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You turn his name over in your mind like a coin, the different sides flashing; Sou Hiyori. The one you knew before the main game, and the one after. On nights like these, in your cold lonely bedroom where you don't sleep, you wonder where one begins and the other ends. You'll never tell him you mull this over frequently, because that would mean admitting to his face that you think of him more than you strictly have to, and that, in your bitter childish little brain, will feel like losing some unspoken competition.
And - since this death game had begun - you had been nothing if not defined by your refusal to lose to Sou Hiyori.
Something had grated you about the boy since waking up with a throbbing migraine and a pit of confusion in your stomach in that strange blue hallway. Maybe it was his constant twitching, like a nervous rabbit, or how disconnected it seemed with the cold calculation of his eyes. Maybe it was the wickedly sharp edge glittering beneath each of the polite platitudes he offered everyone, like he thought he was so clever, like he thought you were too stupid to figure out the entendre. Maybe it was his headache-inducing scarf (you wanted to tear it from his neck and strangle him with it) or the offensively bright beanie clashing with droopy teal hair (you wanted to yank it over his eyes, green wool obscuring vision so he'd never see you coming) or the trailing laces of his battered sneakers (you wanted to rip the threads from the very shoes and bind his stupidly thin wrists with him, watch him struggle and complain and beg).
Maybe it was simply all of him, from his sneering superiority, to his ghoulish mockery of the dead, to the occasional chinks in the armour that felt like a gut punch each time; the glint of guilt in his eyes when Sara screamed and sobbed for her best friend, the bags under his eyes, bruise-blue, and his hands shaking over his cup of morning tea. Reminders that he wasn't some cartoon villain, twirling a moustache and scheming your demise, but a person, a kid, trapped just like you. It made you want to shake him and hug him at the same time.
That didn't mean you had to like him.
"Okay." Keiji claps his hands once, effectively bringing the faint chattering din to a halt. "We can all split up and search this floor; I reckon it'll only be as big as the first one, so we'll meet back here and discuss whatever we found in... an hour or so. Cool?"
There is a general tired murmur of assent; you glance around at your fellow survivors, then scold yourself for calling them that. It feels like an ugly stab of a word, like disrespect to Joe and Mishima and even Kai. Sara is absent - Keiji and Reko had deposited her gently into her assigned room minutes before; you'd offered to stay with her in case she awoke whilst you were all off exploring the new floor, but Keiji had shaken his head and cast a furtive glance around. Dipping his head to your ear, he told you lowly,
"I need you to keep an eye on Sou when we're looking around. Keep him away from Kanna and Sara."
Your heart had lurched at the notion that he might really be planning on harming anyone, but fluttered at the fact that Keiji trusted you to try and keep him in line. You'd felt the burning need to step up for a while, try and take some off the strain off of Sara's shoulders before it drove her mad, and you'd be damned if you let any harm come to her whilst she was catatonic with grief.
Especially from someone as insufferable as Sou Hiyori.
Keiji nods at you when he finishes speaking, and as the group begins to disperse you take your cue, marching past the others and seizing Sou's wrist firmly. "You're with me."
He freezes; his gaze flicks from you, to your hand wrapped over his arm, and finally coming to rest on Keiji watching from afar with an eyebrow cocked as though daring him to protest. Sou scowls for only a minute before getting an (admittedly, impressively fast) reign on his emotions, peering up at you with a wan smile and placid eyes.
"Superior's orders?" he asks. Why is his voice so damn whiny? Your jaw clenches in irritation.
"Something like that. Move already." Feeling Keiji's eyes burn into your back, you deliberately propel him away from the hallway crammed with bedrooms where Sara sleeps and toward the corridor on the left of the welcome room. He raises his eyebrows, but his carefully-crafted mask of neutrality has, annoyingly, given way to amusement. Kanna makes a timid move to follow the two of you, but he shakes his head at her. You watch sharply as the girl dithers, winces when she realises how closely you're watching her, and skitters off to join Reko and Gin.
