Chapter Text
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"If only I could bottle her laughter, I'd let it rot just to keep it mine."
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Chapter 1
Strawberries in the Dark
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Misogyny is something taught.
It derives from the patriarchy, festering inside the corrosive weakness of the Male Ego. Children are not born hateful. They learn hate through their environment, through what's spat past bitter, aged lips crackling with loathing. It seeps into their marrow like rancid oil, thick and slow, until they cannot remember a time before the stain.
Sometimes, it's found even in the hollow crater brimming with silence, found in the absence of love. It is an emptiness that echoes, teaching cruelty where tenderness never took root. Hate is nurtured, and those who are victims of it will either drown in its pestilence, or vomit it out to begin anew.
Zen'in Naoya is a complicated matter.
Perhaps in another world, he may have been rotten. Depraved of empathy, hollowed out and stuffed with the casual indoctrination of the patriarchy passed down through multiple generations. He is a gilded corpse propped up by family honor, perfumed to mask the stink.
In this world, Zen'in Naoya is no better. He harbors a huge ego, poisoned with insecurity and the demanding right to be superior, because he is a man, and a man that cries, that feels, that is weak, is no man at all. He is better because he was simply born male. And he believes the lie so deeply embedded that it pulses under his skin like a second heartbeat.
But.
There is a sick, sickening doubt wedged like an acidulated mirror shard inside his black heart. Bleeding out the tightly bound belief shoved down his throat since before he could even remember. It is an emotion, a realization so profound that, on more than one occasion, has been attempted to be beaten out of him, but to no avail. No fortress of arrogance can keep it from clawing at the doors of his ribs. Because, as contemptuous and cruel as Zen'in Naoya is, as powerful as he may be, he is not exempt from fear.
And this is no simple fear. Zen'in Naoya is not afraid of the stupid, insignificant things. He is not afraid of the dark. He is not afraid of bugs. He is not afraid of blood. No, he's not even afraid of death.
He is afraid of women.
Why?
Because of you.
Because your existence is a blasphemy to everything he was taught, because your smile is a guillotine that makes his throat close. Because you are a wound he cannot cauterize, a sweetness he cannot corrupt, a terror he cannot name without tasting ash. Because you are everything he was taught to hate, wrapped and handed to him as an act of vicious providence. As a taunting act.
As his undoing.
There is something ugly inside you. There is no other explanation. Naoya can't fathom anything else to be the cause. The cause of this... this incessant laceration of his heart, mauled by a mangled, emaciated hand probing at the flabby meat for a peek inside. Each pulse of longing is a maggot, squirming deeper, burrowing, nesting.
You're revolting in so many ways. The shine of your eyes, the softness of your skin, the glimmer of your hair underneath the holy sun. It makes him feel. Something. So, so hideous. He can't name it. He dares not name it, for if he does, the roots of thorned roses suffocating his lungs and throat will spill the bleeding truth of what it really is. It disgusts him how his breath hitches when you look at him, how he imagines pressing his mouth to yours just to see if sweetness or rot spills out. It claws at his ribs, this visceral agony of wanton, gnaws the marrow, chews through the gristle until his sternum feels hollow. It's a cathedral for a god he was never meant to worship.
Everything about you wants him to die. Wants him to crumble, to forsake the armor of his scorn—and the most horrifying part is that he would. Gladly.
He pictures your hands, delicate and warm, digging into his chest, tearing it open, pulling apart the putrid, dripping meat of his heart into your palms. And he thinks: yes. Yes, take it, make it yours, let me bleed and die by your command.
If only it meant he could have you. Could claim you like communion, your lips stained with the sacrament of his ruin.
If only it meant he wouldn't be judged. By his ancestors, by the men who raised him, by the brittle bones of patriarchy that built the cage he still calls holy. If only it meant the sun wouldn't burn him as a heretic for longing.
But.
He won't let himself. It is cowardice masquerading as piety. Fear contorting itself into a noose of tradition.
He knows he won't. It's not right. It's not the way it should be.
