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The day he set foot in Tatarasuna again, he was surrounded by a shroud of mist and frost.
The Wanderer landed on a hillside trail looking over the outskirts of the island’s central region, where the village once stood. The area that was once lush and green was now barren, cascading trees stripped of their leaves, their dead branches slung over the remaining stone foundations.
Everything was very different from what he remembered.
What had led him to revisit this place involved a certain meddlesome traveler. They’d been trying to stop a Fontainian scholar from replicating the Tatarasuna steel-making experiment according to a manual of unknown origin, and while searching for records and evidence of its harmful effects, they had met the Wanderer, who boarded at the library almost every day.
“By the way, aren't you a first-hand witness of the explosion of the Tatarasuna furnace? You even helped oooo—” The Traveler gagged the mouthy flying creature, observing the Wanderer's face as they smiled apologetically.
Their kindness in deliberately not touching his past scars was superfluous, and the Wanderer returned to his usual smug grin and asked about what had happened. A few days later, he arrived in Tatarasuna alone, with the task of obtaining the scrap steel residue from the furnace.
Further ahead, the woeful cries of ravens were faintly audible, and under heavy cloud cover lay the most polluted area of the island. Deep in the valley and surrounded by razor-sharp cliffs, he could see the furnace he had shut down centuries ago, the whistling wind still swirling the residual toxic atmosphere from the bottom of the gorge.
The first victim of the Tatarasuna incident had appeared much earlier than what was stated in the scraps of history books. The Wanderer looked down into the deep valley.
It had happened the year after the arrival of a certain Fontaine mechanic.
***
During his more innocent years, when he was still referred to as Kabukimono, a man by the name of Escher came to the island from a foreign land. Being not only charming but also knowledgeable and witty, as well as a guest of honor of the Armory Officer, he shone as a model human in the eyes of the puppet, who was still working on assimilating into human society.
In the beginning, Escher only invited the puppet to his quarters to teach him the basics of steel-making, and told him about foreign stories from outside Tatarasuna, anecdotes of the great countries of Fontaine, Liyue and Mondstadt. Kabukimono listened with fascination and could not get enough of his tales, only leaving begrudgingly when dinner time came.
More than once, the puppet heard Niwa praise Escher, saying that his arrival had brought a new wind of change to Tatarasuna. The puppet wanted to be as useful as he was, instead of always being called a good boy, who was only ever nice and sweet.
What was the point of being nice and sweet? Like a puppy, entertaining, but never taken seriously.
“How can I become as smart as you are, Mr. Escher?” The puppet asked, propping his chin up.
Escher stroked the boy's head. “People who are too smart are often rejected by their peers, child.”
“I don't understand… aren't you loved and respected by everyone?” The clever Mr. Escher was saying things he couldn't understand again. The puppet blinked sleepily, the shadows of his feathered eyelashes fluttering like a struggling butterfly under the orange warmth of the coal lamp.
The day's work and the night's study had drained his energy, and Kabukimono closed his eyes and fell asleep. After an unknown period of time, he was awakened in the dark by a hot, humid breath and soft touch over his eyelids.
The sleepy look on the puppet's face had not yet faded, and a momentary shock surfaced on his features at the sight of the face in front of him, only a hair’s breadth away.
“It's time for you to go back.” Escher quickly pulled away, lifting him by the wrist and pulling him up from his seat.
“What, wait…”
Before he could even say another word—bang! Kabukimono was thrown out of Escher's house. The cool evening breeze blew by, as he covered his eyes with his palms. Was that… a kiss?
Kabukimono had been outside the village on the edge of the lake, he’d seen the men and women exchanging kisses and warm embraces during white summer nights; in the world they were two separate bodies with their own edges, but in the reflection of the lake, they blended into one, as if one could never be taken apart from the other.
Kabukimono's eyes grew puffy and red, shedding inexplicable tears.
Could he, too, be chosen by someone and embraced firmly?
He buried the thought inside him, and this unsatisfied longing gradually turned into a gnawing desire that hollowed him out bit by bit.
One moonlit night, the human puppet sneaked into Niwa's room like a house cat. The drunken Niwa had been sleeping since his return from the feast. Kabukimono looked at his half-lit features in the quiet of the night, ears thrumming as if he heard his own non-existent heartbeat. He shivered, imitating the kisses of others in his memory, and brought his lips to Niwa’s.
