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There is a beast in the palace, as everyone knows.
Deep in the woods, where no one dares to go, there is a palace covered in thorns. Do not go into the woods alone, for you might not come out again. Beware of silence, for when the forest is silent you know you are close. The animals do not travel where the beast lives; the birds will not sing. There is a silence in the forest that only brings death.
*
Furihata Kouki walks in the woods alone.
It is silent. Ever so silent.
*
Clutched in his right hand is a silver thimble. It is the only silver his family owns anymore. They lost everything in a shipwreck. Now Furihata works as a tailor’s apprentice, trying to support his ailing father. The silver thimble had been a present from his mother, before she died.
“For good luck,” she said, because she died in prosperous times, and could not have known her son would one day have to mend clothes for a living. (His father, ailing, his brother, with no useful skills. He must support them both, meager as that income is). She only knew he liked to embroider (feminine habit though it was) and she wanted him to have something nice. “And to keep the demon’s away. Silver is the only thing that will ward away devils, Kouki. It is a shield in dark times. Keep it near you at all times.”
Furihata clutches the thimble and thinks about shields. Dark times came, and he was not protected then. He was not protected from the shipwreck that sank all his father’s goods, he was not protected from the fire that burned down their house, he was not protected from his master, the drunk who hit him when sales were slow. He was not protected from the rich lord’s son, who took offense at the way Furihata accidentally bumped up against him and demanded compensation.
“Either in gold or flesh,” the young lord sneered.
Furihata had no gold. He did not want to give himself to the young lord’s whims.
So now he is alone in the woods that are ever so silent, with only a thimble as a shield.
*
He finds the palace covered in thorns. He takes a deep breath and walks inside.
He is shaking all over. Jitters, his father used to tease, in happier times. “Jitters” seems like such a friendly and wholly inadequate word now. Furihata is terrified out of his mind. He thinks he will go mad with fear. But still he walks forward into the palace, to find the beast that lives there.
*
“You must be a very stupid creature,” a voice says from the darkness. “To walk straight into my domain with such a tiny amount of silver to protect you.”
Furihata stops in his tracks and quakes. The voice is soft, rich, and utterly inhuman. The voice sounds regal, commanding, but also dangerous. It is a voice of shadows and dark promises.
“You don’t look like a hero,” the voice continues, “those fools who think they can slay a demon and make a name for themselves all at once. They come with silver swords and silver armor, not silver thimbles. They come for battle, without fear in their hearts. I eat them all the same.”
Furihata swallows. His heart beats so fast he thinks it might burst at any moment.
“No, you are certainly not a hero,” the voice assesses.
Furihata shakes his head, agreeing. He is not a hero. This is not the tale of the brave little tailor, who went into the woods with a thimble and slew a beast and married a princess at the end. That sort of tale is not the kind of thing that Furihata could ever belong in.
Slowly, he unfurls his fingers around the silver thimble and carefully puts it on the ground. Then he rolls the thimble away, watching it disappear into the darkness.
“I’m not here to kill you,” Furihata says. “I’m here to die.”
*
“There are easier forms of suicide,” the voice says, sounding intrigued in the dark.
“I—I heard you make b-bargains sometimes,” Furihata says, his voice finally breaking as his last bit of courage flees him.
“I do,” the voice acknowledges. “Although, I think you will find that those who make bargains with me usually live to regret it.”
“I won’t,” Furihata says.
“Regret it?”
“Live,” Furihata says. “I want—I w-want gold. For my father and my brother to live. In return, you can e-eat me, or whatever.”
There is a long pause, where Furihata is alone, shivering in the dark.
“Are you so filial? Does your life mean nothing?”
“I angered a rich man’s son. I’m not going to live anyway. I thought—if I was going to die, I’d rather it be for a good reason. To help my family, and well—to help you, I guess.”
“Me?” the voice says, in baffled arrogance. Who is Furihata to dare that he could help such a creature?
“If you’re hungry,” Furihata rushes in with, “I would rather feed wild beasts with my death than die for a rich man’s pleasure. If not you, perhaps I would find wolves.”
“I see. And what is your name?”