Sou looks at you, the picture of wide-eyed innocence. Your anger simmers as you drag him into the empty corridor on the right, coming to face only one door labelled - a little ominously - 'relaxation room.'
Sou giggles. "It's like they knew you'd be coming here first, eh?"
"Shut up." You turn the knob and throw the door open, then nod. "After you."
He sighs. "So cautious. What exactly have I done to inspire such fear in you, hm?"
"I'm not afraid of you," you say through gritted teeth, and fix him with a suspicious look. "What exactly is your game with Kanna? She's a grieving child, she could do without you breathing down her neck in a place like this."
"Ah, is that what you're worried about?" He slouches against the doorframe carelessly, fiddling with his scarf. "Did I not trade my card for her Sacrifice? I saved her life, remember?"
This smarts. "At the cost of Joe's," you hiss, and is it your imagination or does he stand up a little straighter at that? You push deeper, feeling the need to be cruel, like your exhaustion and grief is a shaken soda bottle that's just had the lid cracked open. "You set that boy up to die. You're a fucking coward, Sou, and you're a spiteful, empty man." It's like digging into a bullet wound for stray shrapnel, the way his gaze darts to the floor, the furrow between his brows, but you're horribly relishing in getting your fingers bloody.
A swollen silence follows before - you think he swallows, though his mouth and throat are obscured by his bulky scarf so it's a little difficult to tell, and then he lifts his eyes to look at you. They're far away somehow, like he's become shuttered. "Ahaha," his voice lilts. "And you're still letting someone as pathetic as me get under your skin? I think that says more about you than me." Rocking on the balls of his feet for a moment, he takes a second to enjoy the way your mouth works furiously before giggling and finally slipping through the door.
Incensed and wanting badly to hit something, you follow him. You've never been one to keep a good lid on your temper.
The relaxation room is, despite your misgivings, just what it says on the tin; there's a patch of open ground, grass and stone beneath an undoubtedly artificial sky, but the placebo sun on your skin still feels comforting as you dig through the surrounding shrubs. Sou canvasses the rest of the room, the table and chairs. You kick at gravel, not really expecting to find anything, and as you're kneeling and pushing springy green fern leaves apart, you hear a thud and yelp like somebody's kicked a puppy. For a split second as you whirl around, you wonder if Kanna had slipped in after all and had somehow gotten hurt - but when your gaze comes to rest it's on a disgruntled-looking Sou on his back, nursing his left shoulder and cursing as he sits back up.
Meeting your incredulous gaze makes his cheeks darken in embarrassment. "Tripped on my laces. Stupid things..."
A laugh bubbles in your throat. "Baby can't tie his laces?"
His glare is enough to shrivel fresh fruit, but you really can't take it seriously when he's all winded on the floor like that. If it were anyone else in the world, you'd find the way he ducks behind his scarf endearing. Still chuckling to yourself, you meander over as he clambers to his feet and brushes nonexistent dirt off his trousers, not quite meeting your eye. You glance down; the laces on both of his threadbare shoes are trailing languid and dirty behind him, a tripping hazard to even someone not as clumsy and easily felled as Sou. With a click of your tongue, you sink to your knees.
Sou sputters. "What- what are you doing?"
"Tying baby's laces." You tap his ankle irritably when he skitters back from your hands on instinct. "Stay still, would you? I'm not going to strangle you with them."
Maybe some other day, remains the unspoken end to this promise, but you let it hang as an implication as you set to work. Your expression unfurls in mild disgust at the ragged, dirty state of the ends of the threads; maybe he really didn't know how to tie his laces at all. You whip both into halfhearted bows and figure he has no room to complain, and that if he did, you might slap him. You've been toying with the thought for a while, justifying that he probably has it coming. Plus there's no Kanna here to look at you reproachfully for it, so, another bonus.
