After The Divorce || Nanami Kento || JJK

Truth Brings Conviction

CHAPTER 16

Inside Getou's house was quite an odd experience, especially since its framework was exactly the same as yours but with his choice of decor, it seemed to carry a different air. I'd never been to Gran's house but this was how id imagine it'd be.

Various strange pieces mounted on the wall, masks, strangely shaped metal instruments, and odd-looking cold weapons. The potted plant in your arms swayed with enthusiasm within this environment, almost as if an unseen wind was blowing to and fro. You could feel it, the emotions, it was happy here. Just that knowledge alone made you raise your guard.

"Make yourself at home, but it's best if you don't wantonly touch anything." He closed the door behind you, the picture of a gentleman. It does nothing for you as the picture is ruined by a skull-like decoration that was hanging right beside his face, in fact, it made it even more uncanny. "Most things here would do... drastic things to get close to a walking generator of cursed energy"

"Like what? Form a parasitic... pseudo-emotional bond with an unsuspecting human who attempts to take care of it? Only for me to be later told that it's feeding off of this said 'cursed energy' within me like some sort of baby-umbilical cord situation?" I ask smartly, a bright smile on my face.

"Touche." He laughs a bit, before becoming serious once more. "But more like making you fertilizer for its growth while steadily turning you into its puppet and eventually host. In my opinion, your friend there is actually a good thing, it actively does its best to keep you alive, with no attempts at possession or turning you into a marionette. Its drawbacks are mild in comparison, don't you think so?"

"It's drawbacks?" Your attention clings to the word, this was never mentioned to you before, and so you indirectly ignored his question. It was obviously a trap in the invisible mind game the man seemed to enjoy playing anyways.

Getou's hair swishes behind him as he walked by you and further into the house, ducking into a room before returning to you, first aid kit in one hand and a mirror in the other.

He motions for you to follow him and he places it on a table and points at a chair, which you silently take. Even though you had played nonchalant to his warning you had still deeply internalized it. The plant that you clutched in your hands, subconsciously protecting it from the threat presented in interacting with Suguru's house. A sick feeling welled up in your chest.

You hated it. The plant. It represented nameless powerlessness that scared you.

The plant shifted, the warped expression of the face engraved it changing as if feeling the shift in your gaze towards it. It changed to an expression you couldn't recognize, but you were sure it was not the picture of pure agony it had been before. It had never done that before.

You move your gaze to its leaves, all a shade darker than they had been before.

Something was amiss.

"That plant of yours has quite a few drawbacks, especially for someone in a situation such as yours." Even with the grave words Suguru's feather-light tone did not change. You wondered what could shake him, dent this airy facade of his.

"Situation such as mine?"

"Weak." He slides into the chair opposite yours and his eyes meet yours over the dining table. "But even less forgivable. You are simply ignorant of the danger you're in."

You couldn't even deny it. That frustrated you like nothing else. Wordlessly you reached into the first aid kit, moving your gaze away from the man and into the mirror. If anything, that made it worse, the picture of your face was ghastly. Bruises that bled and some that didn't but stung, somehow, even worse than the ones that did, and deep bruising that ached the more you stared at it. You had fallen face first, after all, you looked a mess.

Wordlessly, you began to attempt to fix the mess of scratches on your face.

Suguru didn't notice, or simply did not deign to care, and continued to speak, "You are a normal human being; weak and helpless as the world burns around you. Not a single instinct in your body is trained to understand the world around you. Curses, cursed energy, you're all blind to it. Under normal conditions, this plant wouldn't even notice people like that at all. But you, you are in a mess peculiar to yourself, somehow you have enough energy within you to attract an entity such as the Human-Faced Plant seal. Being nothing more than just an average human; unevolved."

You watched him speak, the hairs along your forearms raising even further than you thought humanly possible. A sneaky tendril of the plant, which had somehow wrapped itself around your leg tensed, almost to the point of rendering you completely unable to move within it's grasp. This man..

You finally realized why he seemed nonchalant, so unmoveable, he simply saw everyone as below him, an ant. And you, maybe, just a variant he found interesting, but still nothing more than just an ant. You were scared. Tense. But you kept it hidden, your facial expression did not as much as change as you continued to apply medicine to your face, not betraying any evidence of the way your free leg trembled and the other one was trapped in the grasp of the plant, which remained tense as it wallowed in your emotions.

"But, fret not, this is probably the only real problem we have here; your state. The natural drawbacks of the plant are nothing I can't solve if you let me, that is."

"Why should I trust you?" You hated how much you sounded like a broken record.

"Answer me honestly Y/N, have I ever lied to you? Have I ever tried to harm you?"

You mentally forced yourself to calm down. "How would i know if you're lying to me?"

Suguru laughed, loudly. It sounded like he was laughing at some silly little joke that i had said, but somewhere deep within it was a nameless condescension, like he was watching a circus routine. Maybe i was reading too much into things but i didn't feel wrong.

"Y/N, don't lie to yourself. You know im telling you the truth, don't you? It's you yourself who doesn't want to face that." He says before making to stand, "One moment, I have something for you."

You watched his figure leave before slumping into your seat and shifting your legs. The plant's tendril had long freed it as you had calmed yourself down. You looked down at the plant which sat perched on your lap before rubbing it gently.

You still hated it, but even more so, you hated the man for toying with you like a puppet. He was right, deep within yourself you were able to discern that every word he spoke was the truth, but you could also tell that he wasn't telling you everything he knew. Ironically, he was the one that had reminded you before, the absence of truth is also a lie.

You were an ant to him, unevolved, as he had so placed it.

He soon returned, carrying a bottle of wine and an unidentifiable box offering them to you. Seeing your face of confusion and hesitance to take it, he spoke.

"Actually, I've been meaning to give you one of these since you had liked it so much the first time we met. It's a bottle of my signature, The Love Curse, you know, the drink you tried the first night we met. Haha, its funny to think of how much things have changed since then." Seeing your eyes travel from the wine to the box, he continued speaking. "That is something for your little friend's drawbacks. If anything happens that you cannot handle on your own just open the box, but don't ever open it under any other circumstance, okay?"

Your eyes scanned the man's face. It was such an odd picture, his smile and his very demeanor as the words that he spoke left his mouth. It felt wrong somehow in a way you could not name like the person within the body was... wrong. Just like the strange way his presence in your life had blossomed exponentially like an unseen hand had been guiding it forward. A series of strange coincidences.

Still, you take the box and wine, a slightly relieved expression slipping onto your face as you received it. The picture of someone who had chosen to let down their guard. He smiled seeing this, unaware of how your fingers trembled in barely suppressed anger.

You were a lot of things but you would never sit and be this man's marionette. Or anyone's for that matter.  Whether it were to be Suguru Getou or Nanami Kento himself.