When he shallowly tried to leave, a large hand held down the back of his neck, and Niwa's mouth crashed over his own, wet tongue slipping between his parted lips. He instinctively tried to push him away, but the iron-grip of the man who spent his days at the forge had him locked in place, almost crushing his lungs and suffocating him. The puppet let out a whimper, and Niwa recovered his senses.
Niwa’s eyes blew wide and he pushed him away, panting heavily, the sight of the boy’s wet and flushed lips making him avert his eyes like he’d been pricked by a needle.
“I'm sorry.” Having said that, Niwa scrambled up from the bed and rushed out of the room, the open sliding door allowing the moonlight to flow in and reflect on the puppet's crestfallen face.
Niwa did not return home the next day.
Kabukimono was so distracted that the wrought iron hammer almost hit his finger. He had inquired about Niwa’s whereabouts and learned he was staying at the island’s military outpost. Once he was done, he packed some clean clothes and went to bring them to him.
“My lord, I need to see the Armory Officer, could you please notify him?”
A few Shogunate soldiers looked up and down the puppet clad in a purple veil and let out an uncomfortable laugh. “Are you Niwa's woman?”
“Eh? I didn't know that Niwa was married.”
“Idiots,” one man pushed aside the laughing crowd and came to Kabukimono, “That’s a boy. Little one, what do you want from Lord Niwa? He's in a meeting with Lord Mikoshi.”
The man was broad and tall, overshadowing the timid Kabukimono who had to tilt his head to meet his gaze. “This is a change of clothes, could I trouble you to bring them to him?”
“Oh… leave it to me.” The man's face was wearing a smile that the puppet couldn't understand, and when he took the bag of clothes from him, his calloused fingers covertly brushed over the palm of his hand.
The boy's eyes flashed with shock as he stiffened and withdrew his hand into a tight fist. The man laughed and left.
Kabukimono returned home with a confused mind and mixed emotions. The house servant had already prepared a meal to greet him and invited him to sit down. He didn't need to eat, and usually only pretended to swallow a couple bites so he could spend more time with Niwa and seem more human in his eyes.
Now, he couldn't eat a single bite.
Why had Niwa pushed him away? Did he hate him? Kabukimono thought of Escher again. He, too, had given him a phantom kiss and then thrown him out. Kabukimono could not understand, sitting uncomfortably with his thoughts. Heart heavy, he left the house, and wandered in the night until he came to a halt in front of the still-lit workshop.
The sound of wooden clogs came from far and near, and Escher, who was studying plans, looked up at his white-clad visitor. “Kabukimono, what brings you here?”
Kabukimono's smile remained cordial, sweeping away the gloom in his chest. “I… nothing, how are you, Mr. Escher?” He greeted clumsily.
“I'm fine.” Escher seemed to see through his discomfort and took the initiative to ask, “Want to come over and look at the plans for the big furnace renovation?”
The huge drawings were spread out on his desk, and Kabukimono listened to Escher's explanation with half an ear.
“... So, see anything wrong?”
“Hmm, what?” The scent of cedar mixed with clean laundry surrounded him, and Kabukimono’s thoughts had wandered for a second.
Escher repeated, “The increased furnace capacity requires a corresponding power increase in the cooling system, go ahead and circle where it is.”
“Is it here?” Kabukimono leaned down to look, hesitant. Escher held his hand and drew a circle.
“Here. Didn't I teach you about the structure of the furnace last time?”
“Sorry… I forgot, sir.”
Under the flickering light of the coal lamp, the boy's round face flushed with embarrassment, either because he couldn’t answer the man’s question, or because of how close to each other they had gotten. Escher gritted his teeth, suddenly feeling an itch in his jaw.
“Silly children should be punished.” He pinched his soft cheek, hard enough to make his nail turn white.
“Sir, it hurts…”
He pinched and tugged until the puppet’s speech slurred, and without warning took him by the waist and trapped him against the edge of the desk.
“Escher?!”
A familiar voice came from the hallway, making Escher let go of him. As he stood on his tippy toes to see from behind Escher’s shoulder, Kabukimono caught a glimpse of a strand of red hair.
“Niwa-sama!” Overjoyed, he ran to Niwa's side. No one noticed Escher’s hand crumpling a corner of the drawing.