Actually, Sou is being decidedly silent. You rock back onto your ankles and look up at him, face crinkled in confusion. He's looking away, but not in a manner that suggests he's just spaced out or focused on something in the middle distance; his eyes dart back to you once every few seconds, and once he sees you're finished and watching him with a raised eyebrow, he clears his throat and stumbles back from you.
"Don't go falling over again," you snap, lunging to grab his wrist on instinct. "What d'you think I just tied your laces for? Fun?"
He makes a choked noise and turns his face farther away. Your frown deepens. What is he playing at?
"...Sou?"
Timidly, his gaze slides down to you. You can barely see his face from this angle, just a flash of cerulean eyes above the scarf and beneath the fall of hair. "You can let go of my wrist now, thank you."
You blink; you're lurched forward slightly, still on your knees with one hand holding onto him firmly, and in your haste to catch him you'd lunged a lot closer than you'd even realised at first. In fact, you can feel each inhale and exhale of his stomach beside your face as he breathes just a little too fast. Heat rises in your face, but your stubbornness squirms in protest at the idea of just... relinquishing him as he'd told you to do. So, for some demented reason, you stay exactly where you are.
"What?" Your mouth is a tad drier than it was a moment ago. "Am I too close?"
You don't hear his breath hitch, but you see the concave of his stomach flex. He jerks his arm from your grip and steps back, and it's only as your arm falls limply to the floor and he backs up that you see the state of him. Half his face is sunk into his scarf but what remains is flushed lovesick pink, and his eyes are flitting to each and every solid object in the room apart from you, still kneeling on the floor and gazing up at him with something like realisation.
Slowly, you push yourself off the floor, gaze still locked onto the boy in front of you. He's cradling the wrist you were gripping as though it had hurt. You stare at his papery wrists poking out from his drooping sleeves, the faint scarlet remains of your fingers on the startlingly pale skin, and wonder if it actually did. He's so frail; you remember him straining and failing to open a cupboard, and his resulting exhaustion had made your lip curl in a mix of amusement and exasperation. It was another trait of his you found irritating, though admittedly an irrational one. You should probably be glad he didn't have enough physical strength to do any real damage to anybody except maybe the children (though you doubted it; Kanna was resourceful and Gin gave you the impression that he'd go for the eyes) - but the only thing it did was make you worry all the more about the cogs turning in his head. Someone with little chance physically had to even the playing field with tricks and manipulation and lies, and that is exactly what Sou does.
You stare at the red remnant of your grip on his wrist until it fades and he looks more than a little wrongfooted. Finally, you gather your voice. "Sorry, baby, didn't mean to hurt your sensitive skin." It comes out all wrong. You'd meant to speak softly but it had come out more like crooning, and the nickname that was supposed to be a repeat jab sounded more like an affectionate pet name. Sou flinches from the sweetness of your demeanour, wary like he's expecting you to whip out a blade.
You wonder why he associates softness with pain. Wonder if he learned it from someone else's hand, or whether he had always been this way.
Unconsciously, you take his wrist in your hand again, fit your fingers over the fading marks. Sou jerks in your hold, and you feel the sinews of his arm tense as though expecting a blow. You're not sure why he's letting you manhandle him like this - although, granted, your touch is exceedingly gentle. Gentler than you've ever thought about handling him. Not that you've thought about it.
"Maybe I should grab you more often," is what you choose to break the silence with; the breath of your words ghosts over his skin. "If it'll make you this quiet." When he presses his lips into a line and looks away, frowning hard, you laugh at him. "Jeez, you cave easily. Thought you had a little more fight in you than this. What, did I get you too excited?"
"Is that what you think?" he spits, and oh, there's the Sou you know and love and hate. His stare is unflinchingly angry yet he's looking at you as though you're the only person in the world and it's a strange mix that makes your breath catch in your throat. You've never had his attention like this; it's gratifying. You want more. "You must be lonelier than I thought, feeling up someone you hate so much. Has the quiet around here gotten to you already?"
