
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/466553.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Major_Character_Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Yami_No_Matsuei
  Relationship:
      Kurosaki_Hisoka/Muraki_Kazutaka
  Character:
      Kurosaki_Hisoka, Muraki_Kazutaka
  Additional Tags:
      Pre-Canon
  Stats:
      Published: 2005-04-28 Words: 12204
****** Residency ******
by Vain
Summary
     During the final months of his residency, Muraki finds something he
     thought he'd lost—something that would have rather not been found.
Notes
                                   Residency
                                   By: Vain
                            5.17.2004 - 04.28.2005
               o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
     Disclaimer: I do not own Yami no Matsuei, Kurosaki Hisoka or Muraki
     Kazutaka—Yoko Matsushita does. The poem used in the story is
     "Sympathy" by Paul Laurence Dunbar. This is a work of fandom; I am
     not profiting from this.
     Summary: During the final months of his residency, Muraki finds
     something he thought he'd lost—something that would have rather not
     been found.
     Length: Around 12,300 words.
     Warnings: Yaoi. Muraki / Hisoka. Graphic non-con NC-17. Under aged,
     non-consensual sex, violence, language, serious abuses of power,
     psychological and sexual abuse, character death, and references to
     torture. Not for the tender-hearted.
     Continuity: This story takes place before the anime and manga start,
     when Muraki is doing his residency. Runs on the assumption that
     Hisoka was thirteen when Muraki first cursed him and Muraki was doing
     his med training at the time. The fic starts about two years later,
     as Muraki finishes up his residency.
     Notes: Hisoka has zero personification. This is because the fic is
     written from Muraki's point of view and he does not view Hisoka as a
     person—and even if he did—he wouldn't care about his opinions one way
     or the other.
     The word "opes" in the poem used throughout the fic has been kept to
     maintain authenticity—"opes" is actually the way it is written in the
     poem—and means "open." God bless my Fourth Edition Norton Anthology
     of Poetry.
     This was written with love for Zanzou, to whom I promised to write a
     true MurSoka without pulling any punches. Hope it doesn't disappoint!
     Special thanks goes to my betas, yoaikitten and thedemonprist
     (apologies for jumping the gun, poppet ;_; *is impatient* ), for
     having strong stomachs and wicked editorial eyes. They were IMMENSELY
     helpful, and I am more grateful than I can say.
     PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS & please review.

               o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

                   “I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
                 When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
             When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
                  And the river flows like a stream of glass;
               When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
                And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
                      I know what the caged bird feels!”