“Kabukimono, you go out first, I have something to say to Mr. Escher.” Niwa's eyes were inexplicably cold.
The sensitive puppet could tell something was amiss, but said nothing and obediently retreated to the outside. He bowed his head and kicked stones in the courtyard for a while, until Niwa and Escher had finished talking. Niwa lifted the curtain door and walked out, grabbing him by the arm to lead him away.
Kabukimono glanced back but did not see Escher. He had no time to think about the content of their conversation; Niwa's tense face pulled all of his attention.
“Niwa-sama, I was wrong.” Once they were home, the puppet took the initiative to speak up and admit his mistake. His fingers nervously rubbed the hem of his clothes, and his eyes seemed like they wanted to stare a hole through the floor.
Niwa's originally tense face relaxed with a smile. “What do you mean?”
“I should not have kissed you…”
“Oh.” Niwa did not expect to get such a straightforward answer. He tapped a finger to his mouth as if lost in thoughts, taking the time to organize his words.
“This time, I believe it was my fault… Kabukimono, do you know what a kiss means?”
“What a kiss means…? A kiss is… it’s to show someone who’s important, that… it’s proof that…”
Niwa interrupted his incoherent speech. “Kissing is something you do to someone you like.”
“I, I like Niwa.” The red tide of Kabukimono's cheeks flew to his ears.
And if he had dared to meet Niwa's eyes, he would have seen that his face, too, was equally flushed.
“You also like Katsuragi, you like Kuro-chan, you like Grandma Fujita, and you like Escher, don't you?”
“Yes, that's true…” But… Kabukimono intuited that there was something wrong there, but he couldn't say what.
“I don't want to take advantage of you when there's still so much you don't know.” Niwa straightened his face. “Likewise, you must learn to protect yourself. If other people's intimate actions go against your wishes, you should say no.”
“Hmm.” The doll nodded. He did not fully understand the hidden meaning of Niwa's words, but he trusted him so much that nodding his head in agreement had almost become instinctive.
“Good boy. Do you want to join the geo exploration team tomorrow? I remembered you love to go exploring with us.”
“Yes! Niwa-sama, will you be staying at home today? Are you hungry? I'll go heat up dinner…”
With Niwa in the house, Kabukimono had an anchor keeping him steady, and he happily went about his business, until he had nothing else to do and returned to his room with an overwhelming smile. As he blew out the candle flame, so quiet that even falling flowers could be heard in the darkness, a question resurfaced in the puppet’s mind—had he really loathed Escher’s touch?
Before falling into a dreamless sleep, he thought he must have enjoyed it.
The next day, Niwa took him to join the geo exploration as promised. During the two-day expedition, Kabukimono kept feeling as if he had forgotten something.
He carried back a sample of the finest ore he had found during the trip, and as soon as he had returned to the forge, he eagerly showed his treasure to Escher so that they could test its properties.
“Mr. Escher, he—…” the puppet's smile froze on his face. Escher had come up right in front of him and then straight to the man behind him, ignoring him completely. Kabukimono gathered his courage, waiting until they were done discussing, and went to speak to him again. “Mr. Escher, this is the ore that was collected this time—”
“Leave it, I'll look at it later.” Escher did not even look at him.
Escher's unprecedented indifference left Kabukimono at a loss. The puppet, who knew little about the human condition, usually looked for flaws in himself when someone was unhappy—he must have done something wrong, just as he knew that he had been banished by the gods because of his own imperfection. Finally, he remembered that he had missed a tutoring appointment with Escher during his exploration trip.
Escher hated him, and it was his fault.
Even though he was now fortunate enough to have a place in a human village, he had never forgotten that he was found a stray cat. And if he wasn't careful, the warmth that was given to him would all be taken away and he would be abandoned again.
He couldn’t let that happen.
He had to apologize.
The puppet had made up his mind, but the lines he had rehearsed over and over in his head were immediately thrown out the window when he stood in front of the impassive Escher.
“Is there something wrong?”
“The… the ore…”
“Didn’t I tell you to leave it there?” Escher frowned. “Is there anything else?”
Each of his words pierced the puppet like an arrow, one by one, and he couldn't utter a complete sentence. When Escher moved in closer and made a gesture to shoo him away, Kabukimono held back his tears and hurriedly said, “I, I came to apologize.”
