#oc: minami yamane

[adarlingmess]

I haven’t drawn these two in a hot minute

[adarlingwrites]

Dormouse

Summary:

After playing a game with two of The Beach's most dangerous members, the dormouse gets her tail caught by a tiger's paw.

He’ll make a wildcat out of her.

Author’s notes: Surprise, have a double update! Have another chapter of light-hearted dialogue and self-indulgent smut featuring my favorite song from one of my favorite bands. Lord knows these two deserve it because of what I have planned in future chapters.

I watch you taste it, I see your face, and I know I'm alive | you're shooting stars from the barrel of your eyes | it drives me crazy, just drives me wild

XI

The next morning, the air is cold and crisp, and the sun barely provides any warmth as it kisses Takatora’s skin. Yamaneko is thankful for what little heat it provided her this morning, warming her ever so slightly. The rest was taken care of by the warm cup of coffee in her hand.

One of the Beach’s mechanics was busy checking the tires of the vintage four by four they’ll be using to grab supplies as the duo approached him. In the car is the girl that Yamaneko saw arriving with her father, whose face contorts into horror when she sees the two militants approaching.

“Tatta,” she calls out to her companion, panicking. “Militants!”

The young man, who seems like he’s around Yamaneko’s age, turns around and practically jumps, a look of unbridled panic on his face as the two approached him.

“Drive,” Yamaneko tells him, going right ahead and opening the door to the back of the car. The girl jumps off the back in a hurry, moving to the passenger seat in the front, nervously glancing at Tatta. The militants sat in the back.

The poor boy was shaking, clumsily pushing the key into the slot and turning it, the engine roaring to life.

“Um… where to?” Tatta asks the two of them. The girl next to him busied herself by looking outside the window, the sun imbuing her bronze skin with a golden hue and the breeze blowing through her shoulder-length hair.

“Shimokitazawa,” Yamaneko says mid-yawn. “Just drop us off there and you can go on with your supply run. Pick us up in the afternoon.”

“Got it,” he replies, stiff as a board in the driver’s seat.

Yamaneko notices their unease. Flicking her coffee stirrer towards the front, she laughs as the two flinches. “Relax. If we wanted to hurt you, we would’ve done it by now. We just want a ride, that’s all.”

The girl shifts in her seat and gives Yamaneko a nervous smile. “So, what are your names?”

“Just call me Yamaneko. He’s called Last Boss.”

“Your friend doesn’t talk much, does he?” the girl asks, each syllable spoken with caution. “I-I mean not like it’s a bad thing…”

The militant woman smirks, taking a sip of her coffee. “Yeah. He’s the quiet type. What about you two newbies? Care to introduce yourselves?”

The boy and the girl glance at each other, as if gauging who should go first. “I’m Kodai Tatta,” the boy answers, then the girl opens her mouth to talk. “Zia Hinata.”

“Zia, huh? Not a lot of Japanese girls have that name. Is one of your parents a foreigner?”

When Hinata doesn’t respond, Last Boss leans over and glares at her. She yelps, and takes a deep breath. “Y-yeah! My mother is Filipino,” she near-exclaims, pitch rising an octave or two.

Yamaneko puts a hand on Last Boss’ arm and laughs. “No need for that. She’s obviously just scared of us.”

She can practically hear the sigh of relief Hinata lets out from where she’s sitting when he withdraws.

“Saw you arrive a few days ago,” Yamaneko comments. “It looks like Niragi has taken an interest in you.”

The sharp exhale Hinata gives her says it all. “Yeah.”

“Word of advice? Niragi tries to break anyone who makes his cock hard. If he attempts to fuck you, just try to pretend that he doesn’t faze you. He thrives off of his victims’ fear.”

Tatta almost swerves into a barricade, and he exhales a few times while fixing the cap on his head, while Hinata presses a palm on her forehead. The boy with the cap gives his companion a nervous, concerned glance.

“Yeah, well, about that… I knew him before I ended up in this place. So, I doubt that will work,” Hinata mentions, nervously picking at the skin around her fingernails.

“He’s a bastard even back then, huh?”

“Actually, no. He was my upperclassman. I was his only friend in middle school. He was nothing like that back then… Now he’s, well, evil. And he won’t leave me alone. Supply runs with Tatta are my only escape.”

“Well, this is awkward,” Yamaneko comments, cringing and gulping the rest of her coffee. She tosses the cup, the wind carrying it away. “Thanks for confirming that he’s always been a loser though. Good luck getting that bastard off your back.”

The rest of the ride is filled with uncomfortable silence, with Yamaneko having given up on making small talk with the new citizens of the Beach. Perhaps it comes with her status as a militant. People were told to avoid them to avoid trouble after all, and she couldn’t blame Hinata being cautious around them after her experience with Niragi.

As they approached Shimokitazawa, Yamaneko’s sleepiness wears off entirely and a smile laden with nostalgia sweeps across her face. Quaint little shops of vintage clothes lined up in the streets, along with abandoned cafes, record stores, and bookstores. Even Last Boss’ interest seems piqued, eyes lively as they pass by the storefronts. Tatta takes in the sights as well, mouth open in wonder, and half of Hinata’s body is practically outside the window as she gawks at the colorful neighborhood, the street murals a welcome change from the half-naked bodies of the Beach.

They stopped outside a cafe, and the two militants hopped off. Tatta doesn’t drive off though, still impressed by this odd little neighborhood in the middle of the once-bustling Tokyo.

“Hey! Don’t you two have a supply run?” Yamaneko shouts playfully, while Last Boss is already wandering off to check the place out.

“Sorry! I got distracted,” Hinata shouts, then she pauses. “I wanted to do a mural in a place like this.”

“Then hurry up so you can do that later,” Yamaneko replies, one hand on her hip.

“Y-yeah! We’ll come back to pick you up from the same spot in the afternoon,” Hinata shouts back, and she ducks her head as she sits back down in the car. She looks to her companion, and whispers, “Let’s hurry. I wanna explore this place later, too.”

Tatta smiles at her, and drives away.

As the car speeds off, Yamaneko turns around and runs after her lover, who stopped in front of a bookstore. The female militant wraps an arm around his, and leans against his bicep. “You wanna check out this shop first?”

Takatora nods, and they enter the store together, the bell making a faint chiming sound as he pushes the door open. Books, manga, trinkets, and other items lined up on the shelves; an impulse-buyer’s worst temptation, and a book lover’s dream. Like a child let loose in a candy store, Yamaneko grabs a basket and starts to rifle through the assorted items.

“My sister told me about this neighborhood, you know,” she comments offhand as she continued looking through the items. “Aside from Harajuku, this is the other place I used to blow my allowance on.”

A small smile tugs at Takatora’s lips, watching as his lover adds knick-knacks and other clutter in her basket, and he turns to browse some books.

Some time later, Yamaneko comes behind him and buries her face on his back.

“Found anything you like?” she asks, and the taller militant turns around to face her, a few blank notebooks tucked under his arms, and a mountaineering encyclopedia in his hands. He folds the encyclopedia and holds it out for her to see, and he has a sheepish expression on his face. Yamaneko holds out her basket, and he drops the items in with an uncharacteristic gentleness.

“I didn’t know you’re into mountaineering,” she comments.

“Not really. Explorers. But I couldn’t find a book about them.”

“Oh? Who’s your favorite explorer?”

“Robert Edwin Peary,” Takatora responds, and Yamaneko smiles.

“Tell me about him.”

She listened to Takatora talk, trying to fight the huge smile from blooming on her lips as she heard him say anything more than a short sentence. As she listened to him talk about how Peary lost his toes to frostbite, she packed their items with care in a shopping bag, then they moved on to the next store.

They pass by a small sukajan store, and a cold breeze that sends chills up Yamaneko’s spine urges her to check it out. Various bomber jackets with beautiful, intricate embroidery hung from the shop walls, and she couldn’t help but admire the artistry in each stitch. A particular jacket caught her eye, a black one with a roaring tiger and peach blossoms embroidered on it.

She tiptoes to reach it, but her shorter stature prevents her from taking it, fingers barely brushing the hem of the jacket. Amused, Takatora extends his arm and takes it from the rack, and hands it to the shorter militant. After muttering an embarrassed “thank you”, Yamaneko puts on the jacket, and admires herself at the dirty mirror nearby.

“This jacket reminds me of you,” she says to her lover. He responded by pulling her close, silently asking for a kiss.

Yamaneko responds by tenderly pressing her lips onto his. Before he can taste her with his tongue, she pulls away and gives him a devious smirk with half-lidded eyes. “If we continue this, we would end up spending the day just fucking. There’s more places I want to see, c’mon.”

Looking at her with longing, Takatora relents, nodding. He follows her out of the store, and they pass by several shops and cafes before ending up in an antique shop by noon. He was taken aback when Yamaneko squealed, and she ran towards the glass storefront. There, she marvels at an antique sewing machine, eyes glittering with excitement.

“It’s a Singer,” she gasps, trying to contain her excitement. Pushing through the entrance, she rushes in and lets her hands wander over the black finish of the machine. Meanwhile, Takatora leans at the door, mouth tugging upward upon witnessing his lover’s excitement.

“We’re taking this back to the Beach. I don’t give a shit, I’m not leaving this here.”

“If that’s what you want, Yamaneko,” Takatora responds, walking over to ruffle her hair.

As she fusses over the machine, he explores the rest of the shop. Aside from the old typewriter that he decided he will be hauling back to the Beach too, an old instant camera on a dusty counter catches his eye. Long fingers gingerly pick up the Polaroid, and brushes the dust off of the item. Under the counter are boxes of old film, and he reads the instructions on the back.

The sound of a shutter breaks Yamaneko out of her trance, and she turns around to see her lover holding a Polaroid and a photograph, waiting for her image to show up on the paper. She grins and nudges him.

“Nice find,” she says.

Takatora aims the camera at her again, and Yamaneko smiles for him. Sweet. Inviting. One that she hasn’t given anyone in a long time.

As they wait for the photographs to develop, the wildcat saunters over to a vintage Sansui turntable, browsing the pre-loved vinyl records piled neatly beside it. Ranging from the 50s to the early 2010s, Yamaneko browsed through them, most of which are from UK and US musicians. Her English wasn’t the best, so she just picked what she thinks looked most interesting; a vinyl record whose cover had a white owl imposed on a black background as the album art.

Behind her, her tiger prowls, pressing himself against her back as she places the needle on the vinyl. He buries his face in her hair, taking in her scent, and his free hand roams her body, while the other still holds the Polaroid. Through his black pants, he’s already at half-mast, and Yamaneko giggles at her lover’s earnest desire to have her.

“It’s already noon. Those two will be back soon,” he whispers. “Can we do it here?”

She spins around, pulls him by his jacket, and plants a hard kiss on his mouth, restraint slipping away. The camera makes a light clatter as Takatora puts it down on the pile of records, both of his hands cupping his lover’s face as he kisses her deep, permission to taste her granted when she parts her mouth.

Reaching behind, Yamaneko undoes the strings of her top, which she pulls and tosses to the nearest surface. Spindly hands grab the soft mounds on her chest, squeezing hard enough to draw a whine from her. The wildcat throws her head back, and her lover swoops in to assault her neck with kisses as his fingers fondled her nipples.

Before he can lean down to suckle on them, Yamaneko kneels and undoes his belt, pulls his trousers down, and licks at the skin on his flat stomach. Damp and hot against her cheek, she rubs her face against his clothed cock, smiling impishly as she teases him and draws a rasp from his throat.

Deft fingers pull the rest of the fabric down and the tattooed militant’s cock springs out of his boxers, stiffening from all of his lover’s teasing. At a torturous pace, Yamaneko drags her tongue from the underside of his shaft all the way to the tip, encloses her lips around the head, and pulls back with a lewd pop. One of his hands grasps at her wild hair, holding on for dear life.

She looks at the camera from the corner of her eyes. “I have an idea,” she croons against the angry, blushing head of his cock. “Why don’t you go ahead and take more photos to remember me by?”

Her lover gulps, cock twitching from the request. “Are you sure?”

“I wouldn’t suggest it if I wasn’t,” Yamaneko hums, and gives his head one teasing lick.

Grabbing the camera again, Takatora could barely aim it properly as Yamaneko finally went ahead and took his whole length in her mouth, soft lips sliding against his shaft as she bobbed and twisted her head at every stroke. Small hands grasping his length, she opens her mouth to stick out her tongue, and presses it on the underside of his head, holding that position long enough to let him take a photo.

As soon as she hears a click, Yamaneko goes back to work, this time enclosing his balls with her warm, wet mouth as her hand stroked him, humming in delight as she drew a lengthier rasp from her tattooed lover, his head thrown back in bliss. Afterwards, her mouth goes back on his length, and she goes all the way to the base of his dick, doing her best not to choke. Yamaneko pauses so he can get a picture, looking at him with an inky, black tear running down her cheek.

The sight almost drove her tiger wild, who began to fuck her mouth hungrily, gaze searing as he watched his length disappear in her loving mouth. More tears start to stream down out of his lover’s eyes, which remains fixed on his, and wet, lewd sounds fill the shop, accompanied by her choked moans and the music blaring from the Sansui.

“So good… You make me feel so damn good,” Takatora whispers, breath rasping as he continued to violate her mouth.

Legs shaking, his breathing quickens as he comes closer to the end, and he presses Yamaneko’s face against his hips, grunting as he floods her mouth with his cum. Her throat constricted around him as she struggled to swallow the load, overflowing from the corner of her mouth, mixing with the creamy formula of her lipstick. Takatora pulls her head away from him, and predicting what follows, Yamaneko grabs her jacket and opens it wide, the fabric sliding off of her shoulders, letting the next spurt of his cum land on her face and breasts. Panting heavily as she gasped for air, she looked up to him, a satisfied smile on her open mouth, and she milked the rest of his come onto her tongue.

With an unstable hand, Takatora photographed all of those moments, letting the instant film fall to the ground. They’ll pick those up later.

For now, he picks up his lover and puts her on a nearby surface, a delicately-varnished, antique wooden table. Clumsily, he loads the Polaroid with another box of film, and takes more photographs. Makeup ruined, smiling, and naked from the waist up, she lies on the table to catch her breath, beads of cum dripping to the side of her breasts. He preserves the fleeting moment with another click of the camera, then he puts it down beside her. He kissed her skin and tasted himself in the process.

A warm tongue flicks on the wildcat’s hardened nipple, and she moans as Takatora toys with them, flicking them back and forth with a finger, swirling his tongue around it, then putting it in his mouth. The sucking motion makes her hips buck against him, her juices staining her underwear from her arousal.

Frantic and greedy, he pulls those away, and photographs her naked body. He dips two fingers in the entrance of her pussy, and the wildcat arches her back, a low moan rumbling from her throat, while her lover takes another shot, this time including her face, twisted from lust. Then, he gets to work, setting the camera aside once more, and shoving his face against her crotch.

Long fingers assaulted her hole, stroking at a sensitive spot, while his tongue played with her swollen clitoris, earning him a sustained moan. With his free arm, the tattooed militant takes one of his lover’s legs and hooks it over his shoulder, his cheek resting on her creamy thighs as he continued to fuck her with his hand.

Yamaneko cracks her eyes open, and sees their reflection on a mirror right across them. She picks up the Polaroid, her turn to capture the private moments between the two of them. Her lover's lips, stained with her juices, seal against her sensitive bud and she almost drops the camera from the way it made her feel, her legs quivering and toes curling from the sensation.

She swore she heard him chuckle against her with a near-sinister tone.

Just when she thought he couldn’t push her any further after that, he adds a third finger, and his pace turns brutal. Yamaneko’s hands scramble for purchase against the varnished, wooden surface, trying to find an edge she can cling to. A searing, almost painful pleasure builds in her core, which bursts and sets her on fire as a fourth finger fills her, the stretch pushing her over the edge.

