Small TW: mentions of abusive behaviors of all sorts - strong words and general shittiness. Brace yourselves!
Chapter 15 - Axe to grind
After Mitsuri's and Obanai's first kiss - turned into many kisses - she had thought things would irrevocably change. Which they somehow hadn't. Mitsuri had been in love with him months prior to that night, she was then impossibly more in love with him. But it was nothing she couldn't handle.
Especially when they'd meet late at night, either at her place or at his, and it would somehow always end the same way. Namely, two bodies tightly pressed against each other, breathless, enraptured, and insatiable for the other's touch.
When the sun rose in the morning, Mitsuri would wake to find that Obanai had already left the bed. She always knew why. She understood. And if she felt a deep feeling of longing overcoming her when she found herself alone with only the imprint of his body on the mattress and the small remnants of his perfume on the pillows - she never complained. Because when the sun set at night, she would let darkness envelop the rooms, until there was so little light that Obanai would take off the mask and gather her in his arms as his lips found hers - and everything would be right again.
In between these precious moments, they would both settle for a different kind of intimacy. The kind that was laced with careful touches, long talks and playful togetherness. Sometimes they stayed silent for long minutes, neither of them speaking or even touching the other - but always, always, they remained together - close enough just to let the other know that they were here.
And Mitsuri had never been as happy as she was this winter. For once in her life, she was doing only things that made her happy. Like spending time with her friends, going to class and leaving with her brain overflowing with newly acquired knowledge, and going home knowing that she'd sleep in the arms of the man she loved that night. Nothing had ever felt so right.
Until someday, something started feeling wrong. Or rather, Mitsuri kept feeling something wrong - something terrible, even - nagging at the back of her mind.
When she walked outside, she couldn't help but turn around every few minutes, as if she could sense danger lurking somewhere close-by. Then, she'd quicken her step, walking in long strides until she'd reach her destination. The feeling of wrongness clinged to her ever stronger when she walked to Obanai's place - like the danger was drawing closer, and she ended up halfway running until she'd see the front door of his apartment building. Obanai had given her spare keys to the entrance door weeks before. You don't need to ring every time - he had explained - and I won't turn you away, I want you here. Something close to a painful squeeze had torn her heart then. And she'd wordlessly taken the keys from his cool fingers, briefly letting their hands brush at the contact.
When Mitsuri crossed Obanai's threshold, the feeling of wrongness simply evaporated. Vanished into dark particles that lingered on the outside world - but never inside. Inside, she felt safe, secured, protected, cared for. When she was inside, and Obanai was here, she'd go to him, slightly out of breath, and she'd hug him with all the strength she could muster. And he always held her as tightly as she craved, for as long as she needed. Then, her breathing would calm down, her heart rate would slow, and the sliver of panic would subsequently recede, only to leave peace in its wake.
Mitsuri never told Obanai. She didn't want to burden him with her irrational fears, didn't want to scare him away with her paranoia. Therefore, she had managed to refrain from spilling her guts to him for weeks. And simply forced herself to just relax when she was with him.
However, the feeling of impending doom looming over her had never receded. It started clinging to her when she was at school too. In the empty hallways when she was walking between classes, in the lobby when she was talking with other students, in the cafeteria when she was grabbing lunch with Shinobu. Always, it lurked in the corners, threatened to spill from the shadows or fall from the dark winter clouds in the sky and more and more, Mitsuri walked with the hairs at the back of her neck erupting in goosebumps and the skin of her back crawling.
She had started taking different routes home. Taking sharp turns down smaller, less crowded alleyways, walking with a brisk pace, eyes on the ground, looking at every shadow with the constant fear that someday, something - she didn't know what, exactly - would come out of them and take her away. And she feared… Mitsuri feared that she was going to lose everything she had gained for the past months, from her newly found independence to every relationship she had built along the way.
Even when she had finally reached her place, and the doors were locked, and her windows were covered with heavy curtains, preventing any light from filtering through, Mitsuri still wouldn't feel safe in her own home. When she slept alone, her bed turned into a prison, with thoughts spiraling out of her control, her body tossing and turning without ever being comfortable, her eyes darting from the windows to the door then to the ceiling as she forced them closed, only to flash them open at every small sound coming from the outside world.
One particular day, Mitsuri had been feeling and acting jittery for hours on end, she had walked all the way to Obanai's place without telling him she was coming and let herself in his apartment building with the same nagging feeling at the back of her mind. Her heavy limbs had carried her up the stairs impossibly slowly, her knock on his door had been weak, at best, and barely audible, at worst. He opened nonetheless, and it took him only one look at her sleep-deprived eyes and her sunken form to drag her inside and crush her to him.
