I hadn't realized how long I sat there staring at the wall. I watched it turn from an egg white to grey and then black as the sun set. A tinge of orange glowed around the window illuminated by the street lights outside. What am I doing? I hadn't moved in several hours, not even to brush back my long and mangled black hair that had fallen over my face. How fucking humiliating… I hated myself for not being able to do anything. I couldn't remember the last time I shut down like this. It'll happen again… and I probably won't be saved next time… I couldn't figure out if I wanted to break down and cry or lash out and punch something until I couldn't feel my hands anymore. But why? Why this time? This one time I was saved… and I'm being a little bitch about it…
There was a soft knock on my bedroom door and after a second Kurama opened the door and stepped inside, closing the door quietly behind him.
I looked over at him from the corner of my eye, "I thought I told you to leave me alone." That was the autopilot talking.
He gave me a sad sort of smile, "My apologies for misunderstanding. All I heard was 'not now' and 'don't'."
I looked back towards the wall. I didn't have anything to say. If I was able to turn him away he wouldn't have bothered coming in the first place.
He sat on the edge of the bed and set a bag down next to him, "You're injured. At least let me mend them."
I turned my head to look at him. After a moment I gave in and crawled over to where he sat and stuck out my right arm. It had numerous small cuts and scrapes from being thrown into crates and walls.
Kurama quickly went to work on my arm in silence. I looked him over. He had already healed all of his own injuries and had washed up as if nothing had happened at all. I found a small blood stain on his thigh where I had bitten him. "Why didn't you heal that?" I heard myself ask quietly.
"Seemed like a good conversation starter," he mused gently. "Plus, I think it's kind of kinky," he added with his usual perverted tones.
I shot him a glare that quickly took his smirk away. "How did you find the energy to break free? You both seemed pretty done in to me."
"I've been a bit curious about that as well. I was about to lose consciousness when you found us. But, when you bit down on me I knew I couldn't let it happen," he admitted. He released my arm and I stretched out the other one that looked just as bad as the first. Kurama gracefully continued his work.
"Thank you," I finally choked out.
"Please don't thank me, I should have been able to move sooner than I did," Kurama replied morosely. He finished with my arm and released it. "Legs," he demanded quietly.
I stared at him for a moment wanting to respond but there was nothing to say. I sighed and swung my legs around and onto his lap lazily. There was really no other comfortable position with both of us on my twin sized bed that was shoved into the corner of my bedroom. He began at my ankles and slowly worked his way around my legs. The injuries on my legs were more severe than my arms, a few deep gashes were still slowly oozing blood.
I sighed and supported my weight with my left arm behind me.
"What is it?" He was asking about the sigh I had just given.
"Nothing," I replied dryly.
"It's not healthy to keep everything bottled up like you do."
"I could say the same for you."
"Rhea," he warned.
"I just feel humiliated, okay?" I finally snapped. He didn't respond but he gave me something like an encouraging look. "I don't know," I sighed again, "It's not like that was my first go around the block, but for some reason I just can't get over it this time."
"You mean," Kurama tried but I cut him off.
"Tatsuhiro stole my virginity when I turned fourteen," I admitted gritting my teeth as Kurama healed a deep gash in my calf. I looked down to watch his handy work. "Then he threw me to his goons. I don't even know how many of them defiled me. I was in and out of consciousness the whole time. Every time I tried to open my eyes I saw another face." He was silent, no longer looking at me but focusing on the cuts in my legs. "Then there was this whore Tatsuhiro fancied and he'd send her to molest me regularly. He said it was a good method to keep me under control."
There was a long silence. When I finally looked back up at him he was quite genuinely shocked. "I... had no idea," was all he could say. That look on his face nearly made me laugh. Wow... is what I said really so horrible it shocked a demon into silence?
"It's fine. I was bedridden for almost an entire week and I still handled it better than I am right now," I finally replied and looked back down as he continued healing my legs. Now there was only one wound left on the inside of my right thigh. He hesitated for a moment.
"Go for it," I granted knowing after what had just happened he was hesitant towards such a delicate area.
