perish, why don't you. VIII
Pairing: Dark!Soshiro Hoshina x Reader
Tags: Canon-Typical Violence, Obsessive Behavior, Possessive Behavior, Power Imbalance, Power Dynamics, Dark, Psychological, No Smut, No Romance, Imperfect [Name], Reader-Insert Smokes, Reincarnation, Red String of Fate
Summary: With a bitter memory only you could remember clearly, you live your days under the all-knowing gaze of the man who you loathed the most.
As your anger for the two boys, who returned to you and got injured themselves, faded with your unconsciousness, you found yourself being plucked away from the danger that the white monster posed and held by the arms of a person—no, not a person.Â
With your body being protectively carried by the humanoid Kaiju with a ghastly skull face, you remembered your father in your first life.Â
He would lift you like an infant, even when you have reached the age of autonomy, and he would spin with you, fast and nausea-inducing. He would chortle the moment he saw you stumbling trying to stand up straight, and his wife would lightly scold him for messing around with you too much.
Your diligent and kind father—Hibino reminded you a lot of him, and your father has died before he could even act as a father to his son. Hibino, with all of his flaws and shortcomings, was a father-figure to that silver-haired kid, so how could you let him perish?Â
"What are you doing here?" you gasped, your arms turning limp. "If the vice captain catches you, you'll die."
The Kaiju looked down at you before grinning reassuringly. How he did that with bared teeth, you did not know.Â
"Hibino," you whispered weakly.
He flinched in surprise.Â
Tears gradually formed over your waterline, until they dripped through the sides of your face.Â
Breathlessly, you said, "He'll kill you."
Perhaps, he was so focused on the problem at hand that he did not notice your usage of the word.Â
He looked at you one last time then at the other Kaiju.Â
"I'll just have to do this quickly, no?"Â
You nodded, your life force depleting. Before you have passed out, however, there was something you uttered.Â
The sun shone down the earth with its rays alive and bright. There were little to no clouds that have been obstructing them, and the clear, untinted windows of the infirmary were not covered by curtains entirely. Inside the infirmary was just as well lit, and the people were lively. Aside from one person, that is. The news on the television played with its volume just enough to be heard without waking up the patients—or the last remaining patient—prematurely. The youngest officer and the only cadet of this year's batch sat by the chairs provided by the nurses, their voices kept low while conversing with the male patients, Furuhashi and Ichikawa.
"Ma'am [Surname]'s not awake yet?" Ichikawa asked.
"Not yet," the blonde girl replied, glancing at the white curtain that blocked your bed.
"It's not surprising," Hibino said. "She was severely injured when I fou—"Â
"—the other officers found her—so, yes," Shinomiya cut him off, punching him by the side. "One of the nurses also told us her smoking habits added to the difficulty of healing her even when they've already used the defense force's modernized Kaiju regeneration."Â
Rubbing his torso, Hibino grunted. As though remembering something, his face brightened.Â
"She told me a name, though." He put his hand beneath his chin and hummed thoughtfully. "Kinda an old-sounding one."
Just when Hibino was about to say it, Furuhashi made a sound of confusion.Â
"How'd she tell you, old-timer?" Furuhashi interjected. "You weren't there."
Fearing for his ribs, Hibino quickly explained, "I mean, she has told me a name before."Â
As usual, the gullible young man bought it.Â
"You're really random," the pink-haired male commented.
The snow beneath your bare feet and knees was excruciatingly cold, and the frosty air froze your lungs more and more in every painful gasps. Two pairs of hands pushed you down, your face buried into the softness of the accumulated flakes under you. Your left arm was twisted, bordering being snapped by the force of the guards that was pinning you down and immobilizing you. Your right hand was being stepped on by one of their feet, their weight crushing your fingers.Â
"Tell them!" you shouted. "Please, tell them that I did not steal your mother's pin!"
"Silence, woman," the head of the clan stared at you before turning to his fourth son. "Is this woman's words true?"Â
The fourth young master of the Hoshina Clan swallowed thickly, fear evident in his eyes. The other members of the household looked at him expectantly, but he not say anything, as if his tongue became stuck under his hard palate. He opened his mouth, but he closed it promptly.Â
"I have asked ya," the man seethed. "I expect an answer, son."Â
The young man jumped in anxiousness; he was well educated of the consequences that disappointing his father meant, especially for him.Â
Upon his prolonged silence, the clan head said, "Did the woman seduce ya?"Â
"She did—she did not—not seduce me!" he hastily replied.
The man nodded, but he did not believe his offspring.Â
The son was soon petrified by his own words, only realizing that his answer held two meanings.
"I take yer reply as either ya takin' in a peasant for a lover and willingly giving her yer mother's valued hairpin," the clan head stated, pausing, "or ya not knowin' her at all."
"She," the son hesitated. "She...I do not know her."Â
Tears sprung from your eyes, and they all turned to ice.
Decorated by the clear crystal of death, his name left your mouth, followed by profanities only a betrayed woman could curse.Â
"Tell them the truth!" you screamed—wailed, even.
The father, despite seeing the answer clearly from the manner in which his son looked at you, said, "Then, she stole the hairpin."
