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writermask-0807-backupblog · 1 year

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KOCHO SHINOBU X READER {"LET'S PLAY A GAME OF PRETEND." or: "THE HOLE IN MY HEART WHERE YOU USED TO BE."}

A/N: I'm backkkk! Honestly I'm so happy rn, seeing the amount of likes the all might piece got me so quickly! I might just burst from excitement and happiness. So here I am, with a Shinobu fic!! Honestly I just can't stop simping for this tiny lady 😘. I hope you enjoy!! And please COMMENT!!! I would really like to know what yalls think. *Writermask out 🎭*

Warnings: angst with no happy ending, hanahaki, blood and gore (not that graphic tho), character death, unrequited love??? Also, I may have used this - too much 🙃

KOCHO Shinobu is a hollow of the person whom she used to be.

She's all empty smiles and even emptier promises, blank, listless stares and hollow kisses, and the saccharine of poisonous words, twisted and barbed and ready to cut and hurt, just as easily as she can heal those raw wounds with a simple flick of her smile, a touch of her deft, nimble hands. She's as dangerous as she is beautiful, and her smile is twisted and angry, and worst of all, she's not yours. Not anymore.

(And now you think, she was never yours in the first place. )

The overly sweet, and cheerful disposition she wears- a remnant of her sister's, leaves a sour taste on your tongue, makes your heart wrench painfully under your ribs, and you can't look at that forever-present smile, knowing it's false- a lie. The weight of this bitter revelation stifles you to the point where it's unbearable, because it's not the same. She's not the girl you once knew, and it hurts knowing that.

The girl you knew was all flustered, averted gazes, reddening blushes and sweet words, (that you know were genuine). That girl used to intertwine your hands together shyly, big lilac hues coy, and the soft curve to her mouth was never constant as it is now- weathered by her short temper and disapproving frown, though every time she offered you that mild smile, you knew it was heartfelt and raw and tender with love and warmth.

That girl was full, brimming with emotions- with a sort of life and energy you could never tire of, all sweet smiles and even sweeter kisses, not the blank, dead hollow she is now. Now, she's shattered dreams and broken promises and the very epitome of hurt.

Though, you know, deep within your heart, that she must have loved you too- a long, long time ago, when both her sisters and you were by her side, at that one point in the whisper of time when all had been right with the world- when all had been right with her life.

(Fleeting smiles, tender touches and soft peaches on a summer day. The press of a delicate, rosebud-like mouth against yours, and the flutter of wings.)

It seems like an eternity ago now- the memory of that precious time, and you cradle every second you've lost, hold them close to your heart, tuck them in the corners of your mind- every treasured moment, when her mind hadn't yet been clouded by the thirst for vengeance, and her love had been true, once upon a time.

She'd been so- so happy back then, youthful and nervous but still kind, and your heart aches with the memory of it all- the old scars pulsing back to life and stinging with a rekindled vehemence, as if telling you, can you feel it? The pain, the rawness, the agony? Because this is reality, this is the world you've forgotten, the world that's forgotten you. This is not your home, the dreamlands you've wasted your days frolicking about. Do you understand?

(And you remember, that slight twitch in the corners of her mouth, no matter how rare or minute or bashful, had always been genuine, real like the emotion- the warmth pooling in her eyes.)

But fate, as cruel as it is, snatches that innocence and snuffs it out like a candle to the darkness- destines all the good things to come to an end.

You remember her eyes on the day it happened, and the memory's vivid and agonizing, burning at the forefront of your mind even now, years later.

(You still breathe the air of death, smell the metallic, rancid stench of blood.)

Those big, innocent lilac hues had been forced wide by panic, round with pure terror, pulsing with a rawness you'd never seen from her. You remember every second and every sensation you'd felt in that moment: the wild, unsteady thumping of your heart threatening to surge out of your ribcage, plummeting into the pit of your stomach, the sting of bile rising in your throat, the sudden dryness of your mouth, the erratic racing of your pulse. The panic and the fear bursting through your veins- God there's so much blood, so much blood. Why's there so much blood?!, the cold dread coiling around your spine as you'd taken a shaky step towards Shinobu trembling in the corner of that alley, your hands clenched into fists as they'd trembled against your sides.

Look, Y/N, she'd croaked, tone rasping, and voice breaking with the edge of tears, fueled with a wild desperation as she'd shook her limp, motionless sister by the shoulders, look. She's not moving- Kanae's not moving, she's not breathing. She's not moving, tell her to breathe!

And you remember the spillage of blood, a splatter of ardent color eye-catching, and vivid against the dull canvas of the ground, as the bright crimson had pooled into a small ocean. The rich substance coated each and every surface, painfully prominent against her paling skin, drenching her hands and clothes, harsh scarlet staining Kanae's lifeless corpse, and your own flesh as you'd dropped beside her, knees wobbling and buckling under the weight of your horror.

The thick liquid stained your hands as you'd slowly reached out to the shuddering, petite frame of your lover, as she'd hunched over her sister's dead body, and you remember how your wavering voice had breathed desperate, shaky (lieslieslies-!) reassurances into her hair. Less hysterical than Shinobu, despite the panic squeezing at your chest and the tears prickling at the corners of your eyes, you'd tried to pull her away from the blood and gore, pry her away from all that pain and hurt and death- but it all ended in vain, futile efforts, as she'd scrabbled to clutch at Kanae's tighter than ever before.