He quietly slipped his hand over the oozing gash and began healing it. It made me emotionally uncomfortable for just a moment, but as the pain started to vanish, so did my worries. He's not going to do anything to you. Relax.
When he had finished he quickly removed his hands and placed them on his lap. I could tell he wanted to say something to comfort me, but that would be a very difficult feat even for him. The silence. It's always the silence that gets to me. I wanted to say something to reassure him that I'd be ok; that I'd figure it all out myself. Eventually.
Then it happened. My vision blurred as tears swelled in my eyes. Somehow the autopilot lost control and vanished. There was nothing to hide behind. I was completely vulnerable. Why? Why is it like this? What happened to me? Kurama gently pulled me into his side and held me. Only then did the tears break their seam and stream down my cheeks. They stung my face with their salty heat. I was so foreign to them it took me by surprise for just a moment; that light stinging reminding me of a different type of pain.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and dug my face into his chest. I wanted it to stop, but at the same time I didn't. I wanted to completely expel this weighted feeling. It grew heavier with each tear that fell. My chest felt like it was going to implode. This only made the tears come faster and more violently. I hadn't noticed I had been shaking until Kurama tightened his grip around me.
I winced from a physical pain I hadn't realized needed attention. He pulled away. "Your ribcage is fractured."
I wiped away the liquid from my left eye to better see. Without consciously thinking about it I had started to calm down and get a hold of myself. I couldn't bring myself to respond though.
Kurama gently reached up and dried my other eye before I could get to it. "Let me take a look at it please."
It was strange. The weight had disappeared and I felt far more calm than I thought I would have.
And then an idea occurred to me. I couldn't decide if I was becoming ADHD or if I just desperately wanted to push away my current thoughts. I nodded at him and thought it over one more time. Yes, the perfect distraction from my self pity. The idea made me want to give in to an evil grin but that would have ruined the moment.
I quietly shifted my weight and swung my leg over Kurama's lap and plopped down on top of him. "R-rhea?" he questioned taken aback. It was so hard to keep up the act, I couldn't wait. I lifted the side of my shirt to expose my ribcage stopping just before my bra was revealed. "What are you doing?" he asked cautiously trying to withhold himself.
"You said you wanted to look at it," I responded dryly.
"Yes but…" his face flushed just a little, "You're not wearing any underwear…"
Success! I couldn't hold it back any longer. I busted out laughing, "I win," that evil smirk consuming my face. "Look how flustered you are! I thought it would have been a lot harder to get back at you for all those perverted remarks."
"That's just wrong," he deadpanned at me. I laughed again. "Please stop laughing at least," he pleaded with a certain type of tone.
I stopped as I thought about it for a second. Which just made me want to laugh even more but I bit it back. "So are you going to heal me?" I reminded him. He quickly and quietly picked up his little vile and slapped his hand on my ribcage and began healing my cracked ribs. I winced in pain but I guess I deserved it.
And then there was silence again. My little joke kind of snapped me out of whatever the fuck kind of mood I was in but I could quickly feel myself falling back into it.
"Rhea," Kurama spoke softly after a moment, still focusing on healing my ribs. "You know I would never do anything like that to you, right?"
I looked down at him. I wanted to be surprised but I knew he could always guess what I had been thinking. "I guess," I replied halfheartedly. "well," I attempted, "I won't lie. I've worried about it from time to time. More so when I first met you."
"I thought so," he admitted back. "It honestly hadn't occurred to me until today that you might feel that way." I looked down at him. He never wavered from healing my ribs though. "I thought maybe telling you how I felt about it might ease your worries."
"And how do you feel about it?" I asked bluntly.
"It's disgusting," he stopped and looked up at me this time. I couldn't read the emotions in his eyes though. "Demons are often labeled as rapists, but no more of them do so than humans." he stopped, debating what to say next.
"I figured that much," I replied trying to reassure him. He looked like he was having some kind of internal battle. "Whatever it is you're debating on saying, you should just say it."
