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slaughtervoid · 4 years

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Getting married has been something I’ve always wanted and simultaneously knew I would never have. I’m not the easiest person to deal with. I’m particular as shit, ornery and I like my space, my independence, my solitude. But at the same time- well. Everyone wants to love. To know and say they have a family that loves them. And my birth family might’ve said they loved me. They certainly loved their daughter.

It turned out they didn’t love how she insisted she was their son.

You know how that kind of thing goes. It really doesn’t have too much to do with this story except giving me a complex about belonging to a family that wanted me for myself.

When I saw the ad on Craigslist, I was looking for used furniture. Scrolled too fast, accidentally opened up domestic gigs. The first listing caught my eye.

“Wanted: Compassionate man to marry our recently deceased daughter.”

The initial click was just out of morbid interest.

It read, simply enough, “Our daughter wanted to be married and we want to keep our promise to her that she would be. She has passed away, and we are seeking a kind and compassionate man to engage in a quiet, non-legally binding ceremony and become our in-law.

“This is not a joke and we are in bereavement. Please keep this in mind when considering your reply.”

It got taken down within the next five minutes, either by the family or moderation, but I’d already texted the number provided.

I did some research to help fill in the gaps, but ultimately it didn’t help much. There’s been a tradition of posthumous marriage in France since the 1950’s, but it’s only for if the couple had serious intent to wed beforehand, and the president has to review the request. (Apparently 1 in 4 aren’t approved.) More famous is Chinese ghost marriage- “mínghūn”- and those are for completing intended marriages, continuing lineage, or giving an unmarried daughter’s spirit a proper place in an ancestral tree. Apparently, however, it’s far more common to marry two deceased individuals, and besides, the whole family was for all appearances as Irish as I am.

When I met up with them- at a nice little coffee shop in downtown, halfway between us both- the way they explained made it all come together.

Their names were Cara and Donovan. I won’t give their last name, but you can rest assured it had an O’ at the start. Their daughter, Melanie, had been diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, a particularly aggressive form of brain cancer, last year. The doctors had given her ten months. She had made it four before having a generalized seizure in the middle of the night.

They’d gotten her to the hospital, but they told me that she had been in something called status epilepticus, which meant that she just kept seizing. None of the medication had been able to make it stop, and at 3:42 AM, she was gone.

Melanie, too, had always wanted to be married. Before the seizure took her, they’d all been in the process of trying to find her a future widower to marry her for the short while she had left. It hadn’t happened in time. They wanted to fulfill her final wish anyway. They had done the same research I’d done.

“For closure,” Cara said to me. “We know it’s for us. Maybe we like to think Mel will be happy about it too, but we know it’s really for us.”

The two prospects they’d been speaking with for a temporary marriage, both also terminal patients with a similar wish, had balked at the idea of continuing with the plan after her passing. Cara and Donovan had turned to several different avenues of advertisement.

And so I was here.

We talked about why I wanted to do it, too. I told them about being a loner, wanting a family, wanting to know there was somebody out there- alive or not- who would be with me in one way or another until I died. They said that was a good reason. I told them I worked from home, wasn’t good with people, wasn’t good with romance, and at this point in my life I could genuinely see myself being committed to a woman I would never meet. They told me they understood, that they were sorry I’d been so lonely. We talked about my work, and my hobbies, and their hobbies.

Finally, bracing myself, I told them I was transgender. They exchanged a glance, and then Donovan met my eyes and smiled.

“That’s not a problem,” he said, gently. “So was she.”

When they invited me to dinner, to a family dinner like I hadn’t been to for years, of course I said yes.

I was excited. I really was. Even if this didn’t work out, I was looking forward to that dinner. I wanted to sit down and eat and talk with these people who had accepted their daughter without qualms, who had accepted me. I wanted to know what it was like, even if it was just once.

It was wonderful. It was perfect. It wasn’t just once.

I met Melanie’s younger brother, Sean. He wasn’t in full pitch support of the whole ghost marriage plan, but he spoke frankly and without rancor about believing it would help Cara and Donovan move on. We talked about work and Sean’s college major- ceramics. He even showed me some pictures of projects he’d put in the kiln that day on his phone. They were really beautiful, and I told him so, and he seemed quietly pleased, though his thanks were subdued.

Then we talked about Melanie.

Her family loved her. They loved her so, so much. I could see it in their eyes and hear it in their voices when they talked about her. None of them shied away from mention of her cancer or her death. I think they’d come to terms with it when she was diagnosed, quickly, so that they could spend the time she had left well, and they handled their grief by facing it directly, bringing it into the light. I admired them for that. I still do. I handled the loss of my family, such as it was, by shying away from it, burying myself in work and isolation until I forgot them, until the pain was so distant I didn’t remember to feel it.

Melanie’s family handled her loss by loving her until it eclipsed the pain of losing her. Listening to them talk about her like that, the bold and bright adoration in every word, I couldn’t help but start to love her too.

That dinner marked the beginning of the year in which I courted a ghost.

I spent more time with the family than I had spent with anyone in- shit, maybe years. It was a sharp adjustment, but it felt good. Like moving a limb just let out of a cast, or squinting into the sunlight until your eyes adjust. We got along well; had the same sharp senses of humor, the same sensitivity to noise, the same lapsed Catholic attitudes. Cara and I shared a fondness for Irish myth, and Donovan and I both loved NCIS. I read up about contemporary ceramic artists so I could talk to Sean about his major.

It helped that we had a common goal: we wanted very badly to get along. I wanted to be part of their family, and they wanted me to be part of it just as much. We were all praying I was the right fit. Maybe I was courting them more than Melanie.

They told me so many stories about her. They told me about her interests, what she studied, the kinds of trouble she got in. They showed me her room, and Cara even had me sniff a scarf that still smelled like her. They showed me almost endless pictures and videos, from home videos to school portraits to selfies to candids to the majority: hours and hours of footage documenting the last four months of her life.

Donovan told me, in his low, soft tone, that when she had started chemo in earnest, started getting really sick, he had realized how little of her he might have to remember. He told me it terrified him.

He took up recording as much as he could.

As a result, the Melanie I knew best was the Melanie who was weak and sick from chemo, almost always laid up in bed, in the hospital more than half the time.

She had no hair, no eyebrows or eyelashes. She was deathly pale, even her many freckles washed out to near-invisibility, her lips blanched and cracked. She often snapped at the camera, was impatient and sarcastic with her parents, her brother, the many nurses and doctors. They had recorded her gagging and vomiting, if only incidentally, because by the third month they were all numb to it and when it happened all Donovan did was set the camera aside to rub her back before picking it back up.

She also had the most beautiful laugh I had ever heard, and her face was round and lovely even starved by the cancer, and her jokes and the stories of her bizarre exploits reduced me to hysterical tears even secondhand from the family. I loved her fire, the way she railed against her fate while making wry jabs about funeral costs. She played piano, and I loved her hands, her long and elegant fingers, the shapes they made on the keys. She had been studying law, before, and I loved when she mentioned it, the odd state laws she’d memorized for fun, the funny technicalities of the court she liked to talk about.

I loved Melanie. I loved her as much as you could possibly love a person you’ll never meet. I think maybe I loved her more than that. By the time I had watched all the footage they gave me for the third time over, I really wanted to marry her- not just to be married, or to marry into her family, but to be married to her.

We visited her grave a lot. The first time they brought me, they introduced me as her potential husband. I said hello, told her it was nice to meet her and told her I hoped she would like me. I’d brought her flowers- bluebells.

(If I can be honest with you, I was terrified that I was going to get there and Cara was going to see the bouquet and tell me that Melanie had a personal hatred of bluebells, or was super allergic, or thought flowers were stupid. She didn’t. When I showed her and asked her if Melanie would like them, she told me that when Mel was little, she had tried to eat bluebells every time she saw them, because she was absolutely convinced they were the same thing as blueberries.

Then Cara told me she wished I could have been there for the funeral. I could only hug her.)

One night, a few months in, it really hit me that I would never meet Melanie. I would never actually see her, never really get to hear her voice. I’d missed my only chance to meet her on this Earth. Her life had passed mine by, and there was no getting it back.

I spent the next day with Sean. He seemed to know I was grieving. Maybe it was obvious that I’d been crying. Either way, he brought me to the cemetery, and we brought Mel flowers, and sat at her grave, and he spent hours telling me about all the times they’d gotten in trouble together, things her parents still didn’t know about. I cried more, on and off. So did he. We cussed Melanie out together for leaving us, good-naturedly, told her she could’ve at least raised one more hell before she went for Sean to tell me about. It ended up being a pretty nice day.

I met Melanie’s surviving grandparents, her mom’s parents, soon after that. Mary and Liam were dead set against the marriage from the moment they had heard Melanie’s parents intended to find a husband for her post-mortem. They had decided they hated me as soon as they knew I existed. I wasn’t looking forward to meeting them, but I knew I owed it to them to look them in the eye and at least weather their grief. After all, they’d be my grandparents too, someday soon.

