A/N: i was inspired by mosaku-k's art on tumblr, the one with a sort-of-grinning-kinda-maybe Akashi, all the blood dripping from his mouth and stuff. her art is fabulous, in case you haven't seen it. sadly, i can't link it here, but if you search it up, you'll see its fabulosity. and on another note, this was supposed to be a funny thing with akashi being a heart breaker, but then it turns out that he's literally a heart breaker. ummm. yeah. sorry my interests are pretty screwy. comments, criticisms and reviews are always appreciated, lovelies! extra thanks to leporicide for reading this through for me, she's a lifesaver.

Whiteness and purity,
may my love bring into bloom,
your scarlet valleys.

The Gracious Wife

"Why?"

Seijūrō scoffs. "He doesn't deserve you."

"Why not?"

"Because you're mine."

He shakes his head. Not this again. "People are not possessions, Akashi-kun. I am not a belonging. I am no one's property except for my own."

"That's where you're wrong, Tetsuya," Seijūrō corrects the other softly, watching him with a pitiful look in his mismatched eyes as though he's the one who moulded Kuroko from earth and filled him with flowers in place of beating organs, honey to substitute blood, and beating love instead of pounding hatred. "I have always owned you from the beginning. I discovered you and your potential, I made you who you are today. Is it wrong for me to claim what's mine?"

This does not make sense. He does not make sense. "I am an agent of my own, Akashi-kun, please do not mistaken me for anyone else's," Kuroko reminds him stiffly, squaring his jaw. Seijūrō rolls his eyes, rich red and bright gold, too bright underneath the fluorescent tube covering the six-by-four boxes of the room, and chuckles deeply in the silence. Seijūrō's openly mocking his standing. Iciness skates up Kuroko's spine, rigid, and he subconsciously rubs his forearm under the table, trying not to let it get to him. "So please, tell me why—"

He taps his finger on the wooden table, a carefully trimmed nail clicking against the surface. The sound robs Kuroko's words, seals his lips, and Seijūrō tuts softly like he's admonishing a child. "Taiga attached himself to you, Tetsuya, didn't you realize? True, he may have been the ace of Seirin, but that's years ago. We're not children anymore. Where did his scholarship to study overseas go? Nowhere. He flunked and jeopardized his standing. Then he was just a simple firefighter, which is rather tragic." Seijūrō lowers his lashes and his tongue sharpens. "Considering that fighting fire is his job, he's fighting to keep his house together with you, and fighting just to have a future together with you. Ironic."

It stabs Kuroko straight through his heart, pries his ribcage open like a casket, and the pain wedges itself so deep inside until he jerks at the brutal honesty collared around his neck. Seijūrō knows. He takes credit for the pain spiking in Kuroko's blue eyes and savours how he's lowered his chin, head so heavy with thoughts of—

"I've told you, Tetsuya, over and over and over again," Seijūrō continues, deliberately victimizing Kuroko's stance, all the while shaking his head like he's the icon of justice all along. "Taiga does not fit you. He's made you dependent on him—without him," he leans forward, whispering conspiratorially with eyes flashing in a maddening glint, "without Taiga, you could've furthered your studies. Taiga weighed you down, he snaps your future into two because of his selfishness, and now you're working in a kindergarten just to support your makeshift family. It would've been romanticised if this were a fantasy novel, but no, remember that you're living in reality, Tetsuya. You'll never get anywhere like this."

Tersely, Kuroko runs a hand down his nape, trying to chase away the demons clawing down his spine.

The cruel beauty knows he's distressed, Kuroko's raking a hand through his uncombed hair. Seijūrō can make anyone fall to the deepest chasm of no return with his words, scaring and scarring them to the brink of insanity with his persuasive degree. His tongue is agile, wrapping around the victim, snake-like, tasting their fear, savouring their terror, before he devours with a swallow. The Akashi Conglomerate didn't score the gold award five years consecutively for nothing; having a CEO like him, other companies prostrate before the emperor—what more a mere human like Kuroko himself.

So Seijūrō continues, bittersweet voice spooning cough syrup down Kuroko's throat, gagging his senses.

