in his voice. “Even with everything else that has been going on, I don’t think I shook him off at all. I bet he’s still out there, keeping tabs on me out of spite.”

“Yeah, but he’s not a cop, right?” you pointed out. “If he’s just some security guard with money, then nothing should come out of that. Whatever happened between him and his friend years ago has long passed. I don’t think he’s going to care too much about someone who stole his dead friend’s identity.”

Kenjaku sighed. “I don’t know. I think it was more than just that to him. It felt like I initiated something that was already left unresolved, and I… I don’t want to be involved in… whatever that is.”

“So… move on?” you suggested as though it were easy.

“I will, once I succeed with my plan,” he insisted. “Then everything will be clearer.”

Then, after an uncertain pause, he muttered out more to himself than to you.