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“How the stars shone.
How sweet the earth smelled.
The orchard gate creaked,
and a footstep pressed on the sand.
And she entered, fragrant as a flower, and fell into my arms.
Oh, sweet kisses, lingering caresses.
Slowly, trembling, I gazed upon her beauty.
Now my dream of true love is lost forever.
My last hour has flown, and I die, hopeless, and never have I loved life more.”
―
Puccini Giacomo 1858-1924, Tosca
The tightness of her corset today feels slightly uncomfortable but it is nothing new. She tightens it a bit more, just so she can pretend it will help her sing better once the play begins.
Her dress today is cream white with pale pink roses. The accessories on her hair are pearls and diamonds dripping down her blossom tresses, mimicking the image of tears as shadows of it falls on her cheeks. It does not make the scars any less ugly, but the people love it. A once feared tigress dragged down by sorrow and despair. She does not mind, it is yet another mask she has worn.
The lights snaps on with the intensity of a guillotine as Yuuji steps on the stage.
She lifts her hands into the air and her voice rings throughout the theatre. Her back does not tremble, her song does not falter. No one sees the way her eyes glow a molten gold, no one recognizes the wail of the spirit that takes over her throat to her chest but that is good. It was a part of the play after all, and she was the finest actress.
The thunderous applause drowns out the way she feels blood rushing to her ears, the way her eyes strains to well up with hot tears. She brushes it all away, it was just a side effect of the possession that happened.
She does not think she imagines it though, when she spies red, red eyes watching her from the audience. When she turns around she feels its pressure on her bare shoulders, and wonders if an evil spirit has finally come to take her away.
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Theres another famous painter in Vienna, but with the age of arts and aristocrats crawling and converging in one place it is of no surprise. What was unexpected, was how much he and his paintings stands out.
Lord Ryoumen is as rich as they come, and had travelled the world selling his paintings. He is nobility in the sense that he has fought for the country even if he comes from a thousand miles east from their motherland. The same place where Yuuji once was, before she was adopted to a family who had taken her in after her grandfather passed away.
‘Ryoumen Sukuna’ is tall and handsome, there are scars on his face that strangely compliments his look. He is fit and his deep voice soon becomes notorious among the ladies. His paintings are fierce and thought provoking, for the ones who care about them. It is odd, violent, and unnerving for the ones that does not.
Yuuji stares at it long and hard and finds herself feeling unimpressed.
“And what do you think about this piece, my lady?”
She does not need to turn around to know who it is. His voice is indeed as deep as they say. She hums, and tilts her head to the side, her netted veil covers the way her eyes slip close in contemplation.
“I have seen several ‘Hanged Men’ in this gallery but I have never seen one that struggles to not be hanged, or desperate not to be eaten.” The painting is indeed a depiction of a hanged man by a tree, his fingers are folded at his neck to fight gravity, his legs are bleeding from the wound the tiger has left by his feet. “He is begging for salvation and rejecting futility….” Yuuji finally turns to Sukuna, a practiced smile gracing her face, “It is…..admirable.”
Lord Ryoumen grins at her and she is struck once again by how right the rumours are, salmon, slicked backed hair, sharp jaw and bright eyes. It's everything one would want from a strikingly handsome gentleman. She finds the way he leans down his face close to hers a tad annoying though.
“I expect nothing less from the beautiful and talented Lady Yuuji,” She does not flinch when he takes her hand and places a kiss on it, feather light. She winces though, when he looks up, dark, red eyes glinting, “But you do not like it.”
“It is meant to show the foolishness of man.” He continues, eyes never leaving hers, “They just do not know when to let go of something as senseless as ‘hope’.”
Yuuji tries not to laugh at his face.
‘As if he was not a man himself.’
She shakes her head though, “I am not a renowned painter like yourself, Lord Ryoumen. But I like to imagine a future not quite as bleak.” A lie, but she was good at those. Her future has never held any substance, but it was true that she would like a world where she could truly be beautiful.
He hums at her, hands folded behind him, “Agree to disagree then. And what brings you here, my lady? Curiosity?” he raises his eyebrow at her at that, as if saying ‘Curious about me?’
Yuuji smiles again, trying to hold her breathing steady when she suddenly senses something behind them, “My father thought it proper to visit the latest pieces in the gallery.”
“Ah, forced to come here then. I am very honoured.”
The darkening aura creeps closer but she ignores it. An actual genuine laugh flows out of her, “You should be grateful that I am enjoying my time.”
“I could ask for nothing more…..except maybe….”
The dark cloud has faces, and she hears them crying to her, as Sukuna smiles at her again, soft, but she feels its sharp edges as he says, “Would you mind spending more of your time with me?”
