MmWah!ও

As an actor, Kagami Subaru believes himself to be an expert of body language. Every shiver, every stretch of the lips, every crook of the brow; it is one of Subaru’s small prides to know that he is able to discern how the average human is feeling just by looking at them. A person who is afraid of someone will avoid eye contact, have tightly wound smile, nod excessively to prevent conflict, and many more…

You check all the boxes.

But just because one is a master at reading body language doesn’t guarantee that you’re a master of human emotions. For one, Subaru is at a loss as to why you would be fearful of him. He’s carefully curated himself to be as agreeable and servile as possible, inoffensive and blending into the background. Have you finally been moved by those rumors of his past…? But surely not. You had heard them at your second excursion with Hotarubi and moved on like it was nothing. 

“Something on your mind, Subaru dear?” The ghost of Zenji Kodotama floats above him, upside down face-to-face with the deep in thought captain. He seats himself with on the sitting cushion across Subaru and looks at him with deeply-knitted brows. Concern. This time, Subaru knows why he is concerned. His violet eyes flit downwards to create a troubled look.

“It’s nothing major, Zenji. Just that I…” He trails off, arranging the words in his mind. “I fear I may have offended the Honor Student in some way.”

Zenji gasps dramatically, as he always does. Saburo is as placid as ever on his lap. “Offend? You?! Never, my dear boy! If anything, it could be a misunderstanding! If you are truly so worried, then you ought to talk things out with dear [Y. Name]! And she is always so kind, why, I’m sure she’d come to understand and forgive you! Don’t you agree, my brother?”

Saburo makes no motion to disagree or agree, but Subaru finds himself deep in thought from Zenji’s words. Yes… there was no point fretting and mulling over what is done when all he could do is confront the Honor Student about it. She was not one that Subaru wanted to distance himself from. Not when he finally found a kindred soul in this damned school.

As he continues pondering over the actions that he should take, Haku lets his presence be known by quizzically humming as he ducks through the entrance. “Hm? What’s up? What’s got Subaru so lost in thought?” He raises a brow at Zenji. “What have you been saying to our captain, hm?”

“I take offense to that!” He says loudly. “I am not half of the temptuous devil as you are, Haku! Dear Subaru is in a distress over his relationship with the girl. I have taken it upon myself to show him the light, as I have always done for the boys and girls of this world!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Haku only pays half a mind to Zenji’s dramatics as he focuses his attention on Subaru. “Why? Relationship troubles?”

The blush on Subaru’s face is no act as he denies that accusation. “No, no! I just… I’m a bit worried about [Y. Name]’s behavior around me lately. She seems a bit… fearful of me? I thought it could be regarding my past but…” He looks up at Haku for an affirmation.

Haku thinks about it, then waves it off. “Nah, she’s pretty chill about that. Not the type to think much of rumors, [Y. Name]. Not the type to think of anything outside of studies and missions and her curse, I guess.” He smiles wryly to himself. “But, yeah, thinking about it, she has been pretty on edge lately. After that mission with Sinostra last week.”

“Mission?” Subaru perks up. “What was it about?”

Haku shakes his head. “Classified, you know how it is. Although…” He taps his chin. “Romi did let it slip that they were dealing with an anomaly about memories. Reversing time or reliving the past or both… I don’t know, he was just yelling about it so I zoned out half of what he said.” He hums, then gives Subaru a sly grin. “Maybe you did something bad to our pretty lil’ inspector, Ca~ptain.”

“Haku!” Zenji swings at his head with a hand-chop, only for it to fall through. “You lout! Do not tease Subaru any further! Don’t you see how distressed he already is?!”

Amidst the loud bickering in the background, Subaru’s confusions only seem to grow deeper with this new information. What exactly could he have done within these past few months that could elicit such a frightened expression out of the inspector?

“[Y. Name].”