White spots filled the wildcat’s vision as she came, crying and moaning as she rode his fingers. They pull out of her ruined pussy, a wet, sloppy mess staining the antique table, earning him a whine.

Yamaneko rolls over, panting and resting on her stomach, the sound of the shutter clicking again. Arching her back, she puts on a show for her lover, smiling as he used up the last of the film. She relaxes as he busies himself with loading the last box of film.

“Do you want to keep going?” he asks her, a hand on her ass, gently squeezing the globe of muscle and fat. His cock, semi-hard again, rests between her buttocks.

“Yeah. Can we go slow at first?” Yamaneko replies, looking over her shoulder.

“Sure.”

With unexpected tenderness, he parts her legs, and tucks his cock inside her. He pulls her jacket down halfway, exposing her upper back, and he presses his lips on her skin, sucking at the back of her neck. This makes his wildcat arch her back, throwing her head back in desire. Her walls clench around him, which makes him harden further. His tongue traced circles on her shoulder as he started to rock his hips again.

Yamaneko moans his name as he clamps his mouth down on her good shoulder, the scrape of his teeth shooting pleasure down her spine.

Each thrust is torturous, deliberate. A staccato of gasps filled the space as the head of his cock kissed a sensitive spot deep inside her with each stroke, accompanying the music. Sucking hard on her neck, Takatora’s hand moves to her breasts, fondling them as he went on with his ministrations. One arm propping herself up, and another reaching for the Polaroid, Yamaneko takes a photograph of the tender moment through the mirror, and she sets the camera down, content in letting her lover take over and be in charge of their collective pleasure.

Takatora takes off her jacket, and his hand presses itself on the small of her back. Her tiger leans over to whisper, lips brushing against the shell of her ear. “Can we go faster now?”

“Please, go as fast or rough as you want,” she moans, looking up to him. She braces herself, grabbing the edges of the table for what’s coming. “Use me, Takatora.”

He smiles, and grabs her neck to push her head against his chest. Takatora gives her a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss, their juices mixing together.

As soon as the kiss ended, she let out a strained moan as her lover bucks forward, sharp hips colliding with the soft flesh of her ass. Lewd sounds of flesh slapping together fills both of their ears as he fucked her forcefully, ruthlessly. Yamaneko’s holes quiver as Takatora repeatedly fills her, pussy squelching at each thrust, while his thumb hovers over her other entrance, teasing it, gathering the wetness from below and spreading it over the puckered hole.

“Should I put it in?” he rasps, and Yamaneko nods repeatedly, desperately.

“Fuck, yes, please!”

Grinning, panting, Takatora slides his dripping thumb in, and the tight ring of muscle constricts around it. The rest of his fingers grip her ass, pulling and pushing her against his cock. The action made Yamaneko throw her head back and scream as a wave of pleasure crashed through her body, the combined pressure of his cock and finger making her holes pulse simultaneously.

Another mind-numbing orgasm turns her limbs into jelly, and she sprawls on the desk. The aftershocks of her high milked the cum out of her lover’s cock, who grunts and gasps as he reaches his own release.

His thumb slides out of her first, then his member, and he lies on top of her, their sweat and other bodily fluids mingling together. He kisses his wildcat’s neck, covered with a film of salty sweat, and gently cups her face to press his lips against hers.

“Good?” Yamaneko asks, and he nods.

The taller militant’s weight leaves her, and she felt exposed. He retrieves her clothes, and she gets up to sit at the edge of the table. Helping her get dressed, Takatora gives her a small, bashful smile. “Good?” he asks her in return.

Yamaneko smiles back and nods, glancing tenderly. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he replies.

When their clothes are back where they should belong, the pair started picking up the scattered photographs from the floor. Everything looked scandalous, save for Yamaneko’s photograph where her back was turned from the camera, and the one where she smiles at him.

Takatora decides that those are his favorites, out of all of them.

As they went out of the store, they saw the four by four parked nearby. They didn’t even notice the other two coming back earlier.

Around the corner, Tatta and Hinata sit on the sidewalk, chatting amongst themselves, and behind them is a street mural with fresh paint. When Yamaneko approaches, the boy couldn’t look at the militant, his cap shadowing his face, and Hinata nervously glances at her, dried paint on her flushed cheeks.

“Ah, hey Yamaneko! Um, you two were busy, so Tatta and I just worked on this while waiting for you,” Hinata tries to say with a straight face. She fails. “Don’t worry we didn’t see much. We’re so sorry,” she continues, and both of them bow in apology.

So they did see them.

Yamaneko cackles at her scandalized expression. “What are you two, children? Your parents more or less did the same thing to make you. You’ll see even more of that action at the Beach in public. Get over it and help us load our stuff.”

Hinata clears her throat and nods, standing up and avoiding looking at her. Tatta follows suit, walking like he broke a leg, one hand covering the front of his shorts.

“Hell, you two might as well enjoy each other’s company too,” Yamaneko adds, shouting after them.

Without seeing their faces, she just knows the blush on their faces got deeper.

[adarlingmess]

my self-indulgent bullshit is getting out of hand so have more AiB stuff, this time with OC x canon interactions

Yamaneko has a pseudo-paternal relationship with Aguni and he can’t help but worry about her relationship with Last Boss sometimes

it’s like learning to trust teenagers not to do something stupid but it gets hard when they say shit like this. they’re much more easier to keep in line compared to Niragi tho

[adarlingmess]

...I have no decent explanation for this

full view is on darlingaftrdark on twitter for you sinners

[adarlingmess]

fuck this was just supposed to be simple anatomy practice but it turned into him™

I just found it strange that Last Boss asked the tattoo artist to tattoo something all over his body but we only see facial and arm tattoos both in his manga and live-action depictions, so this happened

the idea of him having a tiger tattoo on his chest was inspired by a fic by @nessinborderland​ seriously check it out!!!

bonus stuff with my OC Minami Yamane/Yamaneko because I sketched out a female body too and it just

turned into her

my self control is in shambles

[adarlingmess]

Surprise, the Last Boss x OC brainrot hasn’t left me yet!

I’m still knee-deep in academic work but I took a much needed break and tried my improved inking and coloring style on these two’s portraits before I apply it to my thesis output oof

anyway if anyone wants to read me word vomit about my thoughts about these two, it’s all under the cut

26 cm/10 inch height difference. Last Boss is taller, but Yamaneko’s muscles are denser.

I kind of based Last Boss’ age on his actor’s, and judging from his manga appearance and his mother’s appearance, I think we’re within the correct range. Yamaneko’s born March 3, 1998, so that makes her 23 during the events of the game.

Neither uses conventional pet names. Last Boss was the one to give Yamaneko her nickname/moniker, but everyone else uses it now, so it doesn’t count. Yamaneko affectionately calls Takatora “tiger” or shortens his name to “Tora” only when no one is around.

Being militants, they have a reputation to protect, so neither really engages in PDA much. Last Boss is a quiet man, so he prefers letting his lover physically feel his affection instead, but he will respond to “I love you”.

Oh boy. He’s just quiet about it, but Takatora can be quite the jealous monster. My headcanon is his jealous tendencies stem from the fact that he felt unworthy of human interaction in the past, and Yamaneko’s one of the few people who interacts with him. When jealous, he needs to be reassured and often physically. Yamaneko is more secure in their relationship, but when she gets jealous, she’ll need some space to think things through and avoid saying anything that might hurt him.

Between the two of them, Yamaneko is more chill because she knows how capable her lover is in the games, and oftentimes, she’d head to the meeting room after games because she knows she’ll see Last Boss among the executives. On the other hand, Last Boss worries about her in the games, especially when she’s separated from the group and he couldn’t protect her. Expect him to seek her out immediately after a game. As much as possible, he wants to stay by her side at all times, like a second shadow.

Yamaneko was forced to confess to him in a Heart game and asks him to kiss her after the game.

Yamaneko is first to say both daisuki and aishiteru, but it takes some time for her to use the “heavier” I love you. And the situation is heavy for her to use it too.

Like what’s mentioned above, Last Boss is more worried about his lover than she is for him. Aside from the games, he’s worried about Yamaneko disappearing from his life. Even though she had expressed the desire to stay in the Borderland, she hasn’t completely turned her back from her fashion design dream, and he doesn’t know what to do if she’s given the opportunity to trade her life now for the one that she always wanted.

As someone who was kicked out at 18 and had to enter the workforce early, Yamaneko budgeted her meager salary well enough for her to rent out a studio apartment by the time she was 20. Her major in college before she got expelled for intentionally flunking it was Business Administration too, and she remembers some of what she learned. Conversely, Last Boss was coddled by his mother and is sheltered, so he doesn’t know jack shit about finances. In the Borderland, money doesn’t matter, but Yamaneko still fares better, having the initiative to stock up on goods like food, water, and fuel, while Last Boss mostly floundered about before being invited to the Beach.

I headcanon Last Boss to be a virgin, tbh. He’s that isolated from other people. Meanwhile, Yamaneko was a maneater in high school, and is definitely far more experienced. When she was disowned at 18, she had to do some shady things to survive too, including compensated dating.

Yamaneko is a deeper sleeper and is the type of person who needs more than 8 hours of sleep to feel well-rested so she tends to wake up later. Last Boss is skinnier and tends to get cold easy, so he hoards blankets when they’re available.

Even in the Borderland where he’s known as a menacing entity, Last Boss is still a shy and quiet man. Yamaneko becomes a chatterbox when she’s comfortable with the person she’s speaking to.

As mentioned above, Yamaneko had to fend for herself since 18, while Last Boss was coddled as hell, so it takes some time for him to be useful in the kitchen. It doesn’t bother Yamaneko though.

It’s not that Last Boss doesn’t know how to apologize when he’s in the wrong, he doesn’t know how to use his words. Yamaneko breathed the word “sorry” on a daily basis in her difficult upbringing, so she apologized for the most minor transgressions, perceived or real, and it bled to her romantic/sexual relationships.

heehee Last Boss ticklish

I’m a Deftones fan I’m sorry that their songs are all from the band lmfao

Entombed is their main song and describes the general progression of their relationship. Key Lyrics: From the day you arrived / I've remained on your side / In chains, entombed.

Beauty School is more about the physical aspect of their relationship. Sex is one of the few times they allow themselves to be vulnerable. Key Lyrics: I like you when / When you take off your face / Put away all your teeth / And take us way underneath 

Rosemary reflects how their relationship is influenced by the Borderland. They’re both lonely souls, albeit in different ways, and the Borderland is a means of an escape to them. Now, they’re fulfilling their escapist tendencies together, and neither wants to leave each other or the new world they’re in. Key Lyrics: Stay with me / As we cross the empty skies / Come sail with me / We play in dreams / As we cross through space and time / Just stay with me

Sidenote: Last Boss’ appearance here is different from his Netflix depiction as an attempt to reconcile it with his manga design, and I added some new tattoos as seen in my other post

[adarlingmess]

t-them

self-indulgent Last Boss x OC sketch dump because thesis had me stressed (tm)

[adarlingmess]

Finally sketched out my edgy dumpster fire of an OC’s design... sort of. Yamane’s appearance changes throughout her time in the borderland so I made a handy dandy ref sheet for myself, and for my readers to have an idea of what she looks like

You can read my fanfic Dormouse at my writing blog @adarlingwrites

[adarlingmess]

When their clothes are back where they should belong, the pair started picking up the scattered photographs from the floor. Everything looked scandalous, save for Yamaneko’s photograph where her back was turned from the camera, and the one where she smiles at him.

Takatora decides that those are his favorites, out of all of them.

Dormouse: Chapter XI [ tumblr | ao3 ]

Self-indulgent illustrations of my AIB OC featuring a scene from the fanfic I’m currently writing! This is from the chapter where she takes a breather from the Beach, drags her boyfriend Last Boss along with her, and well, things get a little bit heated when they explored an antique store. Read the rest of the chapters on @adarlingwrites!

Close ups:

[adarlingwrites]

Dormouse

Summary:

After playing a game with two of The Beach's most dangerous members, the dormouse gets her tail caught by a tiger's paw.

He’ll make a wildcat out of her.

Author’s notes: Huge spoilers for episode 8 and the manga.

TW: blood, references to past self harm.

Edit 5/5/2021: Fleshed out a scene involving Aguni and Yamane’s arm injuries.

VI

propaganda is in our flesh and blood and we rejoice in the control of others / euphoria – poisoning the minds of the future / and it is turning our kids to murder, to murder

A few floors below them, as Last Boss trails his fingers behind Yamane’s legs to point out a few more arteries, their chief converses with his friend, a secret no other Beach members knew.

“That girl is concerning me,” Aguni admits, crossing his arms. “Accepting her in the military sect might have been a mistake. The kid couldn’t even kill without the guilt gnawing her alive. She’s innocent compared to the likes of Niragi.”

“But isn’t that a good thing, Mori?” Hatter asks, leaning back into the sofa and putting his arms behind his back. “She’s a stabilizing element. It might help you with keeping the violent members of the Beach in check by having someone with her restraint around,” he continues, chuckling as he puts his feet up on the coffee table between the sofas. “Plus, it’ll help me sleep better knowing that the military sect of our utopia has members who aren’t simple, mindless killers.”

Aguni’s brow furrows. “Takeru, I’m afraid she’d become more like those two who took her here. I asked Saiko what she knew about that girl. That girl has problems that could drive her over the edge.”

At Aguni’s response, the Hatter smiles and moves to sit next to his friend. “Reminds you too much of yourself?”

Aguni merely nods.

“Remember that quote by Gandhi that I said to recruit the first members of the Beach, Mori? ‘Be the change you want to see in the world.’ Do what you can to help her stay sane.”

Nodding, he pats Hatter’s back.

Above them, another militant was heading towards the balcony. “Last Boss, there’s- whoa. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

The other man stopped in his tracks when he saw the silent militant kneeling in front of a woman.

“I-it’s not what it looks like,” Yamane blurts out, stepping away from the tattooed militant.

The interrupter gave her an awkward nod and rubs the back of his head. Seeing Last Boss with a woman came as a surprise to him; the tattooed man was known for keeping to himself instead of sleeping around like Niragi. Last Boss turns around to give the interrupter a sour look.

“There’s a group of traitors who kept their cards from the previous game. We gotta get rid of them,” the man says, averting his gaze from the two of them.

Last Boss unsheathes his sword, and he turns to Yamane, motioning her to follow.

“Wait- me?” Yamane asks, blood running cold.

“Part of our duty is to discreetly kill traitors,” the other militant says. “Didn’t they tell you that when you came here?”

Gulping, Yamane wordlessly follows the two. It’s finally sinking in; her role in the military sect meant dealing with not just most physical games, but these ugly matters as well.

They walked all the way to the basement, and the other militant waited outside, keeping watch. There were three people kneeling, eyes and mouth bound by duct tape. Their arms and legs are bound as well. Yamane recognizes one of them as the medic that helped Sunohara treat Last Boss’ injuries.

“Go ahead,” Last Boss tells her, kicking a bucket in front of the captive.

Yamane freezes at his command. Eyes flicking towards the captive, she could see the sweat dripping from his skin as he struggled in futility. The taller militant advances on her, tilting her chin with his fingers, and the words don't come to her.

“Put what I taught you into practice. This is the perfect opportunity.”

The dormouse’s only response is a slow, nervous nod. Her small fingers reach for the dagger from her holster, and she kneels behind the bound medic, who was thrashing and sobbing as her other hand pushed his head down.

A gasp escapes Yamane as Last Boss knelt behind her as well, wiry arms guiding her, and his hand over hers. Warm breaths on her neck and his proximity made Yamane feel the heat surge between her legs again, mind muddled by a cocktail of fear and lust hormones. The dagger presses into the victim’s skin, and with Last Boss’ guidance, they make a quick slash to the artery, blood pumping and draining out to the bucket.