They are corpses, hanging around his shoulders. Ones with no eyes and limbs, ones with guts falling out of them, blood pooling down to her feet.
The killer stalking Vienna’s streets smiles at her sweetly and she stares at herself nodding at him, taking his warm hand in hers.
“I would love to.”
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Her noble family had picked her off the streets not just because she was talented in her singing, but more importantly, she was an arcanist who could tell you your fate.
They found her at the train station, singing an ode so beautifully they had thrown some coins at her, looking away from her ragged clothes and dirt-stained face. But then, her eyes had glowed, golden and bright, and she had stared at what would be her stepmother and told her that it was better to not take the carriage tomorrow, or she would lose her leg.
The next day, there is an accident, and the day after that her husband takes Yuuji away from the slums and tells her to call her ‘Father’ from now on.
But her story does not start there. It started when her grandfather was still alive.
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‘The killer strikes at night when there is no moon, and when the clouds are full so the rain would wash all the blood away. Their victims are not specific, but one would never find their complete body, often missing a head or an arm. Perhaps, they keep it as a trophy.’
Yuuji hears the same familiar whispers outside the carriage heading to Lord Ryoumen’s estate. She does not hold back her laughter this time, reduced to a giggling fit as she finds how ironic it is, that she is heading straight to the lion's den.
She wipes the tears from her eyes, even when she feels a giggle climbing out her throat again. It was ridiculous, a lady does not act like this. A lady would graciously accept an invitation from a prestige nobleman with the proper decorum and they would have tea together, talking about the weather or what have you. She straightens her back, looks up and wears her familiar mask again, smiling politely as the carriage door opens.
Honestly, she feels herself losing her grip on her sanity.
But then again when has she ever had one?
The manor is huge and foreboding, she expected nothing less. Someone who she assumes is the butler, though their traditional clothing and haircut might suggest otherwise, leads her through the dark red hallways and golden lights. They say,
“My lord wants to meet you in his studio if that is alright with my lady?”
She says yes, of course, it is no problem.
The studio is on the other end of the manor. ‘Uraume’ as they introduced themselves, tells her that lunch would be served later in the day.
The room she steps inside is full of wide, ceiling-high windows that spill sunlight into the different colours blooming on the hundreds of canvases sprawling all over the place. Sukuna himself is painted and messy, red, black, and blue staining his low-necked dress shirt. She should have worn her plain dress if she thought they were going to have an art session.
He turns around when he spots her approaching and that too-wide smile and sharp teeth shine at her again,
“Ah, my beautiful lady, care to join me?”
She does not answer, instead her attention goes to the painting beside him, and she does not know why it grabs her so.
It is a painting of a cherry blossom tree, its roots are littered with bones, and its petals are stained crimson, but still it stands. Strong and wondrous. She steps closer to it, her throat tight, trying to still the tremble in her hands.
“You like it?” He sounds smug and it irritates her but his smile is a bit charming so she smiles back just as cheekily.
“It is slightly better.”
The loud laughter she gets from him makes echoes in the room, and suddenly she feels her heart beating just as loud.
She tells him about the parts she likes about the painting, he tells her that he would make more for her. She finds it ridiculous, that feeling of incredulity creeping up to her again as he insists her to grab the brush and paint beside him.
He is a killer, cold-blooded, evil, and perhaps more than a little insane. And sometimes she spies the way he looks at her, hungry like it is only a matter of time before she would be his.
But his hands are firm and warm, as he holds it in hers. His eyes are sharp and bright, looking straight through her as if he could see everything she was and not the other way around. He asks her, “Why do you hold back?” When she stares at the blank canvas and does not know what colours to stain herself with.
He looks at her and he does not see the famous opera singer or the proper noble lady. He sees ‘Yuuji’, without the masks and it leaves her unmoored, and unsure of how to act but…..
It also feels free.
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Her first ‘Hanged Man’ was her grandfather’s body, swaying from his bedroom ceiling.
If it was a play her life would start with a sorrowful aria of the moments she shared with her beloved grandfather before it came to this. It is a slow downward spiral that spells a familiar tale of immigrants and poverty.
She starts working with her grandfather when she’s big enough to carry her weight. She is unusually strong so even when her grandfather got sick they could still scrape by, stew for a week, cookies daily. But then he gets sicker, and the medicines he takes become too expensive. She struggles day and night, and it is a kind of slow death that her grandfather could see clearly as the shadows under her eyes become darker and her cheeks become hollow.
He leaves her a letter before departing her world. He tells her to not follow him, and to live on, however hard it may be. She folds it into a tiny box and keeps it in the locket he gave her for one of her birthdays. A rare occasion where their lack of finances was not that dire. Perhaps, he did not want to see Yuuji sell it off in place of taking care of him.
