Rui x reader: The Nanny

The Nanny: Part 2

Your hands shook as you laid out Rui's meal. The house was filled with a chill that came with a night up in the mountains as summer came to its end. The only thing that was available for you to eat in this house was rice. You were sure that the grains had spoiled long before you got here, but what other option did you have?

His family ate separately, but Rui had ordered you to share your meals with him. And so you sat beside the young boy. The flesh that Father had dumped onto the kitchen counter earlier was still warm. You couldn't tell exactly what you sliced through to make the bite-sized pieces that would fill Rui's bowl. For that you were grateful.

You could only pray that it wasn't a poor soul from your village who wandered into the mountains attempting to find you.

The moon filtered in through the window with a cool autumn breeze that didn't faze the young boy at all. It sent a chill right to your bones. Rui's mouth was opened expectantly and you fed him a bite of the flesh with his chopsticks shakily.

He watched your clumsy movements. As the weeks dragged on, you'd begun to thin out. He could see it in your cheekbones. The demon knocked your bowl of foul rice to the floor which earned a sputter from you. "I'm sorry." Your head was bowed as our mouth formed the words that you'd become so used to saying since you stepped foot into this nightmarish house.

The deathly pale boy pushed his bowl in between you both and your stomach twisted. At first, you attempted to correct yourself by bringing another bite to his lips. To turn your attention to the spider demon. It was something that Rui seemed to enjoy. To have his hair combed, to be told stories as the sun threatened to pierce the horizon, and to be treated like... well, a child.

"Eat." His eye looked to you unblinking with his instruction. Your stomach twisted further.

You shook your head. "I can't." Dread filled you as you watched his shoulders square themselves and roll a fraction to relieve some of the tension as it built.

Rui's head tipped to the side and his wild hair nearly exposed the eye he kept tucked away beneath his bangs at the action. "You can't or you won't?"

Words didn't come to you so easily the second time.

Your mouth opened and closed as you tried to defend what morality you had left. Wasn't it bad enough that you were his cook? His butcher as you carved up your kind for him to eat? That you ignored the screeches of the people who were trapped in this forest and the demons in this house, just as they ignored yours when your time for punishment came?

"I won't."

For a boy who looked so frail, he could hit you with the force of a grown man, even as he held himself back. Your head whipped to the side from the intensity of the slap to your cheek and the other scraped along the wood as you slid across the floor. Tears burned your eyes, hidden by the curtain of your hair as he held your head there.

You were sure your skull would burst from the pressure inflicted upon it. Rui's calm demeanor had melted away into something ugly. He bared his canines in a snarl that was still red from his meal. "Nannies should set an example for us children, don't you think?" Though, it was hard to think when your skull felt like it would crack like an egg. And it was even harder to listen through your cries of agony. But no matter how much you struggled, you might as well have been fighting a marble statue.

"Don't be wasteful. Eat."

With that final order, he returned to his seat at the table where you eventually joined him. You brought the flesh up to your mouth and chewed. If you could pretend that this was simply meat from a cow, you could nearly stomach it. It had the same texture. The reality of the situation hit you as you swallowed. A gag mixed with your bitter sob as Rui encouraged you to take another bite of the flesh.

"See?" He plucked a bloody cube for himself. "You've starved yourself on that garbage so long, you're sick. I'll have Mother clean out the pantry tomorrow."

The rational side of you thinks of how wrong this is. The instincts that have pushed you to survive in the Spider's house this long urge you to eat more of what you come to conclude came from a thigh.