And oh, how that mantra rots inside him, a prayer recited to stave off the delirium of want.
You, a woman, must be kneeling at his feet. You must worship the ground he walks on, take his anger, his attention, and his presence as a mercy, if not a damn blessing. You are nothing. You were born as nothing, and so you are nothing, you will be nothing. This is the scripture etched into his bones, carved through his skin, the meat, his soul made up of centuries of corruption, whispered to him by the grave-mouthed fathers of his bloodline.
You're made to be used for the benefit of men. You were born to kiss the soles of his dirty feet, to lick them clean with the useless spittle of your sinful mouth. You were made to wash the sin on his soiled hands with your tears, to cup them to your throat and let them choke you enough to breathe only his name.
And yet, somewhere in that obscene fantasy, he imagines you smiling as you do, with your silver tongue tender, your eyes gentle, blessing him with love he knows he doesn't deserve.
And it sickens him more than any blasphemy could.
Because it shouldn't be. His veins throb with it, hot and filthy, crawling under his skin like worms.
This cannot be. It's a rot he cannot carve out, no matter how he digs at his chest in private, nails leaving half-moon crescents over a heart already spoiled.
Zen'in Naoya cannot be in love. Not like this, not with you, not with something so vile it makes him tremble. That truth scalds him from the inside, pooling molten behind his ribs, a sweetness so rich it curdles into agony.
He can't. He can't, he can't, he can't. Please, God, No.
His prayers come out strangled, soaked in saliva and bile, because even begging feels like desecration when all he truly wants is your mouth on his.
You are everything he can ever want. You are everything to him. You are the only thing that will matter in the end.
Not the clan. Not the men. Not his beliefs. He would torch them all, let their ashes asphyxiate him, if it meant your hands once—just once, God, please, please—would cradle his ruined face.
You are killing him.
Every glance is a dagger. Every span of your attention is a garrote. Your name scrapes raw against his larynx, with every syllable, a sweet corrosion.
You are killing him, and you don't even care.
You don't care. You'd laugh at his corpse. He knows you will. You look at him, you brush past him, you exist like the perfection he can't accept, and he is angry. Angry because your scent follows him into his nightmares, because he wakes hard, sweating, teeth gnashing with a hunger that feels like it will hollow him out. He hates you. He hates everything that you are. He wants you dead. Wants your blood on his hands so he can prove he's stronger, better, god above you, even as his cock twitches at the thought.
He wants you gone. You're wrong. You are so wrong that Naoya can't picture himself never tasting you. He can't imagine you not by his side, perfect, under his thumb, focusing solely on him.
Because Zen'in Naoya is worthy.
Isn't he? Please, someone, tell me I am.
He needs to be.
Why can't you see that? Why have you rejected him, time and time again? He's tried. He tried doing something nice, like giving you a flower, or, a treat, or his attention. Small, pathetic offerings that dripped from his fingers like pus, because nothing he gives can ever be clean. He tried accepting you for how wrong you are, but you don't care. You don't want him. You don't fucking want him and he can't—he can't understand why. Naoya is worthy. He's worthy, he's been told, he knows and has harbored this as a truth. He is everything you can ever want. He is everything perfect for you. So why?
Why do you hurt him?
Why does it throb so deliciously when you do?
He can't force you. He can't come close to you, because you—you're a monster. A monster draped in divinity, a holy abomination that makes him want to drop to his knees and sob into your thighs for mercy.
Your strength is wrong. You can't be better than him. He's the better one. And you need to know that so that he can be happy.
But you won't change.
So why?
Why does he try?
Why does he bother?
Why does he still want you?
"Zen'in-sama."
A downtrodden 20-year-old Zen'in Naoya raises sluggishly from his lugubrious position against the small table. His spine cracks. His muscles are knotted from hours twisted in that crooked agony. He blinks past the wince-worthy headache pulsating in the back of his eyes, tasting the discomfiting cotton of alcohol against his tongue. His breath reeks of fermented fruit. His lips are split, bleeding faintly where he's chewed them raw.