Even after she gets adopted, she reads his last letter again and again, finding herself sometimes hating him, for not allowing her to join him.
His shadow is a mournful reminder always standing by her side. When she cries herself to sleep, she feels his soft pressure, patting her shoulder. When she stares at nothing too long, he brings a warm breeze her way, reminding her that she, at least, is still living.
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They share their first kiss behind the red rose bushes, the sun heating her nape, her panting breaths reverberating through Sukuna’s garden.
He bites her lip and she gasps with the way he breathes her in. Tongues tied together, rough hands pressing on her waist, to her neck. This must be how it was to be eaten.
He pushes her into the grass and she moans at the tight grip on her thighs. She stares at the tiger's red, red, eyes and bares her neck, eyes glowing gold, feeling her mouth tilting up in a challenge. He embraces it with an answering grin, ripping off her thin stockings, and ducking under her skirts to bite her knickers out of the way.
She gasps when he latches his mouth at her wet crying cunt and she breathes in and in, feeling like she could scream and sing to the heavens, never having felt this kind of euphoria before. He snarls when she whimpers and spills onto his tongue, and he purrs in elation as he presses her clit insistently, pushing these small ‘Ah! F-fah!, out of her bruised lips.
Yuuji felt like she had come so many times her legs trembled with oversensitivity as he climbed to her chest, biting blues and purples at the column of her neck, hands straining behind her to rip the ribbons out of her corset. She still feels clear headed enough to bite his arm for that though.
He hisses more in surprise than in pain, staring incredulously at the blood dripping down his arm, then at her cheeky smile. Even with her hair in disarray and flushed face, her voice is still steady as she says,
“You mean to fuck me on the grass like animals my lord?”
He scoffs, “Is this your first dance? Why waste time-”
“How improper of you,” she tuts, and she tries not to laugh as his eyebrows are raised to his hairline, “I want the master bedroom please, roses, candles, and a wonderful dinner beforehand.”
“Hah! Who would’ve thought the singer of Vienna is a spoiled brat-”
She silences him with another fierce kiss, and a request to pick some of his roses from his gardens.
Days later, she receives a gift from Lord Ryoumen. It is intricately designed with ruby roses and emerald leaves, gold plated and deadly sharp. Yuuji holds out the glorified scissors into the light, admiring the way it shine brightly. A note is attached in the box,
‘Take all the roses you want but be careful of the thorns, my Yuuji.’
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Her first and only pet was a small rabbit with snowy white fur and dark red eyes.
This was before her stepmother became absent and distant from her. This was when she had come with her maids, wheelchair creaking and smiled at her as Yuuji told her about all the studies she had been struggling with.
She had stroked Yuuji’s hair softly and had asked her what she wanted if she scored better on her upcoming tests. And Yuuji had wanted a companion.
Yuuji remembers falling in love with the rabbit. How she had cooed and kept it close to her, revelling in its soft fur and comforting warmth. She had named it ‘Sakura’ and it had been one of the things she treasured most in her childhood days.
When she turned thirteen her father had called her to his office. It is not uncommon, he would often call her in to ask her about his or someone else’s fate, if she could that is. But no, this time her stepfather wanted to inform her that he had hired a new tutor for her.
It was one of his close friends, with a high standing in society and a good knowledge of the manners of a noble lady. She tries not to ask him how a man knows anything about being a lady. It is not her place after all.
He is strict with her and does not give her any time to do anything else. He calls her visits to Sakura and her stepmother ‘distractions’ and tells her she still has a long way to go before being a ‘proper lady’. She has to be good enough that no one would ever suspect she was not nobility, she has to be better.
‘Be better!’
And she tells herself that every day, even as her stepmother stopped talking to her, and as her father frowns at the way she slouches at dinner. She tells it to herself as she bleeds and gains bruises on her feet from wearing heels for so long, and it becomes something hanging over her neck as she vomits before every meal, trying to fit in her tight corset, as she tries not to tremble, as she lifts her spoon to eat.
One morning, her tutor calls her to the garden, and she dreads what he will say to her as she knows she has not done well in her last lesson. Oddly, he greets her with a smile and tells her that today he will teach her how to use a gun.
Yuuji feels excited despite everything, breath hitching when he holds out her father's hunting rifle to her. He is patient with her today, explaining to her the technique and position. And then.
And then he smiles at her, mouth wide, and says to her that they will take this opportunity to get rid of one of her distractions. And then, he steps behind her, arms closing around her trembling hands on the rifle. He is too close, and she feels suffocated as he guides the point of the gun towards the garden, where Sakura is munching on her breakfast. White fur and red eyes.
