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Kokushibou barely has time to react.
One moment, he can’t see anything, and all he knows is that other demons are falling around him in sprays of hot, salty blood, dead before they can grunt in pain. The next, there’s a splash of dark red off to his left as the attacker briefly slows down, too fast even then for him to make out.
And then, he doesn’t remember anything.
When Kokushibou wakes up, it’s only natural that the first thing he is aware of is that oppressive presence in the room with him. There are fingers in his hair, stroking and combing through the dark strands with practiced, gentle motions. For a split second, he almost goes back to sleep. He’s woken up like this countless times before, to Yoriichi’s warmth and the sensation of slender hands touching him.
He remembers, of course. That he’s a demon – the kind of beast that his brother has dedicated himself to wiping out. Yet that knowledge isn’t enough to fully rouse him from the haze of normalcy that envelops them, the mundanity of starting his day with reminders of his twin. Even the putrid, bitter rot that wriggles and spits inside him whenever it crosses his mind that Yoriichi exists is as familiar and unremarkable as breathing.
Kokushibou will never admit it, but these months that they’ve been apart, it’s felt so strange to live in any other way. He should be more than used to it by now, yet he keeps starting at the fact that his twin isn’t there when he absentmindedly calls for him, that there’s no solid body to brush his fingers against when he thoughtlessly reaches for something when trapped in the limbo between consciousness and unconsciousness.
“Aniue.” Yoriichi’s voice is as calm as a placid lake, flowing over Kokushibou in smooth, cool streams. His impassive faces hovers a few hand-lengths above, and Kokushibou realizes that he’s been laid down, back flat against the ground, heavy chains looping around his arms and torso and a gag stuffed in his mouth. Yoriichi is seated by his head, feet tucked under his body respectfully.
His twin’s fingers leave his hair, and brush against his cheek. Yoriichi is not an expressive man, but Kokushibou has learned to read him. Right now, his little brother is thoughtful. Taking in his form, the six eyes and the dark red sclera and the sickly amber irises.
But Kokushibou takes in, too. Yoriichi has remained unchanged over the months, as if the last memory that he has of his little brother has been plucked straight from his head and made to materialize right here, in front of him. Large red eyes, angular and set in a pale slim face bearing a small nose and an impassive mouth. A slender jawline, straight defined eyebrows, and that red birthmark – a birthmark, how hilarious – curling down the left. His bangs are escaping the tie and falling around his face.
Just as always, his twin reminds Kokushibou of a fine blade wreathed over with a swath of sheer pale silk. He supposes it is beautiful, and it is, but the silk cannot disguise the glint of cold hard metal beneath it, arcing outward and ready to tear skin, draw blood. The only thing keeping it in place is the hand, the temperament that wields it, and Yoriichi’s temperament. Well. Serene as still water, tranquil to the point that not even the storms raging around can hope to draw a stir out of it.
And in turn, Kokushibou knows how he must appear. They are no longer alike – though in truth no one looks at him and his brother equally when they stand side-by-side – and he feels five parts thrilled, five parts sickened at the thought, at his own face reflected in Yoriichi’s eyes.
It’s hard to sort out the jumble in his chest, hard to work through the writhing, roiling mass enough so that he can draw in his next breath. Anticipation strangles him. There’s look at me. Look at me and we aren’t the same, we never were the same and I’m a demon now and you’re human still and you have to kill me and I’m nothing like you and how does it feel. There’s come on. Come on and try it and say it and look at me and tell me I’m ugly and stand up and turn around and walk away from me in disgust and how does it feel, how does it feel, Yoriichi? He imagines his brother’s features twisting in distaste, that small mouth warping and those deep red eyes narrowing and Yoriichi looking away and getting to his feet. Six eyes with characters etched into two of them where pupils should be, and surely his brother must have seen the four protruding fangs when he gagged him; those things are unsightly to the point that even Yoriichi must be unable to stand them. Even on Kokushibou – especially on Kokushibou.
He tries to imagine what his little brother will look like, face distorted in abhorrence. But every time he thinks he’s getting close to a mental picture – and it should be easy, it should be easy, he knows Yoriichi’s face every bit as much, and more, as he knows his own – his mind shies away.
Yet he wants to see. He wants to, for the electric satisfaction that he knows will flood his veins, for Yoriichi to feel even a quarter of the nausea that Kokushibou feels when he looks at him.
In the past, his twin has touched him, stroked him, petted his hair and caressed his cheeks and whispered praises into his ear. Nothing has ever made him harder or needier or as desperate, and nothing has ever made him burn with so much disgust. He wants to say it’s directed at his brother, and that’s what he tells himself, but it’s—
Yoriichi is, after all, nothing like him.
It makes Kokushibou sick, and he wants to make Yoriichi sick too. Sick enough to gasp in revulsion at the sight of him, sick enough to walk away and reject him when he has always said that how he feels will not change. His flawless, faultless little brother, reneging on his word, renouncing of his own free will, with the entirety of that pure, steadfast heart, what he has become…
Kokushibou finds his throat clenching at the thought.
Try it, he thinks, gazing up at Yoriichi, meeting his eyes. If not for the gag, he would say it out loud. Try it. He will not flinch, he won’t lose, not in this, not this. Do it. Say it. I’m ugly, hideous. I know you want to, come on, come on—
“Aniue,” Yoriichi breathes again. He drags Kokushibou forward, effortless like he weighs nothing, so his head is on his lap, and then he leans down, cradling his face in his hands. His fingers are warm, his grip fervent. He presses his lips to Kokushibou’s forehead, thumbs tracing patterns all over skin, and Kokushibou doesn’t know if he wants to gape, or laugh, or weep. He doesn’t know if his muscles are stiffening because he wants to flee or tensing because Yoriichi’s hands on him, Yoriichi’s mouth against his skin, Yoriichi’s presence here, Yoriichi, Yoriichi—
“I missed you,” his little brother whispers. Kokushibou squeezes his eyes shut, his fists clench and his teeth grind, because Yoriichi is still touching him, Yoriichi is still here, Yoriichi has not turned away in horror, Yoriichi is not disgusted, not appalled, Yoriichi is looking at him as if he’s not seeing the three pairs of eyes, the jagged gleaming fangs. No. Stop it. Stop.
Kokushibou feels like throwing up.
It shouldn’t have been like this, he thinks. This isn’t it, this is wrong. Yoriichi should not be saying I missed you, he should be retreating, giving up on him, and Kokushibou should not feel so soft and weak and relieved that he is not retreating, that he is not giving up on him.
He should not be trembling, when Yoriichi puts his forehead against his.
“It’s alright, Aniue,” his little brother murmurs, warm air fanning against Kokushibou’s skin with each breath. “I won’t let you get away from me again.”
He is kept in the room, chained and gagged and sprawled out on the floor. Kokushibou could easily break through the bonds and spit out what’s in his mouth, and he’s sure that Yoriichi knows it too, just as they’re both aware that Kokushibou won’t bother. The stench of the wisteria flowers planted all around the hut is cloying and makes him growl, but they’re far enough away that he remains relatively unaffected. Which, of course, would change if he tried to leave.
Yoriichi comes and goes. Each time he leaves, Kokushibou wonders, his heartbeat eagerly thundering in his ears, if he won’t be back. Each time he returns, Kokushibou thinks, his chest tightening with excitement, that he’ll turn away, failing to stomach the ghastly sight in front of him.
Yoriichi does neither of those things. Each time he leaves, he comes back, and each time he returns, he promptly goes to Kokushibou’s side. Sometimes he talks, though he is still a man of few words. Sometimes he combs Kokushibou’s hair with his fingers, working through the knots and tangles and brushing out bits of dirt. Sometimes he even lies down next to him, and Kokushibou wishes he could sneer at his little brother, for being so stuck in the past. He’s a demon now. He kills humans, and eats them. Yoriichi should have chopped off his head long ago if he puts any value at all into the path he has chosen for his life.
But when Yoriichi talks to him, Kokushibou always listens intently, even as he wants to tear the metal of his chains apart and slam his brother’s body against the wall to get him to shut up. When Yoriichi plays with his hair, Kokushibou melts into the sensation, even as his spine prickles and he longs to flee the scene. When Yoriichi lowers his body onto the cold wooden floor, shoulder pressed against his, Kokushibou can believe that nothing has changed and they still exist within each other, two who are always one, never apart.
He shouldn’t like the thought so much. It makes him want to scream, to be sure, but just as swiftly as pressure grows and grows and grows in his chest, a sense of rightness wraps and wraps and wraps around his entire body. The sense that they were born together – that they belong together.
Kokushibou remembers a time when he was still human, lying in Yoriichi’s arms, damp with sweat and his limbs still unsteady from their previous frenzy of teeth and tongue and skin. His twin was asleep, and Tsugikuni Michikatsu shifted to face him, staring at his relaxed features. Even though his eyes haven’t adjusted to the darkness, he doesn’t need to see Yoriichi to know exactly what he looks like, right now. A beautiful face, technically identical to his. The same fair complexion, the same defined eyebrows, the same trim jawline, the same black hair that fades to dark red near the tips.
He wonders, absentmindedly, what everyone else would say if they knew. You’re brothers, probably, in a horrified tone. You’re twins. As if Michikatsu doesn’t know that, better than anyone.
(Mirror images, people say, reflections of each other. Ill omen – fate. But it’s hilarious, really, how they’re so different, so, so different—)
Ayaka-san, his wife – he’s practically never thought about her since he left to follow Yoriichi, but for some reason he finds himself imagining what she would say right now. She’d be scandalized, no doubt disgusted, and she’d probably be right. But Michikatsu can’t make himself care.
He and Yoriichi have been together since before they were born. Since they were in their mother’s womb. And his twin’s presence might revolt him, his endless patience and his humble contentment and his gentle temper and everything, everything about him, might make Michikatsu’s skin crawl, but – he can’t stomach the thought of Yoriichi giving any part of himself to another person.
They’re not alike. They’re not even remotely similar, Yoriichi burns so bright, brighter than flame, brighter than the sun, so hot and brilliant that just being near him is enough to sear flesh off bones, but if nothing else – Michikatsu can have him, own him. In this way, when he’s moaning and keening and sobbing as Yoriichi takes him animalistically from behind, hands splayed all over his body, everywhere at once, stroking his thighs and his stomach and his chest and his throat, murmuring into his ear. There are other ways, too – when Yoriichi brushes his hair, when he drops his head against Michikatsu’s shoulder and closes his eyes, when he encircles him in his arms and drifts off to sleep, his breath stirring gently at Michikatsu’s hair.
