#it does make her look younger than her peers which I do like. I feel like a big part of sorcerer!kristen's deal is that she's never

[bacchuschucklefuck]

❗❗Official Class Swap Sorcerer!Kristen Post Alert❗❗ you can: look at her

[capslocked]

PART & PARCEL

male reader x sana && tzuyu

18k words

“Is it too late?” Sana asks, and here’s how it always starts with her.

Nevermind that it’s not a question in search of an answer. A normal person could, should, text you. Hey, what’s up? or something equally inconspicuous before turning up the dial, are you busy? can I, like, come over? 

Instead, she’s at your doorstep again, twirling a bundle of honey-blonde between her fingertips as if she doesn't know what all that does to people. Some people say, incorrectly, that these are the hours of the night shared with ghosts. And to that you say: No, these hours belong to Sana, clearly, and apparently nobody fucking else. 

Now in a way, you do get it. It’d be easier to turn back over in your bed and ignore the elegant simplicity of a text message, or one step beyond that, do the unthinkable and finally tell her no, but when she’s standing there - there with that face, like a thousand different excuses or a million little reasons why she needs something from you, right now - and all she has to do is push her lips together, eyebrows going high - 

It is a bit like magic, after all, this feeling when she comes around. 

Everything that happened before - her visits, the first one and then the next - no matter how impossible, gets washed away, and suddenly all you have is her. Her voice, her hair, and a sneaking suspicion that the time apart really isn’t such a bad thing, because you don't always have a guess as to what comes next.

Of course, you were always going to let her in.

“I saw the lights were on,” she adds, starting to shrug off her coat like she knows you will.

“I mean, I’m here,” you say, non-committal.

“Yeah. I can see that.”

The door's half open and the only substantial hesitation you have is when you peer over her shoulder. There’s another girl, propping herself up against the doorframe, with a pretty head of glossy, sable hair falling gracefully down her shoulders, and she looks at least a few years younger than Sana. You smile cautiously at her before giving Sana another, much longer glance. In response, you receive a wink that's as subtle as a brick through a glass window (which only raises more questions). You ask the one that seems most important.

What else would Sana, of all people, possibly want to bring you if not some plaything or another. You've seen it all: girls who liked her money, girls who liked her body, girls who just flat-out liked girls, whatever. The dynamic always seemed to be, as long as everyone is having a good time, nothing to get hung up about - because at the end of the night, everyone comes around to Sana again.

And she comes around to you. 

Why question it.

“This is a little… irregular,” you say with a nod of your chin, as you step back from the door. "Who's the plus one?"

Sana motions the girl in with a sweep of her hand and throws you another disarmingly flirtatious smile - the same one that'd first left you utterly hooked by this strange person, who had, when you first met, walked into your life for five minutes, then fucked your lights out the way she wanted. She goes further with this, of course, teasing a warm smile and slanting an eyebrow.

"I figured I'd bring you a gift," she coos, in this sultry, dusky sing-song of a voice that really needs no followup whatsoever, other than maybe take my clothes off right now, as she makes a show of how she's pushing her shoulders back, like there's an audience to be impressed with the curve of her bust. "Since we were celebrating."

"Uh-huh. What's the occasion?"

"Whatever the hell you'd like," Sana chirps.

With that, she takes you by the collar. And even though the girl she brought is in the middle of, like, peering around curiously in your foyer, Sana leans up on the balls of her feet and kisses you hard. It's a real kiss - no preamble - which is sort of funny, given you would have been more than okay with some. So, naturally, you're caught entirely off-guard. It takes a full ten, fifteen seconds of feeling her hot little mouth pressed insistently up against yours, your mind gone blank with the suddenness of the moment. Your body taking it for granted.

Meanwhile, the other girl blinks - long, dark lashes batting the curve of her cheekbones slowly until Sana has moved to stand in front of her with the full, earnest intention to cup her jaw, tilt her head down a smidge, and kiss her too (very thoroughly, also, in her own way).

Sana lets the girl go with a sharp draw of air and a peck. Then she looks at you, just this side of playful. The way her teeth flash over her bottom lip suggests how she's enjoying, to her bones, this state of affairs: a dalliance with control, with desire, where she can flaunt it.

She tells you to relax, unwind, which you suppose is code for taking another of Sana's friends and bending her over every horizontal surface in your flat and fucking someone the way you've wanted for the last however-long it's been since Sana dropped back into your life. You've done as much. Some rotating cast of characters: Mina, Chaeyoung, Nayeon, the raven haired girl with the perfect tits; some names and faces starting to run together the more Sana pops up at your place with a girl under one arm, usually looking half bored and half shy - or at least putting up some pretense that might justify Sana telling them to strip down while she's already eyeing you with this look like she's wondering which article of clothing you'll be ripping off her first.

"Does she have a name?" you ask, with a nod vaguely in her direction. Of course it's a loaded question. What's her name doesn't matter. You don't know most of their names.

But when you do a double-take, remembering to steal a good look, you're not sure you've ever seen anyone pull off that perfect little white dress quite the way she does - the kind that goes right up the back, tucked under the neck, sleeves coming to a neat point across her fingers. Sana may or may not have a thing for pretty girls in cute dresses, but this is, without question, the most obvious bribe you've ever witnessed in your life.

Sana's still smirking - so much for being considerate, you think for a second, until you’ve got a dainty hand stretched into yours like you’re brushing up with royalty. And well, maybe you’re getting a better look now that she isn’t bathed in the calm, assured wickedness that two A.M. might only ever know - the dark curling like wind around her fingers and down the lines of her spine, cajoling.

She is gorgeous.

And she says - 

“Chou Tzuyu,” in this charming little voice that’s even more mesmerizing than you anticipated, this taut thread winding itself up between the two of you. She says her name with a gentle sigh, a light in her eyes that you know, intimately, not to trust, but you get the sense that she'd rather you make an exception for her - or at least for the night. “Everyone calls me Tzuyu.”

You feel a squeeze at your fingers, an anxious reminder from Sana's thumb, as if she feels the reverie in which you've lapsed. It draws you back, just slightly so.

"Tzuyu," you say, taking mental note of the faint smile that shadows in at the corner of her mouth when you do. "How much do you know?"

She twists in Sana's direction, and oh, look how eager and innocent and coquettish Tzuyu's making herself in front of her, smiling. What do I say, the gesture is asking. You can see her effort to hold back a giggle or two as she bites her lip, trying, as all the pretty girls who come through these doors often try, to come up with something cute and modest and small that'll allow you and Sana to picture exactly the right thing. You can tell when a person is not used to having an audience.

"I know Sana..." Tzuyu's voice trails as she gives Sana a furtive glance. "She talks about you a lot. And I figured, you know."

"What? That we were good friends?"

"Sure," Tzuyu laughs to herself lightly again. "Whatever makes it easier."

Sana has her fingers threaded beneath Tzuyu’s chin, studying her like she’s an artifact that belongs behind glass. Expensive. One of a kind. And oh-so-excessively fragile.

The way Sana touches her, she may be trying to prove the point, guiding her body's angles and edges towards whatever form she sees fit, with just fingertips and the slightest tug, showing you exactly how malleable the girl can be. The look on Tzuyu's face is hardly discomfited when her dress slides past the dips of her shoulders or the slope of her waist, when the fabric gets crumpled in Sana's hand like the most expensive balled-up tissues in the universe. You can't decide what animal comes to mind: perhaps a deer, some cute, unknowingly doomed elk.

"No underwear," you note, watching.

Sana draws herself a little closer to Tzuyu with an appreciative gaze, lips gently landing at her shoulders, neck.

"Why bother?" Tzuyu muses. "What were we going to use them for?"

A pull here, a tug there, and the dress puddles around Tzuyu's feet, silk shimmering like the inky dark of a starless sky. And just shy of a pedestal and perhaps a fucking moonbeam, she's the spitting image of perfection: porcelain skin stretching out over a masterwork of curves and bone and muscle. A sculpture, a study in the form that so frequently leaves people just absolutely dumbstruck and thirsty in their wake.

Sana trails her hand around the width of her hip - drawing your eye along the skin of her leg, up and around the perfectly curved thigh - stopping to splay her fingers just so at the base of her spine, as if in demonstration of ownership. Like this: mine.

"Don't get it confused," Sana tells you. "The whole naive innocence thing is a total fucking misdirection."

"Tzuyu," you say again, this time noticing the way it feels in your mouth, syllables sweet and sticking to its roof like honey - maybe something more of an excuse to move forward and touch her yourself, palm her face, brush your thumb over her bottom lip. A taste, something subtle but intense, spreads to the back of your throat, the moment her teeth graze gently over its pad. "Is that true?"

"Are you asking me what kind of girl I am?"

"I didn't put it exactly like that."

"Just answer, sweetheart," Sana says, brow quirked in a faux-display of nonchalance, fingers still pressed, spreading gently at her neck. She's enjoying this a little too much. Though, you're enjoying this too. It doesn't have to be an either-or kind of scenario.

"It's better if you say it," she adds after a second of consideration, and even though it's obvious by now she's only prodding and that this is a foregone conclusion, Tzuyu puts an emphatic twitch in her lips - red, wet, a vision in crimson - like the thought is deeply troubling and will likely require lots and lots of thorough explanation later.

