Chapter Text
Min
Kai is waiting, very patiently, as I finish off my work for the afternoon. She’s lounging placidly on the grass, naked, a tiny flower held cutely in her mouth. Her skin glows golden in the sunlight, as warm and lovely as her smile. She’s so sweet.
I should explain: Kai can lie on her favourite lawn and not be bothered because our house is very big and very complicated. It sprawls down the gentle slope towards the river, surrounded by flowers and orchards and ancient trees and old mossy crumbling walls that used to keep things out but aren’t really needed any more, given that Junhee owns the whole valley. Different bits of the house are different ages and sit at different heights on huge granite foundations, heavy roofs on massive wooden beams overlap and curl up at the edges, rooms and halls open into each other with sliding screens, little courtyards and pockets of garden hide from the weather and each other between the wings.
There’s enough house for ten of us to get lost in it, never mind the outbuildings and the garden and the forest and the hills.
Kai’s favourite little lawn is down near the river, between big stone steps of the kitchen wing and an old stone wall covered in climbing roses. It catches the sun but not the wind, and Kai likes to warm up there after she swims in the icy water which comes straight down from the mountains. She swims every time she finishes a painting, even when there’s snow on the ground. I think she’s crazy, but she says it’s good for her body.
Given how glorious her body is, she must be doing something right. Kai is perfection.
She is so beautiful and so adored it’s hard even to be jealous. Taemi, of course, worships the ground she walks on. So does Junhee, although she’s a little more discreet about it most of the time. Those two are the ones who usually share Kai’s bed. But there’s things she doesn’t tell them. She’s sensitive. She doesn’t want them to be upset.
Because Kai is sweet, sweet and empathetic and gentle, and yet she also wants things that would horrify them. That’s where I come in.
She looks up at me with her lovely shining eyes. There’s the faintest glow of pink on her cheekbones and if it’s from self-consciousness it can’t be from her nakedness, because Kai is naked whenever she can be, she’s never been shy about it and firmly believes it should hold no shame. She loves to be looked at and enjoyed. But now she blushes deeper and blinks and looks away.
She’s told me what she wants, at least most of it. She’s been coy about some parts, but Kai has never been gifted at subterfuge. She’s giving it all away right now, by looking up at the window of the kitchen where Doh Sookyung can usually be found.
Sookyung is only one of us who never touches Kai the way everyone who sees Kai wants to touch her. She swore it off. Kai does something to her. Kai does something to me too, she does something to everyone who isn’t made of stone, but those two together were too much. Now Sookyung satisfies her love for Kai by giving her unfailing care and devotion and protection, and absolutely nothing more or less, under any circumstances. Because the alternative… well, that’s what Kai’s blushing about. Poor thing, she’s going to cry today.
“Aren’t you beautiful” I say, as I step onto the cool fresh grass. I know she doesn’t want to talk. I keep my movements slow and my voice soft as I move closer, crouching, holding out one hand to her, palm down. She tilts her head to brush her cheek against me, then lets me pet her. “So pretty. You’re Sookyung’s favourite, aren’t you? Famous. You’re her treasure.”
She shivers faintly under my touch as I sigh.
“Ahhh, poor thing… you have no idea do you? So sweet, so trusting. You follow her around and eat out of her hand, she has you so well trained. And one day… one day she’ll say come on, follow.”
I rise and beckon, the way Sookyung would. Kai stirs herself and follows obediently, like I’m the one she wants.
I know Sookyung’s not in the kitchens. She’s off outside somewhere, maybe harvesting in the gardens but just as likely with her hands wet with blood. She doesn’t believe in hiding from the realities of life and death and nature, I admire that about her. She does her best to be kind, she feels a deep obligation. Animals like her, and she likes them. I’m pretty sure she once killed a man, although she won’t confirm it. She fascinates me.
And then there’s Kai. Beautiful Kai. We’re all here because of her.