“Good Yamaneko,” he whispers, not letting go of her despite the deed being done. His scent engulfs her, and Yamane chokes back a moan, disguising by clearing her throat.

“Let’s move on to the others,” she whispers, moving away from him.

Later that night, in an attempt to purge the mental image of slicing three people’s throats, Yamane’s feet bring her to the loud merrymaking at the pool. She grabs one drink, and sits in a corner. It helps that her status as a militant meant people left her alone.

It didn’t stop Sunohara from sitting next to her, though.

“You really shouldn’t be drinking alcohol while you’re taking tramadol, you know,” she casually mentions, lighting a cigarette. Smoke wafts to Yamane’s face and she waves it away with her free hand. “I thought doctors advise people to stay away from cigarettes, why are you smoking?”

Sunohara laughs. “Touche. I guess I can’t stop you. Just don’t drink before a game. It’ll make you drowsy.”

“Sure, I’ll keep it in mind.”

In consideration, Sunohara blows the smoke away from Yamane’s direction. “So, what was your game tonight? You had so much blood on you.”

“A Spade.”

“I’m not surprised,” Sunohara comments, taking another hit of her cigarette. “Physical games tend to get messy. Though, Heart games can get messy too.”

Now Yamane’s interest is piqued. She never had a heart game before. “What’s in a Heart game?”

“Ah, never played one before? Heart games play with, well, your heart.”

“That’s not very reassuring,” Yamane replies, taking a sip of her cocktail. “What do you mean by it plays with your heart?”

Sunohara flicks her spent cigarette away and crushes it with her sandal. “They’re psychological, the type that uses your emotions to make a fool out of you. They mislead you into thinking that you’d have to do something terrible, but losses can be avoided if you think things through and don’t let your emotions get the best of you.”

“You sound like you’ve seen a lot of Heart games, Sunohara,” Yamane comments, setting her empty drink down.

“Not really. Just two. When you’re a doctor like me, you need to be calm in an emergency. Assess the situation properly, and give proper treatment. I just applied my experiences.”

Sunohara stands up to shake off the ash from her coat, and gives Yamane a smile. “I need to go. My assistant disappeared on me and I need to check the medication supply.”

With that, she sets off. Yamane gulps the last of her drink, and guilt drops like a heavy stone in her stomach. That assistant must have been the man she executed.

Drowsiness settling in, she needs to rest for the games. Unlike when she was surviving on her own, Beach members play them every night regardless of how many days they have left on their visas. Yamane lies on the bed, but her body is still buzzing. She recounts her experiences for the day, and her mind wanders back to the time she spent with Last Boss.

Against her better judgment, her fingers trail downward to the waistband of her shorts, and she pulls them off of her legs, underwear coming off with it. A string of her juices coats her finger as she glided it against her folds.

The little dormouse pleasures herself that night thinking about the tiger above her, fantasizing about him doing unspeakable things to her body. She comes quietly, intensely. Then, she drifts off, the post-orgasmic bliss calming her down.

The next morning, she wakes up feeling worse.

Sluggish, she climbs out of bed, and goes to the bathroom. The blood had come off of her clothes now, so she scrubbed them, rinsed them, took them out of the sink and hung them to dry. In the middle of hanging up her skirt, her stomach rumbles. She forgot to eat last night.

At the lobby, the usual banquet is set out for the residents. Yamane takes all the food she can fit on a plate, goes back up to her room, and eats in peace. She’ll need the strength and energy to survive tonight.

She didn’t know if she should be dismayed or relieved that she’s not grouped with Niragi and Last Boss in the game tonight. Instead, she was grouped with Saiko, Sunohara, Aguni, and another Beach member that she hasn’t spoken to yet. One of them wears a plain white hood, a distant, sly look on his face. They all went through the laser grid, and there were enough phones for ten players.

Soon, other participants arrived.

This game takes place in a hospital, and various implements are laid on the table. Yamane takes note of them; stress balls, large needles, blood bags, scalpels, and buckets. Sunohara was eyeing them as well, deep in thought.

In the middle of the room was a large electronic weighing scale.

“Registration closed. There are currently eight players. Difficulty: Five of Hearts.”

Ice runs through Yamane’s veins. Just last night she was talking to Sunohara about Heart games, and here she was.

“Game: Bloodletting. Rules: There is a bomb in this building. Players must spill enough blood to defuse them all. Time limit: thirty minutes.”

“Spill blood? This should be easy,” Saiko comments, loading her gun.

“Game Start!”

At the cue, Saiko shoots an unaffiliated player dead. Yamane’s eyes widen in surprise, while Sunohara screams, bracing herself against a medical gurney. Aguni is quiet, looking at the corpse, while the man with the white hood rolls his eyes. The others were too shocked to say anything.

“Not enough blood is spilled,” the robotic voice announces.

“Dammit!” Saiko shouts, shooting another player dead. The other one tries to flee, but she makes quick work of her.

“Not enough blood is spilled,” the robotic voice continues.

Saiko points the gun at Sunohara, but Yamane shoves her aside. “Idiot. It didn’t work the first time, what makes you think that it’ll work the fourth time?”

“Huh. Will you look at that. A militant that isn’t entirely stupid,” the man in white comments in a sing-song voice. Saiko turns to him and points her gun. “Would you rather I shoot you, Chishiya?”

“Saiko. Enough,” Aguni commands, crouching to look at the fallen man. “Your strategy clearly doesn’t work.”

Collecting herself, Sunohara sighs. “This is a Heart game. The rules aren’t what they seem. Look around you, there are implements for blood transfusion, and a weighing scale in the middle of the room. The game’s name is ‘Bloodletting’ too.”

“Let’s use the dead’s blood to fill the buckets then,” Aguni suggests. “How long does it take to drain the blood from a man his size?”

“A man that size looks like he has about 1.5 gallons of blood. That’s roughly 5.6 liters, enough to fill ten blood bags, which holds 525 milliliters of blood,” Chishiya comments. “The heart pumps five liters of blood per minute, but that man is dead.” 

Saiko and Yamane look at him with bewilderment. “He’s a medical student. I was his senior,” Sunohara comments sheepishly. “But, still, each transfusion would last eight to ten minutes, and that’s on someone alive. There wouldn’t be enough time for us to drain all their blood before the building blows up.”

“It’s still worth the try,” Yamane comments, taking a bucket. She kneels in front of one of the dead players, takes a deep breath to steady her hands, and applies what she learned from Last Boss the night before, the blood spilling into the bucket. Horrified, Sunohara could only watch as Yamane worked. Aguni takes a scalpel and starts to drain the other dead player as well.

“Twenty minutes remaining.”

The doctor takes a steadying breath when she takes a scalpel and kneels. The rest follow suit except for Chishiya, who merely observes. Soon, they were moving buckets of blood to the weighing scale.

“Not enough blood is spilled,” the robotic voice chimes in, and Saiko groans. Sunohara is nervously eyeing the militants, including Yamane, while Chishiya smirks. Impatient, Saiko points her gun at Chishiya again, and Sunohara gets in the way, eyes defiant.

“Get out of my face before I blow your face off instead of his,” Saiko hisses, but Sunohara remains firm. “Stop. I’m not letting anyone else die. This is a Heart game! It’s deliberately fucking with your head to make you think that killing each other is the only solution.”

“There’s something in the rules you’re all overlooking,” Chishiya comments, unfazed. “The rules said players must spill enough blood.”

Upon hearing his remark, Yamane has an epiphany. “Maybe it meant that we should all fill a bag?”

Chishiya smirks.

“Ten minutes remaining.”

Sunohara rushes to gather the blood bags and stress balls, giving them to the remaining players. “We better hurry,” she says, panting. “Hold out your arms,” she instructs. “Chishiya, don’t just stand there, help me!”

He gives her a cheeky smile and gets to work.

Plunging the needle in Yamane’s arm, Chishiya gives her a look. “You’re too clever for this lot.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she responds. “Let’s just focus on the game.”

“Fair.”

Soon, everyone had their needles inserted in their veins. “Now what?” Saiko asks, scowling.

“Squeeze those stress balls!” Sunohara directs, and everyone starts. Slowly but steady, they all fill a bag.

“Five minutes remaining.”

“How long does this take again?” Saiko asks, still hard at squeezing. “Eight to ten minutes,” Sunohara replies, eyeing the weighing scale.

“Three minutes remaining.”

At that point, Yamane was cursing, bag filled only three-fourths of the way through. She looks to the other players’ bags.

“Two minutes remaining.”

Aguni is first to finish his bag, and Sunohara promptly helps him move it to the weighing scale. Chishiya follows, then Saiko, then Sunohara. Yamane’s bag still isn’t full.

“One minute remaining,” the robotic voice chirps again, and Yamane curses. “Hurry the hell up!” Saiko yells, distressed.

“Thirty seconds remaining.”

In desperation, Yamane grabs her bag, puts it on the scale, and takes one of her daggers to slash her arm, blood spilling on the weighing scale.

“Enough blood has been spilled. Game Clear. Congratulations!”

Collective relief rushes through the group. Yamane should be relieved herself, but now, blood continues to spill from her arm. “S-Sunohara, I won’t stop bleeding,” she gasps.

Cursing, Sunohara scrambles to find supplies to help stop the flow. But the pressure wasn't enough; Yamane continues to bleed all over the table. Aguni steps in, meaty palm pressing against the wound. As he kept the pressure on her arm, he notices a few scars on the surface of his underling's skin. Multiple stripes lined up on her wrist, and it only took one look for him to realize that they were self-inflicted. Sensing the discomfort in Yamane's gaze as she watched him stare at her scars, Aguni looks away.

Once the bleeding stopped, Sunohara treats Yamane’s arm, wrapping a bandage around it. “You’re lucky,” Sunohara comments. “The cut wasn’t deep enough to sever your radial artery. A little deeper, and you would be dead in two minutes.”

“Let’s go,” Aguni grunts, collecting the card from the round table that always shows up after a game.

Before they leave, Yamane eyes the bodies of the dead players Saiko shot, and she feels less horrified. Desensitized.

As soon as they arrived in the Beach, she passed through the pool, most of the Beach residents already hard at partying, and Yamane couldn’t stop the dread from creeping up her spine. These people probably saw other people die in a game tonight, yet they’re more than happy to forget all that with a drink and a good fuck.

“Maybe I should try drinking and fucking my sorrows away like them,” a small part of Yamane’s psych tells her. But her own thoughts are interrupted by the rumble of her stomach.

The blood loss made her ravenous, and she went directly to the banquet. Yamane didn’t even take the food back to her room; she just picked up whatever she found appealing and started eating right there. Biting into a chicken leg, Yamane didn’t care for what the onlookers thought. Sauce pooled in the corner of her mouth as she polished off the chicken, not a single shred of meat left on the bone.

“Yamaneko.”

Abruptly, she turns around to see Last Boss giving her an amused look.

Almost choking, Yamane forces herself to swallow the meat in her mouth. She couldn’t look him in the eye after pleasuring herself at the thought of him the night before. “Last Boss. Hey.”

She moves aside to allow him to gather his serving too. Yamane follows him afterwards to a secluded area afterwards, and he seemed to tolerate her presence, allowing her to sit next to him.

“Thank you for last night,” Yamane tells him. “It helped me clear my game tonight.”

Last Boss only stares at her as she ate, which made her self-conscious. She slowed her chewing, and when he didn’t stop, she turned to face him.

“Yes?”

Goosebumps ripple through Yamane’s skin again as the other militant brushes his thumb on her lips, towards the corner of her mouth. He proceeds to lick it off of his finger. Yamane’s entire face is red now, and she rubs the rest of the sauce off of her mouth with a napkin.

“Y-you could’ve just told me I have sauce on me.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” he finally speaks up.

Yamane just knew that she was going to spend nights touching herself to the thought of him again. Several nights.

Four days later, after a Club, a Diamond, and two Spade games, Yamane is given her new player tag. Number twenty five. She’s slowly becoming a seasoned player.

Every after game, Yamane sought out Last Boss’ company more and more. Whether they spoke or just sat in silence didn’t matter. He hasn’t told her to go away once, so Yamane continues to spend more time with him. People started to talk. Not like Yamane cared; she endured all of that in the real world, it doesn’t faze her anymore in this strange land. Soon, the thoughts of home started to dissipate from her psyche, preoccupied with the games and the twisted sense of acceptance she received from her fellow members of the Beach’s militia.

A day after Yamane’s Spade game, she received her next team assignment. She looks at her slip of paper and proceeds to look for other members. Last Boss locks eyes with her, and holds out his slip of paper. They were grouped with a couple who couldn’t get their hands off of each other in the backseat as Yamane drove. Last Boss sits next to her in the front seat, eyes occasionally wandering to her.

Yamane pretended not to notice, locking her eyes on the road.

Soon, they arrive at the game venue.

A love hotel.

As the two other Beach players walked towards the venue, Yamane leaned against the car, eyeing the neon sign. “This… this probably won't be a Spade game, huh?” she mumbles to her companion, whose mouth was slightly open.

“Ever been to a place like this before?” Yamane asks him, wrapping her arms around herself.

“No.”

Yamane didn’t say anything else after that, proceeding inside the venue with Last Boss.

The signs led them to a large suite, where X-crosses are lined up. Smartwatches are laid out for the players, along with guns. Yamane and Last Boss pick up a phone, and proceed to wear the watches. On Yamane’s watch, an arrow pops up in the display, while a heart shows up on Last Boss’ watch.

As another pair gets in the room, Yamane inspects the guns, which had an arrow engraved on the handle. Her eyes flick to the restraints, and dread washes over her when she sees the heart designs in the red light.

“Please sort yourselves accordingly,” a sign on the table instructs them, and the players are done as they’re told. Last Boss went to the X-cross, which had automatic cuffs that bound his arms and legs. Yamane looks at him with slight discomfort, but he stares at her with a blank expression.

“Registration closed. There are currently six players. Difficulty: Nine of Hearts.”

The other players started to mumble amongst themselves, while Yamane’s eyes remained locked on to her fellow militant.

“Game: Desire. Rules: Arrows must take turns to confess their feelings to the Heart they find most desirable. Arrows must fire the gun at the Heart of their choice. Lying or failing to fire the gun would result in a Game Over. Time limit: five minutes.”

“Shit,” was all Yamane could say.

“First player: Daisuke Inamine.”

Yamane turns to the said player, whose tears are streaming down his face as he looks at his lover. “Shit, I can’t do this! I can’t do this,” he sobs, putting the gun down and running out of the room. A laser fired and killed him in an instant. His lover was crying and screaming, fighting against the X-cross’ restraints.

“Next player: Rina Yamada.”

Hands shaking, the other player picks up the gun, and points it at the boy she came to the venue with. “Hiro,” she starts, voice shaking. “I’ve- I’ve always liked you since middle school,” she confesses, sobs wracking her body. “I appreciate that you enjoy the bento I’d always make for you. I like how you’d always come to protect me from my bullies. I- oh god, Hiro, please, please forgive me.”

“Three minutes remaining.”

Hiro was looking at her with resignation in his eyes. “Enough, Rina. I’ve always liked you too. Please, do what you can to survive.”

Shaking, sobbing, Rina pulls the trigger, firing the gun at Hiro’s chest. She then tosses it away, covering her face as she wails.

“Next player: Minami Yamane.”

[adarlingmess]

Sketched my grungy, thieving trash child Minami feat. Last Boss before I work on AiB screencap redraws

[adarlingwrites]

Dormouse

Summary:

After playing a game with two of The Beach's most dangerous members, the dormouse gets her tail caught by a tiger's paw.

He’ll make a wildcat out of her.

Author’s Notes: A character study for my AiB OC, Minami Yamane. The story takes place months before the main events of the series.

Edit 4/27/2021: I edited the chapter and added a few more paragraphs to highlight how desperate Yamane's living conditions were before the Borderlands. Some of the changes include more scenes of her happily pillaging stores because she never had plenty of groceries before, and changing her apartment into a 1R apartment.

