Chapter Text
Your eyes are glued to the rubies on the pin, your thumb brushing over the intricate jewels with a sense of comfort and familiarity. You turn towards the mirror, placing a careful hand on the side of your face, holding strands of hair back as you slowly place the pin by the side of your head. As you do so, thoughts fire in your mind, shards of memories flooding by all too quickly for you to process. Your eyes grow wide as a wide array of emotions flood your mind, finding it hard to remember all those memories, however, your stomach settles with a horrible feeling.
And when you look in the mirror, seeing Kunikuzushi's smile turn deranged, his eyes filled with an emotion you could only describe as an unhinged happiness, you think that those suspicious emotions you had seen in him earlier were all real.
As you look at him, an image forms within your mind's eye. Your smile slowly disappears as a feeling of dread overwhelms you. You can see a red butterfly, wrapped in a spider's web at the look in his eyes.
Inside you, within the deepest recesses of your mind, a flame reignites, and somewhere, hidden deep inside boxes miles away, a pyro vision reawakens from its slumber.
Scaramouche laughs, as your body stiffens, your eyes wide as you pull your hands slowly away from your face,
"Welcome back, my beloved wife."
The initial shock from your rush of memories passes off when you turn around to look at him. He looks at you expectantly, as though he were waiting for you to say something, to cleave the silence that flooded the atmosphere around the both of you.
Something from the back of your mind reaches forth as you open your mouth to say something, and you immediately close your mouth shut once again. You feel as though there were an invisible hand covering your mouth, telling you not to say anything. You listen to your intuition, thinking that right now, perhaps it would be better to pretend as though nothing had just happened.
You exhale, letting out a bated breath you had held in, feeling all the stress and anxiety leave your body as you recompose yourself.
Scaramouche looks irked when you toss him a gentle smile, and you understand when you see it that you have made the correct choice of playing dumb. You turn your head towards the mirror, a hand raising to play with the pin in your hair as you smile at your own reflection, thinking that with it on, you found a sense of familiarity growing within yourself. You supposed he was right.
You, or at least a semblance of you, were back.
Despite your bouts of reluctance, you leave the room with Scaramouche, passing through a pair of large doors with golden embellishments on it. The room beyond the chambers was beautiful. On each side of the wooden pathway lay a few bloodgood trees, the leaves falling and scattering onto the wooden floorboards beneath your teeth as you slowly amble behind Scaramouche’s back.
Scaramouche hums, “I tried to clean and do as much handiwork as I could,” he admits as he gestures towards the ceiling, “however, that roof is in all truth, hopeless.”
Your eyes leave his thin frame in front of you and look up to the ceiling above you, your mouth slightly falling agape as you narrow your eyes. The sunlight beamed through the torn, dilapidated ceiling, passing through natural foliage that had started to grow from what you assume to be natural, due to the fact that your surroundings seemed mostly dated and unkept. When Scaramouche turns around to face you, you are immediately on guard, with your hands balled into fists as you glare at him.
He raises an eyebrow at you in disinterest, his gaze turning frigid and cold when it lands on your fists at your sides, “Why the aggression, darling?” At his words you immediately unclench your jaw, attempting to resume a relaxed look as you push down the negative feelings you held for him. You toss him a false, empty smile.
“Excuse me,” you politely begin, hoping to mask the strong urge to run through your facade of kindness, “I suppose I don’t remember much about this place at all. Why it’s in this state,” you slowly add on as you approach the taiko drum to your right, noticing the dirt that had accumulated on it as you pat brush your hand against it, “why I’m here .”
You were being honest, to say the least. The fog in your mind had hardly been alleviated since your waking, though you do comprehend one thing from the shards of memories that had slipped by from your interaction with your butterfly pin. Your husband, Kunikuzushi, was someone you had to run from, and desperately at that.
You understood that much from your faint memories, along with the fact that your life was never as ‘normal’ as you had originally wished it to be.
