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For something they are supposed to be guarding, the being that calls itself Tengen spends very little time in their physical presence. It is listening; now that Chōsō knows what it feels like, its presence is everywhere in the otherwise empty shrine. The unimaginable scope of its power is nothing like any single human has ever possessed. Of course, Tengen isn’t human anymore. Its cursed energy flows into and melds with everything in the temple and beyond.
It doesn’t seem to bother Tsukumo. After the others are gone, she settles on the floor across the shrine from Chōsō. She drapes her arms over her knees, all lanky, careless grace.
“Tell me,” she says, with her bright eyes on him, “what kind of woman is your type?”
Chōsō frowns, confused.
“Or man,” Tsukumo continues. “That’s fine too.”
“My type?”
She leans forward, interested and demanding. “Yeah. What you like in another person tells me everything I need to know about you.”
“I haven’t met very many people,” Chōsō answers truthfully. The cursed spirits he’s met so far tend to die or end up as enemies. The humans fare worse, with the exception of Yuuji’s friends, and this woman who doesn’t seem to be friends with anyone.
“Come on,” Tsukumo urges. “You have to answer.”
Chōsō matches her pose as he looks her over. He isn’t at all sure what he is supposed to be deciding, but her attentive face and big eyes under the bright fall of her hair are appealing, as are her long legs and bare arms. All of that, though, pales in comparison to the dark gleam of her power and the way it lingers in every line of her body.
“What’s your type?”
“No, no,” Tsukumo scolds. “I asked you first.”
“I meant, whatever type you are. I like it.”
Her lips part, her eyes widen, and he wonders if he said the wrong thing. Then she throws her head back and laughs. Chōsō waits for her to stop.
“What are you?” She asks. He begins to answer in his usual way but she holds up a finger. “Not in relation to others. What are you ?”
“I’m a death painting.”
“Tengen said that,” Tsukumo agrees. She seems to be waiting for him to explain.
“One of Kamo’s - Kenjaku’s - projects, before this one. There were nine of us.” He tips his head back against the wall. Even through the layers of protection around the shrine, he can feel the pull of his brothers’ remains in the hidden warehouse. If he focuses, he can feel Yuuji, far away now, and somewhere on the school grounds Esō and Kechizu wait for him to collect what is left of them. They are his life, his death, the only things that matter. To everyone else, though, they are all nothing but failed experiments, cast aside in favor of new ideas.
“Nine?”
“Yes. My brothers and me.”
“Brothers?”
He begins to wonder if she’s very intelligent by human standards. “Yes. I’m the oldest.”
“The oldest what, exactly?”
Chōsō spent a hundred fifty years imprisoned in a jar and this is rapidly becoming the longest day of his life.
“Of my brothers.”
Tsukumo sighs as if he is the one being difficult. “What are you?”
He doesn’t know how to answer anymore.
“You’re not human, but you have the Kamo family cursed technique. You have a physical body, so you’re not a curse. Are the others like you?”
“I don’t know. Esō and Kechizu had poisonous blood like me, but their technique was different.” He gestures down at his body, which is bruised and aching from the days of fighting at Yuuji’s side. He’s beginning to wonder if that’s all life is, endless fighting and the struggle to survive. The blood loss is recoverable, and he heals through cursed energy, but it makes him tired. “This wasn’t me, before. Mahito found bodies for the three of us he stole from Jujutsu High.”
“He found vessels for you?” Her bright gaze is too focused, too interested, and Chōsō looks away. He doesn’t want to fight her; Yuuji and Tengen need him to stay here. Besides, he would probably lose. Then his brothers would remain trapped in the warehouse indefinitely, lingering between life and death.
“Vessels for cursed objects are hard to come by,” Tsukumo muses, more to herself than Chōsō. Or perhaps she’s speaking for the benefit of the invisible Tengen, which seems unnecessary. Tengen already knew what Chōsō was.
“Not for us. We’re human already, so any human will do.”