And if Michikatsu had to bear the vague, creeping sense of desperation, the indistinct dread that softly permeated his world, of the whisper that one day he’ll stop being blind, one day he’ll look at you and see how different you are – then, for a long time, that was what he had told himself he would do.
But he’s a demon now. Things are different now, and he no longer needs to rely on some misplaced sense of possessing his twin. It’s pathetic, and he won’t be pathetic.
He will drive Yoriichi away, he tells himself. He will make Yoriichi feel the revulsion that he made him feel every day, every second, that they were together. He will have Yoriichi turn his back on him willingly, and sneer derisively as he does.
Maybe it’s working, he thinks. Yoriichi will stroke his face from time to time, put his lips against his forehead, his nose, his chin, lie down next to him, but he has not kissed him on the mouth even once. Before, his brother never hesitated when they made it to privacy. Slipping a hand around Michikatsu’s nape, drawing their lips together, playing with the tie of the cloth that secured his hakama pants, he was always enthusiastic and focused. That seems to have changed.
Maybe it’s working, Kokushibou thinks, again. Perhaps Yoriichi is trying to hide his disgust. Perhaps all his gestures, the contact that he initiates, are all efforts to delude himself. Perhaps, he is indeed sickened.
There is a pang, excited and cautiously triumphant, in Kokushibou’s stomach. His chest squeezes, his breath quickens. Yoriichi is disgusted with me. His head is pounding.
“Aniue.” Yoriichi’s voice does not cut through the haze of thoughts so much as it disperses it outright. His brother is splayed out next to him on the floor, turned over on his stomach and languidly alternating between bending his right knee and bending his left knee. In front of him is a book, which he’s been silently reading, turning the pages with one hand and toying with the tips of Kokushibou’s hair with his other. It’s almost cute, and conjures up an image – Yoriichi, much younger, reading in the same position on the floor of his three-tatami room.
But then Yoriichi closes the book and sits up. Kokushibou follows him with his eyes. Six eyes, he remembers. If his brother is disgusted – and he is, he must be – then he’s doing a good job of hiding it.
Yoriichi reaches for him. Kokushibou is expecting another one of his caresses, unceasing and stubbornly constant as ever, but instead, the gag is removed from between his lips. It’s coated with saliva, yet Yoriichi handles it like a finely embroidered handkerchief.
There is no longer anything obstructing his mouth, yet Kokushibou cannot find words. He stares in silence, which Yoriichi seems to accept in stride as he does everything.
“This is presumptuous of me to ask,” his little brother says, drawing himself into that usual respectful pose, feet tucked away underneath him, hands folded on his lap. Even like this, about to ask something that is apparently presumptuous, he is the embodiment of calm and collected. Kokushibou fights the urge to bolt upright in a sitting position, too.
He can’t say why his heart skips a beat as Yoriichi opens his mouth again.
“But,” his twin’s voice does not break, nor so much as waver, “would it be alright if we were to be as we were before?”
Silence follows. Kokushibou can only blink dumbly up at Yoriichi, and Yoriichi, ever unruffled, ever composed, steadily meets his gaze.
If this were anyone else, Kokushibou would have laughed. He does not laugh often, and has not laughed at all since ingesting Muzan-sama’s blood, but he is sure he would have positively howled with laughter, had he been with anyone else. But not with Yoriichi.
His little brother is serious. Yoriichi does not joke.
He’s serious.
Kokushibou feels hot. There’s a lump in his throat, and his eyes feel like they might be starting to burst open and out of their sockets. He pictures screaming. He pictures annihilating the little hut, splintering it to the ground, shattering Yoriichi’s bones and grinding the remnants into dust. This is ridiculous. This is absurd. This – Yoriichi is attached to him, has always been, but this can’t be…
Yet his infuriating little brother’s stare is as earnest as it always is. He’s waiting, Kokushibou realizes. Waiting, impassively, mercifully, for a response. As we were before.
Kokushibou doesn’t need to consciously think back to that time, as they were before, to remember. Yoriichi, Yoriichi’s heat against him, Yoriichi’s hands on him, Yoriichi’s cock in him – his recollections are as vivid as if it had just happened against yesterday. He shivers.
But he’s a demon now. His little brother sees that, as plain as day, as undeniable as the blue of the sky and the green of the grass. How…
“If you don’t want it, you only have to say so.” Yoriichi strokes his head, carding long slender fingers through his hair. The tips of his nails graze against Kokushibou’s scalp. “I will do what Aniue wants.”
You’re unbelievable, Kokushibou wants to tell him, but no words will come out. He can’t seem to think straight, his chest is too tight and his eyes hurt too much and blood is roaring in his ears. Yoriichi is actually saying this, he’s actually—
He still wants me.
Yoriichi still wants me.
Kokushibou doesn’t want to think anymore. In a blink, he’s ripping his way out of the chains that snake around his torso and limbs, shredding metal and throwing it aside. Yoriichi does not flinch. He sits back and lets him, and there’s no doubt that it is a letting.
Kokushibou knows he should run. Even if the wisteria flowers obstruct his escape, the message will be clear enough. He should kick his brother away, spit on him, shout at him. You’re disgusting, he should say. Don’t touch me. You, you make me so sick.
Instead, he tackles Yoriichi. (This, too, is a letting.) They tumble to the floor in a heap of limbs, and Kokushibou barely stifles a moan as he unconsciously grinds his cock against his brother’s thigh. The weight of the fabric of the pants that he’s wearing is practically torturous.
When – when did he get so hard?
He won’t think about it now. Snarling, he presses his fingers around Yoriichi’s throat, putting pressure on his pulse with his thumb. It’s jumping and beating, and Kokushibou only has time to think dazedly that it’s him, he’s the one who’s made his brother’s heart pound, before Yoriichi moves and Kokushibou is pinned face-first on the wooden floor, his brother’s weight pressing oppressively, beautifully, down on him. Yoriichi’s legs hold his open, and he can feel hardness through their clothes, nudging against his inner thigh. A desperate moan escapes him.
“Aniue,” Yoriichi breathes, soft lips brushing the shell of his ear. “Aniue, Aniue…” There are hands at Kokushibou’s obi, pulling apart the knot, peeling away fabric. Kokushibou can only whine, on all fours and shaking, as Yoriichi works at the material. His brother is fast and deft, but he can hardly wait, hardly bear the scorch of anticipation that shrivels his veins. He wants Yoriichi’s hands on him, his clothes are stuffy and suffocating and they’re in the way, tear them, rip them to shreds, burn them if you have to, hurry up Yoriichi, hurry, hurry please, Yoriichi, Yoriichi, Yoriichi—
It’s nothing but a blur from there. Kokushibou remembers Yoriichi’s fingers spreading him, his tongue dipping inside, and he bites his forearm to stop the high whine in his throat. But he still whimpers, he still gasps, he still frantically pushes back against Yoriichi’s mouth, his fingers scrabbling against the cold wood beneath him. And when his brother finally, finally decides he’s ready and lines up behind him, and there’s blood on his lips from the effort of keeping himself from begging, Kokushibou could have cried. He hides his face in his hands, jaw slack and gasping, as Yoriichi’s cock sinks into him right to the hilt.
Yoriichi is ever-merciful. He angles himself exactly as he knows Kokushibou loves, each thrust grinding ruthlessly up against that spot deep inside that has Kokushibou’s eyes rolling. At some point he must have given up trying to be quiet, because he’s panting and whimpering and moaning and saliva is coating the corners of his mouth. Even the vicious pace that Yoriichi has set is a bestowing of clemency, because if his brother teases him now—
Kokushibou can’t bear to think about it.
His cock is weeping, hot and swollen in frustration and twitching with every thrust. Desperate for relief, he reaches between his legs, but Yoriichi catches his hand and has it pinned fast against the ground. His grip is like a manacle, stronger than any iron or steel. “No, Aniue,” he murmurs. There’s barely a strain in his voice, even as his hips drive forward again and stars dance in Kokushibou’s vision. “You’ll come from my cock inside you, or not at all.”
Kokushibou sobs.
His brother is right, though – he always is, of course. Yoriichi brings him untouched to three shattering finishes, each one somehow stronger than the last, and by the time Kokushibou is aware again, his arms and legs have given out and he is limp against the ground, trembling like a leaf. His face burns. There are tracks of tears on his cheeks. The area between his hips and thighs feels warm and sticky all over.
Kokushibou whimpers as Yoriichi’s softened cock slips out of him. Such a vulnerable sound, so pathetic and weak. He knows he should be appalled, but he is still quivering and gasping, and the only thing that exists is his brother’s warmth all around him. Yoriichi. He cannot see straight yet, but his hands instinctively reach out, grasping, searching. Yoriichi.
“Aniue.” Yoriichi catches his hands, kisses each one of his fingertips, tender as a summer breeze. “It’s alright. I’m here.” He pulls him into a tight embrace, and Kokushibou can only let it happen, his eyes damp and his limbs shaky and his mind stark white. He feels Yoriichi press his lips to the crown of his head, and it’s not until then that he remembers – he has six eyes. He has fangs. He’s a demon. Yoriichi shouldn’t be talking with him, much less touching him, much less f—
“You’re beautiful,” Yoriichi murmurs, kissing his neck, rubbing soothing circles on his back, his arms, just like he did when they were both human. Kokushibou struggles, feeble, against the pleasure that blooms over his flesh where his brother’s hands make contact, fails to stop shivering at the sensation of lips brushing across his throat. “Aniue,” he hears his brother sigh, “you’re perfect.”
Yoriichi kisses him deeply, and Kokushibou has to fight back tears.
But Kokushibou cannot stop testing Yoriichi.
He’ll make Yoriichi turn away from him. He’ll make him reject what he has become. He will force his brother to show how he really feels, how he must have always felt, whenever they tangled together like this. How far can he push Yoriichi, before even his tolerance for Kokushibou snaps?
Stop lying, he wants to scream, even as he pleads and moans and cries when his brother ravages him with his fingers and tongue and cock, over and over again. Stop acting, he thinks, stop pretending. There’s no way, simply no way, that Yoriichi, Yoriichi with his gentleness and kindness and altruism that comes to him as naturally as everything else, can want him. If he refuses to be honest, then Kokushibou will make him tell the truth.