So we had dinner together, all five of us. While we ate, Donovan made an obvious effort to keep it light, maybe hoping they’d talk to me and we’d click the same way I’d clicked with him and his wife. I made the effort- I told them about my life, talked about some of the things I’d found in common with the family, we discussed ceramics for a bit.

Nobody brought up Melanie until Mary delicately, deliberately set her fork down and said “So are you a necrophile, then?”

There was an astonishing silence.

It was obviously the worst possible time for sarcasm, so of course, I said “Yes. It’s my defining personality trait, and the only reason I was hired.”

She looked at me levelly. I held my breath.

Liam burst out laughing, high and bright, and while everyone startled my hand flew up to cover my mouth and I found myself mortifyingly close to tears, because now I knew where Melanie had gotten her laugh.

There was an argument, of course, and it lasted a couple hours. It seemed like well-tread ground. Sean and I sat out, neutral and opinion unwanted, and once it was clear they were going to rehash the whole thing he got me a beer and himself a can of soda. I quietly told him the beer tasted like piss, under Mary shouting about the sanctity of Melanie’s memory, and he quietly told me that Donovan had brewed it. I solemnly toasted him and set it down on the table far away from myself, and he laughed.

When they were done, Mary asked me why I wanted to do it, more calmly than I expected.

“I love your family,” I told her. “I don’t have one right now. I want to be part of this one, and if I can help them, I want to. I know it’s weird and a little fucked up and you don’t know me. I’m sorry.”

She pursed her lips. I got the sense I hadn’t convinced her. A week later, Cara called me just about bursting with excitement, because as it turned out, I was wrong. They’d given me their blessing.

We set the date for April.

I was as involved in planning it as anyone else. The only thing I wasn’t allowed to help with was picking out the dress. We consulted records of other ghost marriages, discussed customs, what was right to borrow and what we had to invent ourselves. Cara and I talked incessantly about Irish wedding customs, handfasting and mead and claddagh, bells and coins in shoes.

When I went to get fitted for the suit, Donovan came with me.

He taught me how to tie the tie. He didn’t say anything when I sniffed unattractively in the middle of a fancy-ass store, just put his hand on my shoulder while I wiped my eyes with the handkerchief he handed me.

We invited every family member Mary and Donovan could think of, and despite the extreme clarity in the phone calls and invitations as to the nature of the event, most of them came- some even had kids in tow. I met a baby who’d been named after Melanie. The mother offered to let me hold her. It was terrifying. My hands were shaking so hard I was petrified I was going to drop her.

Nobody had been that interested in trying to bargain out holding a wedding in the graveyard, so we held it in the backyard. The ceremony itself was simple and strange.

Melanie had been wheelchair-bound for most of the last month, so her wedding dress had been neatly arranged over it, sleeves draped on the armrests, skirt flowing over the footrests to brush the grass. A picture of her was positioned on the seat, a pure white bouquet of lilies and roses and baby’s breath in front of it. Donovan pushed it down the aisle. Sean stood to my right, Cara to the left where Melanie would’ve been. Liam had been captain of a vessel in the navy when he was younger, so he was the closest thing to an officiant we felt we needed.

Once the chair was opposite me, Donovan stepped back to stand with his wife, and I knelt.

Liam tied the cord to handfast me to an awkward combination of the picture and the end of the right sleeve. I held tight. The bouquet chimed softly every time Liam brushed it- someone had taken the time and effort to carefully tie a tiny silver bell to the stem of every single one of the flowers.

Cara had asked me to use the Celtic vows. She and Melanie had talked about it, once. There hadn’t been too much discussion of the details of the marriage- by that time Melanie wasn’t fussed about the particulars, and said several times she didn’t mind if they just wheeled her into the nearest courthouse and found a judge who wasn’t busy. The one thing she’d mentioned wanting, though, if she had the option, was those vows.

You are blood of my blood, and bone of my bone. I give you my body, that we two might be one. I give you my spirit, `til our life shall be done. You cannot possess me for I belong to myself But while we both wish it, I give you that which is mine to give You cannot command me, for I am free But I shall serve you in those ways you require and the honeycomb will taste sweeter coming from my hand.

We used them.

There was no kiss. Mel wasn’t there. When Liam untied me, though, I pressed the end of the sleeve to my mouth.

Just for a moment.

I wheeled Melanie’s chair to the table, sat next to her, and we ate like it was the end of the world. Everyone who drank got absolutely smashed. We danced until our feet hurt, and then until our feet were so sore we hobbled to our chairs and rested them and then danced one more time. Everyone was crying, and everyone was laughing, and the music wasn’t too loud but it was clear and it was ringing and none of us stepped to the beat for shit but it didn’t matter. We were grieving Melanie. We were celebrating her. We were remembering her.

I was remembering her.

My final dance was with Cara. The music had been shut off by then, because it was 3 AM. The guests with kids had left at midnight, and the rest I don’t know when. I was too drunk to notice.

I held her to my chest and we swayed. We had both been crying most of the night, but neither of us cried a single tear for however long we stood there.

“I’m glad it’s you,” she said.

All I could say was “I’m glad it’s me too.”

Finally, she pushed me away. Told me to go to bed. We hadn’t discussed it, but I knew I was welcome and expected to sleep tonight in Melanie’s room.

I laid down in Melanie’s bed. I held a pillow to my chest, and I sobbed, loud and unrestrained and heart-wrenched, until I fell asleep.

When I woke up again, it was… It wasn’t dawn. But it wasn’t dark, either. It was a half light, the kind that comes right before the sun rises or right after it sets. There’s no way I could’ve put a time to it, because I don’t think it was a time. All I know is that I could see what was standing over me.

I don’t want to detail the particulars of what I saw. Not because I think the sight was too gruesome, not because it sickens me to think of for too long, not because I don’t have the words. Just because it makes me so goddamn sad.

She had Melanie’s face.

I knew Melanie’s face intimately. I knew it from the photos, I knew it from the videos. I knew it from Cara and Donovan’s faces, from Sean’s face, from Mary and Liam’s faces, from the gaggle of cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents and grandkids I had met that very day. And whatever I was looking at was, she had Melanie’s sweet, kind-hearted, heavily freckled face and the body was, I instinctively knew, her corpse.

She wore her wedding gown.

She was rotting.

I sat there and looked at her. I looked at the maggots climbing over and through her flesh. I looked at the clean seam between her untouched face and the neck that was close to halfway gone. I looked at her eyes, clear and unclouded and a brighter, sharper grey than they had been on any screen.

I did not scream.

When she spoke, she had Melanie’s voice. It was the voice that broke my heart, the hoarse one, the one from bad days, where she threw up until her throat was sore and she said her head felt like a plane engine sounded.

“What’s your name?”

Looking back on it now, the strange calmness and detachment that slid over me, the certainty that I was dreaming- I probably dissociated. It’s good I did, because being certain I was dreaming, I thought to myself that it was inspired by the strange, myth-like ceremony I had been a part of that day, the grieving wedding, and gave the question some consideration.

“You’re my wife,” I said, “You already know my name.”

The corpse stilled. Even the maggots ceased to turn. She seemed to be confused for a moment, and then there was a sudden resumption of shuddering and churning, more rapid than before.

“Of course,” she repeated. “It’s yours and mine.”

“Yes,” I assured the shape that may or may not have been my wife, because I didn’t know what else to tell her.

“Say our name,” the thing said.

I took a long time to think, watching the maggots squirm. I guess I’m lucky that she was patient, that she waited for my sleep- and shock-slowed brain to come up with a response that wasn’t just my name.

“Will you say it first?” I asked her. “Please? I love your voice.”

There was a long silence. The thing in the wedding dress looked at me mournfully, as if she didn’t like how I had answered.

“My voice is awful,” she murmured. “It’s hoarse. It’s rough and my throat hurts. The tube… my throat- when they intubated me, when I was seizing- you don’t love this voice.”

As she spoke, she went paler and paler. Her eyes dimmed. A maggot crept over the edge of her face.

I don’t know what came over me. I don’t know why I did it, I don’t know how, I have no fucking clue. I sat up in bed and I took the hand hanging by her side. It was the most awful thing. Soft, way too soft, and wet, and sticky, and so cold, and I felt a maggot squirm under my thumb. The maggot was warmer than her.

I was so spaced out I couldn’t process it, didn’t react.

“I love your voice,” I said.

The maggot writhed out from under my thumb, and it sunk into her flesh in the gap left behind.

“Even when it’s hoarse. I heard it hoarse on video a lot. It’s still your voice. I still love it.”

She stared at me, unspeaking, unmoving.

I glanced down at our hands and said “I’m not hurting you, am I? Mel?”

When I looked back up at her, she was looking at me like I had told her she was going to burn her house down with everyone locked inside. Like I had horrified her beyond saying. I started to let go, started to speak.

“Melanie? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

Then everything was dark, I was laying down again and I could hear a slow, steady beep.