One thin brow arches. “You aren’t human.”
“Our mother was.”
“How long were you alive?”
Chōsō has no idea how to answer that. None of them survived long enough to be born, except for Yuuji. The rest of them spent a hundred fifty years dead but conscious; death is something different for humans, he’s learned, than for curses, and he’s not quite either one.
Tsukumo stretches and yawns, giving up on waiting for his answer.
“I’ll take the first shift. You look dead on your feet.”
“I always look like that.”
She laughs, a burst of honest surprise in the quiet of the shrine. The ambient light has dimmed, and he assumes that outside it’s twilight.
“I guess you probably do. Even so, when was the last time you slept?”
“I’m fine.” He hasn’t rested in the nine days since he left Kenjaku and his curse allies behind. When they began hunting down the cursed spirits attacking Tokyo, Chōsō guarded Yuuji unasked during each brief and fitful sleep. The other curses didn’t sleep, but his body isn’t pure like theirs. There’s only so long his cursed energy can keep up with the healing and blood loss of his technique. Sooner or later, he’ll need to sleep, but he’s not certain enough of this body and this life to succumb. He watches Tsukumo pace and argue with Tengen while the shrine falls into darkness.
*
Futons appear in the formerly empty shrine, along with a table and food at regular intervals. Days pass without any attacks or interference from anyone, and Chōsō begins to doubt that Tengen needs protection at all. Perhaps it was just bored, or wanted a sacrifice in exchange for its information. Besides, Chōsō is half curse himself, as Tsukumo delights in pointing out. He isn’t certain that he can’t be ripped from his body with curse manipulation, if Kenjaku gets it into his mind to do so. In their last fight, the ancient sorcerer kept Chōsō easily at bay, biding his time until he could use his new technique, courtesy of Mahito.
Tsukumo flops onto the floor by the table, plucking grapes from the stem. They’d been practicing, sparring with one another in the empty space of the shrine. No cursed techniques, just hand to hand combat. She’s faster and taller than him, and has more experience. Without his technique to speed up his reflexes and add strength to his muscles, she beats him every time. It’s humbling, and excellent training.
“Is there someone else in there with you?” Tsukumo taps her head.
“Someone else?” He tames his hair back into its two spiky bunches.
“Yeah, you know, your vessel.”
His hands slow. “I never thought about it.”
“Yuuji is a vessel.”
“For Sukuna,” Chōsō agrees.
“He’s your brother, somehow, right?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve never considered that you took over someone else’s body? That could’ve been Yuuji.”
“It wasn’t.” Chōsō turns away. “There’s no one else. This is me, now.”
*
Later, after she has gone to bed, Chōsō sits awake in the shrine full of Tengen’s cursed energy. He closes his eyes, listening to the noises from outside and filtering them out. Inside the shrine, it’s quiet except for Tsukumo snoring softly. He filters that out too, focusing inward on his own body. He keeps his breathing quiet, his heart steady and slow. It feels ridiculous to be looking for someone else in his own mind and body, but he has to know. He waits in almost complete silence. No one emerges, and he’s not certain if he’s relieved or disappointed. Tsukumo claimed he was torturing the man, dragging him around in a body he can no longer control. It seems she was wrong.
Incarnation wasn’t smooth or painless for him, either. Chōsō pokes hesitantly at the memory. He remembers the seals breaking, the searing rush of input from a world outside himself. The presence of two of his sleeping brothers so nearby. Sinking into living warmth and stretching out of the dead, curled body he’d been trapped in so long. His cursed energy flowing through the new body, claiming it, changing it to suit himself.
Consciousness found him hanging from a wall, pinned by nails through his palms. Every sensation was overwhelming until he learned to sort through them, to tone them down to what he needed. He focused on the pain first. It grounded him and provided a path for his cursed energy. If someone else was there with him, then, he didn’t notice. Now, thinking about it, he doesn’t feel the triumph he did in the moment, finally incarnate and free, but instead a flutter of panic and horror. Those…aren’t his. He focuses on the image of his body on the wall, on the cursed spirit standing in front of him whose face was the first last thing he saw. The horror rises, tremulous, from his body. He pictures Mahito’s mismatched eyes and wide, delighted grin.