Up to a few weeks ago, Obanai Iguro had never been so happy in his life - never, ever. He had been so happy, in fact, that the thought of waking up brought him only hope and exhilaration - all at the idea of living another day alongside the woman he loved.
His days were spent waiting for the moment they would see each other again, classes passed in a blur but he could still pay attention, lunch breaks with his friends hadn't been a sullen affair for quite a long time now, and when Obanai walked home, it was with a sure step, and a wildly beating heart.
Night time was the best, however. When the world was dark and all sounds were subdued, when minutes trickled into hours and Mitsuri was laying in his arms, chest delicately rising and falling as she breathed in her sleep. During these quiet moments, Obanai watched her openly, committing to memory every little sound she made, every small freckle dusting the soft skin of her cheeks, and every way with which her body so perfectly molded itself to his own.
When morning came, Obanai left Mitsuri's side as quietly as possible, every inch taken in the opposite direction wrenching a painful tug out of his heart as he wished himself stronger, braver. But he wasn't, yet. Instead, he covered his face in preparation for the day ahead and - when she joined him for breakfast - he looked away from the hope in her gaze, as she undoubtedly wished that he would one day trust her enough with his bare face under the sun.
Together, they had walked this fragile line for some time, trusting implicitly that the status quo wouldn't be one that much longer. Obanai knew he could trust Mitsuri, in theory. But there was little he could actually do when irrational panic strangled him in the dead of night and he was so certain she would leave him if she ever saw him in full. During these nights, he would hold her impossibly closer, for as long as it was still dark outside and she couldn't possibly see him, he was voracious in his need for her. Not that she refused him anytime, only buried herself against his side, sighing contentedly and brushing her lips over the skin of his neck as her hand slid under his t-shirt to settle over his heart. When Mitsuri did that, Obanai would immediately settle, even though the touch left him with an aching burn for more contact, it had also deeply rooted itself in his brain as a feeling of being home.
Well, that had been up to a few weeks before. Obanai noticed Mitsuri's stress slowly amping up, day after day. At first, he had thought it was some exams-induced stress, and when he'd asked her about it, she hadn't denied his hypothesis. So Obanai had tried to offer comfort in all the ways he could think of. He'd cooked her special meals, bought her favorite sweets, let her pick whatever movie or show she wanted to watch, and held her as close as possible every time she had reached for him, whether consciously or unconsciously when night came around.
Lately, Obanai had discarded his own hypothesis regarding the reasons behind Mitsuri's anxiousness. Because it had only gotten worse over time. He would cross paths with her on campus and she would be jumping out of her skin in barely contained panic at every door banging shut nearby. She would invite him to her place and he would find her curled on the couch under heavy blankets drawn all the way to her chin, with curtains closed in every room and a barely eaten dinner growing cold on the coffee table. Other times, he'd find her at his door, out of breath from exertion, skin shining with a sheen of sweat and he'd guess that she'd been running all the way there.
No amount of carefully worded questions about her well-being thrown at her was met with a fruitful - or even a truthful - answer. But Obanai knew that Mitsuri needed to come out to him willingly, and he also knew that facing one's deepest fears felt excruciating, and no amount of coaxing would do any good if she closed herself off.
At least, she kept coming to him. And Obanai could see tension seeping from her stiff muscles under his fingers as he took the time to care for her in whatever way he could. Somehow, he felt her finding solace in his arms, and he knew that her sleep was unperturbed when she laid in his bed - that had to be enough.
Only there was so much Obanai could actually endure when it came to Mitsuri Kanroji. He could be patient and wait as she processed what she was going through and he could wait for her to trust him with whatever it was - in the hopes that together, they could face it and drive it away. But Obanai's patience had been wearing thin for a couple of days of seeing Mitsuri struggle more and more with mundane everyday tasks as a deep fatigue clung to her steps and made her weary of every shadow she encountered. And then he heard a soft knock on his door, barely audible, nothing like the sound he was used to hearing from her.
When he opened the door and caught Mitsuri's appearance, shoulders hunched forward and deep, bluish circles under her beautiful eyes, fingers tightly holding on to her bag and no smile lighting up her features… Obanai had had enough. He dragged her inside and enveloped her in a bruising hug as he pushed the door closed behind them. She went all too willingly and burrowed herself in the crook of his neck, breathing long and hard, as if she hadn't been taking in enough air until he'd closed the door on the outside world.
"Mitsuri… You need to tell me what is happening to you, please!" He begged as he felt his arms were the only thing keeping her upright.
"I…I don't know!" She spoke as tears streamed down her face and soaked his shirt.
"I see that you're afraid of something, that you can't sleep and that you struggle to eat when you're not here with me. What is it, Mitsuri?" He pushed even as his hands caressed the soft skin of her face to catch the tears as they fell.