Something hardens in you at the jab; you walk him back four paces until his back collides with the wall, and without cushion or mercy, it must hurt. His eyes screw shut and he gasps, whole body seizing and you push the wrist you're still holding into his chest. You can feel the dull thud of his pulse tapping away under the pad of your thumb. He runs cold, like he has bad circulation, and you have a sudden thought that he's probably one of those people prone to sickness. You really should stop; you're only making yourself angrier.
It's just - you're barely using any strength to keep him pinned. He tries, unsuccessfully, to jostle your hold so he can slip free, and then resigns to scowling at the floor. How can someone this pathetic be the reason three of your friends are dead?
"You think you're so fucking clever," you whisper, and you'd have to be blind to miss the way he shudders bodily as your breath fills the hollows of his neck, the ruddiness daubing his cheeks. "But how's that going to help you now, hm? Baby?"
Twisting the knife; you shouldn't enjoy it as much as you do. Sou looks like he can barely muster words, the apples of his cheeks almost as crimson as his stupid scarf. His trembling gaze lifts to look at you, staring hard. "Get off me already."
You cock a brow and let your gaze slowly, deliberately travel down to the noticeable strain against his trousers, and you look at it with equal parts thrill and disgust. Sou grunts in humiliation. "You're hard."
It isn't something that had to be said. You hope his skin is crawling in embarrassment, and the choked-off noise he makes and his attempt to submerge his face below his scarf is a good indicator that it is. You lean forward again, further, further, sinking into what little body heat he emits and when you speak your lips brush over the gentle jut of his jaw. "You know how pathetic you are? I haven't even touched you and you're shaking like a teenager." You level him with a wicked grin. "Don't tell me you're a virgin. How cute."
Sou inhales and swallows hard. His eyes are fixed firmly on the ceiling. "Mmn, I'm the pathetic one? D-don't tell me you're so desperate you'd turn to someone like me? Hahh, haha - you think you're any better?"
You frown, deciding you liked him better when he wasn't talking, and before you can stop to consider exactly which lines you're crossing here, you tilt your head forward, catch him in a bruising kiss, and you're rewarded with a muffled noise of surprise against your mouth. His pulse goes berserk against your fingers and for a moment he's frozen between you and the wall; there's a flash of panic when you think you're going to pull back and he's going to laugh at you, and he won't tell anyone it happened but he'll always know and he'll hold it over your head with a smug smile and entendre and that might be worse, actually - but then he's moving back against you clumsily and relief breaks over you. You take initiative immediately, like you're sacrificing some big part of yourself if you don't establish control, if you let Sou think for one second he gets any say in what happens here. You keep one hand on his left wrist and clasp his right with the other, and finally you push forward just a little more, knocking his knees apart and sliding a leg between them.
Sou keens. The sound is almost dizzying, singing straight into your mouth and cloying on your tongue. He ducks his head away, trying to hide, embarrassed, and you grab his chin between your fingers and make him look at you; he's flushed and his hair is rustled by his beanie sliding back over his head. His mouth is trembling and damp and he's looking at you with a combination of defiance and eagerness. His skin shakes.
It's strangely lovely, coming from someone as repulsive as him.
You kiss him again; ghosting at the corners of his lips until he grunts in frustration and slams his mouth onto yours. It's an act of insubordination you generally wouldn't tolerate, but you enjoy how his hands stutter uncertainly when you pry his lips open with your tongue and run it over his teeth. He whimpers somewhere in the back of his throat and you tuck the sound under your tongue for later. You kiss him until he's dizzy and panting, till his lower body starts moving of its own accord, until when you pull back he's slack-jawed and hazy-eyed, blinking slow and bright red in the face.
You find that if you look at him for too long that your mind puts smiling images of Joe and Kai and Mishima in your head, so instead you latch onto his neck and he groans at the first contact of your lips on the skin. Irritably, you reach up and pull at the scarf.
