"Ah...!"
Hoshio's body tensed, her face lit with a quiet look of terror. Yuma kept himself silent, and stared; he thought it awkward of her to suddenly trail off like she did, and even odder of her to freeze up—but she was still, her lips were parted, and her eyes were saucers.
"What?" he said. Hoshio snapped back into reality once she heard him speak, and locked her gaze on him. She squeezed his cell phone tighter, and she was certain that with any more strength it'd crush in her hands. But then she rose a hand to wipe her eyes one last time—one last attempt to soften the pain.
"..Yuma-san...?" she murmured.
"What's wrong with yer eyes?" His own eyes were still fixated on hers, and he hardly noticed the soft tremors rolling throughout her body. He was more concerned with the red splotches bruising near her eyelids.
"M-my eyes—" Hoshio sputtered out, before her breath caught. "My baby..." She began bothering her sockets again, hard, rubbing and digging her fists into them, which couldn't have been good for anything but irritating them further. So Yuma, finally, moved towards her. His touch was surprisingly gentle when he pried her arms away from her face. Hoshio kept her eyes screwed shut, and she tried pulling her arms away from him to damage herself again—but when that proved useless, she peeked open one eye. And then the other.
And this time it was Yuma's turn to freeze up.
"...The hell..?"
Her eyes were bright blue.
"My baby..." Hoshio moaned. Brows furrowed, her eyes shone, glowing a brighter, bluer hue. There was nothing odd about the color itself, not really. They were blue, just like the dozens of other blue-eyed people; but lighter than her brother Shu's, and brighter than his brother Kou's. Still, they looked natural—just not on a woman whose eyes were normally green.
But the color of her eyes did not seem to be the only thing that was changing. Hoshio's bottom lip quivered, as though she was holding back sobs, and the usual green of her eyes began to crawl back into place—until they went back to blue again. Mesmerized by the glow in her eyes, Yuma's hold on Hoshio slipped, and she snaked her fingers around her throat. Something, some new type of pain had blossomed up her neck, and she wished to choke herself to get rid of it; and Yuma wished to know what was going on. But just as he was about to grab her arms again, Hoshio blinked, and jumped back in shock. Then she yelped.
"I'm here!" she cried, startling him. Her skin was practically glowing; the brightest of beams had splattered across her face, shining bright compared to the harsh aches that were dragging her down a second ago. She looked at her hands, then at Yuma's, then at her own again; and rolled her fingers up her arms and around her neck and through her hair, touching herself, feeling herself, feeling real.
"...You mean you remember everythin'?" Yuma was bewildered.
"No, I'm back," she clarified, which made even less sense to him. "Do you remember me? It's been so long! I've been here this whole time!" Hoshio swung her arms around him. Tears had prickled at the edges of her eyes, and she clutched Yuma's body as if her life depended on it. He stiffened at the sudden contact, and could not understand why she was hugging him—prior to her memory loss, Hoshio was distant to him. And even post-amnesia, he knew she wasn't much fond of him. However she still held him like they were long-lost lovers, finally reunited after years of being separated. Then she leaned back against the mattress, pulling him down with her. However at this, he jerked back, and freed himself from her hold.
"Shio, the fuck is goin' on?!"
Hoshio blinked, her beautiful blue eyes glimmering. She never flinched at his vulgar voice, at his elevated tone; instead she offered him a shy, almost melancholy smile.
"...There's so much I want to tell you," she sighed. "But I don't have time... I've never forgotten you, after all this time, Yuma. I want you to know that. And also..."
Her eyes hardened. "...Reiji did it."
Yuma froze. What?
But then Hoshio's breath felt short, and she clenched her head, squeezing her eyes shut once more. A prominent scowl had gathered on Yuma's face. Hoshio might have just unknowingly given him the answer to her own crisis. Reiji did it, she had said. It was easy to assume she was referring to her own memory loss. And Yuma would believe it; they all knew Reiji made drugs for fun—it'd be so easy for him to whip up some concoction that could seal away memories. But not wanting to take any chances, Yuma realized he needed a further explanation before he lost her again. So while Hoshio was still grimacing at the pain in her head, he drove a hand down to grab her—and lugged her upwards.
"Oi," he hissed. "What did he do?"
But Hoshio was caught in a daze, unable to comprehend anything but the distractions in her mind. She forced an eye open, and that was peculiar again...
Now they were red. Yuma was taken aback by this new color—it wasn't the normal scarlet glow, the one that would manifest itself when a vampire felt deprived. This was a deep, bristling crimson, which clouded the entire iris and and left not even black to shine through. It was an eerie sight, as if her vessels had burst and were pooling on the edges of each eye.