I

everybody's looking for something / some of them want to use you / some of them want to get used by you

Mice and rats are vermin.

They are filthy, scurrying little creatures that will take anything they can lay their little paws on. In an urban city such as Tokyo, they thrive outside the human view, in the dank, dark underbelly of the bustling city.

They have no place in polite society, and neither does the girl running from an accessory shop in the populated streets of Harajuku.

It was just supposed to be a simple swipe. She had been shoplifting for quite a while now, ever since her parents threw her out and cut all her access to their money.

Yes, this little mouse wasn’t always one.

This happened all because she no longer wanted their control on her life anymore.

“You’re going to take Business Administration and take over the family business,” they would always remind her, drilling it into her thick skull since she can remember. But screw that, she’s not about to let them decide what she will be any further.

Now, look where that got her.

Scurrying, panting, and her feet skidding against the sidewalk, she ran into a busy boutique, blending in with the crowd. She almost ran into a baby carriage, muttering a quick apology to the annoyed mother pushing it. Eyes alert, she spotted an open storage closet an employee had left open. Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, she slipped inside, and shut the door.

Outside, the police are asking around if they had seen a girl with her description. Heart in her throat and pulse rapid, the mouse bit back a curse when the woman with the baby carriage pointed at the storage closet she’s in. Their footsteps approaching, she was bracing herself to slam the doors open once they’re within range.

But the lights flickered, and the officers never came.

Dark, damp, and musty, she’s a rat in a cage. Her only source of light was the faint sunlight that streamed through the glass storefront, seeping into the corners of the door. It was so quiet; too quiet. She swore she can hear her own heartbeat and the sweat rolling off of her skin.

With caution, she slowly opens the door, and the previously populated boutique is deserted. Not a single soul was in sight. Anxiety and bewilderment made her pulse quicken even more.

“Where the hell is everyone,” she mumbles to no one.

Confused, she runs out of the store, to the streets. The city is bustling no more. Everyone vanished.

If this was some kind of sick joke, this little mouse was not having it. She takes out her cell phone from her bag, only to see that it’s dead. Cursing, she runs back to the store to find an outlet, and plugs her flip phone in, to no avail. It’s still dead. She looks around and sees that all the displays are powered down.

Electricity is gone, and so is the water, she found out when she went to the bathroom in plans of dousing herself awake. All utilities had been cut. Taking a moment to compose herself, the mouse left the store once more to walk around. The streets are deserted, cars lining up in the desolate roads. Some of the windows are rolled down, and the mouse reaches in to unlock the door.

Turning the keys, she tried to get it to run, but to no avail. With a baffled look, she looks around in the car. Beside her was a plastic bag, still warm to the touch. A fried chicken sandwich is nestled inside, along with the receipt, a half-eaten bag of fries, and a few packets of ketchup.

She takes that, steps out of the vehicle, and begins eating while making her way back to her apartment, occasionally checking inside cars to see if anyone’s inside.

Everyone is gone, and no one is watching.

Relief replaces the little mouse’s horror upon realizing that among those gone are her landlady. “If she’s gone, I don’t have to pay rent anymore,” she gasps to no one in particular, and a smile slowly spreads on her lips.

“I don’t even have to pay bills anymore. I don’t have to watch out for security guards and cops.” The mouse starts laughing at that point, palming at her forehead. 

“Ha! I can finally do what I want now.” Her laughter was equal parts bitter, and cathartic.

Upon arriving to her apartment, she realizes that the chicken sandwich would probably stave off her hunger for the afternoon. She still had her bike and her delivery bag with her from work, and an idea forms in her head. She doesn’t know what the hell is going on, but if no one is around to watch her… she might as well do the thing she’s best at: take.

She will need to survive while waiting this out, after all.

Riding her way to the nearest convenience store, the mouse stuffed her bag with canned and non-perishable goods, filling it to the brim with groceries she normally couldn’t afford. From behind the counter, she takes several plastic bags and fills it with frozen goods, and dumps that in the front basket of her bike. The food probably needed to be heated up, so she made it a point to check for a butane stove. Luckily for her, there was one in the back, along with a few canisters of fuel.

Giddy, she bikes her way back to her apartment, unloads her haul, and comes back for more.

She targeted the water next, but found it too heavy for the bike. Not willing to leave the goods behind, she grabbed a shopping cart and filled it to her heart’s desire, until it was almost too heavy for her to push. The mouse carted the goods back to her apartment, exhausted, but genuinely relieved for the first time in months.

By the time that the sun is down, the mouse is sitting happily in her apartment, sorting through groceries that would last her weeks, if she’s careful with them. The mini fridge was still cold despite the lack of electricity, so she stuffed the frozen goods inside, the door barely closing due to the amount of content inside. Once littered with cobwebs, her pantry is now full with various dry goods and snacks. Some of them couldn’t even fit in the shelves, so she put them in the bedroom instead, which doubles as her living space, separated by a divider from the kitchen.

A contented grin on her face, she takes a breather and opens one of the snack cakes she took, and a box of coated biscuits.

The mouse finished her snacks blissfully, not one care in the world as she devoured them.

When she was walking back to fetch her bike from the convenience store, a billboard lights up, catching her attention.

She was in for a world of danger.

Two weeks later, the mouse stays in her apartment, her nest in this strange new world, tending a shoulder she bruised days ago. She quietly thanked herself for scouring the pharmacy after her first game.

The last one she participated in was a Three of Diamonds, and she almost didn’t make it out. It was good to see other people, but she had witnessed them die right before her eyes because of a wrong answer, and plain selfishness.

It was a game held in an abandoned variety show set. Get the answer right, you get to live to answer the next. Get it wrong, you have to work with the other contestants to survive a game of hole in the wall... or fall in a pool of acid. Contestants will take turns answering questions, and they weren’t allowed to coach each other.

The contestants were Mugi Nakamura, a high school girl in a swim team, Taro Kobayashi, a salaryman and father of two, and the mouse herself, Minami Yamane, a part-time seamstress in a factory by day, food courier by sundown, and a full-time troublemaker.

It was going so well. Yamane had gotten all of the questions right, and so did Nakamura, but Kobayashi made a mistake. The curtains drew back, and the wall revealed a single, round hole near the bottom. Time was running out.

Eyes haunted, Yamane looked at her reflection in the mirror as she pressed the compress against her shoulder, the dark circles under her eyes deepening, and so did her frown. There are some things she wished she could scour from her memory.

Kobayashi was willing to throw the two girls under the bus, despite Yamane insisting that they can all survive it if they formed a straight line and curled into a deep bow. Disgusted by his selfishness, Yamane shoves the salaryman aside and dives through the circle. She turned around to see if Nakamura followed suit, but the only thing she saw was her body dissolving in the pool.

Their pained, agonized cries filled the room, and Yamane couldn’t tear her eyes away. The last thing she saw before she got a “game clear'' was Nakamura’s faux fingernail floating to the surface before getting eaten away by the acid.

Around her, makeup and trinkets that she couldn’t afford on her salary littered the desk, her small sources of comfort and joy. Empty packages of frozen foods lined neatly up in her trash can, and so did the empty cans and bottles. Yamane was beginning to run low on her supplies. She will have to scavenge farther from home. That wouldn’t be a problem. On days that she isn’t risking her life on a game, she started working out to improve her stamina, and improve her odds of surviving these games. Spade games were the most physically demanding ones.

The little mouse is starting to get used to this life. There are no parents to tell her what to do, and no expectations from society, but in return, she will have to risk her life playing these treacherous games.

After tending to her shoulder, it was time for Yamane’s nightly routine. With make up wipes, she’d wipe off the makeup off of her face. She undoes her twin buns, and brushes her hair down; thankfully, it wasn’t time to wash them yet, and her shoulder hurts. Cleaning herself off with a towel and a little water, Yamane changed into cleaner clothes and went to bed, nestled in pillows and sheets she snatched from a nearby mall’s home section on the way home from the Diamond game.

There were other people loitering about when she made her haul. The initial relief she had upon meeting people in the games were replaced by paranoia after that game with the salaryman. Purging the mental image of their dissolving bodies off of her mind, she pulls the covers over her head and curls into a fetal position.

Her ears perked up when she heard footsteps in the kitchen.

“Shit, did I forget to lock the door?” Yamane thought to herself. 

Listening intently, she approximated the size of the person intruding her home through their footsteps, something she learned to do while living under the scrutiny of her family. They were light.

Like a child’s.

Carefully getting out of bed, Yamane tiptoes her way to the kitchen, and clamps her hand over the intruder’s mouth.

“Don’t make a sound,” she hissed, and she can sense the fear coming from the small body. Yamane spins the intruder around only to see a young girl. Judging from her height and prepubescent looks, she might be in early middle school. “What the hell are you doing in my house?”

“Oneesan, I’m so sorry for trespassing, but please, I’m starving. I saw you walking away from the grocery store with a huge haul a few days ago-”

“Great,” she thought.  People are starting to notice her hauls.

“Out. Get out now.”

“B-but please! I don’t know what else to do. I’m not a thief, but I’m so desperate… I’m so hungry.”

Taking a deep inhale, Yamane eyes the girl. She’s rail-thin, her uniform is soiled, and her hair is a tangled mess. Her lips are dry from the lack of water, and her hair is dull from the lack of proper nutrition. Groaning and rubbing her face, Yamane relents.

“Fine, take what you need and go.”

“Can I please stay with you?”

Yamane scoffs. “What? I don’t have time to look after a kid.”

“I can’t find my parents. I have no friends to talk to. It gets scary at night without all the lights too. Please, let me stay.”

Yamane should be kicking this girl out. Instead, she’s now handing her a pillow over as the kid ate dinner on the floor couch in her room. It was nothing special, but Yamane went through the trouble of preparing something somewhat healthy for the girl, despite her reluctance in letting her stay. Begrudgingly, Yamane tosses her a blanket too.

“This help’s not for free. You’re going to have to make yourself useful if you want to stay with me. And if you try to steal from me, I won’t hesitate to hurt you,” Yamane says, sitting on her mattress right across the couch.

“I promise I’ll be good.”

“What’s your name? How old are you?”

“Fumiko Sato. I’m twelve years old.”

The mouse’s expression softens against her will. Yamane thought someone that young shouldn’t be in a world such as this. Sure, it suited her, but it didn’t suit the preteen sitting on her couch. A girl her age’s problems should be about school, crushes, and which accessories she should wear tomorrow, not a brutal survival game.

“I’m Minami Yamane. Twenty three. How many days do you have left on your visa?”

“Two.”

“Shit”, Yamane thought. “I’ll have to bring her to a game soon.”

“Go to sleep. You’ll help me scavenge tomorrow, then we’ll go to a game.”

“Thank you. I’ll do my best!”

Without uttering another word, Yamane goes to bed, pulling the covers over her head. It’s been a long time since she looked after someone else. Exhaling slowly, her mind wanders back to home.

“I wonder how Mai and Riku are doing”, she thought.

A photograph of her and Mai, her little sister, sits on a desk, with a picture of an infant boy attached to it. Mai would have been nineteen now, and Riku would have been three. Such a huge age difference between the siblings, a result of her father remarrying after her and Mai’s mother died.

Yamane didn’t even visit her funeral.

Not wanting to waste precious minutes she could’ve used to rest on thinking about the life she left behind, Yamane got back in bed and closed her eyes.

The next morning, she woke up to the smell of food.

“Good morning, oneesan,” Sato greeted, setting rice balls and two cups of instant miso soup on the table. Yamane checks out the stove, and the butane is almost out. They’ll have to look for more. Without electricity, it’s a precious commodity, especially if they want to continue having hot meals.

Sato says her grace, and without saying a word, Yamane sits and eats the food prepared for her. The middle schooler was looking at her with expectant eyes as she chewed on her rice ball.

“These are good. Thanks. I hope you rested well. We’re going to the train station to get you a bike, then we’ll go to a grocery store father from here for goods.”

Sato nodded and they spent the rest of the meal in peace. After freshening up and getting dressed, Yamane tosses Sato her thermal bag. “Be alert around strangers and stay close to me.” Yamane instructed her as Sato strapped the bag on. “For now, you’ll be riding on the backseat.”

Nodding, Sato follows her down the apartment complex’s stairs, feeling secure for the first time in days. She gets on the bike, and wraps her arms around Yamane’s waist as they ride to the train station.

Meanwhile, Yamane’s mind wanders back to her little sister. They used to ride like this when she was a little younger, before her parents forced her to go to university for Business Administration. Five years ago, on her eighteenth birthday, she and Mai snuck out of the house to celebrate with her friends. They ate shabu shabu together and Yamane had her first taste of liquor.

They never heard the end of it when they got back, and Yamane got a few bruises from the beating she had to endure, but it was a precious memory.

Yamane and Sato arrived at the train station, and took a bike from the rental booth. This one had a child’s seat at the back, which was decent for groceries too. The bike is Sato’s bike now.

Today’s haul was bountiful. Aside from necessities, Yamane even managed to score some box dye. Her highlights were fading out. Sato also found clothes her size, and a mild, fruity cologne for teenagers, then she placed those in the front basket of her bike, along with some sweets she was previously wasn’t allowed to eat too much of.

After sorting the groceries and having dinner, Yamane and Sato sat in the older girl’s room, where the younger girl helped the older one dye the fading red streaks of hair, just like her friends did.

“Maybe having this kid around isn’t so bad”, Yamane thought to herself. She’ll have an extra pair of eyes to watch her back now. Sato helped her rinse her hair in the bathroom sink and they laughed together.

“Alright. Time for some rest,” Yamane says, running a towel through her hair, sitting on her mattress. “We need to participate in a game tomorrow to extend your visa.”

“Okay. Thanks again for everything, Minami-neesan.”

Secretly, Yamane’s heart leapt from being called older sister again. But she would never admit it. She convinced herself that she’s only using her as a pack mule.

The next night, they arrived at a game venue. An arcade. A laser tag arena, to be precise.

The two of them took phones from the table, and waited for other participants. There was a rowdy group of four boys, all high school age, and judging from their appearances, they must be delinquents. Or perhaps, in this world, they have the freedom to act tough now. Sato stepped a little closer to Yamane, feeling uneasy.

Then, two men arrived.

The group of boys fell into a hush at their arrival. Yamane kept her head straight on, but she was looking at them from the corner of her eyes, her field of vision obscured by her shades. Sato, on the other hand, was trembling beside her.

One of the men was wearing a black patterned shirt, part of his shoulder-length hair tied, and on his face were various piercings. He was toting a gun, and he shoved one of the highschool boys aside, brusquely telling them to get out of his way.

The other was the quiet type. He was taller than the other man, shoulders broad despite his wiry build and bad posture. This one had tattoos on his face, wearing a sleeveless cloak with the hood up, and he carries a katana.

“Where did he find a fucking katana,” Yamane thought to herself. If there’s one thing she couldn’t find on her hauls, it was decent weapons to defend herself with.

Yamane pretends not to notice them, but Sato is staring at the two men outright. The younger girl pulls at Yamane’s sleeve urgently.

“Oneesan, they’re scary.”

“Don’t give them any attention. Focus on the game.”

Sato keeps quiet, fidgeting and sweating. The preteen made the mistake of looking at them again, and she tugs on Yamane’s sleeves once more.

“Oh God, they’re looking at you!” Sato whispers urgently, wrapping an arm around Yamane’s.

Yamane tilts her head, and sees that they are indeed looking at her. The one with piercings is openly leering, his tongue slipping out of his mouth, revealing another piercing. The one with the tattooed face was harder to read. His mouth was slightly open, twitching on one side.

“Let them stare,” she tells the younger girl.

“Just what I needed,” Yamane muttered, a wave of discomfort washing over her. “They look dangerous. I hope they’re not perverts,” she adds, shielding the younger girl, and Sato couldn’t help but take another peek.