"I wouldn't have let you suffer for four years after high school, Tetsuya," Seijūrō says, empathic to his suffering over the years, trying to lave his words over scar-riddled body as if it's an ointment for Kuroko's soul. Long legs stretching underneath the table, his leather shoes openly graze against Kuroko's ankle—he smiles tightly, cocking his head to the side. "I would've taken you to study with me. You could've had so much more ahead of you if you chose me instead of Taiga, but it's not too late for regrets." Slowly, Seijūrō slides his foot up his calf, toying with the small expanse of skin there. Kuroko shivers at the coldness biting him, at the openly lewd ministration, at the raw insinuation he's offering up the alley. "Come with me, Tetsuya. I've finally released you from Taiga, so what do you have to lose?"

Seijūrō's freed him?

No.

He didn't free him.

He chained Kuroko to his last memories of Kagami. Those fragmented shards clasped in his palm and held to his chest, of his sleep-dazed face waking up in the morning, of his tired smile before he left for work, of his smile when he embraced Kuroko tightly in his arms and whispering that he'll never regret choosing the grittiest path in life as long as he has him.

Kuroko wants to cry, but he can't.

Crying is a sign of the weak, and the weak shall perish before Seijūrō.

Numbly, he sits there in the chair, resigned to his fate, head so heavy with thoughts of red—

"What's there to think about, Tetsuya?" Seijūrō goads, knitting his brows together curiously. The metal chair screeches against the cement floor as he draws up closer to the table, lacing his fingers all businesslike as though he's handling negotiations with a particularly pesky company. "I still have a penthouse reserved in Minami-Azabu for us. My father's already dead, so you needn't trouble yourself over what he'll think of our relationship. I'll make sure that you'll be sent to Tōdai to study, and you'll have your own chauffer. Of course," he adds as an afterthought, "if you don't want to, then that's fine with me. You can take the train since it's only a ten minute walk away from our house. Kyōdai is another option if you want to live in Kyoto, then you'll stay in my family house. Your choice, Tetsuya—"

"No."

He's finally found his voice.

But it chips in places that the emperor eye could see.

A broken mannequin he is, Seijūrō tilts his head to the side and he smiles, Machiavellian. "No?"

"No."

Kuroko's hands quiver from fighting a losing battle. There's no point in opposing Seijūrō, he'll get what he wants even if he has to wait years for it, forTetsuya. He acts as though his hands are rinsed clean from bloodstains and his smile is purely candid, white teeth and sharp canines for the show, all just interested in answering Kuroko's questions. People outside this room are just waiting for the two of them to come out after a friendly session of talking, but they're wrong, they're oh so wrong. Money blinds them, Seijūrō has plenty to spare and he's a charitable figure in the business empire, so he gives away his riches and let them pile to cover his wrongdoings.

It's sick.

It's sick how there's little justice for Kagami.

It's sick how his head is so heavy with thoughts of red smudges—

"Come now, Tetsuya, must you be so difficult?" Seijūrō says, the perfect example of a worrying friend. He adopts an open posture, one that says he is a friend to all, and an enemy to none. Surely, anyone who's watching through the CCTV will think that he's the one at right, and Kuroko's the delusional harlequin. "Ryōta will be pleased to hear that you'll be living better with me from now on. He keeps calling me every few days to check up on you because you don't answer your phone—"

He can't afford the bills.

"—and nobody knows where you live—"

His one-room apartment with Kagami is in the shabbiest area of Tokyo.

"—and you've never reached out to any of us—"

He knows they don't approve of his hardships with Kagami.

"—and it's only until recently I found your house," Seijūrō says, as though the information came to him through a messenger bird instead of a man skulking in the shadows and following Kuroko's trail from the grocery store, all the way to his kindergarten. "So come with me. You no longer have Taiga to support you, am I right? You won't be able to pay your landlord in time with your meagre salary, Tetsuya."

He refuses to dignify that with a response.