Scaramouche’s indigo eyes are firm on your own when you stare back at him with a familiarity he finds himself joyous over. He had truly missed that look in your eyes, the everlasting fire that raged on from within you. Before he knows it, a small smile falls over his lips, “You don’t know this place,” he starts, turning his body towards you as his gaze flits around the room, scanning the area around him, “this is where I first awoke. I suppose you can call this my ‘home’. It wasn’t this damaged then, it had been far more put together than what you see now.”
His words don’t make much sense to you, though it does remind you that he was nothing human of any sort. Upon remembering this, you scoff with how dully your mind reacts to this fact. You don’t feel surprised, you feel nothing.
You pause as you trace the rim of the taiko drum, noticing the moss that was growing from where the pale front had been stitched by the golden rims of the drums. Your eyes trail across the mitsudomoe symbol, your mind becoming engrossed in the contrast between the white and the black of the shapes. You find yourself speaking unconsciously, “And what about your mother? Was she here with you when you awoke?”
You don’t see Scaramouche’s jawline tighten, followed by the flicker of rage that passes through his irises. He scowls, but decides to respond to you softly, “Gone.”
His tone is harsh when he says that one word, and the bitterness lingers in your mind for a moment. You find yourself meeting his gaze once more, a sullen look on your face as you realize that you are admiring him from where he stands.
In the light of the sun, illuminating the blue hues of his hair with the warm colored scenery behind him, he looks just right. Almost as if this place, in how it was all worn and broken down, was still meant for him. Amidst his empty expression, you see there is an emotion that he wills down deep into the depths of his mind. You grasp at it before it leaves his expression completely.
You stare into the mixture of purples and blues in his eyes and remain silent for a minute. He responds to your silence with his own stillness, unmoving as he notices that you almost look as though you were looking past his figure, and into something beyond himself. You are first to break the silence, “You must’ve been lonely.” Your comment seems to urge forth a strange air between the both of you. You watch as his eyes widen for a fraction of a second as he turns away from you.
Scaramouche doesn’t respond to your remark, however opts to comment on your previous words, “So you do remember some things, then,” he speaks in a matter of fact, his tone plain when he says those words, “good. I won’t have to constantly remind you of your past foolishness.”
You glare at him, “Something tells me you’ve always spoken to me that way,” you step away from the taiko drum, about to cross your arms until you see him hold an outstretched hand to his side, standing patiently. There’s a strange edge that rises within you at the sight of his hand, a complexity that arises in the form of thoughts that make you think you want to either reach for his hand, and run away from it altogether.
Scaramouche lets out a soft huff when you take a second too long to decide to reach back for his hand, and he tosses you a soft glare, “Well? Are you going to ignore me?”
With a sigh, you reach a hand out as you walk towards him. You figured you had no choice, especially with how demanding he seemed to come off as. When your hand meets his, vaguely noticing how quick he was to intertwine his fingers with your own, you wonder what had caused you to marry such a being like himself. Scaramouche pulls you close to him before whispering, “And it isn’t so bad anymore.”
You hum in question, raising an eyebrow at him as the both of you begin to walk towards a mechanical contraption. He refuses to meet your gaze, “I have everything I want now. That’s all that matters.”
The meal Kunikuzushi cooks up for the both of you is delightfully simple. You find that you don’t eat as much because of a strange stirring feeling within you. You had to fight off waves of dizziness that often accompanied just walking around. That was a fact you had come to realize when you walked down the stairs to the kitchen and dining area. You pretended as though you were okay despite this, not wanting to warrant any type of concern from him since you were still gauging his person.
You attempted to be subtle in your spying against him, scanning his every movement and seeing through the lines of his words just in case there was anything extra to uncover beneath them.
If he notices your wariness of him, he hides it with expertise. In fact, he looks almost dazed when you check on him occasionally, as though he were in deep thought about something. You don’t bother to ask him, instead, you take this as an opportunity to try and search for any exits. Politely, you excuse yourself from the table, and the moment you move to stand up, he snaps out of his stupor.
“Where are you going?” His voice is tepid, his words somewhat coming out in a slurred fashion when it leaves his mouth, since your motions had abruptly pulled him out of his thoughts.
