"The head moved again
Faced side ways
I was confused I stared at both faces;
One had a naughty
Streak of smile,
The other in content;
I was beguiled.
But then I realized
The Janus face is none but mine."
- Venice Margarette Juanillas
The door opens with a small creak as Shinobu enters the bedroom.
"Darling?"
Kira looks up from the notebook he uses for practicing his handwriting. He has gotten significantly better at imitating Kousaku's pen strokes over the last few days, but he still isn't entirely content with his work: The Kanji characters are a little too wobbly and the Katakana ones too neat.
Kira simply knows that he won't be able to sleep well tonight considering that he hasn't perfected his writing yet. His disguise is spotting gaping holes and it is driving the OCD maniac inside him mad.
"Yes?", Kira answers gruffly.
"I was wondering where you went after dinner. Hayato is already in bed and I finished washing the dishes."
Shinobu yawns and stretches her arms above her head.
"Why does this kid always have to be so adamant about staying up late? Seriously, he's so rebellious – and he isn't even a teenager yet! You have to talk to him about his attitude someday, maybe he'll listen to you. I mean, you are his father after all."
Kira turns his attention back to the notebook on his desk.
Right.
He is a father.
It still weirds him out to play the part of the supposedly loving father and husband, having to call that brat 'son' and Shinobu his 'wife'.
Frankly, he has always preferred the life of a bachelor with the occasional liaison here and there, but now Kira happens to be stuck in a stinking normal 08/15 Japanese family that could have been straight out of a cheesy TV commercial for breakfast cereals.
The change has been a rather surreal experience in itself:
Kira remembers frantically pulling over the next best guy matching his own body type and basically ripping this stranger's face off.
A mask crafted by the Cinderella Stand allowed him to hide from Josuke and all the others who sought to put an end to the tranquility of Kira Yoshikage's life.
Alas, the teenagers and Jotaro aren't aware that it was nigh impossible to catch him:
Kira can look back in pride on a flawless record of crimes he had committed without leaving any evidence whatsoever.
With the help of Killer Queen, he is at the top of the game, being able to kill with silent explosions, invisible to the eyes of non-Stand users.
Lady Luck has decided to favor him and he basks in her attention, determined to protect his quiet life at all costs.
The train of thoughts revolving around his current situation comes to an abrupt halt when Shinobu raises her voice again:
"You know, we haven't had a lot of time for us lately with all the work and the child and whatnot."
She throws a quick glance at him while opening the buttons of her crimson colored blouse.
"Also I can't just deny that you seem to have changed. Something has changed, but...I don't know what exactly."
A chill runs down Kira's spine and he can feel his fingernails digging into his palms.
Slowly he stands up from his working desk and approaches his 'wife', who has changed into a lavender nightgown.
"You've noticed it too, right? Our marriage – no, our life – it hasn't been what it used to be. We have been drifting apart for a while now.
However, I can see that you are trying to mend this: Your actions, your change of heart.
It's almost as if you're a different person!"
She steps forward and intertwines her fingers with his, squeezing his hand in an affirmative gesture.
Kira swallows hard.
"You...Kousaku, you might have a hard time expressing what's on your mind sometimes, but I appreciate what you are doing. I appreciate it a lot.
We can start anew. I am positive that we can overcome this...this stagnation – together.
My Dear."
The nickname rolls off her tongue with overflowing affection in her voice. Shinobu edges closer to her husband, closing the gap between them by placing her head against Kira's chest.
He looks down his nose onto her breasts pressed flat against his torso and her bare white neck.
The view is taunting him to simply wrap his fingers around it, around her blood vein filled nape, and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze until she would go limp in his arms.
No, he mustn't.
He can't allow himself to fantasize about killing this woman and taking her pretty, dainty hands right there.
Even if the opportunity is given – Shinobu is so vulnerable right now and his fingers are twitching in anticipation, damn it! - even if his nails are growing faster than ever, he mustn't give in and risk getting caught by the local self proclaimed warriors of Morioh.
So Kira bites his lip and fights against the killing desire.
His will is strong enough – he keeps repeating it like a mantra in his head until it sounds believable.