"Fine, okay, in that case," Tzuyu starts with a weary sigh, and then with a blink-and-you've-missed-it flash of a smirk, there's no way anyone's buying any of this, "I’ll say: I'm whatever kind of girl you want me to be."

Sana was right, and she didn’t even need to go so far as to say it. It’s clear - you want her.

But it's half as easy to pinpoint where it all starts: there's the way Tzuyu melts, sinking just that much further when you guide your hands around the curve of her ribs, fingers following the flow of her soft edges, the slopes and valleys of her breasts, and she parts her lips even before yours touch the seam of her mouth, her breath warm, heavy, the kind of anticipation that sends jolts down her neck, her spine, the body electric - a real live wire.

Or, it's because of the way she likes it - like, really likes it. There's something exceptional in a girl who will wrap her legs around your waist and suck your tongue and whimper just by a feather's touch around her hips or between her thighs, where it's damp and hot and holy shit, this is unreal in a very tactile, visceral way. There's no mistaking the noise for anything but genuine pleasure when Tzuyu's trying, unsuccessfully, to bite down the whine sneaking up her throat and into your mouth - where you're kissing her, still - the kind that presses heavy at the bottom of your stomach.

Or, there's Sana yet, pulling her clothes off, and instead of leaving a trail in her wake, folds each piece neatly until she's bared down to this fine little number of lace and cream-colored silk that'd make your head spin if you weren't, y'know, pretty busy, mouth occupied by Tzuyu's pliant moans, both of your tongues colliding.

"God," Tzuyu groans out quietly as you pin her to the wall, and again after another string of kisses, sucking your lip. 

There are fleeting moments that slip through like sunlight that have you thinking: Right, this was a good idea, nothing other than a sweet girl like this all messed up and squirming with the shallow dig of your nails. But only close to perfect.

Sana will explain it.

"Mm. Not god." Sana is grinning when she leans up for the same kiss, but she takes her time with it: mouth slotted tight against Tzuyu's as her long fingers tangle in the hair at the nape of Tzuyu's neck, working her grip up slowly so that the strain gets more noticeable until the girl is a gasp on a choke of breath. The curve of her back is drawn out by that same hand and her ribs pressed, pert and rosy, into the cool air.

"Sir, and please," Sana then instructs, voice just harsh enough for Tzuyu to understand. 

You might imagine she's also drawing in with her nails, teeth, a full-body drag up her exposed front, like some kind of prize, marking and tasting and fucking every inch. There's a whimper, desperate sound of, yes, right, fuck, please, and sir slipping like a sigh off the edge of Tzuyu's tongue. 

"Or better yet," Sana adds, with another searing press into the junction of her collarbone, "say daddy, please," then follows through on the plea with another slow-pull.

You try not to roll your eyes. It's Sana's kink, not yours. It's a whole thing. And with Sana, like most things, you find it best when you simply play along.

More than that, you indulge her. You both do.

"Okay, daddy." Tzuyu's teeth catch the corner of her mouth in a self-amused bite. Twisting and twisting the swell of her lip further until it snaps forward. "I want you to tell me something," she says, which, for the way this typically goes, is a little more self-assured and pressing than the usual fare. Even Mina, who was perhaps less than enthusiastic about the - uh - title in question, came around eventually when she had Sana's fingers, your cock, all sunk so deep inside her she forgot what any fucking words were anyway.

So maybe Sana does know what she's doing with this one. Maybe you oughta thank her.

Tzuyu just lifts her chin, says, "this isn't what I expected when I showed up here."

"Obviously, it's not," Sana says.

"What I mean is, this is all good fun, of course," Tzuyu explains. A charming indignance that slips past, like the fingers down her belly. She swallows hard, muscles clenching as your palm runs slow over a hip, squeezing. "Though I guessed when we left Sana's, I would've been bouncing on his cock five minutes ago."

Sana's lithe little frame ends up closer - nearly naked in lace and wholly difficult to miss. She's a half head shorter than the girl in front of you, but with a tilt of her chin and a beckon of her hand, it's a powerful look about the lines of her face: eyes slightly hooded, mouth curved and devastating. It's as if, at every hour of the night, the simplest glance will have the fabric of someone's clothing coming undone, regardless.

Tzuyu is just slowly trading looks between the two of you. So curious. "So what then, do I have to do," her words curl like smoke up her throat, "to get fucked by both of you, hm? In, like, the next five or ten more minutes, preferably."

"He's not going to fuck your brains out simply because you ask." Which by the way, is the first real lie Sana tells tonight.

Tzuyu is unimpressed, or maybe she's a stoic. "Clearly," she deadpans.

Whatever the expression is that is fluttering those gorgeous lashes, eyebrows pulled down, adds a faint mark of distrust across her brow. The prettiest scoffs you've ever heard. "Isn't the point to get me spread out on your sheets so you can use me like a little fucktoy?"

A sigh from Sana: heavy, calculated. She does not reply in any obvious way to that, no flimsy assurances that it would be whatever the hell Tzuyu likes (though you think maybe Sana might want to take this whole fucking opportunity, all this thinly veiled begging for it, for the first taste of what will probably be the main thing that'll hold her over the edge of an orgasm or two). 

So, instinctually, Tzuyu pushes it, just enough - she tilts her head, and the motion is followed by a wide sashay of her hips as she gently presses a fingertip to your chest, encouraging a step back to better your balance, like the pull between you has a little more gravity.

"Don't go quiet on me." Another sultry note pulls from her mouth when she guides you another foot - or however many, until the foyer opens up into your living room. The chair, the sofa, a table, you watch her eyes wander like she's mapping the territory. And then finally she drops her hands from your shoulders, reaching instead for Sana, taking her waist in her palms.

Holding her. Kissing her.

There's a delicateness about both of them, clearly, and not only how Tzuyu angles their lips, as if she doesn't fully intend for the two to merge but instead taste the line, test the edges, or something; but Sana doesn't fight this. In fact, when Sana's being drawn gently, but confidently into a deeper, harder press, a very eager give, her eyes slip closed. There's a war, and Sana - though she'd be the last to admit it - is losing.

Tzuyu, at the end of a particularly sharp draw of air, simply turns to you, eyes peeking over the tousle of copper hair atop Sana’s head, and asks: "How does daddy want to play with his toys?"

It clicks in your head immediately: she's a natural, could be an actress, maybe a pro - you have no idea where Sana found her - even if that doesn't exactly match with the diction; daddy, and sir, and the baby-girl pout. There are the things she does to Sana, this slipstream of control passed back and forth and back and forth again - a fevered tugging, the give of one or the other. An entirely different dance. Beautiful, fluid, intense.

Eventually, it lands in your lap. Literally and metaphorically. Tzuyu looks up from where she's kneeling between your legs and with a little pinch of your hips, tells you with that intoxicately sweet, melodic voice of hers, that you seem like the sort who wants someone who just takes initiative.

And she's right.

"May I?" she asks, breathlessly, fingers at the zip.

"Of course,” Sana answers for you, settling into her side like you both belong to her. Like she’s about to enjoy this just as much as you are.

What does the room sound like, the darkness giving away? Everything. The hum of the appliances, the purr of the heat, something in the walls is settling into its final position for the night as the floorboards sigh. Breathing. Listening.

What you don't hear:

Chou Tzuyu moving - whether she shifts onto her knees, or adjusts how her slender fingers fall from the waist of your pants, doesn't matter - no crunch, no shuffle. She doesn't swipe away the hair from her eyes or drag the pad of a thumb over her swollen, bottom lip. All she does is pull, just a bit, and the zipper breaks the silence, comes apart down the way.

Sana clears her throat gently, hoping, possibly, that Tzuyu might be the kind of girl who just loses herself to the moment, caught in the headlights. The way every delicate, doe-eyed girl is supposed to do. Sana likes them a little helpless like that - makes her feel big.

It's too bad really, because Tzuyu doesn’t appear like she's awash with anything in particular. Or at the very least, she's done a fairly convincing imitation of not being the slightest bit off-put, completely disarmed or whatever Sana had been looking to see.

She does look up though. Long, pretty face still managing a bit of devastation from this angle. Those full lips slightly pouted and slick in red: such an inviting color against her pale skin.

"Sana," she coos, eyes wide and brilliant - innocent, yet taunting all at once - and she's deliberate in what she says next, flitting her tongue across her canines to punctuate every sound: "Isn’t daddy going to use me now?"

"Oh." Sana leans in, eyes flicking up at you, Tzuyu's hands, her body, and starts slowly, like she's exacting a punishment, "Tzuyu, baby," her own anticipation beaming off the surface of her thousand-kilowatt grin, "you're going to take that perfect cock," the words dripping off Sana's tongue, heavy, sweet, "you're going to take it, get your pretty little lips all over it sweetie, you're going to show him just how good you can use that filthy fucking hole of a mouth for him. You're going to take him until he cums in your throat, and then you're going to beg him for more. And if you can do that, well. Then we’ll fuck you exactly how you wanted."

Tzuyu blinks - doting and innocent like the angel everyone probably thinks she is.

But then what you've learned about the angels that Sana brings you: they're devils in disguise, well familiar with the sin and lust that resides in these places; sunk into the cushions of the couch, pressed against the cold pane glass of a window, wound tight in the springs of a mattress. You had long thought - and think, you do, particularly when doing the unthinkable - it's easier that way, to leave aside thoughts of right and wrong and ask: Just how far can an angel fall?

