#forcedarachnid

“...It’s you.” 

It is not an accusation but an affirmation, words soft as she approaches the other with great caution. While she is one of the only members of their force and falsified “family” who had never raised a hand to her, the fact remains that she had also only ever watched on as the abuse took place. Never speaking, never aiding, never lifting a single finger... Emiko wonders if she would have been the same way had their roles been reversed but it isn’t something worth dwelling upon for the sole fact that they hadn’t been. 

Dropped for you!

Despite sharing the same apartment, her interactions with the latter had been few and far-between-- stretched out and forced, much like this one was already starting off as Emiko pressed her palms against the window, marveling for just a moment at the white blur on the opposite side.

“...It looks... Dangerous out there.” She begins, quietly, too hesitant to even glance in Sanae’s direction just yet. Emiko finds herself able to speak more freely with the girl than she is with Rui but even so, the demon keeps the vast majority of her thoughts and feelings to herself. Like she always has.

music meme@forcedarachnid​ // not accepting

a song that reminds me of your muse: illenium - fortress

          armor on, you use your heart as a fortress.          ticking bombs, all the weapons are useless.          so can you just let down your guard          before everything is marred?          armor on, you use your heart as a fortress.

a song that reminds me of our muses: the birthday massacre - looking glass

          changing to your point of view,          fading as i follow you.

REIGN SENTENCE PROMPTS@forcedarachnid // accepting

It probably shouldn’t hurt. He’d heard it before, many times – monster and Demon had long since become synonymous – and he had stopped caring about that, if he ever had, for as long as he could remember. But there’s something about the look in her eyes, about the way she says it – the combination of both has Rui just giving her a quiet, resigned stare instead.

He knows how much he had broken them.

He can recall every incident, every spoken word and fearful gaze he’d received. Wanting to be better doesn’t erase all of that. He hates how much he cares, now, but hates the tight ball of guilt that rises in his throat even more.

He had been Lower Moon Five. He shouldn’t be so weak. So – emotional.

His fingers idly play with the string in his hands, but he doesn’t reply. Not yet. What’s he supposed to say to her, anyway? I know? She wouldn’t believe that. Even if she did, it didn’t take any of it away.

Was it silly of him to be this worked up over it? He had thought he hadn’t cared for any of them. He had thought none of them mattered. They only needed to perform their jobs well, and look after him, but there had been no care involved. Only fear. So why does it sting so badly, this knowledge of what he’d done?

Maybe he only wants to care. He must have convinced himself of it, in some sad, desperate attempt to latch on to his desperation for his parents to be here. He must – he must have –

You aren’t my sister.          I don’t want you to be my sister.

… he’d been lying. Because he does. He’d seen how Tanjirou and his sister had been – so close, and so kind, even through her affliction. He still longs for that bond so desperately, but knows he’s long since severed it with his own hands. You can’t make up for scars. You can’t apply a bandage to someone’s heart and tell it you’re sorry and watch it heal.

sanae nee-san

Rui had long since committed to the fact he would never see his family here (though “long” was certainly relative -- he hadn’t even been here for two weeks, had he? he hadn’t kept track of time in so long). It didn’t ease the ache, of course; to finally remember them, to finally see them, only to have them ripped away -- that stung. It all stung, remembering who he’d been, what he could have been.

To think he would long for the weakness he’d had as a human.

He had a tendency to get lost in his thoughts, now, though they were never pleasant thoughts to get caught up in. As much as Rui tended to not stray too far from Cotes -- no reason to -- it seemed that he had gotten a little... well, too lost today. Must have drifted closer to... what was its name? Golden?

Didn’t matter, really, did it.

He was even about to turn back around and return to Cotes when a flash of something pale out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Pale things existed, of course. It wasn’t that he wasn’t used to that (look at him). But there was a familiarity --

          -- family --

Rui’s breath hitched in his throat. He knew her. He knew her. He knew her, he knew her, he knew her he knew her.

“Nee--”

“--nee-san?”

Of course. Of course they’d be here. Not his parents. Oh, no. He didn’t deserve them. But -- but -- why would this family not be here, to torment him? To hold over his head what he’d one?