You never thought that such a kind and gentle voice could be so bone-chilling. You don’t dare look back, only staring wide-eyed at the ground. You can feel your heart beat slowly growing erratic against your ribcage, the blood rush thrumming in your ears as you hear his every step towards you. “[Y. Name],” he calls again.

You don’t look back when you run. Past through the disgruntled crowd of students, down the fancy ornate stairs, and out of Darkwick Academy’s grand halls, you can only hear the rush of both blood and wind as your feet instinctively drive you to get further and further away from that voice. Yet his footsteps are hot on your trail even as you run outside onto pavement, and when you feel it— familiar, horrid, nostalgic, foreboding— fingers clasped around your wrist—

“Don’t touch me!” You yell, yanking your wrist away from Subaru’s grasp. Finally seeing him eye-to-eye, he stares back at you with a surprised look, and you stare back with similarly wide eyes. Panting from the exertion, you cradle your wrist close to your chest as you look at him with the expression of a cornered prey.

Thump-thump.

“I don’t understand, [Y. Name],” he tries again, starting out meek. Make yourself small. Lower yourself to their level so you may not intimidate them. “I don’t know what I did to offend you this much.”

It is on the tip of your tongue. Everything he’s done to you. The way his hands were on you. You almost say those atrocities to him, but you catch yourself. Instead, you bite your tongue and look away, muttering something incomprehensible to yourself. Then, in a manner that Subaru is most familiar with, he watches you school your expression into your normal gentle one, smiling back at him as if you had not just yelled at him.

“Nothing,” you lie through your teeth. You know it, he knows it, you know he knows it. “You did nothing wrong, Subaru. Sorry, I’ve just been on edge these past few days. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

He almost cracks his facade just to laugh in your face, then and there. With how quickly you changed expressions, he would have thought you were an actor just like himself! Yet it was noticeable to the trained eye— that quiver in your lips, the twitching of your brow— that everything was not fine. Did you really want to act in front of an actor?! It only served to grow his interest more.

“Please, [Y. Name], let’s not do this to each other,” he continues to plead in that same gentle tone. He was not about to crack before you did. “I thought we were friends. It breaks my heart to see you acting this way around me.” If anything, his traitorous mind adds, if there was any ghoul to be scared of, it shouldn’t be me.

Curiouser and curiouser. Your eyes dilate and seem to tremble at the word ‘friends,’ disagreeing with the notion so viscerally that he was almost offended. The very eyes that he smiled at him kindly just a week prior, softening just at his mere presence and sincere as you talk to him without judgment or conceit, now looked at him with distrust. Something bitter and ugly tightened his chest.

You take a step back. The look in the ghoul’s eyes— violet with an unexplainable darkness to them— was the same one that has been haunting you ever since that mission. He grabs your arm before you can make your escape when he feels it; the slightest touch of his bare wrist brushing against yours. And just when he is about to instinctively pull back at the unintended contact, he sees it— his own deranged voice begging you, his dark eyes reflected back at him, the uncharacteristic smile unnaturally stretching his fatures. 

He stares at you again, his hand going limp. The look of surprise on his face was no longer a mask.

You make your escape, and this time he no longer runs after you or watches your back, staring at his gloved hands as he turns the images he just saw over and over in his mind for the nth time.

“Tha~at’s it,” he croons, breathy and sickly sweet in your ear. You hear yourself choking and gurgling, trying to pry his cold hands away from your throat before the black dots overtake your vision. “Just like that, slow and deep. Isn’t this what you always wanted, dear?”

You have no recollection of what you wanted and why the hell you would want something that could lead you to getting choked out by some deranged ghoul. He doesn’t give you a chance to answer, a dark blush on Subaru’s delicate features as he eagerly takes in every detail of your struggle. There is blood on his face, not yours and neither is it his, though you don’t know why you know that. Another detail you know but can’t recall as to why you got that knowledge is that there is a scissor laying somewhere near you, covered in whomever’s blood Subaru was caked in. You can hear screaming outside and the crackle of fires, yet here you were straddled by your not-so-gentle senior in your own bed.