“Furihata Kouki,” he replies, feeling bold. “Do we have a bargain?”
“Kouki,” the voice purrs.
And then the beast steps out of the darkness.
*
He is a surprisingly human looking beast. He has pale skin, and cherry red hair, and one gold eye and one red eye, but other than that he is a very human looking demon. Furihata is a bit disappointed. He expected wings and claws, at the very least.
“I do think we can bargain,” the beast says, stepping forward. “I am Akashi Seijuurou. But you can call me ‘Master,’ if you’d prefer.”
He keeps walking, so that he ends up very close to Furihata. Furihata backs up instinctively and ends up against a wall. The beast keeps moving until he has one arm around Furihata’s waist and he’s pulling him forward. He looks very much like he’s about to devour a feast.
Furihata braces himself to be eaten. “You’ll pay my family? You’ll make sure they’re safe?”
“Yes, Kouki. I can do that,” the beast says.
“OK.” Furihata closes his eyes and readies himself. “Please do it quickly, so it won’t hurt.”
But instead of being eaten, he is kissed instead. His eyes fly open and he pulls back.
“You—you’re supposed to eat me!” Furihata exclaims.
The beast lets Furihata go and smiles smugly. “Your exact words, I believe, were ‘you can eat me, or whatever.’ I choose the ‘whatever.’ I need a servant. This palace gets very dusty.”
Furihata blinks rapidly, trying to figure out what just happened.
“Oh,” he says. “OK then. I can do that.”
“Good. I will show you to your room. You will live here from now on.”
Furihata trails after the beast, wondering if demons sealed bargains with kisses. That had never come up in any of the books he’d read.
*
There is a beast in the palace, as everyone knows; and also an incredible amount of dust. Furihata Kouki spends his first day in the demon’s castle dusting every surface. He ties on an apron, puts a handkerchief over his head, and attacks every challenging nook with a duster in his hands, all the while wondering if he was going to die.
That night the beast named Akashi Seijuurou invites him to dinner. Furihata eats a more lavish meal than he has ever eaten before in his life, even when his father was a wealthy merchant. Akashi does not eat anything. He only watches Furihata eat with a heavy stare. When Furihata finished eating, Akashi asks, “Shall I devour you, Kouki?”
Furihata puts down his chop sticks, staring at the curtains he had spend two hours beating for dust and washing over with a wet cloth, and says evenly, “If that is Master’s wish, he may do so.”
Akashi’s expression never changes. He asks, “And if I asked you to marry me, what would you say?”
The genuine surprise jolts Furihata into honesty as he replies, “I couldn’t.”
The beast nods like this was only to be expected. “I shall see you in the morning, Kouki. The floors need washing.”
Furihata thinks about how no one has ever proposed to him before.
*
He spends the next day washing the palace floors. He does not see Akashi until the evening. He eats a lavish dinner and the beast says, “Shall I devour you, Kouki?” and again Furihata replies, “If that is Master’s wish, he may do so.” Then Akashi says, “And if I asked you to marry me, what would you say?”
This time, Furihata is less afraid, less surprised, less sure of his own impending death, and he says gently, “I would say, ‘No,’ Master.”
And Akashi nods and replies, “I will see you in the morning, Kouki. The clothes need laundering.”
*
Furihata never does see Akashi in the morning. He spends his daylight hours cleaning the empty palace, without ever seeing the demon, and spends his evening in Akashi’s company. He wants to ask, “What do you do in the day?” but he never does.
“Are you lonely, Kouki?” Akashi asks instead.
“Sometimes,” Furihata says, shyly. “But it is only fleeting. My tasks keep my thoughts occupied, and then I sleep very soundly.”
“And do you miss your old life?”
“I miss a life that has long been lost,” Furihata says softly. He misses the days his mother was alive, and they were a complete family, and there was laughter in their household. He misses the days when his brother sang and his father told tales of his travels to other lands and his mother embroidered, smiling at their antics.
“Shall I devour you, Kouki?”
“If my Master wishes,” Furihata replies automatically.
“And if I asked you to marry me, what would you say?”
“I would say, “No.’”
Akashi nods. “I will see you in the morning. The library needs to be catalogued.”
