dollmaxing | Inbox & In-person meetups

"Hah! That's the school the Thieves are from, isn't it? Say, there's not much saying we can't sneak in and grab a few sometime," she snickered, delighting in taking the offered half of the treat.

She got a 'my hero', too... heh heh. With how much lighter Takuto looked, messy from crying but like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders, she did kind of feel like one.

"We make a perfect little best friends duo. Perfectly planktonic."

"A nostalgia trip...I will show you around in the nurse's office then. That's where I counselled most of them, save for Kitagawa-kun. His was...more impromptu." And does he know exactly how he was confronted.

It's a little funny thinking over how Yusuke had tried to poke holes into his plans. Guiding others rather then letting them heal...now that he really thinks about it, he was one of the first few who pointed that out in his logic.

Still, that wasn't his worry right now.

He continues to nibble away on his melonpan.

The planktonic term makes him blush a little. A little out of sheer fondness, the other out of embarrassment.

"I am sensing a pattern with how you talk about things. There's this...endearing aspect to it." He comments. "And it feels right somehow...talking to you about things I wouldn't talk about otherwise."

With his other clean hand, he reaches behind her and runs his fingers through her hair before settling on her shoulder. "Stay with me," he says. "Let's work through this together so I can support you and look after you too. If you would allow me."

"I am nothing if not a creature of habit!" Kuon cheerfully replied to Takuto's comment about sensing a pattern in her. She can't help it, she can only spare so much thought to modulating and adjusting the way she talks - at least he finds it endearing. That's a load off her shoulders.

She didn't flinch or balk at the second attempt at combing fingers through her hair.

Stay with me.

He wants her. He wants her around, and not even for her technical abilities. Though that probably sweetens the pot, this is different from how they first met.

She wants him too. Finally someone she fits with, who isn't disturbed by her. The first time since her parents died. The first time someone wanted to look after her well-being since EMMA.

"Let's do it. Let's look after each other. No taking it back when you're sober!"

"Just slap me back to sense if I spout nonsense," he chuckles, joking clearly, but his hand lowers anyway, cradling her arm in his own. Fingers tracing the area around her wrist, specifically the green smudge that had started to fade.
His pinky, the point where most of Azathoth's powers that helped him recover from his injuries were concentrated, glowed the slightest shade of gold when it traced that skin.

His mouth tasted sweet. His mind buzzed pleasantly, and his insides felt warm.

"I wouldn't take this back for the world anyway."

Those minutes had slowly turned into an hour. In the quiet of the night, with the easy buzzing of the cicadas. It didn't take long until Takuto reached for her hand again and they both decided to walk home again. A home that others would call the lab of sorrow but it was where they found their solace.

Takuto left Kuon's washroom, face cold with water, while droplets collected and collapsed in a quiet rhythm from the tips of his bangs. The heat was...really something, even against his own palace that had a built-in air-conditioner. Maybe it was the alcohol's effect, still lingering in his system as he yawned into his hand before scratching his forehead.

Stretching his arms over his head, his shirt scooted up a bit as he adjusted it.

He unbuttons the first two buttons that practically hugged his neck in the heat.

The summer heat, the cognitive expectation of summer heat, alcohol and a long walk... all of that definitely compounded to the AC being a massive relief, but not an instant cool-down. But Kuon knew the route to take for that.

While Takuto excused himself to wash his face, Kuon had stepped out and done a little walk to one of the staff rooms with convenient vending machines to get them both some water and, after getting caught up chatting a shadow (wherein she was the one that caught the shadow, since they were usually milling about and not quite social), she even got a bag of mixed veggies for them to snack on since they'd already snacked so much on rich foods and sugary snacks.

And what did she see once she was back? Why, Takuto sitting and unbuttoning his shirt, looked like - and there was something on his neck.

"Wait a minute-- you have a tattoo?"

He didn't seem the type! Curiously, Kuon approached and tugged down his collar to look at it. Huh... "An eye...?"

Ah, she's back. Takuto is just about to make himself comfortable on a corner of Kuon's bed- looking still at his phone and groggily checking his chats for any updates and activities, mostly through blurred eyes since his glasses were on his lap, water lining the lenses.

"Hey, hey- you don't mind if I sit here, do-" he cuts himself off when he suddenly senses her coming close. His eyes flicker gold as he drops his phone on the bed, "Ah-! Wha-"

The exposed air on his neck made his shoulders jerk. "Kuon, hey- what are you doing? What are you seeing-?"