"Shio, wha—"
"It hurts..." She ran her hands over her ears, and clenched them tight, trying to block out whatever sounds she was hearing. Her eyes remained wide open. "Tell them to stop—Reiji... Why did you do this..?" Yuma's eyes narrowed once she said that, and his doubts about the second-eldest Sakamaki were only growing. But then Hoshio grabbed both of Yuma's shoulders, and she stared him straight in the eye with her deep red sockets. Slowly, that redness, whatever it was, had begun to seep around the eye, further out, and even dribbled out the corners. Almost like tears. It was blood—not just a new color.
"I love you, Reiji!" she proclaimed. "Get away from me, Mother—REIJI!"
Only when she began to scream did Yuma physically react. He clamped his hand over her mouth, but that simple touch sent Hoshio into a bigger frenzy. She shrieked even louder, begging for Reiji, begging to get her mother away from her. But then she lowered her voice.
"I want Mother back..." she said this time. Then she looked at Yuma again, and was very solemn, as if she had some kind of sage advice for him. "Don't let her touch Yui," she insisted, and out of all the baffling cries Hoshio was spitting out, that was the one thing that registered prominently in Yuma's mind.
"Sow...?" he repeated. Hoshio bit her lip, and her face scrunched up all miserably again.
"He's twisted her all up—keep her away from Reiji! Don't let him touch her, please! Reiji-san... Don't let him get here, Yuma; she's out of her mind! She doesn't know what she wants!" Hoshio wiped the blood out of her eyes, but it continued to drizzle down her cheeks; her breath had begun to stagger, and soon her lungs seemed to stop working properly, prompting her body into a panic. She took sharp intakes of breath, quickly one after the next, and lowered her hand to her chest, panting hard. Yuma remained far too bewildered to react properly—but it was obvious now that Hoshio was struggling to breathe, and... truthfully, the sight of her did not inspire the sort of concern she'd expect from him.
"Yuma-san—!" Hoshio sputtered out, gasping for air. Her mouth was agape, chest pattering rapidly, and the blood-drops seeping from her eyes had smeared all across her cheekbones. She reached out to latch onto him, but Yuma himself had frozen in place once more; he was staring, his face unreadable. The scent of her blood had gotten to him, clouding his mind. And something about the sight before him: the pleas in her voice, the blood distorting her vision, and the hyperventilating rise and fall of her chest . . . truthfully, excited him. Regardless of her desperate attempts at warning him about Reiji, or whatever was going on with Yui—Hoshio was in his hands now. Here she laid, at the mercy of anything he wanted to subject her to.
He wasn't even fully aware of what he was doing when he brushed his hands over Hoshio's, which were clenching his sleeves. And she was not aware of anything either. Noises were flooding her ears, some that Yuma could hear, some that were all in her head—but they were all agonizingly loud. Her eyes were pouched, dripping red, and her tongue swirled to form words she couldn't speak. Yuma felt compelled to lean into her, compelled to take a lick of that blood. Perhaps the scent had enchanted him, but he felt addicted to it before he could even taste it. And that was surprising; he'd never think someone with Hoshio's complexion and a scent so... inhuman could smell like this, like a human, like Eve. He dragged his own tongue up her cheek, up along that stream of sweet red blood. And the flavor was just as its fragrance promised. He was bewitched.
"What is this...?" he muttered, his own breath growing staggered and greedy, while Hoshio had stiffened up. She released her hold on Yuma's shirt, and flattened her palms against his chest. Yuma's tongue glided up the streak of blood, and Hoshio squeezed them shut when he dipped down a little too close to her eye—and finally her palm tried to thrust him away.
"Don't..." she whispered, which prompted Yuma to tsk.
"Shut up..." he growled. She felt his breath, hot, heavy huffs over her eyes, and his tongue, licking up the fluids which gushed out the harder she squeezed her eyes. He brought his weight down over Hoshio, granting him more secure access to his meal—and her palms fell from his chest. Her body felt like it was splintering apart. She could hardly hear Yuma's moans from above her, but there were prominent voices screaming from every direction in her head. What they were saying, she couldn't make out, but at the same time, she knew that those voices were not real. She was fully aware that they did not belong to any of the Mukami brothers, much less any guest at this hotel; they were all in her head, a figment of her imagination. Yet the more she tried to ignore them, the louder those bellows rose.
"..Don't..." she said again. She couldn't even hear herself. She couldn't feel her lips moving at all, truthfully, but a part of her subconscious knew she was trying to speak. Yuma's hands moved to cup both of her cheeks, and at this point she had no clue whether she was bleeding or crying. From above her, Yuma sighed out, his voice laced with sheer ecstasy. She couldn't comprehend how exactly she felt about this, but could register the absence of his tongue when he pulled away, and slowly her eyes opened; but still, she couldn't see a thing.
Hoshio had no perception of anything. She'd lost her sight, her touch, her tastes.. She heard voices and she heard Yuma, muffled; but she no longer had a sense of the mattress she was lying on, or the pressure of his body on hers. It felt like her mind had completely numbed up. And so she desperately clung to the sound of Yuma's voice, as that was the only piece of reality she had left. She tried her hardest to pick up every moan and grunt, however obscene those sounds were—for aside from those, she had no idea what he was doing to her. She had nothing else to believe in.