He put his hands down beside himself and his eyes shifty slightly away from mine, just enough to break eye contact. "It's difficult for me to talk about my past," he admitted. I watched him carefully while he paused again. "I have… raped a girl… once. I didn't want to, but," he trailed off again.
His confession was not the shocking part. Him admitting something about his past in general was the shocking part. I wasn't sure if I wanted to know any more of this story. But when as I studied him, I realized he loathed himself for it. Maybe he needed to tell someone.
"I originally grew up in a clan of fox demons that pillaged many towns. My father was their leader of sorts," he decided to scratch his original confession and start over I was assuming. "It was a right of passage for the boys. I dreaded it. I had seen it happen so often, I didn't realize it was immoral. I grew up thinking there was something wrong with me for not wanting to partake. But if I hadn't, I wouldn't have taken my father's position when he died. I would have been shunned from the clan." He was starting to shake from either guilt or anger. Or both. I could clearly hear the guilt in his voice. "I ended up killing her in the process. I can still see her face when I think about it."
Any normal person would have backed away cautiously at this point I assume. I thought for a moment that I should be afraid, but I wasn't. In fact, I was the opposite. Watching him fight with himself just to talk about what he had done so long ago made me want to reach out. He was trying desperately to keep himself calm but I could feel him shaking violently. The look in his eyes was the darkest I had seen him wear yet. He wasn't trying to hide his emotions at all; his self loathing and regret consumed him. He sat there quiet once more.
I reached around and pulled his head into a tight hug, my hair falling around my arms, my face buried into his neck. He didn't respond for a long while but his shaking slowly faded away. Eventually his hands found their way around my back as he returned the hug. "You know, for a bad guy you're pretty lame."
He stifled a laugh into my collarbone, "Yes, I suppose so."
I released him and leaned back to look at him, "Ok, personally I'm over this touchy-feely shit." And I shoved him back onto the bed and stood up and walked to the door. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'd really like a shower."
Kurama let go of a small chuckle and shook his head, "Your rebound time is something to be admired."
"It works for me," I replied loosely with a shrug.
He stood up and grabbed his bag, "So, what I told you about my past… It doesn't…?" I really wish I had a camera to capture this whole situation. I've made Kurama blush, stutter, and find himself at a loss of words all in just a few minutes! Why can't I figure out how to do this more often?
"It doesn't phase me," I finished for him. "We all have skeletons in our closets. It's not your words that convinced me; it was how you handled saying them that makes me trust you."
He gave me a small yet genuine smile, which looked a little odd because I could see that he was still angry with himself through his eyes. "Well at least I accomplished what I intended to. I think you're the first person to know about that since I killed my father."
"Wait-" Skkrt! "What?"
He gave me a slightly more evil grin, "You didn't think I'd let someone pressure me into doing something I had no desire to do and get away with it, did you?"
I straight facepalmed, "I think that's a conversation for a different time."
"Agreed."
A/N: I know, I'm a horribe person. For so many reasons. But heeeeyyy, look at the bright side, you now have another chapter. Not gonna lie, totally had to reread chapter 3 because I forgot what I had written and walked up to my roommate and said "JESUS FUCK I AM A HORRIBLE PERSON! WHY THE HELL WOULD I WRITE SOMETHING LIKE THIS?!" and then erupted into uncontrollable laughter. Answer: because I can. mwahahahahahaha!
There's something wrong with me XD
THANK YOU Wings of Wax, NightlyRowenTree, Booom BaBy, LadyAmazon, and Just 2 Dream of You for the lovely reviews!
And THANK YOU ninja enchantress, ryu-f, Roocklaarts, Aerishime, and Silent Midnight Shadow for the follows! Would like to hear what you think of my insane little world here. XP
AND TO ALL OF YOU: REVIEW DAMMIT OR I WILL START THROWING Just 2 Dream of You's INSPIRATION BUNNIES AT YOU! AND TRUST ME, YOU DON'T WANT THAT!
I joke, i joke. I wouldn't wish that upon anyone, they might get injured. I really appreciate the reviews though. Not only because I am a whore for them, but because they give me great feedback and inspiration to keep writing. :)