My throat was sore as hell, and when I figured out I was awake and could open my eyes, I opened them to a hospital room.

A few soupy moments passed by in near-silence, and then a nurse came rushing in.

There was a lot of commotion. Lots of medical staff asking me what I remembered, how I felt. I told them I had gone to sleep, had a strange dream, and nothing else. Nobody asked what the dream was about except the neurologist. I was evasive, said I couldn’t really remember mostly just because I didn’t want the contents of the dream to get back to my family. I figured it would hurt them more than it would help the neurologist. He took it well enough, didn’t press me.

When my family came, they all came together. Donovan looked like he hadn’t slept for days, and nobody else looked much better. Sean threw his arms around me, ignored Cara telling him to be gentle, and rocked me side to side roughly for a moment. When he drew back, I asked what had happened. I’d been too foggy to ask any staff and didn’t really want to hear it from anyone but family anyway.

Donovan and Sean glanced uncomfortably at each other. It was Cara who told me.

“You had a seizure.”

“A seizure?” I felt like my thoughts were dragging through mud. I knew what she was saying was significant, but I couldn’t put it together.

“You were in status epilepticus for twenty eight minutes.”

I understood all at once, very numbly.

Sean softly added, “Your hand got hurt, too. The doctors think, uh… you maybe got a cut, somehow, and it got infected. You had, uh. It was- not so good. But it’ll be okay now, they said.”

Both my hands felt very distant and strange, so I had to look down to see which one was injured. The right had an IV attached. The left was bandaged.

I’d held Melanie’s hand with my left.

I’d been handfasted to her with my left.

“How long was I asleep?”

“Three days,” Cara said.

I meant to ask if anyone had contacted my work, if they were okay, how they’d been holding up, what procedures the doctors had done, what they thought had happened to me.

Instead, all I could say was “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

This time, Cara embraced me.

It turns out it takes time to recover from almost dying, especially when it includes a three-day coma and the mysterious death of a chunk of flesh on your hand.

The doctors told me over and over that they couldn’t understand how the gangrene could have advanced so far without anyone noticing it. I shouldn’t have been able to function. It was weeks and weeks’ worth of damage. My palm and the undersides of my fingers had been blackened and withered with it.

Sean, at one point, cheerfully told me that part of the treatment had involved maggots. They had put them on my hand and they had removed the dead flesh without disturbing what was still alive.

I didn’t know how I felt about it, but I must’ve looked less than excited, because he changed the subject very quickly.

In the end, when I realized how bad it’d been, I had just been relieved to still have it attached. The function was massively reduced, and I had to do pretty extensive physical therapy to get as much back as I did. I could just about hold a mug and hook my fingers around stuff. It took some effort to get my typing back up to a reasonable speed for programming, but I was ridiculously fast before, so it wasn’t an impossible task to adjust. I’m lucky I’m right-handed, though.

I had just moved on to working on a little fine motor when it happened again.

My family had asked me to move in, after. They were up front about it- if I had another seizure like that alone in my apartment, I could die. They weren’t wrong, and I’d about had it with living alone anyway, so the guest room next to Melanie’s became my room.

The reprieve lasted a month. I’d written it all off, by then, the seizure and the dream both, as a byproduct of drinking far too much and having some kind of terrible hidden infection, compounded by an extremely emotional event. I’d gone through the hospital wringer, every test they could think of, and it’d all come clean once I was recovered from what had put me there to begin with. So there was no reason why, sober and healthy and feeling melancholy, I couldn’t curl up in Melanie’s bed instead of mine one night.

When I woke up in the half-light again, I knew I’d fucked up.

I looked at my wife. She looked worse, this time, and I struggled to place how for a moment before realizing that the first time, she had looked impassive, even determined, until I had upset her at the end. Now she looked disturbed. Troubled, somehow.

“Melanie?” I said.

She shook her head.

“... You aren’t Melanie?” I ventured, and she shook her head again, and sighed.

“I am. I’m Melanie. I’m… I’m your wife.”

Her voice was just as hoarse. It sent a pang through me, and before I could think better, I asked her, “Does your throat still hurt?”

A cascade of maggots rained down her body as she clenched her jaw and fists and shook her head, violently. Not in denial, but in frustration.

“Yes,” she grit out, and her voice was clearer now, somehow, coming through her teeth, louder. “Yes, it fucking hurts.”

“Is there some way- is there anything I can do?”

At first, she shook her head again. Then she sighed, long and crackling, and made eye contact with me. When she spoke again, her voice was abruptly as healthy as it’d ever sounded in any of the videos. “You can tell me your name. Then you’ll die, and I get to come back in your place.”

For a moment, I didn’t know what to think at all.

Then I thought about thirty things at once- I don’t want to die, I would die for my family to be happy, maybe this is why I’m here at all, what if it’s a trick, if she comes back will she come back whole, will she be happy, what does she want, is she suffering here, will I suffer here, will we switch places, will she take my body?

“You’re left-handed,” I blurted out, instead of any of that.

“What,” she responded, clearly baffled.

“When we handfa- when I handfast- when we handfasted, I did it with my left hand. Because you were- you’re left handed.”

“Is this some kind of trauma response?” Melanie asked. I don’t think she was asking me.

“Do you want to come back?” I asked, and then flinched at myself.

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again to say “Yes.”

“Okay,” I said. “Okay. I- can I think about it for a minute?”

The expression on her face was one I hadn’t seen in any photos or video: complete incredulous disbelief. “Can you think about it?”

“I know,” I said hastily, “I know, it’s not like you got to think about it-”

“No!” This was a face I had seen, a voice I had heard. It’d been aimed at the cancer, mostly. Melanie was pissed.

“Why the fuck do you have to be good? Why can’t you just be fucking taking advantage of my grieving family- fuck, you’re so nice. You took my hand, you- you didn’t even flinch- you were scared that you hurt me, and I hurt you- you dumb son of a bitch, you don’t know me, you can’t fucking talk about killing yourself to save me like it’s a- a car purchase! Can you think about it?!”

Maggots flew everywhere as she gestured furiously. You already know what a weirdo I am, so I’m not gonna lie to you. In that moment, the only thing I could think was I’m so glad I married you.

“Mel,” I said, and she stopped and stared at me, brows furrowed, chest heaving.

I wanted to reach out and hold her hand again. I don’t know what I would have expected, had I considered it, but the hand that had been damaged was the same here as in real life, stiff and strange and scarred. Melanie looked at it too, and her face tightened, pained. After a moment of thought, I reached out and touched the edge of the mattress, as close to where she stood as I dared.

“Melanie, I’m a huge asshole who does programming work for Google. The past year has been the only part of my life that was worth anything, and it was only worth anything because it was for you and your family. You didn’t get to choose. I’d get that luxury. You were going to be a lawyer. You’re brilliant, you’re focused, you could do real good in the world. And- I mean- I just-”

My voice broke. Melanie’s fingers fluttered briefly and helplessly at her side before she stilled them, glancing down at my hand again.

“I do love you,” I said, soft, “I know I don’t really know you. But more than that, I love and know our family. I could give them back their daughter. I’m not suicidal, but I could give them back their daughter. I got this year. They wouldn’t miss me like they miss you.”

There was a suspended moment of silence. Melanie closed her eyes. She mouthed a noiseless no, but I couldn’t have said whether it was one kind of denial or the other.

When there was nothing further, I ventured to ask “What’s it like?”

“It’s like… being asleep,” she murmured. Her eyes fluttered visibly under their lids. “I dream. They’re pretty good dreams. I dreamed about this. That’s why I knew what to do.”

“Did… do you dream about us? About the living?”

“Sometimes, yeah.”

“Did you dream about our wedding?”

Her reply was very quiet. “ … Only a little. I wasn’t trying, I didn’t want to see. I wish I could have seen more. … I wish I could have been there.”

“We used the Celtic vows.”

Melanie glanced up at me, cracked lips parted a little, and her brows creased just the slightest bit. Not quite an expression.

“‘I give you my body’,” I quoted, and it broke into much more visible pain.

“Stop.”

“‘While we both wish it, I give you that which is mine to give-’”

“Stop! I don’t, shut up, stop- Fuck, don’t. Don’t. I don’t.”

I stopped. Melanie put a shaking hand to her mouth, ran it over her head. The worms she dislodged, I noticed for the first time, burst into little clouds of dust as soon as they hit the hardwood.

“I can’t do this,” she said. “I can’t. I couldn’t live with myself. It was different before. When I dreamed about how it would happen, I thought… it was selfish. I thought it was whatever caretaker or god is in charge of this shit telling me that they had made a mistake, and I thought you were a shitty person taking advantage of my family. I thought they were paying you or something. I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but I tried not to dream of you. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to find out what kind of person I would be- be killing. Replacing.”

“I’m willing,” I said, and she made eye contact and replied “I’m not.”