"Ah. Perfect," Tzuyu says, sounding like an answer, and her eyes widen as she peels past that band of elastic.

Your cock springs forward and bumps into the pad of her finger, which traces the length of it like it's hers to own, to pleasure.

"God," she hums with satisfaction, and even without looking up, or even before you say a damn word, she draws her tongue up along the underside in one swift, wet lick. "Sana you weren’t exaggerating: daddy's cock is fucking gorgeous."

There is that tiny whine, or more precisely a tiny, oh fuck when Tzuyu curls her hand around your shaft. Sana gives her a push. "Say it, Tzuyu," she all but growls at her.

"Daddy," she says, always pausing on the word. Testing it further. "Please."

"Please," Sana mimics in faux-sweetness, repeating it again once you start to nod.

Not that it changes much - the stare that Tzuyu fixes you is charmingly determined, like a challenge. Then, she inhales.

Deep.

That slide into her mouth is smoother than anything, hot and slippery and oh, right - you remember faintly with a shudder: those pretty teeth hidden away behind a perfectly lascivious mouth, so much that a couple sharp, expert brushes are enough to send lightning dancing along your spine. Sana moves her hands across your hips, to the buttons on your night shirt, working her way up until the fabric has fallen to the side and she can open your chest up to the air, let Tzuyu swallow the rest.

This, Tzuyu likes. "Ah," she gasps around you, or she tries to, your cock propped up on her soft little tongue.

She likes the way that feels. The way you fit in her hands, her mouth. And it shows. Her posture curls deliciously, under the satisfaction of her lips wrapping finally having something to wrap around tight, tight, tighter - under Sana's roaming touches, the skirting of her nails down Tzuyu's chest, reaching with slow deliberation across her stomach until there's a whisper of skin across sensitive flesh.

“She’s so fucking wet,” Sana tells you, smiling at Tzuyu from above and fitting a fingernail between her teeth. "Good fucking girl, aren't you Tzuyu?"

The moan that leaks out around the weight of your cock is pure. Pure lust, pure pleasure. Pure perfection. Her tongue flattens beneath you and finds you surging even deeper, a firmer slide of Tzuyu's wet lips that brings you right into the roof of her mouth - as she twists her face around you, a soft scrape against the inside of her cheek.

You sigh.

And Sana sighs back.

"Of course. Always such a hidden talent," she notes, as Tzuyu's perfect mouth moves and plucks and teases your nerves, twirling her tongue around your tip. Again as she swallows you down, slow, savoring.

“Tell me,” you say, because the heat of Tzuyu’s mouth is starting to remind you of a daydream, “how exactly do you know each other?”

"Work," Sana answers, flatly.

"Like-"

"Yup."

"She sings?"

"She does - rather, she will." Sana glances sidelong with a bit of a grin. "You have no idea what that tongue can do to people when it's got some good backing tracks, when it knows a goddamn fucking thing about rhythm. Speaking of," Sana looks down at where Tzuyu has her silky brown head of hair bobbing between your legs.

And then it's clear what she means, Tzuyu humming and rolling your shaft through the flat of her tongue. It's all slick, soaking heat and the tension building and building in your balls, aching, just absolutely desperate for more friction, to be taken and used and stuffed in her throat - or just more of this.

"Here," Sana's fingers are hooked in your pants, helping them off your legs, your ankles, pulling you further to the edge of the sofa. Let me, she's telling Tzuyu, this slight murmur of want she just can't wait on.

"Wait, I'm -" Tzuyu attempts, pulling her lips off the curve of your cock, to where pre-cum is weeping out of its tip, and she kisses it so very tenderly, going back for round two. Round three. She floats her fingers up over her eyebrows, into her fringe, all to tuck some dark, wispy hair gently behind her ear when she starts to hollow her cheeks and again suck your cock in earnest.

Until -

"Tzuyu," Sana reprimands her, "don't play, daddy's got his work cut out for him tonight. So be a good girl, and let me show you what he likes."

It takes a second, maybe three. It might take longer if Sana didn't have her fingernails digging into her thighs, sliding further to grab hold of Tzuyu by the hair and pull her lips off your shaft. There's a thin trail of spit coming off her mouth and stringing across you. Sana closes her fist in the back of Tzuyu’s hair and doesn't so much as blink while studying the look on her face: lips glistening, just absolutely needy, like she can't help the whimper in her throat.

"Hm?" Sana cocks her head to the side.

"But... sir."

"You are his toy," Sana explains, flashing her eyebrows because apparently it needs to be said, "not the other way around."

And it may be the first time you've seen it happen since Sana walked in with Tzuyu and declared her intentions: the fluster, the pink spread across Tzuyu's features like some scarlet-lettered stain. Defenses dropped like a draw-bridge. She's not quite every bit as cool and composed as she wants the two of you to think she is. (They never are.)

But the fact that Tzuyu's coy little smile returns into her lips - how she's wiping the spit off her mouth with the sharp edge of her hand and pointing your cock in Sana's direction with a delicate, arched brow, how she then moves on, untangling herself from Sana's grasp, eyes heavy, but on her - is a marvel in and of itself.

It’s an amusing surprise, a welcome one, for the simple reason that Tzuyu keeps showing both of you that she can have anything she wants exactly like this: wrapped around a slender fingertip, flushed and helpless, and without breaking a sweat. 

"Have you considered daddy wants both our mouths on his cock and maybe a few less words?" Tzuyu scoffs. And even though Sana does scoff right back in retort, that's exactly how it plays out.

(And you may, upon occasion, reflect: you're a real lucky bastard.)

Sana always puts on this act. One that you’ve learned to see right through. 

Like she isn't too eager to follow the momentum, that she hadn't just been just as impatient to touch you - to be on her knees with Tzuyu, all aside this beautiful girl who gives you a pretty smile when her tongue finds the base of your cock. Who likes being bossed around but can just as easily turn her face towards yours - in what seems almost like a taunt - as if saying: You know what else I like? to be challenged, and sometimes when the mood’s right, pushed and punished. 

But Sana doesn't let you see what kind of resolve she has until she's gone another minute, licking, lapping her tongue around your cock - this is her idea, after all. The little white dress in a heap, the adoration and worship that comes with fucking girls she knows are the prettiest things to see ruined.

Listen - even if Sana’s veneer is as blatantly obvious as it is shatterably thin, she’s no less dangerous. 

When she first pushes the very head of your cock inside her mouth, and just that - because why rush it, she's so fucking perfect with those pretty lips - the rest of your brain is shouting something to the tune of fuck me sideways because she knows you better than anyone, knows what really gets your blood burning. 

A few slow brushes, one kiss, this lick that goes bottom to top and over and around. It’s like she's testing the surface, dragging her lips across your aching cock as she settles on a rhythm, a tempo that starts to mirror the movements of Tzuyu's hand.

Tzuyu lets you see: this slow twist, this slide of skin up and down the length of your shaft, her soft fingers rubbing tight circles up and down the path of her palm until it meets Sana’s mouth. And like it’s the most simple thing in the world, she dips down, finds a place at the base of your cock, where Sana’s lips can’t quite reach, and drops a hot, messy kiss right across the spot.

Fuck.

She kisses you everywhere.

"Sana," you start to say, and she looks up through the strands of blonde fallen slightly in front of her face. Her lips sink further down the length of your cock - until she hears your breath catch in the bottom of your throat. Until she’s pulling you up and out, again, just barely past her teeth.

Fuck.

"Mm." She hums it right into your skin, and her eyes are hooded, dipping right down with another pull of spit, and then another, before her lips are at the tip once more, flicking across the slit with her tongue - wet and rough.

"Sana," you try again, biting into your lip as you reach a hand into the gold locks of hair framing her deceptive, pretty little face, and tug, a warning, a reminder. You need. It's too early for you to be repeating yourself, and Sana knows that.

A pop, the release of her mouth slipping off the top of your cock, and Tzuyu moves - wrapping her lips tight and silken around the sides, the rest. It all happens in an instant. You're being taken with the sudden, harsh suction of one mouth, the other, fluid and slipping back and forth again and again.

Sana's nodding along, impressed, as she watches Tzuyu take you - completely, nose to your hip - and has a glint of pure hunger shining through her eyes when you hiss, when she kisses along the lines of Tzuyu's stretched lips. There's another flick of a tongue, and you can feel Tzuyu moan something muffled and choked, a frantic pulse at the base of your spine - pressure gathering like a fucking flood.

"Just how you like it, hmm?" Sana says, her breath warm on your balls as she seals her own mouth right over the base of your shaft. And you swear there's something about this: the drag and suck of both their lips as your hips stutter forward, the feeling of them pressed together in a perfect line, heads tilted and mouths fucking dripping with saliva and sin - your hands, resting on the backs of their heads as they're returning you these greedy little moans that vibrate off the top of your cock and nearly kill you in the process.

“Tell me,” Sana adds, dragging a hot, hazy kiss over the sensitive skin up your shaft. "How's daddy feeling? Hmm? Feels nice and perfect, doesn't it. Feels like you could just let go and release, a hot, sticky load of cum, right down her fucking throat. I know she’ll swallow every drop."