“He’s awake!” The patchwork curse called cheerfully over his shoulder to the man Chōsō now knows as Kenjaku. “You were right, any body will do.”
“Of course I was,” the man said. He walked closer, looking over Chōsō’s new body. “Can you free yourself, Chōsō?”
He tugged experimentally at the nails in his hands. The flesh between the bones was thin. The man could have torn himself free, if he hadn’t feared the pain. Chōsō had no fear for himself or for this new body. Anything he did to it could be repaired. He yanked one hand loose. The muscles separated, torn white tendons hanging for a moment as blood spattered the floor. He stopped the bleeding; it was as easy as thinking about it. The flesh of his hand bubbled and knit together. The pain diminished as he set his feet more firmly on the ground. He pulled the other nail from the wall, drawing it smoothly through his hand to drop it to the floor. It thumped dully against the cheap, ruined carpeting. Beyond the black-haired man sat two sealed glass tubes containing more of his brothers’ remains. He walked over to examine them, but he would know them anywhere, in any form. Esō. Kechizu.
The patchwork curse crouched beside him, wiping slimy fingers on its black pants.
“Don’t worry, we’ll free them too.”
*
A nightmare, a man says in his mind. It’s Chōsō’s own voice, but with a pleading, terrified tone Chōsō has never used. This is all a nightmare. Wake up. Wake up!
Chōsō isn’t certain how to talk to someone who only exists in his own body. With Tsukumo snoring across the shrine and only Tengen’s all-encompassing consciousness to hear, he decides aloud is his best option.
“It’s not a nightmare,” he says quietly into the dim room. The presence in his mind shivers with horror.
I didn’t say that. It’s not me. I’m not here.
“You are dead.”
Wake up. Wake up…
“There is no waking. You died.”
He intentionally plays out the battle with Zen’in Naoya in his mind. A cut to the ribs, blood splashing to the floor. An upwelling of cursed energy, immense but imperceptible to the man whose body he wears. The blood rising in an impossible wave, flooding the hallway. No human could lose so much blood and live. The dead man in Chōsō’s mind recoils.
I’m dead?
“Yes,” Chōsō says. A rush of unclear memories flickers behind his eyes, too fast to catch more than the current of emotions. Fear, regret. A deep sense of loss for the family he left behind. Chōsō understands the last one.
“It’s done. You can’t help them now. Let go.”
This is a nightmare, the man whispers, but he doesn’t believe in himself anymore. His presence fades like the afterimage of a flash.
Chōsō feels the absence when he is gone, whoever he was. The body is empty, but somehow heavier. He takes a deep breath and lets himself fall into sleep for the first time since Mahito awakened him. His brothers are there at the edges of his unconscious mind. He reaches out towards them and loses himself in the muffling darkness of foggy and familiar dreams.
*
“So you do sleep.”
Chōsō jerks awake to find Tsukumo standing over him in the brightly lit shrine. She offers him a hand up.
“Evidently.” It’s like his first awakening all over again. His body is slow to respond and everything seems vivid and immediate after the timeless, formless waiting place he shared again with his brothers in his dreams. He rolls his shoulders and neck, trying to fit comfortably back into his body.
“You should try the futon next time,” Tsukumo says, her bright eyes glinting with amusement. “If you sleep against the wall like that, you’ll wake up sore and stiff.”
“That’s normal?” He asks.
“Yeah, death painting. Those of us with bodies have to take better care of them.” She tosses an apple at him from the bowl on the table that replenishes itself overnight. “Eat, sleep, exercise.”
“I have a name.” He sniffs warily at the apple and Tsukumo shakes her head, settling in front of the table.