“Oh?” Without moving, Escher leaned his back against the door, locking it silently. “Tell me, what did you do wrong?”
“I shouldn't have missed our appointment.”
“And?”
“And, and… I shouldn't…?” The puppet looked at him blankly for an answer, like a deer caught in the headlights.
Escher leaned against the table and beckoned the puppet forward. “Come here, I'll tell you.”
The doll walked up to him unsuspectingly, and Escher lowered his head and murmured in his ear—
“You shouldn't have disobeyed Niwa and come near me.”
Before he could process the meaning of his words, Kabukimono’s feet were swept off the ground, sky spinning, as he was picked up and then pinned to the table.
“Ah!”
The doll shrieked, hands pressed against the man's chest. “M-Mr. Esche—”
Escher grabbed his face in one hand. “Shhh! Don't move, a real apology has to show some sincerity.”
He closed in on him, hot breath causing him to shiver. The palms of his hands, unnaturally cold, found their way under Kabukimono’s clothes, rubbing his skin inch by inch, from his slender waist to his chest.
“Tell me, does Niwa touch you like this?”
His sudden change of demeanor frightened Kabukimono, making his lips tremble so much that he could not speak. “Answer!” The man punitively pinched one of his nipples and tugged at it hard.
“N-no!”
Having had his answer, the man lowered his hand beneath the waistband of his trousers and through his undergarments, cupping his sex. “What about there? Did he touch it?”
“No, no! Please ah—p-please stop touching me, I don’t feel comfortable—ah!” Kabukimono sucked in a breath, the place between his parted legs having never been toyed with this way before. He braced himself on his elbows, hunkered down and attempted to push against him, but all it did was send his legs right in Escher’s hands. Escher grabbed his soft thighs behind the knee and folded him in half, legs pressed flush against his chest.
“Did he ever kiss you?” Escher then asked.
He bit his lower lip, barely suppressed tears coming to his eyes, his silence saying it all. Without a word, Escher stripped the puppet out of his pure white clothing.
“Really, I haven't even forgiven you yet, and here I find another thing to be upset about…” Escher slapped the puppet's face. “What do you have to say for yourself? How are you going to make amends?”
“I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry…” Feeling something threateningly hard pressed against his lower body, the doll's teeth clashed together in a cry of apology, though he wasn't sure exactly what he’d done to deserve any of Escher’s ire.
“I forgive you.” Escher suddenly let go of him.
“What?” Kabukimono blinked dumbly, two more large teardrops falling from his lashes. Still stunned, he rolled over and commanded his trembling arms and legs to crawl away.
Suddenly, a hand tugged at his ankle and dragged him back, and Escher bit his ear from behind, laughing cruelly. “Fooled you.”
Escher lifted up his hips with one hand and forced himself inside him. The puppet’s mouth opened into a silent scream, unable to utter a word, and his entire body shook with the unexpected pain of the intrusion. He tensed and gasped for air, the line of his back trembling, shoulders spasming as Escher drove into him hard. But in spite of the brutality of his action, Escher twisted Kabukimono’s slender neck and peppered soothing kisses on the side of his face, from the arch of his brow to his tear-wet lashes, to the tip of his weeping red nose, so soft and gentle that it gave the puppet the illusion of something else.
He opened his mouth, and in the midst of the tearing pain, his eyes shone with a dazed kind of hope. “Is this something… that lovers do to each other?”
His aggressor snickered. “What do you think?” He grabbed his waist and started slamming into him violently. Kabukimono shouted in pain and lunged forward with one hand covering his belly, but he was immediately dragged back. Escher shallowly pulled out and then fucked back into him hard, the puppet coughing and choking on his own saliva with each thrust. Unable to kneel down and completely locked in place, he was flipped around and held down, wetness dripping from him down on his thighs and on the table.
“Escher, are you there?” There was a knock on the workshop door.
“Well, relax!” Escher squeezed his ass hard.
But he couldn't relax, it was Niwa, Niwa was knocking on the door. Escher caught the puppet's panicked look and replied aloud, “I'm here.”
“Can you open the door? I have something to say.”
“No, no please don't… I’m begging you,” the puppet shook its head with red eyes, choking on his words.