"I had not!" you denied, but it all fell on deaf ears. "I had never!"Â
"She has lied about her connection with my son," the man announced. "Therefore, for her sin, she deserved to be beheaded."
Caring no more for the verdict, you begged, "My brother is dying, so please, let me see him!"Â
Through sobs and wheezes, you told them about your brother who you left alone in the hut with thin fabrics covering him, terrified. The father waited for his son to take back what he has said—for him to have the courage—yet his son remained the pathetic disappointment that he was.Â
He could not even protect his lover by simply admitting the truth.Â
"Cut her arms and tongue, so in her next life, she would never take what was not hers and lie about it." The clan head shook his head. "Then, behead her."Â
His fourth son's greatest weakness was not him being physically incapable; it was him being a spineless fool.Â
While you cried for your dying little sibling, the guard watched you with pity. In his greatest act of sympathy, he sliced your head off, leaving your limbs and tongue intact.Â
Your head rolled onto the snow and besmirched its stark whiteness with the crimson of your blood. Your eyes watched the commotion from a distance—the fourth young master was screaming.Â
He was apologizing. To whom, you were not quite certain.Â
He ran to you, but his father quickly grabbed him and threw him onto the bamboo walls of his estate. You blinked with the icicles coating your lashes, hatred burning your tears dry. Their voices eventually disappeared from your hearing. You closed your eyes, blaming yourself for how things have turned out.Â
If only you accepted the idea of your brother dying while the two of you were in that cave, you would have at least pass away with him enveloped in your arms.Â
You were sure you have lost all sensation from your neck down to your feet, but you did not know why you were still seemingly able to breathe. You felt two small, cold hands touching you, but when you tried to open your eyes, your vision was drowned with white.
At your front, there was white. You looked up, there was white. You looked to your sides, there was white. You looked down, there was white. You looked everywhere else, but there was only white.Â
"Why did you leave me, big sister?" you heard a familiar voice ask. "Why did you leave me to freeze to death?"
"Sister is sorry," you mumbled, your throat too dry for your to speak louder.Â
"Why did you leave me to rot?"
You said your brother's name like it was a prayer. Melancholy and full of heartache, you muttered his name.
"[Surname]?" a masculine voice called for you. "[Surname]? Are you in pain?"Â
You reached for the source, and you felt your hand become held by something warmer.Â
"No, no, no," he said, laughing softly. "Not your dad."
Your gaze searched for his face, and you saw a smile of relief gracing his features. His expression contorted into something akin to commiseration, and his other hand wiped the tears you did not know were falling and wetting the plush material under your head.
It took you so long to realize that you have been awake already.
"You're safe," you said.Â
He nodded and sat on the chair beside your bed.Â
You tried to get up, but he stopped you.
Caving in, he helped you rise from your position.Â
"Good thing you're up," Hibino said. "Been two days since they had."
As you breathed in the air of infirmary, you checked the surroundings subtly—your bed was concealed by a curtains.Â
"Shinomiya and the two." He placed a hand over his nape and rubbed it shyly. "About tha—"Â
"I'm not telling anyone."Â
"No, thank you for saving me."Â
The cogs of your brain gradually turned, and your mind slowly processed the things that have happened during the mission. Still in slight pain, you got down from the bed.Â
You slapped Hibino's hand and dragged your wheeled drip stand with you. Stumbling over to the silver-haired patient, you clenched your teeth.Â
"You stubborn brat," you gritted. "You stubborn brats!"
The said brats' shoulders jerked.
Shinomiya tried to stand up to help, but the intensity of your eyes while they glared at Ichikawa told her to stay put.Â
You grabbed the poor boy by the collar and said, "When adults are telling you to run, you run!"
It was the first time they have seen you express that much emotion, and it was their first time hearing your voice rise an octave or two.
"[Surname]—" Hibino panickedly sputtered. "Calm—calm down—yeah, calm—"
"You could've died, Ichikawa. Died!"
Shaken, he said, "What about you—"Â
"I've lived longer than you." You snapped your head to the other patient. "And, don't you think I'm letting you off the hook, Furuhashi."
Now calmer, he tried touching your hand.Â
"By a few years," Ichikawa softly argued. "You're not that much older than me or him, ma'am."
Ticked off, you yanked him.Â
"It doesn't change the fact that I'm older than you. You have so many things ahead of you, and I don't!"
"You can't just throw your life like that, and you can't expect me—us—not to come back for you when I know you're probably going to die!"
The other three dumbly watched with their breaths bated. Shinomiya, who was from a fairly silent household, observed the two of you, her eyes going back-and-forth at your face to her friend's. Furuhashi, despite being an upbeat individual, could only be silent, and Hibino, too, was fearing for what could happen. For the two calmest officers to have a loud, ear-piercing exchange—they were unaware of what to do to deescalate the situation.
They need not wait any longer, though, as someone high-ranking entered the infirmary.Â
"I don't have anyone I love who'd mourn for my death, so why does it matter if I die saving you?"
