Page 30 of The Oni's Heart

It was almost amusing how much he tried to hide it—his struggle, his guilt. Once I calmed myself back at the apartment, I immediately recognized the tactic he used on me and chastised myself for falling for it. I mean, it was probably the alcohol that made me not think on my feet at that moment. But now that I knew, I found the monk all the more amusing.

And where would a monk learn such toxic behaviors found in the underworld? There was much more to Tatsuya than meets the eye.

I could see the tension in his shoulders and how his jaw tightened when I was around. But he didn’t say anything. He never did. That calm, collected facade of his never wavered. It was a damn good act, I had to admit.

But I wasn’t fooled.

I leaned against the stone wall of the temple, arms crossed, watching him as he stood near the altar, deep in conversation with one of the other monks. He looked tired, detached, yet too rigid—it told me everything. I could see the battle waging insideof him, the conflict tearing him apart, and for once, it wasn’t me struggling with the weight of my own fucked-up choices.

For once, it was him.

I could barely hold back the snicker that bubbled up in my throat when I saw who I assumed to be his superior shoot him that look—as if Tatsuya had done something wrong, something unholy, though his face remained the same serene mask. I could see through it, though. The way his eyes flickered for a split second when the man spoke to him, his gaze too strained, too desperate to seem unaffected. It was so obvious it almost made me want to laugh out loud.

It was pathetic how he thought he could hide it from me. From anyone, really. He didn’t want to be around me, I could tell. He hated how much I unsettled him. But here he was, spending more and more time around me. And that fact? Well, it made my stomach do something strange, something I didn’t care to analyze too much.

But what made it even better—what I couldn’t stop finding hilarious—was how much it bothered him. How much he tried to deny it.

It was funny. Watching him struggle. Watching the ever-present calm, he had been so proud of crack just a little bit, day by day. A part of me enjoyed it. A rippling satisfaction at seeing him slowly unravel. Because honestly? For once, I wasn’t the only one in pain.

I wasn’t the only one who had a damn storm inside.

I hadn’t expected him to be so... human. When I first met him, I figured he was just another quiet, distant monk who wanted to avoid the mess of the world. The kind who buried himself in rituals and prayers, too high and mighty to care about people like me. But I was wrong. Tatsuya wasn’t above anyone. No, he was just as messed up as the rest of us.

It was almost... satisfying, in a twisted way.

I caught his eye for a moment as his superior turned and walked away. There it was—the flash of hesitation, the thing he couldn’t hide, the flicker of something darker underneath all that calm. I wanted to walk up to him then, to remind him of that moment—of how much he was failing to hide the fact that he wanted something from me, something dangerous.

But I didn’t.

Instead, I just let my lips curl into a sly grin.

“Don’t strain yourself too much,” I said, loud enough for him to hear as he moved toward the side entrance, still pretending nothing was wrong.

His eyes snapped to me, and I saw the sharp inhale he took as he struggled to keep his composure. He opened his mouth, probably to tell me to mind my own business, but something stopped him. A flicker of hesitation, just enough for me to savor.

“Everything alright, monk?” I asked, my voice laced with amusement.

He didn’t answer at first. Instead, he gave me a look—one of those looks that were full of suppressed frustration, the ones he kept hidden beneath his stoic demeanor. The look that told me I was getting under his skin, and I revelled in it.

And the more I watched him squirm, the more I realized how much it entertained me.

There was a part of me—one I didn’t want to acknowledge—that felt a twisted satisfaction in seeing him struggle, in watching him fight with the pull I seemed to have on him. I couldn’t help it. There was something delicious about it. I was watching a perfect mirror crack, piece by piece, and seeing what was hidden underneath.

He wasn’t this perfect, holy man he liked to present himself as. No. He was similar to me.

And that... that made me feel a little better.

I pushed myself off the wall, stretching lazily, pretending not to notice how he shifted uncomfortably, still struggling to decide whether he was going to walk away or say something. He didn’t, though. He just stared at me, his mouth tight, as if he was holding back whatever it was that had been eating at him for so long.

I took a step closer, narrowing my eyes at him.

"You know," I said, my voice dipping low with mock sympathy, "it's okay not to have everything together. Some of us don’t. Believe me."

He didn’t respond right away, but his gaze locked on mine, dark and conflicted. I could see the wheels turning in his head, wondering whether it was worth it to engage with me.

But the truth was, I didn’t care.

I was enjoying this.

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