“Ah, I’m afraid this isn’t a good time.” Escher coiled the puppet's legs around his waist and fucked into him as he was responding back absent-mindedly, watching him bite the back of his hand and shrink into a tiny, trembling ball of trepidation.
“Oh, alright.” Niwa cleared his throat. “I've just been thinking the past few days, and I came to say—about last time, I was out of line. I know Kabukimono always likes to run to you, and you take the time to teach him all these things… I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions just because I saw you get close that one time. If my words offended you, please forgive me…”
Escher snickered, grabbing the puppet’s flushed face in one hand and licking away the tears he couldn’t stop shedding. He smiled cheerily and replied, “It's okay, I understand you. Kabukimono doesn’t have a lot of experience with the world… You must really want to protect him, right?”
“Exactly… He's too naive, I really don't know what to do with him sometimes.” Outside the door, Niwa sighed. “Anyway, I hope you don't mind what happened last time, please continue to guide Kabukimono, and I hope this misunderstanding won’t get in the way of our cooperation.”
“No problem!” Escher shifted his voice in the doll's ears and repeated, low and menacing, “Hear that? He said I should keep guiding you—ack!”
The doll bit his shoulder during one fierce thrust, and was picked up by Escher and fucked even harder as retribution. Indescribable pleasure melded with the pain and threatened to burn out the virgin doll, and when he heard Niwa leave, he cried out in a frenzy.
“Kiss me, kiss me, please…” He confused the border between sex and love, like a thirsty traveler in the desert, eagerly wrapping around the man's neck and demanding to be shown affection.
Niwa had said that people who liked each other would kiss. He begged for the illusion of being loved, like a soothing balm over flesh that had been trampled.
But Escher just grimly savored his demented state, and offered no response to his begging. After a last few violent thrusts, he bit down on the tender flesh of his shoulder, teeth piercing skin and drawing blood as he emptied himself deep inside him.
Blood ran down Kabukimono's neck as a sticky white fluid ran down his shaky legs. He found himself thinking that in this state, they merged with each other, no longer two separate individuals—and as Escher wiped the blood off his mouth, that thought soothed the hollowness in Kabukimono’s chest for a brief moment.
***
The puppet dreamed that he was a beautiful feather. Carried by a bird, caressed by the breeze, and finally plucked from the wind by a pair of hands that cared for him in their palm, and carved warm kisses into him.
He opened his eyes and woke up on the cold table. He was fully clothed, no one around him in the quiet room. For a moment he was confused between time and place, dream and reality—but his senses quickly came back to him when he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder as he propped himself up and got off the table.
He was not some fluttering feather; just a puppet smacked to the ground by the gravity of reality and splattered with filth.
Kabukimono rubbed his eyes. It was already very late, and if he did not leave now, Niwa was going to worry. That lone thought allowed him to drag his body back home. In front of the door, he forced his pale face into his usual pleasing and innocent smile, took a deep breath, and pushed the door open.
“I'm home!” He heard the sound of dishes clanging behind the folding screen. That must have been Niwa—he was there, he wanted to see him so badly—Kabukimono's nose was sore and swollen, and he walked quickly through the foyer.
The house servant gathering the dishes smiled at him. “Kabukimono, you’re back! Do you want to eat?”
“Niwa, is Niwa not here?”
“Master came back for dinner and then went out again, he seems to have gone to the forge.”
That was a good thing, better in fact for him not to be here; Kabukimono consoled himself. He was in too bad a state, and he didn’t want Niwa to see him like this. Kabukimono blew his nose, pulled open the door to his room, and collapsed exhausted on his futon. He hugged his knees and curled up in a ball, thinking he would cry, but instead spent the entire night with his eyes open.
The next day, he got up as if nothing had happened, and greeted Niwa with a good morning. As usual, he followed him to the forge to work alongside him, always trailing behind, like he was his little tail.
He thought he had managed to conceal his vulnerable state, but when Escher took the hammer from him and asked if his shoulder hurt, the mental walls he had erected immediately collapsed.
He couldn't understand how his aggressor could appear so unchanged and remorseless, nor could he see through which was real—Mr. Escher, who had thoughtfully arranged for him to rest today and not let anyone bother him, or the man who had hurt him so viciously the day before.
Kabukimono did not want anyone, especially Niwa, to know what had happened that night. He and Escher resumed their apparent friendship, but their tacit agreement to keep things quiet did not mean that everything went back to normal.