She pauses, one foot on either side of the high timber threshold. It’s dim and cosy in here, filled with the soft fragrance of bread and rice, the subtle tang of kimchi, smokiness and spices and clean raw wood. Light gleams on polished bronze and steel. The floor is warm from the hearth that draws through the stone foundations of the house. It’s silent. It’s a very different world from the sun and the grass.
I stroke her back, soothing.
“You’ll follow her in, I know. You trust her. Even if there’s strangers in here, looking at you, you’ll follow her. She doesn’t want you to be scared, you should never be scared when you’re with her. Mmm, that’s it. Good girl.”
I coax her inside, never losing contact with her skin, stippled with goosebumps and jumping minutely as her muscles twitch under my fingertips. She’s hesitant, but she moves, step by step, towards the big wide steel bench in the centre of the room. I help her climb up, posed on her hands and knees. Her eyes are huge and bright and shining, her breath slow, her cheeks flushed. She hangs her head low as I run my hands over her, gentle and light.
“Look at you. Beautiful thing. So perfect. You take her breath away, I think.”
I know she takes mine. God, she’s intoxicating. I can only imagine the turmoil in Sookyung’s soul if she were doing this, her heart in her mouth. The power. And what she’d do with it…
She’d want an audience, I think. She wouldn’t do this for herself, that’s too self-indulgent. She’d need professional pride to push her past her reticence. Doh Sookyung, legendary master of her craft, sharing something magical with a chosen few, her greatest prize.
Kai wants an audience too, she always does.
“She’ll want to show you off, won’t she? How flawless you are. How she controls you. She wants her guests to watch and be in awe of you. Look how beautiful my Kai is, she’ll say. Look at her, she’ll tell them. Right now in this moment she’s the most extraordinary thing you’ll ever see. She wants them to feel this, and remember.”
I wonder who her guests would be, wealthy and callous, driven by such jaded arrogant hunger for sensation they’d seek out the most exclusive and unobtainable until there was nothing left to imagine except this. Sookyung would have utter contempt for them. And they’d love it. That would be part of the thrill.
“They can’t touch you, they don’t deserve that. They might have paid her for you but you’ll never be theirs, not like you’re hers. Only she has the right to touch you. And as for what she’s about to do…”
A shudder runs down Kai’s back. She flinches away from my touch. I soothe her and keep stroking, tenderly, down her quivering flanks, down the muscle of the back of her thighs, around the curve of her waist to her fluttering belly. I wonder if she can feel my hands trembling just from thinking of Sookyung in my place, losing her mind.
I wonder if Sookyung’s hands would tremble like mine, or if she’d be able to stop them. I feel like she would. She’d be in control, on the surface at least. She’d focus on the moment, on the warm living creature under her fingertips, every flicker of Kai’s pulse under her skin and the flow of her breath, miraculous and fragile, and not let her thoughts drift to what it will feel like when…
I know Kai's in the same place I am. Tears glisten on her long lashes. I take a deep breath.
“Shhh, lovely thing, it’s okay. She’ll be so kind to you, won’t she? So patient. She’ll be so gentle, just like this. You’re so good, so sweet, she doesn’t want you to be scared. Let her stroke you all over, and make you calm. So relaxed, so used to her touch. Anywhere…”
I let the back of my finger ghost across Kai’s throat. She moans, low, and tosses her head.
“Shhh, shhh.” I run my hand back the other way, just as light as before, and now she’s frozen still, only her eyes fluttering. “That’s better, isn't it sweet one, it’s all okay. You’ll let her touch you there, won’t you, you trust her. Let her touch you.”
She does. She’s quiet and still. She’s the only thing in the world. I can’t stop running my hands over her, worshiping her.
“Lovely Kai, so beautiful, she can’t look away from you. Every breath you take, so calm and slow and deep now, she can feel it like it’s hers. She wants you to have no fear at all. She can feel the beat of your heart under this delicate skin... to her you’re something sacred, aren't you? You're hers. You trust her absolutely, you deserve her kindness, you deserve to be adored, and she adores you. Lovely Kai. Mmmm, that’s it, let her touch you.