Five of them felt as if their heart stopped beating.Â
"What?" Ichikawa said. "What are—ma'am. Please, don't say that."Â
You had no other purpose aside from keeping your brother alive. You were granted this life—you were cursed to have this life—because you failed to save your brother the first time. You would rather have yourself be killed, or end it yourself, than let the boy who looked like your brother die on your watch.Â
"[Surname]," someone said, holding your hand. "Let go of the kid. Yer scarin' 'em."
With that person's touch acting as a trigger to stop you from moving, your hands loosened their grasp.Â
"Vice Captain Hoshina," they all greeted.Â
Dismissing their greetings and removing your grip from Ichikawa's collar, the vice captain chuckled.Â
"Forgive her, yeah?" He sighed while guiding you back to your bed. "She's not really good with this kinda thing."Â
Through the years he has watched you closely, Vice Captain Hoshina has learned that despite the lack of regard for your own life, you valued those who are
You were always prepared to sacrifice your life if it meant someone younger than you would live. Of course, reality was not as gracious as what you have wanted it to be. Even in your desperate attempts to save them, those officers still died. At that moment or at another time, they all died.Â
They died, because they were weak. They were not fit for the life of being a defense officer, so no matter how many times you jeopardize your own safety to remove them from the jaws of death, they would still die.Â
You, to his vexation, could not accept it.Â
He would tell you that this career was not the one for attachments, but he would see you talking to them still.Â
For some reason he could not explain, you have such a soft spot for those who are younger than you. Each time someone younger died, you would tinker that damned wristwatch and be absent during training. When you show up exactly two days after the funeral, you would behave as though it never affected you—it did. Their deaths affected you so much, even more than the passing of the officers you entered the Third Division with.Â
Friendly, you were to anyone who was not him, but you were friendlier to rookies. The walls you have put up, which everyone could not cross, was apparently permeable by anyone whose age was less than yours.Â
He could not understand as to why you were so kind to them to the extent that you were in the verge of coddling them like they were chicks. You might not train them or ask for their progress, but you would ask the life they had before. As if the life inside the base was nothing interesting, you were more curious than those youngins' lives prior entering. What he also did not understand, more than anything else, is that when someone asked you why you kept looking out for them the way an older sister would, you would answer those people that they have reminded you so much of your baby brother.Â
He recalled that time he first heard of you talking about that brother of yours.
Observing you from a close but unnoticeable distance, he saw how your eyes softened and your lips quirked up at their edges so fondly. You talked about your supposed sibling with your eyes gleaming in joy and sorrow, as if the topic was both painful and nostalgic for you. He has never thought that you were even able to have such a tender expression, and thinking that he was not the reason for that has always made his heart ache in envy.Â
As soon as he was appointed as the division's vice captain and has gained access to every officers' biographical data, he alloted time for checking yours.
A mother, a father, and no brother.
Baby brother, he remembered asking himself. How could that be? How could you have a brother, when you have been an only child?
He has read yours too many times to be counted that the words there have been ingrained in his mind so deeply—so deeply they could not be taken out—and there has been no information about you having a brother. Your father, who has passed ten years ago during the Kaiju Number Six catalyst, had no other partners after their legal separation and had no other children aside from you. Even your mother, before and after the divorce, conceived and had given birth to only you.Â
Again, no brother. You have always been an only child.
Who was that kid then? What was his name? How old was he? How come you were able to tell a story that simultaneously made sense and did not? How come the stories were so consistent? How come you appeared as though you believed the child did exist and not simply a figment of your imagination? How come you were able to love someone so innocently that ot brings an equally innocuous smile from your usually blank face?Â
How come he was not the target of your affection?
"She...struggles with a lot of things, so understand where she's coming from, 'kay?"
He pulled the curtain shut and had you lie back down. Listening to the soft gasps that replaced your normal breathing, Captain Hoshina pressed the button over your head.
"Ya can't just grab someone after wakin' up."
Although you appeared to be calm as he tucked you in, he knew better than to think so.Â
"As for yer penalty for subordination," he trailed off, patting your cheek twice. "I'll decide that next time. Rest."
A nurse not-so-later arrived and checked your vitals. He reinserted an intravenous needle in your other hand after seeing that your original one was slightly pulled more than what was considered acceptable. When he asked about it, Hibino, albeit feeling guilty for ratting you out, replied truthfully.Â
After a little while, three visitors were asked to exit the infirmary by the head nurse, stating that visitation hours will proceed the next day.Â
"Did she say somethin' while I was gone?" the vice captain asked the cadet.Â
"Uh, it was," the black-haired man attempted to recall.Â
Hibino said your brother's name, but no one knew that it was his.
Author's note: One thing that was hilariously sweet (in my point-of-view) is the fact that biologically related or not, Reader-Insert and Reno will always be a pair of sibilings—this time, it was seen by how they argued. Writing about snow was difficult, because I have never experienced it. Please, forgive me if I had some inaccuracies.
Tag section: @insomniacxin @yuyusuzu @digitaltrippers @elliether @cristinstuff @heichoucleanfreak @aliceleste @night-shadowblood-writes2 @sikyulioness @pauxf013 @curseton-dominic