"I feel like something's following me… Something wrong, and I can't shake the feeling that it's going to catch me and take me away from my life." She confessed with a shuddering breath.
"Have you seen anything unusual, or someone following you around?" He asked as cold seeped in his blood, icing his guts and pulling at him to just focus.
"I never see it," she whispered, "but I know it's here, following me around all day and watching me when I go home. I feel it everywhere… Except when I'm here with you."
Like flashes before his eyes, moments from the past few weeks spurred from the depth of Obanai's memory to unravel before them. Moments when he'd felt something nagging him, and he'd subtly checked his surroundings, suddenly hyper aware of every movement made in his vicinity. But Obanai was the paranoid kind, had always been, really, so he had ignored the telltale signs of someone following him around - it just couldn't be real, there was no reason anybody would want to sneak up on him, it was only happening in his head.
As Mitsuri's tears subsided and she gazed at him, panic unfurled in his guts, twisting everything in its wake. Their eyes locked.
"I know I sound crazy right now," Mitsuri said as she tried to untangle herself from him, "I didn't want to bother you with my crazy paranoia, I'm sorry Obanai!"
She thought he didn't believe her. When in fact, what she had told him had rung so close to home that there was no way it could ever be a figment of her imagination.
"No." He whispered, piecing memories together in a puzzle that he hadn't seen in its entirety for weeks on end. "You're not crazy at all, Mitsuri." He concluded, and his tone was somber. Because whoever had been following her around, had been following him around too. And there was no way it could be a coincidence.
"What do you mean?" She called out, uneasiness seeping into every word. Then, her breath caught in her throat as she bunched his shirt with her hands. "You've felt it too… Haven't you?"
Their eyes stayed locked as it slowly dawned on them.
"Yes." Was all Obanai could say in that moment, as icy fingers buried themselves into his chest to squeeze his organs to death. "Someone's following you, Mitsuri. And they're following me too."
Her eyes grew wide as she registered the words and what they meant.
"Who do we do, now?" She choked out, panic evident in her usually delicate features.
Obanai's thoughts were racing through his head at high speed, plans formulating and conjectures on who it might be. But he had one priority above it all.
"You said you didn't feel wrong when you come here, right?"
Mitsuri merely nodded her assent.
"But you feel it when you're at your place?"
A shiver racked her body at the mere mention of her apartment.
"All the time." She confirmed.
"Then stay here with me until we figure this out." Obanai offered. And it was the most obvious thing in the world. Mitsuri's security was his priority. Her comfort, as well. And that went with her sleeping soundly and eating fully, all the things she did when she was there with him.
"Are you sure?" She asked even when he could see that the mere idea of staying here brought her peace like nothing could in that moment.
"Positive."
His fingers softly brushed the skin of her face in careful motions, draining the strain from her features until there was only tranquility.
"Thank you, Obanai. For everything."
She didn't need to thank him, he would literally lay the world at her feet if it made her happy. And he was selfish, too. Greedy even, when it came to Mitsuri, he wanted her safe and sound and in his arms.
"Let's get you something to eat." He only answered as he guided her to sit on the couch. She followed without question.
More days passed and Mitsuri had finally been lulled into a relative sense of safety - mostly thanks to Obanai. Not only had he welcomed her in his home every night, but he had also walked her to class every morning, even when he could have stayed in bed to rest because he didn't have classes for another couple of hours. At the end of the day, he would wait for her and take her home with him. Then he'd cook for her and hold her as they watched whatever they wanted on his TV.
Mitsuri felt so much better in fact that she had begun to feel less paranoid every time she walked the streets. She also hated the feeling of imposing herself on Obanai, he had already done so much just to accommodate her, more than anyone had ever done for her in her life.
Which was why, one bitingly cold afternoon, she'd convinced him that he didn't have to escort her as she walked to her now deserted apartment to grab some stuff to take with her. Obanai had already left her with ample space to occupy in his home - like an empty drawer in his dressing, another in his bathroom cabinet, and even a shelf in his shower for her hair products. The worst - no, best - thing was that everything felt all too natural to them. Their stuff fit together, their belongings mixing to create a kind of domestic harmony and colored the apartment in a warm glow. Mitsuri wasn't sure when she'd be ready to give it all up, if ever.
Thoughts of her and Obanai's relationship - which had yet to be qualified as any relationship at all - swarmed in her mind as she made the trek back to his place, heavy bag on her shoulder with clothes to last her for another week at least. She had no intention of leaving anytime soon and she secretly watched him for any signs of being tired of her presence… She hadn't seen any.
Mitsuri felt a small smile tugging at her lips - it had been easier to smile ever since she'd left her dreadful apartment behind to join Obanai, even though she sometimes missed the sense of belonging she used to feel when she'd been there.