Shortly after, Niwa left for Narukami Island. In addition to the usual official reports, he had to pay a visit to the famous nobles residing there, one of whom was said to have a daughter of marriageable age in his family—such gossip had reached Kabukimono's ears.
On one of the nights he was gone, a violent storm took the island, shrouding it with crackling thunder and rain. The puppet stood under the dark sky, the cutting torrent biting at his skin and drenching him to the bone. Escher took him home. He wrapped him in a dry towel, and Kabukimono turned around to face him, his arms sheepishly poking out of the towel to seek comfort and warmth. They had a second encounter.
The second time was much gentler than the first. Escher held him and teased his delicate skin, and the puppet sank into his embrace and gentle strokes, spilling out with choked out moans as he was filled. Just as a bolt of lightning crossed the sky, the puppet tensed up and fell from the highest cliff into a dark world of bliss.
There was a second time, and then a third. They met more and more often.
He tasted sweetness, and he knew that this sweetness came from the sugar that coated poison; but the puppet needed to be embraced, to be warm. He was so desperate for love that he willingly traded his tender, delicate body for the illusion of it.
Escher never kissed him when they had sex. He often exposed his true nature, tearing off his gentle mask and calling him a “greedy little whore” as he fucked into him, the puppet trembling all over and unable to argue. The doll could only weep, seeking pleasure over and over again even though it broke him. He craved for Niwa to get him out of the filth he’d gotten himself into, but couldn’t bear the thought of him seeing him this way.
Crushing guilt weighed on his shoulders, and he could feel his own body become corrupted by how often he lay under Escher. He would come out of Escher’s house buzzing with pleasure and acutely aware of the sinful fluid he’d been filled with still remaining inside him—and yet, walking on the road home, he always felt empty, as if a gust of wind could blow him away and scatter him in all directions.
Fortunately, Niwa didn't notice. Niwa was his sun, and as long as he did not know about him and Escher, there was still a place for him in his light.
Everything would have gone on as it did, if not for the shogunate sergeant suddenly barging into his life.
“Your name is Kabukimono, right?” The sergeant lifted his sake and rubbed his chin. “I saw you and the foreigner doing these nasty things in the woodshed. You remember me? My name is Jinnai, I helped you bring clothes to Niwa that one time.” The man tossed down his sake and pressed closer towards the pale Kabukimono.
“No, I don't remember.” The puppet replied mechanically, his ability to think having been razed to the ground by the life-ending imagery he’d been plagued with since he had received that anonymous note.
“Gee, just like a real noble, uninterested in us small folks.” Jinnai frivolously brushed his fingers on the waist of Kabukimono, gradually tightening his grip to bring the puppet closer to him. “Kabukimono, if you can sleep with the foreigner, you can also sleep with me, right?”
“No, I don't—” Kabukimono went to peel the man's arms from around his waist, looming threat mixed with the smell of alcohol above him.
“You better think before you answer, otherwise, I might visit the armory officer some day, and talk to him about your education problem.”
“No!” Kabukimono shivered and shook his head wildly, his eyes widening in horror. “You can't tell him!”
“As long as you listen to me…” The man grabbed the puppet, who had lost his will to resist, and threw him onto his bed as he had wished, impatiently groping and kissing Kabukimono’s slender body.
“Hmm, I’ve been wanting to do this for so long… ever since I saw you that day, I’ve been dreaming about what it would be like to fuck you…”
Kabukimono closed his eyes tightly.
“You're so beautiful, where did you come from? Damn, and you smell so good too, why do you smell so good… What a bargain for that mechanic.” He impatiently ripped open the doll's white kimono, as his mouth kept pouring out all the lewd fantasies he had about him.
The puppet’s eyes fluttered open and he let his mind drift away from his body, allowing it to be roughly touched and kissed. If he didn’t struggle, maybe it would all be over quick. Just as the man was about to unbutton his pants, a sharp alarm bell rang from outside the window.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me… The fire alarm, right now?!” He got up from the bed with a resigned look on his face. “I'll be looking for you when I’m back, and you know what happens if you brush me off.” He pinched the puppet's chin viciously and left.