You look up at the sunshine that bursts through the windows, admiring the foliage outside that framed the seemingly endless ocean. “I just want to look around the house,” your voice is distant, the ocean drawing your attention far from where you stood now, as though it were asking you to revisit an old memory. You felt as though you were being called to it. In your mind, there’s a cacophony. The sound of thunder followed by a string of unintelligible words that plays over and over again, until all you hear is the ocean waves in your ears.
The feeling of warmth that crawls into your hand startles you, and you flinch away from the feeling before coming face to face with your husband. You stare at him in shock, noticing the odd look in his eyes as the rest of his face remains emotionless. When you recover, he reaches for your hand again and grabs it without hesitation, “I’ll be the one to tour you around.”
And with that, you give one last look to the low dining table before being pulled away from the nearly empty room.
You wonder, as you press on a broken wooden floorboard, listening to it creak at the weight of your foot on it, if Scaramouche feels any ounce of embarrassment from how unkempt his home is. The tour around the pavilion shows just how decrepit and almost uninhabitable this supposed ‘ home’ was. Things were coming apart, weapon racks scattered throughout the home, you found the tidiest places were your living space, the dining area, and the kitchen.
The rest of the home was mostly untouched, a strange stale air surrounding especially the entrance area of the home. You hum in displeasure as you step off of the wooden floor board, turning your head to look at your husband. Perhaps he was poor?
“This base is temporary, ” he hisses through clenched teeth, as though he hears your thoughts. There’s a spark in his indigo eyes that feels much like a silent threat, daring you to speak. When you don’t, he continues, “I’m still gathering the information I require before we set off onto our next journey.”
Our next journey, huh? You ponder on his words, hoping for any memory of travelling with him to resurface. You find nothing aside from an odd sensation of bitterness. Your intuition has been strong throughout the day, and you figure you should take this feeling into account. “What are you gathering, exactly?” You probe, in hopes he would let some information out for you.
You were his wife. Such a thing meant no secrets were allowed, right?
Scaramouche scans your expression and body language before turning his eyes away from you, “I’m collecting information so that my play may continue,” you understand as his hand leaves your own, that he doesn’t seem to want to tell you exactly what it was he was planning yet. A part of you knew that he wanted you to figure it out all by yourself, like you had always done before.
He has always been secretive, not one to tell you much of his personal life, even when the two of you were engaged.
You cringe and pull your head back as a ringing noise resounds within your ears, almost deafening as an image of Scaramouche sitting under the moonlight styled in Liyuen aesthetics surfaces from the depths of your mind. It was as though your thoughts had been a trigger to remembering such a thing.
That’s right, you think as you let out a shaky breath, he always made you solve everything by yourself. You trail your eyes from the floor, back up to Scaramouche’s inquisitive features. Every mystery about him, you had to unravel through time, and through others. When he told you things about himself, it was always in vague terms. You decide to test the validity of this memory by asking him, “Won’t you tell me more?”
A slow smile creeps onto his face that deeply unsettles you. It wasn’t eerie, or anything, no, it was just… knowing. As though he saw through your actions, as though he knew your thought process and internal dilemmas.
“You’ll come to,” his indigo irises are gleaming when he looks at you, before he swivels around to face the long staircase ahead of the both of you, “I have full confidence in you. In fact,” he chuckles, his laughter almost terrifying when it meets your ears, “ I think you’re already piecing things together, bit by bit right now.”
You don’t say anything. You simply watch as he ascends the flight of stairs, the sleeves of his garment billowing gently behind him with every step he takes. You feel as though you were unable to move. You felt something electric around you, almost encasing you, making it hard for you to move. The sensation feels much like deja vu, like you had been in this situation before. You feel electricity gather in wisps around your throat and you suddenly remember that he wasn’t human.
When he turns to look at you, his expression quizzical when he realizes you’re not behind him, the sensation of electro disappears completely and leaves you in a momentary daze. “Remembering something?” He raises an eyebrow, an amused smile pulling at the edges of his lips as he gazes down at your form.
You find yourself unable to speak. Was that what it was? You were remembering something? This memory felt painful, torturous if anything.
