Chapter Text
For even if she flees, soon she shall pursue.
And if she refuses gifts, soon she shall give them.
If she doesn’t love you, soon she shall love
even if she’s unwilling.”
-Sappho, Hymn to Aphrodite
Mai strides up to the door, each footstep heavier than the last, unsure of herself even when her phone informs her that she's arrived at her destination. She's never been here before, but she supposes that this suits him: the isolation of it, a tired old thing in the middle of a sleepy village. It stands tall, a cozy home made of red-brick and dark-shingles at the roof. There's an apple tree with a tire swing standing high in the front lawn. Wildflowers growing in the lawn and a wide expanse of garden that would seem garish to some but just right for Megumi, herbs, vegetables, and fruits alike sprawling beyond any conceivable order such that she believes there was never a plan to begin with.
The plants are beautiful, but untamed. A dog without its owner to bring it to heel.
She ducks her head, chest oddly tight all of a sudden, looks away from the blindingly wondrous things to stare down at her boots as she finishes her march to the front door. The key is in her hand.
It takes her shaking fingers two tries to get it in right. She hears the barking of the dogs, how their claws scrabble against the wood, and there's a smile stretching her lips as she slowly eases the thing open. It's a rickety old thing, squeaking loudly and hinges loose.
"Who the fuck are you?"
There is a stranger in this house. There is a woman with a baseball bat in her hands hoisted high, ready to strike at a moment's notice. She's got her hair tied up high in a messy bun so that Mai can see where the burnt mahogany of the dye ends and the dark black of her roots begin. She's got lambent eyes, narrowed into slits as she leers down at her as if she's the one trespassing.
She's got terrible form.
One swipe at her knees and she's down. A yelp leaves her throat as she goes crashing to the floor. The bat slips out of her hands. Mai is quick to pick it up and press her advantage, standing over the stranger with the tip pointed at her throat.
(There are initials on the handle. T.Z. This is Uncle Toji's bat. Something within her swells at the thought, a lump in her throat that she has to swallow as he grip tightens.)
"I don't appreciate finding squatters fucking around here. You've had your fun. Get out."
"I-I'm-!" She splutters, cheeks turning a bright rouge. "Sukuna asked me to come here. Who are you?"
"Sukuna. The partner."
"The husband," she corrects sharply. Mai lets the heat of her glare wash over her. She's a fierce little thing, all energy without finesse. A normal girl.
(She wonders if, in another life, she'd be just as helpless as this one beneath her now.)
Mai relents. She steps back, heels clicking against the hardwood of the floors soon accompanied by the clatter of Uncle Toji's bat. She goes back to retrieve her suitcase from the front door. The dogs follow her, sniffing her legs and whining, tails wagging all the while. Shiro takes a head pat by force, nudging his white furred ears into her empty hand. Kuro soon demands one of his own. She sits on the ground, lets them crawl over her, lick her face and all to give their greetings. It's been a while since she's seen them after all. The funeral seems so long ago-.
"Who are you?" Stranger repeats.
"Mai Zenin."
Stranger stops short at the name. Good. She knows who holds the power here. Mai reaches into her coat pocket, feels the familiar cool steel, and pulls out her gun.
"Who are you?" She parrots, mocking. "And why are you living in my dead cousin's house?"
Stranger is Nobara Kugisaki.
Nobara Kugisaki is a friend of Megumi's....or is it was? Mai doesn't want to think about the technicalities so she doesn't. The facts of the situation remain:
1) Sukuna contacted both Nobara and Mai for help with the dogs. Nobara, because she is a friend of Megumi's. Mai, because she is the one that gave Megumi the dogs in the first place.
2) Nobara Kugisaki is a squatter. Sukuna invited her, yes, but she also has nowhere else to go, as her rent contract for her old apartment has already expired and she's been too busy with her thesis to look for a new place.
