Every day passes tooth-grindingly slow. She rarely accompanies Maria-sama, who abhors her hair but keeps her for her face. There are pros and cons to this. For one, Yuzu doesn't need to kneel on all fours, feeling her back and shoulders burn. She doesn't spend every second of the clock in fear and paranoia because her life depends on the whims of a madwoman. On the other hand, well.
Her back explodes and Yuzu doesn't bother holding in the scream. In that split second, there is nothing else apart from pain. It's white hot and piercing, and it doesn't fade.
She's given up on holding in her snot and started breathing in through her mouth. It's disgusting, but there's no tissue paper for her here. Not in this lifetime.
Distantly, she can hear him speak. "Shouldn't you be thanking me, darling? Now you won't get an infection. Oh, but you don't even know what that means, do you?" He titters sadistically, his high-pitched voice cutting through the haze in her head.
Yuzu's head hangs, her energy spent. There're tears spilling out from her eyes, partially from pain, partially from anger, but she keeps her voice as empty as it can be when she answers. "Thank you, Luca-sama."
She feels a hand on her head, heavy and unwelcome, as he pats her like a pet.
"That's right, darling. That was worth much more than you'll ever be, you know. A 200 year-old bottle. You wouldn't understand, but it's alright." His voice drips with derision as he speaks. Then, the pressure on her head disappears and she feels a warm hand cup her face, wiping away her tears. It's done with something almost like fondness, but Yuzu knows better.
As if proving her right, the once-gentle touch turns aggressive, and she feels her head get yanked up viciously.
Immediately, her gaze turns down to stare at neatly pressed slacks and leather shoes. She's learnt her lesson from the last time.
"Good pet," he coos affectionately. "You're always so cute to play with, but I've got a meeting with Maria-sama soon, so I can't stay with you for longer. Go back and clean yourself up first, won't you? I'll be back in no time, and we can open up the gifts I got for you together!" She can't see him, but she already knows that he's grinning happily.
"Yes, Luca-sama, that sounds exciting," she intones with what she hopes is the appropriate amount of cheer in her voice. Thankfully, she's right, or maybe Lucas is really in a rush, because he presses his dry, warm lips to her forehead and strides off, rattling off instructions to the other slaves as he does so.
In the washroom, a privilege she'd gotten from receiving a noble's favour, she's hosed down with ice-cold water, teeth chattering the entire time as she flinches away periodically. There's no kindness in her fellow slaves' eyes as they blast her with high-powered hoses, and she knows it's because of him. Lucas. Or Luca, as he'd told (threatened) her to call him. Here, she allows herself to glare at them, despite the piercing feeling of water entering her cuts and slamming against her bruises.
Some part deep inside her is accepting, but she hates anyway. It's not like they don't have eyes. They know what Lucas does to her. They've heard her screams. Sure, she gets horrid little porcelain dolls and a pretty pink room. So what? She's just as likely to die with one wrong move as any of them. And she's got the added bonus of daily correction sessions, and her sole company is a noble who's cracked in the head.
It's only in the privacy of the bedroom that she curls up into a ball beneath her pink, princess-themed sheets. Her eyes burn, but she doesn't let any tears fall. Not because she doesn't want to, because a good cry is truly all she needs right now, but because it'd leave her nose and eyes red, and she doesn't need another round of questioning and correction from Lucas.
God, she hates this.
Why does she deserve this? She hadn't been a terrible person in her previous life. There were others who deserved worse fates than her - child rapists, mass murderers, traffickers. What, had her greatest sin been living a normal life? Not having to count the pennies when it came to paying for her food and rent, unlike others? She doesn't know what she'd done wrong, but she sure as hell doesn't deserve this. Is she being ungrateful? Maybe God expects her to be thankful, that she's received the dubious honour of a noble's even more dubious affection.
It's this terrible, grating sense of sheer unfairness that keeps Yuzu awake at night, her body tense as another's arms wrapped around her midriff. Because she knows that there's no escaping from this. She can't be one of those protagonists fighting her way out of her prison. There's no orchestrating some exhilarating run for her life when all she's ever known has been slavery. She has no friends, no money, no Devil Fruit, and no hope.
Silently, her eyes lower to where she knows her collar is. It sits around her neck, heavy, suffocating and ever-present. Lucas hated it, but he knew better than to ask Maria-sama to take it off.
She imagines it sometimes. If she just grasped it with her fingers and tugged. What the aftermath would be. Would Lucas cry? Would she get sent into a new body?
But she doesn't. She contemplates, of course, all the time. When she feels like she has nothing to live for, and when she wants to escape from the pain and despair radiating throughout her entire being. It would make things so much easier. There're only so few things tethering her to this life, anyway. She wants this to be over. This may be One Piece, but there's only so much this world can offer to a slave.
The only reason why she doesn't is the high possibility of her not dying immediately, which would guarantee a spot in the cells with not only slaves who reviled her but also guards who lacked any moral codes whatsoever. And no other way to die. She's seen slaves with burnt faces and muzzles and handcuffs before, and she knows what happens to them in the depths of the barracks when none of the nobles care about their fates.