Seijūrō yearns to confine him in a conspiratorial chamber as a porcine pet of his. Generously deceitful in his offerings, but with a price; if Kuroko reaches out to grab his hand, he'll draw him further into his world. He'll drift farther from salvation's shores, voluntarily drowning in Seijūrō's dahlia-red delirium. Shadows drift across the man's face at Kuroko's silence, but when he smiles, trees shrivel in jealousy and leaves fell to worship the tips of his feet, for he deems his judgment is benediction upon others, upon him.

What should he do when all he wants is to have Kagami in his arms again?

He can't do this, he can't do it when his head is so heavy with thoughts of red smudges smeared on—

"Tetsuya, look at me. Don't do this to yourself."

Kuroko's recoiled from the table, the only thing separating the tormentor and the tormented. Little trembles wrack his frame and he pushes a hand against his mouth, biting down on the scream that's threatening to burst at the seams. The screech of metal and cement pierce the harrowing silence as Seijūrō abandons his seat to kneel beside him, wrapping his arms around Kuroko's shuddering body tightly—he's the saviour, the one who shields from Melpomene's calamity. Seijūrō's demoniac touch should disgust him, but he can't muster the strength to break free from his embrace. He's a patient man awaiting Kuroko's surrender, and he effortlessly manipulates Kuroko's worst nightmares into poignant bliss anyone's ever dreamt of.

Not this.

Not now.

Not when his head is so heavy with thoughts of red smudges smeared on Seijūrō's chin as he stands in the kitchen, baring his teeth, holding Kagami by the scruff and watching him bleed, bleed from his tattered throat, from his unhinged mouth, from the knife jammed into his stomach, thick crimson spurts drenching six-figure worth of grey suit.

"You'll be all right, we'll get a therapist to help you along," Seijūrō whispers into his ear, warm, wet, a hand snaking up his thigh and rubbing soothing circles close to his groin. He dips his lashes, stark feathery blackness against taut porcelain white, throatily murmuring, "Pack your clothes, Tetsuya, and leave everything else behind. You have to start anew so that it doesn't hurt anymore, all right?"

A staggered nod into his shoulder.

Kuroko's forehead mats with cold sweat.

Icy hands shaking on his knees.

Seijūrō's touch is deceitfully warm, promising heaven crafted by his own two hands, and he reaches up to tug Kuroko's wrists together, binding them in a tight grip. Assuring, suffocating heat that scratches welts into his skin, leaving burns of Seijūrō's ownership on his body, truly his property. Should Kuroko try to fight him, he'll abandon his fair façade and adopt a merciless master's instead; he'll remind Kuroko of his place with gentle words and gentle persuasion and nothing but disgusting gentleness that does not suit him.

"I'll move in right into our house this evening itself, if I finish the meeting by five," Seijūrō says, lips tracing the shell of his ear—Kuroko can hear the smile in his voice—and presses a sticky kiss to his temple, a coddling owner to an abused pet. "We'll have dinner together to discuss what needs sorting. You won't be staying up tonight, understand? You'll go straight to bed—get all the rest you can."

A clack resonates in the room; two policemen are filtering in now, their judgmental eyes drinking in the sight of a powerless man subdued into obedience and a magnanimous businessman contributing heartily to his teammate from the past. They don't help him up; it's Seijūrō who does, letting fumbling Tetsuya cling to his arms and guiding his staggering steps outside the dingy cell, where they're immediately tailed by a burly bodyguard. Tetsuya knows, he knows Seijūrō's smiling because the emperor wins yet another match like it's a shogi game he adores.

Heavy footsteps ringing in Tetsuya's ear like a death toll, Seijūrō serenely asks, "Tetsuya, have you heard of a French saying, 'On ne fait qu'un'?"

No.

He shakes his head.

Kagami is gone.

He'll never return from the silence Seijūrō's administered on him forever.

"We are together as one, that's what it means," he helpfully supplies, sidling closer, closer to the exit, to the bright light behind frosted glass doors. "So let me help you, Tetsuya, let me into your life. Let me," he digs his fingers into Tetsuya's side, clawing deeper into his flesh, wanting to grasp his kidney and hear the satisfyingly moist squelch in his hand—squeezy and tight, just like how he likes gripping Kagami's bloodied throat, "just let me love you, always, Tetsuya."