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Shinjiro was fifteen years old.
At fifteen, he had already experienced more in a certain stripe than many would experience in their entire life. That stripe being the awful kind, devoid of morality or kindness in any way. He wasn’t well-traveled and many, many life experiences were missing for him. Attending school, though he considered himself educated from self-study. Making friends. Really, anything that children normally experienced, or much for his own enjoyment, was out of his reach. Even now at this age, he was being prevented from developing the way a boy his age usually would.
Not just socially, but physically. Shinjiro Nozomi had an experience which was quite unique to him. He was a man. He was born a man and had not, at any point, wavered in his identity as a man. Even so, he was being medicated as if he were actually a woman. Denied the adolescence he naturally would have had, another one planted upon him at the whims of another. This was no such thing as fearmongers would proclaim as ‘transing the children’, no. The person who placed this fate upon Shinjiro had no stake in those kinds of things. He was just a man who wanted to achieve for himself the perfect Subordinate.
Tatsuya Minami’s organization was called The Order of The Felinus. A ridiculous name, Shinji thought, but then again. It wasn’t like it mattered what a religion called itself as long as it could acquire believers. And flock to it, believers did, it appealed to every sensitivity that it could. There were sects which simply played into its nihilist teachings, the distinct belief the world would end so soon that nothing really mattered, so enjoy it while it lasted. The majority went there, but others were more strict. Nothing really mattered, so enjoy it at the expense of anyone else. Take children and raise them in the image of a slave you’d always wished could serve you. Do what you can to accelerate the end of the world.
Depraved, all of it, Shinjiro had always been able to keep his mind about him enough to know that. These people, even the ones who didn’t act upon the worst of the teachings, were truly the scum of the earth. The worst gravitated there. Those too pathetic to think for themselves, and those searching for an excuse to be evil. All under a wide-appealing spirituality, the sort which implied that every religion was right all at once. Jesus was reborn in a man called Mandrake, who reported that every ‘other god’ throughout time was real and part of his grand plan, evaluating humanity and giving everyone the chance which best suited them to survive the end of the world in heaven, a hedonistic heaven, and now that the endtimes were upon them, he could save any followers from Hell no matter how much they carnally indulged in this life.
Shinjiro didn’t believe a word of it. But Tatsuya did. Tatsuya atrociously believed and had expressed, he began with the excuse. He just wanted the promised subordinate, the stolen child, that was Shinjiro. But to him, Shinjiro was such a perfect slave he only could have been sent by a deity. Perfect but for the fact that he would lose his beauty as he grew, unless, of course. He was to be halted from becoming any more masculine. At worst, to Tatsuya, he would maintain the flawless pretty-boy image. At best, the treatments would get to Shinjiro enough that he would finally, in fact, become ‘Yumi’. The girl that Tatsuya called him since acquiring him, for the past nine years.
It wasn’t that Tatsuya wished he had received a girl instead, he very well could have requested that. He stated outright that he would take whichever natal sex the gods wished to bestow upon him, and it was likely that he’d treat a girl similarly, pushing her into a masculine box to satisfy his whims. It was a method of torture for obedience, and it was something that he personally found attractive. Androgyny of that kind. A crossdressing partner whose identity could be ‘mistaken’ for that gender with ease. Shinjiro Nozomi was thus, a cis man who could relate to the lived experience of a transgender one. Were he to escape this life, he would have trouble finding support, or anybody to really relate to in a meaningful way.
As it was, he had no option to even seek those things. It was a two-bedroom apartment with a kitchen and one bathroom, though a very sleek and high-quality one. One of the bedrooms was a home office, and Shinjiro was expected to sleep in his master’s bed. It was only ever the two of them here. Just them. Sometimes, Shinjiro was left alone, but he was locked in from the outside and couldn’t dream of escape. Tatsuya had business to attend to, and he preferred not to bring Shinjiro. He was possessive, and if he were to meet with anybody of similar standing to him in The Order, he would be expected to share his personal subordinate. As long as he could claim, truthfully, that he preferred to travel alone, he could keep his things locked up tight.
And oh, did he. It wasn’t only Shinjiro, who religiously belonged to him. There were others, he knew all about them. Tatsuya had been with many, and he held his existence over their heads. At any time, he might return. For some, it was to ‘grant’ them another child. For others, it was just to appear in their lives as a spectre of their past. It wasn’t like he commonly forced himself into people’s lives. Shinjiro knew of only one other besides himself who hadn’t actually consented to be with Tatsuya, at this point. He did know. Tatsuya bragged often about all of it. The things that Shinjiro knew should be able to ruin the man’s life.
Yet, even if he could report on it, he wouldn’t be believed. The rich and powerful served like a shield for The Order, and Tatsuya qualified in that category himself. As long as judges could be bought, consequences would be brushed aside as freedom of religion provided for the actions of members. There were plenty of small-time members, those who were far from rich or powerful, yet even those could not face punishment by the efforts of those higher up. Shinjiro remained disgusted. Disgusted, beyond belief, at the absolute moral bankruptcy displayed not only by those who prescribed to this religion, but the world which allowed them to exist at all.
He himself was a good person. He believed this to be true, he was the sole good person he had ever known. Not like those people. Those who wore it in their clothing, around their necks, some even on their skin- The Eye of Felinus. It was a simple design. A tapered oval, a circle, and a line, like a cat’s eye. It was almost too ridiculous, but then again, that may have been yet another part of the religion’s spread. An easily recognizable, cliched motif like that.
But Shinjiro couldn’t go unmarked forever. It was impossible for somebody like him… To escape from it. He had gone years now, removing jewelry despite Tatsuya’s best efforts, cutting the eyes from his clothing even if it left him uncomfortably exposed. He had no intention of bearing that mark of the beast on his person at any point, any time. To be truly aligned with those who he so thoroughly despised. He would bend to Tatsuya’s every whim, for his own safety… But not that whim. Not that one.
Never would he allow himself to be representative of such deep-seated evil.
Unfortunately, it seemed that the day was fast approaching when he would no longer be asked to bend to that will, but instead broken to it. Tatsuya had only become more and more of a steadfast believer in The Order’s teachings as time went on. It was an inevitable matter that ‘Yumi’s’ petulance would come to a point it would be punished, to a point where it would end.
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Tatsuya lay on his stomach in his bed, chin in his hand, admiring his own handiwork from across the room. He’d never done this sort of thing before. A tattoo was never an option, somebody else being that close to his precious pet. She was sulking, but that was fine, he expected as much. Staring out the window, having not even bothered to replace her shirt, how indecent. The skin on her back was still freshly blistering, that pattern she tried so hard to avoid now burnt, by him personally, into her soul.
It was fun, for him, to see. Just how much longer would she hold out? How many more times would she submit to him while glaring ‘you are the worst type of person’ into his eyes? When would she realize…
She belonged to him, and if he were so rotten, everything he owned must be as well?