"Fucking hell, Sana-"

Sana doesn't exactly answer to your begging, only hikes Tzuyu a fraction higher over your body to gain better control of the rhythm, and a better view: the hollowed out cheeks, her watery, half-shut eyes, tears welling in her lashes - because the prettiest girls always come apart in the most perfect ways.

You grip into all that silky brown hair, thumb running gently up and over the soft skin behind her ear as she finds an exacting little movement with her lips that will have your spine twitching uncontrollably as you fuck deeper down the perfect arch of her throat, Sana keeping rhythm, guiding you all the way in - a searing heat, and then a new rush of saliva dripping off Tzuyu's chin and back down into the tangle of tongues, fingers, throats, mouths.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

The pair of them. The things they're doing.

"Or maybe," Sana muses, tilting her head on an angle that suggests she's weighing her options, and then, massaging a quick, firm twist into the very base of your cock she finally lets spill: "You could make a mess of that perfect face," Tzuyu's faint whimper hardly slips out unnoticed, "I'd hold her hair for you while you cum all over her - how about that baby, should we make a big mess of your pretty face?"

The whimper grows louder - Tzuyu moans long and low, right up against the tightening tension gathering between your hips, right as your balls pull, that familiar coil about to break - and, god, if there's some part of you committed to holding the moment, waiting and wanting to stay in the vision of these two perfect mouths pressed together, it's a fleeting and useless notion - but, as usual, Sana already knows.

The way they're blowing you in perfect tandem, their mouths locked together, kissing around your shaft as they continue to pleasure you, filthy and open - a little more, the thought percolates, a little longer, to let the pressure swell.

"Sir," Tzuyu says, swallowing her next breath, and that's the first you've heard her sound like that: whining, pleading.

She slaps your cock against her lips, her tongue - it's all so wet with spit and precum and slick that her chin is coated, her fingers. A demonstration of what you should have already known: Sana's girls aren't just straight down the line. They want the messy, roughness that comes with the sin; the split in the seam, the wail, the raw, uncut want.

You watch Tzuyu’s lips curl, this quiet smile pressed against your cock, and after a slow draw of air, they fall open again. Asking, "aren't you going to fuck your toy's slutty little mouth?"

The silence of the night swallows up the sounds of Sana's low chuckle and the responding squelch of her fingers tearing free, her hand trailing after. Here’s three bodies in the otherwise ordinary emptiness of your living room, on the edges of the leather sofa, so completely drenched in anticipation and hunger.

There’s a flash across Sana's rounded cheeks, hot, like she's just this small space shy of smirking, or giving into something, you don't know. Tzuyu, however, you've got a fairly clear view of - how her eyes glaze, pupils going wide and dark, staring up at you as she places the shape of your cock so acutely up the length of her perfect features: chin supporting its base, the cute, button-like tip of her nose teasing the soft underbelly of skin pulled taut - a fucked up preamble to whatever the hell it is going to feel like, once she's ready for more.

"Say please, sweetie," Sana says, fluttering her fingers over Tzuyu's neck. And then to you, as an aside: "If there isn't a better way to break in a toy."

When Tzuyu doesn't immediately reply, Sana leans over her, with a fingertip under her chin, guiding her hot, wet lips to the edge of your cock.

"Ask daddy to fuck his filthy little whore."

"Ah," Tzuyu lets out an awkward exhale. "Daddy?" she pauses to swallow, licking her lips, then, with just the slightest inflection, this tight line, right at the border, somehow managing to hit both notes of I'm going to make you beg for it and is it okay for me to be begging you for more: "Please, daddy. Fuck my face."

But then the way she fucking looks - petulant, needy, like if you don't shove your cock down her throat in seconds it could kill her - that's the realest thing you've seen from her since she shuffled through your front door wearing a dress that belongs in someone's heaving, pent up fantasy and left it in a careless pile in the middle of your foyer, tits bouncing on her way into the living room. And somehow, that's a lot to take in: to think this whole debacle has led up to her, this girl you're probably never gonna see again, pressing the pucker of her perfect, pretty lips to the underside of your cock, and -

"Open," Sana cuts in, "your fucking mouth."

Tzuyu gulps thickly and stretches her jaw, blinking expectantly as her pink, slender tongue sticks out the faintest, most insinuating inch.

You lift your hips with one good thrust, the plushness of her mouth becoming soft and velvet as she opens wider, and wider still, and you're balls deep, hilt hitting her lips as she opens her eyes, taking you down her throat, slick and slow.

"Good girl," Sana grins, watching Tzuyu swallow around you. 

You may be buried into her throat but the sound of Sana's encouragement has Tzuyu keening, this wrench in her brow like she wants to focus so fucking badly. Only made worse when Sana bundles a handful of Tzuyu's long, glossy hair into a fist and gets her voice into the shell of her ear. 

"I know you love it, Tzuyu, how he's fucking taking you, huh? That's it. Show daddy how good of a toy you can be."

And oh, the reaction - the very clear one, no less. Tzuyu grips onto the cushion of the couch, a full set of fingers curling around Sana's forearm, any part of you - the one closest and she's digging her sharp nails into your skin and whimpering for Sana to keep talking like her life depends on it.

"Let me see if you can be as good as you think you are," Sana murmurs, and you shift forward again, bucking your hips just barely but getting there, and then there's more, fuck - getting closer to a good steady pace. Slow, forceful. Hitting the very back of her throat, the bottom of her lips.

Tzuyu can only respond by taking you impossibly deep.

"Remember what you told me?" Sana's biting her lip, finding as much satisfaction out of the mere display.

"Mnnph," Tzuyu chokes out before slipping off your cock, only long enough to gasp for another breath, "I said, I said - all the things I would let him do to me." Her voice sounds so wrecked. Broken. Desperate. Filthy, the kind that needs to be fucked. "Please, please," she says again.

"Tzuyu." Sana's fist tightens in Tzuyu's hair, and down Tzuyu goes. "You sounded so sure, baby - when you said you'd making him fucking cum so easy, how you'd make him bust over and over with this mouth, so -"

You're getting too close. It's really not your fault, it's the two of them. Every wince on your face a result of Tzuyu's swollen, shiny lips wrapped tightly around your cock, cheeks flush and hollow with every move of her mouth. She keeps doing this little flick of her tongue as her lips slide around you - even while Sana lifts her jaw up, down, up down, fucking her mouth onto your aching cock with a sort of callous disregard for how it's fucking her up - how it's fucking you up.

"-the prettiest girls make the best fucking cumrags, you know. Really - makes your toes curl," Sana finishes, giving one particularly pointed tilt of her head at the sight of how bad your knees are shaking.

And then, out the corner of her mouth, teeth locked over her lip, because you're so caught up in how good it feels fucking your length through the vice of Tzuyu's mouth, sliding across her wet tongue - "she's not lying baby, is she? Fuck, I bet she feels so fucking good on you doesn't she" - her voice hoarse and desperate, a hint of something caught at the back of her throat like she can almost taste what it's like. What it must feel like.

Sana pushes, and even she can probably feel you pulsing at the way Tzuyu chokes when the tip meets the drain of her throat.

It gets... it ends up too much, too fast. Borderline abusive - and not just the speed, or the sheer roughness - Nayeon was here on her knees, like this, in the middle of the night not too long ago, and deepthroating you is far from the unusual or accomplished, at this point. But, fuck if that isn't something you build up to.

The slight curve of Tzuyu's arms, rising as they tremble with the effort, the little tears that slip down her cheeks, and those lovely sounds she makes. It's not at all intentional - and you're so stupidly certain Sana didn't think you'd be this riled so quickly, like there's not an ounce of willpower in the world that could save you at this point.

And while that's not too surprising on its own - Sana knows you well, this is what she agreed to - Tzuyu must have understood (it was part of the plan, in fact) what she was walking into, what she was signing up for. But fuck it: she was still pretty new, an amateur. And an amateur just wouldn't be capable of doing the things she does, and looking the way she looks, not to the same extent as this.

"Can you cum from nothing but the feeling of daddy's dick hitting your throat? I'll have him sit back and relax while we work," Sana tells her.

It'd make two of you.

"Would you like that?" she's asking you, tilting her head when you've gathered yourself long enough. "No touching, just take my orders while we pleasure you. How does that sound, daddy?"

"Sana, easy," you practically growl, biting down on the inside of your cheek because the twitch in Tzuyu's pulse has you coming far too undone, her chest hitching and lungs heaving and face wet with spit and tears and cum as it's spilling down her chin. You're seconds from telling Sana to dial it back when a low, guttural sound, sputtering, leaves Tzuyu's throat.

The grip in Tzuyu's hair goes loose enough that she pulls herself up, swallowing up as much air as she can. 

And fuck, look at the damage: that swollen mess of her red, glistening mouth; the dark runs of mascara and drying tracks that make a ruin of her face, her neck; a heart-stopping shine of white drool. She blinks the tears off her lashes in a moment.

Sana’s eyeing her over the same way a surgeon might approach a task with a scalpel and a careful hand, or perhaps a fisherman surveying the quality of a catch - before tossing it to the back of a truck to be hauled back home. Like the kind of sight she gets just a little too much satisfaction at. And it's the eyebrow she shoots up into her mess of toffee-blonde hair that asks, quietly, too much?

Fuck. Maybe.

