As Sena backed out of the room, he concentrated on staying quiet and not waking Musashi. That was the only reason he managed to bite down on his lip instead of crying out when he backed straight into his master.
"If you're going to kneel," Hiruma snapped, grabbing Sena by the elbow to stop him, even before Sena himself realized he was going down, "go do it in the bathroom."
"Yes, master." Feeling like his heart was about to pound out of his throat, he raced its rapid beat to the bathroom, where he looked around for a suitable location.
"Oh, so now you can run?" came Hiruma's voice from behind.
Sena settled on kneeling in the bathtub. His master might appreciate an easy way to clean up the mess from the punishment. Any blood should wash right down the drain.
It was still slightly damp in here from Musashi's shower, the porcelain hard on his knees. Once he was in position, he found he could see himself in the mirror: eyes red, lips pressed white and bloodless. He could also see that the counter was already laid out with fresh bandages, which suggested his master was feeling extremely merciful indeed. He was going to patch Sena back up after he tore him apart. He wasn't planning to break Sena beyond fixing. It was more than he expected or deserved. Sena made a mental note: he had to remember to show his gratitude, no matter how incapacitated he was by the end of this.
At that moment, the face of a demon appeared above his in the mirror, like a bad moon. "Take off your shirt," said the demon's reflection.
Sena didn't argue or question, though the order chilled him to the bone. He folded the shirt with shaking hands and laid it down on the edge of the tub. Then thought better of it, and put it on the tile floor, where it had a chance of staying clean.
When he straightened back up, he saw that Hiruma was coming at him with scissors, and it took all his strength not to try to shield himself with his arms. It wouldn't help anyway, he chanted to himself like a mantra, there was no protecting himself from his master's wrath: better not to fight, accept what was coming, rather than make it worse.
"Got curious?" said Hiruma nastily, as he squatted down next to Sena, and cut the first bandage loose from his back. Sena trembled violently under his hands, at the brush of cold blade against his skin, but it didn't pierce him, not yet. "Just had to see what was behind the forbidden door?"
"I'm sorry." Sena knew excuses would only make things worse, but maybe an apology was okay. "I'm sorry, master. Please."
Hiruma unwound bandage after soiled bandage from Sena's shoulders and dumped them by the handful. "Please what?"
"Please punish me. I disobeyed. I deserve it. I'm sorry."
There was silence until the last bandage came free, and then Hiruma tapped him on the shoulder. "Turn around, look at your back. No, in the fucking mirror, shrimp. No one's neck bends that way."
Awkwardly, Sena maneuvered until his back was facing the mirror, and he could look at it over his shoulder. It wasn't terrible: only the livid red marks from the whipping, on his last day at Rotti's, still looked fresh, though they were laid over a dark background of bruises that mottled him from side to side.
"You already know I want you to run for me. That means I need you at peak physical condition. And that means I need all this," Hiruma waved in the mirror, "healed up. If I whip you now, that would just be shooting myself in the fucking foot. Got it?"
Sena did not get it. "M-my arms, master? You can still... I don't need those to run..."
"What kind of fucking idiot—" Sena braced himself to be slapped: that couldn't possibly interfere with peak physical condition. But apparently it did, because Hiruma just aggressively wadded up the used bandages, tighter and tighter, like he wanted to choke the life out of them.
"All right, I see the problem here. You think I just want you to run pretty fast. Like a fucking deer you hunt in the woods." Hiruma lifted the mass of bandages in one hand and flung it across the room. It twirled in the air, slowly unfurling, but landed neatly in the wastebasket before it could come apart. "Wrong. You're going to run faster than anybody else in the league. And you'll need every single fucking muscle for this run. Arms too."
Hiruma got up to wash his hands, and came back with a tube of something, which he applied with deft fingers to the welts on Sena's back, no cruelty to his touch, though he still muttered darkly to himself the whole time. Feeling like an oncoming train had suddenly pranced off its track to politely go around him, Sena found himself numb with shock. He knew better than to think that this meant he couldn't be beaten. It just meant that if he provoked his master into doing it, his usefulness would be at an end. At that, he shuddered so hard that Hiruma had to press down on his shoulder to keep him steady.
"Thank you, master," Sena whispered. He had been planning to say it no matter what, through whatever haze of pain he was left in, even if he was only barely clinging to consciousness. It sounded fragile now, weak against the magnitude of the reprieve he'd been granted. "So what... what will my punishment be?"
"Oh, your punishment," a glint came into Hiruma's eyes at the word. The scissors were suddenly back in his hand, and Sena froze as he felt the cold edge of it press against the length of his throat. He didn't dare move, swallow, or breathe. In the lengthening stillness, he could feel his very pulse drum against the unyielding metal blade.
"Since you were so eager to barge into the fucking old man's room... you get to take care of him from now on." The scissors snipped, and Sena was stunned to feel the collar from Rotti's fall away from his neck. "Laundry, to start with. So much fucking laundry waiting for you."
As Hiruma began to apply fresh bandages, Sena dared to pick up the cut collar from his lap. Cut apart, it was obvious for what it was, just cheap plastic, like the ring sealing a water bottle, but on his throat it had felt so permanent, like a very part of him.
After weighing the risks over, Sena had just about resolved to ask what would happen if he wasn't capable of this run that Hiruma was talking about—though he was pretty sure he knew the answer—when a buzzing sound began to echo in the room. Hiruma bit off the last length of bandage with his teeth, tucked it in, and fished the phone from his pocket.
"You found him?" he said as soon as he answered. And then, "The fatty was what?"
While he talked, Hiruma seemed to think of something and made an impatient gesture with his free hand, which Sena struggled to interpret. Scoot back? Before he could panic too much, Hiruma put the hand flat on Sena's chest and pushed until Sena's side settled against the wall of the tub. Some more gestures and tugging conveyed to Sena to get off his knees and roll up the legs of his pants.
"Fine, I was going to come by the camp anyway, I'll see for myself." Hiruma hung up and together they gazed down at Sena's now bare knees and shins, which bore the normal mess of scrapes and bruises from crawling around. To Sena, they looked better off than usual, since he hadn't been on his bare knees much recently.
Judging by the displeased silence, Hiruma seemed to disagree.
"You do this one," he said finally, tossing Sena the tube and some more bandages. "And no more kneeling."