*
The next night, their conversation is a little different.
“Your brother is soon to be married,” Akashi informs him.
Furihata sucks in his breath. “To whom?”
“The third daughter of some minor lord,” Akashi replies dismissively. “She is lovely in that boring human way, and she makes him happy, in a way that is equally dull.”
Furihata ignores the demon’s added commentary and says, “But that’s wonderful! I am happy for him.”
A few minutes pass in silence. Furihata realizes the demon is staring at him, as if he’s waiting for something. “What is it?”
“This is the part, I imagine, where you beg to leave the palace in order to attend his wedding.”
“Oh,” Furihata says. “But why would I ever want to leave?”
Akashi smiles—something Furihata hasn’t seen since they first made their bargain. “Shall I devour you, Kouki?”
For the first time, the question sends shivers down Furihata’s body. Not in a frightened way. But in a way that makes Furihata think about the way the voice sounds in the dark. “If Master wishes.”
“And if I asked you to marry me, what would you say?”
It takes Furihata a couple of tries, but eventually he says, “I would say ‘No.’”
Akashi nods. “I will see you in the morning, Kouki. There is a feast that needs to be prepared. Tomorrow, we will have guests.”
Akashi leaves him sitting at the table. For the first time, Furihata doubts his answers to both questions.
*
Furihata has never prepared for a feast before—he has never done much cooking at all, truth be told. Not until they lost everything first by water and then by fire. Then Furihata had to learn how to make a few simple dishes for his family. He would be the first to admit that his meals are not fancy or even delicious. The most he can admit to is the fact that his meals are usually palatable.
He is not sure why this task of feast-preparation falls to him. Hasn’t he been feasting every night on fine food that even kings would look on in envy? Wouldn’t whoever prepares his meals be better suited to please Akashi’s guests?
It occurs to him then that he has never seen other servants in Akashi’s palace. He has no idea who makes those meals.
*
The kitchen is stocked with all the ingredients that Furihata would have wanted to prepare a banquet. He starts with the rice, washing it carefully and setting it in the stove to boil. Then he chops the vegetables and cuts the fat from the meat and prepares the seasoning.
In the end, he has a meal in large quantities, but he wouldn’t consider it a feast by any means.
By the time night falls, he is near tears.
“What is the matter, Kouki?” a voice comes from the shadows.
Furihata sniffs and looks up at Akashi. “This meal is not fit for your guests,” he confesses. “You should not have left such an important task to me.”
“This is the only meal that would best honor my guests, I assure you. Thank you, Kouki.”
The shock startles Furihata out of his tears. That was the first time Akashi had ever thanked him.
It is the first time, Furihata realizes, that anyone has ever thanked him.
*
It is not a surprise that Akashi’s guests are all demons, but Furihata quakes at their arrival even when he expected it. They, like Akashi, are all more or less in human form, each in a different color. Furihata watches as a green, yellow, blue, pink, and purple colored demon all enter Akashi’s manor. They are human, but more physically imposing than Akashi. They look like fierce warriors, like they could take Furihata apart with their bare hands, if they so chose. Furihata shakes, frozen where he stands.
The demons do not look at him. They do not acknowledge he is there. They eat his meal, and they talk with one another, but Furihata is too scared to catch what they say to one another.
*
“Are you alright?”
Furihata doesn’t expect to be addressed. The demons have started to leave the palace when the smallest of them turns to Furihata. A light blue one, who is not very frightening at all, and Furihata begins to relax.
“I am fine,” he says, breathing again.
“It is unusual for a human to stay in our company,” the friendly demon says. “Are you waiting to be rescued?”
“No,” Furihata says, surprised. “Of course not. Who would rescue me? Who would bother?”
“Do you wish to be rescued, Furihata-kun?”
“Rescued from what?” Furihata replies. “I made a bargain. I am here willingly.”
“I see,” the light blue demon says. Then he walks away. Furihata watches him retreat deeper into the forest.
*
“It was a lovely meal, Kouki. Did you get the chance to eat?” Akashi asks.
“Yes, I ate in the kitchen, before the others came,” Furihata says shyly.
“Thank you for doing this,” Akashi says again. “Shall I devour you tonight?”