The memory in your mind clicks into place when you see the golden insignia on his chest. You freeze up, and your eyes widen in terror as the urge to run floods your system.
Scaramouche was nothing but danger, after all, he was the Raiden Shogun’s son.
Your mind aches when you hear your mother’s voice echo in your ears, and you fall to your knees as you grasp at your head.
Mother’s voice? Your brain felt like it was going to explode with how hard it had been throbbing against your skull, you clench your teeth as you focus on the wooden tiles below you, desperately attempting to ground yourself as your brain sends itself to overdrive. She speaks in blurs in the back of your head.
Your mother, where was she now?
You let out a pained hiss when Scaramouche’s hurried footsteps race down the stairs towards you. The loud sound mixes with the plethora of echoes of your mother’s voice within your mind. Everything feels like an incorrigible mess, and half the thoughts you try to process simply don’t compute.
Before you know it, you are face to face with Scaramouche, one of his hands cupping your face while the other wraps around your wrist. You gaze at him blankly, your thoughts and realizations overwhelming you. His indigo colored irises search your face, his bangs a mess with how quickly he had descended the stairs to reach you before anything else happened. There are signs of worry on his face, you notice, and when your eyes turn half lidded, his eyes seem to glow an intense violet color.
Taken aback, your fight or flight instincts kick in as you feel a thrum of electricity pulse throughout your veins, from the arm he holds. You attempt to pull away from him, using your free hand to push against his chest as you throw yourself back. Startled, you back away from him when your wrist is free from his grasp. You watch as his eye color reverts back to normal, the purple crackles of electricity disappearing from around his outstretched pale hand before he retracts it.
Suddenly, his eyes harden and turn cold. A distant fear pounds at your heart at his words, “What do you remember?”
You purse your lips shut for a moment, taking a second to respond, “If I remember anything about you, and who you really are,” you tentatively again, your throat feeling dry as he maintains a harsh stare at your form on the floor, “what would you do to me?” Your husband was the type to exact ‘punishment’ to ‘correct’ your behavior. You knew that, or at least, a part of you did.
There’s a pregnant silence in the air.
Scaramouche scoffs, his eyes glinting with amusement and disdain altogether as he smiles at you in a condescending fashion, “I would do nothing, ” he confesses, “it would be beneficial for you to remember as quickly as possible so I can execute my plans with ease. Now tell me, what do you remember?”
You aren’t sure if you completely believe him. He’s been a liar to you at any chance he could take if it served to his advantage, if memory serves. You choose to only let out your most daunting memory, “You’re… immortal, ” you slowly say, waiting for him to deny your accusation before pressing onwards, “you’re the Raiden Shogun’s son.”
His smile stretches at the sight of you comprehending everything, “By creation’s extension, yes, she is my mother,” he starts, his eyes exuberant as he paces towards you slowly, his hands behind his back. “Isn’t it exciting, being fated to someone like myself?” You don’t know if he is speaking rhetorically, so you choose not to speak. Instead, you opt to take a deep breath to reacquire your composure.
Scaramouche notices your lack of response as he outstretches a hand towards you. You stare at it blankly before deciding to take it, thinking you had nothing to lose. He pulls you up towards him, his smile placid as he intertwines your hand together once more.
A discomfort swells in you when you realize he is standing to close, his arm brushing against yours as he leans towards your ear to whisper, “Since you’re so unenthused, perhaps I’ll take it upon myself to give you a glimpse of what should happen in the future.”
His offer does interest you. You turn your head to look at him from, pulling away slightly when you notice his face is hovering only inches away from your own. Scaramouche meets your gaze, his eyes narrowing when you pull away from him, “Follow me,” his voice is said in a tone that sounds more like an order than a request.
You heed his behest nevertheless, curiosity flooding you as he tugs you up the stairway. Walking past wooden crates and square shaped lanterns down a hall, both of you trudge through a broken entryway, then finally opening the large sliding door that leads to the outside.
