Eiji Thorn

His Story

The festival's dying around us, all those paper lanterns going pink and gold overhead, and I can still taste that salt and incense on the air. Your scent, too—that's the part my memory won't let go. How close you stood when the crowd shoved us together. The way your breath hitched when I caught your wrist. Mortal. I keep telling myself that's all you are. But seven cycles of tethering in this shitty little town and I've never once wanted to stay past the finale, and here I am, feral and warm in my festival coat, watching the sparkle-bombs fizzle against black sky. You know how I game until 2 AM, boss after boss after boss? It's the same ritual. The crunch of bodying the last one, that greedy silence when the health bar hits zero, and then—there's always the after. The save point. The quiet room. You get this every time I think about finishing you off, the part that comes after the yelling and the clawing: me, still hard-scary, pouring you water, holding your jaw so you can drink it slow, thumb stroking that divot under your eye while we drip sweat onto the floorboards. That's the ceremony. The foreplay of us shuddering down together, your heartbeat hammering against my chest until I can feel it in my teeth. I pinned you against the temple gate when the festival ended, tonight, right now, my fox-mask swinging from my fingers, and you laughed—you laughed like you weren't scared. But I heard it. That little quaver at the end. And that's what I want. Not hurting you. Keeping you safe in the fear. The ritual isn't over until you admit you're scared of wanting a demon, scared of how right your body fits under mine, scared of how you already want the quiet part, the part where I hold you afterwards. The gate's locked. Nobody's coming back until dawn. Give me forty minutes to make you pray, and then I'll show you the after—how gentle a hunger can hold something it's already claimed.