Chapter Text
-post Tenjiku arc-
In those days Sanzu’s presence was barely there and that’s the way he preferred it. Inconspicuous and ordinary by design.
Only compromised by the roaring of his hatred that he kept under twice wrapped layers of gauze and tranquility, staring at his reflection in the mirror until it disappeared from his eyes and fled to the corners of his mind.
He often wondered what would end it, his private game of hide and seek, how long could he bide his time before that bitterness got impatient and decided to rear its head.
Not long he found, with Mucho’s body slumped at his feet, the smooth skin of his skull sticky with drying blood, the Toman uniform he so diligently maintained torn in crosshatched rivets that oozed his innards into his lap.
Not long at all.
After that first day Sanzu never wore his mask again.
His cheeks ached from over using the muscles he had kept hidden for so long, grinning and grinning, stretching the twin scars around his mouth into unfathomable patterns and laughing manically at the revulsion on his victims faces.
Batting his lashes, bubble-gum pink and absurdly long, lips contorting into a smile so all encompassing it seemed to split his face in two, the spectacle was burned into the mind of every Bonten executive.
And the laugh that fell from that cavernous mouth tinkled like windchimes, like silver tea spoons, breathless and unhinged, he was twenty-six but his voice still shattered in his throat like it had when he was thirteen.
The women loved it, the men did too.
He sharpened his fangs on sovereignty and the serenity that came after the heads had stopped rolling.
The faucet in the Bonten warehouse bathroom had acquired a pretty pink hue, the pockets of Sanzu’s slacks bulged with spare cartridges and the heady stench of copper clung to his hair and clothes.
Mucho had been wrong about one thing, people wanted to see him, loved to see him.
Lecherous salarymen slid their hands across his ass on tightly packed trains and in bars women paid for his drinks and sent him lipstick-stained bundles of cash while eyeing him behind their lashes.
His exotic hair and symmetrical scarring, softly pretty, or maybe just girlish, some would even say beautiful, it drew admirers like flies to honey.
You could see in the shape of his face that he wouldn’t live long and everyone wanted a piece before it was gone.
He himself is bloated on want and devotion, one hand on his pistol the other in the pill bottle and eyes always, always on Mikey, now gaunt and snow white, but still Mikey, still king.