               o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

I had only been there a few weeks before I first saw you. I was forced to leave
the other hospital. There were . . . complications. Granted, this hospital is
very small . . . forgotten really, and relatively unknown, but I can appreciate
a bit of obscurity when necessary. The head of staff jumped at the chance to
accept me when he saw my recommendations, and they did not stop to ask any
uncomfortable questions. I will have to learn to be neater as time passes. But
it didn’t matter—not then, and not now; I only had four months or so left on my
residency when I became aware you.
I saw your name first, crisp and black on the white paper of your chart.
Kurosaki Hisoka.
At first the name was nothing more than a faint ringing in my ears . . . bile
on the tip of my tongue. Or maybe not bile, but something textured, salty, and
bitter. Kurosaki Hisoka. I knew that name.
But I had to be patient. Had to wait. The Head of Surgery does not take time to
give mere residents personal tours everyday, after all. I asked about you,
though.
“Moku-sensei? Who is Kurosaki Hisoka? The name sounds . . . familiar.”
And the surgeon—the fool—simply smiled and waved the question away. “He’s the
child of a rather wealthy family. Their only child in fact. It’s really quite
sad. He’s sixteen, but he’s wasting away. He’s been here for over a year, but
no one has been able to discover the cause of his illness, or even what it is.
Very unfortunate business, really. And such a pretty child too—tongue like a
viper, though. Not very social at all. We put him back here in this hallway so
that he’s out of the way; no one ever really comes back here, so no one bothers
with him very much anymore except for perhaps Shudou-sensei. His parents
specifically requested a more secluded, private room and, really, it’s less
fuss this way. He really doesn’t have too much longer and it’s probably for the
best. Even his family doesn’t come to see him anymore. Very unfortunate. Now
this hall leads to the ICU. We’ve a burn patient who seems to be improving, but
I would like you to have a look at him. You come so highly accredited, Muraki-
kun . . .”
So that was the end of that. I can be patient, though—it is the trait of a
hunter, after all. And I do so love a good mystery. How could I have stayed
away?
I waited for a week, and then two. Waited and listened for any word on this
secret, this Kurosaki Hisoka. But no one seems to care about you. Most of them
even seem afraid of you.
“He’s so . . . creepy,” one of the nurses told me. “It’s those eyes . . .
They’re so big . . . And always just staring at you—watchingyou. I heard that
he doesn’t sleep. Every time someone goes in there, he’s awake. Looking at you.
Really—I know I shouldn’t say this—but I’ll be happy when he dies. His family
doesn’t even come to see him. He’s not a normal child. He’s unnatural. A
monster.”
I only smiled at her and wondered if I should educate her as to the true nature
of ‘monsters.’ But I cannot risk another incident . . . even in a dreary little
backwards hospital such as this, and especially not when I have such a curious
mystery on my hands. So I ‘requested’ the graveyard shift. It’s quiet and
private.
I enjoy my privacy.
It is boredom that drives me to your door tonight. The paperwork is done, the
night nurse is on duty, and this hospital is so small that I am the only
resident working this shift. It’s 2:35 am and the lighting in the hallway is
the same sterile white that it is at 2:35 pm. It’s difficult to tell time in
hospitals; nothing there ever really changes. The clipboard with your charts
makes a loud clacking noise when I drop it back in the rack next to your door.
The door handle is cool and hard in my hand and the door creaks lazily as I
pushed it open. It closes behind me with a loud, decisive ‘click.’
Kurosaki Hisoka.
And then I see you.
You . . .
My pretty, perfect, porcelain doll, all laid out in virginal white and waiting
for me. But you’re anything but a virgin, aren’t you? No . . . not a virgin.
Never a virgin. Not when, at the tender age of thirteen, I had had you in every
way possible—owned you more completely than you owned yourself. My Secret. My
self-possessed, wide-eyed little doll. My Hi-So-Ka.
Your skin is still soft and paper-thin when I slide a hand down your cheek.
Imagine. You. Here now. In my hospital. Truly, the gods are kind.
Has it really been over two years?
Your eyes fly open and you gasp to see me standing above you.
Really over two years?
You try to scream, but I cover your lips with mine, take what is mine to take.
Mine and mine alone. And you try to fight, try to scream, try to bite, but you
know better than that—know me better than that. So all you can do was cry and
choke on your own fear as I slowly sit on the bed, pull down those covers, and
lick your tears away.
“If you scream, I’ll kill you,” I warn you. “If you speak without
permission,”—Your eyes are so wide—“I’ll kill you.”
And then you simply go beautifully limp, trembling in my arms as I tug open
your hospital robes to pet that feverish skin.
You stupid little toy. Don’t you know that you’re already dead? Dead and mine
forever from the moment I claimed you. Mine and mine and mine, and you will
never be free.
I run a hand down your hot skin: Adam’s apple, the hollow of your throat,
chest, pert, pink nipples, solar plexus, stomach, the dip of your belly button,
the waist of your pants . . . You jump and groan, eyes rolling like those of a
startled horse in your terror, and I hold your hips down with my right hand,
while tugging down the loose band of your hospital pants.
“Please . . . please don’t—!”
“Shhh . . .” I wrap a hand around your newly freed penis. It is small, limp and
uninteresting, but we both knew how this game is played. You want this. You
always wanted it. And you know you can’t fight me.
I squeeze your hip with my right hand and slowly circle my thumb around the
soft, delicate head of your shaft with my left, watching terror, pain, shame,
and desire dance across your face like a ballet. Tears roll steadily down your
cheeks as your arousal begins to show. Small and velvety, your testicles slowly
draw themselves up towards your body. Your penis firms and slowly stiffens in
my hand and I smile. You look so sad—so tragic—big, heavy tears falling down
your cheeks. You should always be crying. Nothing has ever looked as glorious
as you do when you cry. Sexy and innocent virginal sacrifice, unaware of the
treasure in your eyes and lips and between your legs.
I smile at you gently, reassuringly, knowing that my gentleness made this all
the more terrible. You love my touch, crave it, and the ease with which your
body betrays you devastates you on a level that not even my magic can touch.
But I don’t want to be gentle. Never gentle—not with you. Not when those eyes
beg me to hurt you—need me to hurt you. I want to pull you, rend you, tear at
you, rape you. I want to fuck your little china body until blood pours out of
you in waves that measure the ebb and flow of your last, terrified heartbeats.
But I do not.
This . . . You are art. My art, abandoned for too long, but not forgotten. Aged
like wine. I will not spoil this vintage with selfish violence. I will not ruin
this work. My every touch across the head of your growing arousal is a
brushstroke. I laugh softly when you begin to whine and toss your head from
side to side in impotent denial. Look at you, giving yourself to me like a
starved slut.
A sob wracks you and I reward your precious suffering with a gentle squeeze,
slowly dragging my hand up the length of your hard penis until your hips lift
in a shallow, reluctant thrust.
You little whore . . . Look how prettily—how sweetly—you suffer for me. Look
how eager you are to give yourself to me again and again and again.
“Soon, poppet,” I whisper, breath somewhat heavy with the sensation of my own
arousal. “I’ll give you what you want.” Your pale peach lips part as you gasp
and pant and I inhale the heady scent of your arousal hungrily. “I know what
you need. All you have to do is ask.”
I press my thumb hard on the head of your penis as my palm slides down and you
arc up fully, unable to deny yourself. This is what you want. This is what you
need. You deserve a reward for your brave submission. Still watching you
through lidded eyes, I slowly lower my head to the leaking top of your needy