Yoriichi has still sworn his life to exterminating demons. Maybe what he needs is a reminder, that Kokushibou is one of them. I chose to, he imagines telling his brother. I chose to, because I wanted to be a demon more than I wanted to be with you. Do you understand? Becoming strong, becoming undying, that’s worth much more to me than you ever will.
(And if he has to lie to get Yoriichi to stop lying, then he will do so in a heartbeat.)
Kokushibou does not have the same shapeshifting capabilities that Muzan-sama does, but the quantity of blood that he’s ingested is more than enough for him to start… tinkering with his body. He supposes it’s fun, in some kind of way. Sticking a few scales here and there, over his shoulders and his arms and his legs. The cool, smooth material is almost pleasant to the touch, and he hopes that makes it that much more repulsive for his brother. Molding and expanding the various protuberances from his scalp is fascinating, too. Two large horns, grey-white and crystalline, sprouting out from above his ears and curving up, then down, into points. Two more, smaller and straighter, sticking up from his temples. The spines and spikes that he litters over flesh, at his elbows and collarbones and sides, are a little difficult to adjust to at first, but the discomfort is eclipsed by potent, as adolescent as it is, glee.
Yoriichi, even Yoriichi, would never dare fuck this.
His chest squeezes when his little brother pauses at his new appearance. Blinks. And when Yoriichi inhales, closes the door in his wake, and sits next to Kokushibou without laying a hand on him, he has to hold back a gasp.
I did it, he thinks, and his head is pounding, his pulse thundering. I did it, I won, I was right and you were wrong, Yoriichi. He wants to scream. He wants to grab his brother by the collar and shake him until his teeth rattle. Aren’t I appalling? What do you think, Yoriichi? Aren’t you horrified? Don’t I disgust you?
I do, right?
Yoriichi leaves early the next morning, and Kokushibou bites his lips until they bleed to keep himself from laughing, hysterical. He almost adds more oddities to his new appearance, egged on by imaginations of how his brother will take it when he returns later, but he hesitates. Pictures Yoriichi, features screwed in revulsion. He hasn’t succeeded in getting that kind of expression from his brother yet.
Kokushibou is not sure why, but he doesn’t go any further that day. Or the day after, or the day after.
(He pictures Yoriichi, features screwed in revulsion.)
One evening, Yoriichi comes back from his business outside, his face the usual mask of cool courtesy. There’s a plate in his hands – Kokushibou’s instincts flare dangerously at the smell of blood. It’s not a human’s, though; some kind of animal? He’s never consumed animal meat during his time as a demon; he’s never been starving to such a point, though he’s heard that various demons have been pushed to such a brink.
His brother comes to a stop in front of him, kneels down, and offers him the plate. The meal has been carefully sliced up into small, comfortable bites, but it doesn’t look anything like the dishes that Kokushibou remembers being served when he was still the head of his family’s estate. This meat is raw, and blood is seeping from every fold.
And Yoriichi is just handing it to him, as if he’s not doing anything out of the ordinary. For a second, Kokushibou is speechless, and all he can do is stare at the plate. His mouth is watering, but he can’t bring himself to move or speak.
“Are you displeased that it’s not human meat?” Yoriichi asks, misinterpreting his silence completely. “I apologize, Aniue. But I thought you might be hungry, and this was the best I could manage.”
Pressure swells in Kokushibou’s chest, and he wonders how he’s kept it together, without imploding from the inside out. He can’t take it. He can’t stand the sight of Yoriichi, hands extended outward holding a plate of bloody, raw meat out to him, features impassive and expressionless, demeanor placid and unruffled, totally at ease. Is he blind? Is he fucking stupid? What is wrong with him?
He snatches the offering from his brother’s hands. The chopsticks fall and clatter loudly against the wooden floor as Kokushibou scoops a handful of what looks to be a liver. Dark red streams from between his fingers, but he pays it no mind as he shoves the fleshy slab of meat past his lips. The salty, thick tang of blood explodes underneath his tongue, and he almost hisses.
It’s not as rich as eating humans, but he is famished.
Watch, he thinks, at the back of his mind. Watch this. Watch me, Yoriichi.
Kokushibou devours the contents of the plate with gusto, shoveling them into his mouth using bare hands. Drops of blood splatter over his face, over the floor, over his clothes. His mouth and the front of his kimono are wet and sticky by the time he finishes, and his hands are absolutely drenched over in crimson. He licks his lips. He’s breathing heavily. At some point, the plate has slipped from his grasp and fallen to the floor alongside the chopsticks.
Kokushibou raises his head, insides churning in anticipation to face Yoriichi. What kind of expression would his brother be making, after seeing that?
But something soft brushes across his mouth before his line of sight finds his twin. He blinks, and Yoriichi is there, leaning forward. There’s a white cloth in his hands. He wipes Kokushibou’s mouth with care, like he’s some sort of baby, and Kokushibou feels slim fingers grazing softly along his lips.
“I don’t recall you being such a messy eater, Aniue,” Yoriichi murmurs. He finishes cleaning off the blood and patiently folds and puts away the now stained cloth. “Was it to your liking, then?”
Kokushibou stares at his brother, sitting there looking at him, feet tucked under his body and hands folded politely on his lap, just like always. Yoriichi’s dark ruby eyes look ebony-black in the dim light. There’s nothing but earnestness in his gaze. His little brother is meeting his stare directly, unperturbed by the six eyes, unflinching in the face of the horns and the spines and the scales and the fact that Kokushibou just scarfed down raw animal meat right on front of him, and suddenly, he feels very tired.
He’s tried and he’s tried and he’s tried, and still his stupid senseless twin will not quit. Doesn’t he see what Kokushibou has willingly chosen? Doesn’t he get that Tsugikuni Michikatsu has turned himself into the exact kind of creature that he’s dedicated his life to extinguishing?
Yoriichi’s stare is quiet, calm. As tranquil and undisturbed as a lake on a sunny day. Kokushibou can’t stand it. He wants to grab his brother by the shoulders and scream at him, ask him how he does it. How he always just—
What’s wrong with you?
Why do you keep looking at me like that?
Why are you even still here?
“Aniue.” It’s Yoriichi’s voice that breaks through his daze.
It’s always Yoriichi, isn’t it? Even when Kokushibou was a human, Yoriichi’s words were the only words that he cared to listen to. Yoriichi’s presence was the only one that mattered. There was a time, when he thought he could satisfy himself with living in mundanity, a wife at his side to grow old with, children in his arms to raise. And yet, the second that Yoriichi stepped back into his life, all those things became inconsequential.
He barely thinks about Ayaka-san since he left. He hasn’t thought about her at all since he became a demon. Even memories of his children, Asahi and Kayo, only tickle the back of his mind occasionally. And when he does find his contemplations turning to any of the three, them whom he used to consider his family, whom he might have come to consider his life – he cannot bring himself to feel so much as a hint of longing.
Apology, perhaps. But regret?
Any importance they – his wife, his children – might have is completely swallowed up by the image of his twin, gazing at him with those quiet dark eyes. The sun of his life, burning so blindingly bright, throwing him and anything else around him into deep, cold shadow.
Yoriichi is a little closer than before. His hand lands on Kokushibou’s, enveloping it in warmth, and their fingers intertwine. Kokushibou feels the tips of his twin’s nails graze against the points of his own claws. He isn’t sure if Yoriichi slotted their hands so perfectly into each other’s, or if he was the one who did so, unconsciously seeking the unforgiving, relentless stability that is his brother’s existence. The dried blood is sticky between their palms, but neither of them take any notice.
“Aniue,” Yoriichi repeats. His gaze is still calm, but there’s something swirling just beneath the surface that threatens to suck everything else in the world down in. Kokushibou’s skull throbs. You…
“I don’t understand why you keep doing this,” his brother says, matter-of-fact. His eyes brush over Kokushibou, over his entire form – the six eyes and the fangs and the scales and the horns and the spikes – and his expression does not so much as twitch. “Why you keep trying to push me away from you.”
Kokushibou’s mouth goes dry. His jaw has gone slack. He can’t make himself gather his composure as he just stares at Yoriichi.
His brother waits, offering him an opening to interject, but there’s silence. Nothing will come out. Yoriichi’s words are ringing in his head, making his temples ache. He feels trapped, illuminated. Naked.
So when Yoriichi pushes him back against the cold hard floor, tipping down with him, he whimpers. Pants, and trembles, as his brother’s solid body crests over his, cutting off all his ways out. The gaze that bores into him is too strong, too steady and unforgiving, and even as he meets it and doesn’t look away Kokushibou knows that he’s powerless.
The hand that moves up to cradle his blood-splattered cheek is too gentle, too tender and caring.
“Do you really think,” Yoriichi murmurs, and his face is a beautiful mask of stillness and serenity, “that any of this will dissuade me from you, Aniue?”
He doesn’t have to elaborate. Kokushibou knows what he’s talking about, maybe even since he first voiced that he didn’t understand. And it fully dawns on him, just how futile all of his efforts are. How helpless he is, when it comes to Yoriichi.
How, no matter how hard he tries, he will never be able to carve out an existence for himself that is separate from his brother. He realizes it from the simmering of his own blood at the heat of Yoriichi’s body on his, the violent mundanity of Yoriichi’s demeanor that does not seem to even so much as acknowledge Kokushibou’s attempts to get his brother to look at him with disgust. With hatred.
The way his own heart clenches, that Yoriichi simply does not care. Not that he’s a demon. Not that he devours human beings. Not that he should be killing him.
When Yoriichi kisses him, forcing his lips apart and brutally plundering his mouth, heedless of the blood that is drenching his face and neck and abdomen, Kokushibou can only whine. His hands fist against his brother’s haori as he desperately grinds his hips upward. He can feel himself already hardening in his pants, and it’s humiliating, wanting this so badly, wanting—
Yoriichi fucks him throughout the night. He’s taken on his back, on his hands and knees, on his brother’s lap, against the wall, and the worst thing is that the entire time, Yoriichi never falters. He strokes the spines and the horns, runs his fingers over the scales, kisses every one of the six eyelids and when he pushes pale fingers into Kokushibou’s mouth, their tips caress the points of his fangs. Kokushibou keens, and he’s not sure why that motion of all things has heat erupting behind his eyelids, but he hears himself pleading – harder, faster, deeper, more, more.
