Chapter Text
MAKE ME A SINNER: #AKAZA | HAKUJI X FEMALE!READER 🎭
WARNING (18+):
Graphic depiction of STRONG LANGUAGE (colloquial cuss terms are still used), SEXUAL ASSAULT, and BULLYING. Your discretion is highly advised!
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
There’s been an onslaught of vicious attacks against humans happening around the provinces of Japan. Anyone who lived in the city believed that these “rumors” are simply raised at the price of instilling fear everywhere else. But to you, they are not just rumors. They are very much real. And the cause of these attacks are demons. You have a friend who works in the Demon Slayer Corps.
But most of them are not allowed to be seen in public, carrying their katanas. They only worked in the shadows for the safety of their employees, and in order to avoid gaining any more attention from the society. But to be honest, it was also because they do not abide to the rules of Japanese labour laws.
But as far as you’re concerned, child labour is already a significant part of Japan’s work force, it has become a cultural norm that the enforcement of rules are too weak to be taken seriously by the industrial society anyway. It was terribly wrong and unjust, but the rise of poverty and economic hardship had forced the general public to resolve to relentless working until they drop dead on the ground. And that included children. If you grew up in a household without proper schooling or education, you are forced to take the route of labour force.
Your case wasn’t necessarily special.
You were trafficked as a kid—and by your own parents, no less, you’d think you would have expected it, with your poor status, you can barely afford to eat three times a day. And sometimes, you’d endure not eating for the whole day just to sell all your charcoals. Sometimes, you have no other way of seeing it, but it reminded you how you won’t have to suffer under their roof ever again, if you even had the chance to get away from their hands.
They’re both equally pathetic.
Their lack of moral grounds had you despising them for even birthing you in the first place.
But at the same time, you still have to suffer. Just not in their own hands.
Ad that’s not the definition of real freedom.
Unlike selling, this gig you were taken to is very different.
The ringmaster has taught you to perform for work.
You serve to entertain. You work to entertain.
“What the fuck did I told you?” Mistress Helaena was practically breathing down on your neck as you perched yourself over the tightrope with a swift kick. Your eyes rolled with careless disinterest. You’re used to their empty threats, it is becoming more laughable at this point. You knew they had money to give you to anyone they want.
But they cannot afford to lose you.
Hell, you’d like them to even see they try.
You were their best performers, and you were ever the only person who had ever mastered the tightropes.
People come to see you, and that’s not even overselling it.
You were summoned by the ringmaster’s wife on on one evening. Her head was full of it. She trembles from above to beneath, like she had just forsaken herself. She began jabbing at your chest as soon as you arrived. You said nothing. You were too busy minding your own business.
A few steps ahead. Always thinking of whatever impossible feat you had to do for your next show. Your head was twirling with pink ribbons, the bodice of your corset, covered in glitter and colorful sequin ornaments.
You are the star, and nothing changes that.
But for fuck’s sake, you are so tired of being reprimanded by the ringmaster’s wife for simply trying to fight back against rude customers!
“You told me not to mess around customers, blah, blah, blah.”
“Exactly!” you watched as Mistress Helaena paced along the stretching vicinity of the ringmaster’s tent, back and forth. Her hands were upon her waist as she thinks too deeply. “You just slapped one of our potential benefactor, and you... you and your anger ruined it!”
“Christ’s sake, Mistress, he was touching me!”
“And what of it?”
“Are you fucking serious?”
Your jaw clenched as Mistress Helaena grabbed the tightrope with a startling force. You fell back down on the floor, as graceful as you could try to land on both feet. She beckoned herself closer as you met her intense gaze with the same defiance.
“You are paid to entertain people, and if sex is what they want as a form of entertainment, then you should’ve given them what they want—”
“That’s easy for you to say, you’re not the only in that position—”
“Then you should’ve thought twice before punching him in the face!”