“Ew, they do kind of look like perverts, oneesan. Especially that one with the piercings.”

“Then let’s not attract their attention.”

Yamane pulls her jacket’s hood over her head, then she folds her arms and looks away. She knew better than to provoke them.

A third man catches up with the two. Then, Yamane notices it; the tag on their wrists with numbers. The other two had them too. Were they a team?

Yamane had no time to think when the final contestant arrived, a balding middle-aged man. He took the last phone, and the synthetic voice flooded the room.

“Please proceed further into the arena.”

Instead of the usual laser tag equipment, they were met with real firearms, along with some melee weapons. The sight of them made Sato squirm, and Yamane herself was disturbed. There are written instructions to take as many weapons as they desire.

The delinquent boys eagerly reached for the guns, leaving Yamane and Sato with none. The two intimidating men and their third companion didn’t need them, and stayed in their spots, watching the two girls pick a weapon. Sato sheepishly opted for a pocket knife, while Yamane quickly reached for the daggers. They came with leg holsters which she strapped on her thighs.

She can feel the two’s gaze burning her back as she bent over to adjust the straps.

“Great. They are perverts,” she thinks to herself, straightening and looking over her shoulder to give them a chastising look.

The monitor comes to life, and the synthetic voice crackles through the speakers. The participants’ faces were on the screen, where they are divided into two teams. Team A consisted of the four delinquent boys, and the middle-aged man. Team B consisted of Yamane, Sato, and the three men with the bracelets.

“Please sort yourselves accordingly and proceed to your team’s base.”

Yamane didn’t know if she should be relieved or concerned that she got sorted with those two. She stands next to the one with tattoos. Her shades obscured her eyes, which trailed on his arms, observing the ink. A muscle flexes as he unsheaths his katana; he looks like he possesses a wiry strength. Then, he turns to her, slowly, and Sato squirms beside her. Yamane only pulled her shades down slightly and stared back, raising an eyebrow.

The tense moment was shattered by the synthetic voice once more.

“Registration closed. There are currently ten players. Difficulty: Seven of Clubs.”

“Seven? That’s difficult, isn’t it?” Sato asks Yamane, and she hushes her.

“Game: Elimination. Rules: Work with your team to eliminate the opposing team. Clear condition: Team with the most number of members left by the end of the time limit wins. If there are equal numbers of participants from each team, everyone loses. Time limit: thirty minutes.”

“Wait, wait! Elimination? We’re supposed to kill the other team? Minami-neesan this is bad!” Sato exclaims, pulling on Yamane’s sleeve again.

“Calm down, calm down! We just need to survive until the thirty minutes is up,” Yamane hushes her, pulling her closer.

“That’s right little mice, you two better hide,” the man with the pierced face interrupts them. “Don’t get in our way.”

“We have no intentions to,” Yamane replied sharply, before whisking Sato away to look for a hiding spot.

Yamane looks over her shoulder one last time, and the tattooed man gives her one last curious look before walking towards the arena.

“These thirty minutes are going to be hell.”

[adarlingmess]

Close up:

I’m so deep in Alice in Borderland hell that I made an OC and drew a fake screenshot lmao

Her name’s Yamane Minami and she’s a hedonistic, thrill-seeking, kleptomaniac fashionista who used to hang out in Harajuku district. More stuff about her under the cut.

Born as the eldest child in a well-off family, Minami’s childhood was rigorous, groomed to inherit the family company when she grows up. However, all Minami wanted to do was design clothes, and she never got to express herself in her teens. When she started going to college, she started to ditch class to hang out with a group of girls in Harajuku, dressing up the way she wanted to, drinking her nights away, and engaging in thrill-seeking activities. Eventually, Minami’s parents saw the charges in her credit card bill, her new look, and her poor academic performance, and they cut her off. From then on, Minami swiped whatever accessories and clothes she can find while working two jobs to support her dream of going to a fashion design school.

Her luck ran out when she got caught stealing, and she hid herself in a storage closet to evade the police. When she got out, she gets transported to the Borderland. She gets roped in with the Beach’s martial sect when she picked up a fallen militant’s weapon and killed an opponent in an unspecified Spades game. This caught the attention of Niragi and Last Boss, who were present in the game, and they unwillingly took her to the Beach. However, after meeting the Hatter, she decided that she preferred this arrangement as opposed to playing games on her own. Though she felt a pang of regret that she couldn’t pursue fashion design anymore, her new life thrilled her, where she can live on the edge and be her truest self.

(Edit: Changed her last name to Yamane)

[adarlingwrites]

Dormouse

Summary:

After playing a game with two of The Beach's most dangerous members, the dormouse gets her tail caught by a tiger's paw.

He’ll make a wildcat out of her.

Author’s notes: It's 2 am and I've been furiously typing this away while chugging some coffee, so please excuse the errors if you find some. It's already February 14 where I am, so Happy Valentine's Day, have some filth.

VII

desire, I'm hungry / I hope you feed me / how do you want me, how do you want me?

Yamane had all the opportunities to examine her nebulous, twisted feelings for the tattooed militant; she just never took them. She avoided confronting the feeling. Now, a Heart game of all things is forcing her to face the ugly truth.

Or perhaps, she should have expected it from a Heart game. She experienced firsthand how terrible they can be, after all.

Yamane never really told anyone about what she felt about Last Boss. There are rumors circulating in the Beach about trysts between them because of her little visits after games, but neither gave away any substantial hints. The only way for anyone to know about Yamane’s feelings was if they heard her moan his name in one of the nights that she spent pleasuring herself.

It’s also suspicious that their fellow players are either couples or people who have feelings for each other. Whoever designed these games knew the players intimately.

They’re all being watched.

And now, these people wanted to watch how they would act in a scenario that involves possibly hurting the person they desired the most.

Yamane locks eyes with Last Boss, and she can't read him at all. His mouth twitches, but he doesn’t fight against the restraints. It’s almost as if he’s waiting for her to make a move, or just waiting for her time to run out.

“Two minutes remaining.”

At the warning, Yamane stops pondering about the nature of the game, and starts panicking.

She had considered taking the gun and shooting him somewhere that won’t kill him, but she doesn’t really know how to use firearms properly. Shooting him in the arm would run the risk of shooting him in the chest, and shooting him in the leg would doom him in future games. Either way, he might end up dead.

Yamane said she would kill to survive, but can she kill him? She’d be lying to herself if she said that she didn’t get attached. This newfound hesitation is precisely the reason why she used to play the games alone.

“Of all people to get attached to,” she thinks. “Why you?”

Desperate, Yamane pulls at her hair and screams, despair overtaking her.

Finally, Last Boss says something.

“Yamaneko.”

Yamane turns to him, her eyes wet with tears and her eyeliner running down her cheeks.

“Whether it’s you or me, when all is done, we’ll simply return to the soil. I’m thankful for this world. You should be too.”

Wiping the tears that blurs her vision, Yamane regards him for a moment. Last Boss continues to surprise her with every interaction; she never expected such wisdom from him. Perhaps this outlook is what made him a powerful player in the Beach.

Last Boss will live his life in the borderland to the fullest, literally carving his path away, until his time runs out.

But Yamane wants to be a part of that, and it’s too early for it to end now.

“No. Wait. I can figure this out,” she sniffles, fingers tangling through her hair.

He doesn’t say anything else to her.

Yamane strains herself to think. In her last Heart game, the rules were written in such a way to make players believe that they will have to spill blood by killing someone, when medical implements around them would suggest that players only needed to spill a portion of their blood. She looks to the X-cross for clues, but fails to find any hints.

Her eyes flick to the gun in front of her, and she grabs it. There must be something about the gun she can figure out. She runs her thumb against the arrow engraved on the side, and her mind wanders back to the time she and Mai went to an archery range. The instructor scolded her for pulling the bow when it’s not loaded.

At the memory, everything in Yamane’s head clicks into place.

Yamane aims the gun upwards, and unloads all of the bullets to the ceiling.

The sobbing girls look at her in surprise, then Yamane points the gun to Last Boss. Unsure if her plan would work, Yamane spills everything that’s in her heart.

“Last Boss, I’ve only known you for a little while, and truth be told, I was terrified of you when you and Niragi came to my apartment. I expected the two of you to rape or kill me on that day, but you two brought me someplace where I can thrive. There is nothing expected of me here except for playing the games. I am free to be who I am without repercussions from society.”

The tattooed militant’s eyes flick towards her, interest piqued.

“One minute remaining.”

“There’s nothing waiting for me in the real world. My family and friends all turned their backs on me. As fucked up as it sounds, when I’m in the Beach, when I’m with you, I feel like I finally belong somewhere. In this new world, I felt accepted for the first time. My new life has only just begun. So please, I don’t want this to be the end for either of us. I don’t want my time with you to run out yet.”

Now, Last Boss is giving her his full attention.

“Thirty seconds remaining.”

“I’ve come to appreciate you. I- I prefer your presence to Niragi’s too. When you entertained my request to instruct me on how to kill someone painlessly, you didn’t think twice before sharing what you knew. You were tracing the vulnerable points of my body, and your touch felt too damn good. When you came behind me to guide me, I wanted more of your touch. You’re in my head when I- I...”

Yamane begins to stutter.

“Ten seconds remaining.”

She’s saying too much.

“What I want to say is I want you! So please, accept my feelings!”

Squeezing her eyes shut, Yamane pulls the trigger, and waits for the end.

Just in case a laser comes firing at her skull if the plan didn’t work, at least she’d die with no unfinished business.

But the laser never came.

“Game Clear. Congratulations!”

The restraints on the X-cross release, and Rina runs over to catch Hiro’s body before it hits the ground, sobbing and hiccupping the entire time. Last Boss lands on his feet, and he rubs his wrists as he looks at Yamane’s disbelieving expression. The girl that Daisuke was kissing in the backseat barges towards Yamane and slapped her hard enough for her to tumble backwards.

“Why?! Why couldn’t you have told Daisuke the solution? Now he’s dead!”

Yamane, still in shock, could only laugh at the girl’s face, still surprised that her plan worked. The girl raises her hand again, but long, thin fingers grab her arm. Last Boss tears her away from his fellow militant, and drives his sword through her heart.

Rina screams, still holding on to Hiro’s dead body, and the girl’s body slumps to the ground.

Panting, Yamane looks to Last Boss, who sheaths his sword, then to the girl he just killed. She felt nothing. Legs shaking, she tries to walk, but her knees fail her. To her surprise, Last Boss grabs her, not letting her fall.

“Let’s get out of here,” Yamane whispers, and they turn around to leave.

But before they can walk out of the room, Rina calls out to them.

“Wait,” she cries, voice trembling. “How- how did you figure out the solution?”

Yamane looks at her, heart heavy as she watches her cradle the dead boy, then looks away. “I figured that the game is made specially for people who either have sexual or romantic tension, or are already together. Whoever came up with this game wanted to see the dilemma of whether one would shoot the other to survive, or sacrifice themselves for the person they desired. The rules didn’t say anything about firing the gun while it’s loaded, though. Heart games tend to have loopholes you can abuse, if you think hard enough,” she explains, unable to look at the grieving girl as she did.

Rina sniffles. “All this time, I could’ve avoided killing Hiro? Oh, God, what have I done? I killed him...”

“Heart games have a way of doing that to you, kid. I was lucky enough to play with someone who knew how to handle them a while back. I’m sorry.”

When Rina didn’t respond and buried her face in Hiro’s neck to grieve, Yamane turned to Last Boss once again. “Let’s leave her to grieve. We need to get back.”

Her fellow militant nodded, and wordlessly followed her out. The circular white table with a Nine of Hearts card is waiting for them outside, and Yamane tucks it away in her jacket. She was more than ready to leave this place, but one hand pulls at her forearm, spinning her around, and another grabs her other arm, pinning her against the wall.

The tattooed militant is looking at her with intensity that punched the air out of her lungs, just like the first time she made eye contact with him during their first game together.

“All those things you said, are they true?” he asks her. He gives her a pleading look, one that is searching her for answers.

Yamane nods. “I wouldn’t be alive if I was lying.”

Pausing, her eyes flick towards Last Boss’ lips, and she gulps. “Please, just kiss me already,” she whispers, looking him in the eye.

Trembling lips that are too soft for a man so rough claimed hers, and Yamane’s eyes fluttered shut, sinking into the kiss.

Soon, the kiss became more desperate. Yamane slips her tongue in his mouth, and he lets out an involuntary groan, hips bucking into her as they shared the sloppy kiss. She rakes her fingers down his back, through the fabric of his hoodie, and it only spurred him on.

He tears away for air, and looks at her with wide, hungry eyes, like a tiger’s. Yamane only needed one look at his flushed face to know that this was his first one, and he wanted more. She didn’t dare to say anything that will embarrass him, though.

“Takatora,” he mumbles, still pressed against her.

“Huh?”

“My name is Takatora. Use it when it’s just the two of us,” he says to her, voice low. Yamane nods, and she kisses him again. Under her bikini top, her nipples are starting to pebble, and the fire in her loins is almost unbearable.

As they break the kiss, Yamane breathlessly sighs his name. “Takatora. Heh. How befitting. I always thought you looked like a tiger.”

His shaking hands clamp over the globes of her behind, and he grinds against her, his movements inexperienced but still arousing, nonetheless.

Then, Yamane hears movement from the room where the game took place.

“Let’s continue this at the Beach,” she whispers, and she grabs Takatora by the hand, leading him outside the hotel. He gets in the passenger’s seat, while Yamane drives. On the way back, his hand is on her pale thigh the entire time, squeezing and kneading like a damn cat. The wildcat’s heart is racing, driving like a madwoman so they can get to her bed sooner.

Upon arrival, they converge with their fellow militants at the entrance. The survivors of the games go to the Hatter’s meeting room and turn in their cards one by one. All this time, people were staring at the two of them. Yamane realizes too late that her lipstick has stained Last Boss’ mouth. Fortunately, no one said anything about it.

Until Niragi arrived, that is.

“What the hell is that on you?” he asks, coming in for a closer inspection. Yamane leans over to look at Niragi, her eyeliner running down her face and her lipstick smeared.

Niragi puts two and two together and gives them a wicked grin. “So you made a move after all,” he says to Last Boss, and slaps his back.

As Niragi strolls away, Yamane gives Last Boss a questioning look.

“I told him to stay away from you,” he droned, and Yamane’s eyebrows perk up in surprise.

“Why?”

“Because I wanted you to myself,” the taller militant replies, turning to look at her.

Before Yamane could say anything else, it was their turn to surrender their card. Yamane holds up the Nine of Hearts, and the collector’s eyes widen, while his buddy comes running to the Hatter.

Soon, Hatter joins the fray, and when he sees the value of the card Yamane and Last Boss had on them, he breaks out into a grin, taking it from Yamane’s little fingers and holding it up. “A Nine of Hearts!” he exclaims, walking around the room. As onlookers are whispering amongst themselves, Aguni steps closer to see what the excitement was about.

Hatter turns to the militia’s chief, and breaks out into a laugh. “Aguni, I didn’t expect your people to bring me a high-value Heart card, of all things.”

The Beach’s number one then turns to the two militants, a mad glint in his eye. “You two, thank you, thank you! I’ll move your ranks higher as my show of gratitude.”

One of the executives stepped closer, a woman with straight bangs and long hair. “My my, one of these days you two will have to tell me how you cleared such a game,” she comments, eyeing the card with a wide grin. It’s Mira Kano, resident number seven. Heart specialist.

“Yamane, isn’t it? First you cleared a Five of Hearts with your fellow militants without casualties to the Beach, and now you survived a Nine with him. I’m surprised that someone from the militant sect has the makings of a Heart specialist. I won’t forget this,” she croons.

The interaction left Yamane stunned. Her? A Heart specialist. No. If anything, she’s a Spade player. “Sunohara was there to calm everyone down in the Five, and I just got lucky with the Nine.”