"A tattoo of an eye... it's really intricate... it looks a little like Azathoth's eye," she mused, tugging the collar down a bit more and gently running her finger around the oblong shape of the eye.

Huh?

Maruki's eyes widen in sheer horror, shoulders hunching together in tension as he wants to move and check for himself but Kuon clearly decided to take matters into her own hands, literally if he could add as he feels the slightest prick of pins when he feels her finger hovering close.

She's not even touching him and yet-

~~Use me...however you like.~~

The eye beneath his skin shuddered.

A glowing pupil cracked open in a web of luminous blue, like light breaking through a frozen lake. It split across his upper back and shoulder, illuminating delicate fault-lines through skin like stained glass. A strange, cosmic fractal that writhed softly under Kuon’s finger.

"Ah—ah~!"

A sound escaped him—shocked, breathy, unfiltered. His body jolted as pleasure surged through his spine in a ripple. His head tipped back involuntarily, a low, strangled moan spilling from his throat. It wasn’t pain. It wasn’t even fear. It was so goddamn overwhelming.

Like the veins that threatened to snake up front.

His left hand shot out to brace himself, fingers sinking into the bed beside him, trembling. Water from his damp hair clung to his cheek, strands falling over his face as he leaned forward—half curling around the sensation like he couldn’t decide whether to flee or chase it.

"What—what is this...?" he gasped, voice hoarse, disoriented. "It feels... I-I don’t know why it feels like that—"

His shirt clung to him, now slightly hiked up from where he’d been stretching, just enough to conceal the glowing lines before they slowly faded again—veins receding like ink drawn back into a pen.

Takuto panted softly, stunned, his chest rising and falling as he tried to process what had just happened.

And somewhere deep inside, nestled in the edge of his consciousness, something ancient stirred. Watching. Waiting.

Azathoth smiled.

Of all of the possible reactions or overreactions, this would have never been what Kuon would expect from Takuto getting a marking touched. She removed her finger and held onto Takuto's shoulders, keeping him steady and watching what was still showing of the mark.

It moved. The eye - it had opened. That was... a sign of Azathoth, directly.

"It spread. I think this is a mark from Azathoth, Takuto," she said gently, giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "I'll take a photo to show you, just catch your breath."

Takuto had sounded... well. She'd only heard a few men make that sort of noise. ...She'll keep that to herself for a few minutes.

Edited 2025-07-03 00:03 (UTC)

"What?"

The hand on his shoulder was something he didn't even realize he needed until now- shaking in disbelief as he felt her presence crowding him from behind.

"Why would I have...?" He screwed his eyes shut with his other hand flew to his back- something like horror showing on his bare face as he patted his neck.

Okay. Calm down.

"I don't really feel anything???" Panic threatened to break through as he tried to remain still under her squeeze.

Right. She will get her phone out.

Azathoth had remained quiet, the veins around the eye only subtly glowing.

He unbuttoned his shirt a little more, holding up the front with his left to conceal his chest- straightening up a little bit to let her get a better view while his shirt only sunk further to his elbows.

"Okay, here. Get a good angle, please."

"You'll be okay, Takuto," Kuon reassured. After all, if this was Azathoth, then this was a part of him. She'd never heard of traits of a Persona manifesting, but... Azathoth certainly was more powerful. And special.

Without touching the mark again, Kuon kept her hand steady on his shoulder as she got out her not-bugged phone, getting the camera in focus before taking a picture of the subtly glowing mark.

Once checking that it came out properly in the image, she passed the phone over Takuto's shoulder to him so he could put on his glasses and see the picture himself.

The touch felt cold- especially since his skin was bare. Just how much skin contact they were going to have in a span of a night was only a question that still didn't seem to have an answer, given that this marking on his neck was much much important to keep an eye on.

He picks up his glasses from the side and wipes them with the bunched-up shirt before placing them on his nose. "Thank you," he says as he accepts her phone and takes a glance at the picture taken.

Then double-takes as he blinks in shock, head dipping down physically with actual genuine shock on his face.

"Wha- for how long did I have this...?" He looks down at his own chest, his clavicle and runs his fingers through what he should find to be a myriad of veins interconnecting with this one point behind his neck. "I don't-" He stops to find some light flickering of dark lines on the upper half of his arm.

"I...it should have started to hurt by now, right? If it was looking like that?"The azathoth's eye shuts close when Takuto's hand flies to that exact spot and well- he doesn't feel anything strange.

"Can you...touch that again?"

Great decision there.