“You’ve got a lot to learn if you want to pass for a human. When you’re fighting you’re fine - I’d believe you were a special-grade, if I didn’t know the other three - but you don’t act like a human otherwise.”
“I’m not.” He sits across from her and hands the apple back. Tsukumo takes a knife from her pocket and cuts a slice. The white flesh is crisp and smells sweet when she crunches it between her teeth. She offers another slice on the blade of the knife.
“I don’t need it,” he says, but he takes it anyway.
“Then don’t eat it. More for me.”
Tsukumo ignores him after that, serving herself a bowl of rice and vegetables. With her attention turned away, he bites tentatively into the slice of apple. The juice is sweet and tart and his mouth floods with saliva. There’s an unfamiliar hollow feeling in his belly as he swallows that builds quickly into a gnawing desperation. Chōsō eyes the rice with interest. Tsukumo says nothing, only slides her bowl across the table and makes another for herself.
*
The shrine is dark; Tengen keeps it to regular cycles of night and day to mimic the outside world. Across the room on her own futon, Tsukumo’s breathing changes, becoming faster and deeper. The blanket rustles in a subtle rhythm. Chōsō closes his eyes. He’s gotten used to the noises she makes, alone at night beneath her blanket. Soon she will be unable to hold her moans in her throat as she is doing now, each breath pressing against her closed lips. She pants as her fingers move faster in the darkness, working at something he can’t see. In a few minutes, he knows, she will sigh and settle into her blankets to sleep.
“Are you okay?” He whispers into the rustling dark. It’s curiosity more than concern: surely if something was wrong with her, Tengen would know and intervene. Her movements stop.
“I thought you were asleep.”
“I don’t sleep much.”
“Right. Cursed spirit.” She sighs and rolls over to face him.
“Half human.” He keeps reminding her, although he isn’t sure why it matters to him.
“Not human enough to know what I was doing, apparently.” Tsukumo laughs, but the former sharp edges have been softened by their enforced intimacy. “Most guys know all about that.”
He stays quiet. They’ve spent enough time together that he knows she’s teasing him, and if he doesn’t respond she usually explains it. As far as he can tell, they’ve each decided that the other is an extremely powerful idiot, so they mostly leave one another alone.
“You really don’t know, do you?” Her blanket rustles again. Footsteps cross the room and then her weight bows the side of his futon. “Let me in.”
He holds up the blanket and she slides beneath it. She’s bare below the waist, one long, muscular leg draping across his thighs. Her hand traces along his chest and belly and it’s strangely hard to breathe. Blood rushes down between his legs, following the path of her hand, and he gasps. Her teeth flash in a smirk above him.
“Human enough,” she mutters, wrapping her fingers around him through the loose fabric of his pants. It aches, but not like anything he’s experienced before. He’s not sure he wants her to do it, but he’s also not sure he wants her to stop. Instead, he draws the blood in his body back to its usual route. This body has never done anything he didn’t want it to before, and the disobedience makes him nervous. He should be strong enough to control it.
Her hand slides back onto his thigh.
“Or maybe not,” she says, a touch of disappointment in her voice.
“What are you doing?”
“Apparently nothing.”
She’s infuriating. He has no idea what she wants from him, or why she’s acting so strangely. She lays down on his pillow, pushing him over so they are shoulder to shoulder. He’s intensely aware of every point of contact: arm, hand, hip, thigh, calf, pressed warm and firm against him. It shouldn’t matter. She’s a sorcerer, and he’s a curse as far as she’s concerned. If they weren’t working together to protect Tengen, she would’ve tried to kill him by now, and probably succeeded. His heart won’t stop racing. He orders the blood to slow, but that makes him dizzy. There’s a scent to her hair, draped over the pillow beside him, like summer heat and sour fruit. He rises up over her on one elbow as she did to him and reaches out a tentative hand. Her belly rises and falls beneath his fingers, taut with muscle beneath the worn fabric of her undershirt. Even in the dark, her eyes find him.
“What are you doing?” She echoes.