“Yoriichi,” he cries, mewls, sobs. “Yoriichi.”
“Aniue,” his younger brother calls, in response. “Aniue – my beautiful, precious, perfect Aniue…” He rolls his hips, torturously slow and deep, and once more his cock drags, merciless, against that spot deep within Kokushibou. All six of his eyes roll as he comes hard, moaning like a whore, clenching uselessly around Yoriichi’s length.
When morning finally arrives, Kokushibou is a shuddering, wrecked mess. He feels weak and defenseless and exhausted and exhilarated all at once, and Yoriichi is coiled around him like a snake, like the soft sheets of a warm futon. His lips are as raw and swollen as Kokushibou’s when he presses them together, and Kokushibou tightens his hold on him.
“Aniue,” Yoriichi sighs, “whatever form you are in, whatever you look like, you are always flawless.” He leans in, brushes his fingers over the protruding horns, nuzzles against the scales on Kokushibou’s shoulders. Kokushibou clings to the solid heat of his body and refuses to let him move away again, even a centimeter. Yoriichi’s words ring in his head. Perfect. Flawless. He wants to laugh, he wants to cry.
Don’t you see? he wants to say, don’t you see, I’m still nothing compared to you. Whenever he’s next to Yoriichi, his own existence fades away like morning dew in the sun. In every way, in every aspect, there is no way for him to surpass, or even so much as match up to, his brother.
Not even – no, especially, especially – in his own thoughts.
Because every time he is with Yoriichi, Kokushibou forgets himself, forgets anything else. His brother’s presence shatters all his reason and logic, steals his ability to focus on anything other than just Yoriichi. How he shines, so effortlessly, so beautifully. How he does not even notice, never mind want, the awe and reverence that follows him wherever he goes. How he is so infinitely kind and righteous and unfaltering, and it all comes so easily to him.
How even as Kokushibou hates him, despises him so much that he can’t consciously think about it for long lest rage start to steal his breath and strangle his throat, he cannot find a single thing about himself that there is to call his own, a single thing that is not irrevocably tangled with the dazzling, unrivaled light that was somehow born by his side. His desires, his motivations, his goals, him – there is nothing there, nothing, that is not Yoriichi, that is not about Yoriichi.
This isn’t normal. This is so wrong. How can someone like him be Kokushibou’s sibling, his brother, his twin? How is Yoriichi real? Sometimes, Kokushibou wonders if his brother is a deity incarnate, Amaterasu herself reborn in mortal flesh, descending from the heavens to bestow her blessings across this soiled earthly plane. There are even days when he thinks he might start believing it, if only for his own sanity.
His sanity. Kokushibou isn’t sure he has any sanity left – no, he’s sure he doesn’t. Even that was nothing but dry tinder to be devoured by Yoriichi’s blazing flame.
Why else would he constantly be leaving behind everything because of his brother? His comfortable life, his estate and inheritance, his wife and children. After that, his humanity, his freedom – and the funniest part of it all, the part that really is an entire comedy on its own, is that none of it was a steep price to pay. He would do it all again, and again, and again, and again.
Kokushibou burrows further into his brother’s arms, struggling to completely erase any space between them. He doesn’t want to think about why he’s so eager to be as close to Yoriichi as possible. Even the aching pain that threads about the muscles of his thighs and hips, the burn of his backside where he’d been ferociously taken over and over again, cannot distract him from the rush that fills up his heart at the feverish heat of Yoriichi’s skin against his.
Yoriichi presses his forehead against Kokushibou’s and nuzzles up to his jaw like a spoiled housecat. Then he slots their mouths together, pillaging, devastating, stealing all the air from Kokushibou’s lungs, and reaches up to tuck a sweaty lock of hair behind his ear. It’s so warm, it’s so affectionate, and this tremble that is spreading throughout his entire body has to be disgust, Kokushibou thinks. He feels the salty wetness of tears trickling over his own cheeks, and cannot hold back the quiet sob that bursts unbidden from his chest.
“Oh, Aniue,” Yoriichi murmurs, drawing back slightly, a soft upward curve of his lips setting his breathtaking visage awash with luminous, mellow light. He cradles Kokushibou’s face in his hands, brushing away the droplets that spill down. “Don’t cry.” Tenderness is scalding so hot in his eyes that Kokushibou wants to look away, but he’s hypnotized and helpless as he always is with Yoriichi.
“Everything will be okay,” that smooth voice assures, soothes, and he’s pulled into a tight embrace. “I will never leave you.”
Kokushibou can only weep as he desperately clings to his brother, begging Yoriichi not to let him go.
Yoriichi left him.
He is no longer here – he left the hut behind some time ago, the wisteria flowers still blooming around its area, abandoning Kokushibou to starvation.
The details surrounding the event are hazy. Kokushibou can remember only one thing – the image of his brother peering down at him, pinning him down against the ground with heavy hands pressing carelessly and cruelly into his shoulders. His face is twisted with disdain, brows pulled together and lips pulled back in a sneer, and the repugnance in his eyes burns.
It’s an expression that Kokushibou has seen on his own features, time and time again. On Yoriichi’s, it looks twice as righteous and five times as horrifying.
Sunlight would be more bearable than this, Kokushibou is sure.
“You’re a disgrace,” Yoriichi hisses. His hands leave their perch to wrap around Kokushibou’s throat and squeeze, and even then, Kokushibou can only stare up at him in dread. He cannot move. He can’t think.
“A demon,” his brother spits, clenching his fingers tighter. “A wretched, foul beast. A monster. You’ve betrayed us, betrayed me.”
Kokushibou opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He can feel the cartilage of his windpipe being crushed together, cell by cell, folding in on itself from the pressure, but somehow all of that has faded into the background. Yoriichi’s words ring, loud and shrill and agonizing, in his head.
“Oh, Aniue,” Yoriichi says, almost sorrowful, bringing his face down so their noses are nearly brushing. The gesture is frighteningly, torturously intimate in its closeness, and Kokushibou feels something wrench in his chest.
“My Aniue.” His brother frees one of his hands from its chokehold around his neck, which doesn’t lessen the force at all, and cradles the side of his face instead. His gaze is that of a god, thrumming with divine authority, flaming with righteous anger. Kokushibou can’t avoid it, and even if he could, he knows that he will never, never escape. This must be it. This must be the way that a dragon looks upon a snake, the way a deity looks upon a worm.
“Look at you,” Yoriichi croons out, stroking his cheekbone, gentle and kind, with his thumb. “You’re really so ugly.”
The pain is beyond physical.
Kokushibou’s eyes open, and he finds himself staring up at the ceiling of the hut. For a moment, he is discombobulated, and the only thing he can think about is his brother’s voice, echoing all around him. A demon. Betrayed me. So ugly. His hands reach out frantically, scrabbling against cold wood in search of Yoriichi’s warmth, but only empty air meets them, and the panic that surges like a wave inside his chest threatens to blind him and choke him.
Then he remembers. Six sunrises ago, Yoriichi departed from the hut, after letting him gorge on animal meat for the entirety of the previous day and fucking him for the entirety of the previous night. Right before he walked out he pinned Kokushibou to the ground and kissed him senseless, and promised that he would be back.
“I will return to you,” Yoriichi said, nuzzling his palm sweetly. “Wait for me, Aniue.”
Kokushibou refuses to dwell on why he wound his arms around his brother’s neck before he could stand up. How he was thinking, wordlessly pleading, kiss me again.
The lack of ingesting humans has left Kokushibou weaker than usual, but thanks to the feast that Yoriichi brought him a few days ago, he’s not in danger of starving. It’s the solitude that is bothering him. Normally, he has no issue with being alone, and it’s in fact his preference, but when the person who should be here is Yoriichi, and Yoriichi is not here—
The idea that his brother has really abandoned him, as he did in the dream, rolls around his mind for the thousandth time, and Kokushibou digs his claws into the wood of the ground. It’s been six days, he has no idea what Yoriichi was headed off to do, why he hasn’t returned yet. He can tell from the way that he was fed ahead of time that it is meant to be a longer excursion, but what is it? The uncertainty makes him restless, pacing around the tiny room, snarling under his breath.
He’s left you. He’s finally gotten a good look at you. He doesn’t want anything to do with you anymore. Those thoughts absolutely should not be as unbearable as they are, and Kokushibou would tear down the entire hut in a frustrated rage is he not aware that it is the only thing keeping him protected from the sun’s rays during daylight. He still cannot go anywhere physically, thanks to the wisteria flowers binding the entire area around him, and he hardly wants to stand there helpless as his body disintegrates to ash. At full strength, he might be able to resist the repelling effects of the wisteria, but right now, he can’t. And even if he could, he doesn’t intend to try his luck.
The only thing that he has left to cling to his reason is the fact that Yoriichi told him to wait, kissed him so ardently before he departed. His brother is not someone who tells lies – if he intends to do something, he will do it, and he does not bother with deceit. Not caring whose feelings are affected, in the process. (And who would dare, who would even wish to, refuse Yoriichi, anyway?) He would not have assured Kokushibou that he would return if he did not intend to.
At least, that’s what Kokushibou tells himself.
Days bleed by, shadow slipping into brightness, brightness melting back into shadow. He promised, Kokushibou whispers under his breath, again. He looked me in the eyes, and said he’d be back.
You have six eyes, a voice jeers back. He knows it’s not real, but it might as well be. You’re a demon. Yoriichi is gentle, you know? He just wanted to let you down softly.
He wouldn’t lie. Kokushibou clenches his fist. His claws dig deep into flesh, gouge out bloody chunks, but he couldn’t care if he tried.
The voice doesn’t reply. Somehow, even that feels mocking, like they were having an argument and Kokushibou is the one who lost. The thought enrages him further, and he battles the urge to kick the wall nearest to him. He is not a child anymore.
Sometimes, he wonders why Muzan-sama hasn’t done away with him already. It’s been weeks since Kokushibou was captured by his brother – surely he must be displeased with his absence. That’s the kind of man that Muzan-sama is; quick to anger, difficult to appease, all but impossible to sway. Still, Kokushibou has no qualms serving him, and no intention of betraying him, either – Muzan-sama is not Yoriichi, and no matter what he does or how long the both of them live, he can never threaten Kokushibou the way that his brother does so effortlessly.