3) Sukuna invited Nobara to ‘dog-sit’ as a kindness. From the way she says it, this is behavior that shouldn't be expected out of him. Ryoumen Sukuna is not a kind man.
4) Sukuna is missing, which cancels out the uncharacteristic kindness. ("Gone? Gone where?" Nobara shrugs at the question, a strange look in her eye. "Just... gone ," she says, words heavy with implication.)
5) Mai cannot go back home. She was informed that her services would be needed for a month. Her return ticket to Japan isn't until that month is up. They will have to be roomates.
"No offense, but I don't know you. Megumi never talked about his family," Nobara sets the tea set down. Mai watches her pour the water for matcha, the subtle strength in her creamy wrists as she whisks the powder into a froth. "And when he did it wasn't with any kind of affection."
"We Zenins aren't an affectionate bunch."
Dark lashes cast as shadow over cider eyes as they flicker to the pistol on the table. "Yes. I can tell."
There's a heavy silence punctured only by the wheedling of the dogs. They're acting strange. Too hyper, leaping all over the place as if the thought of stillness scares them.
(do they know their master has gone on without them? do they know that they've been left behind?)
"We'll be roommates then. Until Sukuna gets back. It'll be good to have company."
She hums. "Yes, it's for the best. You clearly don't know what you're doing so you're lucky I'm here to monitor you."
The clatter of the whisk being set down too harshly.
"I was doing perfectly fine before you showed up-!"
Shiro chooses that moment to vomit on the floor, almost violent with the force of it. Mai doesn't do so much as twitch to help when Nobara gives a shriek, shouting about towels and bleach as she scrabbles to clean up the mess, bare feet slapping against the floor.
Mai watches.
She looks over this strange woman with her loose, ripped up blue jeans and crop top advertising some energy drink or another. She takes in the curves of her, the slope of her neck, how she carries herself-confident but still desperate to prove herself.
(to what? to who? certainly not to Mai?)
Nobara Kugisaki is a sight to see. One for amusement, Mai decides, rather than admiration. If anything, she won't be bored.
She lowers her gaze to her milky green tea, considers the dainty hands that made it, then lifts it up to her lips to drink.
It's too sweet.
Megumi's house is odd. She should've expected as much, as her cousin had always been quite peculiar. Too quiet and sullen in a family that fought each other to make sure their voices were heard. Introspective, dangerously so. Easily the best marksman out of all them, but without the heart to kill. Talent with no grit.
A wolf with a sheep's heart.
She didn't resent him as the elders did. She just...thought he was strange.
And this house, with it's odd art hung on the walls and it's loud minimalist design; it's a contradiction. He moved to a village on the outskirts of Nice of all places, rejected the Zenins so forcibly that he left Japan alltogether, and even the small village wasn't good enough. No, this house sits on the outskirts of the outskirts, positioned strangely between the hills, the ocean and city itself. All alone, but not without its visitors.
"Ah! I made that one!" Nobara pipes up. Mai arches a brow at the 'artwork', a mess of watercolors and pencil strokes. She thinks it's supposed to be a fish but the woman clarifies. "It's Aphrodite. The Goddess of Beauty."
Mai could choose to be polite. She does not. She scrunches her nose, hones the tip of her tongue till its sharp.
"It looks like a trout."
"I'd like to see you do better." In a surprisingly short amount of time, Nobara's gotten used to her causticness. She doesn't even turn away from the stove in the kitchen, swaying her hips to some song on the radio as she throws herbs into her pot. "We all used to come over here on Sundays. Force Megumi and Sukuna to hang out with us. Those two used to act like they were 80 instead of 30. Such homebodies-,"
She scoffs. It sounds more like a choked sob. Mai chooses to ignore it. Whatever is in that pot smells delicious. Her stomach doesn't rumble because she doesn't allow it but she does leave the hallway and it's hideous artwork. With a predator's silent feet, she creeps up to the kitchen, around the island table to loom over her shoulder.