erection. My right hand grips your hip with painful intensity and I gently
begin to lick the pre-come off you, using only the tip of my tongue. You moan
more than scream, and begin to squirm fitfully, not trying to escape, but not
surrendering either. I tongue the slit of your penis, allowing the rough taste
buds to pull that unforgettable essence out of you.
A flush of shame has spread from your face down to your chest and your nipples
have darkened in reaction to my ministrations. The hardened buds are now a
curious plum color and I long to reach up to pinch and twist and pluck them,
but your straining hips demand my attention. It doesn’t matter, though. I’ve
tasted them before and I will taste them again. And again and again and again.
I squeeze your penis a bit harder then and slowly allow my lips to fall over
the blood-flushed crown of your erection. Then I suck. Hard. My cheek hollow
and my lips ache with the effort.
“Oh, God!”
Your hands, previously limp and unresisting, flutter up convulsively and grasp
at my hair. I immediately jerk up and slap you, right hand still pressing you
down into the thin, cheap springy mattress of the hospital bed. Your head snaps
back, smacking against the metal railing of the bed, and your pupils dilate
wide in terror, tears magnifying the image.
Perfect. Absolutely perfect.
Tear stained, thin, pale, a livid red mark on your left cheek. Shattered.
Gorgeous. You don’t move from where you lay and I watch you for a moment. You
don’t blink, but tears trail down your cheeks, overflowing your unseeing eyes
to stain the pillow. Your erection strains from between you legs, still as
needy as it was a moment ago, and your hands twitch. I imagine that you want to
touch yourself. Would you think of me as your short, unpracticed strokes
dragged your body to climax?
I want to see.
I release my hold on your hip and smile at the bruise that is already beginning
to form where my fingers contained your urges. I gently take your right hand in
my own and bring it down to your penis. I wrap your small, dapper fingers
around your erection and then settle back on the bed. I press my left hand
firmly against the bulge in my trousers, but the pressure is to restrain, not
excite.
“Stroke yourself,” I order in a throaty whisper.
You comply readily—slow, shaky strokes rising and falling along your arousal,
steady as breaths—but only your hand moves. I want more.
I stand, eyes locked on your hand as you slowly stroke yourself, and undo my
own pants. I gently extricate my erection from my pants and briefs so that it
is open to the air, and reach down to run a thumb over your dry lips. I slip my
thumb in, forcing you to open you jaws wider, and squeeze your cheeks with my
other hand, until your lips are parted invitingly. A tear hits my thumb as I
remove it from your mouth and I bring it to my own lips to lick it off before
bringing my hand back down to cup the back of your head. Holding you in place,
I slowly force my erection past your unresisting lips.
I hiss a hard breath as the heat engulfs me.
Ohh! That’s just perfect . . .
I bite my lip to force back my own gasp and slowly withdraw. My fingers curl
around the smooth silk of your hair and pull your head back slightly to get a
better angle. My other hand squeezes your jaws a bit more firmly, opening that
warm mouth just a bit more . . .
Your hand, until then obediently continuing it ministrations on your own
arousal, goes lax as I slowly thrust back into your mouth and I tug painfully
at your hair in warning.
“Don’t . . . stop . . .” My voice is breathless, but your mouth is hot and wet
and the tears and saliva dripping onto your pillow make it worth it.
You try to swallow and a slow shudder moves through me at the sensation. The
sob that moves through you is a promise of more. Golden innocence, ivory tears,
jade coyness—my masterpiece. All so perfect under and around me. How did I ever
let you go? Another sob—the vibration forces your tongue to twitch and writhe
beneath my hardened flesh like a snake on fire. I push all the way in,
squeezing my eyes closed as the feel of you engulfs me, and you jerk in
protest, screaming and choking all at once as you struggle for air.
Disobedient toy that you are, you release your erection in distress, thin arms
flailing in desperation and your jaw tenses beneath my tight grasp, trying to
bite down.
Bad boy.
I grip the back of your head tighter and squeeze your jaw painfully and push
myself further down your throat, pressing your face hard into the rough
material of my slacks, suffocating you. Your terror is an aphrodisiac and you
thrash and writhe like a wild thing—a dying bird. Hips bucking, small crescent
finger nails pushing uselessly at my hips and scratching at my hands, neck
muscles bunched and straining as you try to free yourself from my firm grip.
Your tongue moves around and across my erection, frantically stroking, playing,
taunting with me with promises of everything you’ll let me do to you. Promises
of how badly you’ve wanted this—needed this—and your throat opens and closes
around me, welcoming my intrusion. I want to climb down your throat and tear
you apart from the inside. I want to own you completely.
God, have you any idea how beautiful you are?
I pull out, a teasing momentary relief; just long enough to feel you suck in a
rapid, hungry breath around my erection. The cool air sends chills through me,
and I can feel myself tighten in preparation, the very tip of my penis still
pressed against your tongue. I grip your hair again and haul you forward,
dragging you half off the bed by your head, pushing past the flimsy resistance
of your tonsils, and burying myself deep inside your mouth, pressing against
the back of your throat until you open impossibly wider to me, your body
welcoming me while you scream around my arousal.
It is all too much.
It isn’t enough.
A violent shudder runs through me, forcing my hips to jerk in small thrusting
motions even as I grapple with your hair, forcing your body to follow my
motions. Just when the concentration of heat inside me is unbearable, a cry
breaks loose of my throat and then I’m coming, pushing deeper into your mouth.
Darkness clouds my vision and pulses of light dance meaninglessly in the
periphery. Your nails scratch at me and there’s a roaring in my ears, blocking
everything but the feel of you pulling passion from me and the vibration of
your hot, welcoming throat.
A sudden, choked gasping breaks into my senses and I realize that I’m the one
making the sound. I force my eyes open and drop my head to stare at you, hips
still moving of their own accord in rough, short thrusts. You’ve gone limp
again, body hanging halfway off the bed, arms swinging limply over the floor.
Your legs are tangled in the sheets, but I can see your penis, once again limp
and dull, peeking out from between the folds of white fabric. My hands on your
head are the only thing supporting you and there is a puddle of white fluid on
the floor, and more white drips from your mouth because you could not swallow.
I smile at you gently, my breathing slowly retuning to normal, and slowly pull
my sated sex out from between your lips. My hands feel shaky and my knees are
like jelly. Cold and sticky, semen and saliva clings wetly to the softened
length of my penis. I allow your head to slip from my hands and you drop to the
floor, right shoulder hitting with jarring force just before your head cracks
against the ground with a thump. The rest of your body slides out of bed,
dragging the sheets along with you like a broken marionette.
The blow to your head seems to rouse you and you push yourself up on shaking
arms and your back arches in painful heaves as you vomit. Whitish bile slips
from between your bruised lips and you shudder and choke as your body rebels. I
take a careful step back and watch you, ignoring the interested twitch of my
penis.
You seem to try to scream, and a spasm goes through you. I wonder if you’re
even aware of me. You back away from the mess you’ve made, staring in horror at
your own refuse, but you’re still tangled in the sheet so you cannot go far.
When you fall, I have to laugh at your plight. Such a silly little thing, but
you’re mine.
You begin to scratch at yourself, clawing at your face in a frenzy, and I
cannot allow that. With a sigh, I look around for something to clean myself off