I’d started crying at some point, but hadn’t noticed, didn’t until Melanie reached out a little towards my face, then grabbed the tissue box off the bedside table and put it down on the blanket next to me. It made me laugh, shaky and tearful, and I wiped my eyes with my sleeve before I took a tissue.

“It isn’t fair,” I said. “It isn’t fair.”

“No,” Melanie murmured, “It isn’t. None of it is. But we have to make do with what we can.”

“I love you,” I told her again, helpless. She smiled at me, and it was sad but it was fierce and determined.

“It’s okay. I’ll just go back to sleep, and I’ll dream of you, and my family will be okay. You’ll make sure they’re okay.”

“I will,” I promised.

Melanie hesitated briefly, then said “Do you think your first name is safe? The dream specified ‘full name’, but-”

“I’m willing to take the risk,” I said wryly, and Melanie wrinkled her nose at me. I took a deep breath. “Hi, Mel. I’m your husband, Benen.”

We both braced, but nothing happened, and after a stressful few seconds we both burst into relieved, nervous laughter at the same time.

“Benen, huh? That’s one I haven’t heard before.”

“It means, uh, ‘mild’. Like fucking salsa. Found that out after I changed it and it was too late, obviously. Most people call me Ben, anyway.”

This time, her smile was warm and genuine. “It’s nice to meet you, Ben.”

I beamed back, reflexive, and Melanie laughed.

“So what now?” I asked, and she shrugged.

“I go back to sleep.”

“Would you- I mean, can I… Would you want to lie down with me? The one time?”

Melanie hesitated, clearly torn, and I added “I don’t care if you hurt me. It- my hand wasn’t really that bad.”

After an immediate shake of the head, she reconsidered, sighed, and lowered herself to curl up on the bed next to me awkwardly, painfully, like her withered muscles and the holes in her flesh had started to matter, now, at the end. Gingerly, carefully, she laid her head just on the edge of my lap, her skull feeling strangely bare and fragile against my thigh even through my sweatpants.

I laid my hand, my left, on the side of her face. The base of my palm rested on cold, wet rot. I didn’t care. My thumb stroked slow arcs across her cheekbone, prominent and sharp, the intact skin dry and rough and over-hot.

“Goodnight, Ben,” she whispered.

I told her that I loved her. I told her to sleep well.

The doctors ended up taking the hand off at the wrist, in the end, and I’m never going to walk without a limp. I don’t care. It’s a price I paid gladly, and I would pay it a thousand times over again if I had to. In the beginning I regretted the loss of the hand that was fasted to Melanie, but I figure it went to her, anyway, so it’s alright.

I never saw her again, no matter how many times I slept in her bed. For our fifth anniversary, Cara and Donovan- with my and Sean’s permission- finally remodeled her room, made it a master for us. My old bedroom became a guest again.

I do dream about her, but they’re just dreams.

I rest easy knowing she’s dreaming of me too.

Liam passed away last month. Liver failure. Even though everyone else is just as practical as I am about the grief, I feel oddly guilty about the lack of pain his loss brought me. There’s the natural ache of knowing I’ll never hear that laugh again, never tell him I don’t want to hear his goddamn deep sea fishing stories and hear them anyway again, but there’s no uncertainty, no fear of the unknown on his behalf. I know he’s resting. I know he’s at peace. I know he’s going to get to see Melanie again, in the dreams.

Someday, I’ll see her again too. I won’t rush it. I love my life- I love my family. I don’t want to make them grieve another child, another sibling. I’ll live well, for as long as I can, and when I go I won’t be afraid.

When I see her again, I’ll finally get to tell Melanie our last name.

16K notes · View notes

bontenten · 3 years

Text

Double Happiness [ 囍 ]

Pairing: Matsukawa Issei x f!reader

WC: 8.5k

Genre/Warnings: smut, angst, dubcon, virginity loss, corruption, drugging, implied death/snuff, mild violence, manipulation, sacrilegious, a bit of blood, forced posthumous marriage (necrogamy), emotional abuse, mentions of traditional gender roles/norms, Chinese historical fantasy + mythology au (but Reader is not specific)

Summary: You try to run from your fate of becoming a ghost’s bride only to stumble across a much more sinister destiny. Will the god of death grant your wishes?

A/N: Friends, it’s finally done :cries: For the hqhq server nsfw collab. The theme is Mythology, love it. Go check out the other amazing pieces here. Be sure to mind warnings/tags.Thank you so much @terushimooo for beta-ing and sitting through my rants.

Listen, In death, by the judgement of the great King Yama Misfortune or strife With Ox-Head and Horse-Face, trusted guards at his side The scroll of Life and Death records deeds of every human life.

It's the bright blares of the suona horn that shock you awake from a deep sleep. The loud cry of the instrument only matches each throb of splitting pain spasming through your head. You're dizzy. The palanquin you're in swings left and right with each step of the porters. You cough—bitterness rising up your parched throat, sensitive in the hot air. Your vision is blurry and all you can make out is red.

Blood red. Deep red. Auspicious red. Wedding red.

The crimson veil drapes over the heavy headdress decorated with pearls, gems, and gold. Red silk falls from your collar and shoulders; layers upon layers of red on red. It covers the whole palanquin, like walls of blood in a prison—a coffin.

Your head still hurts, fragments of memory rushing in from before you were unconscious mixing with the sounds of gossiping crowds outside your prison.

Look! Look! Quickly, come see! That daughter of the Oikawa's finally married. Doomed one may say, But look how heaven smiles upon even those born against it Even she has a red string tied in matrimony Come see the palanquin and the ghost's bride inside!

You were long prepared to live the life of an old maid, serving your family dutifully, and dying alone when the time finally comes. You were to have no husband to call your own, nor children to eventually wash your gravestone. Your family, too poor to afford any dowry, had looked for options to sell you as a maid or concubine. Based on your looks and your talents, neither option should have ended in failure.

It was the eight characters of your birth chart. The alignment of the stars was deemed cursed by the matchmakers. No matter how pretty a face you have, regardless of what skills you can share, no one would risk touching someone who could bring misfortune to their household.

Just like the bad meat in a market is sure to be disposed of, you too are no longer desirable.

So why now?

Because who else would offer their daughter to be the wife of a dead man, when it so happens the dead son of that rich family matches your eight characters?

You crack a defeated smile. Of course, this is the only way.

Your mind spins, a dull ache throbbing around your temples. You clutch your head trying to visualize your last moments…

The soup. Of course, the soup that your little brother Tooru brought you. It couldn't have been him, he's just a boy; it was probably either Mother or Father. You have no idea how a poor family barely scraping by can afford a drug like this, but at this point, it doesn't matter anymore.

You don't remember the full conversation, but you won't forget the way the three of your closest kin came into your room to convince you of accepting this arrangement as though it makes a difference. You're unsure if you should laugh or cry at the way they come in one after another like a planned attack. Again and again, in different duos, and altogether at the end.

You did not stand a chance. You never did.

Please consider it, elder sister. If you marry that family, they promise to send me to an academy. I can get an education and take the imperial exams. Then, when I get an official position, your position in their family will be better too.

But you don't want to. You’ve never wanted this. For all your life, you obeyed and listened. You did everything right, for the whole family already. Is one wish, a simple request of choice too much?

Ungrateful! ‘Matters of marriage are governed by parents and the matchmaker'. You will marry whether you want to or not. It’s time you no longer dishonor this household and make yourself useful!

You feel your eyelids growing heavier again, and each breath growing more shallow than the next. It's incredibly stuffy in the small box you’re trapped in, almost enough to choke you completely before you even reach the final destination.

"Wow, what a view that is!" you hear one of the porters exclaim.

An older voice responds with a laugh. "You must be new, right? This is one of the best views of this route. Have a good look while we're here."

Your eyes slowly open as you listen to the voices outside in awe of the landscape. This world beyond the makeshift fence and the rural marketplace of your village—what is it like?

The next wobble of the palanquin from a distracted escort causes the red veil over the headdress to slip like a waterfall. A whisper of a breeze sneaks in through the cracks of the small palanquin window, bringing with it a breath of life. Is it everything you’ve imagined? You reach out, lift the curtain and peek out.

It's heaven and earth. The sky's the clearest blue, not a cloud in sight. At what point does the azure stretch end? If it does, it's far beyond what your eyes can see. The mountain range twists as though an ancient dragon calcified in slumber for so long that green rice paddies now blanket the curves of its sloping body. High mountain peaks are celestial columns that seem to pierce the sky, holding up the heavens. And finally, you see the expanse of earth, a mirror lake with quiet waters that reflect the image of the cosmos.

You don't even realize the beaded tear that falls from your watery eyes.

If only you can see a little more, just a little more. You lift the curtains up just a fraction higher. One more peek, you tell yourself, just an eyeful. That will be enough to last the rest of your lifetime.

Your moment is cut short when a maid tugs the curtains back down and whispers, "The bride shouldn't look out the palanquin."

It's all red again. The same six planes surround you, except now you are no longer a frog at the bottom of the well who doesn't know how vast the skies are.