"We...We used to paint." Nobara's saying. Her hair's messy. There's a wisp loose. It's not naturally that straight. The steam's made it wavy, odd and alone compared to the other bone-straight strands tucked up into a bun. "It seems like a dumb way to pass the time but it was fine. Drinking and painting and...just talking about life. It was good to be together. The highlight of my week, usually."
It's pasta. Shrimp linguini with a bright, scarlet vodka sauce. The scent of it is easy, almost comforting, but there's something faint and floral at its heels.
Perfume perhaps.
Mai leans in, stopping just before their bodies touch. The scent gets sharper.
"I hope there's pepper. I like mine spicy."
Nobara yelps in surprise. She twists around but by the time she fully spins on her heel, Mai's already sitting at the table, sliding a copy of Vogue under her so she could read all about what the girls in Paris are wearing. They continue to exist in silence, but she can feel the other woman seething by the stove.
She gets a plate 10 minutes later. It's set down so roughly the sauce splatters onto the page she was reading. She acts like she doesn't mind.
She leaves Nobara with the dishes as payback.
There is a room upstairs that Mai doesn't have the guts to enter.
The others are all neat. Lavish, even. The bathroom is decked out, all off-white marble with a darling, golden-clawed bathtub at the center of it. There are glass doors that lead out to the balcony, a clear view of the flickering sea on the horizon. She can't picture her cousin wanting something so extravagant. Then she realizes that she never really knew her cousin so she should be the last one to judge.
The room Nobara stays in must be a guest room. It's a bit more bare. Only her things cause any fuss. Mai doesn't go in, but Nobara leaves the door ajar more often than not. She can see the mess of skirts and dresses, the countless books and notepads and graphs filled with all sorts of numbers. She does... something ...with interior design (or is it construction?) Mai doesn't know. She doesn't pay attention to her loud, Zoom meetings. She doesn't listen to the way she takes the reins with harsh tone and harsher words, constantly elevating established ideas and pushing their boundaries. Unafraid of the men, and steadfastly devoted to promoting the work of the two other women in a team of fifteen.
Mai doesn't pay attention to her at all. Not to the way she ties back her hair when she's getting ready to argue. How she recites her calculations to herself as she bends over, curled like Le Penseur over figures upon figures, eyes alight with discovery when she makes a breakthrough. She pays her no mind. She doesn't watch how her fingers, tiny but calloused,
She...
...
....
There is a room upstairs that Mai doesn't have the guts to enter.
She knows it’s the master bedroom. It's all the way at the end of the hall, doorknobs dull with use unlike the others. She catches a glimpse of the inside once. There's a window open and the wind is particularly strong, blowing the door open just enough for a sliver of light to peek through the room.
A glimpse is all she gets. A sniff of sandalwood and bergamot. Unmade red bed sheets against white pillows. A bed-side table with a thick tome and a pair of glasses sitting atop it, untouched, as if waiting for its owner to return.
(there are a lot of things waiting in this house, waiting for someone that will never come, for a change, stuck in the perfection of their permanence, still in a moment long passed)
Photos upon photos stick to the walls. She leans in further, trying to get a good look, but it quickly becomes clear who the recurring characters are. Dusty rose hair and eyes such a strange hazel they appear crimson. Hair black as night and eyes of the wolf.
...No.
Wait.
Megumi's eyes are different from hers. From the rest of the family's. There's a levity in his bright jade gaze that the rest of them lack. These are not the eyes of a killer.
....A lover then? It seems to fit. The thing- a love all-permeating and enough to bring a tightness to your chest-seeps into every corner of the room. She can almost taste the sweetness of it in the air. So strong, and still not enough to completely cover the underlying rot of grief. The wind blows. The door creaks, as if to beckon her in, to untuck the secrets from the shadows of this room and find where love made its bed. How her moody cousin became the man staring at her from the photo, a wry smirk on his face, arm wrapped around his husband and cheeks flushed a pleased little red.
Mai is human and so she is curious.