But Tzuyu's eyes shift toward Sana's, and without even an ounce of hesitation - without anything more than a heavy exhale - she opens her mouth again so you can see her tongue run across her top teeth, incensed in her lust. More, fuck me, have me, use me she's saying, telling with you the slight indignance in her eyes that Sana finds perfectly irresistible.

Then, as if unbothered by how far your cock had been slotted in her throat, she swallows. Says, "is that all, sir?"

And the sound that follows it, that shuddering sigh - breaking, cracking, shattering into the calm quiet of your apartment - Tzuyu takes you like it's more than enough. She's swallowing it all back down again.

“Fuck, Tzuyu, you’re-” you try, only to have her moan loud, so loud, when she drags her tongue down your cock and swallows around the whole thing in a way that has you gasping. Your hands end up wound tightly in her hair, weaving through the smooth waves, knuckles straining when it really sinks in. Just how deep down her throat you go, so perfectly deep, the stretch of her lips holding on the side of a grimace because she needs it that way. She can't have it any other.

"Go on," Sana murmurs into the side of your face, drawing closer so she's got her nails curled down into your thighs, leaning in to place a wet, hot kiss into your cheek. "C'mon baby, she'd told me she'd let you do anything - said she'd swallow everything, like the fucking cockslut she is."

Sana's chin digs against the bone in your shoulder, eyes unwavering on where you disappear over and over inside Tzuyu's throat. And it's not just that - Tzuyu's hair clenched tight in Sana’s one hand, the other curled hard into a fist around the base of your cock, her harsh breaths washing over the bare skin of your neck. It's fucking indecent, how needy she's gotten. How needy she always gets. You can feel her greedy little lips finding your ear and biting just shy of savage enough to break skin, and licking - flicking across the vein beating down in your throat, and then -

"That's right," Sana says with a low growl when you look at her. "Cum."

An impoverished sound rips right through your chest. Spreads through you like wildfire.

And just like that, you're spilling inside her, thrusts growing unsteady and lost in the wet, searing heat of Tzuyu's perfect, wet lips, slapping and sliding into her throat, spilling on her tongue with every surge of pleasure drumming in your blood.

Tzuyu sinks down further. So deep that the brush of the back of her throat feels like a hand on the hilt of a knife, tearing into the ends of your nerves, where they’ve come alight and been set ablaze.

Sana picks up again whispering into the cuff of your ear. It makes your head feel like it might explode. And you're almost entirely certain that's what will actually happen, when the combined pressure between your ears and that of your cock becoming so desperately spent builds and builds and doesn't stop, as though waiting. 

Biding time for some perfect snap.

Only, a tickle at the back of Tzuyu's throat has her choking out. The same uncontrolled way your hips start to falter - shaky, jerky motions instead of any precision or rhythm - and you're tilting and winding your head in circles, jaw tensed, squeezing her scalp and oh, oh fuck. Tzuyu's mouth slides itself all the way off you in one hurried gasp, then two and three, just barely giving her a chance to steady herself, all while you're still leaking thick, white cum all over the slick swell of her bottom lip, up over the ridges of her elegant features, the curves of her cheeks, the high arches of her brows.

Look - you're cumming all over Tzuyu's face. You’re cumming all over her pretty face and she just takes it.

She's, fuck - she's so, so good. And not just because her mouth is fucking perfection, or her eyes are all at once bleary but wide open, watching you twitch, her own cheeks flushing as she stares up at you - trying desperately to breathe, taking a quick lick off the end of your cock, flitting her tongue between her knuckles, because apparently another taste can't hurt.

"Ugh," Sana hushes, right into your neck, "would you just fucking look, see that - god, Tzuyu, how does it feel, does he taste as good as you hoped he would?"

There's a subtle, unmistakable bob in Tzuyu's throat as she's swallowing everything down, the evidence, and a small flash of her tongue. "Good, mmn-" and you can see how she struggles in her restraint to simply say so, to let her hand drift to the 'V' between her thighs and sate that ache.

But even if her body seems ready for more, Sana's finger finds its way underneath Tzuyu's chin to prompt, with one, simple command, "let's get you cleaned up before we give you what you came for. Go on, get our little girl up to the shower, won't you daddy?"

-

It's a minor miracle the three of you make it upstairs and down the hall without so much as a trip or stumble, the girls with their fingers woven together and hips swaying as you all stagger up. It's a minor miracle you don't pin either of them against drywall or up against a doorway or do any of the number of filthy things on the mind of a man just fucked, still coming down, with two gorgeous, perfect faces - two perfectly sculpted asses - all in arms' reach.

The bath mat is still bunched at the back of your bathroom door. Still damp from the last shower - Sana's last morning here - which you have to pry apart just a little so the two of them can file in.

And well - it does happen. Eventually.

At the sink.

Just inside the en suite of your bedroom.

With Sana, being the way she is.

While the faucet in the shower starts up a shallow stream of water - tap running warm, steaming the length of the mirror and condensing the glass that Sana will soon have Tzuyu's face up against if she has any say in the matter.

"Tzu," Sana says, carding a hand through her hair and bringing a damp washcloth up to the bend of her jaw. There's a slow trace of fingertips across the lines of her neck. "Keep your eyes right on his while I clean you up, ok?"

And then there's the mirror in the center. The three of you arranged - a sort of hierarchy - with Sana stepping forward and adjusting her stance in order to survey, and clean the mess she's made. (What you've made.)

In profile, you can't exactly make out a distinct detail about Tzuyu's face in the reflective surface, only the silvery blur that is the curve of her neck, and the silhouette of the small frame that her long, slim legs form against the cabinet. But the idea's always the same - she's being used like a perfect canvas. Like an empty, ready-to-use doll that you can twist and turn in the ways you want until all your control breaks and you're just fucking into her, or having her lick and suck all over Sana's gorgeous fucking tits while she's bouncing in your lap.

Whichever happens to come first.

"You missed a spot," Tzuyu tells Sana, as though she hadn't missed several - her head tilts in your direction, eyes wide still, endless in depth. Her mouth gives away what's already burning its way through her blood. "Maybe another pair of hands will help?"

"Mine are a little rough around the edges," you explain, coming in close. The bathroom is this tight, congested space, but at the right angle there's plenty of room, even if your hips knock slightly into Sana's body. Tzuyu's delicate body already has her back flush against the sink basin. "You want to feel them?"

She shakes her head, and even though the hunger on her tongue hasn't been satisfied, even after having a good fill, there's something else she'd rather have now.

"I think," she starts, her words cut off by a hitch of breath when Sana's lips travel to the very tips of her hair and work their way up to the soft skin behind her ear. "Rough is good, when... when I'm being," Tzuyu's closing her eyes - partly so that she doesn't fall off the edge so easily, partly to lean into the sensations of two warm bodies, all attention placed solely on her.

"When you're being worked over?" Sana offers.

"Ngh," she responds - with an attempt, as best as she can, at a smile. And then there's one, light, teasing stroke across her jaw, her mouth. Sana's thumb pressed gently into the crease. "When the fucking gets..." and you'll have to fill the gap - finishing her thought with your hands slotting themselves onto the gentle arch of her hips, pressing a kiss that doesn't even come close to satisfaction on the supple dip of collarbone.

She lets out this pretty sound at the feel of your lips, Sana's, all ghosting down her throat.

"Hard and deep?" you say. Sana smirks at this - continues the effort, "A little fucking nasty, huh, sweetheart?"

"Mhm." Tzuyu is, above all else, a little helpless. “Because - you know me so well.”

But make no mistake: Tzuyu is exactly where she wants to be. With the heat radiating off her bare body, she leans into it all, only flinching when your teeth catch her nipple - when Sana's tongue laps a rough circle over the other. The scene, the feelings, all of it orchestrated precisely - these are the things she likes, maybe loves even.

And after the soft sounds slip through her lips, a moan and another hum, she finds her words and voice, "hard and deep and, rough and, ff-"

"And?"

The quick brush of your tongue flickers across the hard tip. The sensation draws from Tzuyu this very faint cry and the exhale of a word: "Fast."

"Naughty little thing," Sana presses into her jaw, pulling back to regard you both. To lift a finger, wet the pad with her tongue - and reach down, down, down until her fingertips brush the very line of her thigh, into the slick between her legs. "I love it when girls get all messy."

"Please," is all Tzuyu has to say, barely anything but, as Sana's finger drags slowly inside her folds.

"Patience baby," she murmurs into Tzuyu's open mouth. The exchange is swift but thorough; you watch, all tongue and spit, and your fingers twitch with a sense of loss. "Why don't you remind me how this went last time?"

"Mm, listen here," Tzuyu says in an astute breath, the sound of it like tables turning. There's a firm pull on your wrist - the grip on it guiding you, encouraging you, just where she wants them, into the band of lace around Sana's impossibly narrow waist. You feel Sana sigh in relief, shiver at the touch of a warm palm up against her thighs, and into a pulse-wet cunt, as though the slightest touch will kill her. "I think you might be remembering wrong, Sana."

"And why might that be?"

"Weren't you the one begging me? When I had two fingers up your cunt in your apartment," Tzuyu presses forward, voice lilt and darkening like ink, and Sana whines and crumbles in her palms, knees buckling when there's one sudden and rough slide of fingers right on the base of her spine.

