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Shizue could always tell.
Mizuki was good at catching herself, turning away at the last minute or shutting her eyes hard enough for it to stop; the whole process was so fast that everybody else had no clue. But Shizue could always tell. The tremble of her lip, the twitch of her nose, the wavering pitch of her voice. They were subtle, but they were dead giveaways for Shizue, who had been there with her through the worst of it.
Or, maybe, the best of it.
It wasn’t like Shizue liked seeing Mizuki cry. If anything, those first nights that Mizuki was with her, with the endless nightmares and dry heaves and screams as she struggled to adjust, were some of the worst nights of Shizue’s life. Mizuki was in pain. She didn’t know how to exist in a body that had been tortured and mutated. She didn’t know how to function when she didn’t have to put on a brave face for Kizuna. She didn’t know what having a mother meant, and that was probably what hurt Shizue the most.
“Go away,” she’d cried out through her bedroom door, voice strangled and hoarse. Shizue would have no choice but to leave her alone, unsure of what the feeling in her gut meant, no matter how familiar it was.
But then Mizuki allowed herself to cry in Shizue’s arms, and Shizue could no longer deny it: seeing Mizuki cry made her aroused. Shizue had always fancied herself a bit of a sadist, but had never expected the boundary she’d set for herself to be so easily broken. She had no choice but to put up with it, though, letting Mizuki cry into her chest and whimper and shake while pretending everything was normal.
Thankfully, as Mizuki got older, it happened less and less. If she was still brought to tears every night by her memories, she did her best not to let it show, and Shizue was grateful. Time passed, and the fits became few and far between.
But when they did happen, they were intense.
Shizue had known that this particular case, pertaining to a string of child murders, would be hard for Mizuki to go through. She considered taking her off the case, but she knew her daughter well enough to know that Mizuki would tear herself apart if she didn’t solve it herself. All she could do was sit back and watch Mizuki steel her face, her body, her mind, as she discussed the case with other agents and with her mother.
When they got home, the floodgates opened.
The fifth corpse in the span of three days had been discovered earlier that day, and Shizue wasn’t at all surprised when Mizuki opened the door to her room in the middle of the night, hand shaking on the door knob, and meekly said, “I can’t take it anymore.”
She climbed into Shizue’s bed, and Shizue held her, whispering the same platitudes she always did. You’re strong. You can get through this. I know it’s tough, but you can do it. She wanted to ease the burden, sure, but more than anything, she wanted Mizuki to stop crying so that she could pretend that everything was normal again. Even the subdued sobs into the front of her t-shirt made her heart pound. She thought again about the way Mizuki screamed and wailed when she woke up from a nightmare, about the way she might have cried and begged for mercy as she laid strapped down to a table in the basement of Horadori’s lab—
“Mizuki-chan,” Shizue softly called.
Mizuki shook her head, and Shizue didn’t know exactly what that meant, but she knew that talking was pointless, so she didn’t. Instead, she leaned down and kissed a tear away from Mizuki’s cheek, hoping that Mizuki couldn’t see her licking it off of her lips. Warm, salty. So childish and innocent and pitiful. This was her Mizuki, all hers, needy and lost and pathetic...
Of course, Shizue was in no position to call anyone pathetic, given her current situation. She struggled with her desire to be a good mother and her desire to see Mizuki at her very worst. A twisted part of her reminded her that the wounds Mizuki had would never be healed, no matter how innocent of a mother she had—why not enjoy them, then? Shizue flinched every time she thought that way, but it was true. Mizuki was broken beyond repair, and if her only refuge was in Shizue, then was it so unfair for Shizue to enjoy it?
“Mama,” Mizuki whispered. It felt like Mizuki had shoved a knife through her heart. There was so much pain in her voice, the pain of a child who couldn’t trust anyone but was trying her hardest to make it work. Or, maybe, it was the pain of a child who trusted too much out of desperation. “Don’t wanna do it anymore. It hurts...”
Oh, yes. Shizue knew what it was like when Mizuki got like this. When everything got to be too much, and she shut down, mixing her memories of the past and the present and her nightmares and begging Shizue to sort it all out for her. How could Shizue do that when she couldn’t even sort out her own feelings? But, she had to try. The shriveled figure in her arms was not a young woman who was a capable agent, but a little girl who didn’t know any better.