“I don’t know.”
Her hand covers his before he can pull away. She guides it beneath her shirt. The skin is smooth as satin under his palm. Her ribs ripple beneath his fingers, moving with her breath. She arches up into their combined touch, squeezing his hand gently around the soft flesh of her breast. The nipple hardens against his palm, and she bites her lip. His body is doing strange things again. He has the urge to press himself against her thigh and backs away instead. She sits up to pull her shirt over her head.
“It’s okay,” she says. “I’ll show you what to do.”
“I’m a curse,” he says uncertainly.
“Half,” she reminds him. It’s the first time she’s been on that side of the argument and it’s that as much as his own curiosity that keeps him there. Her hands are on him again, taking off his shirt too. His hair falls on his shoulders when she frees it, tickling the bare skin. He shivers when she brushes it back and presses her lips gently against his neck. Her breath ghosts over his skin and her tongue flicks out to taste him before she sits back.
“Are there any surprises under the rest of your clothes? You look very human so far.”
“I don’t think so.” He’s not sure what she expects, but compared to his brothers he changed the body very little.
“You must be weaker than I thought. Most curses shape their vessels to their liking.”
Chōsō runs a hand through his hair, missing her touch and the way she called him human only moments ago.
“This is what I look like. I’m just me.”
She kneels up on the futon to take his face in her hands. Her thumbs stroke the arches of his cheekbones.
“If I kiss you, will it hurt me?”
“Not unless I’m bleeding.”
“No biting, then,” she murmurs, and presses her lips against his. He’s seen Mahito and Kenjaku kissing before, but the reality of it is a surprise. Her mouth is plush and gentle at first, then more demanding. She parts his lips with the pressure of her tongue, holding his face steady. Her eyes are open, but she’s so close that he closes his. She hums in approval and her voice vibrates against his skin. When she pulls back, he’s breathless.
“Not bad, death painting,” she says, tongue flicking over her lips.
“Chōsō,” he reminds her.
“Chōsō,” she agrees, only slightly mocking. “You try now. Do what I did to you.”
His hands tremble slightly as he brings them to her cheeks. She’s taller than him, so the angles are different, but he copies her as best he can. The heat of her mouth when it opens for him sends matching warmth to pool in his belly. Her hands wind into his hair, urging him closer until her breasts are pressed against his bare chest. The disobedient part of his body aches for touch; he pushes his hips forward against the slope of her belly. She smiles against his lips.
“So you do like this,” she says. One of her hands drops between them, wrapping gently around him. The sensation makes his breath catch in his throat. He thrusts up into her hand and against her belly, wanting more of whatever this is.
“Touch me,” she demands, and he does. His hands explore the shape of her shoulders, the weight of her breasts. His mouth finds her throat, enjoying the way she shudders when he bites carefully at the tender skin there. Her hand leaves him, guiding one of his hands between her legs instead. She slides two of his fingers up inside herself, the slick heat yielding easily. She arches into him, grinding against his fingers, and he curls them upward into the soft flesh. Her breath leaves her lips in a surprised gasp so he does it again, petting the inside of her. He is achingly hard between them; for all that he enjoys the feeling of being pressed against her, it’s distracting, so he reluctantly pulls the blood away. She stills, then pushes his hands off her.
“You don’t have to do this,” she says, “if you don’t want to.”
“Okay.” The wetness of her is cooling rapidly, clinging to his fingers. He licks it off, the salt-sour taste like her hair and skin, only stronger. It makes him wonder what it would be like to taste her directly, between her legs. She’s watching him, head tipped sideways. Her hair falls smoothly over one shoulder, long enough to cover her breast. He brushes it back, then pushes gently against her shoulder. She lies down on the futon, brows drawn together, but just watches as he spreads her thighs apart and kneels between them. She’s different than him, down there, the slick soft folds of skin half-hidden in blonde hair. He licks her, experimentally, and she gasps.