There is no one more dangerous to him than Yoriichi, and yet he’s still sitting cooped up like livestock in their little hut, desperately awaiting his brother’s return. Fuck. This is so stupid. He’s become the kind of creature that he vowed to dedicate his life to eradicating, knowingly put his life in the hands of a man as unpleasant and mercurial as Muzan-sama, and he’s still ended up exactly where he began.
Yoriichi. Kokushibou grinds his jaw, almost hoping that it will break so he has something to distract himself. Heat wells up him in him, uncontrollable, overflowing, every time he even thinks of that name. Why – why – is it so hard, so impossible, for him to be even the slightest bit sensible, when it involves his brother? Why is he always so weak when it comes to Yoriichi, so stupid? Strength, competence, is everything to Kokushibou, but in front of his brother he becomes as flimsy as a reed and as brittle as ceramic.
He should despise it. He does. But when he thinks of Yoriichi, encircling him in his arms, lips soft on the shell of his ear, tongue hot and wet against his pulse, he can’t stop himself from trembling.
Laying down on the cold wooden floor, Kokushibou curls up on his side. He feels hollow and overwhelmed at the same time, his chest blank and white but his head buzzing. His mind keeps going in circles around his brother – where is he and what is he doing and when will he be back and will he be back – and every time he tries feebly to pull his thoughts away, they spiral back towards Yoriichi, over and over.
About three-fourths of a moon’s cycle after he has been left alone, Kokushibou is slumbering, his head propped against the wall and one knee pulled up to his chest. The lack of food has been getting to him, so he’s been trying to compensate through sleep, despite it being nighttime.
(And when he sleeps, he doesn’t have to think about Yoriichi. Not consciously, anyway. He does still dream.)
The chill that sweeps his entire body is the reason that his eyes open. He straightens, instantly alert, but before he can ever get a bearing on his surroundings, pain is spiraling into his muscles and lancing through his bones. It’s almost like his organs are contracting – Kokushibou doubles over, clenching his teeth. Demons do not suffer from illnesses, he remembers, so what’s this, what’s—
Then he feels it.
It’s utterly impossible to describe in words. Like something inside his body that kept his heart bleeding and his blood flowing and his lungs expanding has been brutally ripped out in one fell motion, except the agony is at least a thousand times more intense than that. His lips part in a silent gasp, and he digs his claws into the wooden floor with such force that they strain in his nail beds. Emptiness opens up in his chest with terrifying speed, until Kokushibou almost expects to look down and see his innards, his heart and his lungs and his intestines and his liver and his everything, spilling onto the floor underneath him.
He can only think, Muzan-sama.
His own parents’ deaths, he was never aware of until someone else came to inform him. But this, he knows with devastating accuracy the moment in time that it occurred, experienced the most minute fraction of a second that life bled completely from his creator’s body. The aftermath leaves him writhing feebly on the ground, the entirety of his being howling out in disbelief.
Muzan-sama, Muzan-sama just died.
Kokushibou claws at his face, desperately trying to cling to the dispersing drops of demon blood in his veins, even as he feels flesh twist and warp where his extra sets of eyes are. The middle pair, where his Upper Moon One characters are engraved, sting and burn and water. His cheeks are wet with tears that he doesn’t remember shedding, and his throat is so dry, so parched, like he hasn’t had a drop of water in all his years of being alive.
He’s not sure if he screamed, or if the pain was too intense and too utterly disturbing for him to make any sound, but his mouth is gaping open by the time he regains his senses. His nails have scraped bits of skin off from right under his eyes, but when he withdraws his hands to stare at them, his gut curdles. They are no longer claws, long and tapering and pointed. Instead, he finds himself looking at the rounded nails of a human, albeit the edges dark with blood.
Trembling, Kokushibou touches his face. Two eyes. He runs his tongue over his teeth. No fangs. His stomach still feels empty, but the parched, burning sensation that was beginning to build from going too long without devouring human flesh – that is gone.
He breathes out, shakily.
Muzan-sama is dead. And Michikatsu, he’s a demon no longer.
The knowledge is sickening. Michikatsu crumples on the floor of the hut, denying what he knows to be true with all of his strength. No, he thinks dully, no, no, please, no. Neither he nor his demon progenitor had been fond of each other by any stretch of the word, and their relationship had been all business, but Muzan-sama was still safer. Infinitely safer, than the alternative.
And now, he’s dead. With his death, Michikatsu is trapped. He is doomed.
If only that were all of it. It’s not.
Because in his chest, in his heart, in his innermost soul, he’s certain that he knows just who – just what – it was, that put an end to the nearly god-like existence of Muzan-sama. Michikatsu – Michikatsu doesn’t want to think about it. Doesn’t even want to consider. All of the pieces are clicking into place perfectly; the planned excursion, the absence, the fresh and magnificent vigor rippling in Yoriichi’s limbs when he left. It all makes sense, every bit of it, and Michikatsu wants desperately to find something that doesn’t add up. Anything.
There’s nothing.
It can’t be, he thinks. It can’t, it just can’t. It is the deepest, darkest hour of the night right now, well before the sun will even begin to peek out over the horizon. This is when Muzan-sama, who even in his most fragile state can defeat Michikatsu, is the strongest. This is when his power is at its utmost. Nothing should be able to scratch him.
And yet. And yet, Yoriichi—!
For a moment, he cannot breathe. Ash and fire and dust choke his lungs, scorch his mouth, set his entire body alight in a discordant and nauseating inferno. Yoriichi, again. It’s always, it always has to be, Yoriichi. Achieving the impossible. Declaring his superiority to everything and anything. Flying so unfathomably high above Michikatsu’s reach, and still, still soaring to yet greater heights with every breath that he takes. Cutting off all of Michikatsu’s means of escape, trapping him like prey, entangling him hopelessly within the threads of a spiderweb stronger than steel.
There is no freedom. No getting away. No chance of ever having what he has craved for so long.
Maybe, Michikatsu realizes, numb, it’s a blessing after all, that the red mark that curls over his forehead and cheek heralds death in a few years. Maybe fate is not entirely unkind. Maybe it guaranteed him an early demise out of mercy.
There is no escape from Yoriichi that he can achieve with his own power, but in just a few years, he’ll be dead. The mark will sap his life away, and he will have finally found liberation.
Finally.
Michikatsu pulls himself up to his knees, his palms flat against the ground. Strands of hair are plastered to his face, sticky with tears, and his body feels unspeakably heavy, as if weighted down by a thousand stones. A human again, Michikatsu remembers. The knowledge is rattling, yet leaves him empty.
After that, it’s not long before his waiting comes to an end.
It’s the next night. There are footsteps outside, and then the door slides open. Yoriichi fills the entire doorframe, tall and proud and resplendent even in the darkness of the slowly-dying nighttime. He’s holding something in his right hand, and it dangles limply as he steps inside, graceful as a feline, fluid as water, and closes the door in his wake.
“Aniue,” Yoriichi says, and Michikatsu’s not sure whether he wants to embrace him, shove him away, demand to know what took so long, or fall at his feet.
But it’s his brother who kneels, settling down on one knee so that their gazes are level. Michikatsu can’t move, as Yoriichi places what he’s been holding down onto his lap. His movements are careful, like he is offering some sort of sacrifice.
Michikatsu looks down, and the lifeless plum-red of Muzan-sama’s eyes looks back at him.
He stares, fascinated by the sight. Is this really Muzan-sama, the man who sat cross-legged and blasé and confident as Michikatsu drew his sword? The man who extended a pale clawed hand and offered him eternal life? This… this thing, has pupils blown wide with panic. A mouth gaping dumbly, in a silent scream. Dried blood trickling from its nostrils. Logically, Michikatsu knows, of course he knows, whose head he is holding in his hands right now. But he didn’t think it would be quite so hard to make the connection between the demon lord he served and… well, this.
Devastation settles heavy and forbidding in his gut. He’s not grieving, he’s not sad, but. But. This is a crippling blow to him. It’s as if a path, a future, that he always believed would be open and ready for him, has suddenly been annihilated in one fell swoop. With such little effort.
Wordlessly, Michikatsu looks at Yoriichi again. His brother searches his gaze, and his refined eyebrows rise, an ever-so-slight movement.
“Aniue is very kind,” he says, quietly, “for mourning a man such as this. He is responsible for every death at any demon’s hands. The grief he has caused…” Yoriichi glances down at the thing in Michikatsu’s lap. “It’s immeasurable, I am sure.”
He reaches forward, grasping a handful of Muzan-sama’s dark hair, and raises the head so it is level with his face. Michikatsu lets his brother take the macabre souvenir from him, more preoccupied with watching Yoriichi as Yoriichi studies Muzan-sama’s features with callous, dispassionate interest. He is mesmerized by the curve of his brother’s jaw, the flutter of his eyelashes as he blinks.
So their eyes meet, dark red on dark red, when Yoriichi turns in Michikatsu’s direction, lowering the head to the ground. It hits the wood with a dull thunk.
His brother’s gaze is unsentimental. As if they are casually discussing what they will have to break their fast in the morning.
“Man, woman, child,” Yoriichi states, in a melancholy tone that belies the blankness on his face, “he killed them all. He didn’t consider so much as the existence of their feelings, their hardships, the individual lives that they lived. It is only the gods’ place to judge, not mine, but that man was indeed sinful.”
Michikatsu can’t find the words to reply. Everything that his brother is correctly accusing Muzan-sama of, Michikatsu has done, too. Men, women, and children – his life as a demon was short, but such people died at his hands in that time. And neither has he ever considered them anything more than nourishment, fuel for his body in his desire to grow stronger. Yoriichi called Muzan-sama sinful, and yet—
Don’t you understand? The words are on the tip of his tongue, as he looks at his brother. I’m just the same.
But he cannot bring himself to get them past his lips.
Yoriichi’s hand comes up, smoothing over his cheek. His thumb wipes away at the remaining tears, and Michikatsu wonders if he might tear up again, at that gentle touch, at how it burns.
“He thought he could get in between us.”
It’s such an unbelievable declaration, spoken with such incomprehensible simplicity. Michikatsu, paralyzed, mute, stares. Yoriichi, his expression placid as a clear spring day, returns the gaze. For an unbearable moment, neither of them says anything.
“You,” Michikatsu breathes, “you. I can’t—I can’t believe you.”