As the excitement dies down, Niragi walks over to the pair once more. “So, what did you two do to win the game?”

“I had to confess to whom I found the most desirable and then shoot ‘em,” Yamane replies. Last Boss is looking at his fellow militant with a neutral expression, not bothering to wipe off the lipstick stain off of his face. “Turns out, shooting while the gun isn’t loaded is an option. Two players died because one of them chickened out, and the other shot her crush.”

“So, you’ve got a crush on Last Boss?” Niragi is doing everything he could to make Yamane uncomfortable, and she knows it.

“Actually, yes, I fucking do,” Yamane replies, looking at Niragi with confidence. “I asked him to kiss me after the game,” she hisses. “Oh, and I thought of him while you fucked me,” she adds partially to bruise his inflated ego, and partially because it’s true. “Do you have a problem with that?”

At Yamane’s admission, Niragi laughs at her face. “I fucking knew it. I was tired of you anyway. Have fun with him, Yamaneko.”

Blood boiling as he walked away, Yamane had considered going after him, but Takatora placed a hand on her good shoulder and pulled her closer to him. “That’s just how Niragi is. Let him go. Let’s continue where we left off,” he whispers.

With a cheeky smirk on her lips, Yamane shows her agreement by holding his hand and leading him out the door. They get in the elevator, and as soon as the doors are closed, their hands are all over each other’s bodies.

Small hand trailing down his torso, Yamane palms at his cock, earning her a nip on her lower lip, and he kisses her in a frenzy as she pumps him through his pants. “Suck my tits,” Yamane hisses. His lean arms held her close to him, shaky fingers clawing at her back and undoing the string of her bikini top. Takatora pushes her against the wall, hands grabbing her breasts, and he latches on one of her nipples, tongue eagerly lapping the hardened bud.

Yamane moans, and the elevator door opens, revealing two girls with surprised looks on their faces. The surprise turns into horror when they see the tattoos on Last Boss’ arms, and Yamane’s messy double buns, realizing who they just ran into.

“Are you two just going to stand there, or are you going to move?” Yamane questions them, not even bothering to ask Last Boss to stop. Not a single shred of shame is left in her body.

The girls jump out of the way, and Takatora wraps her legs around him, carrying her off.

“Which door?” he pants against her chest.

“Third one to the left!”

The door swings open, and Takatora kicks it shut as they enter the room. They crash into Yamane’s bed, both panting.

Spindly fingers pull at her bikini top, and Yamane sheds her jacket, tossing it aside. She moans his name as he fondled and sucked at her breasts again, back arching against the mattress. Takatora pauses to kiss her, and she takes this opportunity to flip him over, grinding against him. He looks at her with wide eyes, freezing at the loss of control.

“Relax,” she croons. “First time?”

He makes a small, reluctant nod. “Are you nervous?” she asks again.

He shakes his head. “I take you’re excited then?”

Takatora nods. Relieved, Yamane chuckles. “Then there’s no need for me to hold back.”

Takatora corrupted her by bringing her to the Beach. Now it’s her turn to corrupt him.

After watching the rise and fall of his chest, Yamane leans in and plants a gentle kiss on his eyelid as she pulls his tank top up, then presses her lips to the tattoos on his cheek. She presses another peck on one of his moles, trailing kisses down to his neck, and she hears him growl. Yamane smiles against his skin, lips tracing down his chest and abdomen. Deft fingers unbuckle his belt, and Yamane takes out his cock from its confines.

She swirls her tongue around the tip and Takatora groans, bracing himself against the mattress. After running her tongue from the base all the way to the tip, Yamane encloses her mouth around him, and his hands fly to her hair, both of them grasping her buns.

“Yamaneko,” he hisses, thrusting into her mouth.

Filthy noises fill the room as Yamane continues to suck him, enthusiastic with every bob of her head. The growls and groans he gave her spurred her on, relishing in the way she makes him feel. She ends it with a wet pop, and proceeds to stroke him with her hand while her tongue fondles his balls.

Takatora sounds feral now, grasping and pulling at Yamane’s hair, her buns coming undone. Yamane takes him in her mouth again, and she goes as far as her gag reflex would allow her. Niragi’s cock was thicker, but Takatora’s was longer, and she tried not to choke as she took him all in. She can feel that he’s close.

Hips bucking, it didn’t take long for him to come, and Yamane takes it all in, each spurt painting her tongue white. She sticks her tongue out to show him his load, and swallows every drop. Watching her, he gulps, Adam’s Apple bobbing.

The wildcat had expected the night to end there, content with making her partner come, but the tiger had other plans.

Takatora flips them over, now on top of her once more, and pulls away her skirt and panties. “I’ve read on the internet that women like it when men return the favor,” he mumbles, and dives right between her legs. Yamane gasps, palming at his head through his hoodie. “You’ve read good sources then,” she pants. His tongue made broad, sloppy strokes at her labia, and she squirms at his ministrations, legs in the air.

“There,” she moans, instructing him where to go. “Right at that nub- use a little less pressure- fuck, yes,” she hisses, throwing her head back at the feeling. “You’re a fast learner…”

Her tiger lover pauses, looking at her. “You too, Yamaneko.”

Then, he dives right back in, his saliva and her juices staining the sheets. Yamane encourages him in every step of the way, teaching him how to please her. As Takatora eats her out, he grinds his hips against the mattress, already hard again. Yamane notices it, and smiles.

“Tora,” she pants, and he smirks against her cunt upon hearing the affectionate nickname. “Do you want to fuck me?”

He nods enthusiastically, mouth still against her cunt.

“Fuck me then. Take me.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. The tiger kneels, and with no hesitation, he plunges his cock in her dripping cunt.

Yamane screams, pleasure shooting up her spine. Takatora took her brutally, sharp hip bones slamming against the soft flesh of her thighs, leaving red marks as he went. One hand bracing the bed frame, Yamane’s other one reaches down between her legs, finger rubbing her clit furiously as he fucks her. Meanwhile, his hands palmed and squeezed at her breasts, and his growls and groans echoed in the room.

It didn’t take long for her to reach her limit.

“Tora, I’m going to come,” she cries, and he responded by grasping her hips and fucking her like the animal he is. A sharp cry escaped Yamane’s lips as she came, her walls milking his cock, white spots blinding her. Her fingers leave her clit, thoroughly sated, but Takatora isn’t done yet.

Her lover doesn’t stop pumping into her, and it’s becoming unbearable.

“Tora, oh God, it’s too much” she pants, palming at his chest, but he pays her no heed. He flips her over, pushes her head against the mattress, and clamps a hand around her mouth as he penetrated her again. His tongue drags against Yamane’s neck, and his lips planted rough kisses on the fragile skin. She screams against his palm as his wild, uncoordinated thrusts force another orgasm out of her.

“Fuck, is this really his first time?” the wildcat thinks to herself as she comes down from another high. She didn’t expect the night to go this well. From the ache between her legs, it’s almost going too well.

Thankfully, Takatora finally reached his limit as Yamane’s walls milked him again. Spilling his seed deep inside his wildcat’s womb, he bites her shoulder as he comes, hard enough for it to bruise the morning after.

Sweating, panting, he collapses on top of her.

“Mine,” he growls, scooping her into his arms. “Say that you’re mine.”

“I’m yours.”

[adarlingwrites]

Dormouse

Summary:

After playing a game with two of The Beach's most dangerous members, the dormouse gets her tail caught by a tiger's paw.

He’ll make a wildcat out of her.

CW/TW: Non-con elements courtesy of Niragi

II

I never promised you an open heart or charity / I never wanted to abuse your imagination / I come with knives

“Game Start!”

Yamane shoves Sato behind a pillar, looking over her shoulder.

“Stay here and don’t move until I get back,” she instructs the younger girl, and Sato vehemently shakes her head.

“No! Don’t leave me, I don’t want to die,” she wails, and Yamane covers her mouth with her hand.

“They’ll hear you if you keep whining like that!” Yamane scolds her, panic rousing in her gut. She knows she’s being selfish; the kid is dead weight at this point. “We can’t stay together. If someone with a gun finds the two of us in the same spot, we’ll both die.”

Tears are streaming down the preteen’s face. Yamane’s expression softens, but she remains firm. “You have to trust me. Our chances of survival is higher this way. Stay hidden, and wait for the thirty minutes to run out. I’ll look for my own spot to hide in. Let those three take care of the other team. If the enemy finds you, don’t hesitate to fight back.”

With a reluctant nod, Sato finally relents. Yamane takes off her shades and places them in Sato’s shirt pocket.

“These are my lucky shades. I’ve gotten out of sticky situations while I had these on me. Hold on to them.”

Looking somewhat reassured, Sato wipes her tears away and nods. Turning her back on the preteen, Yamane slinks away to find a spot of her own. She quietly thanked herself for wearing dark clothes all the time. It makes it easier for her to blend in the dark. The only source of illumination in the arena are the futuristic neon lights.

“You’re being selfish,” a voice in her head berates her, but she presses on. Her survival comes first.

“Twenty minutes remaining.”

Loud shots reverberated in the enclosed space. The man with the rifle was randomly firing, making his presence known where he goes, almost daring the enemy team to seek him out. He sounds like he’s having fun and Yamane’s stomach turns. He’s enjoying the hunt.

On the scoreboard, one of the delinquents’ images got crossed out with a red X. At that point, Yamane felt relieved to be sorted with the dangerous men. She wouldn’t want to be in their line of fire.

“Team A has four players remaining.”

Then, Yamane hears the voices of the remaining delinquents.

“Man, that guy is a psycho! We have no chance against him and those other two crazy sons of bitches. We have to look for the girls,” one of them whispers, the trembling in his voice making his fear apparent.

“Shit, you’re right. They’re the weakest links, especially the kid.”

“Are we really okay with killing girls and kids?”

“Idiot. It’s either us, or them. We should take them out, then take out the weakest of the three. Then let’s hide from the two remaining psychos. As long as there are more of us than them at the end, we would survive.”

Yamane curses internally. They’re actively seeking her and Sato out now. She needs to find the men with the bracelets and rely on them for protection. That’s the only way for her and Sato to survive. Her street smarts can only get her so far.

“Fifteen minutes remaining.”

Waiting for the boys to pass, Yamane crouches and quietly moves from cover to cover, following the sound of gunfire. She makes a turn right, and comes face to face with one of the three men.

“You,” she whispers. “Hey, the boys are planning to target-”

With a loud bang, the man falls from a gunshot to the back, revealing the middle-aged man holding the smoking gun. On the scoreboard, the man’s face gets crossed out with a red X.

“Team B has four players remaining.”

“Shit!”

Yamane rolls to her side, narrowly avoiding being shot herself. Her bruised shoulder collides with one of the walls, and she holds back a curse, whimpering from the pain. Crawling, she rolls and sees the fallen man’s pistol, and she makes a mad scramble to grab it before hiding behind cover again.

As she crawled to cover, her wallet falls out of her skirt’s pocket.

Listening for the middle-aged man’s footsteps, Yamane leans against the cover, and when he’s near enough, she gets out of cover to fire, only for the gun to emit a soft click instead of a gunshot. The magazine is empty.

Instincts kicking in, Yamane yells as she tackles the man before he can fire his gun to her face. Still holding the empty pistol, she bashes the man in the head, over and over, until it was a bloody, unrecognizable mess. Hands shaking, Yamane puts the pistol down, and covers her mouth with her blood-stained fingers, looking at the corpse in disbelief.

Yamane killed someone.

The middle-aged man’s portrait gets struck. “Team A has three players remaining.”

Footsteps approaches from behind and she hears a laugh that seems to mock her.

“My my, looks like the mouse knows how to fight back after all,” the man with the facial piercings comments, stopping to admire Yamane’s handiwork.

Before she can retort, she hears Sato’s cries.

“Oneesan! Help!” the preteen sobbed, voice strained.

“Ten minutes remaining.”

As fast as her feet can take her, Yamane sprints towards the sound, taking her daggers out of their holsters. Desperate, she cries for Sato’s name, not caring if she gave away her position anymore.

While Yamane looks for the other girl in a frenzy, the man with the piercing notices the small black square near one of the pillars. He picks it up, and opens the wallet up. A few 100 yen bills and coins are nestled in it, along with Yamane’s IDs, one of which is her My Number card.

On it is some of her personal details. Minami Yamane. Born March 3, 1998.

And below that is her full address.

“Fumiko!” Yamane calls out.

“Oneesan!”

“Fumiko where are you?!”

“Please, save me!”

“Fumiko! Fumiko?”

There was no answer.

“Team B has three players remaining.”

Feet skidding as she turned a corner, Yamane saw the back of the delinquent boy, his bat, and Sato’s lifeless body on the ground, her neck twisted into an unnatural angle. Yamane didn’t have to look at the scoreboard to know that she’s dead.

“Five minutes remaining.”

“Well, that was easy,” the delinquent boy muttered, no hint of remorse in his voice. “One of the weak links is gone. Now for the other girl.”

Yamane didn’t know what came over her. She only knew this girl for a day, and she didn’t even want to keep her around, but hearing what that boy said about the two of them made her body shake with indignation. Then, something echoes in her mind, a memory from the decrepit pits of her childhood.

“Minami, you’re always the weakest link in this family.”

Screaming, Yamane charges at the boy and jumps on his back, her twin daggers sinking into his chest. With a strangled cry, the boy tries to shake her off, but Yamane holds on for dear life.

“Weak link’s right here, you piece of shit!”

“Three minutes remaining.”

Crying out in agony, the boy tries to shake Yamane off of his back, to no avail. Trying to dislodge at least one of the daggers, Yamane needed to finish him off so they could win. It doesn’t budge.

Then, she hears the gunshots and the slice of a blade, accompanied with screams of terror. Simultaneously, the other two delinquents’ portraits get struck.

“Team A has one player left.”

Relief flooding through her, Yamane will just have to wait this out. Or so she thought.

The struggling boy punches her injured shoulder, and Yamane lets out a cry, letting go of one of the daggers. In a last-ditch attempt to take her with him, the boy rams himself backward, bashing Yamane against the wall.

The mouse screws her eyes shut and endures the pain. They’re guaranteed to win now. She just needs to hold on. With another thump, Yamane crashes against the wall again, her bad shoulder colliding with it, pain blooming in the area once more, and she lets out a blood-curdling wail.

“Give it up, you bastard! Your team’s lost anyway,” she screams, pushing the dagger further into the boy’s chest.

“One minute remaining.”

“All my friends are dead, you stupid bitch! They’re dead! They’re fucking dead and I’ll be dead! But I’m taking you with me!”

Before the boy can crash against the wall again, slender fingers pull his hair, forcing him into a bow, and a katana slices through the boy’s neck, decapitating him. The blade misses Yamane’s forehead by mere inches; strands of her hair fell from her face.

Blood spurts everywhere, painting everything in the vicinity red, including Yamane’s face.

Holding the sword is the tattooed man, looking at Yamane with an intensity that halted her breath.

“Team A has no players remaining. Team B wins! Game clear. Congratulations!”

Pulling his blade back with little effort, the tall man didn’t say anything as the delinquent’s body slumped to the floor, taking Yamane with him. Pushing the dead weight off, Yamane retrieves the daggers from his chest with difficulty due to her trembling fingers and injured shoulder. She tucks them in her holsters, and shakily gets to her feet, looking at the severed head in horror.

Yamane tears her eyes away from the corpse, and turns to the person responsible for killing the delinquent. “Thank you,” she whispers to the tattooed man. He doesn’t utter a word to her. Yamane then gives him a deep bow, and limps away. She can feel his gaze burning her back once again.

On the scoreboard, a tally of their score was shown. The synthetic voice crackles over the speaker, announcing their score.

“Suguru Niragi. Two kills. Last Boss. Two kills. Minami Yamane. One kill, one kill assist.”

“Not bad.”

