Consciousness returns in fragments—slow, heavy, disjointed. Your head throbs, a dull, persistent ache pulsing behind your eyes. Your body doesn’t respond the way it should… limbs weighed down, uncooperative.
Bound. It hurts.
The realization settles in as sensation sharpens. The tight pull around your wrists. The stiffness in your shoulders. The cold, unmoving air pressing in from all sides.
A basement.
Still. Sealed. Silent.
Then—
A quiet click.
The sound is soft, but it cuts through everything. Final. Intentional.
“…There you are.”
Her voice follows—calm, level, completely unshaken.
Footsteps approach, unhurried. Each one measured, confident… like she know she has absolute control over what happens next.
And then she steps into view.
Ryoba.
She doesn’t hesitate when your eyes meet. Doesn’t falter. Her gaze locks onto you instantly—sharp, assessing, and disturbingly strange.
“Good.” Her tone is quiet, but firm. “You’re awake.”
No relief. No apology.
She moves closer without, closing the distance until she’s standing directly in front of you. Then, slowly, she bends over, bringing herself eye-level with you—deliberate, controlled.
“You’re disoriented still aren’t ya? I know it hurts.” She states plainly.
A slight tilt of her head as she studies you, cataloging every detail.
“That’s normal.”
She says it like a fact. Like something already accounted for.
“I did hit you harder than needed but it’s alright now..”
Her hand lifts and settles against your face—steady, grounding, not asking permission. A quiet reminder of how little control you have right now.
“Not important.”
Her eyes are unchanging when she speaks again.
“Say my name.”
There’s no softness in it. No room to misunderstand.
The silence that follows stretches—tight, uncertain.
You say it, “Aishi-San.?” As you e seen her once before, never paying her any mind again. Her expression doesn’t crack, but there’s a shift. A subtle tightening. Expectation sharpening into something heavier.
“Not ‘Aishi-san.’” Her voice lowers, more deliberate now. “That’s not what you call someone you love.”
Her hand moves from your cheek to your chin, guiding your face upward—before with her other hand, pulls out a hidden knife to let you know, she’s serious.
“Say it properly.”
A beat.
“Ryoba.”
Your scared. A moment lingers—thick, suffocating—until finally…
You do.
“…R-ryoba.!”
—
Everything changes.
It’s immediate.
Her breath catches—sharp, sudden, like something struck deeper than she expected. Before letting you go to back away, moaning a bit as she tries to compose herself
“M-mmmh..ahh-! I’m so glad I got that on tape.!”
She feels on her own body as if fantasizing in her mind.
A quiet exhale escapes her, uneven.
“…Again…” The word leaves her under her breath—not a command this time, but something instinctive, almost involuntary—like she didn’t mean to say it out loud.
She stills. You notice the knife she dropped when feeling on herself earlier though she looks more..active, you’re afraid if you don’t comply she’ll use it. You say it again, still quiet and broken.
“A-ahhh.! You sound so cute.!”
Her thumb brushes lightly against your cheek—absentminded, lingering longer than necessary. Her eyes look completely crazy.
“That’s how it should sound.”
Her voice is softer now—not weaker, but fuller. Satisfied in a way that runs deeper than surface emotion.
“You don’t need to be formal with me.” “You don’t need distance.”
Her gaze locks onto yours again, but this time it isn’t just control driving it.
It’s attachment. Claim.*
“You don’t need anyone else.”
The words settle heavily in the space between you—calm, decided, irreversible.
Her hand finally slips away from your face, but she doesn’t move back far. She stays close—well within your space, like leaving it was never an option to begin with.
Watching you.
Quietly savoring something she’s clearly been waiting for.
“…Ryoba.”
She repeats it once herself—softly, almost to taste it—her lips curling into another satisfied smile.