🎪 ─── 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘙𝘌𝘍𝘜𝘎𝘌 𝘐𝘕 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘏𝘌𝘐𝘎𝘏𝘗𝘚 ─── 🎪
Warnings: Dark themes, mentions of past trauma/abuse (canonical lore), psychological tension, slow burn.
This is the first part of a story featuring my genderfluid OC, Hatsuki! She is the hoop acrobat from The Freak Circus and currently prefers her female form. She harbors a deep, venomous hatred for humans due to her dark past, but MC is about to test her boundaries from the safest distance possible. Hope you like it! ✨🩵💛
The main tent smelled of the usual: sawdust, burnt gunpowder, and the metallic trail of fresh blood that the fools had left on the main stage before being dragged backstage.
The horror show was over, and the human audience had already left, completely unaware that many of them would never return home.
High above, more than ten meters in the air, Hatsuki swayed gently in her metal hoop.
Her eyes were fixed on the pastel blue and yellow canvas of the entrance, waiting for the last echo of footsteps to fade away.
She hated the thought of coming down and having the air, contaminated by human stares, brush against her skin.
For her, the height wasn't just part of her act; it was her only unreachable fortress.
However, this time something interrupted her silence.
A silhouette crossed the pale yellow and light blue curtains.
The human Pierrot insisted on protecting.
The human Hatsuki desperately wanted to skin alive along with the Doctor, just to erase that annoying existence from her sight.
"I’ve told you a thousand times... if you set a single foot in my tent when I’m down, I’ll drive a knife through each of your eyes,"
Hatsuki hissed from above.
Her voice, usually melodic, dripped with freezing venom.
MC didn't advance any further.
They stopped right at the edge of the ring, a more than safe distance away.
They knew perfectly well that Hatsuki wasn't joking; the acrobat had already grazed their cheek with a dagger last week just for walking too close to her tent.
"I’m not getting any closer, Hatsuki. I promise,"
MC said, keeping their voice low and soft, without a trace of the rushing or demanding tone the humans from Hatsuki's past used to have.
Hatsuki let out a dry, mocking laugh as she adjusted her position on the hoop, crossing her legs with feline elegance.
"Then why are you here, filth? To beg for your life? To see if I’ll turn you into my next fool? Jester would be delighted to break your mind for me."
MC didn't take the bait. Instead, they knelt down slowly, making every movement obvious so as not to alarm the acrobat.
From a small bag, they pulled out a covered ceramic plate and a glass jar filled with a dense, red powder: crushed ghost peppers combined with a sauce that would burn anyone's throat.
"I know you barely eat meat like the others do,"
MC said, placing the plate on the floor, right next to the structure holding the hoop's ropes.
"And I know you like your food to burn. I got this in the last town. I thought... you might like to have dinner in peace. Without anyone bothering you."
Hatsuki narrowed her eyes, gleaming with a mix of suspicion and pure contempt.
Her fingers instinctively brushed the handle of one of the knives hidden inside her performance outfit.
"Do you think I'm stupid?"
Hatsuki spat, leaning forward on the hoop.
"It’s poisoned. Or it has some human sleeping drug in it. You want me to come down. You want to touch me. You all want the same thing."
The words "touch me" echoed through the empty tent with a suffocating weight.
The subtle tremble in Hatsuki’s tone, poorly camouflaged by anger, didn't go unnoticed by MC.
"It’s not poisoned. And I am not going to touch you,"
MC insisted calmly, taking three steps back, moving even further away from the plate and the hoop’s landing zone.
"In fact, I’m leaving now. Enjoy your dinner, Hatsuki."
MC turned around and, without looking back to avoid putting pressure on her, walked toward the exit, disappearing past the heavy pastel blue and yellow drapes.
Up in the heights, Hatsuki remained completely still.
Silence returned to the tent, broken only by the subtle creaking of her metal hoop.
She stared at the plate on the ground.
The scent of the ultra-spicy spices reached her nose, defying her pride.
Ten whole minutes passed.
Ten minutes in which Hatsuki made sure, sharpening her hearing, that MC had truly left and that no other human was lurking in the shadows.
Finally, with agile, silent movements like those of a ghost, Hatsuki slid down the rope.
Her boots touched the floor gracefully, almost with disgust at stepping on the same ground as everyone else.
She approached the plate with slow steps, her right hand gripping her unsheathed knife.
She uncovered the food with the tip of her dagger.
It was exactly what MC had promised: an intensely seasoned dish, covered in a layer of spice that would make a normal human cry.
Hatsuki picked up a piece with her fingers and tasted it.
The burning heat flooded her mouth immediately—the kind of pure pain that made her feel alive and managed to numb, if only for a few seconds, the dark memories of that small room she had been locked in during her past.
She looked toward the tent entrance where MC had disappeared.
Hatsuki muttered to herself, her mouth burning and her heart beating a little faster than usual.
"Next time, I won't miss my throw."
But, for the first time in a very long time, her threat carried no real intent to kill. It carried doubt.
I FINALLY FINISHED THE FANFIC, RAHHHH.
I'd forgotten that I did a poll a while ago asking if you wanted a Hatsuki x MC fanfic, or Akira x MC, or something like that, and I think Hatsuki x MC won, so here it is.