Red is now representative of anger and frustration as you look at the drawn curtain, its flap swinging around from the movements of your prison. It's the small window of a jail, reminding you there is indeed a world beyond the bars. The builders should have known that a truly good coffin needs to be nailed shut instead. This little peephole into the world outside the women's courtyard only entices you further.

Despite the prison guards watching outside, you would risk it again for another look at the real thing. But you don't need to do either as the images are now etched in your mind. When you close your eyes all you see is a blend of blue and green. Beyond this red box, it's just out of reach. You can taste the air that rushes in to clear the miasma you are sitting in.

You might not know that it's called freedom, but you certainly know the feeling well enough to want to chase after it. A coffin that's not sealed shut is an invitation for the dead to reach outside.

You just need a chance.

When the procession passes through a bamboo forest, the head calls for a stop and a break for weary limbs. Almost immediately, you feel the porters carrying the palanquin let out a sigh of relief and lower the container down. The blaring music dies down just as quickly and you finally get a moment of peace. Your mind has never been clearer than now while you feel your heartbeat pick up its pace in preparation.

A few minutes after everyone sits down to drink water and fill their bellies, you carefully step out—try, at least. The moment the maids see your hand push open the red silk door, they yelp and immediately rush over begging you to reconsider.

"I really need to go," you insist.

The same maid who pulls the curtain down earlier, speaks up. "But it's bad luck for the bride to step outside the palanquin before—"

"My husband-to-be is dead," you remark back, "what more bad luck can I possibly bring."

Still, the maids do not move from their spots. Their hands are folded over their chests resolutely.

You let out a breathy laugh and reach up to your headdress, feeling around its edges then plucking off a few pearls adorned at the crown. You casually slip a large milky white gem the size of a quail's egg into the palms hidden under their crossed arms. When their greedy palms enclose around the bribe, their eyes widen to a size comparable to the pearl orbs they tightly grasp. Even if they were to die this very moment, it'll take two to even try to pry it out of their hands. You recognize the glint in their eyes, murky with desire. It’s the same way your family's eyes looked at you.

These eyes are that of your crazed father when he flipped the chest open, pupils constricting and dilating as light reflected off the rows and rows of gold ingots, stacked perfectly. There must have been hundreds in that one single chest. One single gold ingot could feed a whole village for months. That amount was unheard of. The sum, too large to even comprehend. How many generations it would take to use it all?

You understand better now since you have woken from a sleep akin to death. You are nothing more than a bargain chip, worth a finite amount.

"Please, I won't be for long. It won't be good for anyone if I soil these clothes," you reason once more, smoothing out the red dress intricately embroidered with flying phoenixes. "If I lose my chance to be the new madam, how else can I reward everyone for their hard work bringing me to the family?"

The maids look at each other, unsure and hesitant, but ultimately they go on a lengthy water break as well.

You let out a choked laugh in between your huffing breaths. Your lungs feel like they are about to burst, but you are glad. Your steps widen as much as your dress allows you to, but your feet feel light as you run through the bamboo thicket.

The birds hiding in the canopy cock their head to the side, observing a dot of red darting through a sea of green.

Why is this creature running so desperately? Of course these birds would not know of what it’s like to be locked away.

You long to see the expanse of the sky that lies beyond this forest; a place where you can reach the end line of this world. You come to a stumbling halt to catch your breath, relishing in the way your frantic heartbeat pounds in your ear louder than the suona horns announcing your marriage to the heavens. You can scream right now, but you won't. So instead, you laugh and you cry. It's not quite so funny nor is it sad, only that you are free, you are free, you are free. You spin and watch the bamboo poles spin along with you in your vision.

Crack.

Your feet begin moving before you even realize what's going on.

"Catch her!"

It's the instinct of prey. One that's destined to be chased, trying desperately to preserve its life. You are the prey, a runaway bird.

At the end of the day, the birds dreaming of freedom already have their wings clipped. It's futile to think that your attempt would take you anywhere. That's what you would have thought. But the blue skies call to you and the mountain whispers that it'll protect you. Something is telling you to come; like an enigma calling out telepathically to come closer and you'll be safe.

You refuse to submit to your predestined fate.

Run. Run. Run. Faster.

NO.

You won’t allow them to catch you again, not when the wild bird soars free. Outside of the cage, this world is your new home—and you're never going back.

You peel the weighty headdress and throw the gold pieces on the ground as you continue to stumble through the endless field of dead grass. The stalks catch onto the silk robes, but you keep pushing ahead.

"Find her! She must be ahead!"

While the frantic chase continues, the winds start fanning in thick mist. The ghostly shadows first circle around your ankles, wisping and breaking whenever you kick your legs forward, but very gradually, the greyish-white grows so tall it envelops you.

Too many times, you almost knock headfirst into a bamboo that appears in your vision at the very last moment. Your shoulders are definitely going to bruise by the number of times you have rammed into these thick and offending poles. You have no choice but to slow down; your body weakening and nearing its limits despite all of your mind's protests.

Heavens above and Earth beneath my feet, I pray, please.

The leaves rustle loudly from the wind coursing through your surroundings. The stalks creak and sway in every direction like a mirage.

As if your prayers really are heard and answered, you see the dark outlines of a temple in the distance. Surely, a place that will be a sanctuary. The dark wooden doors are open and welcoming as you come closer. You take a small leap and cross over the raised threshold at the bottom of the doorframe; a small hurdle to the other side.

The impassive eyes of the central statue stare down at you, not welcoming you nor turning you away. You fall to your knees on the dusty tile floor gasping for breath, coughing, and dry-heaving. The statue doesn't change its expression at all, merely watching you struggle on the floor as if you are worshipping.

The air inside this temple is much heavier than the bamboo forest outside; it's colder, damper, and seems to cling around your body, appraising you. Torn scripture banners hang from the wood beams, swaying softly from the draft, but you can hear the low chimes of iron bells as if welcoming your arrival.

Ringing.

"I see a temple! She must be hiding in there!"

A breath finds itself stuck in your throat and your head snaps up.

No! Already?

There's no time to run elsewhere, you'll have to just find a hiding spot. You scramble up to your feet and frantically look around. The bells chime even louder as you push your way past the dust-ridden banners.

Go. Behind the statue.

You stumble to the back of the temple to find a few coffins. There's a single coffin off to the corner, the only one, that's open and empty. You pause at the coffin, heart-pounding wildly. The thick and heavy lid is pushed open just enough for a person to climb in.

"Search the place!"

There's no room for another hesitation. You clamber into space and with all the strength you can muster and pull the lid shut. Darkness swallows you completely. Pitch black and musty. You clamp two hands over your mouth to stop a cough, swallowing the bile that burns your throat.

Shh. Don't waste your breath, the voice tells you. You pat your chest to calm the fear that's racing through your whole body. Squeezing your eyes shut, you wait and listen.

From the footsteps, there must be more than one. Is it two? Or three?

"I never knew there's a temple here!"

One person.

"I didn't either. Did you see the plaque outside?"

Second.

"It's just the Temple of King Yama, God of the Underworld. We're not dead, why should we fear him?"

A third. This one must be their leader.

The sound of their heavy boots echoes through the temple. Even through the coffin, you can hear their circling steps loud and clear. Wood tables are being pushed around. Ceramics are shattered onto the floor. Loud rips of fabric worm their way in your ear.

"There are a bunch of coffins over there!"

You dig your nails into your skin, trying to stop your body from trembling. You bite your lip to swallow your shuddering breath.

They're coming.

The footsteps come around to the back.

They're close.

Closing in.

Surely they couldn't be considering—

"Open the coffins. Even if we don’t find her, maybe there are some trinkets to pocket."

"But disturbing the dead—"

"They're dead, why does it matter then?" If the dead doesn't matter....If the dead truly do not matter then why do ghost marriages happen?

You repeat prayers over and over in your head. You can almost picture the way it'll play out. They will find you vulnerable in the coffin and take you back. You'll be locked from one coffin into another and sent to that family to marry their dead son. You can already picture the way your in-laws will treat you like a glorified maidservant, and the way you'll wither away until the very last of your breaths in a birdcage.

The steps come closer.

No. No, no, no. NO!

Maybe it's because the air in the coffin is finally spent, or the fear consuming you is too much. Your head is so dizzy it hurts. Any movement you make presses against the tight coffin space. Each plane seems to be closing in on you closer and closer. The empty space disappearing and shrinking until you're fully constricting. Suffocated. Suffocated. You're choking.

Shh, the voice is back to tell you, don't worry I'll take care of them for you if you ask kindly.

Your eyes are wide open and seeing nothing but pitch black. The color of the void is like a vacuum sucking the last bits of your breath and soul, but this voice is like a drop of water in a desert.

Please.

