First and foremost: There is no romance.
Warning: Mature and dark themes. Violence. Manipulation. Emotional and Psychological Abuse. (Eventually) Sexual implications; explicit. Dub-con.
4/15/18 EDIT: Apologies for my indecisiveness. This is the last time I'll be editing this.
of each tenfold adrift in parting
once steep'd o'er the curve of a bough
fall beneath the weeping wisteria
Her husband used to be kind.
In her meditation, Tsubomi glances afar from the west pavilion where lay the wisteria tree bloom; clusters of soft mauve in ivory vine and blossom, entwined in streams with such closeness that may be likened to lovers' intimacy.
She is half-enraptured, half-melancholic, of dreams in pale violet; he'd been beautiful, that man. Regal and elegant in the colors of prestige and nobility, and tranquil in all disciplined manner and grace. Despite the blue in his veins and the weight of his heavy robes, Kagewaki is kind. A sensitive soul of poetic sentiments.
From the private recess of her mind, she reminisces of gentle hands and the softness of his gaze, of the poised arch of his back and the flowing purple of his sleeves—and how she marveled his colors then, like that of the wisteria willow.
A wistful sentiment, however, she admonishes.
Now purple is somewhat akin to a bruise, dark and bloodless. The shadow in the evening that stains what is once pristine, and in its voraciousness, consumes it whole from the curve of its trunk to the cusp of each flower bud.
"Do you think," she begins in measured tones, "that the beauty of a wisteria is but ephemeral, my lord?"
In her isolation, Tsubomi is aware she is not alone as the silhouette behind her makes its presence known; and who is she to not distinguish the looming form of her husband? Yet even as he treads, his stride breaks its usual pattern to that of one that slowly prowls toward prey, like the nimble spider that treadles from silk web.
"Is it not?" Kagewaki speaks in his voice but with foreign tone. There is a harshness to it, a cynicalness harbored in the question, and it comes forth to her in the form of the dying breath of what is expected to be mildness.
"I suppose it is," she tells him in her quiet contemplation. "Transience, the bane of Heian scholars and courtiers alike," and she sighs, almost staggers a breath, when he takes another slow step forward and lurks behind her shadow as if waiting for the precise moment to slit her throat. She, Lady of the Hitomi Clan, does not waver in her deliberation: "and, perhaps, the wisteria tree," she smiles, but it is slight and wry.
"However futile it is to grieve," she goes on, and maybe he listens to her—in tedium or partiality? The man that hides behind her is patient and clandestine. "I still lament for it is fleeting; its beauty that speaks to my soul is bound to perish, as all lovely things are, I believe."
"A foolish sentiment," he says in return, though it is not one wrought in disdain but that of an age-old weariness. "All too human, in its wishfulness."
And if she has not known better, she will not have mistaken his opinion for derisive criticism.
Finally, Kagewaki takes his place beside her, radiated by the flush of twilight. A rustle of gold-and-violet robes, dark curls of hair, a brush against the shoulder—he is cold. He is cold.
"Such beauty is only skin-deep," he dismisses further. "It eventually rots."
"There is some measure of truth in your words," Tsubomi nods, and when she meets his eyes, they bleed of crimson and apathy. These are not his eyes. "Though what I had loved was something more that transcended passed the pretenses of pleasing countenance,"—then a heated glare whips at her—"and now, I wonder, is it only skin-deep?"
This time, she knows, he shall be the death of her.
His slender hand reaches for her in a manner that impresses impending demise, and she can almost feel it reverberate from each fingertip, like the hollow echo of a koto verse, when her mind conceives the images of her husband's hand strangling her by the neck. Amongst all odds, she forces iron in her heart—and she waits and waits. . .
In a deceitful gesture, his fingers tuck a lock of hair behind her ear with a gentleness that is excruciatingly familiar. A mock of kindness—yet a sliver of Kagewaki, despite the imitation, the wretched illusion that remains and hurts her so. His flesh may be that of ice, but as his hand traces her cheek and dips below her chin, they leave trails of fire against her skin that kiss when they burn.
He tilts her face in an angle that makes her heart stutter, with such closeness that breaches the borders of propriety. The energy around him is intense and virile, and she fears it may consume her because it entices when it beckons for her name. Her head almost becomes faint whenever she drinks in the glorious sight of him; the slope of his nose, the sensual shape of his lips, and his eyes—once diffusing warmth, gleam like hot ember in soot. His eyes have never been so ravenous.
"Wife," he whispers deeply with a voice like sin. "Is it your intention to rouse me?"
The mere thinly-veiled insinuation is a seduction, in an insolence and ardency ladies-in-waiting pant for in the monogatari. Underneath her skirts, she instinctively closes her legs shut at the thought and shivers from the cold bead of sweat that slides down her spine. "No," she mutters with a compromising hitch of tone.
"No?" it is spoken through a long drawl, subject still to skepticism.
Tsubomi struggles to compose herself when he breathes to her; it feels like a caress. "No," she clears her throat, and in an attempt to break the tension between them, she utters in a practiced meek voice: "do I upset you, my lord?"
With raised brows, the creature lies in the sweetest of ways. "You speak as if you love another," he accuses coolly, which in a moment of hesitation, she finds disarming.
Clever as he is cruel, she thinks, as she perceives through his incrimination that intends to expose her—or, perhaps, to evade through fraudulence and dark allure. What better tool of deception to a man than that of false jealousy?
She grasps his hand from her chin and places it to her cheek in a fond gesture many a man expects of his docile bride. "There is no other," as he cradles her face, she leans onto his palm smilingly, "you are my husband," her lips kiss the soft pads of his fingers, "and I adore you."
And she lies, too, in their long game.
Exposition Corner:
Monogatari: she's referencing the Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu.
A/N: I shouldn't be writing this, especially when I have yet to finish my other stories or worry about deadlines in that matter. Anyways, I'm currently itching to write another tragedy. Oh, and a heads up, despite what the summary claims, I'll be adding bits of Naraku's POV too.
Also, I best suggest that you shouldn't entirely rely on POVs because the character's narration may hold a warped view in things—especially when I tackle Tsubomi's inner conflict about her husband's transformation, unsure whether he had been possessed or had undergone a shift in behavior.
Hope you enjoyed reading!
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.