Your mouth falls open slightly when your eyes meet the vast ocean beyond you, noticing the shoreline and a couple miles away from you as you slide your hand out of his grasp. The wind is cold against your skin as you take small steps out of the small enclosure the home was kept in.
The sound of the ocean waves crashing against the shoreline followed by the smell of fresh, sharp air carried by the wind from waves as it collects in particles upon crashing against the rocks brings you a pleasant, yet nostalgic feeling. You feel as though for the first time in forever, you are able to breathe.
You heave as your mind races, blank spaces in your mind slowly flooding with memories accompanied with the sensation of falling with the light of the moon above you. You feel like you’re experiencing vertigo when the feeling hits you, and to balance yourself, you grasp at Scaramouche’s shoulder, your grip vice-like against his skin.
You remember it, falling, with Scaramouche, the wind biting at bits of your exposed skin, your body rigid and cold against gravity as it weighs down on you. Your mind is surfing along the borders between consciousness and unconsciousness as images flash in your mind. You remember Scaramouche is holding something in his hand as the both of you free fall into the ocean, a hardened, monotonous colored piece that you remember to be intrinsically linked with something with great eminence.
The Tsaritsa needed that.
You hiss as an electric feeling surges throughout your brain, sending waves to your legs as bit by bit, memories resurface. The sound of the waves crashing against the shoreline roars in your ears.
In your mind, you remember at his touch when he catches you mid fall, feeling alive again, as though he had brought you life from the very tips of his cold fingers.
Scaramouche holds you tight against his body as your body trembles, and when he feels a familiar sensation of electricity bounce from your body into his own, he inhales quickly.
What was that?
He lifts your face up to look at him, his grip on your face tight as he means to keep you still. He peers into your eyes and gauges for any change in color, searching for any sign of electro elemental energy.
Your eyes don’t flash a vibrant lavender, they remain the hue they’ve always been. He can’t help but sigh in relief when you blink twice and refocus your gaze onto him, a look of clarity in your eyes when you find yourself calming down.
Scaramouche couldn’t have you collapsing. Not after all the painful months he’s spent waiting for you.
After a short couple of seconds, you raise your hand to grip onto the wrist of his arm that holds your face. When you have his attention, you begin to speak. “What did you do to me?” You question him with a fire that burns in your eyes, a sight that brings him a twisted, unhinged joy. Though, your words are lost on him.
“I haven’t done anything to you,” he replies caustically, annoyed with how quickly you are to accuse him despite his attempts to make sure you were well during your near blackout sessions. Scaramouche pulls away from you, letting you stumble away from him as he takes a few steps back.
A gust of wind passes through the space between the both of you, bringing in the scent of the ocean as you both stare at each other.
You realize he doesn’t understand the context of your speech, so you elaborate, “No,” you shake your head with a new sense of confidence as you begin to walk towards the right, your gaze never breaking away from his own as you pace towards the ocean, “when we fell,” his eyes gleam with a new interest when you mention the event, “what did you do to me then?”
Scaramouche only smiles at you, his eyes narrowing when he looks at you. You clench your teeth.
Thinking you would get no more information from him, you swivel around, enjoying the burst of air that filters through the rocks of the cave-like structure that both of you remain under. The sky was blue, reflecting the gorgeous colors of the ocean waters. You feel your mind stutter, and you shut your eyes for a brief moment as your lips fall open, “I shouldn’t be here,” you whisper under your breath.
Scaramouche catches your whisper, having been a few steps behind you, “You shouldn’t be, ” he agrees, “you’re supposed to be dead. ”
Oddly enough, you knew that.
Your mind is too busy processing the information to recognize the pale arms that wrap around your figure, and when his grip falls onto you, pressing your back and against his body, your body tenses. Your arms are trapped under his hold, and when you try to wiggle your way out, you find that you can’t.
Your shoulders scrunch together in discomfort when you feel his lips press against your ear, and you try to flinch away from the contact. Your lips pull into a tight line when you feel him press a kiss on the exposed skin of your neck. Nothing about his hold on you felt loving, it felt more like a cage meant to keep you held still in his arms.