Dark clouds gathering over her head. Shivers running down her spine like icy water. Small hairs rising at the back of her neck. A sudden sense of wrongness following her, growing close, crowding her. Panic.
Mitsuri tried to take her phone out of her pocket when she felt the urgent need to call Obanai for help. But her bag was too heavy and her brisk pace had made her clumsy, her phone clattered to the ground.
Before she could even react, she felt her body being shoved sideways with enough force that she staggered and barely managed to stay upright. Mitsuri yelped as her hands caught on the rough surface of a wall only to be brutally yanked back as something grabbed her bag. She crashed against the opposite wall and banged her head as she failed to catch herself before the collision.
Her vision clouded for a brief moment as stars erupted before her eyes and her eyes blurred with tears. Her head was throbbing from the impact but she tried to gather herself before she could take another hit. What she couldn't ever have anticipated was the huge body that suddenly crushed her to the wall, effectively caging her and preventing her from escaping.
Mitsuri wanted to scream at the contact, she hated that this person could so easily bypass her defenses and touch her without her consent. A boiling fury seized her as she tried to push them away. Too focused on their massive body trapping her, she had failed to catch their face yet. Through the haze, she tried to concentrate, and when she raised her eyes to the face of her attacker, even the blurriness of tears and pain combined couldn't keep her from recognizing him.
"You!" She accused as a mix of acid panic and burning hate swirled in her gut.
"Hello sweet Mitsuri," he drawled too close to her ear, "long time no see."
There in front of her stood the man Mitsuri had sworn herself she would never have to deal with again. The sick bastard who had hurt her for so long, always taking pleasure in making her suffer, seeing her giving up, encouraging her self-hatred and basking in her anxiousness - and now he was holding her against a cold and damp wall in an abandoned alleyway, out of sight and with his body dangerously pressing down on hers.
"Why are you even here?" She asked, out of patience even when her brain was drowning in fear. "Why were you following me around all this time?"
"Well, I was never really that far away from you, I'm your fiancé, after all." He spoke with a placating voice, as if Mitsuri had been the one acting crazy all this time.
"You're not my fiancé!" She couldn't help but rise to the bait. "You're no one to me!" She seethed through clenched teeth.
His hand went to collar her throat and he squeezed it dangerously tight, in warning. Mitsuri wanted to scream and hurl things at him, but focused instead on getting oxygen in her lungs through her restrained airways. Fire erupted in her throat but she kept her cool as best as she could.
"Now, now." He cajoled with a threatening glint in his mad eyes. "That's no way to speak to your future husband."
Mitsuri only narrowed her eyes at him in silent hatred. He was completely mad, she knew. He had always been a madman. Always been a manipulator, a master of control with a vicious streak and a brutal nature rising every time someone dared deny him anything - most especially when it was her. She heard the distinct sound of metal sliding against metal and felt cold steel pressing against her cheek in a bloody caress. Panic was squeezing her insides and traveling all over her body, leaving her in a cold sweat as she struggled more and more with the control she held over her impaired breathing.
"Wanna tell me where you're headed with that bag?" He asked as he pressed the blade in his hand deeper into the skin of her cheek to then let it slide along the column of her throat.
He knows, already. She thought. But there was no way she'd endanger Obanai by revealing she'd been going to his apartment when her crazy motherfucker of an ex had basically kidnapped her.
"Going on a small vacation away from here." She answered plainly, even though it hurt to even formulate words through the bruising grip he maintained on her neck. Her eyes burned holes into his, never once looking away. She wasn't afraid of him anymore. Sure, right then, she was close to collapsing from the panic that collared her as much as he did, but she had vowed to never again be held captive by this man, and she would be damned if she couldn't find her way out of this.
"Why are you lying to me, Mitsuri?" His voice had dropped to a frosting bite, hand squeezing and blade pressing close to her carotid. "I know where you were going. To that pathetic little boyfriend of yours." Her eyes widened in barely contained fury upon hearing his words. "Don't think I haven't seen you run to him every night like the dirty little slut that you are. Does it feel good to cheat on me with him? Does he fuck you good? Better than me?"
Every question thrown at her acted as a knife stab directly aimed at her deepest wounds. Her relationship with Obanai had nothing to do with the one this lunatic had imposed on her for years. She had never loved him, had never desired him, had never been a willing participant in any sexual activity he had pushed on her over the years. Oh but how she hated him. Him and her parents and everything she had had to go through as a growing young woman - never knowing that this wasn't the norm, that she could feel pleasure from the touch of another human being, and not only pain and shame.
"You're sick!" She spat in his face with as much strength as she could muster from her trapped position.