"Help! Hel—"

It happens all too quickly. From the closed space you don't even have any idea exactly how it's playing out, but you can piece things together. Fragments. The bell chime grows so loud the echoes back and forth seem to multiply ten-fold. Wind rushes in. The force is so great wisps also enter the coffin from invisible cracks. The temperature plummets to icy cold. Manic screams mix in layer upon layer. Bells ringing. Ringing. Feet scuffling violently on tiles. The billowing fabric.

"R-run! Go get the priest! GET OUT of here! Get—"

Silence, eerie silence matching the darkness. Is it over? Are they gone now? Does this mean—

The coffin lid begins to slide open on its own. Is this another? There's another, isn't there? The grating noise of the lid against the box is followed by a very weak light spilling in. There's definitely someone, but not the ones trying to capture you. Your eyes shut into a squint; even this light is too bright after all that time in the darkness.

"They're gone now, pretty one."

You blink a couple of times, adjusting to the lighting so that you can take a better look at the owner of the voice. He's handsome, almost too good-looking. Long tresses spill over a broad shoulder. One eye is just a tad smaller than the other—if you look really hard. But your attention is fixed elsewhere, on the lazy grin that just barely sits across his lips.

"Done staring? Not a thank you for saving your life?" You carefully eye the hand he extends to you. You have so many questions to ask. What happened? Why did he save you? Who is he? What does he want from you? But your throat is parched and your lips still pressed tightly from your earlier ordeal.

The man laughs at your blank expression. "Come on now, do you like lying in the coffin? It's comfy isn't it, " he teases and knocks on the wood. "Nanmu softwood. The best a coffin can be made out of. You have good tastes."

It was the only one open, you want to say. Although the words are still stuck, the man's remark earns a little grin from you, and you finally accept his helping hand to get out of the box.

You stand awkwardly in front of him and try to smooth out the edges of your wrinkled dress. You feel his eyes wandering all of your body from head to toe.

"So, a runaway bride, huh? There's always a few who come running by."

"I don't, " your voice cracks, "I don't think I owe a stranger an explanation." Just because he's your savior doesn't mean he's a good person; that much you are very aware.

"Matsukawa Issei."

Your eyes flicker back to him. "Pardon?"

Matsukawa puts his hands together and gives you a slight bow befitting a gentleman. "Call me Issei. Not a stranger any longer, right? I daresay we are friends now."

"Acquaintances," you emphasize, stopping an amused smile from forming on your face. You return his bow. "Still, thank you, Issei. I don't have anything to give you, but if our paths cross in the future, I'll be sure to re—"

"Give me some of your time then, miss acquaintance, so I may get to know you," he takes a step closer, "a little better. Don't worry, it'll be a while before anyone comes back. I can assure you of that."

Matsukawa takes a seat on the floor and leans his back against the coffin. He pats the spot next to him and you prepare to turn him down again. But a chill running down your spine tells you that it would be unwise. Although, it might just be the wind…

You can hear the bells still chiming faintly. The wood continues to creak, reminding you of a swing hanging from a tree seesawing back and forth. It seems like Matsukawa's expression is relaxed, but there's something far more complicated than the petty amusement and curiosity you see at surface level. You're not quite sure what to make of it, whether it's ill-intentioned or not. But if he wants to harm you, he would have done so by now.

You take a seat next to him. "What do you want to know?"

"You're funny," he says, slipping off the gourd hanging from his belt. "This isn't an interrogation," he uncaps the gourd and hands it over to you, "here, want a drink?"

"No, I'm okay."

Matsukawa raises his eyebrows and shrugs. "Suit yourself then." He takes a long swig from the gourd, the bulge at his throat bobbing with each gulp. He finishes with a pleased sigh and wipes the corner of his mouth with the sleeve of his black, silk robes.

You lick your cracked lips and swallow in an attempt to soothe your parched throat. It ends in an awkward and dry cough. You find Matsukawa extending the gourd out to you once more. Your eyes drift from his hand to his face and back to his hand again.

A grin spreads across Matsukawa's face seeing you take the gourd from his hand and hesitantly tilt the vessel over for a drink. Following, a fit of sputtering coughs and mocking laughter fill the temple chamber.

The liquor is still burning in your nostrils and throat when you hand the gourd back to him.

"So, now can you tell me why you're running away? Shouldn't it be a happy event?"

You squeeze the excess of red fabric in your fists and wonder if you should bother telling this strange man your story. He did save you, after all, and didn't harm you at all either—if you don't count that burning hellfire he let you drink. Matsukawa leans back, resting the back of his head on the coffin.

"Tell me only if ya feel like it, but sometimes telling a stranger can help. Who knows, maybe I even have a solution."

Matsukawa’s relaxed, nonchalant look makes you feel as though he truly doesn’t care whether you tell him or not. There’s no judgement, no curiosity—he’s just absolutely impassive. He’s like a void in a wall where you can whisper to and release all secrets.

"I was to be wed to a son from a wealthy family in the capital. Two months ago, that son died from an illness of sorts. No heir, no other brothers, the family line ends there. And so...so..."

"Ah, so let me guess, they offered some benefits to your family for you to wed their dead son. That way they can adopt a boy under you and your husband's name as an heir."

You nod slightly, confirming Matsukawa's suspicions. "They also promised to help my brother's future and get him a spot in the academy."

"In that case, it's a win-win situation only for your family then," Matsukawa reasons before sighing. "Such a shame for you though, to be sacrificed like that. Truly a tragedy." He shakes his head solemnly and takes another gulp from the gourd. "You didn't have it easy at all, but you're still really brave. I think that's admirable."

Matsukawa's compliments reach a place in you that stir up a flurry of memories. You feel the coming wave well up in your chest and wet in your eye line. You grit your teeth and your shoulder shakes violently from the sobs that try to break free. A hand on your shoulder and a whisper telling you, "it's okay, let it all out", is the final straw. The dam bursts.

Your lips part and all the injustices you have suffered come spilling out, all the years enduring, enduring, and enduring again. No hope in sight, no dreams at night. All you ever know is to listen and obey. Duty, responsibility, and servitude. You can't stop yourself from telling Matsukawa one story after another. The time you were starved for two nights because Tooru forgot to close the chicken coop, the yells when they found that you had hidden a few coins in the seams of your torn blanket, the curses that condemn their own as ungrateful, unworthy, and useless.

"I—I am their child too!" you cry out, falling into Matsukawa's arms, "Why am I called their child when it's convenient and a useless tool when it's not?"

Will you resign to your fate? Should you walk the path laid out before you like a sheep for slaughter? Can you endure a life of grass widowhood slaved to a family not of your own, calling two strangers your esteemed parents, and treating a child that will be shoved into your milkless bosom as if you bore them in your womb? Is that even a life?

You sit up straight and angrily rub away the last few tears ."So I ran. I want freedom. To make my own choices and be responsible for my own life."

"Yes. Freedom. A delightful-sounding thing, certainly."

"But I still fear it's a lofty dream for me."

"And why is that?"

"Because...I'm a woman."

"Yes, you're right. You are," Matsukawa acknowledges sharply. "World's unkind."

You're caught off-guard by how frank and direct his words are. Perhaps part of you really hoped that he would be a little more comforting, just like how he listened to you earlier. You trust him. The person who listened to your troubles without so much a complaint. Told you that your feelings are justified. He sided with you. Believed in you.

So why isn't he…

"You're probably wondering why I'm not telling you, 'You can do anything you want.' right?"

You don't respond.

Matsukawa eyes your expression carefully. He runs a hand through his long hair and shrugs. "I want to say that too, but I would blatantly be lying."

"So, there's no hope for me," you conclude. "I knew it was just foolish hopes." You let out a defeated sigh and gather your knees to your chest, curling up in a defensive hug that offers little comfort. It's over, like he says, there's no way out for you. Not now. You'll be found and returned, having nowhere to go.

"Hey, I never said it'll be impossible," Matsukawa says, voice growing a bit brighter. "Just as long as...you carry the burden you carry, you'll never completely be free."

"What burden?"

"Do I have to spell everything out for you?" Matsukawa chuckles quietly and points a finger to your chest. "Your purity."

A shiver runs down your spine. You subconsciously feel yourself leaning away from him. "What's that have to do with anything?"

"Everything!" Matsukawa exclaims. "Think about it. All of the bad things happening to you are because of this thing right? The reason why you can never go out on your own. Can't stay outside. All the wrong you face in your family...the reason why you are being dragged into a ghost marriage. Everything. Absolutely all the things chaining you down, is because of that, isn't it?"

He's not wrong, you reason. Your reputation is the one always being brought up in conversations, how others see you, but really, it's all about the family. Still, it's not as though it's a big card stuck to your forehead prattling out to the world whether or not your body is "clean" or not.

"But it's not like anyone knows."

Matsukawa shakes his head at your naivety. "Oh, but you will know. And it keeps you from fully being free. You'll be wandering out at night completely afraid because you feel like there's something to protect. You'll always be too careful of how you speak and how you act. You're still, not on the other side.”

A hand reaches out to brush over the intricate embroidery on the hem of your dress. “I can help you,” he suggests quietly.