with and find a dry washcloth. I carefully wipe myself off with a grimace,
irritated by the feel of feel of the abrasive clothe against my sensitized
flesh and your weird, gasping half screams. There are semen stains on the front
of my trousers and I wonder how I’ll be able to make it back to my locker for a
change of clothes without anyone noticing. I could always come up with some
sort of lie of course, but there is something about our subterfuge that makes
all of this all the more exciting. I’ll simply close my coat over the stains, I
suppose.
I tuck myself away and then turn my attention back to you. By now you’ve just
managed to break the skin and thin scratches trail down your cheeks over the
bruises my fingers made where I forced your jaws open.
Silly thing.
“You should stop that, you know. You’ll only hurt yourself.”
If anything, my voice only seems to make the situation worse. You pause and
look up at me, pupils dilated wide and tears streaming down your reddened
cheeks. There’s semen and bile on your chin and your nose is running a bit. For
a moment your mouth works silently, lips forming meaningless words, and then
you try to back away. I notice blood in your hair from where your head hit the
floor.
“No. Nononononononononononono . . .” Your voice is raspy and unusually deep and
you’re scrambling to get away from me, but don’t seem to understand that your
back is pressed against the bed. “Nononononononononononono . . .”
I sigh and step towards you, still holding the washcloth in my hand. You scream
and pull back before collapsing with a shudder. Empty-headed little thing. I
step carelessly over your vomit and kneel down next to you, pulling your
shaking frame into my lap. The tremors make you jerk and twitch as though
electrified and I cannot help but smile at the pretty show you’ve put on for
me.
Yes. You deserve a reward.
Holding you in my lap with one hand, I fold the washcloth against the floor
with the other so that a clean side is exposed. Your head lolls heavily against
my shoulder.
“My poor poppet . . .”
You seem to calm slightly at the sensation of my breath against your ear.
“My poor child . . .”
I gently wipe your face, humming quietly as I do so, wanting to soothe you—to
calm you. You’re mine. Absolutely mine. And you love me just as much as you
hate me. Because I know what you need.
The semen and drool is gone and the blood fades, and I rock you for a moment
until you can breathe. You sob in silence, crying for me yet again.
I drop the washcloth and gently capture your chin, tilting that angelic face
back so that I can taste your tears. You squeeze your eyes tightly shut as my
tongue slides over the smooth surface of your burning cheek.
”Shhhh . . . We’re almost done . . . You’ve been a very good boy, pet . . . So
very good.”
My right hand slides free of your hips and slips between your legs again. You
moan and your face crumples like that of a child deprived of a sweet. Poor
poppet . . .
I kiss you softly for your bravery.
“Almost done,” I croon in promise. “So close now.”
You taste like blood and semen and something sweet—the stain of me inside
you—and I kiss you deeply until I’m nearly drunk from it. So sweet . . . so
perfect . . . And you’ve become quite the little whore in my absence: already
your erection has returned, burning in my hand like a plea. I tease the
foreskin and wish I could lay you out and mark and burn you inch by inch all
over again.
But you’re already marked and burning, aren’t you? The lines of my magic hum
invisible and hungry along your body, feeding on your terrible needs, and the
vibration of it moves like music through my body. I turn my head slightly,
adjusting the angle to better kiss you, and gently begin to squeeze your penis
in slow, pseudo-tender rhythm. You gasp into my mouth.
Perfect.
And then you let loose the weakest, saddest little cries I’ve ever heard as the
rhythm of my tongue in your mouth and the pulse of you in my hand increases.
The vibrations move through my mouth, up through my sinuses and behind my eyes
like some heady, tangible scent. They slide down my throat, dry and spicy as
cognac, and I break away from your over-ripened, swollen lips, lest I become
drunk. The motion frees you and you turn, the sterile-smelling, honey-golden
sweep of your hair brushing my cheek as you hide your face in the shelter of my
throat. I can feel your fear and reluctant lust rolling off of you in waves and
for a terrible moment the urge to bite you—to break the skin and unleash all of
that marvelous blood, to absorb you fully into myself—almost overwhelms and I
have to bite my own lip to resist damaging you so. The hot, wet feather brush
of your breath at my Adam’s apple taunts me, and your hips jerk against my
restraining left hand in protest.
I chuckle when I feel hot moisture against my throat and chest. Shattered,
hoarse sobs break free from your mouth and then I laugh outright.
Did you ever think for a moment that you could escape me? Did you believe for
an instant that you could ever be anything but mine? My doll? My toy? My
plaything?
And what a marvelous plaything you are! Fit for velvet dresses, and perfect,
plastic penny loafers, and glass dome display cases.
I have given you a gift.
I have wrapped you in my name and exposed the most wounded and secret places of
you.
Why do you hide such things when they are so lovely?
What a strange thing you are—a doll whose improperly molded porcelain heart
beats like that of a human. . . . Whose heart beats at my whim.
You cling to me tighter, body wound like a spring, hot and twitching in my
arms, as shivers, sobs, and lust make you jerk like a broken marionette.
You cringe against me when I lean down to whisper in your ear: “I love you. I
love you. I love you more than anyone else.” You and I both know it’s true. No
one loves you at all, so I love you the most. “Hi. So. Ka.”
I shift you, still stroking your arousal as my left hand pulls at you, jerking
your body until you’re sitting up and I can look you in the eyes. They look
like glass. Polished. Reflective. So perfectly, beautifully terrified that such
an expression cannot possibly be real. All that remains of your irises are tiny
bands of green surrounding wide, wide pupils that display nothing but my
reflection. I watch myself smile in them and my right hand squeezes and twists
around you. “Come for me?”
A violent shudder wracks you, hurts you, and you obey me with a defeated whine.
The knowledge of how completely I own you shines in your eyes in the form of
tears. The air around us thickens with the scent of you as you spill over my
hand. But your body is far too weak to process such sensations and goes limp in
my arms, those shining glass eyes rolling back into your head even as your
velvet lashes slowly close. The action reminds me of a wind up toy shutting
down.
I hold you for a long moment, the idea of slapping you awake to continue is
more than a little tempting, but it would not do to strain you. I don’t want
this to end prematurely, after all. Besides: you’re dying. A small amount of
leeway is not inappropriate, I think.
It is a small matter to clean you up and carefully tuck you into bed once more.
A glamour to hide the bruises from your day time doctor. A bandage about the
head. I will have to tell the nurse that you fell out of bed and I tended to
you. It will be enough. Places like this do not care for people—not really.
The taste and feel of your energy hums through me. It had not been my intention
to feed from you—you have little energy to spare—but proximity alone seems to
activate the spell. I will have to be careful not to get too greedy; too much
of this little game and your heart will give out before I am prepared.
Another spell then . . . Just in case. It’s nothing serious or
detrimental—merely something to help me monitor you. Immediately the sound of
your heartbeat fills my ears. Even though you’re asleep it sounds frantic;
fluttering desperately inside you as though trying to escape. I wonder if it
will slow down before it stops, or burst like an over inflated balloon. It must
ache terribly inside you, for it to sound so frenzied. The last thing I do
before I go is kiss you, inhaling your shallow breath as you exhale. The taste
is brief, but sweet, and it sustains me as I continue my rounds for the night,
the sound of your heart thundering in the back of my mind.