“You won't move a muscle when she draws her knife, and…”
Kai doesn’t flinch as I drag the edge of my nail across her flesh. Doesn't make a sound. She just shudders from her core, and crumples, and falls into my arms.
All I can think of is how hot her blood would be, pouring out to wash over Sookyung’s hands and splash and pool on the polished steel. I know she’d hold Kai like I am, although she’d be slippery and slick and steaming. She’d catch her and cradle her and feel her shiver and go limp; lowering her down gently, so heavy now, like the air has left her with her spirit.
I’m holding my breath. I wonder how long Sookyung would hold hers, trapped in this moment, endless and eternal.
In the doorway, Sookyung exhales, long and hard.
She’s been outside listening for a while, that much is obvious. I can’t help but take some pride in the flush in her cheeks. She’s doing her best to maintain her composure, but her lips are parted and her hand’s closed tight into a white-knuckled fist against her thigh. Not often anyone gets to do that. I’m quite pleased.
She gives me a nod. Then she cocks her head, like should I go? And I’m not sure, to be perfectly honest. Kai is down very deep. I let her roll softly onto her side, protecting her lolling head, then kiss her cheek lightly and tell her “Kai, baby. Soo is here.”
I’m not really sure what she’ll do. Her eyes flicker. She moans. Then she nods and sighs and beckons feebly with one finger:
“Soo—”
There’s no suggestion of Sookyung leaving now. She comes and kneels down by the bench and holds Kai’s hand in hers, and Kai relaxes again, lying so quiet and still. We’re done here, I think. Kai asked for more and I had it planned but it looks like we’re finished early, and that’s okay. But then Kai whispers:
“Soo can help.”
I look at Sookyung, my eyebrows raised. She’s staring at me in that intense alarming way that she does, her eyes an opening into endless darkness. Then she shrugs.
“Help with—?”
“What you’d do with her next.”
Kai makes some heartbreaking little sound at that, which does something terrible to both of us. We both take a moment to settle ourselves, in silent mutual agreement never to acknowledge any reaction we saw the other make. I glance up at the hooks overhead, where Sookyung hangs whatever she needs to. Sookyung notices. She looks down at my bag of ropes on the floor, looks at Kai, lying there peacefully. Looks at me, appraising.
“Sure. Okay.”
Sometimes it’s bundles of flowers, hanging up there, or strings of chillies. Sometimes it’s a big fish from the river that she’s smoked in a hut outside in the woods. Sometimes it’s a deer, or a bird, or one of the lambs she raises with Yixing. Right now there's a few bunches of drying herbs, scenting the air. The rest are empty.
Sookyung sniffs, cracks her knuckles, runs her strong hands down Kai’s legs, closing her grip around her calves. Kai is serene, her eyes closed, her breath light, her body loose and relaxed.
I get out my ropes.
I don’t tie Kai very often. It’s usually not needed. She prefers to hold herself the way she’s wanted than to have someone do it for her. But this is different.
It is helpful to have Sookyung’s strength to help me now. Kai won’t move a muscle. She’s already drifted somewhere far away, but I can’t help but note the blazing heat of her body or the sweet wetness between her legs. She makes the tiniest soft little whimpers as I lace ropes around her waist and her hips and her thighs and her calves and her lovely slender ankles, all threaded together to bear the weight of her body. There’s a loop between her pretty feet, just right for one of those big iron hooks, shackled to a chain. Kai gasps but doesn’t struggle as she’s hauled up.
She hangs there, long and graceful, her arms draped loosely by her face and hair streaming down, impossibly vulnerable and helpless. Her breath is light through parted lips, her eyes glassy, her dark brown nipples desperately tight, her face and her neck and her chest flushed pink. I kneel and cup her face in my hands, my eyes inches away from hers. She can’t focus on me. Her eyes roll back, and flutter closed. She shivers almost imperceptibly as Sookyung runs her hands along her body, firm and powerful, feeling where the ropes dig into her. She runs them down the length of Kai’s thigh and the curve of her hip.