"It has been too long since the last time we got intimate."
Kira feels her leg lightly brushing against the inside of his thigh.
She is bold with her advances today. A boldness he wouldn't have given her credit for.
Kira figures that she must have been neglected by that sorry excuse of a husband for quite a while now and was craving for any form of attention she could elicit from her 'Darling'.
Being stuck in a gray marriage with the hollow shell of a cold man, devoid of any love or lust.
He almost feels pity for her.
All of a sudden, Shinobu lets her fingertips glide across his cheek and the touch is as soft as a light breeze on his face.
Kira's eyes widen as she repeats the motion, this time with her fingers lingering on his cheekbone.
He can feel the softness of her digits on his skin and before he can stop himself – before he can even grasp the risk he's about to take with this action – he cups her hand with his much bigger one, gently leading her to his lips.
The smell of peach hand creme is almost dazzling, mixing in with the sensation of her smooth skin and delicate fingers.
It's hypnotizing, so very tempting to just give in to his urges and let loose.
And this time he does.
He parts his lips and lets his tongue glide across Shinobu's palm, dragging a damp trail all the way up her fingers to the nails, eliciting a small moan from her when he kisses her fingertips.
Feeling bolder from the arousal, he takes three of her digits into his mouth, gently sucking them. Swirling his tongue over the flesh in an experienced technique, he grazes his teeth lightly across her fingers, finally releasing them with a wet plopping sound.
The gesture is familiar, a gesture out of his old life from when he was spoiling his girlfriends with affection.
However, the very thought alarms him.
No, he isn't Kira Yoshikage anymore and he is positive that Shinobu's husband would have never exerted the same kind of behavior towards his wife. Not a man who was as stale and devoid of any passion such as Kawajiri Kousaku.
Kira blinks and abruptly lets go of the woman's hand.
He knows he is getting himself in trouble if he keeps up satisfying his fetish, only fueling potential doubts about his true identity.
However, his worries turn out to be meaningless: Shinobu's gaze is fixated on him, big brown eyes devoid of any suspicion or even discomfort. Instead her lips turn into a smirk and with flushed cheeks she lifts her hand – slick from his saliva – to her own mouth, giving it a lick.
"Darling."
With light footsteps, she approaches their shared bed and removes the rubber band that keeps her ponytail together. Reddish strands of hair fall onto her shoulders as she slides onto the mattress, coaxing her husband with a coquettish smile to follow her example and accompany her.
To his own surprise, Kira's feet start moving and to his much bigger surprise, he complies with Shinobu's silent order.
Why was his body acting on its own?
Once he's laid down onto his side of the bed, Kousaku's wife – no, his wife – runs a hand over his face, tousling through his messy black locks.
Somehow Shinobu must have picked up that he was going crazy from the touch of her hands and the dance of her fingertips across his skin.
Almost as if she knows about his preference and using that knowledge to her advantage.
Did Kousaku have a hand fetish as well?
If so, then maybe Kira has more in common with Shinobu's husband than just a similar body type and – of course – the same face.
Eventually he stops worrying, instead reveling in the touch of her fingers with closed eyes and he can't restrain himself from arching his back when she rubs her hand across his jaw.
Pleasure is sparking through his body like an electric current and he can feel himself starting to get hard.
At this point, his resistance is at its weakest, but what can he do about it?
All the stress that had built up with the cat-and-mouse play has rendered him needy for distraction.
So when she starts tugging at his shirt, he doesn't put up a fight and instead undresses himself, earning a chaste kiss on his forehead as reward.
Shinobu settles next to his stomach and giggles when her arm brushes against the noticeable bulge in his pants.
"You are so eager already. Let me help you with that."
Kira's breathing is heavy and his thoughts are a complete mess.
Thinking clearly has become a near impossible chore with both the pulsating heat radiating from his abdomen and the warm, female hands traveling his sweating body.
This is different than everything he has ever experienced before with his girlfriends.
Shinobu isn't a mere severed hand, no, it is quite the opposite with her: Her hands are full of warmth and blood, thriving with life.