               o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

It is late. A little bit past three am.
“Would you like me to shift you from the night shift, Muraki-kun?”
“Thank you, director, but if it is not a hardship, I find I work best at night.
I have always been something of a night owl.”
Laughter. A firm clap on the shoulder. His touch is offensive. “Well, far be it
for me to disturb your routine. The night nurses have done nothing but praise
you since the moment you arrived. Our incidents are down 19 percent when you
are on duty. All of the patients love you.”
“You’re too kind, sir. I am only doing my duty.”
“I see great things in your future, Muraki-kun. Great things indeed.”
I undo the buttons of my shirt as I enter, shrugging anxiously out of my coat.
I’m tired. I want to see you.
I want to play.
“Even the Kurosaki boy seems to be quite taken with you.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Nurse Takigawa said that you have taken an interest in the boy. You sit
with him at night?”
“. . . Yes. He can be quite . . . charming.”
“You must be the only one that thinks so. Even Shudou can only take so much of
him.”
“Shudou-sensei?”
“The day shift doctor. If it wasn’t for him, I doubt anyone would busy
themselves with the boy. He seems to be troublesome.”
“I see.”
“He doesn’t sleep, you know,” the director murmurs abruptly. “Or perhaps he
wakes whenever he thinks anyone is around.”
“He sleeps when he is tired.”
“Still . . .” A sidelong glance. “He is a . . . strange child.”
“Yes. But he is still only a child.”
You’re propped up against the pile of pillows I’ve been steadily purloining for
you. I like to see you nestled in pillows. You look like a doll. A toy to be
given to some sick child as proof that even something whose only value is
aesthetics can suffer. The muted, pale after-hours lighting falls on you and
creates strange shadows in the gentle hollow of your throat and cheeks. I made
an excellent decision in you. The curse was perfect—a work of art. Your beauty
will remain as untainted as the night we met beneath the sakura, even as your
body eats itself alive from the inside out. The small, permanent twist of pain
between your brows is exquisite. You stare down at the sheet and refuse to look
at me as I pull the door shut behind me. Intimate as we are, your continued
coyness never ceases to arouse me.
It has been seven weeks since I rediscovered you. Seven weeks since you wept as
you gave me your passion and I have had you nearly every night since.
The depth of human ineptitude never ceases to amaze me. Have they not noticed
any change in you at all? Or perhaps you have not changed. You waited for me
for so long, perhaps you no can longer change. Dolls never change. I seemed to
have forgotten that until I found you. You are a doll. Dolls never fade. Never
grow old. Never do anything but sit on the shelf until it is time to play. You
are like that—always waiting for me. You try to fight—to deny it—but this is
our game. A toy soldier only marches where the General orders, and a marionette
only dances as the strings lead, and so you too only play the game as I desire.
Admit it. When I come to you at night and brush off the dust and cobwebs of the
day, when I make you weep and scream, and push myself into your mouth and your
body and watch you writhe around and beneath me . . . You’re grateful. You love
it.
You whimper and shrink back into your pillows as I carelessly throw my coat to
the floor. My tie and shirt quickly follow suit. I have nothing to fear. No one
comes here anymore. I want to feel you.
A doll exists only to be played with.
Do you like to play with me, doll?
Do you want to play with me?
You like it when I touch you. When I push things inside of you. When I tell you
to beg and when I tell you to be silent. You like it when I give you your
reward and at last, at last, at last allow your filth to spill into the open
air and temporarily stain your pale skin a different shade of white. You like
it. You need it.
You need me.
My beautiful doll . . .
Seven weeks. And you’re always waiting. Always eager. Always willing to play.
Play the virgin for me, pet. Do you remember how? No? Then play the whore for
me, pet. You’re so much better at that one anyway.
I like how much you hate yourself when you beg. I want to hear you scream. But
you can’t, can you? Not here. Not when we could be caught. Do you think anyone
would care if they caught us?
No.
Even in a backwards place such as this, they all know what a horrid thing you
are.
“It’s those eyes . . . They’re so big . . . And always just staring at
you—watchingyou. I heard that he doesn’t sleep. Every time someone goes in
there, he’s awake. Looking at you. Really—I know I shouldn’t say this—but I’ll
be happy when he dies. His family doesn’t even come to see him. He’s not a
normal child; he’s unnatural. A monster.”
That is why you need me. I love you. I will protect you. I will save you from
all of them and I will own you. I will always have time to play with you,
Veronica.
I will always have time for my toys.
“Well, Muraki-kun, whatever you are doing, please continue. The boy has become
much less oppositional since your arrival. Just be sure not to get too
attached.”
“Director?”
“The boyisdying, after all. There’s no sense in investing oneself in a lost
cause.”
This time I laugh. “You say he is dying as though it were the end of all
things.”
He pauses in the hallway and turns to look at me.
I cannot help but smile at his ignorance. “Death is only the beginning, sir.”