And then it’s not just her hands. Careful, deliberate, she begins to trace the cold blunt back of a knife across Kai’s skin, along the lines of the muscles of her legs, along her flank and her belly, methodically rehearsing where the blade would glide through Kai’s flesh as she was taken apart.
I want to watch, but I can’t look away from Kai. I’m captivated. Her eyes flicker behind closed lids. Her breath is rapid and quiet and her hands soften in mine as she sinks deeper into oblivion.
“Kai, baby. Hey.”
Just the faintest stir.
That's enough. She’s fainted.
"Down, now." I say.
Sookyung lowers her into my arms. We lie her on her back and free her from her ropes and hold her gently and keep her warm as she surfaces, dazed and blinking. She nuzzles at me, moaning something inarticulate, her fingers lacing between mine, tugging, clingy and insistent. Her cheeks are blazing hot. Tears shine in her eyes.
“Sweetheart, what do you want? Tell me.”
Sookyung frowns. Then she sighs, flexes her shoulders, crouches, scoops Kai up like she weighs nothing at all. Kai wraps her arms around her neck, holding herself close, her feet kicking weakly in the air as Sookyung turns without a word and stomps off down the hallway to my room.
By the time I catch up she’s already placed Kai delicately in the middle of my bed and backed away.
She gives me a look, and then she’s gone.
Soo
I have many things to be doing that aren’t lying on this lawn. I left some broth for miyeok-guk simmering earlier and I should go finish prep for the rest of it. Poor Kai will need the salt.
The broth will have to wait a bit. I need a moment. I’m flat on my back in the shade on the grass too drained to move a muscle. Maybe I’ll just sink into the earth, who knows.
Fucking Kai.
Ah, it’s fine. It’s nice here. There’s a breeze moving the trees and little doves coo at each other on the eaves and Jangmi is playing her guitar, just jamming away all chill. Taemi and Baekhee are somewhere giggling, being a pain in someone’s ass.
I can’t hear Kai, not with my ears. If I can hear her it’s just a memory. When Kai’s feeling things you can’t hear her unless you’re right up against her body, it’s part of her whole perfectionist self-control thing.
Dancers. Crazy.
Kai’s not a masochist. Kai wants to leave her own mark on you. Trouble is, she knows the most potent way to do that is to let you hurt her.
Damn it, Sookyung, idiot. She got you again.
Wisps of cloud materialise and vanish in the sky above me, fleeting ghostly things in the void of heaven. The sun’s low enough they’re stained pink, like drops of blood in milk. They’re beautiful, ephemeral and perfect, like Kai’s skin under my hands, still warm—
The doves startle at something and launch into the sky.
I can hear Kai weeping.
It’s soft, just a hitching of her breath, desperate. It’s how she cries when she’s pinned down and you’re three knuckles deep in her and she knows you won’t let her go until you’ve made her come, really come, until she can’t walk.
Easier said than done with her. She always fakes. Puts on a show, wants you to feel like you did something. If you want to get past that you can either worship her and kiss her and tell her she’s beautiful and good ten thousand times until she melts under your kisses.
Or you can take her apart. You have to drag her to the edge and make her feel what you want to do to her. Then she weeps, ragged and intense, just like this, and you can feel her throb and swell.
Min almost gets it, by the sounds. Close enough. So does Junhee, in her gut, although she’s too much of a pussy to let herself do anything about it.
Ah, that’s unfair, I’m no better. At least Junhee never—
Kai’s silent again. She’s always silent at the end, tense and shuddering, her long legs squeezed together, her skin glistening with sweat, her head tipped back; tears dripping from the corners of her eyes, wide-open and staring blankly into nothing.
I can taste her.
Fuck
I curl up to sit, meaning to get out of here, end up hunched over with my head in my hands trying to escape the memory of the powerful pulsing heat of her cunt under my tongue.