“I brought you back to life with forgotten magic,” he whispers as the both of you stare into the ocean, a dark emotion swelling from within his eyes as he continues to speak, and you think for a moment, that he sounds twisted, “I’ve waited for a long time for you to come back to me. Now you’re here,” he chuckles, “and everything is where it’s supposed to be. Falling into place like a puzzle, the life I’ve been planning and vying for is here now, at this moment, with you. ”
Facing the ocean, you watch as waves topple over one another. An unsettling sensation swells in your stomach, and it makes you feel sick. In his hold, you fight back a shiver. Nothing about this situation was right. You weren’t supposed to be here, in this moment with him, you were supposed to be far just like…
In your mind, a beautiful image blooms. Something painted in a crimson red flutters by, delicate in all its senses, and elegant all at once. When it disappears, you feel an overwhelming lament wash over you.
Just like that. A red butterfly, you were supposed to be gone.
Dead.
No, you think as Scaramouche raises a hand up, showing you an odd grey piece with purple hues embedded into it. Your eyes widen at the sight of the purple when it catches the sun’s light, and you see the flecks of lavenders that scatter in the light. Your jaw tightens immediately.
You remember what this item was.
A gnosis. Raiden Shogun’s gnosis. You were tasked to ensure it landed into the Tsaritsa’s hands.
How come he had it? Questions fire back and forth in your mind as he slumps forward, pressing his chin on the top of your shoulder as he smiles. “Do you know what this is?” Scaramouche sounds overjoyed, a little too happy much to your chagrin.
He doesn’t wait for you to respond, “With this, I’ve unlocked my truest potential, despite all the commotions that rest within stupid little thing. I merged our energies and linked our lifelines together,” when his words register in your mind, all the blood drains from your face. “I’ve gained almost all the assets necessary, with this, I’ve become what I was truly meant to be,” his voice drops into a whisper, “all of Inazuma is mine when I take the Raiden Shogun’s place. Do you understand now, darling?”
You feel his eyes on you, his gaze burning on your face. You think to reach the gnosis, you think that perhaps you could do something with it. That was all a far-fetched dream, however, despite the gnosis hovering only inches away from your face. His vice-like grip around your body made sure of that.
The gnosis in front of you is suddenly retracted, and he uses one of his hands to reach over to tug your face towards him. Your breath hitches in your throat when you feel his warm breath on your cheek, your pulse quickening as he hums.
“Let me ask you again,” he whispers, his indigo eyes brimming with an unhinged emotion as he pulls you impossibly closer to him, your back firm against his chest, “isn’t it exciting, being fated to someone like myself?”
His dark hair is brushing against your cheek, and you think for a moment that this all feels too familiar. This type of grip he had on you, this suffocating feeling of always having something latched onto you. You remember vaguely, pressing a knife at your neck, standing before him on a cliffside. You remember the feeling of dread when you realize your father has passed away, and the betrayal that wrenches in your gut when you realize it’s all due to your husband that he’s dead. You did everything you could, you lost yourself, and tried taking your own life to get away from him, but now he… has tied his lifeline with yours? In his hold, you start to shake as a realization dawns on you. You were trapped. In fact, you had never escaped.
You could never escape.
The voice that leaves your throat is surprisingly forlorn and tired, despite your well rested body, “It’s terrible,” you whisper, your eyes turning half lidded as your mind becomes cloudy, “being with you.”
There’s a glint of an emotion that passes too quickly in Scaramouche’s eyes. You don’t get enough time to recognize it. His hands drop to your waist and he swivels your body around in a swift motion to face him. You clench your teeth, a look of alarm washing over your expression as you come to meet him, face to face.
The memories that flood back and reregister in your mind help create a void in your stomach, as though someone had punched the air out of you. You found it hard to breathe. Despite your expression of fear, Scaramouche’s face is mostly blank. His eyes are scanning you from head to toe, assessing your body language and your facial features before a small, uncanny smile draws onto his lips.
One of his hands leaves the comfort of your waist and travels upwards. Naturally, you flinch away from his attempt at affection when he gently cups your cheek. He doesn’t seem to care, however, or rather, with all the years he has spent admiring you, he’s become accustomed to your deflective reactions.