The knife nicked the skin of her neck and Mitsuri hissed in pain as she felt the wet slide of blood traveling down her neck. The contrast of her warm blood against her frozen skin was the only thing she could register any longer.
"Watch your mouth before I do something to it you're gonna regret. Or enjoy, really, what's the difference anyway?" He snickered, because he knew the hurt he had inflicted upon her over and over again had been for his pleasure and his only. "You're gonna come back home with me now, Mitsuri. You've been gone long enough, the game's over. You're lucky I came back even after every time I had to see you run along to your weird, paranoid side piece. I should have just hurt him a long time ago, before he could ever lay his small hands on my property."
"I'm never coming back." She spoke with trembling lips, but she wouldn't go down without a fight, no. Never again. She had too much to fight for, a life of her own, hobbies and studies and friendships and Obanai.
Comforting arms. Cool fingers drawing patterns on the skin of her back. Warm, spicy, heady perfume imprinted on her cells. One teal eye, one golden eye, always trained on her in tenderness and barely concealed desire. Silky soft strands of dark hair tangled in her fingers. Soft lips perfectly slanted against her own, drawing small sighs from the depth of her body. Obanai. Who she loved, who she wanted to spend every moment of every day with for the rest of her life. Obanai and the promise of returning home after a long day.
Mitsuri Kanroji wasn't about to lose him. Or anything they had built together ever since they had met.
With every ounce of power left within her failing body gathered in her leg, Mitsuri bent her knee up so suddenly and so violently that the monster had no chance in hell catching it on time. Her knee collided with his groin in a brutal blow and he staggered back just as something else yanked him away from her.
Even with all the will of the world, there was no way Mitsuri could have pushed him that far away from her with her weak knee jerk. She heard a roar escaping his mouth just as the sound of flesh pounding against flesh resonated in her ears. Her trembling legs failed to support her upright and Misuri let herself slide to the ground, her lungs were burning from exertion and her eyes kept swimming in dark waters. She raised her hands to feel the bump at the back of her head, it was swelling rapidly but thankfully, no blood coated her fingers, the wet feeling was actually caused by water dripping down her neck.
Oh. Right. It's raining. The thought crossed her sluggish brain as she tried to focus her derailing mind back on the scene unfolding before her eyes.
She concentrated really hard on the ground and brushed away the mix of tears and raindrops from her eyes. When she raised her head once again, she saw a flurry of movement coming from someone wearing a striped black and white shirt and the asshole who had been hurting her for most of her life.
Wait. I know this shirt!
Mitsuri gasped as her sluggish brain finally caught up with what her eyes had been seeing this whole time. Like a manifestation of her deepest desires, Obanai had come to her help. And he was now thoroughly beating up her ex. Mitsuri connected the sounds of fist colliding against a meaty face and grunts of pain coming from a rapidly weakening body on the cold ground.
"Obanai?" She called out with a weaker voice than she thought she had.
He immediately turned to her, eyes burning with fury and worry as they roamed over her body. Too caught up in watching each other, they both missed the quick spurt of energy coming from her aggressor as he jumped to his feet in a last-ditch attempt to defend his position. He viciously shoved Obanai against the wall on the opposite side of the alley and threw a punch at his face. Obanai avoided the blow with a swift dodge to the side, the fist hit the wall instead and Mitsuri heard the distinct sound of bones breaking as he roared in pain. Too caught up in his own anger, he didn't wait another second before aiming at Obanai's face again - this time hitting him as he caught him off guard.
Obanai never complained, even when the asshole opposite him used the leverage of his blow hitting to rip the mask from his face. Obanai didn't say anything. His opponent cracked a wet laugh through his bleeding mouth as he turned to Mitsuri, laughing maniacally while she gathered her strength to get up from the ice cold ground.
"That's the kind of guy you wanna fuck, really?" He spat with condescension dripping from his mouth - not unlike the blood that matted his chin. "Should've guessed you'd go for the freakiest looking dude of the lot. It's starting to feel like you're not worth the bother, after all, if you can let ugly-face here kiss you with that on his face."
"You shut your fucking mouth!" Mitsuri spat in his direction. "You'll never be half the man he is. You'll never be loved. And I hope you live a fucking long, lonely, miserable life all by yourself because it's the only thing you'll ever deserve." She held his gaze with as much contempt as she could muster.
"Bitch!" He made a move for her but was cut short by a strong arm curling around his neck.
"Not so fast." Obanai warned with a voice cutting as sharp as a knife.
The knife! Mitsuri remembered as she checked the ground in search for the steel weapon. As soon as she saw it, she went for it and launched herself at her ex as he tried to fight Obanai's choking hold on his neck from behind. Blood dripped from his broken lip as both of his eyes struggled to remain open through the swelling induced by Obanai's numerous punches.