(Don't take- don't take her away from me! Please, Y/N, please…)

You remember the funeral and the grief and the tears, rolling down your own cheeks, as you'd wept and mourned for the loss of a dear friend. Shinobu didn't cry. She'd remained frozen and emotionless throughout the event, but her eyes were red rimmed and glassy, like she was in a far away place, or maybe even stuck inside her mind- inside the fabrications of her own little hell-hole.

When you'd squeezed her hand in yours, to remind her that you were still there- to be an anchor if she needed to remain grounded, a shoulder to cry on, someone to share her woes with, she'd looked at you silently with those dull eyes, and there was so much grief and mourning in them that it broke your heart.

She was never the same after that.

For a while, she was distant, despite you offering support and help in any way you could. Things had been tense between the both of you, and you'd been filled with nothing but worry and unease when she offered you nothing but silence.

But then one day, out of the blue, she visited you- with a smile so sickeningly sweet that it felt bitter, more cordial and polite than it was genuine, and you'd known immediately that she'd changed. That mild smile was full of laughter and false brightness, but it never reached her eyes.

She was uncharacteristic- sugary sweet in a way that felt sick and bitter on your tongue, and her eyes unsettled you to the point where you felt discomfort creeping down your spine and pooling into the pit of your stomach. Her eyes, those deep violet hues- they were glazed and dull despite that bright smile twisting her lips, lifeless even.

(And yet somehow, they were also colored dark with the hue of hatred.)

Your Kocho Shinobu had died, and from her ashes was rebirthed another- all hollow and bitter with loss, filled with an unadulterated rage and seething with silent fury, but it's always carefully masked- always concealed behind a well constructed, unwavering facade- the stretch of her lips opening into a broad, false smile.

And yet, like the masochist you were (that you still are), you selfishly chose to be back with her, coaxed by that terrible, terrible smile, even though she never truly loved you- at least, not anymore.

Kocho Shinobu is a hollow of the person whom she used to be, but in all of her empty smiles and false cheer, she manages to complete you- piece your fragments together and mend the broken parts of you, in the most inconvenient of ways- fills you up in a way only her, and no full person ever can. You hate her and love her for it.

But you only wish you could heal her hurt, mend her cracks and soothe her heartache in the way she so dutifully eases yours. It's painful, going about everyday and playing pretend with her like this- like you do everyday, despite knowing that there's a certain edge of darkness behind that bright smile, that there's anger above the pain and deceit beneath the false-love.

But despite all that- the lies and the deception, despite the obvious fact that you're both playing a game of pretend that slowly draws close to an inevitable end- she still manages to make your heart stutter and skip a beat, for your breath to hitch in your throat, for the most bittersweetest of aches to squeeze your chest, because she has buried seeds in your gardens and nurtures the life she knows she's grown.

Because there- deep within the darkness, in the trenches of your heart, through the cracks and crevices, there are roots, the bittersweet fruits of your love, anchoring themselves to your very core, thin and spidery and subtle, before they invade you almost completely, corrupt you.

And those petals, scattering on your palm like cremation ashes, soft and white and innocent as they are- they're stained with your blood, constrict your airways and suffocates your lungs, strangles the breath out of you, blooming quietly in the darkness, roots and fronds curling around your ribcage, pushing and pulsing beneath your flesh, ready to break out at any given second you spend in her presence.

And in all of their beguiling innocence and purity, they're venomous- poisons every strained breath you manage to choke out, holds every trace of festering grief and despair and unrequited love you've so desperately tried to snuff out.

But they're still traces of her you refuse to erase, growing and feeding on your pain, frost-hued blossoms unfurling in the darkness and falling past your lips like the floating of prayers. They're memories, this disease, this terrible illness, and they're memories you can't bring yourself to forget- remnants of a past you'll never be allowed to have again.

(And every uncurling of the springtime blooms unfurling inside your chest, bunched and dropping past your mouth is as much as hope as they are memories. They're hope that she's still in there, that your lover is still there, just buried beneath the layers and layers of faux kindness and cheer. But they're also false hope, and that's what makes the pain all the more bitter for you to endure.)

So- you'll go on like this. You've got no other choice than to lie in this bed you've made yourself, accept your fate with the pathetically weak resignation you've always possessed.

You're not strong- not like she is, but you'll endure this sickness for her, no matter how selfish it is. Because every time you glimpse of might be a fragment of her previous self- it manages to bring so much joy, so much hope and happiness, despite the ache that follows after- the sudden hollowness that stretches open inside your chest, the feel of wet petals flooding your mouth, the tickling cough that rattles you to the very core.

After all, she is the one who tends to your gardens- water the plants of her making and allow them to grow, for the venom to manifest, to take root deep inside of you, gnaw away at all the simple, bright soul that's you, and despite the bitterness your unrequited love that plagues you in flesh and blood and soul, you manage to swallow it down and fake a smile just as easily as she does.

Because this is just a game of playing pretend, you can easily force the hurt down, and the selfish anger of your own, the grief and the despair like the coward you are, and hide that piece of ugliness deep inside the caverns of your heart- just like she hides her pain.

(And it's tragic just how easily you fool yourself with this web of lies- how easily you've become more entangled in the threads- a puppet to your own emotions.)

But no matter how good the both of you are at playing this game, at prolonging the torment just for that one blissful slice of paradise- you know, deep within the marrow of your bones, you can never truly fill up the gaping void yawning inside of you, can never replace it with stolen moments and lies and deception- the hole in your heart where your Kocho Shinobu used to be.

FIN -

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