You feel the invisible strings tugging and pulling, and you hug your legs closer, eyes looking out from one corner to the next. The wood creaks, something swings back and forth. Bells. Chimes. You slowly turn your head towards the main entrance and ponder your thoughts. Before your eyes even see the doorframe, Matsukawa pulls your attention back.

"Don't rush your decision. Think about it."

A breeze tickles the back of your neck like phantom fingers tracing along your skin.

You think about the unforgettable scene you saw in your prison-box earlier, the breadth of the world you have yet to see and explore. The carefreeness running on your own two feet through the forest. You were moving forward—on your very own.

You reach over to grab the gourd from Matsukawa's hand. Covering the drinking hole with your lips, you tilt the whole gourd back, welcoming the rush of the cool liquid into your mouth and down your throat in confident gulps.

Matsukawa's half-lidded eyes follow the small stream that spills out the corner of your mouth, making an escape down your jawline disappearing into the red collar. Even though the liquid burns your throat and nostrils, you continue gulping, until all that's left in the gourd is air. You toss the empty gourd back to Matsukawa and wobbly stand up, looking down at him.

"I'm ready," you announce, holding your breath in anticipation.

Matsukawa's laugh rings throughout the empty temple. He pretends to wipe a tear away and chuckles some more. He's so amused by how capricious you are. First coming into the temple utterly terrified, bowing to the heavens and the statue for help. Then how you sob so helplessly in his arms, pressing your soft body against him for comfort. He knows you're still nervous, drinking all that liquor just to bolster your confidence.

You're positively adorable.

Matsukawa rises to his feet, eyes never leaving yours until he's the one looking down at you instead.

"You really ready?" he asks, tilting your chin up with his index finger.

You press your lips together and give a final nod, forcing yourself to not shirk away when he comes closer, placing his lips next to your ear.

"There's no backing out then," he whispers, lips brushing across your earlobe. It tickles, your shoulder automatically scrunching up. "Relax," he orders before sealing your lips with his own. You're awkward and clumsy, still unfamiliar with the taste of another. Your whole face feels like it's burning. Your cheeks. Your throat. Your chest. Your belly nursing a fire.

The wind screams and the bells screech back.

You fall backwards like one does in a dream. The hanging banners spin. Your mind is in a daze hazier than ever, only seeing the blurry shadows on the very top of the roof. You fall into an infinite abyss with Matsukawa's arms caging you to him.

Matsukawa feels the edge of craze coming over his being as shared kisses become deeper and messier. The hands gripping the front of his robes are like a burning iron trying to brand a mark on him. He nips at your bottom lip and murmurs, "mine", before pulling away, taking your breath along with it.

Lingering sparks heat your body, sinfully yearning for more of his taste. More, just more. You continue to fall. Darkness swallows you and you sink for what feels like eternity.

"My bride..." Soft words rouse you from your slumber. "Don't sleep. We're just getting started."

Who's speaking? You ponder, what bride?

The voice is a pleasant, low rumble. You turn your head to the side, feeling cool silk on your cheek. Whatever you're laying on right now is more comfortable, and better than anything you've slept on before. You feel something wet along your jaw, dragging to the center of your throat. It latches onto a nipple, teasing the hardened nub, tugging and playing around. Lengthy digits slide over the other one until a palm covers your breast.

Fingers belonging to hand, a person’s limb. In which case, the flickering ministration would come from—and you’re also naked—

Your eyes fly open. "My clothes!" you yelp, squirming around in haste to cover yourself and snap your thighs shut.

You're mortified that you feel your nether region wet, your arousal already dripping uncontrollably. With each fidget, every slight movement, the fluid slicks onto your inner thighs.

"Got rid of them." Matsukawa shrugs, scratching the back of his head lazily, as though he isn't the one responsible for the magical disappearance of your dress."Too many layers and ties, it's a hassle to take off by hand," he mutters under his breath.

You catch his eyes studying you, and the embarrassment of being unpreparedly nude in front of a man nearly wipes your consciousness out once more.

"Don't you want to be free?" Matsukawa questions. "Really want to be dragged back to be a bride still and sold?"

No, you don't. That's why you're here, so stop shivering. You shake your head.

"Good girl," he coos, giving your cheek a light pat. "That's right."

You feel humiliated under his gaze, but his affections, regardless of intentions, are so indulgent. Once more, you want him to endearingly name you again. If he calls you that again, you fear that you’ll end up doing absolutely anything to please him. To earn that approval again, you’re willing to sacrifice everything.

Words are stuck at the edge of your throat when you see his face level with the edge of the bed. Your breaths are uneven as you feel his lips following the contours of your hips. "What are you—ah—" Your question is cut off with the escape of a quiet moan, almost passable as a shaky breath. Matsukawa delights at how pretty it sounds. He'll make sure you sing those cute noises again and again, louder into the night.

"Right here isn't it," he asks, suckling the same spot in your inner thigh again. He can taste the lingering arousal that only gets stronger the closer he gets to your puffy cunt. His hot breath ghosts over your clit, giving you just a hint of the sensation that comes.

“Have you ever touched yourself here?” Matsukawa asks, running a finger down your glistening slit. You shake your head, unable to verbalize an answer. His other hand tightens the grip around your thigh as your hips buck helplessly, stirred from the strange yet strong pleasure that is completely new.

You have accidentally brushed over that area when you wash-up, but never in any of those moments have you felt the way you do now. You bite down on your lip to swallow the lewd sounds that threaten to escape. It’s too wanton, how you can possibly be making these noises. It comes out involuntary as though it has always been a part of you that remained dormant until now.

Matsukawa presses a kiss onto your clit and circles the sensitive bud slowly. Your teeth bite down even harder on your swollen flesh, threatening to draw blood from tender lips. The control isn't in your grasp. It's with him and the way he laps at your folds ever so carefully.

He's not in a rush at all. He has all the time in the world to indulge in what you have to offer. A lavish feast that will only be ruined if it’s swallowed all too quickly. It’s his feast, and you are being served.

“Stop hurting yourself, let me hear you,” Matsukawa mutters, sucking the sensitive bud again with wet pop. His tongue drags along your folds, teasing along the entrance, barely dipping in.

Gods. You let out a whine as your fingers grasp the sheets tightly, the tension stretching the fabric to its limit. You're at your limit, teetering over the uncontrollable edge of the unknown. The heat from the alcohol is overtaken by something hotter and more carnal building in your core. It scorches your skin, burning in the soles of your feet and erupting. The more his tongue laps across your pussy, flickering at your sensitive skin, the more your helpless little shakes try to press your whole core against him.

If he keeps at it, you feel as though you just might die. The dizziness from waking up in the palanquin is incomparable to this moment. Your hand lets go of the sheets and tangle into his hair. Your thighs shake and clamp around him, shuddering as the orgasm runs wild through your body.

You’re left panting softly, feeling your chest rise and fall with each breath you take. You haven’t moved much, but you feel out of breath, more so than when you are running for your life. Your eyes drift over to Matsukawa, elbows propped, now hovering over your body, his eyes blown with lust. He runs a thumb across your bottom lip, your quiet breathes blowing onto the knuckles.

“Was that good? Did you like that?”

You did. It felt addicting and dangerous; elusive but it’s all yours. A whole world that you have found to exist within yourself this entire time. But you can’t bring yourself to say ‘yes’. You’re unable to admit that truly, maybe this perverted self, is the real self that you have been hiding this entire time under the guise of propriety.

Matsukawa easily sees all the thoughts swirling in your head. Such a careful little overthinker. "My patience is at a limit, sweet."

“W-what?,” you ask in a daze, still confused and hazy. Your mind feels muddled, completely drunk from your first wave of euphoria.

Matsukawa gets up and pulls you to a sitting position. He loosens the tie on his pants and tugs the fabric down to bring his cock into view. Your eyes immediately dart to the side to avoid looking at the stiff length. You barely get a glance, but your breath is picking up on its own—frightened or excited, you don’t know.

“Don’t be shy now,” Matsukawa says, turning your face over to look at him, “Not after moaning like a little whore already.”

He drags your body closer and leads your hand closer until his throbbing cock rests in your palms. You can feel the stickiness of his precum covering your hands. The ridges of the veins pulse as Matsukawa bucks into your hold. With your legs spread open around his thighs, you can feel your hole clenching as if telling you that the cock you see belongs to it. The fire, gone just moments earlier, is now back again in your core.

His hands grope your ass and brings you closer until his cock is pressing against your soaked pussy. He guides your folds to slide along the base of his length, delighting at your bolder movements trying to use his cock to satisfy your newfound needs.

“You want to be mine so badly,” Matsukawa groans, “tell me what you want.”

You shake your head viciously from side-to-side. You’re smart enough to know what he’s talking about, clever enough to know what he wants to hear. But you’re terrified with what’s about to happen. You thought you were ready, confidently offered yourself thinking you can take whatever it is. Who are you kidding, you’re shaking.