"..Shit...!" Yuma hissed out at once, which prompted Hoshio's thoughts to freeze again. This time, his voice had come out so clearly. She was struck by that sudden cry. It was a loud, stark contrast from his previous moans—but still, she could not move to physically address him. She wanted desperately to ask him what was wrong, but her lips would not move—at least, not at her command. She did in fact feel her tongue forming words, but she had no control over what she said.
"Don't touch me!" Hoshio screamed, without warning. Her eyes widened, for she hadn't meant to summon those words from her throat. She felt appalled by her own outburst, and wished she knew the look Yuma was wearing on his face, or if he was hearing these strange voices from inside of his head, too. But she saw nothing, knew nothing. Aside from the sharp intake of breath she suddenly heard from him, she remained wholly oblivious. She heard herself scream again, and Yuma's hand clamped down on her mouth; of course she felt none of it, but she knew that her voice was now muffled.
She could not control a single part of her body—she felt possessed! There was some kind of devil inside of her!
"Yuma-san—!" she screeched, and then furrowed her brows. Yuma was not the one she wanted. "Reiji-san...!" She screamed and screamed out Reiji's name, trying to imagine his presence in her head; his dark, neatly-combed hair, and his pressed jacket, and those rose-colored eyes of his. But once her voice began to drown out, she felt embarrassed for having screamed like that. For there was no point to it. Reiji wasn't there. He couldn't hear her. However, screaming like that seemed to have stopped whatever had been haunting her; the sounds in her mind started to fade; and reality could again crisp to her ears. She heard the rustling of the mattress finally, of the heavy duvet, of Yuma's hard breathing. And the red was no longer gushing from her eyes. It ran out, the last of it staining near her lids. She could see again—her vision blurry, and glassy, but nonetheless present.
And she could move. Raising a hand up, she tried to brush away the excess blood; but her arm bumped into Yuma's on the way. Here she realized that his hand was slapped over her mouth, pressing hard—so, so hard; she was being smothered back into the mattress. His knees were firm on either side of her thighs, and with his other hand, he gripped a cluster of hair from the top of her head. Hoshio's lashes swept upward.
"Mmgh...!" She meant to say let go.
Yuma's eyes went wide. His body was all tense, and his knuckles had gone white from his own strength. But once he realized he was staring at green eyes again, he visibly relaxed.
"...Are you back?" He removed his hand from her lips.
"...I think so," she whispered. She placed her own hands on her forehead, and sniffled, and tried to gather herself. It felt like she'd just woken from a dream. She remembered parts of what happened—like her lapse of senses, the blood filling her eyes—but any words she had spoken during this time had all faded from memory. She felt weak all over. Clenching her eyes shut, she rubbed at the dried blood around the corners of her eyes, and fully reclined against the mattress.
"Yuma-san..." she moaned, her voice shaky. He was staring at her, face firm, and she noticed there were traces of red around his lips. "..Can I have a moment...?"
After a few minutes, which Yuma used to further question her, and which Hoshio refused to tell any answers—because she didn't know—Hoshio finally spat out that she needed to catch her breath and wanted to be alone. Yuma gave in. He knew he hadn't done anything to her; he never bit her, he never did anything to her eyes or her head. But some kind of ghost had taken over his own body, too; for the smell of her blood had never been so enticing, and he had no control of himself whatsoever. Knowing that, he realized Hoshio's hysteric fit and his own brief loss of logic was a topic worthy of discussion with Ruki. So he left, and Hoshio remained still. She didn't even mind the scratchy material of her ballgown now. She wasn't thinking straight of anything. It felt like she'd lost her memories all over again. Something had appeared in her mind, and now it was gone, she knew that much.
But the upside to an empty head was that she fell asleep very easily, and her consciousness escaped her only minutes after Yuma left.
She had a dream at some point—and her mind was fuzzy, so it wasn't much clear to her; but it began with the feeling of someone's lips, warm and soft against her own, and the heat of that person's body pressed close against her. And then a greater heat blossomed up from her chest, but it was painful, and it jolted through her body. And following that pain she felt her skin grow damp. Hot, thick fluid had seeped across her breast—and with that the dream ended.
Or perhaps it was another memory? She couldn't tell.
a/n
pUSHING THROUGH
this was an... interesting chapter. kinda confusing? kinda gross? kinda...spicy?
idk how to unravel her backstory but hopefully this will be a Good transition im sad i suck at planning uwu
on a side note -
FINALLY THE NIGHT ENDS ITS LITERALLY BEEN THE SAME DAY FOR 29 CHAPTERS GAWD i swear I need to work on pacing asjhsakngh
anyway thanks for reading as always till next time!
-marzi