“If my Master wishes,” Furihata says easily.
“And if I asked you to marry me?”
Furihata hesitates. Then he swallows and says, “I would say ‘No,’ Master.”
“Then good night, Kouki. I will see you in the morning. The windows will need washing.”
When Akashi vanishes in the night, Furihata feels a pang. It’s the first time since he came here that he begins to feel lonely.
*
Washing the outside windows is precarious work, but Furihata never feels unsafe. (He never feels unsafe in the palace. The utensils he needs to get his work done appear from now where. If he needs a ladder, a ladder appears, if he needs a harness, a harness appears. If he fell and needed something soft to land on, he is sure he would land on something soft. There is magic in this palace, and it does not want to see him hurt.)
Furihata climbs the ladder and straps himself up to the harness that appeared along the wall, bucket of water and towels on a convenient awning that Furihata is sure will not be there after he has finished his task. He hums to himself as he works, some old melody from happier times.
Furihata enjoys his tasks because they take up the time. Soon it will be night, and he will see the beast.
*
“Show yourself, demon! And prepare for battle!”
Furihata startles so badly he knocks the bucket off the awning. He was so engrossed in his task he did not hear the approaching hoofbeats. He looks down to see a flash of silver shines in the sunlight, glinting so much he has to look away.
“What are you doing up there?” the knight asks.
“Washing windows,” Furihata calls back down. He moves the harness so that he can step back onto the ladder and move his way down. His heart beats faster, his old familiar anxiety returning. (He feels safe in the palace; there is nothing in this palace that will hurt him, but this man in silver is not from the palace, he is an interloper, he is unknown.)
Furihata steps back to the earth and quakes slightly in the presence of the man dressed all in silver armor, holding a sharp silver sword.
“What kind of demon washes windows?” the knight asks, honest perplexity derailing the man from his task.
“I’m not a demon,” Furihata replies. “I’m a servant in this palace.” Then, because he does not want this man to come into the palace to try and slay Akashi (he is not all that worried for Akashi, to be honest, Akashi can surely handle one knight. But Furihata does not want to see this man die either. Also, Furihata is surely the one who would have to clean the bloodstains from the carpet, and he is not looking forward to that), Furihata adds quickly, “There is no demon in this palace. Just an eccentric old recluse. You had best turn around, Sir Knight. My Master does not like company.”
“There is a demon in this palace,” the knight insists. “Is not this the silent part of the forest? Have I not lost many brethren to this beast? Do not try and tell me no beast lives here. If you are working for him, then you must be a demon too, or a traitor to your kind.”
Furihata swallows hard, fear returning. “No, I promise you, there is nothing dangerous in this palace—”
“Wait,” the knight says, “You are Furihata Kouki, aren’t you? The younger brother of our lady’s new husband. They said you were devoured by wolves in the forest.”
“Ah,” Furihata says, not sure how to answer this.
“You must be a prisoner here,” the knight says, coming down from his horse. “It is alright, your family misses you very much. You do not need to stay here; I will rescue you from the beast.”
He grabs Furihata by the arm and starts to pull him forward.
“No!” Furihata shouts, struggling and pulling away, “I’m not a prisoner here! You’re wrong!”
“You have been brainwashed by a monster,” the knight replies, “It is my duty to save you. Do not be alarmed, you’re safe now.”
“I was safe before! Let me go!”
The knight only pulls on his arm more, causing Furihata to cry out in pain.
*
All of the sudden, there is a roar from inside the palace. It is not a sound Furihata has never heard before. It is a thunderous, inhuman roar that shakes the very earth they stand on.
And it is getting closer.
*
There is a beast in the palace, as everyone knows. And it’s not that Furihata forgot this fact, exactly, it’s just seems like a very long time since he thought of Akashi in that way.
But when the creature emerges from the castle— the red nightmare made flesh that is monstrous and unholy—Furihata is reminded all of over again that he had once come to this place to die.
The demon is a creature beyond imagination, and for this reason Furihata has difficulty understanding what it is that he is seeing. (He remembers his mother telling him this lore before bed: “Demons are unearthly creatures, Kouki. And because they do not belong on this earth, no one can truly see them for what they are. This is why no one knows what demons look like.”)
