Estimated reading time: 2 – 4 minutes
Yukio regarded him with a lifeless stare. “How do you live with yourself?”
“Who says I do?” Director H. tapped his pocket twice. “At the risk of repetition, we really must go. Alice is bound to be up to her pretty nose in water. The poor thing has probably drowned ten times by now.”
Yukio’s indifference caused the older man to shake his head.
“You ask how I live with myself. I ask the very same. You have no idea how pitiful Alice is when shock has her flopping this way and that way. It’s horrible. You don’t even care, Sir!”
“I have not harmed her, Director H. You have.”
“Petty details. Hardly inconsequential.”
“Agreed. So it makes no difference whether she drowns or not. It’s not real.”
“Oh, it is very real to her. Alice feels everything. Whether she’ll be allowed to remember is the question.”
Yukio’s stare flicked away. Immobile. Haughty.
“Ah, well perhaps you will feel differently after you’ve had the pleasure of tasting her.”
“Have you?”
Director H. hummed. Little jealousy. Definitely possession. So tiny, almost to be nonexistent, but there nonetheless. An ignoble start but one all the same. He had to take care with how he proceeded. The Yamagatas rigid morals were not going to be easy to overcome.
Especially Yukio.
“I’ve only had the pleasure of a few of Alice’s kisses. The first is when I slit her throat.” He blissful sigh underscored the heinous telling. “Her mouth, so pretty with blood, fit mine so beautifully. Even I was moved. I wanted to eat her right then. There was also a time right before I hung her—I couldn’t help myself. The last was when I ripped out her heart. Mmm…rest assured you will have a mate worthy of your line, Yukio.”
“As long as she fulfills her obligations I will fulfill mine.”
The hallway buzzed white like bleached bone. Director H. grinned. It set the other man on edge. “Would we all have such darling obligations to fill.”
“You may have her if you so desire. I would not stand in your way.”
“Bartering Alice as if she were a whore? No, no, no. That will never do, Young Yukio.” Director H. stalked him, grin bursting that he refused to give an inch. “She is yours until, oh I’d say, forever. Accept it. There is no changing this.”
“I am to be married, Director H. to Elise. I would not dishonor her this way.”
“There is no dishonor here. Elise is in the same predicament as you. However, unlike you, she’s found peace with it.”
Yukio’s mouth flattened. “I would not dishonor her.”
Director H. shook his head in pity. “Alice will have her hands full with you. I hope she gets the chance to stab you in your sleep. Or at the very least, cook you in a pot.”
I’ve missed Julian & Lily as well. I’m...