The hot trails her fingers leave on his torso increase the intensity of the sensation and he is feeling pure ecstasy when her hands slowly make their way to the hem of his pants, ready to free his throbbing erection from the clothed cage.
Suddenly Shinobu's hands stop in their tracks.
"Darling? What is that on your face?"
The sound of tearing paper echoes through the dark room.
All of a sudden the heat around them dies down.
Kira freezes as Shinobu rips something off his forehead.
A crumpled piece of bloody skin is rolled between her thumb and index finger.
"Is this...a mask?"
With shock rendering him unable to move, Kira just stares at Shinobu, who is looming over his naked body and scratching a nail across his brow. Something comes off with a nasty squelch and it feels as if some sort of crust is falling off his skin.
Trembling fingers slide across his nose, turning red from the leaking blood that is coming off together with remains of his face.
Shinobu manages to peel off more and Kira is able to see a squished eyeball and tufts of black hair between leathery skin-colored shreds in her hands.
No, it couldn't be.
The mask.
The mask had gotten off somehow?
But how, how was that possible?
"Who are you?"
She is cupping his bloodied face – Kira Yoshikage's real face – and slides a thumb across his protruding cheekbone. He just watches her, too stunned to make any other movements, and just watches, watches silently as Shinobu traces the lines of his facial features with her index finger as if admiring a chiseled sculpture.
"You were pretending to be Kousaku the whole time, weren't you? You killed my husband and switched places with him."
Only a deaf person wouldn't be able to hear the loud pounding emitting from his chest.
Trimmed nails make their way to his mouth and Kira rams his teeth into the keratin until he can taste blood.
"It's over, everything is over.
I have lost."
Panic floods his mind until the only thing he sees is Shinobu's questioning gaze and the crimson blood sprouting from his fingers when he rips his nails apart until the pink flesh underneath meets the cold air.
It hurts, hurts like hell, but he needs the pain to think.
Thoughts. Quick Thoughts.
He needs to think.
He needs a plan.
Instinctively the urge to kill rises inside him.
When there's a witness, he needs to dispose of them, but this is his wife – no, Kousaku's wife – and if he kills her, there's no chance it will go unnoticed, not with the damn child around.
Hectically he curls his fingers – resembling bloody stubs at this point - around her throat, and he is ready to press the life out of her body, but he can't.
Kira hesitates.
Splintering Glass.
The loud sound lets him flinch.
Something cold touches him, several ice cold hands grab his arms, his torso, his legs, his head.
Kira tries to fight back against the icy fingers, but the grip around his limbs and head is too tight, long nails digging into his flesh until blood gushes out. They try to pull him back into the blackness behind, back to whatever hellish hole they escaped from.
He reaches out a hand for Shinobu, calling out her name in sheer panic, but she simply watches him with an indifferent expression on her face.
The last thing he sees is her mouth opening, letting a sole word drip down her plump lips into the void around him.
"Murderer."
The hands pull back Kira's head in a quick motion and an ugly snapping sound fills his ears.
A scream cuts through the dead of the night like a sharp knife.
Kira is gripping the bedsheets with both hands, digging his nails deep into the blanket until his knuckles turn white. As hasty breaths emit from his dry lips, he stares at the ceiling above with eyes wide opened.
His breathing rings in his ears and eventually mixes with Shinobu's scared cries into an incomprehensible jumble of words and noise.
His wife shakes his shoulder, anxiously eying him when he gets up and stumbles to the mirror next to the bed, trembling like a madman.
Kira half expects to see blond curls sticking to his glistering forehead, but no, it's Kousaku's black eyes that stare back at him, blank and lifeless as ever.
The mask didn't come off.
It was still there, firmly planted on his face, still fooling the world around him.
Still making him look like Kousaku.
Shinobu is standing behind him and runs a hand across her husband's back, trying to comfort him.
"There's nothing to worry about, Darling, it was just a dream."
She slings her arms around him and plants a small kiss on his neck.
Kira nods.
A dream, of course.
Shakily he breathes in and out again to calm himself.
The mask would never come off.
Nobody would ever be able to find out about his true identity.
After all, he is a pretty lucky guy.