               o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

                   “I know why the caged bird beats his wing
                   Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
                  For he must fly back to his perch and cling
                  When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
                 And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
                   And they pulse again with a keener sting—
                        I know why he beats his wing!”

               o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Spent and laying beside you in the narrow bed, I gently kiss your forehead.
There is not even a twitch of reaction. Where did the fear go?
It faded. Became too banal and commonplace to be sustained, I suppose. Now all
you do is lay very still and allow me to touch you and arrange your limbs as I
please. Marvelous. I still like it best when you cry, though; you never seem to
run out of tears. Livid, reddish tracts stains your face even now, mingled with
the sweat of our exertions. I can taste it against my lips. Occasionally you
even find the strength to fight . . . Usually after what the second shift nurse
calls your “good days,” when you feel strong enough to remember that I have put
you in this bed. Or perhaps you are remembering all the things that I have done
and will do to you in this bed.
It is ours, you know. Our bed. Our room. Our time. You taste like flower
blossoms and being inside you is the sweetest oblivion as you clench and twitch
around me, your perpetual low-grade fever making your body burn even hotter.
You’re so hot. So tight. I don’t want this to end.
Perhaps I should have kept you longer that night. Taken you with me. Dressed
you in umber and blood and sealed you in a glass display. You bear a striking
resemblance to Saki, you know . . . You even smell like him. Your mouth tastes
like his did—tastes like the essence of me inside you. There’s more, though.
It’s something about the eyes, I think. The narrow, elfin point of your chin.
The small, bird-like bones in your wrists and hands. But Saki was greater than
you—bigger and stronger than you. Still . . . I can see him in your eyes. The
way you watch me. You should not look at me like that—it makes me hurt you.
On the nights when I see him there, you scream long and loud, the sound usually
muffled in the mountain of pillows I’ve brought for you. I spoke to the
director this morning about bringing in some flowers to liven up the room a
bit. I will always remember you at your best when you fought against me beneath
the sakura. I will clip a branch from the tree outside the hospital tomorrow
night. They’re so dark, they’re almost red. I think, as our time passes and
your time runs out, they seem to be getting even redder. I can smell the
blossoms on your skin underneath the scent of antiseptic.
The hospital’s completely given up on treating you, you know. Just a heavy dose
of Percocet every four hours. Apparently, these people cannot fully appreciate
how delightful you look when you’re in the throes of agony. Personally,
however, I don’t desire that you be so distracted during our limited time
together. I have other ways to make you writhe. And I don’t like the
Percocet—it makes you sedated and you act too disorganized. I prefer you lucid
and whimpering. I don’t give the drugs to you at night. It is a simple matter
to suppress the curse so that I have your full attention during our play time.
Besides . . . it is also far too entertaining to watch the synthetic, vacant
expression drain from your eyes as the pain returns. When I am inside you, I
want you to feel it.
Don’t you feel me? Hear me? In your head? Behind your eyes? Between your ears?
Filling you up inside?
I can hear you. Your heartbeat sounds in my ears; it is faster than mine. One
day soon, you’re going to pop.
As though hearing my thoughts, you turn your face away from me. Avert your
eyes. It irritates me. I want to see you.
I can feel my eyes narrow.
I want to see your face.
I can hear the hum of the air conditioning and your weak, shallow breaths as
you drag in gasp after long, slow gasp. In the back of my mind, your heartbeat
flutters, skips, and then returns to its usual, irregular staccato. I stare at
your profile for a moment before pulling slightly away from you.
Your entire body goes rigid as I prop myself up on my left elbow and evaluate
you with false concern. Stupid thing.
“Did they think you were malingering?”
The question takes you off guard and your heart skips a beat. I smile. You
never speak to me beyond a half-hearted plea or cry. I didn’t think I needed
you to speak. Children should keep silent and do as they’re told.
But somehow, tonight—with you so very close to the edge—I want to hear you
speak. I pull you closer to me with my right hand. You’re so tiny. So light. It
is like shifting a feather.
You keep your head turned to the left, eyes locked on the far wall. I run a
finger down your chest, over a swollen, abused nipple, and across the gentle
swell and dip of your visible ribs. So pretty. So delicate. You’re like a
bird—a caged bird. You sing so prettily. Let me hear you now.
“Did you tell anyone? What I did to you that night?”
You squeeze your eyes shut and your breath hitches as my hand slides down to
your bruised thighs. The spell I wove around you hides the bruises. It’s
similar to the one that conceals your curse marks, but weaker. I think it’s
quite a pity. I would like to see you in blue, black, yellow, and green relief.
Besides, the only one to hide them from is your day doctor—he’s the only one
who sees you other than me—but I have to finish my time here. No more laziness.
I distract myself momentarily with your foreskin before returning to the topic
at hand. “Who found you the next day on the lawn? A servant?”
Your heartbeat speeds up in my ears as my hand continues to play with you,
stroking, plucking and pulling at you as though you were an instrument of some
sort. I will make you sing for me one way or another.
“Did they think you were lying? Did they care?”
Your length hardens in my hand and you whimper, a violent shudder moving
through you.
Look at me.
“Did you tell them how I caught you? How you pleaded? How you eventually
begged? Did they laugh?”
Look at me.
I squeeze you painfully and relish the short cry that emerges.
You are nothing.
“Look at me.”
And then your head turns slowly, as though on a rusted swivel, and your eyes
are enormous beneath a sheen of tears. I smile and bend my neck slightly to
kiss you. Marvelous.
“Tell me,” I whisper against your lips. You try to turn away again, but my hand
comes up to capture your chin gently and force your eyes back to mine. Your
heart thunders like a bass drum in my ears and your chest is rising and falling
almost spastically. Your soft, heavy puff of breath breezes lightly over my
face and past my lips. I smile again and lean down just a bit more until our
foreheads are pressed together. And those glass dolls eyes of yours are
enormous. You try in vain to pull away, and only succeed in pressing yourself
back against the pillows. The fear is back.
“Tell me.” The scent of you almost undoes me. I squeeze your chin tighter to
ground myself. “Tell me, or I will rip your heart out.”
A single, crystalline tear makes its way down you left cheek.
I pull back just enough to retrace its progress up from you chin and back to
the top of your cheek. Another one slides down your right cheek, and I lick
that one away, too. The taste of the saline is both bitter and curiously sweet.
I kiss each of your eyelids in turn as a few more tears escape. Perfect.
I leave a trail of kisses down your cheeks and move to you chin, bypassing the
lips altogether. Then down your throat to the hollow of your collarbone. I lick
a long, slow line up your sternum and back to your chin. You tilt your head
back and a sob moves up your chest along with me, vibrating through your entire
body.
Just before the sound can erupt from you, I kiss your lips gently and pull back
to stare down at your flushed, pained face again. “Now, poppet . . .” You
shiver violently. “I told you to keep silent. I told you not to tell. Did you
tell anyone? Did you tell them what we did that night? Our night?”
Slowly your head shakes as you stare up at me. “N—no . . .” Your voice is rough
and hoarse and your heart sounds as though it’s going to burst.
I am getting tired of hearing that word from you when you are always so
obviously lying.
“Oh?” I reach round you and grasp your left hand in my right and bring it to
the center of your body. The tears resume. “And what did you tell them, then?”
Keeping my hand over yours, I push both down between your closed thighs. Your
legs immediately open as the old bruises are aggravated.
“I di—didn’t—”
It’s so hard for you to breathe, isn’t it?
You suddenly emit a small, choked scream and jerk upwards as both our hands
wrap around your flagging erection. You tremble violently, but don’t dare move
your hand from my grip as you touch yourself, speed and pressure changing at my
whim. Sing for me, little bird.
I drop my head, burying my face in the slope of your neck, and lap gently at
the faint sheen of sweat on your skin. “Sing for me.”
Oniisama.
I grip your hand in my own tighter, squeezing those fragile digits. Crushing
you. Your body is so hot. So hot.
Your voice is bell-like when you cry out, sharp and clear, and the sound moves
through me like a wave. Or perhaps that’s the feel of the sobs wracking you.
“Oh God, please stop!”
Kamisama . . .
I can feel the heat of your tears melting into the nape of my neck. It makes me
want to laugh. “God?” I raise my head and smile at the absolute anguish on your
face. Art. “God doesn’t care, poppet.”
I want to tear it off.
Your back arches in response, lifting you off the bed in a lovely arc. “Ahh!”
Such lovely, lovely tears you shed for me.
“It h—hurts!”
Does it? I told you not to look at me like that—like he did.
Then you come, hard, fast and hot in my hand, and I fancy I can see a stain of
pink in the otherwise white splatter of your essence.
I can see the cracks these days, pet. You’re falling apart at the seams.
But it seems I have gone a bit too far tonight. I already wore you out earlier,
didn’t I? Now you can’t even move. That’s alright, though: you’re useless and
broken and stupid, but you’re mine and so I’ll love you all the same. I want
you in silks and plastic. I want to see you in nothing but sakura and
moonlight.
Instead, I content myself with gently running my pointer finger over the
invisible curse marks. It’s still evolving, my little spell—growing into
something beyond even my expectations. Even after you die, you’ll still be
mine. Your ashes, your bones in the earth, your very soul . . . All of it is
marked and stained by me. My name is etched into your very essence and as long
as anything of you remains, it will be mine. You will be mine. Always. Always.
Always.
Mine.
What will happen to you, I wonder, when you are called for the final judgment?
You cannot go to Heaven. You cannot go to Hell. Neither can accept you, given
the markings you bear. Only I have claim on you. In this—in you, I have usurped
God and the Devil both. No, your God does not care poppet. Only me. You only
have me now.
What will become of you when you die and I leave you behind?
Will you wait for me, a dusty toy in the attic, wondering when your master will
return to play? Will you miss me?
I sigh and disentangle myself from the limp, sweaty sprawl of your immature
limbs. As I stand, the thought lingers. Something about it weighs heavily upon
me. You were to be my masterpiece. A pretty death for such a pretty, pretty
boy. A plain death would not do, you know. Not when your eyes were so bright
and your skin so soft and white and your face so much like that of someone I
will never forget and never forgive. Not when fucking you was like owning him,
and owning you was like catching the wind in the palm of your hand. I couldn’t
let go, but I had to. I had to because there was a magic in that place to rival
my own, and it wanted you. So I took what I could and left you bleeding amidst
the dying flower petals. Whatever darkness that dwells in the House of Kurosaki
may have wanted you, but it will never have you.
No one will.
Still, I cannot shake the growing unease I feel as I retrieve a cloth and wet
it in the tiny bathroom adjacent to your room. I wash myself down first—ridding
my body of the scent of your sweat and sex with rough strokes of the washcloth
and skin-drying antiseptic soap. Strangely enough, even after such rough
treatment, I do not feel any cleaner. It is as though this glimmer of a fear
has taken up residence somewhere inside me. I cannot help but wonder if it
isn’t you.
This is an unnecessary feeling, though. Unwelcome. Unwarranted. You were never
supposed to get inside me. For a fraction of an instant, I feel bewildered and
namelessly bereft. The world seems to stop spinning for a second, while I have
continued moving. I gasp and as the sound echoes off the too close walls, the
feeling abandons me as suddenly as it appeared.
What was I worried about? What have I to fear? To lose? Nothing. This is all
nothing. No matter how the curse grows, it will not change in nature. The curse
was designed to bind you to me. As it slowly eats your life force, so it feeds
mine. When you die, that feed will cease, but the elements that mark you as
mine will remain. I have nothing to be concerned about.
It is decided, then. I return to your bed. You’re still laying as I left you,
and it is a small matter to gently wipe you down and attempt to situate your
body a bit more properly. I was correct, though. There is blood mixed with your
semen.
I pause for a moment and stare down at you. You look like a mannequin. Your
skin is cool and ashen. I can see the weak, sickening blue of your veins . . .
roadmaps of insufficient blood flow to your weak limbs. Your chest rises,
halts, and then falls with neither rhythm nor grace, and your eyes—always open,
always staring—are shiny, but lacking luster. Cold. Empty.
The director was right. You don’t sleep.
Instead, you wait for me to return. And I always return.
The urge to gather you in my arms suddenly overwhelms me. I would take you
away. Surround you with sakura and orchids and bluebells to smother the odor of
death. I would pump you full of magic until the cord of your life was stretched
so thin, it became impossible to break. I would . . .
Do nothing.
Nothing.
I have only a few weeks left on my residency. I will not jeopardize them over a
toy, no matter how pretty it may be.
I return to the bathroom and rinse off the washcloth. Pink and cloudy white
ruin the clear water. It takes three more trips before you are satisfactorily
clean. Then I sit on the bed and carefully manipulate your body until I’ve once
again folded you back into the offensive blue of your hospital gown. I pull
back the sheets, lift you up from my lap again and then tuck you in. Your eyes
watch me the whole time, wide and vacant. I want to cover them with my hand,
but choose to get dressed instead. I will be late getting to the rest of my
patients. I will be too late . . .
The thought fades into a swirl of nothingness as my fingers struggle with my
belt buckle. Eventually the clasp slips into the eye and the leather band
settles snugly about my waist.
You’re still watching me.
I don’t want to meet your eyes. Why do I feel disturbed? Why do I feel . . . as
though I have left something behind? Forgotten something important? Why do I
feel this strange weight beneath my breastbone? How has this sudden thing come
upon me? I shake my head to clear it. I have to administer Aoe-san’s
amoxicillin in ten minutes. I have to leave.
In any case, it is not as though you are going to go anywhere. You’re mine,
even if I am not here to claim you. Besides, I’d rather you rot alone in an
attic until your plastic skin hardens and cracks and your glass eyes become
clouded by dust than belong to anyone else.
No matter what happens, you are mine. Always.
“Tomorrow I will bring you flowers,” I say as I pull on my coat.
I look around carefully to make sure I’m not leaving anything behind. Your wide
eyes track me and I cannot help but smile as you attenuate to my every move.
The weight within me lifts slightly as you follow every shift of
direction—every breath. You’re obsessed with me. Your world revolves around me.
You would be lost without me.
I head towards the door, but then pause, the feel of your eyes on my back like
a living thing, clinging to me. I turn, one hand on the knob, and smile at the
exposed and wounded thing that you are.
Poor little doll.
“I’ll bring you cherry blossoms,” I promise. My eyes take in the small room and
I sneer slightly. “This place smells of death.”
As I leave, I know that you will still be staring after me long after the door
has closed.