"Yeah?" Sana asks with a rising blush, already knowing the answer - it's her fatal flaw: she's all sharp edges and pointed teeth, right up to the point there's a finger at her own throat, a cock in her hands and a girl working at her clit until she's drooling. "Are you suggesting I'm easy? Is that where you're heading with this?"

Tzuyu's leaned up against the counter, turning Sana's slender frame around in her hands, until she has her fingers up on the over the wire of Sana's bra, palms hot beneath the thin cups, feeling for her nipples, and the change in dynamic is as palpable as the steam rising in the room.

"Let’s not put words in my mouth," she responds simply, dropping another kiss into the back of Sana’s hair. There's another one laid along the sweep of her neck, like a careful bite, and with a lift of a brow, a look that tells you what you've always known, "but if you’re asking, then sure, the sluttiest of all sluts. Easy," she pulls the cups down Sana’s chest, "as fuck."

It gets to her, clearly, as if that moan falling out of Sana's parted lips could mean anything else.

"Daddy?" Tzuyu asks, because apparently she's enjoying the bit, easing into all parts of the character. She can't seem to contain her grin.

"What is it, sweetheart?" you ask, dipping your finger down into Sana's cunt, and fuck - the girl is so, so slick for it. She needs to be taken and torn, that much is clear. Her whimpers don't get softer as your hips drive into her stomach, pinning her between the two of you.

"Is she always this much of a bratty tease? Or is that just how she gets when she gets all worked up over your perfect cock. I know she's aching to feel it stretch out that tight little cunt of hers-

"It's never been all that clear," you answer, before Tzuyu can start to say anything further. A moment of composure, in case Sana wants you to step in.

Except that, she doesn't exactly interrupt the play you and Tzuyu are setting up: "So," Tzuyu remarks instead. "Just for me then."

"It's possible."

The room suddenly feels very full, very small.

"Right. Okay. Well then," you say - watching carefully, when Tzuyu gives you an appraising glance. Sana squirms again beneath the pressure of all these fingers printing over her sensitive skin - she'd love to fuck this. Or be fucked.

"That means you'll have to take good care of your needy little princess, won't you daddy?"

It's surprisingly fitting.

-

Though it hasn’t been that long, all things considered.

Not since Sana effortlessly waltzed her way into your life. And slightly less-than-that, the time it took her thereafter to find herself bouncing in your lap and tugging at your hair while you struggled for breath between her tits. This perfect storm, caught somewhere between laughing and choking and definitely, definitely falling.

It's been a year, maybe. If that. But that's plenty to know.

Know every tilt of her mouth, every sly grin. The different moans that shake loose from the curve of her lips.

Know what it means when Sana's palms hit the tiles of the shower wall, fingers splaying as she goes quiet and submissive, letting out the barest noise of frustration as Tzuyu spreads her tongue over the pucker of her ass - know that the knuckle you curl up in her cunt has her that much closer to unraveling in a stream of whimpers, needy fucking pants and a hoarse sound of gratitude.

Ostensibly for getting her so perfectly, perfectly raw.

"Fuck, yes, that," Sana barely manages, between the messy swipe Tzuyu's tongue makes over her hole. Just this thorough lick, drawing tight, swirling circles around her, lapping at the wetness before making a hot and steady pass over the sensitive stretch of skin, drenching it in spit until Sana's scrambling against the hard surface.

She's not close to going quiet: her cheeks look rounder, like she can hardly keep her noises under control as Tzuyu eases a single fingertip inside the tense muscle of her rim and uses the stretch and warmth of the water raining down her spine, to slip in deeper. Sana's sighing as Tzuyu eats her like an act, an invitation.

You push your fingers deep, deeper, slick, pulling, rubbing, coaxing Sana's mouth apart even as your lips press wet into her cheek. She groans louder, needier, with your hand flexing up a three-finger graze over that bundle of nerves. The kind that makes her back fucking arch.

"You," Sana sputters open like a struck match, burning bright in the steam-cloaked shower, "you, you, you," and it’s not really clear who she’s cursing, "going to - you're going to - you're going to make me-"

"Oh no," Tzuyu sings, starting to straighten herself out - until she’s reminding Sana that she’s the smallest of the three of you and in a possible sort of danger.

She reaches an open palm into the stream of water and splashes off the slick running down her mouth, her chin, her neck - gaze anchored to Sana's trembling figure. It's just one, heavy exhale into the hot, hazy air: "You've got it all wrong.”

Sana twists her head around, face still so wildly attractive amidst the look of worry and that flush of pink taking over from the bottom half. The tiny, imperceptible dip in her brows.

But before she can give voice to a complaint, Tzuyu has her spun by a rough grip around her waist, pinning her back to the tile - water beating down the rise of her breasts and the tops of her shoulders.

"If you're going to cum baby, it'll be all over his thick cock, getting your whole cunt so stretched and stuffed full it'll feel like he's cumming up inside your guts."

You and Sana share this wistful groan of a sigh after Tzuyu wraps her long fingers around your cock, aims you true, and brings you close. Closer. Until you can feel Sana's pulse at her cunt, lips wet and slippery and dripping, just a few inches from where the tip of your cockhead nudges the insides of her thighs. Sana's stomach is seizing in a fluttering of heat and -

"Do you like hearing her beg? That's good. Because this girl's gonna do everything she can to make sure you fuck her raw before you even let her come," Tzuyu's voice lowers, a deep register. "How long can you last, Sana?"

Sana gives you this look, all anticipation and pleasure, holding it for longer than is strictly necessary - and then, her pert little mouth falls open, keening, hissing out a shallow, almost painful, "fuck" the moment you bend at the knees and slip inside.

The feeling that washes over you is a beautiful elixir of relief, an indomitable kind of want, tinged with something heavier, and with just the tiniest hint of longing in the sense that this is not enough, nowhere near enough. It never is.

"God, Sana," is all you manage. All you want to.

Sana doesn't wait around any longer before giving you an impatient shimmy of her hips, fucking herself further down the length of your cock, like she wants to choke on it. And the feeling of it, well, she does it well - the tight warmth swallowing you to the base, her cunt squeezing you all at once, slick and smothering. Fuck, it's all in her eyes. How badly she wants to be held down, split apart. How tightly your fist finds itself locked around Sana's long, wet strands of golden hair as Tzuyu closes any semblance of distance - brushing her lips over where she can tease Sana's open and slack mouth, licking down inside, panting.

"Baby, you are so close, I can feel you trembling," Tzuyu teases, running her fingers up Sana's stomach, cupping steady the breast she can fit in her palm. She drops another messy kiss on Sana’s throat and hums: "Go ahead, cum. I'm sure he doesn't mind.” 

"You're such a prissy fucking- nnh-" Sana's words skirt right over Tzuyu's fingertips before they're shoved roughly across the swell of her lower lip and into the back of her mouth. If Tzuyu's intent was to prove a point, she's about as successful as can be - Sana can only gag quietly around her digits, working her jaw over them.

"Sana, shh-shh-shh, baby, don’t fight it; just cum around around his cock, don't put yourself in a corner and try to play games - he'll fuck you right, until you scream, I promise, and-"

It hardly ever takes much. That's something you've come to appreciate: Sana can't ever help it. With the way it actually feels, you pressing right up against where the rest of her cinches so impossibly tight. She was practically teetering on the edge, on the very cliff and within reach of falling right off of it the instant you fit the very hilt of your cock up the molten-hot stretch of her perfect cunt, sliding, fucking into her while water sprays all over her quivering body, so soft beneath the wash of rain.

One of Sana’s long legs gets wrapped around your waist and you can feel her nails start to dig through the muscles in your shoulders.

Tzuyu smirks right into Sana's temple, biting at the slickness of her skin, running the curve of her thumb around the length of Sana's jugular, and sucking with her teeth when Sana cries out. "How does our girl feel wrapped around you? Wet, huh? Needy?"

"Unbelievable," you answer honestly - and maybe that's the point; Sana's pussy is incredible. Hot and silky and absolutely unreal. There’s no question, whether she's a work of art, or if she'll fuck you up, but you love that part.

“Ruin her for me, won’t you?” Tzuyu prompts, with that twinkle of mischief you're rapidly becoming accustomed to. "She looks even prettier when she's fucked out. I know you know that."

She does, she does, she does.

Your hips snap, up, fuck in - Sana mewling around the shape of Tzuyu's first two fingers - then back, drawing the motion slow, long, full - until you’re crashing forward and sinking up into that warmth you know is spreading across every inch of Sana’s body, swallowing her up inside-out as her legs start to shake and give and her tongue laps recklessly along the outline of Tzuyu's knuckles. 

Sana knows she likes to play at coy and control, but this is never part of the act - your cock fucking her submissive pussy apart - it’s hard to argue she doesn’t love how you can come to own her: hot and fast and filthy, leaving her breathless and desperate, every thrust into her tight cunt punctuated with some pretty whimper. And here, she just… there isn't the luxury, there's nowhere to hide.

Nowhere to run or shy or look away.

Tzuyu curses when finally Sana bites down, part of a long sequence of reflexes that bloom from the depth you fuck up into her cunt. And with her voice back in her throat (Tzuyu's fingers shaking out the sharp pain) she fucking whines into it, unable to stop the steady line of nonsense tumbling past her lips, incoherent except for the single-minded purpose of her own release.

