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The sound of the bamboo cane whistling through the air behind him didn't make Saku nervous exactly.
Even after all this time, his body remembered its training; the blows wouldn't hurt him more than he let them, and as evidenced by this exercise, he didn't fear the pain.
The feeling was more... curiosity. Doubt, even. It might not work, not like this. He could feel how weak the twine around his wrists was, even as Yui had tied it tightly enough to dig into his wrists, the rope looped around a wall post. It wasn't like being in that cell in Edo, and certainly wasn't like his training in Iwagakure.
Would that make it better? Would that make it worse?
He swallowed. He had to at least try. "I'm ready."
"Alright." Yui's voice, soft and lilting, came from a little above him and to his left. Even blindfolded, he didn't have to see her to know she was breathing hard, her heart thudding with the same anxious, ardent energy as his own, or at least something very like it. He felt her approach in the faintest tremors of the air, and the warmth of her hand as she rubbed down one shoulder and the scarred expanse of his back.
And she didn't insult him by hesitating.
The cane came down with a loud crack, right shoulder to left hip. Saku grunted, but forced himself to relax, and the pain actually intensified as he did, as blood rushed to the bright, fiery line of the lash; Yui, despite her misgivings, had put her whole weight into that first blow.
His heart fluttered with affection for her.
She hit him again, and then again; lighter lashes across hipbones, buttocks, shoulders, knocks along his spine with the very end of the cane. Agony to most people, surely, but he had to focus on them, really focus on them, consciously wake his nerves and soften his muscles until he felt bruises forming, and then skin splitting, under the bite of the cane.
Saku clenched his hands and felt the rough twine against his skin, and kept tugging on it until the tips of his fingers were numb. He felt the blood dripping down his sides, ticklish and warm.
Another one of those harder blows came down, this time across the backs of both thighs. He groaned, and heard Yui's breaths shudder.
"Oh, my darling." She sounded on the verge of tears. Was it cruel to ask her to do this? She was the one who suggested it, but the reality of the situation-
Another blow struck him, higher, just below the buttocks and glancing his balls from behind. That, that, he felt immediately, gasping in sudden, shocking pain.
His thoughts quieted down, his heart thudding in his ears. His stomach roiled like he might vomit, but there was nothing to give. The very air felt like the lick of a flame. Had he set himself ablaze?
Yui paused and let him soak in the agony of it, waiting until he stopped shivering. His tongue felt dull in his mouth, and the side of it stung. Had he bitten himself? He was drooling enough for it.
Was that sweat dripping down his sides, or more blood? And the heat between his legs, was that just pain where she struck him?
Not quite, no, not exactly. He shifted on his knees and imagined, shamefully, that his whole face must be red under the blindfold, as he gulped and squeezed his thighs together, trying to hide his hardness.
The smell of himself was damning. Could Yui smell him? But that faint sweetness in the air, too...
He breathed, and the whole lungful smelled like her. Some instinctive part of him knew it was her, and the idea that she could not only bear this but find it arousing-
He thought of her lips, the slightly chapped surface of them, how they were just a little too thin for her face, and thought of how much he wanted to kiss her again. His throat was so, so dry, even as saliva pooled in his mouth.
He swallowed as he heard the cane swish the air behind him again.
"Should I keep going?" Yui's voice was closer now, practically in his ear. He could feel her hand on his arm, rubbing the soreness out already. He could still smell her fading perfume and her growing wetness, and just the thought that seeing him like this made her wet made him ache.
Should he? There was no way she wouldn't notice. Not this close. It felt wrong to take this for himself.
But if Yui liked it... he'd not been ashamed of loving her in her entirety, not in a long time. Why start again now? When she cupped his chin and ran her thumb across his cheek, he leaned into the soft warmth of her palm, kissing the heel of her hand. When she smoothed the hair from his forehead and kissed his lips, this time he kissed back.
"Please," It felt like a weight coming off his shoulders, a knot coming undone in the core of his being.
The blindfold slipped off. He blinked; the lantern light lit her hair gold and cast her smiling face aglow, but not enough to hide the redness in her cheeks and the gleam of desire in her eye. In the corner of his vision, the bloody cane hung loosely from her right hand.
He'd never seen anyone more beautiful.
"I want to see the faces you make this time." She said. Her eyes crinkled in the corners as she smiled, the scar on the right side of her face pulled taut, and he resolved that as soon as he was untied he was going to cover her whole face in kisses.
She bid him turn over, facing her now; his hands, raised above his head by the rope, his legs crossed. He remembered that cell in Edo.
But this was different now.
She lashed the cane across his chest, and he arched his back and leaned into the pain, bright and maddening. Beads of blood ran down his belly, and Saku couldn't help but moan.