“You don’t have to,” she says again, but her hands sink into his hair, stroking it back, urging him closer. He laps at the center of her, finding the narrow opening, then pushes two fingers back inside. She pulls his head higher until his mouth finds a firm, rounded bit of flesh that moves beneath his tongue. When he closes his lips around it she arches up beneath him. He strokes his fingers inside her, licking at the same pace and trying to ignore the way his body keeps rebelling against his control. Her walls shift around his fingers with every breath and needy movement of her hips. Her thighs, pressed against his shoulders, twitch with the movement of his tongue. Her fingers tug at his hair and he focuses on her, only her. The moans and sighs he’s used to hearing from across the room are sweeter here. They rise, stifled behind her closed lips as her breathing changes in the familiar way. Her hips jerk against him and he pulls away, licking her taste from his lips.
“Why did you stop?” She whispers, but her voice is tense.
“I like to hear you,” he says, and even in the darkness he sees the blood rush to her cheeks.
“Then keep going,” she demands, pushing his head back down. This time, she doesn’t muffle herself. He savors every little cry.
*
“Why did you do that?” Tsukumo asks, when they’re lying side by side again.
“I wanted to.”
“Why?”
“I liked it.”
She huffs an annoyed breath. “It didn’t seem like it, when I was touching you.”
“What?” His hand wanders down almost on its own to feel the troublesome part between his legs. It’s disobedient even now as it moves under his fingers.
“When human men are enjoying something like that,” she explains, facing him with her own hands folded underneath her cheek, “there’s a certain reaction.”
“Oh,” he says, wrapping his fingers around himself and feeling the blood rush through his veins at the pleasant pressure. “That’s normal?”
“Yes.” Her lips have darkened from their kissing. The corners twitch towards a wry smile.
“Oh,” he says again.
“Oh?”
“I stopped it. I thought I was losing control.”
“Well, you were, a little bit, but that’s the fun part. You stopped it?” She scoots closer, the soft weight of one breast settling against his arm. Her fingers trace his skin down to his wrist, then close over the hand he’s using to slowly stroke himself. She laughs softly and shakes her head. “Right, you’re a Kamo. Sort of. I’ve always wanted to see what those guys are like in bed. The formal ones are always freaks.”
He still doesn’t really understand what she’s talking about, but he stops caring when her hand replaces his, the gentle, unfamiliar touch drawing a small sound of need from his lips.
“It’s normal for humans,” she reassures him. “Doesn’t it feel good?”
It does; it feels so good, but he doesn’t know why, or why she’s doing it. Fear curls coolly up his spine when she starts to slide his pants down over his hips. Part of him wants to let her continue, to see what happens next, but the uncertainty is too uncomfortable. He tenses and pushes her hands away.
“No?” Her naked body is a pool of heat beside him and he feels suddenly trapped in the rumpled sheets. He sits up and tugs his shirt back on.
“No.”
“Okay.” She runs a hand through her tangled gold hair. He can smell it, smell her, sweet-sour and animal in the air between them. It’s all too much. He stands and moves away. Tsukumo stays in the bed, sprawled comfortably beneath the blanket. The room is still dark, but her cursed energy flickers along her limbs and he can see her. He shuts down the conflicting impulses of his body, taking a long breath. His eyes close and he seeks out the familiar presence of his brothers. Tengen is between them, everywhere, and Tsukumo is a vivid spot of power that casts everything else into shadow. Chōsō doesn’t want to think about her right now. He trails one hand along the wall of the shrine as he walks, putting distance between the confusing sorcerer and himself.
There. Through layers of Tengen’s power and beyond the wall, his brothers sleep. He leans his head against the stone and waits until his body is cool and numb again.
Tsukumo is still in his bed when he comes back. He knows by her breathing and the currents of energy within her that she’s awake, but she doesn’t break the silence. He considers crossing the room to her bed, or simply staying awake for the rest of the night, but he’s gotten into the habit of sleeping and his eyes are heavy. Tsukumo holds up the blanket as he did for her, and he lies down at a careful distance. The weight of the blanket against his chest is an unexpected comfort. She doesn’t move closer or try to touch him again. After a while, her body twitches as she falls asleep. He waits until her breathing is even and slow, but he can’t remember how to let go of consciousness.