"Fuck, daddy, fuck," Sana repeats in the same way she always does, getting fucked, the letters collapsing into each other. "I'm cumming, fuck, fuck, so fucking wet. God, you're, fuck, right there, oh - I'm cumming, daddy, I’m fucking cumming," is the all further she gets, muddied with the sound of your slicked-up thighs moving in quick rhythm with the beat of your heart, slapping loudly against her skin - loud enough so that the neighbors can probably listen in through paper thin walls.

Then she goes silent, face painted with it all. She isn't crying, the tears won't come, but she's gone this quiet sort of wide-eyed that matches the way she's mouthing, cumming, over and over, you’re pulling me a-fucking-part.

And you believe her. You have to.

Just look at the way her legs are doing all the wrong things. Thighs tensing taut, muscles giving out - she’s slipping down the tiles, back bending and flexing and going limp all at once. Tzuyu's already moving, scooping her up like it's something rehearsed, before you even have to ask, "Tzu, help me hold her up, won't you?"

“Tzu, huh?”

It's not much, but it is worth noting: how Tzuyu, her fingers curling and interlacing between Sana's, holds the girl like she's breakable. Tenderly, cradling Sana's small body against her chest.

"Do you slip into pet names and all that with every girl Sana brings around? Or am I," and when Tzuyu tilts her head, her smile has this very palpable bite, "the exception?"

"Every pretty girl thinks they're special, sweetheart."

Tzuyu just glimpses one downward look into Sana, shivering, riding her orgasm down into nothing, and drops a kiss into her hair. A gentle chuckle: "And when have I ever given you a reason to doubt it?"

"Shameless," is all Sana offers up, beyond exhausted, trying and failing to take more than a passing, somewhat disgruntled interest in the scene unfolding around her, while she clings to the strength Tzuyu and the tile and your hands are putting into her body.

Meanwhile Tzuyu, this devil of a daydream - this tall, skinny thing of long hair and smirking lips and cheekbones as sharp as her wit, has her gaze locked. Still curious, and all but relentless - there's more she's dying to say. It seems almost impracticable that such a lovely woman would really be this way, weapons concealed under all that good-girl charm. And in its most uncomplicated form, that's what it is: an open invitation.

You've only managed the vaguest outlines, after all. "Do you mind?" you ask again.

The next movements feel more elegant than they probably are. Cradling Sana's limp body between you, finding a steady hold.

There’s a slight shuffle to discover a proper balance, a hand slapping the glass of the shower door, and yeah, Sana's fucked out. Slurring out sounds that might resemble the shape of words if she had the presence of mind. The rest are whines and whimpers, obscene in all ways.

“Baby,” Tzuyu tells Sana in a growling kiss to the back of her ear. "Keep your fucking legs up."

(That’s a cue if you were looking for one, to get your arms fastened around Sana's small waist as she leans heavy into your chest.)

"More," The girl in your arms starts to complain, when you truly start fucking her.

"Hurt - hnn, please, more - fuck - harder," and all those sharp edges, that arrogance and conceit, it's all gone. Her pupils are blown out, an animal-like-desire set in its place - these are your invitations to wreck her, you realize, pushing so deep into her well-fucked cunt that she arches, and that her head knocks against Tzuyu's, that the small room is entirely empty save for these movements under the metal cloud of shower water, falling like rain.

This is all there is. 

Tzuyu, smirking like she herself might get off on this. 

Sana, begging.

And when Tzuyu buries a hot smile at her throat, nibbling at the skin - urging her, urging you, this sharp, "now give her the fucking dicking of a lifetime, will you?"

When Sana’s reduced down to her pleas of, please, harder daddy, and deeper, god, I can feel you so deep -

Well,

You’re all instinct. You sink your fingers into the firm skin of her ass, grab at the soft, slippery flesh around her hips. You sink your cock into her hole again and again.

The stretch is obvious and absolutely devastating, making Sana cry out and muffle her face in your shoulder. She makes a weak sort of sound around your neck - it could be anything, maybe please don't stop, or maybe please do - it doesn't matter.

"You look incredible like this baby, does he fuck you well?" Tzuyu croons, curling around her so her head rests on her shoulder - eyes watching Sana, meeting yours. "Oh, come on, aren't you always telling me about how it makes you feel - all this, full and hot and better than anyone? Now's your chance, no hiding from him. Or me."

"It's so, god it's - I -"

"Come on," Tzuyu squeezes out one long, eager moan with her hand dropped onto Sana's breasts, pulling and kneading like she owns it. "Tell him to cum in you baby, like the good fucktoy you are, let him cum up into that creaming pussy until you’re all sticky and leaking cum all over, just the biggest fucking mess."

There is measurable irony, you suppose, in how Sana brings these friends of hers back with the clear expectation to be fucked and torn apart, how they each want the same, all wanting to get her unraveling and her knees buckling. Only Tzuyu manages, more efficiently than anyone you've ever seen, to leave her all wanton and squirming against your hard, relentless thrusts into her needy cunt.

It's easy: this isn't difficult, there is nothing hard about falling for each and every promise her face has to offer - knowing her body's secrets and drawing the story out, line by line, so you can fall in love with it over and over, all while Sana starts to go helpless at the shape of your cock filling up that tiny, wanting cunt.

So you cum. Inside her. In one final push, filling her completely.

Sana opens her mouth like she's trying to say something - say yes - say daddy, say fuck yes daddy.

"That's it," Tzuyu strokes down Sana's belly. "I knew it - now keep your pretty thighs shut. Can't let even a drop out, understand?"

"Yes, fuck. It's - fuck - good, he feels," Sana finally sobs, chest heaving as you grind the last little bits of cum deep, so far and hot as it can get. All the way in. Where it's hot and wet and throbbing and slick.

Where it should stay, because you never pull out. You savor the last bit of your pulse, sporadic and lethargic. Because in truth - your mind is made and your mouth won't say it because you don’t need to.

Tzuyu's wringing the water out of Sana's hair, picking the strands into careful folds. "Alright then," and her grin is positively lecherous.

There's a bench in the corner of the shower where you eventually arrive, panting now that you realize it, and Sana makes herself at home right in your lap, face buried in your shoulder. Grinding her hips down in this almost imperceptible circle, circling back and feeling. Holding you inside and murmuring into your collarbone.

(Fucked, Sana is simply and unfairly beautiful.)

It’s all in that exhale of a moment, when Tzuyu catches water in cupped palms from the shower-head, wiping away what stray tracks of soapiness left on Sana's shoulder-blades and breasts and thighs. Her hands all up and down her body, sudsing the crease between leg and torso, down lower still, around her sensitive pussy and her folds.

You wonder if she can hear you swallow.

"Maybe we should actually wash up before we go again?"

-

The first thing Sana's free hand goes for when she stumbles through the threshold of your bedroom is a hair band you didn’t know she was storing in the top drawer of your dresser. She fidgets around keeping her towel wrapped tightly around her chest as though modesty were an option at this point.

"What?" she asks, fixing you with a slightly-irritated, slightly-teasing smirk. "You look like you have something you want to say."

"Nothing." You laugh out loud. "It's nothing. I'm just waiting."

She makes this face at you, guilty - so sorry about the contraband - as she twists her wrists and pulls the hair band round her middle-finger, wrapping her palms around her knot of wet blonde and bundling it into a half-assembled ponytail. It leaves the length of her nape exposed and vulnerable, neck flushed pink-from-showering in all the most wonderful of places.

"Waiting," is what she hones in on.

Tzuyu is pulling out of the bathroom. Her hands, washed clean and dried off with a fluffy, off-white towel. When she sets it down, she steps back, leaning on the frame. "He's waiting, for what I wonder?"

She's made of all things smooth-and-sharply-cut. Even from here, even through the sleep-haze fog, the silhouette of her nude figure gives itself to a small sense of anticipation. The long and smooth sweep of her chest, from breast, up and out, and then tapering along down to where her hips flare. She takes a step and then another and lets her fingers ride her side, from the very top of the shallow indentation in the dip of her waist, up. Then the tautness of her abdomen and further still, running slow and over the breast, coming to cup its full weight, pushing the bottom of the curve outwards.

"Waiting to," and she wets her lips in something akin to expectation. "Pound me into the fucking bed?"

You’re smiling when you explain, "I was going to say a request…"

Tzuyu’s dimples deepen. "You mean, like, we can tell you what to do?”

You sit on the bed, which is actually more of a proposition than you realize. "I suppose."

"Sana, sweetie, is there something I should be doing for him," Tzuyu looks up, wearing that trademark kind of playful expression that is definitely deliberate and not at all a tell. "Or maybe I've got this all wrong and you know exactly what you want."

"Well," you manage in reply, sounding surprisingly sane. "Don't both start coming forward with any ideas you have no intention of following through."

"And what if I have no ideas at all? What would you tell me then," is the challenge you find hanging around the slender outline of Tzuyu's wrists, and then at the back of her fingers, as she cards her hands through her hair and pulls it prettily over rise-and-falls of her collarbones, until it's barely curtaining her breasts. 

(Barely.)

She crosses over to the bed - to you and Sana - and without much other movement than that, finds a knee on either side of you to let a lone fingertip skirt the tops of your hips. Flirting with the towel around your waist.