Time to go, Sookyung. Get up and be useful.
And then Baekhee headbutts me.
“Ya! Where did you come from?”
I don’t mean to jump, but she startled me. She’s so goddamn loud most of the time you forget how stealthy she can be when she wants to creep up on you. She obviously knows I need to be snapped out of it. Good kitten.
“Hey, cutie.” I pat her head, and she rubs against me. “Did you find me because you want a snack?”
She huffs, wriggles her way into my lap, looks up at me, and pouts. She’s in a mood too, huh. Annoying and needy as usual, just the way we all love her. Wants to be messed with.
Fine, I'll mess with her.
“You should have around earlier.” I say, low and serious, looking into her big blinking eyes. “I was slicing up some fresh, delicious Kai.”
She gasps and blushes and squirms on my legs, swallowing nervously, licking her soft pink lips. Cute.
“That would be a good treat for a nice kitten, right? You’d have to be so well-behaved. Would you sit politely and wait for me to cut you a morsel? Stick out your cute little tongue and let me give you a sliver, raw and bloody. Juicy."
I lean down closer to her until my nose is almost touching hers.
"Would you sink your sharp teeth in and bite? AANG!”
I laugh as she squeaks and jumps off me and scampers away across the grass. She doesn’t go far though. She follows me into the kitchen to hang out while I finish making soup, partly because it’s warm and cosy and she can steal snacks out of the pantry but mostly so I can tell her all about lovely Kai hanging from a hook, which makes her blush so red her freckles disappear.
“God. Taemi will be so mad!” she says finally, as I’m busy mincing green scallions for a garnish. I’ve prepared a tray with fresh fluffy rice and steaming tea and salty snacks scattered with fresh herbs, and of course my lovely clear strong soup, exactly what Kai needs right now. I know I’ll have to kneel by her side and make sure she eats. She’ll be out cold by the time the rest of us have dinner.
“Taemi doesn't have to know.”
"She'll know."
"You could not tell her."
“Oh come on, as if that'll work, it’s Kai. they're psychically linked or something.”
"What if Kai doesn't want her to know?"
"I mean—"
"Maybe you could create a diversion."
"Maybe I could!"
“If Taemi finds out, do you think she’ll come and fight me?”
“I don’t know. She gets pretty fierce. Maybe!”
“Maybe.”
“She’s still a bit scared of you, you know.”
“Why would she be scared of me?”
Baekhee giggles.
“I mean there was the whole thing where— no, you know what, it's stupid. You’re the cutest.”
“HEY! Call me cute again—” I wave a wooden spoon at her. “I’ll beat you til you cry.”
“You’re such a liar, Doh Sookyung, I know you’re a softie. I literally just watched you decorate Kai’s dinner with little flowers.”
“I take pride in my work.”
“Uhuh.”
She giggles again. She leaps up to trail behind me down the hall, so close if she was a real cat I’d trip over her, being annoying the whole way.
“It’s okay, I won’t tell Taemi you’re a softie. And I won't tell her about Kai. I’ll make sure she's extra scared of you, don’t worry.” She pauses for a moment. “It's not my fault if she gets horny about it though, you know what a freak that girl is.”
“Shh." I lean in close to the door and listen for a moment. I think Min’s gone, by the sound of it. It's Junhee I hear in there now, singing softly, the way she does when she has Kai curled up hiding in her lap. Her most precious, her most beloved, she’d give up the whole world for her. Heartbreaking.
It's that bad, huh, nobody's made Kai drop this hard in a while. Min really did a number on her. Good job.
"You and Taemi do what you want, just leave poor Kai alone to get some rest.”
“Did you really hang her upside down??” She whispers, biting her lip. “That’s so hot. Fuck. What if you did it with Taemi—?”
“You evil creature, you can dream up something better than that to scare her with. Ask Dae to help, she’s meaner than I am.”
I peck a kiss onto her forehead, then nudge her away from the door with my foot.
“Now go away. It’s time for me to feed Kai.”