Eidolon

Warning (PG16)

This episode contains adult themes. Reader discretion recommended.

The Day of the Choice

The following afternoon, Rei’s reflection in the mirror looked steadier than she felt. At Kuroda Plaza, the corridors felt hollower than usual. Whispers followed her, executives smirked as though they knew she was part of some cruel bet. In the boardroom, Takumi sat with his perfect composure, pouring himself a glass of sake leisurely as though this was any other quarterly report. His grey eyes fixed on her as the door closed.

“The week is up, Rei,” he said, voice both silky and sharp, “Who will it be? One of my men is about to receive a generous… advancement.” She swallowed, her clutch tight in her hands, “If I agree to this, Takumi, a physical favor with… someone…”, she spoke carefully, her tone balancing defiance and diplomacy, “I need your word – no punishment afterward. Not for me, not for the man I choose.”

His expression shifted into something calculating as he handed her the sake he poured for her. The pause was weighty, deliberately so. Then he smiled indifferently, amused. “You bargain even now”, he raised his glass in a mock toast, “Fine. No… punishment. Only promotions.” The wording made her stomach twist, but she nodded in agreement.

Rei took the drink he offered her with steady hands, toasting though her calm breathing was a practiced effort. Takumi sipped from his own with visible impatience. She looked down, the liquid shimmered in her delicate porcelain glass, pale as her composure. When she looked up, her expression was unwavering.

“Takumi-sama,” she enunciated his name formally, her voice smooth as silk while holding his expecting stare, “if your aim is to gather data for Eidolon… shouldn’t I make love to someone I desire? If I am uncomfortable, reduced to a reluctant starfish on the bed, will that truly give you what you want?” Her tone hardened, not shrill, but poised, the blade of reason honed to cut, “Unless of course… that’s exactly what you want to record. My discomfort. My humiliation. Would that please you most?”

For several minutes no one spoke and the mood in the room grew ominous. The molten metal in Takumi’s eyes darkened like storm clouds. There she went again, using his own logic against him, insinuating perversion with that straight, beautiful, defiant face. He moved with disarming calm, plucking the sake glass from her hand.

The sudden absence made her spine stiffen, but she refused to step back. His voice came subdued, “Do you consider favors retractable, Rei?” He leaned closer, eyes searching hers, dissecting her soul, “Are you trying to convince me that a woman as sensual as you would simply turn into a starfish, even if she didn’t get to hand-pick her lover? You, trained by Karasu Komorebi himself as a hostess… a seductress who can make men bleed secrets for a single whiff of your jasmine?”

Rei’s lips curved into something dangerous. She stepped into his space, until her body almost touched his. “Maybe the Den defined and confined me once,” she murmured, looking up at him rebelliously, “But in here, by your mercy, the context is entirely different – is that not what you’re always telling me Takumi? Chochin is grimy, Kuroda isn’t?” The swell of her breasts brushed his blazer, her perfume rising between them like a challenge. She let her fingers trail up his collar, skimming the warm line of his throat. “I’m convinced,” she whispered boldly, “that the best data would come from… us.”

For a moment, time stood still, until a low chuckle cut through the tension. In a flash Takumi’s hand snapped her wrist, twisting it behind her back. He dragged her forward, pushing her back against the glass of the vast window overlooking Mirage City. He was no longer laughing. The lights shimmered around her reflection, her body pinned between the cold transparency and the heat of him. Takumi’s breath brushed her ear as his lips grazed her earlobe, “You are admittedly enticing, persistent and stubborn,” he murmured, his voice a thread strung taut with danger, “But not as much as me.”

She trembled against him; hating that she loved it, loving that she hated it. The ache in her body screamed to surrender to anything he wanted, but her spirit rebelled. Tilting her head, she forced her gaze into his storm-grey eyes. “Your control, Takumi,” she said, her voice small but steady, “…is impressive. But I’m not sure if it’s a display of capability …”, she smiled faintly, knowing she was provoking the beast in him, “…or of cowardice.” Takumi’s grip and push tightened around her, but his face was marble, that thin veneer of calculated calm barely containing the brute inside him. His voice was steady, “Cowards cover and run. I am not running – I am ruling.”

Rei’s lips parted but she didn’t speak, instead of recoiling, she softened. Her thigh lifted, wrapping around his leg, her body curving toward his. “Then help me understand…”, she murmured, her voice gentle and earnest, “Feeling you against me like this… it makes me wonder why… why you’d want another man holding me in your place. You didn’t want Karasu or Bjorn to do it – so why one of your own men?”