Yamane turns to who spoke, and it was the guy with the facial piercings, his lips almost touching the shell of Yamane’s right ear. She looks to her left, and the man with the tattoos is standing there too, sizing her up.

A warm tongue drags against her cheek, coupled with the cold sensation of a barbell piercing. This man just licked her. This man just licked blood off of her face.

“See you soon, mousy,” Niragi whispers, and smirks.

Paralyzed, Yamane could only tremble in her spot as she watched them walk away. The one with the piercings is toting his gun over his shoulder once again, striding confidently away from the arena, but the one with the hooded cloak and sword looks back at her, inscrutable.

“Last Boss, let’s go,” the one with the gun calls out to his companion, and Last Boss turns his back on Yamane, shuffling to the exit.

“What the fuck just happened,” Yamane whimpers to herself.

Taking tentative steps, she goes over to Sato’s corpse. The poor girl died with her eyes open. Gently, Yamane closed her eyes with her palm, and tears were threatening to escape her own. Then, her eyes wander to the shades she gave her. She picks those up, and begins to walk out of the arena.

If she were being honest with herself, Yamane is lonely, and having Sato around even just for a brief moment helped quell the loneliness.

With Sato’s dead, she’s all alone once again.

“You’re not lucky at all,” Yamane sneers, throwing the shades down the sidewalk and crushing it with her boot. Then, she starts the miserable trek home.

Exhausted, she pushes her apartment door open, and sees her reflection in the mirror as she removes her boots on the genkan. Bloody, bruised, and a total disaster, Yamane wanted to shatter her reflection on the glass, though her body is too tired to act on the impulse.

Stripping to her underwear, Yamane tossed her bloody clothes aside. “The blood is going to be a bitch to wash off,” she thinks. Cleaning herself off as much as she can, the mouse crashes on the couch, groaning as her injured shoulder bumped against the ear. She gives it a quick rub, looking for something to ease the pain, and she sees the box dye on the table.

Memories of the previous day move her to tears.

Sato was a stranger. She shouldn’t be shedding tears for her. It’s the harsh reality of this world: anyone can die. Yamane did the best she could to keep her safe, and she wasn’t even obligated to protect her in the first place.

Still, Yamane finds herself questioning if this girl’s death is her fault.

Sniffling, Yamane chokes on some painkillers and pulls the blanket over her head, which still smells like Sato’s cologne, too tired to move to her bed. She drifted to sleep with tears in her eyes.

Yamane is alive, and that’s all that matters. She’ll take what she can get.

There were no nightmares about the hellish things she had seen today, thankfully.

A sharp pain in her shoulder forces Yamane awake the next morning. In a hurry, she goes to the bathroom and sees it, the large purple bruise, tender to the touch, and her bone popping out of her shoulder socket.

The adrenaline from last night must’ve made her numb to her dislocated shoulder. It’s worse than she thought.

Though the previous game had given her extra days for her to rest, Yamane isn’t sure if she could heal completely before the next one. Even worse, a dislocated shoulder needs to be popped back into place. Though the injured one is her left shoulder, her non-dominant one, her mobility will still be affected.

Perhaps a trip to the pharmacy for more painkillers would help. Yamane made a mental note to look for the strong prescription drugs as well.

In the middle of getting dressed, she heard footsteps outside her apartment.

“Oh mousy! I know you’re in there!”

That voice belonged to the man with the piercings, Niragi.

“Holy shit, how did he find me?! What does he want?!”

Sweat is starting to form on Yamane’s brow, and she takes a quick note of her surroundings. Attempting to fight him might get her killed. Hiding in the bathroom would get her cornered. Her only escape would be the balcony fire exit. Yamane didn’t even bother finishing getting dressed and hauled her bag over her good shoulder, slinking as quietly as possible to the balcony as the pounding on her door grew louder.

The mouse came face to face with the tip of a sword.

Last Boss is standing on her balcony, and Yamane stumbled backward as he advanced. Behind her, she heard gunshots and the door being kicked open. The other man must’ve shot the lock.

A rat in a cage once again, Yamane found herself cornered at the edge of her bedroom by the men.

“Niragi, what should we do with the mouse?”

That was the first time Yamane heard Last Boss say anything. Niragi only snickers in response.

“How did you two find me?” Yamane asks, knees almost bucking from fear.

Retrieving something from his pocket, Last Boss takes out a black square. Yamane recognizes it as her wallet, eyes widening. The man opens it and takes out Yamane’s ID, before tossing the wallet aside.

“We didn’t expect that you’ll kill anyone yesterday, mousy,” Niragi taunts, pointing the barrel of his gun to Yamane’s chest. “Too bad you’re too slow to save your little sister. Who’ll watch your back now?”

Eyes widening in disbelief, Yamane gives him a cold glare.

“You’re making a lot of assumptions. She’s not my sister, and I can take care of myself, as I’ve shown you yesterday,” she replies, boldly, though her knees are shaking.

“Look at her, putting a brave face for us. How cute,” Niragi comments, turning to the tattooed man.

While Niragi was looking at his companion, Yamane bolted, but spindly fingers caught her and gave her injured shoulder a painful squeeze. Last Boss forces the mouse to her knees, and she stifles a broken cry. Niragi squeezes her jaw and makes her look at him.

“You are going to do as we say if you want to live,” Niragi hisses, dragging his tongue against Yamane’s cheek. “Stand up.”

Yamane doesn’t need to be told twice, with a sword and a gun pointed at her. “What do you want from me?”

“We want you,” Last Boss speaks up, pointing the sword to Yamane’s chin, and tilting it.

Yamane blinks a few times, and terror settles into her gut. Fighting would be futile, and so is fleeing. Freezing might only provoke them further. So Yamane does what she does best: fawn. Try to please them to avoid conflict and further trauma, just like she used to do long ago.

“Just as I thought. Men don’t change, even in this strange world, it seems.”

Taking a deep breath, Yamane reaches behind her back to unclasp her bra, and sheds the black skirt around her waist, leaving the two men staring in disbelief.

“Take what you want and get out of my apartment, then.”

While Niragi bursts out laughing and paces the room, Last Boss freezes, looking at her from head to toe with his mouth open. Bare and vulnerable, Yamane dared to raise her head, looking the tattooed man in the eye.

“Just do what you want to me then leave me alone!”

“Hold on, hold on,” Niragi almost wheezes, patting Last Boss’ back.

“Baby, if you want a good fucking, we certainly wouldn’t mind,” Niragi croons, his hand moving to fondle one of Yamane’s breasts. “But we’re not here for that yet. We’re taking you someplace nice.”

Furrowing her brow, Yamane covers her chest with her hands. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“After that stunt you pulled yesterday, we think the chief would like to have you onboard.”

“And what if I refuse?”

“You can’t refuse,” Niragi croons, his breath puffing against her cheek. That damned tongue flicks out of his mouth again, like a snake. The pattern on his shirt made Yamane associate him with the treacherous creature further. Niragi cocks his gun and points it to the woman’s chin. “Not with your injuries, you can’t. So what will it be, mousy?”

Looking at the two men back and forth, and weighing her options one last time in her head, Yamane gives them a relenting sigh. “Fuck. Fine. Let me get dressed. I don’t have a choice, don’t I?”

Pulling his rifle back, Niragi smirks. “Good girl. Watch her. We wouldn’t want our mouse to get away.”

As Niragi exits the room, the other man keeps his sword pointed at Yamane at all times as she picks up her clothes, his eyes not leaving her, but they roam at the expanse of skin. Yamane isn’t oblivious, and she’s not a virgin either; she knows where his eyes are going. Though he’s eccentric, or maybe outright insane, Yamane had seen that look before on faces of inexperienced boys she toyed with in high school.

“You could at least pretend that this isn’t your first time seeing a real woman naked, you know,” Yamane dares to chide him as she struggled to put her bra on. As she pulls her skirt up, cold, slender fingers close around the back of her neck, and Yamane tenses up, like a rodent trapped under a tiger’s paw.

“If you want to stay conscious, keep quiet.”

The grip he has on her neck is enough to make Yamane light-headed. Giving him two short nods, Yamane does as she’s told, and the pressure on her neck dissipates.

The mouse had decided that she’ll no longer attempt to piss this tiger off.

Sword pointed at her back, she descended the stairs, and Last Boss tosses her in the back of a car; a working car, to Yamane’s surprise. Niragi sits in the passenger’s seat, while a woman Yamane had never seen before is behind the steering wheel.

The woman looks at her through the rearview mirror and scoffs. “This is the thing you want to bring back to the boss? She looks like a wimp who raided a Harajuku goth store.”

Niragi chuckles, and from the corner of Yamane’s eyes, Last Boss is giving her one of his blank, wide-eyed stares.

“Just shut up and drive, Saiko. She’s our new pet mouse. That piece of shit that died in the game yesterday needs a replacement anyway. I think she has potential.”

“You can’t even refer to me by my name,” Yamane spits, making Saiko raise an eyebrow in amusement. “What makes you think that you have that dominion over me?”

“What a feisty pet you have,” Saiko comments offhandedly, eyes on the road.

All it took is Last Boss pointing his katana at her again for her to hold her tongue. Resentment roils in her gut at his power over her. Giving him a dirty look, the mouse crosses her arms and sulks in her seat.

“See what I mean?” Niragi chuckles. “We have her under a leash.”

“So, what’s your name?” Saiko asks her.

“...Yamane. Minami Yamane.”

Head bowed, Yamane grits her teeth as Niragi laughs. “See? Calling her a mouse is appropriate,” Niragi exclaims, placing his hands behind his head and leaning against the car seat. “Such a cute little dormouse, all trembling and afraid even after she beat a guy to death.”

Yamane didn’t say anything about his teasing, or ask him anything stupid, instead shooting for the important questions.

“Where are you even taking me?”

“The Beach.”

[adarlingwrites]

Dormouse

Summary:

After playing a game with two of The Beach's most dangerous members, the dormouse gets her tail caught by a tiger's paw.

He’ll make a wildcat out of her.

Author’s Notes:

You’ve reached the final chapter. To avoid spoilers, I won't be using CWs for this chapter. Disturbing and potentially triggering content are untagged. Readers have been warned.

XIII

cut through this razor wire | and dine on your heart | mine 'til the end

Lying on the floor and bleeding, Yamaneko calls out to Sunohara once again.

“Help me.”

The doctor springs into action, taking off her pristine white coat to press it against Yamaneko’s bleeding stomach. Then, she turns to the street artist. “You’re Hinata, right?”

Shaking and crying at the same time, the street artist nods. “Hinata, please apply pressure for me. I have to administer the antivenom. Can you do that?” Sunohara asks, brows furrowed in concentration.

The tan-skinned girl nods rapidly, crawling over to do as she’s told. As Sunohara excises the venom from Yamaneko’s hand with a scalpel, the militant turns to Hinata with a wry smile. “Well, welcome to the world of Heart games. It’s brutal as hell.”

“Would you please shut up? You’ve been bitten by a deadly snake and stabbed in the stomach. Please save your strength,” Hinata blurts, tears spilling from her eyes uncontrollably.

“You’re not my mother. Then again, I never really listened to her in the first place.” She tilts her head towards Mr. Yamane’s corpse. “Or him, for that matter.”

“You’re bleeding out but you still have the energy to joke?! You’re something else...”

“It’s how I coped with that bastard’s bullshit all these years, newbie.”

Needle sinking into her arm, Yamaneko didn’t flinch, unable to feel the pain at that point. As the last drop of the life-saving medicine leaves the syringe, the synthetic voice crackles from their phones’ speakers. “Game cleared. Congratulations!”

Yamaneko chuckles, which comes out as a garbled sob. “Congratulations, my ass. I don’t think I’ll make it.”

“Don’t say that. We’ll bring you back to the Beach for medical attention, okay?” Sunohara reassures her, bandaging her arm with a roll of gauze from the first aid kit that she always carries with her to the games.

“Let’s not fool ourselves,” Yamaneko slurs, head spinning. “Do you have anything I can write on?”

Hinata and Sunohara look at each other, then at Yamaneko. “I just need to leave a letter for my lover… in case I don’t survive this.”

With reluctance, Sunohara plucks her pen from the pocket of her bloodied doctor’s coat, while Hinata offers a notepad full of sketches, turning to a blank page and holding it for the wounded woman. Hand shaking, Yamaneko pens a hasty letter, tears the page from the notepad, and tucks it in her jacket.

“Let’s go.”

Palms cold and wet, Takatora waits outside Tokyo Zoo. His clothes are soaked with sweat, and his katana is soaked with blood, but there is barely a scratch on him. Tonight’s game has been a cakewalk for him.

He’s hoping the same for his lover.

Anxiety is radiating off of him, his face twitching every now and then from the subdued agitation he’s feeling.

“It’s too cold to be out,” Aguni calls out from the inside of the car, but Last Boss ignores him, opting to wait outside and greet Yamaneko once she emerges from the game venue.

Tapping his fingers against the dashboard, Aguni couldn’t help but be anxious too. “Yamaneko will be fine. She knows what she’s doing,” he mutters. Last Boss didn’t respond once again, but deep down, he hopes the chief is right.

So when Yamaneko emerges from the shadows, being dragged by two of her fellow players, he regrets not forcing her to adapt to his methods.

Long legs taking him as fast as they could to her, Last Boss catches Yamaneko in his arms, while Aguni near-smacks the car door off its hinges as he gets out of the car to look.

“Yamaneko.” There was a slight crack in Last Boss’ voice as he uttered his lover’s moniker. A bloody, swollen hand reaches out to touch his face. “Tora. My plan worked… but I think I should’ve gone with yours. I’m sorry. I was too stubborn.”

“Stop talking,” he hushes her, and carries her to the car.

Upon seeing the militants, Hinata panics. “Her father stabbed her, he wanted the antidote and she’s bleeding I-” she stammers, but Last Boss ignores her, laying his lover down.

“Explain later,” Aguni tells her, brusquely opening the door to the driver’s seat and twisting the car key into place. “You,” he addresses Sunohara. “Get in the backseat with them and help.”

The doctor nods, hopping in the car, and as soon as Hinata gets in the passenger seat, Aguni speeds off.

In the backseat, Yamaneko lies on Last Boss’ lap, while Sunohara presses her damn hardest on her stab wound. Despite the doctor’s best efforts and the vial of antidote, the combined injury and the effect of the venom on her blood is far too much. Blood painted the leather of the car seat, Sunohara’s hands, and Last Boss’ clothes.

“Hang in there,” the doctor near-cries. Her eyes meet with the tattooed militants’, and she gulps. “Don’t worry, once we get to the Beach, she’ll be fine-”

“Don’t make any promises you can’t keep.”

There is a subtle anguish hiding behind the militant’s deep voice. One large hand is cradling his lover’s head, while the other is gripping his katana, knuckles white from the tension.

A weak, broken chuckle escapes Yamaneko’s lips, and Last Boss turns his full attention to her.

“She’s just trying to make you feel better,” she croaks.

Glassy, bloodshot eyes met his, and when she opened her mouth to speak again, her teeth were stained with her blood. Last Boss couldn’t say a word, eyes wide and wet as he watched Yamaneko struggle to speak. Her tiny hand disappears into the pocket of her jacket, and she presses a folded slip of paper to her lover’s chest.

With cold, sweating hands, he takes it from hers, pockets it, and he goes back to cradling her. Shallow breaths kissed his cheek, and the wildcat’s eyes fluttered shut, which were heavy with fatigue.

“Yamaneko?” the tattooed militant mumbles, lips twitching. He leans in to hear if she’s still breathing, and she whispers something.

Then, he hears it; death rattles, a telltale sign that she’s slipping away. The rest of the ride is filled with solemn silence.

It’s too late for her when they arrived at the Beach.

The speakers didn’t need to be toppled over for the music to stop. There were no shouts that instructed the sea of people to get out of the way. Conversations died to whispers as people saw one of the most dangerous members of the Beach with a woman curled in his arms.

“Shit, is she dead?”