She walked with a decisive step until she found herself standing in front of him - still immobilized. She slid the knife up his front, making a show of pressing it against his groin until he froze completely in front of her.
"This is the last time you'll ever see my face." She explained with the coldest tone she had ever used. "You're going to return to your shitty house and your shitty life and leave me and my boyfriend the fuck alone." Mitsuri accentuated every word with a push of the knife against his pants until the blade went through the fabric to meet skin and this time, he stood completely immobile as the skin of his face blanched, desperation and fear penetrating his eyes, at long last. "If we ever see you again, the knife will not stop right there." She spoke as she let the steel barely nick his skin and he let out a pathetic whine.
Mitsuri held her stance for several seconds, letting the feeling of dread settle deeply into him before finally drawing the knife back for his groin.
"I'm keeping this. Now get the hell out of here." She commended.
As soon as Obanai released the bruising hold he had on his neck, the asshole disappeared like he was running from the wrath of every god above.
As Obanai Iguro watched the coward run for his life out of the alleyway and into the dark, he struggled for a moment with the violent urge to follow him and finish what Mitsuri had started seconds before. Anger still blazed in his guts, tainting the world a vicious red, only countered with the choking panic that had been holding him by the throat for an hour now.
Yes, Obanai had never been one to trust his gut instincts, conversely to what his friends always urged him to do. Which was the sole reason he had found himself running out of his apartment building in the pouring rain that cold, late afternoon… A deep feeling of urgency had rocked him earlier, and he'd felt the looming of something terrible right above his head. He'd plagued it as the weather turning horrendous, until he remembered Mitsuri's desire to go to her place by herself to retrieve some stuff and the fact that she had felt in danger the most when she'd been there.
Then, panic had gripped his throat and urged him to run. In a frenzy, he'd followed his instincts and ran until his lungs burned and the muscles of his legs screamed under the strain. He'd run along all the pathways Mitsuri took to go to his place, not leaving even any small alleyway unchecked. He kept ringing her phone the whole time, but she never picked up and fear only clogged his throat further as he realized that there truly was something wrong, something not born out of his paranoia.
And he'd found her. He'd heard her voice, strained and furious as she spoke the words "I'm never coming back." to a man holding her against the rough wall of an abandoned impasse. After that, Obanai had been seized by a violent fury, as dark as the sky above their heads and as cold as the pounding rain falling all around. He saw Mitsuri knee the asshole in the balls with a strong blow and he yanked him with all his might, letting the anger rule over him as his fist landed again and again against his ugly face.
Later, he'd let himself get distracted by the sight of Mitsuri clearly hurt next to them and he'd known that hitting the guy was less important than protecting her and getting her someplace safe. The hurt from the hit he'd taken to his face barely registered, pain was meaningless, and nothing he hadn't dealt with before. His mask torn from his face and the insults thrown at him following the act were inconsequential as well. Obanai was done caring for whatever other people might think of his face. Few opinions actually mattered to him, and the one expressed by the fucker who was undoubtedly Mitsuri's ex abusive fiancé certainly wasn't worth shit to him.
However, when Obanai witnessed the woman he loved rising above them like a valkyrie flying into battle, everything seemed to slow down to an impossible sluggishness before him. She was truly magnificent. With a voice as cold as the blade she held in her deft fingers, never wavering, never even trembling under the weight of her barely leashed fury.
Obanai had watched her, unabashed, as she took matters into her own hands and proceeded to utterly destroy the life of the man standing on wobbly legs before her.
In the end, he had let the guy run away, more concerned with Mitsuri's welfare than anything else. He turned his head to her but she was looking away from him - she was looking at anything but him.
Oh right. My mask is gone. He remembered in a flash. He found he wasn't so scared of Mitsuri's reaction anymore, she was truly above any of this. He remembered the words she'd uttered in his defense earlier… You'll never be half the man he is… His heart painfully squeezed in his chest.
Guess I'm done hiding.
Obanai lifted his hands to gently guide Mitsuri's chin up until she could meet his gaze. He saw her eyes widen as she realized what he was doing. Her breath stuttered out of her and he heard the knife in her hand clatter to the ground as she gripped his already bunched up shirt. Her eyes traveled over his face and he silently let her take it all in.
Her hands went from his chest to his face and she caressed his skin with whisper soft touches.
"He hurt you." She whispered. Fingers barely grazing over an already developing bruise. The hurt was minimal, without consequence, and he knew that the bruise was not the ugliest thing on his face. Yet, it was the only thing Mitsuri seemed to care about. "I'm sorry." She apologized even though none of this was her own fault.
"Don't apologize. You did nothing wrong." He rushed the words out, because there was no way in hell he was going to let her take the blame for any of it.