"Hate this fucking thing," you mutter, and Sou gasps as the words buzz over his skin; after a moment, he helps you fumble the fabric off of his neck and you think it's the most helpful thing he's ever actually done for you. The skin that's bared feels new and clean, and when you trace a finger wonderingly down new crevices and juts of bone poking out, Sou makes a strangled noise in his throat and grapples unconsciously for the scarf that's now pooled at his feet. He resigns himself to glaring at you.
"Don't tell me someone like you is afraid to get their hands dirty," he breathes; the taunting words are somewhat alleviated in your mind by the fact that his hips are jerking forward unconsciously against the meat of your thigh.
"Is that your strategic plan to get me to touch you?" You tilt your head. One hand fiddles with the empty belt loops on his trousers. "...What makes you think you deserve that?"
His eyes widen; his expression reminds you of a deer caught in the crosshairs, body poised to flee, the shocking vulnerability before they run. It's delicious on Sou, especially now that he can't duck his face to hide. You can see every quiver of disbelief splay out across his soft features.
He's almost pretty like this.
"You can't just..." he trails off, sounding unsure for the first time, and looks down at his lap. You've got him right where you want him. The trembling uncertainty on his face makes you want to sink your teeth into him.
"Can't I?" And as if to illustrate your point, you lower the leg you have jammed in between his; he makes a genuinely heartwrenching sound at the loss of contact. You turn the thought of leaving him like this - legs wobbly, slumped against the wall, scarlet and panting and hard and only able to think of you, you, you, and it feels like a victory. It could be enough.
But you've never known when to quit. So instead you give him a million-watt smile that seems to scare him more than your cold detachment, and you tell him, "ask nicely."
He chokes on a laugh, eyes widening in frank disbelief. If this were any other occasion, you wouldn't even think to ask, the chances would be so remote. But here in this half-dark room where half his facade has already unravelled at your feet and you're drunk on the power you have over him, you hold out hope. And indeed, even as you watch his resolve is crumbling, eyes darting from the door, to you, to the aching hardness in his trousers, and he swallows harshly.
"I'm not begging you for anything," he answers, predictably. You make a show of mulling this over and then nod thoughtfully.
"Oh, alright. You can just go right back into the lobby and show everyone what a desperate whore you are, then." You lean forward and hope your grin is as catlike as you feel. "Do you even know what a sight you look right now? You look fucked out and you haven't even come yet. They'll all know the second they look at you."
Sou gulps; his eyebrows knit up and he looks honestly agonised, as though the fight inside his head is tearing him apart. You watch, detached, as he presses a hand to his cheek and his eyes flutter in shame upon feeling how hot it is. It's fucking thrilling, actually, watching his inhibitions physically break down before your eyes as his fists curl and uncurl at his sides before he groans defeatedly and throws an arm over his eyes.
"...Please," he whispers into the silent room. You let it hang in the air for a second, let yourself commit it to memory. It sinks beneath your skin, pumps syrup into your blood, sweet and stifling and addicting, you can almost feel it running over your tongue. Slack-jawed, you trace his lips with one finger, feeling him tense in surprise, and with your other hand, you pry his arm from his face. He's perfectly scarlet beneath the blue sleeve and resolutely not meeting your eye, appearing to be furious with himself. You raise an eyebrow and he fixes you a tired, withering look. His lips fumble over the word, quieter even than the first time. "Please."
You blink at him and summon a condescending smile. "Good boy," you murmur, not oblivious to the way this make a shudder wrack through him and he has to stuff his knuckles into his mouth to stifle a full-on moan, but before he can think to recover from this, the button on his trousers snaps and the zipper sighs and your hand—
Sou almost sobs when your fingers wrap around him; you clamp a hand hard over his mouth, conscious that the others are exploring the floor. It's this thought, obviously, and not Sou's pleading, teary doe-eyes over the ridges of your fingers or the way he quivers delightedly beneath your touch that makes your hand start to move. He is loud as you work, muffled whines and whimpers spilling into your palm; tears bead at his lashline, and when you slow your pace for a moment and squeeze those pretty eyes roll into the back of his head.