“There’s so much blood…”

“Wasn’t she his girlfriend or something?”

“Did he kill her?”

“I bet he stabbed her. That guy’s a psycho!”

“That’s what you get for hanging around with those militants…”

The whispers didn’t bother Last Boss anymore, who disappeared into the building with the others.

All the color from Yamaneko’s face is gone, and it’s her turn to lie on a gurney in the makeshift morgue, the harsh lights making her look ghostlike. Members of the executive board and the people who were present during her death surrounded her.

“Did she carry out her task, at least?” the Hatter asks, his usual jovial air gone.

“She succeeded,” Aguni responds, eyes flicking from his dead underling’s body to the women she played her last game with. “On the way here, those two said that before his death, her father admitted to committing the murders.”

“It’s a shame it has come to this,” Ann laments, crossing her arms. “She was becoming an important asset to the Beach, despite her allegiance to the military sect.”

Mira tuts. “And a promising Heart player too.”

“Great. We’ll have to find a replacement for her now,” Niragi sighs, slinging his rifle over his shoulder.

“Is that all you view her as? Someone who you can use to bring you game cards?” Hinata speaks up, fists clenched. Niragi shoots a sour look in her direction. “People die every day on the Beach. What makes her any different? You barely even know her. Everyone here barely even knows her.”

“Yeah? What about him, huh?” Hinata retorts, pointing to Last Boss.

Silence had befallen the room, and all eyes were on the tattooed militant. The corner of his mouth twitching, knuckles white, Last Boss gives Yamaneko’s corpse a long, hard look. A cold, large hand caresses her even colder forehead, and brushes her bangs off of her face.

“I’ll burn her body once you’re done cutting her open.”

Then, he turns around, leaving the room without saying another word.

“See?” Niragi chuckles. “He just left like he didn’t stick his dick in her just hours before.”

This time, the normally calm and gentle Sunohara snaps. “Don’t make assumptions about how people process grief. You don’t know how he feels, none of us do.”

Before an argument can erupt in the morgue, Hatter raises an open palm. “What anyone feels about her death is irrelevant now. What was certain is she died a loyal member of the Beach. Ann, carry on with your autopsy.” Then, he turns to Aguni. “You’re her chief. Give her a proper send-off after Ann’s procedures, if you want.”

One by one, people left the room, leaving only Ann and Sunohara inside. However, before Hinata departs, she walks over to the taller women, biting her lip.

“Hey. I think there’s something you need to know about her. I think her boyfriend should know too.”

Later that night, heavy boots thumped against the hotel’s carpeted floor. Aguni opens the door to an exclusive suite, where the Hatter is waiting, with no bodyguards present. Just the two of them.

Takeru pours his friend a shot of strong whiskey, and the leader of the militants downs it in one gulp. The shot glass makes a clinking sound as Morizono slams it down the coffee table.

“Mori,” Takeru calls his attention. “How are you holding up?”

With a weary sigh, he turns to his oldest friend. “I feel like shit. I shouldn’t have given her permission to carry out her plan alone. I thought putting her together with the doctor is enough to keep her safe.”

Drinking a shot of his own, Takeru moves closer to him. “Do you feel responsible for her death?”

“She’s my underling. It’s only normal.”

“I know you better than that, Mori.”

Aguni turns to his best friend, eyes bloodshot and wet, but the tears didn’t spill. “Like you said before, she’s a stabilizing element. Hell, somehow, she managed to make Niragi back off from that new girl, and Last Boss is calmer around her. To think I planned to train her so she can help me keep the others under control in the future…”

“That’s the most I’ve heard from you in a while. You cared about her, didn’t you?” Takeru asks, taking a fat stick of cigar and lighting it. Afterwards, he pours his friend another shot of liquor.

A single tear falls from the normally stoic, brusque man’s eye. “Those eyes of hers when she looks at her father… I saw the same eyes in the mirror years ago.”

He pauses, and gives Takeru a soft laugh. “A part of me wanted to be the father she never had. Huh, am I even old enough for that?”

Patting Morizono’s back, Takeru blows smoke out of his mouth.

“There’s the Mori I know, a softie underneath that hard exterior.”

Meanwhile, the door to Takatora and Yamaneko’s shared room creaks open. On the table is the vintage sewing machine Yamaneko took from the antique store in Shimokitazawa, along with the other things they’ve brought back.

Takatora runs his fingers across the smooth finish of the Singer, then he picks it up and throws it against the wall. Various items got flung across the room, from the knick knacks they gathered together, to the hotel’s heavy furniture.

“You should’ve listened to me,” he says to no one in particular.

“Yamaneko, you should’ve listened to me! You should’ve just killed him,” he rasps as he picks up a lamp and throws it to the ground, shattering it into pieces.

By the end of the night, the room is in ruins. The wallpaper is shredded, the bathroom sink is in pieces, and the tattooed man sits panting on the floor, eyes frenzied. As his breathing evens out, he remembers the folded piece of paper his lover gave him, and with trembling hands, he retrieves it from his pocket.

Unfolding it, he starts reading the contents.

“Tora, if you’re reading this, it means I’m gone. I’m sorry. Remember the day I asked you to kiss me? What you said to me that day was beautiful, so I lived by it. I’m thankful for this world. I’m thankful for you. Please continue living free in this world without me. You never told me if you believed in an afterlife, but if there is one, I’ll come looking for you after you’ve returned to the soil. I’m yours forever.”

Then he reads it, the same words she uttered with her dying breath.

“I love you.”

Takatora screams, head between his hands.

After some time, he passes out on the floor, curled over pillows he grabbed from the bed. They still smelled like her.

The next afternoon, he awakens to someone knocking. After rubbing the sleep off of his eyes, Last Boss picks up his katana, and opens the door. Aguni stands on the other side, a neutral expression on his face. The chief’s eyes wander around the room and sees its disheveled state, and clears his throat.

“Patrol with me. Now.”

Not bothering to close the door behind him, the tattooed man follows, head hung low.

Truth be told, Aguni didn’t know what to say. He didn’t even know what the other man was thinking about, but judging the state of his room, he’s not handling Yamaneko’s passing well. People whispered about Last Boss as they walked through the halls, and Aguni grits his teeth at the inane gossip.

“He’s terrifying.”

“Maybe she tried to leave him and he wouldn’t let her go.”

“From what I heard, she said no to him and it made him angry.”

“What did she even see in him?”

To avoid the risk of Last Boss snapping, Aguni moves on from that place, leading him away from prying eyes. As they rounded a corner, they came face to face with Doctor Sunohara, whose lips trembled as she pressed a clipboard against her chest.

“O-oh. Hey. I’ve been meaning to look for you. Last Boss, was it?”

With a blank stare, he nods, and Sunohara takes a sharp inhale. “Our autopsy just finished. I think there’s something you should know as Miss Yamane’s partner.” The doctor turns to Aguni. ‘If you don’t mind…”

“I’m Yamaneko’s chief. I’m responsible for her.”

“I see. Well, there’s no use beating around the bush.” Turning to the tattooed militant, Sunohara presses her lips in a tight line.

“Your partner… she was pregnant at her time of death.”

Neither of the two men didn’t know what to say, and just glared at the doctor with their tongues tied.

“Are you sure about this?” Aguni asks, folding his arms.

“To be fair, I was skeptical too. It’s been more than two weeks since I prescribed her emergency pills and birth control, so she should’ve been protected. Before she passed away, she bled from her privates. I thought it was just that time of the month or some spotting, but I found out that she neglected taking her medications. The girl you two were with also told me about her symptoms. So Ann and I tested her… and, well, the results returned positive.”

Last Boss blinks a few times, knuckles turning white as he balled up his fists.

“...show me the baby,” the quiet man finally speaks up.

“At this stage, there isn’t a baby yet. There’s not even a fetus.”

“Then how are you sure that she was pregnant?”

The doctor fishes something out of her pocket, and hands it to the tall, quiet man. “It’s a pregnancy test. Look here,” she points to the two lines. “Two lines means positive.”

This time, Aguni expresses his skepticism. “But she was dead by the time you took this test. How do we know this is accurate?”

With a patient gaze, Sunohara continues explaining. “I was an obstetrician-gynecologist before I came here. The pregnancy hormone hCG can remain in a patient’s system from one to nine weeks after a miscarriage. From the levels we got from her urine, she’s been pregnant for about two weeks.”

Neither of them asked any more questions after that. The tattooed militant’s gaze is fixated on the positive test, mouth agape from disbelief.

Sunohara clears her throat. “I’m sorry. I… I’m sorry for your loss. When you’re ready, you can come pick her body up later. Excuse me, I need a smoke.”

Sunohara walks away, leaving the militants stunned at the revelation.

Both are at a loss for words. Aguni is trying to come up with something to say, while Last Boss’ thoughts are racing a mile a minute.

What would’ve happened if Yamaneko survived, and found out about her pregnancy? Takatora never even thought of having children, but he wonders what their child would look like. Would that child take after its mother, inheriting her dreamy eyes, small nose, and short height? Or would it take after him, and get his long limbs, pronounced nose, and sullen gaze?

But Niragi had touched her before he did. Did he use protection? Is it his seed that impregnated her instead? A twisted, selfish, and possessive part of him wanted it to be his, just like how he wanted Yamaneko to be his. The same twisted, selfish, and possessive part of him knew that Yamaneko would be terrified to have this child, but having it would help stake his claim on her.

Thinking about it seems so pointless now that she’s gone. Last Boss shakes the thoughts off, and focuses on his deceased lover’s last words, instead.

He’ll live free in this world without her.

Feet taking him back to his room, he gathered what’s left of Yamaneko’s belongings that hadn't been destroyed in his frenzy, and packed them in a rugged sack. That afternoon, he informs Aguni that he’ll be excusing himself from patrols, and the games. He must tend to Yamaneko’s body.

“Where will you bury her?” Aguni asks him.

“I won’t. I’ll burn her, near the place where I found her.”

“I’ll drive you there,” Aguni offers.

Wordlessly, he nods.

As the night falls, they load Yamaneko’s body in the back of the car, and Aguni drives. In the trunk are various pieces of wood, gasoline, and the rest of Yamaneko’s things. The chief raises an eyebrow as they stop outside a laser tag arcade.

It’s the place where it all began.

Retrieving the items from the trunk, Takatora builds his lover a pyre. Aguni watches from the inside of the car, allowing him to grieve by himself. Then, Last Boss walks back to the car to retrieve his dead lover’s body, wrapped in a makeshift body bag.

With uncharacteristic gentleness, he lays her down, and unwraps her. Just a day before, she was alive and full of enthusiasm as she made love to him in the antique store; seeing her lifeless and cold makes Takatora’s breath constrict in his throat.

It’s been more than twelve hours since her death; her limbs are relaxed now. Yamaneko’s body had been cut open and sewn back shut, stitches lining her body. Her skin is cold to the touch, all of its color gone. The tiger crouches beside his wildcat, and presses his warm, trembling lips against her cold ones.

Then, he pulls away, and douses her with gasoline.

Reaching in his pocket, he retrieves a lighter, and sets her ablaze.

The flames lick her skin, and he watches. One by one, he throws in the rest of Yamaneko’s possessions; fragments of the sewing machine, her sewing kit containing all her threads and needles, assorted pieces of stationery, various makeup, the positive pregnancy stick, and finally, her beloved jacket. Before he throws the last item in, he presses it against his face, taking in her scent one last time.

After those had been tossed in the flame, he reaches inside his pocket again, and takes out all the photographs he took of her just the day before.

Takatora has no need for the obscene pictures Yamaneko allowed him to take; it’ll only remind his body of what he had lost. They burned to a crisp as the flames touched them.

Then, he gets to the last two photographs. His favorites.

The enigmatic militant didn’t even notice the warm tear that landed on the picture of his lover’s smiling face.

Takatora adds that to the burning pile, as well.

Lastly, he takes out Yamaneko’s letter to him, and reads it again one last time, this time doing so out loud.

Smoke rose to the heavens, and the fire roared into the night, drowning out his voice.

Last Boss only got worse after that night. He killed with no remorse, and faced the game with no fear of dying, staying true to who he is, and to Yamaneko’s final words to him.

Some days later, the unthinkable happened.

With the Hatter dead, the Beach is falling apart. Aguni takes the helm, and the last numbered Heart game finally commences within the Beach grounds. As the announcement blares over the hotel’s speakers, Last Boss goes to the table to pick up a phone, which lights up and recognizes his face. The lobby is getting crowded, anxious players passing each other phones to prepare for the biggest, deadliest game yet.

It’s a witch-hunt of some sort. Burn the witch that killed the dead girl lying on the lobby floor.

As the people babbled about their theories about the witch, Last Boss grew impatient.

His past experiences proved again and again that the best solution is the most straightforward one.

So when one girl points her finger to the militant sect, Last Boss comes behind her, and plunges his katana through her chest. Several bystanders jumped away from the scene, mortified. The tattooed militant withdraws his blade, and opens his mouth to speak, a mad glint in his eye.

“How troublesome. Let’s just burn everyone we find.”

Across him, Niragi’s newest toy, some girl that arrived at the Beach days ago, looks at him with a horrified expression. The murmurs quiet down as the chief approaches, addressing the crowd. Last Boss didn’t even pay attention to what he said. The moment Niragi fires his gun, he joins the fray, killing anyone who got in the way.

Chaos erupts in the Beach. People ran, some hid like rats in their rooms. They need to be lured out, and Last Boss knows just how to do it. Niragi speaks to him through a walkie-talkie while he dragged canisters of fuel and kicked them over the storage room’s floor.

Flames erupt as he tosses his lit lighter to the floor. In the fire, he sees Yamaneko; her cold, dead body to be exact. He pulls his hood down, blinks a few times, and ultimately chooses to turn around and continue the witch hunt.

That night, he didn’t know that he’d be meeting her again so soon.

Last Boss woke up from a dazed state in a burning room, inhaling thick black smoke. He recalls the moments before he lost consciousness, and remembers going against a formidable foe; a woman trained in martial arts who managed to defeat him, and render him unconscious. Silently, he thanked that woman for paving the way for him. Thanks to her, he’s one step closer to finally facing death.

Ordinary people wouldn’t understand people like Last Boss, who embraced it. To him, this world is the one in its true form, without the illusions of civilization. Not even his own mother would have understood his philosophy.

But Yamaneko did.

And as the carbon monoxide-laden smoke continues to fill his lungs, Takatora sees her walking towards him, healthy and hale with her pretty smile, just like in the photograph he had burned weeks ago. There’s a slight bulge on her belly, made obvious in her usual Beach outfit.

“I didn’t expect you to follow so soon,” she greets him, sitting next to him in the burning building. “I’ve missed you so much, Tora.” His lover pats her belly. “We were waiting for you.”

“Yamaneko.”

Even in the foul smoke, he can smell her scent, and even in the blazing heat, her warmth is greater.

“Are you afraid?” she asks him, holding his hand.”

“No. I’ll embrace death.”

“Did you get to live freely?”

“Yes. I’m freer than I ever was.”

“Are you ready?” Yamaneko asks as she leans her head against his shoulder.

“I’m ready.”

Kissing him gently, Yamaneko sits in his lap. “Return to the soil with me, Tora.”

“I’ll be happy to.”

“I love you,” Yamaneko whispers, before closing her eyes.

Takatora closes his eyes, grateful for all the experiences he had in this beautiful world.

“I love you.”

Author’s Notes 2: Well, writing this was a journey. Hopefully I did the canon characters some justice, especially Last Boss. Imagining a character like him having a love interest is challenging, and this was fun to write. The last two chapters were taxing to write due to the research I put in about poisons, venomous snakes, and other medical stuff, but it was worth it!

I've debated for months on whether I should give them a happy ending... but in the end, the angst won out. Thank you for reading, and thank you for sticking with our dormouse-turned-wildcat anti villain protagonist till the end.