“He should have thought twice before touching me to places where his fingers do not belong.” your eyes darkened, filled with malicious intentions. Your voice lowered to an octave as you glared back at Mistress Helaena. “You’re not the one being assaulted, but I suppose you’d want that too, because the only person who would want to do you, is your own ugly husband who can’t even make you orgasm.”
A slap resounded from across, your head turned sideways. You knew you hit her where home has never been closer. Mistress Helaena was no better than anyone else in a room full of performers. And just like that, she’s also hid herself well enough to not be known as one.
Helaena was a beautiful oiran in the past before a fire had driven her away from the red light district and gave her a severe burn that took away her desirability to entertain. Half of her face was severely affected by the fire and had rendered her practically useless for months. And when she decided to return, patrons had deemed her useless.
She lost her marketability. And when the ringmaster found her, he offered her to become his wife.
She wanted to refuse.
But the privilege of being his wife meant she can have more control of more people. And she’d have more money than she’s ever paid in the red light district.
There are only two things of what a tragic accident can do to a person.
The trauma pushes you well enough to make you stronger, or it breeds a new monster.
Mistress Helaena chose to be a monster. Her tragic past is not a justified means to an end; no. It was merely an outlook to her soul, but not a solid reason to justify all the horrible things that she and her husband had done to these people working in the circus. It wasn’t a reason for them to buy you out of your home and force you to work in the entertainment industry. Mistress Helaena’s constantly bullying will never be justified.
And so if you’re asking her if she deserved those words coming from you, maybe she didn’t.
But maybe she deserves to hear that from you. No one should ever fall passive under someone’s horrible intent. Especially if it involved touching someone else without their consent.
It was horrible.
And disgusting.
“Mistress?”
Your eyes clamped shut as you let the pain sink through your skin. You looked away as you hear Akaza’s voice emerging through the shadows.
“What?!” Mistress Helaena snapped.
“The ringmaster waits for you in his tent.”
There was a brief silence, before you hear the shuffling footfall and her threatening voice. “This isn’t over,”
“Sure,” you answered boredly. Your eyes landed on your palms, marked with swelling red prints of the tightrope you’ve held on for too long.
You thought that Akaza would follow her too, but you knew he wasn’t going to. He was always intent on talking to you. Always around you, always holding that dark expression that you knew you liked.
He is protective of you. Maybe in more than ways you could care to elaborate out loud. But you knew, he hated it when he sees the way that they treated you like that without care.
If there is only one person who truly had control over this circus, over the ringmaster, it was him. Akaza.
From the moment you met him, you had an inkling that he was above everyone else. And that proves to be true.
The only person capable of making the ringmaster beg, was him.
“Why are you here, Akaza?”
“To check up on you.” he replied, equally cold.
“I don’t need your help.”
“I’m not offering one,” you hissed, pain had shot up in your muscle, a strained shoulder. You hit yourself while performing awhile ago, and you didn’t know it would form a bruise.
Judging from the way you move your muscle, Akaza was already a step ahead of you as he held out your wrist for examination.
“What are you—”
“Don’t move,” his eyes narrowed at your first attempt in struggling, your heart hammered against your chest, your back sat ramrod straight. Your eyes strayed away from his intense stare.
“Don’t touch me,” you grabbed his arm, unnerved by the way he handled your skin, like fragile glass. The equal opposite to his personality. As someone who was constantly fight using brute force, he is treating you like a China doll.
“You’ll find that stubbornness doesn’t help your case.”
“You know, whatever the fuck this is for you, I hope you stay out of my business, Akaza.” he let out an involuntary scoff. You were screwed. You shouldn’t have struggled against him. He was only trying to help you out.
He didn’t think of trying to force nor hit you.
He is always patient with women. It’s what you don’t understand.
Although, he has refused in hitting them, or raising his voice at them, that did not mean that his treatment was special altogether. He’s as reserved like anyone else.
He sees them as his equal.
But to you, only to you, that it seems like not the case. He always gets carried away by your presence.