               o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

On that last night, when the call button was screaming like a living thing and
the doctor’s scrub-bound feet squeaked too loudly on the brightly polished
floors, you were in agony. It was evening. I was just starting and the day
shift was just rotating out. I found myself running to your room before I was
aware of it. I don’t know why I even came.
The doctor—your Shudou-sensei?—is holding your wrists and as a nurse flutters
anxiously about with a cold compress, unable to approach you as you thrash and
howl on the bed, mad with pain. I come into the room—an afterthought in the
panic—and something inside me twists and clenches to see them touching you . .
. holding you.
How dare they touch my things.
How dare they think to fix what I had so carefully broken.
You are my doll, and I was not done playing.
A nurse I can’t place jumps back as you flail, hitting your nightstand hard.
The motion knocks a vase of adonis and asclepia flowers to the ground. The
crash is barely audible over your cries.
I watched as they restrain you. Five-point ties going around your small wrists
and ankles, and your narrow waist. They stretch and pull at your pale flesh,
coming oh-so-close to breaking the skin but never quite making it. The nurse,
unable to bear your shrieks any longer, flees past me out the door, her hand
over her mouth. When I turn back to you, I see why: your markings . . . They
seem to be burning.
“Oh, God!” Shudou-sensei pulls back away from your bed. “What the hell is
that?”
You toss your head wildly to the side, delicate neck muscles bulging and
straining as though you could end the pain by denying it. Your skin is ashen
and covered in a layer of sweat. I want to restrain the curse, but it is
fascinating to see. I’ve never watched one of your fits before. It’s amazing.
Your entire body jerks and writhes, an enthralling symphony of movement
accompanied by an array of moans, groans, and shrieks I had never dreamed you
capable of producing. I thought that I had coaxed every possible sound of pain
from your lips, but these . . . these gasps, these whimpers, these screams . .
. the intonation was new. These are not the cries of our games or the wails of
our night beneath the cherry trees. These are blood drenched screams. Loud,
unstoppable protest against a pain that will not relent, will not cease, and
will never set you free.
Your heartbeat is in my ears, a Taiko drum, and I suddenly understand: this is
how you spend your days. When night comes, you have no voice left. When night
comes, I am your only respite.
Your lips are red and stretched wide, displaying your small, perfect teeth and
your entire body arches up in a bow. The marks burn on your body, moving
everywhere, shifting like living things.
Shudou grabs the last remaining nurse and propels her towards the door. “Call
the director! Now! Tell him that Kurosaki is having one of his fits—the worst
yet!”
The woman dashes out without a backwards glance, and Shudou hurriedly gestured
for me to come over. “Hold him down, Muraki-kun.” He turns away from the
thrashing boy to a tray that someone had brought in when I wasn’t paying
attention.
The entire bed jerks with the strain of your exertions. I cautiously approach
you as he fills a needle.
Morphine.
The man whirls, dark eyes flashing when he sees that I have not yet touched
you. “Damnit, I said hold him down!”
But I cannot. I can’t touch you. I don’t want to. Touching you now . . . it
would ruin this. This is the final act of our play, and it is time for the
puppeteer to stand aside and see if the doll can manage on its own.
If I open the cage, will the bird fly free? Or is it too broken?
“Muraki!”
Can you still fly, poppet?
And then you suddenly still. Your chest moves up and down like a bellows and
the painful sound of your breathing somehow sounds even louder in contrast to
your previous screams. Shudou stands frozen, breathing unnecessarily hard, eyes
locked on you. Your heart sounds slow and uncharacteristically steady in my
ears. Even the energy flow between us—one so commonplace that I don’t even
notice it anymore—even that seems stronger right now. Your curse marks have
vanished, we can both still feel them. It is a brief respite and you know it as
well as I do. This is the end. Three years, and now it pushes you to
completion.
I have only been here for three months, but I do not think I am ready to give
up my game.
. . . And yet it seems I have taken away my own options. How short-sighted of
me. I will have to do better next time.
Shudou looks to me, as though expecting some sort of explanation, but before he
can ask the question he so obviously has on the tip of his tongue, the nurse
comes back in. We both turn. Out of the corner of my eye, I see you watching
me. The nurse’s face is both pale and flushed and she avoids looking at your
bed.
“The director—” her tongue trips over the words. “The family has ordered that
all care be stopped at once.”
Shudou squeezes the needle in his hand so tightly I’m amazed the plastic
doesn’t rupture. “What?!”
The nurse staggers back and her eyes dart to me for help. I remain silent. I
want them to leave. I want to fuck you.
“The family . . .” Her voice is a whisper. “The family says that they want to
terminate all care. The director agreed. We’re to stop—”
“He’ll die!” And Shudou looks momentarily dramatic and righteous, as though he
had some sway over your life and death. As though he had some right to meddle.
At my side, my hands clench into fists.
Can’t they see that you’re awake?
“He doesn’t sleep, you know.”
The nurse slowly tries to creep closer to me and I take a step away. Towards
you. I don’t want her to touch me. She’s filthy and stupid. She wouldn’t put up
a fight . . . Not like you did. Not for three years. My desertion only flusters
her further. “The director—”
“I will not just stand by and let a child die!” Shudou hisses.
The nurse opens her mouth, but I intercede, weary of this backwoods medicine
man’s grandstanding. I turn to him carefully and force my voice to remain
neutral. “Perhaps it is for the best.”
Shudou flushes heavily, making the man look like an overfed bloodworm. He uses
a low, patient tone reserved for small children and it is only the looming
thought of the end of my residency that stops me from tearing out his spine
through his chest. No more incidences. I cannot afford any more attention.
“Muraki-kun, you may not be aware of this because Kurosaki has never before had
a fit while you have been on shift, but the severity of his attacks will only
escalate as the night wears on. The painkillers and muscle relaxants calm him
considerably. Kurosaki needs—”
The nurse saves his life before he can continue. “Muraki-san has been with
Kurosaki almost every night he works! He is well familiar with the child’s
condition.”
I know what you need. He doesn’t. That he would have the audacity—
Shudou turns his ineffective glare to her and she steps back. “Then he should
be standing with me instead of arguing.” The man turns, needle poised. The
world seems to slow.
Don’t you touch it.
I can hear your heartbeat in my ears.
Don’t you touch it.
I can hear you breathing. Shudou raises the needle.
Don’t you touch it.
I can feel you through the curse, feel your fear. Your terror. I can feel your
life force, cringing in some distant corner of your psyche.
Don’t you touch it.
I grab hold of it—bend my powers towards it.
It’s mine.
He touches you.
And I crush you.
Just as he grips your bound wrist, your head snaps violently back and your
spine arches high off the bed, breaking the restraint. The moment freezes and I
see you in perfect Warhollian relief. The too-bright light highlights your skin
the moment the marks flare and I heard a dull ‘pop’ in my ears just before a
candy-red splatter of hyper oxygenated blood bursts from your mouth and nose
and hangs breathlessly in the air. Your wide green eyes stare straight forward,
horrified knowledge in them as they see the small crimson spray.
And then the moment ends. The nurse screams. You collapse back on the bed as
the blood falls onto your chest and face, offering vivid contrast to your skin.
A swell of power comes surging through the bond between us, but I grab hold of
it and force it back, ramming it back into your body before your soul can
escape and temporarily reanimate your corpse.
Your mouth remains open and a strangled, choking noise emerges, as though
you’re trying to speak through some thick obstruction. In my mind, your
momentarily still heartbeat resumes, but it is a strange ragged noise:
unnatural and maintained only by the magic I’m using to pump some of your life
force back to you.
Belatedly, Shudou jerks his hand back as though death were contagious. I drag
my eyes away from you obvious agony as my magic draws out the pain of your