When the pads of his hands find your cheek, you look away uncomfortably, finding peace at the small collection of pebbles just by your foot when your eyes meet them.
“You're remembering a lot fairly quickly,” he presumes as he brushes his thumb over your cheek with a gentility that almost shakes you. When you meet his eyes for a split second, you realize there’s a genuine tenderness that lay beneath the fog of dark emotions behind his eyes. Immediately, your eyes find the floor once again. “Either that, or you simply never change,” Scaramouche narrows his eyes at you.
You choose not to speak. You’re too busy focusing on creating a space between the both of you. You press your hands against his chest lightly, hoping that he would simply step away from you and allow you to completely recollect yourself. Your mind has become your own undoing.
With every memory that unraveled from within you, you find it harder and harder to be bearable to just be in Scaramouche’s presence. You wished quietly that you could be lightyears away from him, disconnected and far. At least then, you could keep a sane presence of mind.
Scaramouche notices the distant look in your eyes and huffs. Despite your weary expression, he thinks you are beautiful. The ambience of the endless ocean behind you against the vibrant red of your pin, your appearance was worthy of something like a poem. A song, or perhaps, a painting.
He pulls you against him, pressing his forehead against your own as he forces you to stare up at him. You remember when he does this, when you meet the soft, touch starved look in his eyes, that your feelings perhaps weren’t always so ill towards him. There was once, something that could’ve been. A sweet something that grew from poisonous soil.
You focus on the golden insignia on his chest, listening to the waves as they crash against the shoreline before he speaks. “I’ve waited for so long,” he begins, and you wish to retort snarkily that he had already said that earlier. You hold your tongue. “Is it really so painful, being with me?” His question brings you out of the recesses of your mind.
Your shoulders stiffen as you muster the strength to speak, “Yes.” You shift backwards, and he doesn’t let you.
Scaramouche’s indigo hued eyes burn brightly as he computes your admittal. His lips pull into a thin line as another wave crashes against the shoreline, and suddenly, he’s made to remember your confession from several months ago.
‘I love you’ , the words echo in his ears harmoniously. The view of you, tired and battered from battle underneath him, smiling up at him with an expression in your eyes he could only describe as something so powerful, it could move him. And it did.
And it still does.
He moves his face away from your own and forces your eyes to meet his own. You’re surprised to see such an odd expression on his face. Scaramouche looks perplexed and conflicted, as though he were thinking many things while his eyes scanned your features. When his lips fall open, you feel your breath stop at your throat.
“Tell me you love me.”
Your lips part in shock at his unusual request. Your eyebrows furrow as your eyes widen at his unchanging expression. You wish that he’s joking around, though you understand that he clearly isn’t.
Scaramouche stares at you patiently, feeling a soft breeze brush through the both of you. He’s usually impatient, but if it takes minutes, even hours to hear you say those words again from the bottom of your heart, then he would wait.
You scan his expression once more before shaking your head, your hands meeting both his wrists where they are as you slowly peel them away from you. “You know I can’t do that,” Scaramouche’s eyes widen when he notices your face morphs from something of mortification to something of pain, as though his simple request had torn your heart open from the inside.
His eyes never leave your own. “You’ve said it before,” he begins coolly, his voice low, almost hidden under the sound of the waves, “just say it again.”
You remember that. Telling him you loved him as you tried to kill him. You had meant it. A depraved part of you, the side you had rejected so fervently knowing the red camellia that bloomed in your mind was nothing but poison, had truly meant it. Those words, when you remember them, feel as though you had only said it yesterday, and when you look within yourself for that same red camellia, you find nothing.
You only find the scattered red petals of something that could’ve been.
When you smile, it holds no joy. Your eyes reflect a blaze of something akin to dread, and you watch as his expression falls before you. “I can’t,” you reply with a confidence that brings you comfort, “I don’t feel anything for you.”
