A Gentle Touch
Summary: The kind that sends a shiver down her spine, leaving her eyes bright red once all her tears have been shed.
This is pre-Another Episode.
Warning: underage content, implied/referenced rape, self harm, suggestive material.
Her chin keeps bumping into her knees as her teeth chatter. Kotoko brings her arms down further, wrapping her fingers around her ankles to bring her legs even closer to her body. So she looks even more like a pink furry ball.
The princess outfit she wears is largely just different shades of pink, with ruffles on the sleeves that stop at her shoulders. That fabric is different from the rest of the outfit and it itches when she moves, like how she is now, trembling like a leaf. So even the ruffles at the bottom of the skirt and around her neck are rubbing against her skin; and the ruffles on her waist seem to be bunching up into a harder material, digging into the fabric of her dress, pressing right against her hip bones.
As annoying as it is, she doesn't dislike it. No. Kotoko prefers this material rubbing against her in such a way that will leave bright red marks on her skin afterwards. That will send her mother into a panic before applying makeup to cover it up. So she doesn't look like she's breaking out in a rash from the cheap fabric.
It feels better than all those hands that had been on her an hour ago, and she finds herself wondering if this location will do as an appropriate hideout in the future as well. Or maybe her mother is still just passed out in the hotel across the street. If she were looking for her everyone would jump at her beck and call to find Kotoko.
All because she is the Li'l Ultimate Drama. The star of the show, and without her they wouldn't bring in so many people for their performance. So, of course they would help her mother.
Her mother, who moans and wraps her legs around those men when they touch her at that hotel. She use to tell Kotoko to do these things as well, but she hadn't done it for months now. Apparently she had accepted that Kotoko - even with her talent - couldn't act in that situation.
With their hands, mouth, and other... parts of them on her, in her.
Her breath comes faster as her hands begin to shake, no longer able to hold onto her ankles as tears run down her cheeks. They always moved so slowly, carefully, like she was a glass doll.
She hated it. She hated it. Kotoko raised her hands to rub at her eyes, nails dragging over her cheeks.
"What are you doing?" Her fingers bent further so she could feel something wet on her face. "Hey!" In the next second she felt hands around her wrists, tugging them away from her face so quickly a flare of pain ran up and down her arms. "Stop that." The man's voice was harsh, and he continued to hold her hands in an iron grip.
Kotoko blinked up at him, feeling the warm liquid slide down her face as she stared at him. Had he really just done that? He couldn't possibly know who she was if he had. No one touched her like that.
"Answer me. What were you trying to do?"
The man's hair was long, black and thick, falling to the middle of his back. His eyes an odd intense violet color. Kotoko found herself shrinking away from his hard gaze, but not quick or hard enough to slip her hands out of his grasp. Out of those fingers that made her wrists burn, as if they were wrapped in flames.
After another second the man sighed. "I suppose it doesn't matter. Come with me so I can clean off that blood and get something for those cuts."
His grip had begun to loosen, leaving just a dull ache in her wrists. It wasn't hurting anymore, he... he was being...
Kotoko pulled her hands away quickly. No. No! Anything but that! Anything!
A curse rings against her ears in the next moment, but she can't identify which word he used as he turns back to her, snapping, "If that's how you're going to act." Just as he bends down to grab at her upper arms, lifting her up from the ground. "Then maybe I shouldn't help an ungrateful brat like you," he says, pulling her against his chest as he slips one hand from her arm and around her body to keep her against him, from trying to disappear into the corner again. "Behave yourself. It'll only take a couple minutes to get you fixed up, then you can run from me as much as you want."
With a ring of fire around her arm now she relaxes against his body as he walks down the hall, remaining quite even when he steps into a storage room , going straight to the first aid pack.
He sets her down on the table, opening the pack to take out a bottle of alcohol and piece of cotton. Kotoko watches him with a careful eye, ready to bolt at a moment's notice. But when he turns back to her he grabs her chin with three fingers, forcing her to look at him as he presses the cotton to the cuts on her cheek. She squirms for a moment, prompting him to press the cotton harder against her skin, so she can feel the alcohol sting against the open wound.
She lets out a little whimper as he continues to press the cotton against her skin, the fuzzy bits making the scars itch for a second before he's pulling the cotton away.
The next thing she feels on her face is a damp towel, rubbing along her skin, but mostly staying away from those marks she had made with her fingers. He seems to be getting rid of all the tears that had dried on her skin, as well as any remains of blood staining her cheeks. But he's just a rough with the towel as he was with the cotton; and she presses her face even harder against the towel, to create that reddening of her cheeks.
Once he's thrown the towel into a small basket on the table, depositing the cotton into a trash bin, he's reaching into that first aid pack again.
This time though she trusts that his fingers won't run like a feather over her skin, instead smoothing each side of the band-aid over each scar with a certain force she's largely unfamiliar with. Kotoko closes her eyes as he places them on her cheeks, three in total: one on the right, while two more are applied to her left cheek.
"There," he mutters, his voice sounding a bit deeper than before.
She opens her eyes to grab onto the hand closest to her cheek before he can pull it away from her. Kotoko presses her lips to the back of his rough hand, heart back to beating normally in her chest now. "Thank you."
"Kotoko!"
She nearly jumps at the sound of her mother's voice. Her gaze shoots to the door leading into the room as she leaps off the table, letting go of the man's hand as she runs out of the room, heading down the hallway that leads away from the sound of her mother's voice.