Kabukimono didn’t even bother straightening his clothes—dazed, he walked out of the outpost, and after only a few steps, saw Escher's figure appear in the distance. His pace gradually accelerated, from a brisk walk to a trot, and finally into great big strides that almost made him trip and fall. He tugged at Escher's sleeves as if grabbing a lifeline, incoherently begging for help.
“Escher— Jinnai, what should I do, he saw— he saw us…”
“Kill him.” Escher held his cold hand tight.
“Kill…?” Kabukimono had never thought of killing. He’d thought of ending his own life if their affair was ever revealed, but never of ending the one of the man who threatened to reveal it.
“Don't be scared, I'll help you.” Escher smiled.
On the third day after the incident, the shogunate sergeant Jinnai received a letter from Kabukimono, asking him to meet him on the cliff near the center of the furnace that evening to make a deal—and a strand of his dark hair was attached to the letterhead as a token.
Jinnai put the strand of hair under his nose and breathed in deeply, instantly aroused by charming memories. He took his sword and went to the appointed place.
The sunset rendered heaven and earth a bloody color, and the young boy stood alone on the cliff, his purple veil fluttering in the wind like wisps of pale flame.
Seeing the shadowed face under the veil, Jinnai's gut burned and he couldn't help but be quick with his tongue. “Why d’you pick this place, you like getting fucked in the wild?”
“I have thought about what you said, and my answer is no.” The puppet said calmly.
“You don’t care if I tell Niwa about your dealings with the foreigner?”
“No, you won’t tell him anything.” Kabukimono's waist twisted nimbly sideways, and his hand slowly drew a cold shade of metal from the scabbard at his back. “Because I'm going to kill you here.”
Jinnai scoffed and grinned wickedly. “Little beauty, you think you can wield a katana? Be careful not to twist your wrist.”
Kabukimono's eyes were cold, unaffected. He grabbed his veil with one hand, held the sword hilt with the other, sprung up from his half-crouch and rushed toward Jinnai.
For a high-ranking soldier who specialized in the art of the blade, Kabukimono's swings were slow, and easy to dodge. Jinnai nimbly avoided the sword's edge sweeping towards his throat and was just about to tease Kabukimono's belt as he did, when his eyes were suddenly covered by purple fabric.
The samurai was confident in his superior martial arts skills, and even blinded by the veil tinged with the doll's unique scent, he heard the arrows whistle through the air. He dodged several of them with his keen ears and quick strides, feeling pleased with his lightness and agility, then pulled the veil out of his eyes, just as his foot stepped off the edge of the cliff.
“Aaaaaaaah!” The man stumbled and fell a few meters, and by a stroke of luck happened to be picked up by the lift built against the mountain wall. “Hahahahaha, look at th—” Before he could finish his sentence, the mechanism pulling the elevator suddenly made a strange sound, and the hemp ropes that had been twisted into a bundle snapped.
“Wait—”
He raised his head to look up at the cliff. Shadowed by the setting sun in his back, the frozen-faced Kabukimono tucked his crossbow back into his sleeve; and beside him, the Fontaine mechanic clutching a purple veil waved at him.
The hemp rope broke completely, and Jinnai and the platform fell into the deep gorge.
Kabukimono shuddered and closed his eyes.
“I killed someone.”
“You didn't kill him.” Escher put his arm around him and whispered in his ear, “His death will be seen as an accident.”
“Did you saw off the rope?”
“Of course. Always think two steps ahead.”
Something uneasy brewed in the puppet’s chest, a fleeting thought in his mind. Jinnai. The woodshed. How quickly he’d found him afterwards… Always two steps ahead.
“You… That day, you—” Kabukimono stopped himself, the burning question on his lips too unthinkable. As he hesitated, Escher put the veil over his hair, lowered his head under it, and kissed him on the lips.
The kiss he had been longing for, the kiss that belonged to lovers, was at that moment akin to a secret admission.
“Who are you?” Kabukimono asked breathlessly.
“I am the one who will walk with you.” Escher pressed his face against him, grinning. “I’ll keep your secret.”
And as he held him, he joyfully planted his seeds of chaos.
“Because, you see, you and I are one and the same.”
Kabukimono glimpsed at the shadow that stretched beneath their feet. Indeed. Though they were two bodies with their own separate edges, they now blended into one in the background of the blood-red sunset; one and the same, a singular shadow where they embraced each other, dark as the unending night, and the oblivion of innocent hearts.