At least that’s what led you to believe about his outer skin, anyway. The only reason why you are so attached to him was because you owe him your life, as much as he owed your secret.
In truth, you knew that Akaza was a demon.
It is where all his power is coming from. From the very beginning, the power balance has always been on a teteered to the brink of a cliff. The entire circus was his domain.
He refused to hit women on purpose, and he refuses to eat one. But if it came to a life and death situation, if it came to a display of power, he will certainly treat them as his equal. He will fight back—no matter what.
That’s the shit you admire about him.
You wanted that version of him. To treat you like a capable human being.
“When will you stop treating me like a fucking joke?”
“I’m not,”
“From the way you handle all my fights, you do.”
“This is not a matter of distrust nor arrogance. You are weak... for as long as you stay in this form of yours.”
“Unbelievable,” you laughed in great offense. You turned at him, evidently betrayed by his careless statement. “Isn’t that the truth?”
“What the fuck do you want me to do, Akaza? You’re asking me to be turned and subject myself into a monster to acquire the same power and privilege that you have?”
“You see me as a monster, then?” he asked, eyes locking into yours for answer. Your gaze hardened. “Isn’t that the truth?” you say, parroting his words.
His jaw clenched at your statement as you move forward, pushing him at his chest. “You think you’re doing me a favor? By turning me into a demon? When all you do is insult my nature as human? That is arrogance.”
“I get that you’re trying to shield me from whatever tragedy coming my way, but I have seen worse than being subjected into this circus. I’ve gone through worst. And that made me who I am.”
“It made me strong—”
“No,”
“No?”
“You were a child. You didn’t need to be strong. You needed someone to hold you—”
“Oh, don’t start, Akaza—!”
“Is that not it, then?” he said, his brows, tightly knitted as he gripped you on your waist. His eyes was searching through depths of your soul. The hauntedness that resided within you. The darkness that threatened to shadow whatever sanity is left of you.
“You’ve always been capable! I know you do! But this is not the life I want for you—”
“It was my life!” you screamed, struggling through his grasp, you let out a strained sob, as you push him away from you. “My life, Akaza.”
“And do you want it to be your life? Forever?”
You stopped, as you tried to collect yourself. You wiped your tears. Angrily. You were afraid of hearing those words from him. Deep inside, you knew, you and him are not so different. But the only difference is that he can’t remember his past, he could not remember whatever fuckery, whatever struggle he went through. That’s why he made himself stronger through all that trouble of being turned. He made himself a warrior.
But you were a child, hiding behind a suit of armour, play pretending a knight you claimed yourself to be. You were scared of confronting your feelings, your heart. You were scared of your broken heart. Because if you acknowledged it, then it would mean that you deluded yourself into thinking that you’ve already accepted whatever fate you were subjected into.
And that’s not the life you want.
No.
And he—for fuck’s sake—on whatever God’s name that is—he kept shoving it in your fucking face. Like it did not hurt you enough.
Fuck you, Akaza. Or whoever the hell you are.
“Hit me,” you heard him say.
“No,”
“Hit me,”
“I said, no!” your body involuntarily twirled. Under his strong hold, your arms were clutched together. Your fingers intertwined. Your eyes stung from the cold and unshed tears, yearning yet again, to fall from the helplessness. Your heart hurt.
It felt like a bitch. To feel like you amount to nothing.
To feel like nothing ever belonged to you. Or nothing you do will ever deserve you something that you can call your own.
You hit him.
Your fists tightened. Something ugly has possessed you and has taken over you. You started hitting him. Even though you knew it had little to no effect on him, you still hit him with all you’ve got.
Until you were spent and exhausted. “Let me turn you, please.”
You looked him dead in the eye. “No,” your eyes crashed against him, going with whatever the fuck was on your mind.
You didn’t want to fight the fall.
Not at all.
But if you’re gonna fall, you want it to be him.