His hands are gripping onto your shirt for dear life, clutching the fabric so hard you're sure there'll be creases, but you let him have it, you're sure it's the only thing holding him upright right now. His hips jerk up to meet your movement, the muffled slick sounds filling your ears, and as soon as he gets used to the rhythm your hand is gone from his mouth but your fingers have replaced it, poking past the barrier of his teeth and pressing on his tongue till he gags around you. He looks up at you, tears spilling over his cheeks and rolling down to his chin and you think he's never looked better. His body jerks out of synch, moving forward toward your pacing hand and backward away from your prying fingers. You've made him unfamiliar in his own skin and it's the headiest power rush you think you've ever had.
"Look at you," you muster a laugh. Drool slips past your fingers and spills down his chin, mingling with the tears and sweat. "You're not gonna come already, are you?" You sigh like it's some big disappointment; secretly you're thrilled. Or maybe it's not so secret thanks to the grin you can't quite keep from your face. Sou can't reply around your fingers and he's breathing and cursing too fast to form anything coherent anyway. Idly, you pepper his neck with kisses, and then bites. He yelps and moans like a puppy when you sink a crescent into his skin and soothe it with your tongue, arches into your mouth wantonly. He's such a sight like this, trousers halfway down his thighs, tears running down his face and hair mussed and cheeks scarlet.
"Mmphf—!" Sou whines thickly. His fingers scrabble for purchase on your shirt as he pants. "Ngh- st- if you keep... 'm gonna—"
"Aw, baby," you croon into the skin beneath his ear. "Who says I'm gonna let you?" And you hand stills.
Sou sobs. His hands skitter uselessly from your shirt to your wrist and he raises teary, desperate eyes to you. "N-no, please, I just..." He knocks his head back furiously against the wall. "Please."
You cup your ear. "Huh?"
"Please!" he cries, glaring and stuttering and trembling all at once. "Please, just - just let me come already, fuck, please pl— ah!"
And you're moving faster than you were before and your lips are trailing over the sensitive skin on his neck; he buries his face in the crook of your shoulder to muffle his sounds now that your fingers are occupied with pinning his wrist to the wall. He's so close, dangling on some cruel precipice, squirming closer and closer and closer until-
His teeth sink into your skin as his climax hits; he hears you gasp loudly and clap a hand over your mouth, cursing into your skin, blearily thinking that it serves you right for being so cruel. He's panting and shuddering with the aftershocks as you recover from the bite and tug him away from your skin by his hair, making him wince and groan in protest; he can taste your blood in his mouth, spots a blooming red crescent beading through your shirt.
You watch him sink to the floor, fumbling with clumsy hands to do himself up and reach for his scarf. He hisses in pain when his knuckles brush the fresh, stinging bruises and teeth marks littering his neck, glowers up at you from the floor. His glassy-eyed looked of reverence is decidedly gone and now there's an angry crimson blush on his face and the remnants of tear tracks and a burning, furious humiliation in his gut. You've won something big here - he was squirming and panting for you, head filled with you, and he'd actually begged. Did dignity mean nothing anymore?
From his place on the floor, he watches your legs; you wipe your hand on a spare tissue and stuff it into your pocket, intending to throw it out at the earliest opportunity. And then you approach, shoes scuffing the floor, and Sou tenses as you crouch before him. Your face is curiously blank, but maybe that's only because you know you don't need to gloat. You smile.
"I'll make you thank me next time," is all you say. Before he can muster a response to that, you card a hand quickly through his hair, stand, and leave the room. He faintly hears you join up with Keiji and Alice in the lobby, assure them that he'll be there in a minute. Fists clenched, Sou glares at his shoes.
His laces have come untied again.