“I was so good to you, wasn’t I?” He murmurs, nuzzling against your cheek. “I played the perfect role of the boyfriend. I know I did. I may have many shortcomings, but to the gods, acting is not one of them.”

“I soothed your worries, I fed you lunch, I would go on walks with you when the weather was right, I would call you every night. Love may be unfamiliar to me, but I wanted to act good on my feelings for you, so why—” He loosens his grip on you, watching you very carefully as you heave and gasp for air. His voice softens. “— Why did you have to tell me that we weren’t meant to be?”

You don’t know if you answered. The ringing in your ears worsened, and your throat was so dry that you doubt you could’ve brought yourself to answer. But Subaru stills for a moment and smiles that gentle smile again, now too hollow and haunting paired with those dark eyes. He leans forward and caresses you, thumbs brushing to your cheeks and tracing down to the bruise on your neck. “You didn’t have to worry about that,” he says, pressing a kiss to your earlobe. “I’ve told you so many times, haven’t I?”

“I love anomalies. Even if you turned into a Kyklos, I would still love you for the rest of my life.”

His hand now trails itself to your nape, where the growing tattoo of your curse resides. “Chrysanthenums… I’ve always thought them lovely. They would look so beautiful amongst your hair, and perhaps you’d grow some lilies too, too offset the red. Oh, you’d just be as darling as you are now. Don’t you see, [Y. Name]?” He finally sits back up, grinning down at you with the intensity of a madman who cared for nothing but you and him. “They all will kill you for merely turning into a Kyklos. But I—!” He laughs brokenly, placing his hands on his chest just to feel the rapid beating of his heart, beating for you and whatever you may become. “I will love you, anomaly or otherwise!”

He tilts his head, maniacal grin eerie in the moonlight. “If that isn’t the purest love, then how could we not be meant to be?”

A familiar voice fades in and out as you tiptoe the ledge between sleep and consciousness. “Ah… see… how it is…” You try to blink your eyes into focus, but you only catch the slightest glimpse of fair skin and brunette eyes.”

Above you, Kagami Subaru is poised in that same straddle, stroking your hair with ungloved hands. “Shh, be still now,” he murmurs to you, guiding your head back to the pillow before you could fully seat yourself. “You need to be resting…”

“... ‘baru…?” You murmur, but before you could get any confirmation, you are lulled back to sleep. He watches you for a few steady seconds, before letting out a relieved sigh. That could’ve been dangerous, he thinks, though apparently that’s not the most dangerous thing he could do to you. He leans back and looks to the moon beyond your window, thinking back on what the visions his psychometry gathered.

Was that… your dream? But psychometry only picked up actual memories and events that occurred to you, so how could he have possibly seen an obsessive version of himself when this was the first time he had straddled you like this? “Reversing time or reliving the past…” he mutters to himself, thinking back to the information Haku had given him. “How could it be…?”

The answer eludes him, and he shakes himself free of such confusing thoughts as he turns back his gaze towards you. No longer were your brows tightly-knit nor did you squirm in your sleep, so he supposes that you have gone back to a normal rest.

What a shame.

… What a shame indeed. Slipping his gloves back on, he reaches out to indulge himself again… only to fall short of your cheek before pulling back. “Whether it was the expression you showed me today, or the expression the me in your memories must’ve seen… I would’ve loved to see every bit of it.” He whispers to you, smiling to himself as you turn your head to the other side.

“Ahh, I’m so ashamed, but I really am jealous of that me in your memories,” he sighs, finally standing up. He smiles dreamily as he takes in your figure one last time, pressing his palm to his blushing cheek as he mulls over the wondrous new discoveries he’s made today.

“If it were his memories that I could’ve seen, I wondered what the struggling you would’ve looked like under me ♡”