Mai is a Zenin and so she knows how to repress.
She closes the door. Makes sure it clicks shut.
There is a spare room. It's bare compared to the others. Not as lively with its pure white walls, empty bookshelf and bare desk. A guest room for sure, unloved and forgotten in its own corner. There's a window facing the hills. A bed with a single pillow, completely bare.
This is where Mai will stay.
Nobara Kugisaki and Megumi were (are?) friends because Nobara is also strange. Sure, there's some aspect of meeting other Japanese people in a foreign country and craving that connection to home, but Mai is confident that those types of dalliances die out quickly. This one did not. This one was allowed to bloom and grow and become what it is (was?) because Nobara matched Megumi's oddness.
Mai comes downstairs the next morning to find her exercising with w ine bottles. There's a woman on the television using proper dumbells and Nobara mimics her actions with two bottles of Bordeaux, face scrunched in determination as she does bicep curls. There's something mean to be said, but it's so early in the morning that Mai's wires are crossed. She can't link her tongue to her brain, let alone tap into the circuit of dry sarcasm that lends to her typical bitchiness.
She laughs despite herself, immediately slaps a hand to her lips to hide it, then creeps back up the steps to get ready for the day before she's spotted.
.
.
.
Nobara Kugisaki is strange, but she is outgoing. She has a great many friends, if the amount of time she spends on the phone is any indication. She also calls people, lending to Mai's firm conviction that this chick's a total freak. Who calls people when they can text? How old-fashioned.
She has personality. She's attractive. She's single.
(...Unless she sticks to texting her lover and calls everyone else. Mai doesn't know. Doesn't care really. It's none of her business what Nobara Kugisaki does. Her only concern is the dogs.)
On the second day she takes note of how chaotic they are once more. On the third day, she figures out why. Nobara leaves at noon to walk them. Mai knows this, because the house goes quiet. The windows open so she can hear the distant crash of the waves against the shore but other than that there is only blissful silence. She reads her book-relishing the feeling of actual worn pages beneath her fingers, the old scent of it, how dust falls from it if she jostles it-and sips her tea. Peace reigns.
At 12:30, chaos comes through again. Nobara's laughing (she laughs like she exists-loud and unapologetic, booming like church bells after a wedding, ushering in a new era of life) and the dogs rush in, nails skittering against the floor.
Mai has a moment of spiked aggravation before she notices the time.
"A walk doesn't last half-an-hour." She says, when she finds Nobara in the living room. The woman sets her phone aside with a brief, "Hold on Yuuji", before fixing her eyes on Mai with a scowl.
"Reddit says 30 minutes."
"Reddit doesn't know how to take care of these two."
"A dog's a dog."
"These guys aren't dogs."
She moves, skirt swishing around her legs. The two little demons flock to her immediately. Plucking the leashes off the table, she hooks them up again, already mentally running through a possible route. Slipping her sunglasses on, she tucks her cigarette box into her little purse and makes for the door.
"Then what are they?"
Mai turns. Shoots that smirk that she knows makes her teeth gleam like dagger tips.
"Wolves."
The weather is nice. The dogs are glad to be out again, greedily soaking up the sunrays, tongue lolling as a cool gentle wind passes by. Mai can't see herself living in a place like this. Perhaps in Nice itself, with more hustle and bustle, rather than this strange place where people politely nod to her in greeting with the expectation that she'll acknowledge them in return. She's always been a city girl, just as Megumi is (was?) a city boy.
So this place, in all it's gentle quiet and ease of mind, isn't what she imagined for him. Maybe this decision was the husband's fault. The strange Sukuna who she met exactly once and exchanged numbers with, never expecting to see him again.
….What a pain in the ass.
She waits until they've made all the way to the beach to let the two off their leash. They run, yipping at the waves, dipping their maws in the cool water before darting out again, chasing each other up and down the coast. Mai gathers her skirt and sits on the galets, struggling to get comfortable against the hard, smooth stones.