death and I stare at him. This is his fault. He shouldn’t have touched you.
Only I decide when this game ends.
He stares back at me; a plain, powerless man, utterly forgettable and
unimportant.
His mouth moves, but I beat him to the punch. “What have you done to him?”
The doctor’s eyes widen. “I didn’t—”
I look away from him to the nurse. It’s impossibly easier to sway the weak-
minded chit. I stare at her long and hard, forcing the thoughts into her,
twisting the scene and reconnecting the dots for her in the span of a second.
The needle. He injected him. The argument. He’s been hurting the boy. Do an
autopsy. He’s been raping him for months. He killed him. A hint of a suggestion
and her eyes go even wider and she stares at her superior in terrified
accusation. “Shudou-sensei, what have you done?!”
The needle falls from the doctor’s hand and he looks wildly between us while
you lay twitching and attempting to scream through blood-filled lungs.
“I only touched him!!”
The confirmation is all the nurse needs and she scurries out the door, crying
for someone to phone the director.
Shudou stares at me in confusion for an instant before turning helplessly back
to you, but I stop him with a word, stepping closer to your bedside to drive
him back. “Don’t touch him, sensei. I imagine the director will want to see you
regarding your conduct over the last few months.”
Those plain, boringly oriental eyes widen and he look like a man who suddenly
awoken in a strange country and does not know how he got there. I can’t help
but smile. Shouldn’t have touched it.
“What are you talking about, Muraki-kun?! This boy needs medical attention—”
The words dry up in his mouth when I lean over the bed towards the bewildered
man while sliding a hand into your too-loose pant and touching you. Weak as you
are, you jerk at the familiar feel of my fingers wrapping around your shame.
Mine.
Shudou staggers away until he runs into the metal tray set up behind him. He
looks pale. But you’re so much paler. I want to look at you, but his shock is
too amusing.
“Muraki . . .”
I smile pleasantly. “I know what kind of attention the boy needs.”
I’ve always known.
I want to see you burn with shame, but you’re so very close to the line now . .
. so close. I can feel the looming darkness through you and it wants you. But
you’re mine, even in death. I can’t stop smiling.
Shudou takes one look and flees after the nurse. No one will believe him. The
nurse will see to that, and I will see to the rest. The stupid man shouldn’t
have dropped the needle. It will be a small matter to replace it with an empty
one with traces of something else inside. The police love nothing more than a
nice, easily solved case. I wonder how the hospital will recover from the loss.
Perhaps when my residency is complete, they will be in the market for a new
full time doctor.
You’re hot in my hand and I smile down at you. Your face is flushed, tear-
streaked, blood spattered and the hatred that glows in your eyes is
breathtaking.
I laugh in your face while your heartbeat staggers in my ears. “You know, bouya
. . . He shouldn’t have touched you. You’re mine.”
And then your lips move, but they are not trying to scream like I originally
thought; instead you’re trying to speak to me for the first time since this
little game has begun. Somehow the idea intrigues me and I bend slightly just
in time to catch the faint gasp of your blood-soaked whisper: “. . . hate you .
. .”
Something inside me coils and clenches at the words and, for a fraction of an
instant, I’m tempted to reach out and crush that fragile throat and silence you
for good. But then the moment passes and I take my hand out of your pants to
grab your chin instead. “Hate me all you want, doll,” I whisper against your
lips, “but you are still mine.” Your eyes never waver as we gaze at one
another. I lick your upper lip lightly once, tasting the sticky, cooling blood
there. “You’ve got me inside you,” I whisper in your mouth. “You are me.” You
try to pull away. I won’t let you go, though. Not now. Not ever. “And so you
love me.”
I crush my mouth to yours, tasting you, loving you, as I plunder your mind. I
tear through you like a storm and excise every memory of me from you. I take
our night. I take our bed. I take our room. I take our time. I take it all
until there’s nothing left but the hatred. Until you’re drowning in it and your
dead body is trying to fight me, reject me. But you can’t.
We are the same now, you and I.
And then I take back my power and those last straining vestiges of your life
force. I look you in the eyes while we kiss. I want you to see. I want you to
remember me, even if you have no memory left to put it into context. Your eyes
are still open when you go still and the final swell of power comes back to me.
You breathe your last breath into my mouth and your hot skin becomes dull and
cold beneath my fingertips. I taste death inside you and think of your name by
way of recognition.
I can hear them now. People coming. Running. More action than this pathetic
excuse for a hospital has seen in years, I’ll wager. I shift, unwilling to
leave your mouth, feigning CPR. They’re coming. They’re almost here. I breath
into you and your chest is forced up like that of a practice dummy. Your blood
is on my cheek and in my mouth.
I pull away to push down on your chest and the room is suddenly filled with
people. You don’t breathe, of course—dolls don’t need CPR—but I go down again
for one more taste. Hold the nose. Tilt back the head. Adjust the spine. In
with the good air. Your corpse shares my breath one last time. I stand again.
Out with the bad.
The director pulls me away, drawing me out of the room with condolences and
congratulations and ‘did you know that Shudou was hurting the poor child?’ And
I shake my head as I feign shock in place of the curious numbness I feel right
now. I turn and the last thing I see as I am ushered away is your limp, twisted
body laying crumpled in the bed, arms and leg contorted against the restraints.
The door closes.
I can still hear them talking. “Poor Muraki-san.” “Trying to save that boy’s
life the whole time we were out there.” “He was probably too worried to push
the call button.” “He really was terribly fond of the boy.”
I’m taken to the deserted lounge where the director sits me in a chair before
going off to get me some coffee. I hate the stuff, but drink it anyway.
The older man sits down and looks at me sadly for a moment. “I told you not to
get too attached to the boy.” He shakes his head. “The security guards are
holding Shudou-sensei at the front desk until the police arrive. To think that
something like that could happen in place like this . . . I never would have
believed the man capable of such a thing . . . At least you and Takigawa-san
caught him. Such a pity that the boy had to suffer so much, though.” He drops
his head and shakes it sadly. “Such a pity.”
I look up from my coffee and stare at him coldly for a while. Finally I place
it on the table in front of us and stand. “I told you before, director. Death
is really only the beginning.”
The man looks at me, startled, but I don’t care. I have other things to attend
to . . . like making sure Shudou is handled properly. Your body will already be
gone by the time I return, but that is alright. It is only a shell. The real
you—what is left of you—is still somewhere close at hand, even if I can no
longer hear your heartbeat.
I do not think this is a loss . . . I never lose. Besides, I can still feel
you: your soul bound to mine for eternity. We will meet again in either this
life or the next. I can afford to let go—just for a little bit. After all . . .
you’re mine, poppet. My tin soldier, always ready for his orders. Ready to
march as I please. Ready to be Veronica or Oniisama or anyone else I want, as
long as I touch you the way you know you like it.
You are a trifle, but you’re mine and even if you hate me, you love me, so I
love you too. And—when you love something—it will always come back to you.


               o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

                   “I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
                 When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
                 When he beats his bars and he would be free;
                       It is not a carol of joy or glee,
            But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
                 But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
                       I know why the caged bird sings!”

               o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

                                     ~ Fin

               o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

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