Yoriichi smiles at him with deep fondness, like he just made a cute joke. “Aniue.” His voice is very soft, very breathy, and all of a sudden alarm bells start going off in Michikatsu’s head. He should run, he realizes, the instinct to run is physical pressure squeezing down on his shoulders – yet he doesn’t.
He can’t say why. A part of him wonders, what’s the point? Another part of him hisses and wails in agony at the thought of ripping away from the hand on his cheek, at even the imagined sensation of Yoriichi’s fingers slipping from his skin. And another part of him wants to embrace his brother, burrow into Yoriichi’s arms and beg him to hold on tight, hard and strong enough to keep them pulled flush against each other, forever.
But before he can take any of those actions, or maybe something altogether different, Yoriichi moves. He pushes Michikatsu flat on his back against the wooden floor, pinning him down with his own body. His brother is nearly nose-to-nose with him, his warm breath coming in light puffs against Michikatsu’s lips. He shivers, at that as much as the feeling of Yoriichi’s solid warmth, pressed up against him through layers of fabric.
Without thinking, he mewls out his brother’s name. Barely any time has passed since Yoriichi returned, but Michikatsu is suddenly aware that he has been starving, suddenly conscious of the burning need to touch his brother as he was unable to for the past few weeks. His head swims dizzyingly, and his arms come up to wrap around Yoriichi’s shoulders, pulling him closer. As close as he can get, and it still doesn’t feel like enough.
“Aniue,” his brother purrs, pressing his forehead against Michikatsu’s. “It’s almost like you were waiting for me to return.”
Shut up, Michikatsu wants to say, but when Yoriichi kisses him, thoughts melt away. He spreads his legs and wraps them tight around Yoriichi’s lithe waist, trying to trap his brother against his body. Yoriichi indulges him, fisting a hand in Michikatsu’s hair and pulling hard, breaking their kiss with force. Before Michikatsu can whimper, two fingers are shoved past his parted lips, into his mouth. A moan slips out as he sucks on the warm digits greedily, his consciousness giving way to the electrifying thrill that sparks through and takes control of his body.
Soon, Yoriichi’s fingers are coated in saliva, and Michikatsu is growing impatient. He can’t even think to be embarrassed about his neediness as he nips lightly, staring up at his brother with pleading eyes. Yoriichi seems to find it endearing, and removes his fingers to mold their mouths together once again. Their tongues tangle as Michikatsu squeezes Yoriichi’s hips between his legs and buries his fingers in soft black hair, rutting against his brother’s stomach.
By the time Yoriichi pulls away, Michikatsu is panting and shivering, his face flushed, his eyelids narrowed to slits. He can only imagine how this wreck looks in Yoriichi’s eyes, and the thought somehow makes him harder. Whining, he grinds his hips upward. “Yoriichi,” he hears himself gasp, “Yoriichi, Yoriichi, I want—”
Yoriichi fists his cock through the material of his hakama, and Michikatsu chokes. The heat of his brother’s fingers, even with the fabric in between them, is maddening – so acute, toeing the edge of painful, but also, also, Michikatsu needs more. Frantic, he thrusts into Yoriichi’s hand, only barely managing the smallest slide, and even that makes him sink his teeth into his lower lip hard enough to bleed.
His mouth opens, pliant and malleable, when Yoriichi presses his tongue in. Michikatsu’s body is on fire. He wriggles his hips, searching for friction, and moans pleadingly into his brother’s mouth when he removes his hand from where it was palming his hardness through the hakama. No, he wants to say, please, please, but he can’t bear to break the kiss, can’t bear the idea of detaching himself for even a moment.
It’s Yoriichi who pulls away, to focus on undoing the knot of the sash. It can’t happen fast enough for Michikatsu, who lays back against the ground, chest heaving, eyes plastered to his brother, overwhelmed by the feeling of his body cresting over his, the vibrations of his fingers deftly working at the white fabric.
Yoriichi, finishing, throws the sash off to the side and immediately tugs at Michikatsu’s pants. They’re only pulled down a little, though, just enough to expose the bare skin at the top of his thighs, before he rises again and buries his face in Michikatsu’s neck. Michikatsu shudders as his brother drags his tongue, hot and wet, against the point of his pulse, which is beating and jumping. At some point, he might have whimpered out a plea, although his mind is too hazy for him to be sure. He’s so hard, and the hakama still covering his cock feels so unbearably stifling—
Yoriichi wraps his fingers around Michikatsu’s shaft. Skin on skin, this time. Michikatsu squeals, the back of his head smacking against the wooden floor as he arches his neck, but he’s not processing any pain. All that exists for him is Yoriichi’s hand, squeezing down expertly at the base of his cock and then sliding upward with leisure that leaves him pressing his palms down on his mouth to muffle the sounds that want to escape.
Yoriichi’s finger ghosts over his tip, tearing a plaintive, sharp wail from Michikatsu’s throat. He’s wet, he realizes, his cock is twitching and dribbling with pre-come, and Yoriichi just barely started. Shame courses through his veins. He’s faintly conscious of his brother’s gaze on him – sharp, knowing, perfectly aware of how ruined Michikatsu is, and the thought makes him even harder.
It hurts, he thinks. It hurts. It’s so, so good.
Another purposeful stroke. Michikatsu covers his face with his hands, his hips jerking involuntarily in an attempt to thrust into the warmth of Yoriichi’s palm. Tears gather at the corners of his eyes, trickling down his face. He finds himself desperately rutting up into his brother’s hand, soft whines and cries spilling from his mouth. “Please,” he mewls. “Please, please, Yoriichi, Yoriichi—”
His composure, his dignity, is gone. His head swimming, his cock throbbing, Michikatsu can’t even remember why it mattered to him in the first place.
Above him, Yoriichi shifts slightly. But his hand doesn’t leave its spot, stroking and caressing Michikatsu’s cock, and Michikatsu is too dazed to even crack open his eyes and take a peek at his brother. Instead, he squeezes his eyelids shut with all his strength, wanting to deny the vision of how he’s come so hopelessly unraveled.
But then, Yoriichi kisses him again. Michikatsu whimpers, fingers clasping on the nape of his brother’s neck to pull him closer as their lips collide. It hurts, but Michikatsu doesn’t care, and he opens his mouth to invite, to plead for, Yoriichi inside him.
And Yoriichi’s tongue does shove its way inside. But it’s accompanied by something else, something that shouldn’t be there, and the shock is enough for Michikatsu to open his eyes. He finds that Yoriichi is already staring at him, and that something in his gaze sends chills rippling over Michikatsu’s entire body. His cock, though, somehow feels hotter, even as pulls away, coughing and choking.
Blood. Why is there blood against his lips, smearing his tongue, his throat already flexing to swallow the thick saltiness of it? Why is Yoriichi’s mouth drenched with red, as if the blood came from him?
Why is Yoriichi looking at him like that?
“What—” Michikatsu gasps. Even now, he can’t bring himself to move away. His brother’s fingers still curl around his cock, teasing, and he barely strangles down a whimper. “Yoriichi,” he demands, tries not to think about how much like a groan it sounds, “what did you… what’s this?” His head has started to ache.
“Aniue.” Yoriichi ignores the question. There’s a look of something indiscernible and paralyzing in his eyes, as he reaches forward and brushes Michikatsu’s sweat-soaked bangs away from his face affectionately. On his brother’s forearm, Michikatsu sees, there’s an odd half-circle of red. Like jaw marks. Like someone bit into him there. “When I confronted Kibutsuji Muzan, I had a strange impulse.”
Before, Michikatsu would have rolled his eyes and told his brother to stop speaking in riddles. This time, though, he doesn’t speak. He feels like if he hears the bottom line of what Yoriichi is telling him, something is going to change, irrevocably. The pain in his head is growing worse, throbbing.
“Something told me,” Yoriichi continues, and Michikatsu hisses as he feels a thumb slide down the length of his cock, “that I should let him scratch me.”
What?
“So I did. He seemed shocked at first, then triumphant.” Yoriichi tilts his head, looking thoughtful. “Kibutsuji Muzan should have noticed that I intentionally allowed him to wound me, but he didn’t. Has he not been alive since many centuries ago, Aniue?”
Michikatsu is barely processing the words – through confusion, through exhilaration, through dread. “Yes,” he hears himself say. “Why does—oh,” a squeeze around his length, “—that… matter? Ah…”
Yoriichi shrugs, as if his hand has not now snuck upwards so his thumb can grind cruelly against Michikatsu’s tip. Michikatsu lets his head fall back, his mouth lolling open. His chest heaves as he tries to gather his composure.
“It’s not important. I just thought he would have been a more experienced fighter, if he truly lived for so many years.” Yoriichi’s reply is simple, and Michikatsu isn’t sure whether he almost laughs or cries in between his panting and whimpering. Even while insulting Muzan-sama’s fighting prowess, his little brother sounds outrageously polite, so matter-of-fact – he can just imagine Muzan-sama, seething in anger at being disrespected with such ease.
“Ah, I’m wasting your time with unnecessary details.” Yoriichi caresses his jaw. “Forgive me, Aniue.” Leaning forward, he licks some of the blood from Michikatsu’s lips. “In any case, I killed him after that—”
Something about the way he says those words, the casual ease with which they roll from his tongue, makes Michikatsu moan. He’s not sure why, but the idea that it was just so simple a matter for Yoriichi, that it was so underwhelming that he can say that he killed Muzan-sama as if it’s just some kind of afterthought, the specifics of which he doesn’t even bother to remember… Michikatsu feels utterly helpless, even more so than he did before. He’s so entirely at his brother’s whim, with those warm fingers teasing his cock, that powerful body pinning him to the ground, and the fervent arousal that the knowledge inspires clashes confusingly with the terror permeating his chest. It’s hard to think. It’s hard to breathe.
“—but the scratch that he inflicted on me did take effect.”
Michikatsu’s throat tightens. He realizes hazily that his head doesn’t hurt anymore.
Wait, wait. Wait. For a second, everything goes still. It’s all stopped moving, his head has stopped swirling chaotically, and he can see everything with perfect clarity. Yoriichi, looming over him like a deity, the light of the rising sun spilling in through the curtains and casting his profile in a pale white gleam. His slender jaw. His refined nose. His long dark hair.
His slit pupils.
Michikatsu gasps. Finally, finally, the shock is cold and vicious enough for him to break away from Yoriichi, scrambling backwards. His cock is sticking out and open into the air, hard and straining from his brother’s attentions, but for once, Michikatsu’s mind is elsewhere.