He squints through the dark with his fingers twitching against the bitten strawberry stem sticking to the calluses of his index and thumb. The juice dried sticky on his skin hours ago. There's a line of light that hits the side of his face when he turns at the call of one of the servants.
He hisses out a scathing "Whadd'ya want?" as he cradles his head to abate the agony in it.
Your face flashes with every throb of pain. It's obscene, how lovely you look painted across his migraine with your eyes shining, mouth parted, and bathed in the hellish pulse behind his skull.
"She is visiting."
Naoya's heart drops into the acids of his stomach at the words that come out. A cold sweat breaks out across his neck, and his ribs tighten in a vice. The alcohol curdles instantly in his gut. There's a horrible flutter in his chest—a moth frantic under glass. He snaps his body straight, ignoring the rush of pain as his eyes widen on the servant man. He is bowed, hands inside his sleeves, extended out toward him in the perfect reverence of respect.
The servant he doesn't know the name of continues in his silence.
"And She has accepted your marriage proposal."
Naoya's mouth goes dry and his breath catches on a wheeze. All the blood inside him sluices downward, pooling hot and filthy between his legs—shame and triumph immediately wrestle in a frenzy that almost makes him choke. And somewhere beneath it, a primal terror scuttles its horror across his spine.
He almost laughs. It bubbles up sour from his throat, half-choke, half-cry.
This can't be real, can it?
This can't be real.
His vision blurs with sudden wetness, though whether it's sweat or tears he can't tell.
For a split second, everything is blank. The world holds its breath with him. His lungs seize, ribs bending inward.
The next, Naoya is scrambling up, forward, desperate and stupid, but he doesn't care. His knees nearly give, so light with frantic joy that it borders on collapse. The servant is old. He'll keel over before he utters anything about Naoya.
"Where—" He swallows past a cough of saliva that goes down the wrong pipe, "Where is she?" He croaks, cupping the tent in his pants. His palm presses down, shuddering. He twitches beneath it, humiliatingly eager. His face is hot, his body even hotter. His heart beats so fast that he begins to see color, dizzy with something beyond happiness. It glows at the edges, pulsing bright white, pink, blood red. He can't name it. It feels... good. And wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
The servant continues to look at the floor, as taught.
"She awaits you in the West Wing's private rooms, Zen'in-sama."
Naoya feels crazy. The feeling unfurls in him—a parasite made form—burrowing, writhing through every nerve. Madness wraps around his headache, throb, throb, throb. His dick gets harder, so hard, and Naoya winces at the intensity of it all. It throbs like a living wound. His stomach keeps swooping, his heart keeps dipping into the acid, sloshing violently, nausea twinned with euphoria.
Nothing is making sense. Something is dragging up his throat that tastes like laughter and vomit. But he doesn't care. He can't care right now. Something good is happening after everything—have you finally seen reason?
"Get out," He bids the servant, but the command comes out chirpy in a ghastly lilt, nearly sweet. He's too much in a good mood to give a fuck about anything right now. "Get my best clothes ready. Don't be late," He warns, but he keeps tasting strawberry.
He turns around and stumbles around his room just as the servant hastily makes his way out to get the things he needs ready.
Naoya can't see properly. Dark spots dance like insects across his eyes.
He trips over several bottles and past a bowl of strawberry stems. They crunch underfoot, becoming a sick little bouquet of rot.
He rubs the crust of his eyes and makes a face at the smell of himself. He smells sour, stale, and filthy. Exactly what he is.
This can't be real.
She wants me.
She wants me, for real.
The words echo, echo, echo, each time sweeter, more poisonous. Naoya lets out a breathless laugh.
He walks, trips again, dizzy.
His eyes make contact with the mirror.
A monster stares back. Mouth red and tainted, pupils blown wide, the image he makes is nearly grotesque, drunk with avarice. His pulse hammers so violently in his neck that it looks ready to burst. He thinks shamelessly, if you could see him now, you'd turn away. You'd reject him another damn time. He's so ugly. He's the worst.
But god, he'd chase you.
He'd love you.
He loves you.