The beast is massive—far too massive to have come from the palace door. It is red all over, and massive, with leathery wings, like a bat. This remains consistent. But sometimes it seems like there are six pairs of wings, sometimes only one. Sometimes it looks like the beast has horns, sometimes not. One minute, Furihata is sure the beast has scales, the next he would swear it is covered in fur. If someone asked him later what the beast looked like, he would not be able to recount one single detail. (Even watching now, he could not describe it. This beast is terror. That is the only proper epithet.)
Faced with such uncertainty, Furihata only knows two things: this is Akashi, the man he has had dinner with each night since he came here, and also, this is Akashi, the beast that he loves.
The knight draws his sword made from silver, pushing Furihata to the ground as he does so, “Advance, beast! And meet your doom!”
The knight did not have to issue such a challenge—the beast had whipped his head to their direction as soon as Furihata was pushed to the ground.
Furihata looks at the man all in silver and remembers his mother’s words once more, Silver is the only thing that will ward away devils. It is a shield in dark times, and thinks, No.
The demon roars and lunges forward. The knight raises his silver sword. Furihata panics and moves without thinking.
*
Furihata moves, and puts no thought into his movement. He sees only the silver blade that could kill his love.
He flings himself on top of the knight, but this does very little. Furihata, after all, was first a merchant’s son, then a tailor’s apprentice, then a servant in a demon’s palace. He has never had to develop muscle. The knight, on the other hand, is trained for battle and wears armor made from silver.
The knight, who is expecting an attack, is ready for an attack, and when an attack comes, he raises his weapon to kill.
It does not seem to matter that the attack came from Furihata.
*
The knight curses when his sword goes through Furihata, but it is from annoyance, not regret. His attention is solely on the screaming beast.
But it is to no avail. The brief second his attention was on Furihata is all it takes for the demon to descend. The beast snaps at the knight’s head, swallowing it whole in one cavernous gulp, and tosses his neck back, flinging the knight’s body, now headless, off in the distance.
Then the beast comes to Furihata’s side.
*
Too late, does Furihata remember the first conversation he had with Akashi.
You don’t look like a hero. Those fools who think they can slay a demon and make a name for themselves all at once. They come with silver swords and silver armor, not silver thimbles. They come for battle, without fear in their hearts. I eat them all the same.
Of course, Akashi had faced knights before, of course he had battled others before; even the knight had mentioned the others who had come before him.
Akashi was right about one thing: Furihata is no hero. There was never anything he could have done to help Akashi; he should have stuck to dusting.
The beast makes a keening sound, touching Furihata with one clawed hand. This close, Furihata can see his eyes. Unlike the form he is familiar with, this beast has two red eyes instead of one red and one gold, but despite this difference it never occurs to Furihata that the beast and the man are not the same being.
“I’ve never seen you in the day time,” Furihata says softly. “Is this what you look like?”
The beast presses his nose against Furihata’s forehead and makes another keening sound, like a whimper and a growl and a mourning wail.
“It’s OK, it’s OK,” Furihata says, reaching out to grab onto fur, scales, flesh. “It doesn’t even hurt all that much.”
And this is true. After the initial pain came a pleasant numbness. Furihata would almost think he’s fine, except for all the blood.
“I didn’t actually want you to eat me,” Furihata confesses, tears coming to his eyes. “All those times you asked. I wanted to stay with you always, alive so I could see you. I would have liked to marry you.”
The beast extends his neck and stands rampant, howling into the air. A brilliant, blinding red light surrounds the beast, flashing around like red lightning. The beast howls again.
And there is the man that Furihata has come to know, come to love, kneeling down and holding him.
Except it is not the man that Furihata knows.
Both his eyes are red.
*
“Furihata,” the man says, his voice tinged with unfamiliar desperation. Furihata does not know this man; he is not the same demon.
“Who—” he tries to ask, but his strength fails him. His eyesight darkens around the edges.
“Be still, Furihata. Do you wish to live? Do you sincerely wish to remain with me always?”
Furihata tries to reply but finds that he can’t. After immense effort he manages to nod.