She doesn’t know any better. She won’t even remember it, I bet.
Shizue swallowed.
Mizuki was still sniffling.
“You don’t want it to hurt, do you?” Shizue wanted Mizuki to snap out of it, to realize that her Mama’s voice wasn’t so innocent anymore. She wanted Mizuki to realize what was about to happen to her, to stop it, because Shizue couldn’t stop herself. “Do you want...do you want Mama to make the hurt go away?”
Mizuki made a little noise, snuggled closer. Shizue noted that it wasn’t a rejection. If Mizuki remembered this nightmare more than the others, if she asked Shizue how she could have done such a thing, would that excuse work? You didn’t say no, did you? Shizue found herself realizing that it didn’t matter. Mizuki, this lost child, trusted her enough not to argue. As long as Shizue was gentle, as long as it didn’t hurt anymore...
Intending to taste her, to make her feel so good that it couldn’t hurt, Shizue began to move downwards—Mizuki gripped her by the sleeve of her shirt, her breath quickening, so Shizue didn’t leave her. That kept the tears flowing, though, and Shizue kissed them away one by one as her fingers idled around the waistband of Mizuki’s underwear.
No reaction. Did she even know? It was amazing, it was frightening, Shizue wanted so badly for her to never snap out of it, to snap out of it, to do something, to lay there—
“I love you, Mizuki-chan.”
Shizue meant it when she said it. Even though she was violating her daughter, pressing two fingers into her mouth—which opened slowly, groggily, like she still had no clue what she was doing—and then between her legs, Shizue meant it when she said she loved Mizuki. She loved this side of her, this side that didn’t know any better and cried because she didn’t know what else to do. As if to convince herself, Shizue said it over and over, I love you, I love you, I love you, massaging circles into her daughter’s hardening clit as she did. Mizuki’s whimpers turned into sobs of pleasure, but tears were still leaving warm streaks on her face, so Shizue continued to clean them away with her tongue.
Shizue never could have imagined what it was like, bringing her daughter to orgasm like this. Eyes puffy, cheeks red, mind somewhere, anywhere else but where she was. Shizue watched her face in the light of the TV, and saw that her eyes were blissfully unfocused, like a baby’s. Shizue was doing something good. Mizuki felt good, she was still crying, but not out of anguish, and it didn’t hurt anymore. It was fine that she didn’t remember. In this moment, it didn’t hurt anymore, and even if she didn’t know...it was fine.
“It’s okay,” Shizue said, both to Mizuki and to herself. She held Mizuki close to her, so tight that it felt like they were going to fuse together. “See? It doesn’t hurt anymore, does it?”
“Mm...”
It was a good noise, Shizue thought. She was content. Drowsy. Anywhere but where the hurt was.
Mizuki woke up and left out before Shizue did. That wasn’t uncommon, but Shizue still woke up with a start, hand trembling when she realized where it had been the night before. There were still wrinkles in her sheets where Mizuki had laid, reminding her that it had all been real.
Still, Shizue wanted to believe that it wasn’t.
She reached for her phone, then dialed Mizuki’s number by heart. Mizuki picked up on the second ring.
“Good afternoon, Mama.”
“Mizuki-chan...where are you?”
“At Aioen. I wanted to follow up on a lead about the victim from yesterday previously being an orphan here. I’ve had some trouble getting anyone to recognize her, though.”
...Was it a dream?
“How are you feeling?”
“Pretty good! I slept like a baby last night. Sorry for taking up your bed. Things got...kinda rough.”
“I don’t mind,” Shizue said. But she did mind. She minded all of this. She knew Mizuki wouldn’t remember, that was typical for nights like those, but...was it really possible? Shizue had learned enough about memory through her time at ABIS to know that even if Mizuki didn’t remember it, part of her did. Would that part ever see the light of day? Or had Shizue committed the worst kind of sin—the kind that went unpunished?
Did that mean she could get away with it again?
“This case means a lot to me, but...things are still rough,” Mizuki repeated.
It’s my fault. I’m not a proper mother. I don’t know how to take care of you. “I know.”
“Despite that, I-I feel at the top of my game today, and...” Mizuki paused. Shizue listened to the uproar of happy children playing through the phone. “Mama, could I sleep with you again tonight?”