Her eyes roamed over his face again, but Obanai couldn't see any sign of disgust coloring her features. Could it be? Could it be that she truly didn't mind?
More and more, it rang true.
Mitsuri raised herself on her toes and carefully brushed her lips to his, once, twice, until he could overcome the panic still holding him in a tight grip to return the sweet touch. His eyes closed as he took her in his arms and let himself be comforted by the sweet taste of her.
She inched herself back after a few seconds and held his gaze with her own as her fingers stayed on his skin.
"I love you, Obanai." She confessed in a quiet exhale.
Obanai's heart - which had been in process of slowing down - picked up in speed so much so that the raging beat was all he could hear.
"What?" He was dumbfounded, shell-shocked, emptied out only to be filled to the brim right after. He loved Mitsuri and… she loved him, too? There was no way.
"You heard me," She admonished with pink rising to her cheeks in the sweetest manner. "I love you, Obanai Iguro, all of you. Scars and all. I've loved you since the very beginning." She went on.
Words simply eluded Obanai just then. There was nothing he could say. Nothing he could do to let her know what her confession meant to him. Like every broken piece of him had suddenly been stitched back together. No, not suddenly. Mitsuri had started him on his journey towards self discovery and healing, but the pieces of his broken life had been stitched back into a whole by his own hands. Every time he'd tried to do better, to be more present, more confident, less of a coward. Every time he'd managed to look at himself in the mirror without flinching away. Every time he'd woken to find himself excited for the day to come. Every time he'd gone to sleep with Mitsuri in his arms, knowing that she belonged right there with him, and not doubting it. And even every other time when he'd found himself struggling with reignited fears from his troubled past, he'd known that the pain wasn't eternal and that things would feel better, after some time. And they always did.
Was there really nothing he could say? Wasn't he brave enough now to risk it all, in the name of love?
Mitsuri kept smiling up at him, soft lips inviting and fingers tracing the lines of scarred skin on each side of his mouth. She didn't even look expectant. She seemed content with things as they were, never asking of him more than he would be willing to give. But she deserved the truth from him, now and always.
"I've loved you ever since we met. And I've loved you more every day since, Mitsuri."
Obanai had thought the words would come out like they'd been ripped from the crevasses of his soul. But they only felt natural. They were. It was the most obvious thing in the world, this love. It had been drawn between them from the very first instant they had laid eyes on each other. The invisible string had been tied between them, only bringing them closer over time, as it weaved itself in the glowing red of their passion and the burning gold of their love.
Mitsuri kissed him again and he felt tears on his lips, hers, his, trailing softly down the corner of a golden eye, leading the way home.
Obanai's hands buried themselves in Mitsuri's hair and she hissed in pain against his lips.
"Shit!" He exclaimed as he drew his face away. "Did he hit your head?"
"Not directly," Mitsuri replied with a wince tainting the glow of her face. "I hit it against the wall."
Fuck. This could get bad, scenarios started cascading before Obanai's eyes, all of them ending with Mitsuri on a hospital bed. Not good.
"Let's get you checked out." He asserted, leaving no room for compromise. Not that she offered any. After all, she could barely stand on her own two legs for more than a few minutes.
Obanai picked the discarded knife as well as Mitsuri's phone from where it had crashed on the ground and half carried her back to his place. Little words were spared between them on the journey home, all their joined efforts poured into the act of walking arms around each other. The stairs were the worst. And even Mitsuri couldn't pretend like she was alright anymore. Pain lined her eyes and her legs shook so badly that Obanai had to carry her bridal style for the two last flights of stairs. She barely protested, another telling sign of her general condition.
He'd called Shinobu on their way home, and the brunette appeared on their doorstep only minutes after they'd reached it themselves. She'd brought her sister Kanae at his request, since was the only one who had actually graduated from med school out of the bunch of them - except Obanai who held no interest for humans as a general rule and aimed for a different major altogether.
Mitsuri sat on the couch and let Kanae run some tests on her, patch up the small cuts she sported on her palms and - to Obanai's complete disarray - to the column of her neck. She took the time to closely inspect the bump at the back of her head as well.
Leaving the patient and doctor alone for a moment, Obanai followed Shinobu to his kitchen. She had been fixating her unnerving gaze on him from the moment she had gotten here and he knew he had some explaining to do.
"Well. It's only a small concussion!" Kanae concluded after having thoroughly checked the enormous egg residing at the back of Mitsuri's head.
The pink-haired girl let out an incredulous chuckle.
"A small concussion? What does that even mean?" She asked in a shrill voice. OK. Maybe she was growing tired of the horrible day and just wanted to lie in bed with her boyfriend. Yes, Obanai was her boyfriend, now and forever - or so she hoped.
