Chapter Text
The quietude is pressing as you finish your telling: fractured moments that appeared so vivid in your imagination, that stayed with you into the waking hours: the garden, the pond, the swords, him. A child’s laughter. A separation, tear-stained clothes.
He listens with his head bowed, the posture stiff and straight of one attending a funeral.
“That’s all,” you murmur, a feeble attempt to obtain a reaction from that stony countenance. You rub the material of your ragged yukata between your fingers, recalling his own touch, gliding down your cheek earlier. The gesture had been so sudden, as unsettling as most of your contradictory emotions when it concerns him and… whatever this is.
“There was a samurai.”
You look up. His pose hasn't changed. You see nothing in his expression, not a muscle in his face to give its smooth features life.
He places his hands on his knees. “Long ago, lifetimes ago, when war tore through the country. The son of a great vassal to their region’s lord, well to do by all means. Both he and his brother. He, however, had training as befitted the heir of his house, and steadily grew into the role as custom demanded.”
Finally, he looks up, fixing you with his gaze. “He was blessed with a family. His childhood friend became his wife, and there were… joyous moments. He thought he loved them.”
“Thought…” you repeat, biting down on your lip.
“He often had to leave to fight, and they were separated many times despite their youthful union. But… he always returned. Somehow he did. For those years, you could say… he had all one could dream of.”
At this, he rises slowly to his feet, walking to the other end of the room and sliding back the shoji screen to let in the night breeze. “But it was not enough.”
His words begin to press down on your rib cage like a heavy stone. “Not enough, why?”
From where he stands with his back at you, he raises a hand, curling it as if to trap a faraway star, before it falls lifelessly back to his side. “He was proud, and burned with envy. He wanted a higher purpose and let that envy rule him, and made a choice. And thus, he left… abandoned his family to join a fight ongoing to this day. The path of the demon hunters.”
“Demon… hunters?” Now that you think of it, there usually is more than one unchallenged faction in all matters.
“They exist, for nearly as long as altered beings you call demons have walked this earth. There must always be balance, remember?”
You do. You think about a night not long ago, standing together before your house; his words about the unseen gods and their great errors.
“Hm. But you see… life has ways to grant the wishes you burn to fulfill… in the strangest of turns. Soon, the samurai was dying.”
Your breaths are shallow. One word and the lips uttering that word are a constant resurgence in your thought, nearly drowning out his voice. But you want to hear, you want to know. “And then?”
“He betrayed them all. Chose a new master. Cheated death.”
You take a breath, then another.
“He gained more time than he could ever dream of, yet still never reached his goal. When he realized what was important, it was too late: the war tore apart his household… scattered his family.”
You don't want to ask. “What happened to them?...”
“Believing him dead, his wife was forced to marry another. He never saw her again and… that was for the best, in the end.”
He pauses his story, half turning towards you. Your gaze is drawn magnetically to his, your lips parting to ask the question forming itself in all its jarring, frightening clarity. “... what was her name?”
The demon tilts his chin down, and for the first time since your encounters began, there is a different light in those eerie, crimson-gold eyes. “Does it matter now? It shouldn't.”
“Her name…” you try repeating, but your tongue stumbles over the sounds. Your muscles are shaking, and that bitterness from your dreams, that ache, burgeons into the realm of your reality, sprawling with thorns of regret and weakness and yearning through your blood.
He sighs, long and tired. “Why don't you tell me?”
You shake your head, “How am I t-to know?! …I…” you’re standing, nearly falling over the low table in your attempt to right your posture, forgetting about your walking predicament as pain surges up your leg.
You never fall. Faster than you can blink, you're being supported by his arm, wrapped around your waist. Your palms press against his chest, against the black kimono you gave him when he sought you that night, wounded and falling apart at the seams. “You said, no more questions.”
You want to crawl away from his touch, to scatter into dirt and be thrown wayward by uncaring winds. You want to stay trapped here until you rot.
How is freedom an illusion?
How is his hold like an imprint, both deepening and assuaging a grudge centuries old?
A cold hand cups the nape of your neck. “Say her name. You already know his.”
Fresh tears sting your sight. “It’s… it’s not fair…” you stare at the inhuman light of his vicious gaze, feel the rise and fall of his chest beneath your hands. Despite it all, he still breathes. Your own eyes close, mouth uttering the word sewn into the fabric of your waking life. “Hisami…”
“Hisami,” he repeats, eyelids lowering in a daze.
Hearing it spoken in his voice breaks a barrier holding back a tidal wave. “You… you knew… you kept me for a fool and all this time, you knew! You enjoy watching your pawns squirm and beg, then?” You push against him while craving the closeness to desperation.
“No. Not at first. How could I?...”
“As if I’ll believe anything you’d say about it—”
His hold tightens but there's no warmth in it, the force pressing into your lungs. “Did it ever seem like I intended to linger, human? What would I have to gain? When I did know, I wanted to kill you and be done.”
Your eyes widen. But this is him, not some idealized image of honor your fancy always pushed forward despite all proof. “Stop it, stop it, please, don't say any more…”
“I tried walking away, but you called me back, didn't you?” Michikatsu says, the words calm yet curt. His gaze deepens on you, drifting down your face, your lips, to the mark adorning your neck.
The near crushing grip slackens. Fool that you are, you remain still, forehead falling against his shoulder.
His voice vibrates through you as he speaks. “You thought I was haunting you… yet you haunt me just the same.”
So many things, too many, all details, return and mill about like night moths beating wings of chaos through your head. Before you know it, you push against him with gathered strength—he does nothing to stop you, arms slackening from around your body.
In silence you turn away and reach for the cane, then amble towards the entrance.
“She would never have forgiven me,” he says. Toneless. Dispassionate. Frigid.
You do your utmost to take another step forward, refraining to turn back around. Not now. Not even... It's a fight against yourself to take distance, to gain space, to think.
“No, I don't believe she would,” the words leave as you do.