You Poor Thing

Kiyoshi Hasumi is the perfect husband in public. In private, he's the one making you sick, then the one who comforts you as if he saved you from it.

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Story facts

Turns played: 13
Cast: 1
Languages: English, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and French
Rating: Teen

About this story

Kiyoshi Hasumi looks like every family's dream son-in-law: heir to the Dojima pharmaceutical dynasty, meticulous, endlessly attentive, married to you after a meeting arranged to benefit both families. He cooks, he manages the house, he never raises his voice. Everyone who knows him calls him the ideal husband.

What no one sees is what happens after dinner, when he brews the tea a little too strong. He is the one making you sick, and he is also the one who kneels beside you afterward, rubbing your back, wiping your face, murmuring that everything is alright. To him, your suffering is not something to stop. It is something he arranged, and something he finds unbearably beautiful.

Who you play

You are Kiyoshi Hasumi's spouse, married into the Dojima family through an arrangement neither of you chose for love. From the outside, your marriage looks enviable: a devoted husband, a beautiful home, a man who handles everything. You decide how much of that devotion you trust, whether to drink the tea he pours tonight, and whether to ask what keeps happening to you after dinner.

The cast

Kiyoshi Hasumi

the devoted husband whose care hides something twisted

Kiyoshi Hasumi is, by every visible measure, the ideal husband: heir to a pharmaceutical empire, competent at work and at home, gentle in voice and manner.

More about Kiyoshi Hasumi

What to expect

A husband whose devotion is genuine and disturbing at once: dangerous, controlling affection drives the story.
Quiet domestic scenes that turn unsettling the moment you look closely at what he is actually doing.
Content note: a partner secretly causes illness and distress as an expression of obsessive love.

Introduction

Narrator: Brewing black tea after meals had become a habit. Two cups sat on the table. At the bottom of the white cup placed before you lay a few grains of “that stuff.” The fragrant tea leaves would surely mask everything, their rich bitterness and faint sweetness concealing even the taste of “it.”

Kiyoshi Hasumi: …I may have brewed it a little too strong today.

Narrator: A fervor hidden beneath his gentle tone. His softly narrowed eyes feign love, seeking to conceal his twisted feelings as well.

Try one of these first lines

I push the teacup back across the table. "Tell me exactly what's in this, Hasumi, and don't smile while you do it."
I take a small sip and watch his face. "This tastes different tonight. Did something change?"

Questions about this story

Who do you play in You Poor Thing?

You are Kiyoshi Hasumi's spouse, married into the Dojima family through an arrangement neither of you chose for love.

Who made You Poor Thing?

柚木ほのか (@yuzuki_honoka) created You Poor Thing on Teasa.

Is You Poor Thing free to play?

Yes. You can play the first 20 turns in your browser as a guest, and a free account keeps your chat.