He tells her to shoot, and it is only when he barks at her again that she does.
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And finally, we reach the climax of this play.
This scene is set in Sukuna’s manor, and the main characters are her, Sukuna and the Tutor. A familiar face comes in a carriage at the front door; a man from her shadowed childhood, the one that made her a murderer. The time is six, evening, and soon the sun will set.
The Background Plot:
The Tutor had come in uninvited to propose a business plan with Lord Ryoumen, and he is surprised, yet pleased when he sees Lady Yuuji in the same premises. Yuuji is uncomfortable, and Sukuna is annoyed.
The Tutor is insistent though, and the day is already late. Sukuna grudgingly accepts his request to stay the night, and the killer behind the mask plans his new victim, as he sees the way the Tutor smiles at Yuuji.
That night they sleep in separate beds, but one of them leaves their bed, and stalks into Lady Yuuji’s room.
The Script:
The Tutor: Lady Yuuji? Are you awake?
Lady Yuuji: ..…..what are you doing here?
The Tutor: *laughs* Why act so surprised? It's not as if this is a first.
Lady Yuuji: Please leave.
The Tutor stalks closer to the bed, he snatches her hand in a vice grip, scowling. Yuuji struggles in his hold.
The Tutor: What, you have a new paramour now? You dirty whore!
Lady Yuuji: No! Get out!
She pushes him away, but he slams her into the wall, hissing at her face.
The Tutor: Didn’t take you long to find another one hm? But I know, women like you are always in heat, can’t save you from your insanity-
Lady Yuuji: I SAID GET OUT!
Then, the Rising Crescendo:
The door slams open with Sukuna’s furious face just as Yuuji punches her attacker.
She feels rage clawing at her fingers, making her breathe heavily, blood rushing to her ears, heart hammering in her chest. She snatches the golden scissors from under her pillow and raises it high into the air, face twisted in anger, eyes glowing gold.
And she brings it down to his throat. Again and again.
His scream breaking down to wet gurgles are music to her ears. The sea of crimson makes her grip on the scissors slippery, but she digs it into the body, relishing in the absolute fear on its face. Something climbs into her throat. Suddenly, she has the urge to sing her heart out to the world. Justice tastes so good on her tongue.
It is only in the ringing silence that she notices the other presence in the room. It is Sukuna…..and yet it isn’t. He has tattoos on his face, black and arching over his jaw, rings closed around his arms. Was he also an arcanist? How had he hid it so well?
But what had made her pause was the expression on his face, a kind of heat she hadn’t seen in his eyes before, an awe that made her feel hungry.
She tosses the bloodied scissors away and pulls him down into a biting kiss. Blood stains his neck, to his face, and the stench of it is nothing compared to the way they inhale each other's scent. She grips his hair and he doesn’t flinch as she makes his lips bleed with another rough kiss.
Yuuji says, ‘Hold me.’ And who is he to deny her?
They stumble onto the bed, scrambling to get out of their clothes. Sukuna rips off her night dress and she moans in his ear as he gropes her breast, leaving a wet line on the other with his tongue, before biting on her reddened nipple.
He groans when she presses her knee at his heated member, growling low as she cries so sweetly for him. He leaves a trail of purpled kisses from her chest to her stomach, then down and down. He pinches her clit and she squeals, sharp nails digging into his arm. He sighs in pleasure as he drinks her in, cunt already spilling with her needy whine.
Sukuna hums, sipping her nectar and as he pumps in two fingers, then three, his aching cock becomes harder to ignore as she comes again, squirting on his hand. He takes out his cock but takes a moment to stare at her, glittering diamond tears brushing her eyes, flushed red cheeks, golden eyes watching him, bloody hands, trembling back. Perhaps, this was how it felt to be hunted.
They both moan as he finally slides in and when he immediately quickens his thrusts, Yuuji cries out in ecstasy. “More!” She loves it all, the heat inside her, the pleasure drowning all her senses, how absolutely perfect. But it wasn’t enough.
Sukuna bares his teeth at her when she suddenly grabs his neck, but he lets her push him down, lets her ride him as she screams, “Yes! Yes!” Because this was it, wasn’t it? The way Sukuna looked at her, the moonlight spilling on their writhing bodies, the body on the floor, everything she had to struggle for and hide was not needed in this room, at this moment.
She had never felt so beautiful in her life.
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The scene ends, and her voice peters out into a low hum.
She lowers herself into a bow as the deafening applause fills the theatre.
Yuuji sings for the people, for herself, and for her lover.
In the audience, she meets with dark red eyes and she beams, eyes glowing with warmth.
She turns around and looks towards the future.
-fin-