Yoriichi makes no attempt to stop him.
No, Michikatsu thinks. He feels light-headed, all of a sudden. No, no, why would he? Why would he bother to try anything, when he’s already won?
The teeth marks on Yoriichi’s wrist. Michikatsu would have noticed them earlier, if they were there since he returned. And then, the blood—
“You,” he gasps, touching his lips. The dried blood that sticks to his fingers has his entire world tilting. He could be sick right then and there. The blood, Yoriichi’s blood, he can already feel it beginning to spread his roots into his body, throughout his entire being. Shackling him.
He thought – he thought – that his mark would be his salvation. That he would only have to endure for a few more years, and he would be granted the escape of oblivion.
But Yoriichi’s blood is salty on his tongue, sticky on his teeth, hotter than fire as it circulates through out him.
“You couldn’t,” Michikatsu gasps. He looks outside desperately, at the rising sun, at how the pale rays of light set Yoriichi’s skin awash in a faint glow. “The – the sun—”
“I was surprised too, Aniue,” Yoriichi says. As he speaks, his lips parting and closing, Michikatsu glimpses four canine teeth, hooked and unnaturally sharp; perfect for tearing flesh from bone. “I had a feeling, so I stepped into daylight briefly, but I didn’t expect what happened. It didn’t harm me.”
Michikatsu shakes his head. This is a joke, he thinks. This is a dream, it has to be. This can’t be real, even though proof of its reality is right here, right in front of his eyes. “That’s impossible,” he whispers. “Every demon – every single one – sunlight is their weakness. Even Muzan-sama—”
Even Muzan-sama. The first demon. The most powerful, by far. Even Muzan-sama feared the sunlight.
But Yoriichi. A scratch from Muzan-sama kills humans, contaminating their bloodstream and wreaking havoc on their cells from the inside out, but Yoriichi, Yoriichi has become an immortal demon instead. And the sun, he’s immune to it, Yoriichi is naturally immune to the sun—
“You’ll have to eat humans,” Michikatsu blurts out. He’s not sure why he says it. Why he’s suddenly so desperate, to point out any shortcoming to this sudden change. There has to be a downside, something, anything, at all. It’s Yoriichi, he knows, his brother who embodies boundless sublimity by his very existence, but still. Still. There must be something, that can dampen the situation. Something that can make Yoriichi’s face fall, make his impeccable tranquility waver. “You’ll have to eat humans or you’ll starve. They taste so delicious when you devour them, Yoriichi, and the urge to tear into them is so strong, you’ll never believe it. Can you do that? Can you do all that?” He presses on, trying to find the cruelest, most callous words to cut his brother’s heart. “Can you spread the same grief that you accused Muzan-sama of creating?”
“Actually, Aniue,” Yoriichi frowns very slightly, and if Michikatsu hadn’t been by his side for so many years, he wouldn’t have been able to notice any change in expression. “I’ve been wondering about that. The morning after I killed Kibutsuji Muzan, I found a woman who fell from a cliff and cut her leg open on one of the rocks.”
Michikatsu is speechless.
“At first I tried to get away from her, but I realized I wasn’t feeling any bloodlust.” It’s there, in Yoriichi’s voice. Horrifically, gruesomely, clear. Curiosity. “I carried her on my back and her wound bled onto me, but there was still no desire to hurt her. Nor did I want to devour any of the humans in the village that I took her to for treatment.” Yoriichi looks vaguely thoughtful. “If my understanding is correct, newly-transformed demons should be starving.” He blinks at Michikatsu, as if searching him for an answer.
Michikatsu doesn’t have one to give. He doesn’t have anything to say. He can only gape in disbelief, and he wants to shrink into the ground, wants to reset the matter of his existence so that he can become a worm or an insect and crawl away. He can’t. He can’t.
He can’t face the ghastly perfection that his brother is. Just thinking about threatens to drive him insane.
“But that wasn’t the case for me. And I have no intention of eating humans.” Yoriichi looks at him and smiles, a gentle, tender expression. “So please don’t worry about me, Aniue.”
Michikatsu makes a strangled sound. This, he realizes – this isn’t even a powerful demon anymore. This isn’t a creature that has ever before existed in this dimension. He has heard people say many times, that Yoriichi blessed by the gods, that Yoriichi is like a god, he has even believed it himself, but he and those who thought the same as him have always been wrong. After all this time, everyone has still been underestimating his little brother.
Yoriichi is not blessed by the gods. Yoriichi is not like a god. Yoriichi, Yoriichi is a god. Yoriichi is not Amaterasu, or Izanami, or Izanagi. Yoriichi is Yoriichi, and Yoriichi is already a god.
Michikatsu’s head throbs distinctly one last time, and then a sense of leisure drapes cold and heavy over his body. It feels so unbearably wrong that his first instinct is to scream, but he swallows it back and instead looks down at his hands. The fingers are tipped with claws. When he runs his tongue over his teeth, there are four serrated canines.
He might have laughed.
“I have a feeling,” Yoriichi says, with muted but visible eagerness that’s so ardent, so childish, “that Aniue will find his existence different than the last time he was a demon. Under Kibutsuji Muzan.”
Don’t, Michikatsu wants to tell him. Don’t say anything else. Anything else, and he might really break. Everything, everything is too much for him, and he can’t stand a single bit more. But he feels too weak, too feeble and insignificant, to say a word. And when he parts his lips to inhale harshly, a familiar icy heat sinks its claws into his throat.
Hunger.
“Aniue.” Yoriichi is staring at him with intent. He’s up to something, Michikatsu thinks, he’s about to do something, but as his brother moves closer he finds himself unable to move. He could, of course, all it would take is a flick of his muscles, but he shies away, doesn’t want to. Can’t.
Yoriichi crawls forward, closing the space between them, and pulls Michikatsu onto his lap. Michikatsu growls, his eyes bulging and his nostrils flaring as his face comes dangerously close to Yoriichi’s neck. The scent of his brother is overpowering, mouthwatering, and Michikatsu realizes that saliva is filling the space under his tongue, threatening to overflow from between his lips.
But… but—
Yoriichi is a demon. Michikatsu is a demon. Demons need human nourishment. This doesn’t make any sense, Michikatsu knows, this shouldn’t be happening, and yet he’s gripping his brother’s shoulders, his vision swims, and heat fills his body as he pictures sinking his fangs into the sweet, supple flesh so close within his reach. He can hear himself panting.
“Stop,” he gasps. “Stop, stop, this is wrong. This isn’t how it works – why—”
Yoriichi doesn’t reply right away. Instead he strokes Michikatsu’s hair, like he is soothing a wounded animal, and Michikatsu screams internally in horror to find himself leaning into the touch. To find himself still wildly salivating at the delectable scent invading his sense of smell.
“I think,” Yoriichi murmurs, “my intuition was right again.” He tugs down the collar of his kimono, exposing the pale flesh of his shoulder, and cradles the back of Michikatsu’s head. Before Michikatsu can say a word, or even so much as move, his brother is guiding him down towards the crook of his neck. Inviting.
No, no, no, no. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t. Whimpering, Michikatsu tries to push himself away, tries to find something, anything, to hold on to so he can keep himself grounded, keep himself from relinquishing his consciousness to the fragrance of his brother. As he’s scrabbling, he involuntarily grips Yoriichi’s hips, hard, and his claws tear through fabric and cut into skin. Blood wells up, only for a split second before the wounds close again.
And Michikatsu’s eyes roll. He’s devoured humans before, some of them smelled quite pleasant, but this, this aroma is something that’s just—
He doesn’t exactly remember what happened after that.
When Michikatsu blinks, it’s like he’s woken up. There’s blood on his face, all over his mouth, and he’s digging his teeth into something hot and salty and savory, its rich flavor rolling over his tongue. All he can see is red, muscles and skin and veins soaked with thick viscous liquid.
Groaning, he pulls back, and Yoriichi cups his face. He doesn’t even seem to take notice of the missing chunk in the crook of his shoulder and neck, which is already closing up.
Michikatsu shivers, chest heaving, eyes watering. Strands of blood and gore are sticking to his mouth, dangling between his lips and the wound on his brother’s body. The hunger has dissipated a little – he feels a bit fuller, a tad warmer, and he can only recall tearing flesh and spurting blood and soft sighs from Yoriichi’s lips as Michikatsu’s fangs mauled into him.
“I,” he stutters, “I—”
“Was it good, Aniue?” Yoriichi asks huskily, grazing his nose against Michikatsu’s thundering pulse point. “Did I satisfy you?” His face is flushed, and his lips are greedy when they kiss, clinging onto each other like they’re the only two things in the universe. Michikatsu moans. When Yoriichi pulls away, the red now staining his lips is beautiful enough to stop his heart.
“Take whatever you want,” his brother whispers, tilting his head to the side and exposing freshly healed skin once again. With a sob, Michikatsu digs in. It’s just so good, he thinks, hazy, and Yoriichi is there, Yoriichi fills his mouth, his heart, his soul, and as he wraps his legs around his brother’s waist, he can’t understand how he could have ever dared believe he had a chance of escaping.
“I’m so happy,” Yoriichi says softly, contentedly, as if Michikatsu’s teeth are not digging into the flesh at his shoulder, tearing out chunks of meat and muscle. “You’re all I need, Aniue. I can’t breathe without you, don’t you see?”
I see, Michikatsu wants to say, but his mouth is too occupied and his mind is too clouded. I see it. And between bites, between tears and cries, he thinks, I can’t breathe without you either.
By the time he’s sated, the sun has crept over the sky, and it must be late morning. The entire hut is filled with the metallic stink of blood. Michikatsu is gasping softly in Yoriichi’s arms, his forehead resting on his brother’s shoulder, which has healed to be good as new in an instant. Yoriichi makes a strange sound, a little like purring, but Michikatsu is too devastated to react to it.
His stomach is full, his body feels strong and refreshed, his head is clearer than it has ever been, and he’s utterly trapped. He’s never getting away.
The thought makes him want to weep, because there’s a sick part of himself that rejoices at the thought. That wants to clasp those strong hands in his, and demand that he promise to never let go.