There is a movement overhead but Furihata is past the point where he can pay attention. Something warm presses up against his lips.
“Drink, Furihata.”
It is instinct to obey whatever that voice commands. Furihata drinks.
*
When he wakes he is still outside; the silent forest is the first thing that reaches his consciousness. The second thing he is aware of is the fact that his head rests on something soft. Through these two observations, he must conclude that, against all odds, he is alive.
“How are you feeling, Furihata?”
Furihata, who had until now been in the slightly dazed stupor of one who is still uncertain of his own consciousness, fully awakens at the sound of his master’s voice. To his mounting concern, he realizes that his head is, in fact, resting on Akashi’s lap.
He flies away, appalled at his own presumption. Then he thinks about Akashi’s question and realizes that not only is he alive, but he feels better than he ever has before.
“I’m… fine,” Furihata says, surprised and shy at the same time. Akashi is smiling at him in a way Furihata has never seen before. The smile is almost… gentle.
“I feel… really good, actually,” Furihata says. “What happened? And who—” but he clamps his mouth shut before he can finish the question.
Akashi looks at him, patiently waiting for Furihata to finish. He doesn’t look angry so this emboldens Furihata to continue. “Who are you? You seem like my master, but… also not.”
“I am your master, Furihata. Only not quite the one you know.”
Furihata is not sure what that means.
“I have always had a day side and a night side,” Akashi explains. “But I have been under a curse—”
“A curse?” Furihata exclaims. Ordinarily he would never dream of interrupting Akashi, but these are not ordinary circumstances. “Who could ever curse you? I can’t imagine anyone stronger than you.” The idea of anyone more powerful than Akashi is so unfathomable he can’t even process it.
“He was not stronger,” Akashi says, his voice sharp with indignation. “The curse could not take all of me, only the self that rules in the day. I was trapped in my beast form, as long as the sun shined, until—”
“Until what?” Furihata asks, his anxiety rising for some unnamable reason.
Akashi’s red eyes are dark with intent.
“Until you.”
*
Furihata’s breath hitches; the anxiety is still there but now there is also a layer of hope and longing and many things Furihata doesn’t have the vocabulary to properly identify.
“Me?”
“I needed a human who would forsake their own humanity to stay with me always.”
Furihata does not know how he is supposed to react to this news. He feels like something important was just said there, but his mind halts whenever he attempts to parse out the words.
“What does that mean, exactly?” He asks, his uncertainty creeping into his voice.
“To regain my human form, a human would have to willingly give up theirs. You drank my blood, Furihata. You are a little bit of a demon now.”
“Oh,” Furihata says. He surreptitiously glances down to verify that he hasn’t grown a tail, or claws, or wings. When he discerns that he still looks exactly like he did before, he is slightly disappointed. He wouldn’t mind having wings.
The demon chuckles, a velvet sound that caresses against Furihata’s skin. “You will not look any different. At least, not right away.”
“Oh,” Furihata says again.
“Do you regret it, Furihata?” Akashi asks.
Furihata considers the question very seriously. “No. I have only ever wanted to help you. It’s just…”
“Yes?” Akashi asks.
“Well,” Furihata says, looking away. He mumbles, “It didn’t really have to be me, though, right? It could have been any human.”
“Oh, Furihata,” the demon says. “The human who gave his humanity to me would be irrevocably linked to me for all our days. I could not stand to have that connection with just any human. That human could only ever have been you.”
It is more than he ever dared hope.
“If I asked you to marry me, Furihata Kouki, what would you say?”
“I would say yes, a thousand times over,” Furihata replies instantly.
“Then we have a bargain,” Akashi says.
*
“Shouldn’t we seal our contract again?” Furihata asks, blushing.
“What do you mean?” Akashi asks.
“Like we did the first day,” he clarifies, blushing even further. “With the kiss.”
“Ah,” Akashi says, stepping closer. “I did not kiss you for the contract. I kissed you because I wanted to.” He puts an arm around Furihata and pulls him close. “And I want to do so again.”
So he does.
*
Furihata has no way of knowing if this will be happily forever after. But it is a forever, and that is what he wants most with this man.