“I’m okay,” you whimper, scooting backwards for a little space. “Maybe this—”

“Did you forget already?” Matsukawa says, mildly annoyed. His body eclipses over yours, forcing you to lay back down again. His fingers slip between your thighs, curling into your folds and stroking your clit. You moan, mind dizzy again, feet into the silky fabric spread beneath you like a pool of blood. “It’s your first time. You’re scared, I know. But that just proves why you need to trust me, let me take care of you.” Ruin you.

His hands handle you with such care and love you want to melt into his touch. His soft kisses and coaxing words like the sweetest molasses, driving your attention away from the bulging tip of his cock that’s lined up with your entrance.

“What’s my name?” he asks, “can you say my name?”

“I-Issei,” you whisper, letting the syllables roll off your tongue naturally.

Matsukawa smiles. “That’s right. It’s Issei, don’t forget it okay?”

You smile back. How can you forget this man who’s your first intimate encounter? Not to mention the only person to have treated you so kindly. “I won’t forget.”

“Good.”

You’re elated to hear the words from him again. You did well; you are good. Happiness swells and you are filled with joy. No one has ever praised you like that, no matter what you did. Matsukawa’s eyes flicker. No one until now. No one but Issei.

“Issei,” you whisper again, coveting his name like a healing talisman. “Issei, Issei, Is—” Your prayers are cut short when a sharp pain splits you open in half. The invading force rips a scream from your throat. You writhe under him in agony, each tremble only sending more bursts of suffering throughout your body.

Matsukawa’s strong hands hold your hips in place as he revels in the tightness of your cunt, made even tighter from your fear. It’s all the more delicious when the tears begin to stream down your face. He kisses them away, adoring the salty taste filled with too many feelings and stories.

“Does it hurt?” he asks. Of course it does and he knows that. There’s no other reason for him to sheath himself in you that roughly. But his source of pleasure isn’t your pain, that would be fair too conventional.

Your arms are locked around him, nails clawing into his skin, hugging him close. Because even if he’s the reason for this pain, he’s also the only source of comfort you have. Part of you yearns to tell him how horrible it is, but you’re worried that he’ll chide you for complaining. It hurts, but it’s supposed to from the stories you have heard.

“Not really,” you grit out between your teeth, pussy clenching around the cock resting stiffly inside you.

“I’m glad,” Matsukawa answers, satisfied with your answer. He knows you’re lying. How can you not be in pain when you’re being stretched past your limit already. But the lengths you would go to just to please him, to honor him!

A wicked grin spreads across his lips as he feels the trickle of blood flow down the sides of cock and onto the contours of his balls. It’s the best sacrificial offering made to him—given wholeheartedly with trust.

You’re panting through the aches when you feel him drawing his cock out and rocking back into you, this time careful and slowly. It still hurts, your face is all scrunched up. But mixed in between the pain as he pushes your open, you can feel him in so much more detail with your walls. You imagine what the cock you had your palms around earlier looks like now, thrusting into you. The perverted images and thoughts are rewarded with a lewd squelch when his cock bottoms into you again.

“Look at me,” Matsukawa orders, pushing your legs up to your chest. “Look at how you’re taking me so well. You’re made for this, for me. So good.”

Your eyes flutter open to see his sculpted body framed by your legs on either side. Right at your line of sight, you see your pussy squeezing around him, swallowing the entire length with each thrust. You don’t have time to look at his face, tossing your head back again onto the sheets.

“Ah—” you cry out, moaning loudly this time as a wave of pleasure washes away the last bits of pain. Your legs are pushed up in this embarrassing and licentious position exposing your cunt open to heavens. But it’s better because he thrusts in so much deeper. And in this angle, the bulging tip of his cock rocks perfectly into a new spot within you. Another gate, another world that is revealed and unlocked to you.

His skin slaps loudly against yours. He hits that sweet spot over and over again without fail. The squelches with each rhythmic thrust match your mewls begging him for more of this sensation. It’s the second time you’re begging the man above you. The first time for him to save you. This time, you need more than just his touch, you need him to fuck you.

“Please! Issei, oh god, please,” you beg. You can’t have it dragging out any longer, recognizing the same peak from before. You’re ready to throw yourself over the cliff that’s teasing you incessantly. The fire that’s just at the edge of eruption—it’s coming. “Please, please, please—Issei!”

You think you hear the bells chiming again. You don’t know if there’s wind or not in this dimension. There’s no way to tell with the way your heated body is being rocked and your tits bouncing from the force of each movement. It’s rougher than when he first took your virginity away, each thrust perfectly stuffing you full.

You would have never gotten experience this had you dutifully marry a dead man.

The pressure swirling in your abdomen threatens to break free in a gush. The ecstasy runs through your spine as you arch your back, your cunt squeezing down on the cock buried and convulsing within you. Your voice is crying out to your god, to Issei.

You wonder if he’s pleased. There’s a sheen of sweat sticking to your skin, but he’s still perfect. Your eyes are filled with stars, gazing adoring up at him. Maybe it’s wishful thinking on your end, for hoping that his eyes would carry something else other than lust. But the sweet words that came tumbling out of his mouth before don’t match his current eyes. There’s no love, not even lust. They are impassive.

His cock is still buried in you when you feel the sudden onslaught of sleepiness. Pleasure still lingers in your breathless voice as your eyelids feel heavier. Each blink is slower than the next. There’s a hand cupping your face and you’re waiting for the affirming words from him, to tell him that you did well. You don’t hear anything but your own softening whines and bells. Ah, the iron temple bells with a low chime. Each knock sends you deeper into the vast openness.

“Did I...,” do well, you whisper, letting the vestiges take you in. Am I free, you want to ask, but there's no more voice left to utter anything else. The blue skies and green mountains seem so close yet impossibly far; the warbling birds sound more like faint shimmers. Your whole body is limp. Pliant and free. You don’t feel the need for joy or excitement if the bliss is dragging on forever. There’s no more need to run or fear. You’re way past that point now.

You’re finally on the other side.

The thickest blankets of mist clear from the bamboo groves.

A group of Daoist priests, at the bequest of your supposed in-laws, see the dark outlines of a broken temple. Their footsteps shuffle across fallen leaves and the jingles of golden rings on their staffs echo through the forest. They are just a few paces away.

"Gods," a young priest cries, falling to his feet at the sight of three pairs of feet, swinging eye level left and right. A liquid drips, drop by drop, from the toes of the dangling bodies.

Splat.

Each drip adds to the puddles pooling on the tiles.

The priests cover their noses to hide from the putrid odor, carefully side-stepping into the desecrated space.

The old Daoist performs a simple ritual. "Heavens above. This humble servant offers only the grandest respect to the King Yama, judge and guardian."

The elder furrows his white brows, scanning the torn banners and fallen beams for foul play. He picks up an empty gourd from the dusty floor, examining the curves and turning the object upside down to check for evidence.

"Master, none of these open!" the apprentice cries out, pushing hard on the sealed lid of a coffin.

Another one tries a different coffin in the corner. "This one doesn't either."

Gods. The Daoist master swallows his suspicions, waiting for proof. Who can truly comprehend the reasons behind a god’s will and actions?

"T-This one! This one's open!"

Careful eyes peer over the dark edges of the final coffin made of an elegant softwood, the only one open of many, and the finest crafted in the room.

There you are.

Eyes closed, lips relaxed. One would mistake you as a sleeping doll from the way your breast does not rise. Your wedding dress is perfectly buttoned, embroidery smooth and refined. Not a thread out of place.

As though a moth is drawn to fire, the old priest reaches a bony shaking hand out towards your perfect face to confirm whether you are corporeal or merely a specter.

Before his fingers past the edges of the wood, the coffin lid moves on its own—protecting your resting form from prying eyes for all eternity.

It’s the auspicious date for a wedding. The rites of the marriage go as follows: the first bow to heaven and earth, the second bow to the ancestors before you, and the third bow between the new couple. One shared sip of wine to represent a shared lifetime. And with the joining of two essences, it’s the joining of two happiness. A double happiness.

Random Trivia:

囍 is a Chinese ligature made from joining two 喜 (happiness) characters. It’s often used for auspicious events like weddings.

Wedding colors and traditions implied here are from Ming Dynasty onwards.

King Yama/Enma is a figure in East Asian & Buddhist Mythology, originally based on the Hindu god. In Chinese mythos, he is the god of death and rules over the diyu (hell) and is also the chief over the Ten Kings of Hell. He’s also depicted as a judge to determine which layer of hell a person goes after death and/or they qualify for reincarnation.

Ghost marriages are illegal. They are incredibly rare even in the past though, mainly for two dead people who died single. In some cases one of the spouses may be alive.

#matsukawa x reader smut #haikyuu smut #matsukawa smut #hq smut #matsukawa x reader #tw dubcon #tw blood #tw manipulation #tw violence #tw drugging #tw death #emi.freshtea #ch matsukawa #matsukawa issei #🍵.matsukawa

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