Something flickered across his eyes; a flare of heat, quickly chained. He released her wrist, only to slide both hands beneath her thighs, lifting her effortlessly. Her gasp broke into a tender moan as he spread his palms under the curve of her ass, drawing her up tight against him. She locked her legs around his waist, refusing to look away, staring into that darkening grey gaze even as desire and fear tangled in her veins.

His voice came rough, gravel edged with command, “Because this is punishment, Rei. For challenging me, running to your old Den on weekends, calling Eidolon impotent, flirting with Bjorn. You will perform for me – satisfy my curiosities, unnerve me. It will make the feast that much more satisfying…”

Rei’s arms looped around his neck, her lips hot against his skin, her voice carrying a trembling, daring whisper, “Thank you for your honesty… I do want to satisfy you – but I want to be satisfied too… I don’t like punishments, and I like pleasure more than challenges.”

He froze for a beat, the tension in his body coiled like a drawn bow. Then, with a sharp spin, he set her down hard onto the edge of his desk. The data slate got pushed to the side of the table, the crystal clicked. Hovering over her, he caged her with his presence, drinking in the challenge still burning in her eyes.

Instead of kissing her, he stepped aside. Without pause, Takumi poured more sake into both glasses, with the same precision he had manhandled her with. He offered her one glass, reclaiming distance as he sauntered to the window again, peering out and taking a sip. His other hand smoothed through his slick black hair, restoring its perfect order. His words, when they came, were devout of tolerance, “Enough stalling. Choose someone. Or I will.”

Rei hesitated, the sake shaking faintly in her grip as she straightened her back. “If you insist,” she said carefully, “But if I do this, I want your promise in writing – no one will be hurt. Not afterwards, not… even if you get jealous.” That word hung in the air like a forbidden taste. His eyebrow lifted, his gaze narrowing to slits. Suspicion rose his stare, studying her uncharacteristic caution.

A muscle ticked in his jaw, his stare burning coldly. She tilted her chin and gave him back his own game, “If you do that, then fine. This is your fantasy,” she said, soft and deliberate, “So why don’t you choose? Pair me with someone you want to see me with.” She slid down from the table and corrected her clothes and hair, pulling out her make-up mirror from her clutch and applying more lipstick, perfectly nonchalant. His fury and desire crackled through the boardroom like an invisible storm.

“Very well – it’s a deal. Luckily, I’ve prepared some candidates”, he said surprisingly off-handedly, as if just ordering dinner. He tapped his data slate and the door to the boardroom opened.

Four men walked in and stood in a row before them. Takumi’s composure became a cathedral of calm. He gestured and the men stepped forward closer to the desk; lined up like candidates for a formal job interview. All between twenty and thirty by the looks of them, all with that Kuroda polish: sharp suits, clipped posture, the faint sheen of ambition.

Two of them were muscle, the kind of men Rei had seen shadowing corpo execs at gala doors. The third was leaner, a man she recognized from boardroom pitches; sales, or some mid-tier management. Lastly there was Cillian, standing tall in the notorious beige suit, green tie, calm eyes that gave away nothing. He didn’t move closer than the others., didn’t fidget. But Rei felt him like a weight in the room, steadying her even as her stomach coiled tight.

Takumi, all business, took up a velvet jewelry box from his desk. He opened it with reverence for the sleek black and silver set inside: a choker, bracelet, earrings. Tech disguised as finery. It was a newer version than the set he had shown her last. “The biometric cognitive capture set, Bicoca,” he announced evenly, like a professor, “Each piece will monitor physical state, neurological response and cognitive imprint during the encounter. This data is essential for refining Eidolon’s adaptive framework.”

He turned to Rei as if she were a mannequin, “Hold still.” She did. He clipped the choker at her throat, his fingers brushing her pulse with clinical indifference, though his eyes flicked met hers once; unreadable, daring her to break. The bracelet slid cold around her wrist. The earrings clicked into place, delicate hoops with dangling crystals. His touch was impersonal, for preparing a test subject. Rei locked eyes with Cillian. It wasn’t long, couldn’t be, but it was enough. They both knew this wasn’t science; not only science.

Takumi stepped back, surveying his work with that flawless self-possession, like a man satisfied with the mechanics of a well-oiled apparatus. Then waving the men another step forward. “Rei,” he said, turning the focus back to her, “Choose.”