#redink

Classic American red tattoos

Kanae von Rosewald was never forbidden from entering a place. The only forbidden place had always been in their own mind. No, not just a place, a thought, a thought hidden in the heart of a beautiful rose garden.

“Do not mistake proximity for permission.” That was the first rule of serving Shu; Kanae had learned it early, established it early. He existed just beyond reach, as though the world itself had decided he should not be touched. And Kanae…Kanae was very good at not reaching, not touching, not wishing.

Sometimes, when they felt nostalgic, they looked at the other servants. None of them watched the way his fingers paused on a page, or the way his expression shifted when he thought no one was paying attention, the light suddenly glimmering in his eyes at the prospect of a new recipe. None of them wanted.

They were better than that. Better than them. Not as selfish.

“You’re staring again.”

Kanae flinched. “I apologize.”

Shu didn’t look up from the book in his hands. “For what?”

They hesitated. “For overstepping.”

A pause. Confusion, perhaps? Then, softly: “You haven’t done anything.”

That was the problem: the thoughts came uninvited, slithered in the back of their mind, ready to seize an opportunity, a weakness. And Kanae was weak.

“Then why does it feel like I have?”

***

Days passed. Then weeks. Then years. The distance remained the same, painful, strained.

“Why do you stay?” Matsumae asked one evening, looking at them.

Kanae had stood behind Shu while he perused the library, looking for a recipe suitable for his new passion, a Ghoul with one red eye. They stood there, close enough to hear his breath, the way it hitched and sped up while those thoughts formed, developed, crashed into each other. They stood just far enough to pretend it didn’t matter.

“It is my duty.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Their hands tightened at their sides.

“…Because I want to.”

There it was, the first crack. The last. It had to be the last.

***

Kanae looked into the mirror, their reflection staring back at them. “Do you know why it’s dangerous, that wanting of ours?”

Because wanting meant choosing. And choosing meant crossing a line that had never been drawn, but had always existed, a line that needed to exist. “Because I am not supposed to want him.” They said it quietly, because even denying themselves meant admitting it, that want.

Silence. Heavy. Full. Alive.

***

Finally, he looked at them, air pulling at their clothes, howling, the sky (and Kaneki) escaping their reach, the streets below rushing in, and for the first time, there were no distances, no secrets.

Their reflections in the windows fell with them and hers stared back, a soft smile on her lips. “It’s ok to want, just once.”

Kanae felt it then: not fear, not shame, but something sharper. Something hungry.

Another silence, different, waiting. Kanae reached out, not to serve, not to obey, but to take. She pressed her lips against his, wondered if he knew those lips were the tastiest delicacy of all.

Then she pushed him away, up, so he would live. Her last little, selfish choice. She closed her eyes and she saw that small figure in her pink cloak, an apple in her palm, like an offer, a bite mark she knew was hers. She had bitten into the forbidden fruit and she could still feel its sweetness, its warmth on her lips.

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