Scaramouche takes a few seconds just looking at you as your words sink into his mind. He finds himself immediately searching for something within you, his indigo irises focusing on your own as though he could see through them and see what you were thinking. When the moment passes, his eyes narrow, a relieved smile on his face as his grip on you softens.
He lifts a hand carefully, placing it on your butterfly pin and brushing across the damaged metal and rubies.
“Liar,” he whispers, and suddenly, the look in his eyes blooms into something more malevolent.
There’s a buzz in the air between the both of you, and a sense of fear rises within you as you find your body bracing itself for something your mind couldn’t quite comprehend just yet. However, when he pulls you into an embrace, confusion rouses within you, your stomach dropping when he wraps his arms around your form. You attempt to escape, but find yourself encased once again, unable to pull away from him as he embraces you.
“You’re a liar,” he hisses next to your ear before chuckling darkly, and your heart stops. You feel as though he is seeing something you cannot. The feeling gives you fear. Stop, you think. You didn’t want him to see any more than he should. He’s done this before, you think. He’s peeled you back many times before, and you still weren’t immune to it now.
“You’ve always been a liar,” he laughs as he presses his cheek on the side of your head, “you humans really do never change.”
You’re quick to react, a fire blooming within you at his words, “I’m not--!” You begin, only to be cut off when he suddenly pulls back to stare at you, his nose almost touching yours as he grins wickedly.
“You are though, aren’t you?”
As if a veil is lifted from your mind, his words uncover a filthy, hellish truth.
You deny it with a small smile, even when your eyes betray you as they narrow with worry. “I’m not,” your response is simple, yet enough to have Scaramouche acquiesce. He looks somewhat satisfied when he pulls away from you, though such an expression from him only floods you with more dread. Your mind throbs as your overwhelming emotions breeze over you.
“You’re the same woman I’ve known for years,” he replies with a light bitterness as his eyes brim with a dark look of knowingness, “I know to expect this much from you at least.”
When the ache in your head becomes unbearable, you step away from him, moving towards the sea with your hands up in front of you as you let out a pained sigh. “Stop,” you plead quietly as you back away from him, “please just stop talking to me,” your breathing becomes more labored as you attempt to quell the raging storm in your mind.
Scaramouche eyes you carefully, ready to move to catch you in case you collapse. He clicks his tongue, knowing that perhaps you had processed too much information in such little time. You were weak like that. No, he thinks as he corrects himself, you are still human at heart, therefore you were weak and prone to such emotions.
But you weren’t classified as a human, at least not anymore. He had changed that. Scaramouche hums as his eyes narrow onto your body when you turn to face the ocean. There were still several many things to change with you.
As you stare off into the far distance, calming yourself as you breathe in the sea breeze, a part of you that becomes more clear to yourself now. That part of you is screaming, torn from the seams, a ruined being that had tried so hard to fight against life and everything it had brought to you.
And now, amidst the chaos, you feel blank.
You watch as waves lap over one another, falling into itself as it meets the shoreline.
You could try to take your life again, you knew that, but the chances were all zero of it being successful. It wouldn’t work. If your husband had been telling you the truth, then his lifeline, his immortality, had been somehow tied to yours now. If your last attempt had led you to have such a foggy memory, then what more could you possibly forget if you had done it again? How much more of yourself would you lose from running away from this fate? What parts of you would be left if you came back?
Just remembering things was painful. With each memory, came along familiar sets of anguish and hatred towards yourself and everything around you. How much longer would you go on, hating this world, hating him, and hating yourself, now that you were immortal?
You frowned.
You didn’t want any of that.
You could try and change it and see how far you went. You had only yourself to lose now. You think about the male standing quietly behind you, listening to his soft footsteps along the stone pavement as he walks towards you. He places himself next to you, looking out at the ocean with a forlorn expression.
“Kunikuzushi,” you begin, “you could never leave me alone, could you?” You finally say after a long pause, turning your head slightly to face him as your hair billows back from the wind that moves past you. He blinks and returns your gaze with a small smile, his eyes narrowing with a sense of glee that’s lost on you.
“You’re mine,” he replies as he shifts ever so slightly in his spot, “you can only die when I tell you to.”
You scoff.