“Aniue,” Yoriichi sings. He turns his face and kisses Michikatsu’s ear, eliciting a shiver. Warily, Michikatsu raises his head to look at his brother, who is studying his face with something similar to delight. As Yoriichi presses their lips together and works his mouth open with his tongue, Michikatsu feels his legs around his brother’s waist tighten. His fingers snake into Yoriichi’s hair, grabbing and tugging at a handful of ebony strands. There’s a pleased hum at the back of his little brother’s throat, and then Michikatsu gasps as he’s pinned to the ground in the blink of an eye. His clothes are tugged – lightly at first, and then they’re ripped away, fabric tearing in places from the force of it.
Yoriichi is on him, hands touching him everywhere; his chest, his neck, his stomach, his thighs. When searing hot wetness teases Michikatsu’s cock, he cries out.
It terrifies him, how ruined he sounds. He needs to stop this, something in him whispers feebly. If he allows this to happen, then the last bit of hope, the part that has been clinging on against all reason, the part that has managed to continue hoping just for hope’s sake, will die a quiet death.
Stop, he hisses. Except that’s not the word that comes out. It’s Yoriichi. It’s Yoriichi, and he’s calling for his brother, gripping his hair mindlessly in harsh fists and trying to force him down to his growing erection again. Yoriichi laughs, and then his mouth is working at Michikatsu’s stem and upward, licking and sucking. It isn’t long before he reaches the tip, and Michikatsu is fully erect in a time that is humiliating in its shortness, and—oh.
Yoriichi’s mouth envelops his throbbing cock – just the tip at first, then deeper and deeper. He constricts his throat deftly, his tongue dragging firm against the underside of Michikatsu’s shaft and his hands coming up to wrap around the remaining hardness at the base. Michikatsu thrashes, whimpering, groaning, but somehow, even taking his length in his mouth, Yoriichi keeps him pinned down and unable to move. He can only arch his back and yank at his brother’s hair as he’s brought to devastating completion, incoherent pleas falling from his lips the whole time.
Yoriichi crawls back upward, wiping his mouth with the back of a hand. His eyes are predatory, and Michikatsu feels like a deer caught in a hunter’s trap, injured and bleeding and afraid. His brother’s clothes are bristly and harsh as they trail against his bare skin. He can’t help but think that this is just their situation; Yoriichi, swathed in layers of impenetrable poise and cool, and Michikatsu, naked and exposed and powerless.
He still reaches up to wrap his arms around the back of Yoriichi’s neck, trying to pull him down. Parting his lips. Asking for a kiss.
His brother obliges him, leaning down and slotting their mouths together. Michikatsu’s head spins at the lack of oxygen, as Yoriichi devastates him, but breaking away, putting distance between them, sends shivers of disgust up his spine to even imagine. It’s all wrong, it’s all so confusing. The idea of leaving his brother, existing without him by his side, it makes him feel so heavy, so miserable, makes him want to lay down and give up on everything.
And yet Yoriichi is repulsive, blinding, and Michikatsu hates him so much, longs to be free so badly that he feels the physical presence of it in his chest. His pride, his self-worth – withering and shriveling and dissolving bit by bit whenever his twin is near him, whenever he feels himself crumbling pathetically at just the slightest touch of his hand.
Thinking about it is tangible pain. Michikatsu whines, biting at Yoriichi’s lower lip, and his brother seems quietly elated, cupping his face and deepening the kiss.
It’s not long before Michikatsu is roughly turned over on his stomach, whimpering the entire time as he surrenders his body to Yoriichi’s movements. He digs claws into the wooden floor as his brother works him open with his fingers and tongue, dipping in and out, teasing, taunting, fleetingly prodding at that one spot. By the time Yoriichi is satisfied, well into the hours of the noon, Michikatsu’s eyes are wet with tears. His cock is back to full hardness, agonizingly heavy and hot between his legs. His hole clenches indecently around nothing, begging to be stretched, defiled.
“Please,” he hears himself pant again, even though he despises how weak he is right now, how pitiful and frail he will always be when he’s next to his brother. “Please, Yoriichi, please, I need you, I need you…”
Yoriichi’s hands are irreverent and searing when they grip Michikatsu’s waist. His tip presses into the very outside of his entrance, and Michikatsu shudders, helpless to stop himself from squeezing down, like his body wants to suck Yoriichi in.
“You like this.” Yoriichi’s voice is very quiet and matter-of-fact next to his ear, but it fills his head, forces him to pay attention to every syllable. “You like it when I deny you this way, isn’t that right?” It is not a question. And even if it was, the way that Michikatsu’s cock twitches, the way that his hole contracts, sharp and lewd, is more than enough of an answer.
“My beautiful Aniue,” Yoriichi sighs. “So debauched.” His nails are stinging pinpricks as he yanks Michikatsu’s hips back at the same time he thrusts forward.
The slide is shamefully easy, even though it hurts. Yoriichi sets a slow, almost purposeful beat, delving in deep with each plunge, the tip of his cock scraping against the spot that makes Michikatsu want to cry. Whimpering into his hands, he foggily wonders if this gentle rhythm is his brother’s way of being considerate, mindful of his pleasure.
But he should have known better than to dismiss anything as mercy, when it comes to Yoriichi. Because, before long, the relaxed pace is becoming uncomfortable. It’s not enough, the drag of his brother’s cock against his prostate is much too infrequent, and he’s much too empty when Yoriichi pulls out all the way before even beginning to push back in. Then, several more unhurried thrusts later, Michikatsu’s own hardness is beating, pulsing, throbbing. Swollen and full, and the leisurely roll of Yoriichi’s hips is painful.
Michikatsu tries to grind himself backwards, desperate to feel Yoriichi pounding into him, but his brother punishes the action by locking him in place with firm hands and purposefully delaying his next thrust for several seconds longer. The denial makes Michikatsu’s cock twitch.
“Faster,” he whines out. “Yoriichi, faster, faster, please—” And then his brother grabs a handful of his hair and yanks and Michikatsu’s words dissolve.
Yoriichi does not go faster. He continues to drive into Michikatsu hard and deep and deliberate, manipulating his body so that the peak he craves remains at a low simmer, just building and building and building and building, climbing higher but never plummeting over. At some point, Michikatsu loses even the coherency to beg. He can’t stop moaning, and his body trembles, like a feather caught in the wind. His eyes roll. His mouth is slack, drool spilling from between his lips.
“Don’t worry about anything, Aniue,” Yoriichi whispers, his voice thick as he forces Michikatsu back onto his cock. “I will make you so happy. I’ll take care of you, forever.”
And even though Michikatsu can barely see straight, he pictures it. A life by his brother’s side, Yoriichi kissing him every morning and holding his hand as they go about their days. Yoriichi catering to his every whim, bringing him anything he asks for, letting him feed whenever he wants it. They’d always be together, and Michikatsu would never have a thing to be worried about. All he would need to do is follow the tug of the leash around his neck.
And so what if being near Yoriichi is revolting, if Yoriichi hurts him to be around? So what if he feels so incredibly small and pathetic and insignificant next to his brother? He can’t escape, anyway. What’s the use in fighting?
That’s right. He was always helpless to do anything other than give in.
“Yes,” Michikatsu whimpers. “Yes, yes, Yoriichi, please. Take care of me. Don’t – don’t ever leave—”
“Never,” Yoriichi breathes hotly against his ear, as his cock abuses Michikatsu’s hole, shoves up with horrifying precision against the spot inside him has his mouth gaping, his eyes watering. “Never, Aniue. I live only for you.”
Maybe it’s the words. Maybe it’s Yoriichi inside him, maybe it’s the humiliation of being so greedily spread out, pinned beneath his brother’s powerful body, maybe it’s a combination of everything. Every muscle in Michikatsu’s body draws up tight and he’s forced over the edge with brutality. He comes hard around Yoriichi’s cock, sobbing as his insides clench with enough force to set his thighs trembling. His own length twitches and spurts hard and paints the ground beneath them in white.
That should be enough for him. His cock is sore and spent, hanging flaccid between his legs, and his face is burning, wet with tears. His entire body aches under the violence of Yoriichi’s attentions, limbs shaking, chest heaving. His brother has been working at him since early morning – Michikatsu should be satisfied, should be wriggling away or at least whimpering in pain.
But his eyes roll, and all he can do is buck his hips backward, pleading for more.
Yoriichi flips him onto his back, teases him further by dragging the tip of his hardness over his entrance a few times. It’s not until Michikatsu is weeping, crying out for him, that he slides back in. This time, the pace is vicious, and every time Michikatsu manages to suck in a breath it’s punched right back out of him. Fresh tears stream from the corners of his eyes, over his temples, and into his hairline. Dimly, he realizes that the hinge of his jaw aches, that there’s a string of saliva running down his cheek, and that his arms and legs are clinging so tightly to Yoriichi that it’s a wonder his brother can breathe.
Once more, he’s taken and fucked and used until he can’t handle it any longer. The orgasm, this time, is completely dry. It’s itchy and painful, and Michikatsu chokes, cries out, as his hole flutters and spasms around his brother. His cock gives a few feeble twitches before going limp, and yet, even just the feeling of Yoriichi’s spend pulsing inside him is enough to have him moaning into his brother’s neck.
When Yoriichi pulls out, Michikatsu is too weak to try to hold on. He only sniffles in mute relief when his brother gathers him in his arms, pressing gentle kisses to his shoulders, his throat. A warm hand is on his back, rubbing soothing circles into his skin.
“I don’t need anything else,” Yoriichi tells him as he lays there panting and wrecked, wetness dripping from his entrance. “I only have you, Aniue. You’re all that matters to me.” There are lips on Michikatsu’s face, his cheeks, his brow, and he shudders.
“Yes.” He can’t recognize himself in his own voice. Brittle, tremulous, reed-thin. Or maybe, this is what he really sounds like, and he was just trying to hide it, all this time. “Yoriichi, I only have you too.”
Once, just a short while ago, he could summon the faintest will to resist. There’s nothing left of it.
It’s not because he is unlucky in comparison to his brother. It’s not because Yoriichi is favored by the gods to be able to keep Michikatsu by his side, not because he is protected by destiny which will grant him a future with Michikatsu tied hand and foot underneath him. It’s not because, as Michikatsu used to believe, he is helpless in the face of Yoriichi’s innate blessings.
It’s because he is helpless in the face of Yoriichi.
It is not fate that keeps him shackled to his brother. It’s Yoriichi’s will, Yoriichi himself, and that’s stronger than fate will ever be. Michikatsu understands that now.
Wrapped in Yoriichi’s embrace, he might have cried.