"Of course. Relax your shoulders, take a deep breath," Kuon advised, figuring she had an idea what the feeling might be like for him - at least, if she touches it.

Gently, she ran the pad of her thumb along the lines, following them to the eye again, circling the pattern slowly and watching the involuntary little responses, feeling his pulse heighten, goosebumps prickling along his skin...

Okay. Relax your shoulders. Take a deep breath.

That's what he does, heaving a deep breath in the process as he sets her phone down for her to take.

"..!"

He shudders as his body feels like it has grown taut from a massage that seems to be running all over his body somehow. Like whatever aspect of that eye Kuon touches, the place responds almost pleasantly.

Panting lightly, he conceals the sounds by covering his mouth with the back of his hand. The one that he had made earlier was...so much worse-! "Is- hh how does it feel to you?" Just a bump? Something live shimmering inside him? "Of course Azathoth doesn't tell me about this, I...oh, it feels so..." Overwhelming has to be the right word. Wih his insides becoming mush like that.

Edited (pfp forgor change) 2025-07-04 00:28 (UTC)

"Not like much... it really does look like a deliberate tattoo," she said, though now she was curious... if it didn't edge into the territory of too painful, maybe this could be something quite nice for Takuto. Not something that he can do for himself, either, it seems.

"It sounds like it feels intense, hmm? Does it feel good? Maybe it's Azathoth granting you a little bliss, too," she speculated with a bit of light humor.

Kuon applied just a little bit of pressure. Nothing but a gentle little push, lest it prove painful - just a little more pressure than the feather-light touches from before, more akin to a caress.

Edited 2025-07-04 05:48 (UTC)

Maybe it's Azathoth granting you a little bliss, too.

He bites down on his hand to conceal the noises threatening to break through his throat. "Good? I, I don't-"

His cheeks are red. The veins keep pulsing over his skin, as if working in tandem with his heavy breathing as he tries to pinpoint where exactly could he have got this mark from...that is if it weren't already there from the very start. Would the others who have fought him before know something about it? Would it have mattered if-

~~Standing at the top of a building, the world at your fingertips with Akira looking at him in horror-~~

The glowing veins beneath his skin pulsed again—rhythmic, reactive, as if attuned not just to her presence, but to her attention. The gentle pressure she applied to the strange mark sent a ripple through his body, like a massage that resonated through his entire nervous system. Every nerve-ending felt kissed by a spark of something warm and dizzying.

“Ahh—hh, Kuon—” he gasped out, hips twitching slightly where he sat, unable to stop the subtle roll of his shoulders, the breathless tremor in his chest.

Was this… Azathoth’s doing? A blessing, or a curse dressed in silk and fire?

He didn’t know.

He didn’t care.

It felt good. Too good.

Just as the pressure shifted again, drawing out a choked moan from him, his eyes shot open—and clarity hit.

"A-Ahh—!"

His entire body flinched, startled by the intensity of the pleasure. Like someone flipped a switch inside his skull. His brain stuttered. And then—he practically launched himself backward.

In one graceless, almost cartoonish movement, Takuto scrambled back onto the bed, arms and legs uncoordinated as he flopped onto the mattress. His back hit the headboard with a soft thud, and he immediately reached for his half-unbuttoned shirt, clumsily tugging the fabric together to cover himself with a bundle of cotton and panic.

Edited 2025-07-04 11:18 (UTC)

His glasses were skewed somewhere near the foot of the bed.

His face was beet red.

"I-I’m—I wasn’t—it just—!" he stammered, pressing the bundled shirt against his chest like it was armor. "That wasn’t supposed to—h-happen like that!"

His wide golden eyes flicked up to Kuon, barely able to meet hers. Still catching his breath. Still aching with the ghost of that sensation trailing down his spine.

"...You didn’t—see too much, right?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper, hope clinging desperately to denial.

He looked like he might short-circuit if she even smiled at him the wrong way.

Azathoth's presence, through those golden eyes... Kuon smiled and sat on the bed, turning towards Takuto and placing a hand on his knee. He looked like a cornered animal, and her mind was clicking into place the way it always did when she found a machine she wanted to take apart and figure out the mechanisms of. To fiddle and experiment with.

She was absolutely giving him the 'wrong' smile, one that made it obvious how dreadfully curious she was.

"So... do you remember that conversation we had before? After you made breakfast for us," she cooed, drumming her fingers on his knee. "I still think it would be fun."

Inbox & In-person meetups

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slight nsfw undertones from here tbh

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