*
Sparring the following afternoon, he can’t seem to stay focused. She tosses him to the ground for the third time and when he tries to rise, she puts a knee on his chest.
“What’s wrong with you?”
She’s barely sweating. He can’t meet her eyes beyond the curve of her thigh and hip. The swell of her chest moves above her tank top with each breath.
“Is this about last night?” Her weight on him shifts, but when he tries to push her away, she resists. “Talk to me.”
“No.”
“No, it’s not about last night? Or no, you don’t want to talk?”
“Let me up.”
“If you keep fighting like you have been, you’ll be on your back again in thirty seconds. Save me the trouble and stay down.” She slides her knee down to the floor so she’s kneeling over him. “You’re not much good as a guard if you get this distracted by a pretty face, death painting.”
Despite her mocking words, her fingertips are gentle as they trace the dark line across his nose and cheeks. Her thighs around his ribs remind him of the way she shook and held him close while his face was buried between her legs. Her sharp voice had caressed the shape of his name under her breath as she came apart. She had said losing control was the fun part, but whatever had happened to her had seemed almost painful.
“I know that you know my name,” he protests, taking her hands off his face. “Get off of me.”
“Do you really want me to?” Her hips shift back as she leans forward, pressing their joined hands to the ground. Even through their clothes the damp heat between her thighs sends his body into sudden disobedience. She grinds down against him, rocking her hips, and the gentle pressure makes him gasp helplessly. Her smug, knowing smile is infuriating.
“I hate you,” he whispers.
“I get that a lot.”
He fights to get his hands free even as tension builds in his belly. It’s leading to something he doesn’t understand, and it scares him how much he wants to find out what it is. His pulse echoes in his lips, tingling. He licks them and she notices. Her smile sharpens. Her hands squeeze his.
“Do you want me to kiss you?”
His lips part as she sways down towards him, but she stops just before they touch. He pushes up toward her, but she stays just out of reach.
“I asked you a question, Chōsō.” Her pupils are wide in her bright eyes. In the dark, she’d been distracting enough. Now, with the simulated sun shining through her golden hair, she is radiant. He loses track of what he’s supposed to be answering, staring up at her.
“Do you want me to kiss you?” It’s gentler now. Her breath is warm against his lips and tastes faintly of apple.
“Yes, please,” he says, even though his stomach is knit with anxiety and he can’t think beyond the sensations in his body. Her mouth finds his, her tongue requesting entry this time rather than demanding it. He opens up beneath her, responding as she taught him the night before. She lets go of his hands and he runs them through the silky mass of her hair, holding her close. Sooner than he would like, she pulls away.
“What are we doing?” He asks.
“Do you like it?” Tsukumo kneels across his thighs and pulls him upright to tug his shirt off over his head. The air of the shrine is pleasantly cool against his bare skin. He shudders when her palms slide down his neck and chest.
“Yes,” he answers, but the uncertainty from last night lingers, and she hears it. Her hands stop moving but stay wrapped around his waist.
“I’d like to do to you what you did for me last night,” Tsukumo explains. He imagines her mouth on him, his hands clutching at her hair as her hands had done to his. “But only if you want me to.”
“Why?”
“I think you’ll like it.” Her hips rock slowly against him. The tension in his belly ignites into a low flame. One of her hands trails down beneath the waistband of his pants. Her fingers trace his length softly and he pushes his hips more firmly into her hand. A low, involuntary sound rises in his throat.
“Lie down,” she orders, pushing him gently with her free hand. This time, when she slides his pants down over his hips, he helps her. Even for those few moments he misses her touch. When she takes hold of him again, his breath catches and his heart races. He fights the need to stop it and lets his body do as it likes. Normal, she’d said, for humans.