"It means you don't have to go to the hospital to get an x-ray, so count your blessings my dear!" Kanae explained with a reassuring pat on her shoulder.
"Oh. Alright, then." Mitsuri capitulated with a heavy sigh. "Thank you for checking that out. And for patching me up."
Her friend went on about warning signs and potential symptoms that Mitsuri had to look out for in the next days and she registered it all with nods of assent even as her body was screaming at her to just go to sleep.
Once she had heard everything she had to listen to, Mitsuri excused herself to go take a shower. She wanted to scrub her skin raw of the soot and dirt and ugliness of everything she had been subjected to this afternoon - whether it was words or unsolicited touches.
The shower helped. A little. But even when her skin looked as clean as it could ever be, Mitsuri still felt dirty down to her soul. When she came out of the bathroom, both of her friends were gone, leaving behind some pills for the pounding in her head as well as every instruction which had been given to her earlier written concisely on a paper note. Thank you doctor! Mitsuri thought with a relieved sigh escaping from her lips.
The apartment was bathing in a low, golden light emanating from Obanai's kitchen and bedroom only. Mitsuri went in search of him, only to encounter him seconds later as he was clearly making his way to her. When they met, his eyes traveled up and down the length of her body, brows furrowing every time he caught a glimpse of the various scratches on her skin. Mitsuri only cared for the bruise on his cheekbone which had turned a vicious purple in only hours.
Then there were the scars. Which she had longed to see for some time, even when she could guess at their depth and range pretty easily after having explored his face with her fingers on many occasions.
They were deep, they ran from each side of his mouth, like someone evil had tried to carve into his beautiful face an unnaturally large smile. Obanai was just as beautiful to her as he'd been the day before when she hadn't seen his scars yet. If not more. Because he carried himself with a renewed confidence, and he trusted her with the worst hurt of his past. And Mitsuri loved him all the more for it.
"Are you sure that he didn't break something?" She wondered before she could help it.
"Kanae checked," he reassured. "It's just a bruise, nothing broken."
"Good."
"Do you want to grab something to eat?" He offered with a kind voice as his eyes searched her face.
The thought of eating anything made nausea surge into Mitsuri's stomach. She definitely wasn't ready for anything of substance tonight.
"I can't even think about food, right now.. Sorry." She apologized even as she knew she didn't need to.
"It's ok," He reassured with his hands stroking down the length of her arms. "You can go to bed and I'll be right with you once I showered."
Mitsuri only hummed her consent, fatigue bearing heavier on her shoulders with every step she took. Obanai pressed a small kiss to her forehead as he headed for the bathroom and Mitsuri wanted to sink in the feeling of safety that clung to him and never let go.
Instead, she pushed her legs forward until she finally reached his bedroom. Once there, she let her body sink into the sheets that smelled of him and wished he would be there to hold her right then. Because she just felt like crumbling down and shit but now she was rocked by heavy sobs escaping her lips, tears staining the pillow under her head and body aching with every breath she took.
Mitsuri had never been a pretty crier, but this time it felt even worse, hiccups and shuttered breaths mingling with a never ending flow of tears, all of it worsening her headache by the minute. It felt like forever. It felt like it would never end.
She didn't even realize it when Obanai walked in on her breaking apart, not until he joined her in bed, with his chest bare and sweatpants hanging low on his hips. He gathered her carefully in his arms until she was practically laying over him.
Mitsuri didn't fight it in the slightest, she was greedy for his comfort, greedy for his skin under her fingertips and for the peace it brought her to have him so close.
After long minutes spent in a silence that was only broken by the small sounds she made as she cried, her heart settled a little and the flow of tears subsided to leave her exhausted.
"Sorry for that." She apologized with a voice that was more strained than before.
"Nothing to be sorry for." He reassured as he kept her comfortably snug against his chest, with her head resting in the crook of his neck and his fingers touching her everywhere, down her back, along her arms and bent legs - simply offering comfort in the barest form.
"You should take this before you sleep." He asked gently in her ear as he grabbed the pills Kanae had left behind for her raging headache. Mitsuri gratefully accepted them and swallowed it down soon after.
"Thank you Obanai. For everything." She whispered just as sleep pulled her deeply under. Nestled against his warm skin, surrounded by his freshly showered smell and the powerful beating of his heart - she fell in peaceful slumber.
"Always." He murmured as he laid a small kiss on her hair.
Author's notes :
Thank you for reading this absolutely massive chapter till the end ! I know I went a little over the board, but I had the layout for this one planned for months, and I just let it flow out of me. I hope you liked it, please let me know what you think!
Also, I think (I know) we're nearing the ending for the story, I hope you'll bear with me until then. Thank you for always returning here when I post a new chapter, it just means the world to me.
See you soon !