She has a smoke. Enjoys the sun. Listens to how the waves come rushing in all the while keeping an eye on the dogs. The bitter scent of nicotine mixes with the salt on the air. She relishes it, how the warmth of the rays seeps into her skin. Craves a glass of wine.
Thinks of Nobara Kugisaki and all her oddness. How she lifted wine bottles overhead , exhaling as if it were difficult. She thinks of her short, toned legs. The slightly pudgy stomach that peeked out from under her crop top. How a faint flush simmered beneath her skin from exertion.
...It's too hot. Mai stands, slips out of her sandals and pads barefoot to the shore. The water is lukewarm, a lovely shade of green between her toes.
.
.
.
There is a woman who owns a gelato shop on the beach. Mai nods to her in greeting when she enters the little shack, tugging the dogs along behind her.
"You can have any flavor you want." The woman says. She's got long, jet black braids adorned with little gold cuffs. Her eyes are kind when she looks at her, dark but warm, shimmering with something Mai can't find the words to describe. "Have one. Have them all. Mix and match 'em. Life's too short to hold yourself back."
She knows this. She's seen the light fade out of the eyes of people younger than her, threats in her line of business and children outside of it. She knows that life is an ephemeral thing, ever evolving; people are constantly subject to change and so if you want something you must grab it while you can.
And yet...
"Arancia, " she decides, tone silky. " And Cannella. In two seperate bowls."
The woman looks up, scooper in her wrinkled, ochre hand. "Not together?"
Shiro nuzzles her hand. Mai scratches behind the dog's ears, letting the sweet boy lick at her palm. Her tone doesn't change, ever light.
"It's for the best that they don't touch."
("Wolfdogs," Nobara will say upon her return. She will look up at Mai with her frazzled hair and wide eyes, laptop open before her and notebooks scattered around her. "They're not real wolves only half. You totally tried to trick me!"
"When they bite you, the last thing you'll be worrying about it bloodlines." She throws her keys in the wooden bowl on the island table. She can feel the other woman's gaze on her as she approaches. Wordlessly, she places the paper bag of gelato on the coffee table. All of Nobara's confused spluttering goes ignored as she turns on her heel, padding up the steps to all the dust and curtains and shadowed secrets.)
Nobara Kugisaki is handy. She fixes the squeaky door and it's loose hinges. She fixes the plumbing when the water pressure in the shower is low. Mai breaks a cabinet when she uses too much force and Nobara is on it at once, nails between her white teeth and a hammer in her hands. Mai watches her from the couch, the cool rim of a glass of bitter cognac at her lips. She's got a good eye for this type of thing; they narrow in laser-sharp focus upon her task, hands dainty but strong, ever steady as the steady thumpthumpthump of the hammer rings out through the house.
"I'm a carpenter on the side," Nobara will say when Mai asks her about it. She'll slip a forkful of shrimp and lettuce past her lips, chewing greedily before continuing. "Whatever bills Marketing can't pay, then this gig will."
"Sounds interesting," Mai will drawl. Nobara will give her a flat look.
"Sorry we all can't follow the family business and be international hitmen."
Mai will shrug. She will say that the money is good. Nobara will ask her if the money is really worth someone's life. Mai won't answer because it's not her job to philosophize and question the meaning of existence. It is her job to take down her targets, get her money, go shopping and go home. She is a Zenin. Zenins kill things.
But Nobara Kugisaki makes her question.
She will watch her through the kithcen windowsill, trying to take care of Megumi's plants as the sun beams down at her. She will watch those same strong dainty hands cradle the petals of a rose, coaxing life from the dew. She will accept the flowers from her one Sunday afternoon ("For your room," Nobara will say. "I've seen it. The whole thing is so dull.") She will put the flowers in an empty bottle of wine and place it by that window, right in the center of the little ledge, right where the sun rises above the hills and wishes the world good morning.
She will question.