“Why…?” He asks again, but she shakes her head.
“Just tell me if you want me to stop.”
She licks him in long sweeps of her tongue. The saliva eases the slide of her hand and he shudders. His thighs tense and she smooths a hand along his hip.
“Relax,” she tells him. “It’ll make it better,” but he doesn’t know how and then her mouth slides down over him. She’s wet and soft and the heat envelops him and he can’t think anymore. The world narrows down to her lips as they tighten around him, her tongue as it presses against him. She pulls away. The air is cold on his skin. He watches, his own lips parted, as she lowers her mouth again; when she begins to bob her head his eyes flutter shut. Her hand strokes him along with her lips and the pleasure spreads from his belly through his whole body. He tenses again, fighting despite himself against whatever is happening. She hums, disapproving, and sits up, but her hand keeps moving. He pushes up helplessly into her grip, wanting more.
“Do you want me to stop?” Tsukumo asks, sitting back on her heels. “Or we could try something else.”
Her free hand slides down the zipper of her pants. She slips her fingers between her legs and bites her lip, and he wants to bite it too. He sits up and she lets go of him.
“There’s more?” He asks, and she laughs at him again.
“Yes, death painting. We’re just getting started.” Her forearm flexes as her fingers work inside her pants and he hears the familiar hitch in her voice. “Do you want to keep going?”
“Yes,” he says, without hesitation this time. She grins at him, her breath quickening to match her fingers. She wriggles out of her pants and kneels across his thighs. He gathers the heavy gold weight of her hair in one hand and pulls her mouth to his. She takes hold of him again, but instead of stroking him she guides him between her legs. It’s dizzyingly hot and tight and he moans into her mouth as she slips down onto him. She bites his lip, gently, and brushes her fingers through his hair.
“Is it good?” She asks, and he doesn’t know how to answer. Good doesn’t begin to describe the way every nerve in his body hums with pleasure, overwhelming him. He flexes his hips instead, pushing up further inside her, and she shudders. Her head tips back a little and he kisses her neck, working his way down from her earlobe to the hollow at the base of her throat. Then she starts to move. She slides easily up his length, rising almost off of him before tilting her hips and easing herself back down. He finds himself holding his breath through each slow, slick movement. His hand is clenched, forgotten, in her hair, and she loosens it for him, smoothing his palm down her shoulder and breast to her hip. He holds onto her, grateful for a fixed point when all he can think about is the movement of her hips and every aching inch of himself as he sinks inside her.
“Are you okay?” She asks, and he nods. Her muscles tighten down on him, deep inside her body, and he gasps. The pleasure changes as her pace increases, driving him to the very edge of control. He tenses against her, fighting to hold on, and she leans closer to nibble at the sensitive skin beneath his ear. Her breath is uneven too. Her fingers move between them, sliding around him even as she tightens down on him again. He grips her hips tightly. His lips tremble. His back arches, thrusting into her, and she lets out a little moan. He can feel the movement of her fingers and each little spasm inside her body as she finds her own pleasure in whatever it is they’re doing.
“Let go,” she whispers in his ear. “It’ll be okay, trust me.”
He can’t think of any reason not to trust her; everything she’s done so far has brought him nothing but pleasure. Her hips speed up and he slides his hands up her back, supporting her as she rocks against him. Her body tenses under his hands and deep inside, tightening down on him. Her cries begin to escape her lips in the sweet, familiar way. The muscles inside her flutter and it’s too much, he’s losing control, falling into her and there’s nothing he can do. She whispers his name and holds him close as he loses himself.
Behind his eyes the dead man’s memories flicker with a hundred similar events, but he ignores them. The body is his now, and this moment was his. He nuzzles into Tsukumo’s neck, both of them panting and leaning on one another. After a minute or so, she shifts on his lap and he lets her go.
“Can we do that again?”
She laughs as she climbs off of him and stands, offering him a hand up. “Ten minute break, okay?”