Warning: Violence and non-consensual sexual themes.
There was something wrong with Old.
He was able to sense it in himself long before the war began, yet he chose to ignore it for the longest time.
It had started with Tatsumiya, how she walked so elegantly, kept herself poised like a "proper lady". Her hands were tiny, her eyes big and round. He'd have been lying through his teeth to say that he didn't find it relatively attractive for the longest of times, so he never would have bothered if asked. She was hot. He would have sex with her if if she ever showed interest. He wouldn't deny that.
And there was nothing wrong with that.
Then there was a point where he found himself enjoying the way she flustered easily, and so he teased her often about tiny, stupid things. And, of course, she fell for them all, becoming a red-faced, stuttering mess and losing that lady-like persona that she tried so hard to maintain. The word "adorable" often came to mind.
Nothing wrong with this, either.
About a year or so after the two of them had become Meikai's familiars, he began to notice something else about his thoughts toward the little oarfish. He often found himself wanting to comfort her when he came across her crying, but he never was good with that sort of thing, so he usually left her alone. He felt a pang of annoyance any time he saw her sneaking glances at Meikai. Every now and then, he'd experience short impulses of wanting to do things with her. Hold her hand. Hug her from behind, when she wasn't expecting it. Kiss her. Have her clutching him in ecstasy at night. A number of things, really.
This wasn't really the problem, either, even if he did try to dismiss these impulses and ignore them. Affection wasn't something that came easy to Old. Besides, Tatsumiya had never once looked at him like that.
It was always Meikai.
Not him.
The first warning bell that had popped into his head came when Meikai returned home with an egg (his daughter, he had told them), and the faint expression of hurt on Tatsumiya's face had made Old want to rip the egg from his hands and throw it to the floor.
It was unsettling.
The second was when he had told her that she could do better than Meikai. There were other people out there that would appreciate her better. People that would look at her like a woman, not a friend. There was always him.
But she had paid the comment no heed. There was no one better than Meikai. No one that could live up to her incredibly high fucking standards. She would never look at Old in that way.
And there had been a little voice in the back of his head, whispering to him:
Make her look at you.
Fuck her.
Right here and now.
Whether she wants it or not.
It had only been a brief moment in which it was there, but once the thought had entered his head, Old couldn't shake how ashamed he had been of it.
The third time one of these thoughts entered his head had been what convinced him of what he'd been fearing.
She had been crying and he, as he oftentimes wanted but didn't have the courage to do, took her into his arms for comfort. Her body was, unsurprisingly, very cold- she was a deep-sea fish, after all- but it felt nice to have his arm around her, her body next to his.
And she'd fallen asleep next to him.
It wasn't as if Old had never seen her sleeping before; on the contrary, they both slept in the same room as Meikai, just in separate beds. But he'd never seen her sleeping from so close, with her hair fanned out around her head and her lips moving lightly as she breathed.
He wasn't sure why he'd thought what he did. All he knew was that his sudden desire had lasted for more than a few moments, and that he had sat on the bed, seriously considering something so horrible for almost a full minute.
He wanted to wake her up by bruising her lips and shoving his tongue so far down her throat she would suffocate, to to fuck her so hard she'd be bleeding between the legs and unable to walk for days. He could hear her screaming and crying for help in his head, and it was making him dizzy with excitement.
And that was when he realized that there was something very wrong with him.
After that, holding violent and sexual thoughts towards Tatsumiya became a regular occurrence. He'd feel the desire to take her lovely, long, white hair and cute little red antennae in his hands and pull on them until they tore out of her scalp. He'd want to dig his teeth into her skin and watch her bleed and listen to her scream. When they were alone, he'd want to force her onto the kitchen table and tear into her breasts with his hands while she cried and begged him to stop thrusting his hips into her. At night, he'd dream of slitting her throat and having his way with her corpse.
Even worse, he would be turned on by these thoughts, and would often run off to the bathroom to resolve the issue.
There was something terribly wrong with him.
It wasn't just Tatsumiya, either. Meikai wasn't very safe in his thoughts, either, particularly where Tatsumiya was involved. A lingering gaze on her part, a conversation about sex or love with Meikai...
Bash his head in.
Rip his limbs apart.
Give them to the oarfish as a gift.
Watch her cry.
Then shove a knife between her thighs.
That damned egg had become another point of his sudden obsession with violence. He'd see Tatsumiya talking to it every now and then, her tiny, red fingernails gliding gently across its pearly surface, and feel a sudden burst of anger.
Smash it.
Break it open and tear the throat out of the screaming baby inside.
And force that bitch Tatsumiya to eat the shell.
Admittedly, though, it was mostly directed at Tatsumiya.
He really should be disgusted with himself. This was horribly wrong. All of it.
And, yet, it somehow felt right.