"For the record," Tzuyu says, flicking a glance at Sana and leaning down into your jawline. The palm she slides over your thigh is so warm, so promising of its heat and pressure you'd swear you can almost taste the touch of her. "I never, ever go back on my word."

"Try me," you tell her.

"I do have some, ideas." Every time her fingernail ends up between her teeth, it’s another drop in a well that runs god knows how deep. "Though very few of them involve this towel."

“And about the ones that do?”

"Well," Tzuyu starts to purr - reaching a hand down and spreading the flat of her palm on your chest, "I figured if I ever wanted something to bite down on, well, you know."

It's just a subtle little rock - and the perfect view: she starts like this, her hair all tucked behind one shoulder, the arch of her back lifting. Slow at first, Tzuyu only pausing after every other short breath to lick and kiss your lips with hers, and the edges of her teeth, all soft and insistent. You are sure - that with a subtle twitch, a minor jerk of the knee or hip - she is almost right over the perfect place, and when her hips grind in these micro-friction little motions that have her sighing and pushing herself flush, it's clear that all she's looking to do is rub her cunt down all over the erection you've been holding in since the last time your towel was hanging somewhere above your waist.

"Hold, please," Sana interrupts, when she leans over and plucks something out of the messy contents of the nightstand - a few hair clips, and, more importantly, a condom. She swears aloud when the package tears the wrong way, but she's quick to apply a lip balm-slick finger-tip on the inside of the ring, and hands the thing to Tzuyu by way of a passing roll, "so, I assume you've got this under control."

"Give me that."

"Mm. Have at it."

There is an intrusive thought that finds its place, wedged somewhere at the base of your skull when Tzuyu starts the careful act of lowering herself down your shaft - like this, it has an inevitability - a forward momentum, the familiar sense of excitement building a force in your heartstrings. Sana must have a similar sensation, as she scoots her ass and slides one hand over the same place you feel that force thrumming, her palm reaching right for Tzuyu's ass, while Tzuyu hisses out a tiny sound at the added stretch.

"Careful," Sana says, fingers drawn back from the cleft of Tzuyu's beautiful ass with a string of slick that's unmistakably arousal. "You try going back after having his cock. And trust me, there's nothing to go back to. Like, ever."

"That must be why you're always like this," is Tzuyu's cock-sure comeback, finding herself flush with your hips.

You're biting down. You're holding back. You're probably digging nails into your palms hard enough to break skin, because you could be double, triple wrapped, latex running up your length like a goddamn balloon and you'd still feel the hot, melting perfection of Tzuyu's pussy swallowing your cock in one, slick, seamless motion. There isn't any sound either more pleasing than that hitch-groan-slip you hear as Sana helps guide Tzuyu's hips back, forth, back again and to a steady beginning of this proper pace: smooth and full.

You both need a second, because, fuck - and she's biting into a grin. Eyes already half lidded as the speed builds. As Tzuyu starts really enjoying the drag of it, the feeling. The god-damn-fucking-stretch.

"Oh? Like what?" Sana asks, smirk filling out her lips to bridge the silence you're both groaning into. "Like what?"

"Greedy," Tzuyu says. The only part that really needs to get filled in. "Because he fucks the self-control right out of you."

Now Sana lets that settle, and it's not like she doesn't know. Or doesn't understand. And still, "Mm. That does sound like me, doesn't it, daddy?"

(Yeah, well- you- )

Tzuyu watches you watch what happens next: Sana peeling out the cotton slip of her bath towel - sizing up just how good Sana looks. Fuck-me-raw.

And then she laughs, deep and gorgeous. "Didn't he just do a number on you - hn, god. Can you hear him all up inside me? Fucking, splitting me apart."

It's true.

All of it.

The way Tzuyu rides your cock. Faster, faster, rolling her body and drawing her hands together behind the length of her hair and neck until the point of her chin is upturned, showing off the hollow of her throat. A tension that glitters with sweat.

The tightening in the space between the bottom of her ass and your cock - all of it is heaven. This slow-and-rough, rough-and-fast. Tzuyu picks the tempo of it to fuck out a particular pleasure that has you catching her and pulling her closer to your body, holding her through the upward grind, where your cock meets the heat of her cunt - pressing her closer.

That's it.

Possessive. That's what both girls have the good grace to read.

Sana's hands come up Tzuyu's ribs, fingertips skirting the muscle-taut-surface of her stomach, the bumps and grooves of her ribs, and up further still, riding the path of her breasts as they're bobbing-jostled and going full-on heavy - her thumbs go at her nipples. Rolling around the hardened tips - the faintest tug at them, enough to start to pull - then just teasing them between thumb and forefinger and loving the sight of you wincing. Loving that you love that.

"She's pretty, isn't she?" Sana laughs.

"It's a real show," you bite the compliment out. The very least you can get to.

(You'll be fucked if you can hide how much you want to stay buried in this girl and cum a fucking waterfall between those perfect, creamy thighs. Oh, she knows. The dirty little smile, the filthy laugh, you're holding tight - even if the act is useless.)

"Like how she clamps down," she hums. "That's the part I've always loved, you know. She just does everything so slow, so fucking good, so... deliberate."

There's a fist in Tzuyu's hair and no trace of sympathy or self restraint in her friend when Sana tells her, "Baby, ride him slow for me, can you do that?"

When Tzuyu sucks a hiss through her teeth, mouth caught around the sharp intake, Sana just licks a slow line along the curve of her lower lip - as though saying, baby, like the slut you are, remember who asked nicely? 

And it turns out: slow is worse. You can feel every tiny tremor of friction, every little shift of Tzuyu's cunt squeezing you. Clinging tightly. Your fingers wrap around her rib cage and hold her right as her ass hits your lap, while her head rolls back into her own hair. It is enough, finally, to draw an out-of-breath little pant out of her, making a beautiful blush crawl and spread across her cheeks - there.

(Oh, fuck, your brain echoes. So, you want slow, that's what the noise from your throat says as she eases back, rising up. So slow, you-can-feel-all-of-me. She makes the effort so flawlessly, it's fucking you both over, because she's looking at Sana with this flutter-beat look, eyes wide, wet and round and pleading.)

It gets that much worse the minute Sana pushes her down by the shoulders. Giving her some resistance. Showing you both she can take you inch by slow goddamned inch.

"Harder. Deeper, sweetie."

Tzuyu does everything Sana says she'll do, loving her fingers in her hair, pulling tight. Control given as easily as that. Because she looks just how she feels: utterly surrendered. A helpless kind of want, like there's something broken in her chest when the head of your cock pushes her deep, deep. To the point she feels something more than an ache.

"Want it," Tzuyu whispers out against Sana's smile. "From the back, like you promised," she says, and takes the shudder out of your breathing.

Sana cups her jaw, laughing. She puts one arm around Tzuyu's throat and bites at her chin, at her ear. "I bet he'd do just about anything to give you what you want, baby."

Tzuyu’s hips snap down onto yours again. Melting your cock in this thick, molten heat.

And again, faster. Needier.

The kind of movements across your lap that make everything louder - a beautiful chorus of small-sounds. Slaps and squelching. Wet and gasping and begging and skin-on-skin. You'd never, ever considered the act a competition before, not with Sana. But when Tzuyu seems to be seeing who can pull the most erotic of noises out from underneath your ribcage - or the highest pitched sigh - the wetter and louder it all gets -

"Sana."

"Tzu."

Tzuyu rides the pressure and finds her voice, head thrown back, jaw slack. "Sana - tell him to, I'm gonna, soon. Tell him what to do."

"Beg for him," and Sana gives her the fakest-of-all-pouts when she slips her hand along Tzuyu's inner thigh, nearing her where the two of you meet, then slowing her pace, bringing you both to an immediate stand-still, while her fingertips continue, ghosting across the shape of your stomach. "He doesn't need anything less than the truth."

Tzuyu's face. It's the most gorgeous thing you've seen. Her hips are winding slow against you when you hit a spot you're not entirely sure either of you can recreate at your own whim: deep inside. Her eyes as wide as they can be. All of her sharp edges now just these subtle things - the very shape of the shadow beneath her clavicle, the tensing of her thighs at your sides, the gentle lines that curl up from the wide bottoms of her hips when your fingers thread up her belly, palm open flat.

"I want," is where Tzuyu starts, not hiding it any part. "I want you to bend me over the bed." 

And in a breathless voice: 

"Please, please let me have what I want. Just bend me over the bed, shove my legs apart and take me. Hold me down. Fuck me and fill me and don't let me move or say a thing. Until we're both fucking finished."

You swallow. Hard.

Because here's what Sana's brought you: this tall brunette with an impossibly beautiful ass and thighs to die for, a sin-full mouth. The curves in her waist and back and tits a distraction, that you might try to map out until you're so lost you forget how to leave, how to ever take your cock out of this tight cunt.

"Is that a thing you can do?" Tzuyu practically purrs in one long tone, pushing herself up your waist, until your cock falls out and hangs there. Until you can only see all of this clear, gorgeous skin in front of you and hear her pretty little moan. "God, please, daddy, I’m begging you."

(She says this last part in a way that lets you know this isn't something either of you will get over easily, the kind of pleasure, the feeling and the flash. She's unreadable - almost, not quite- just too honest, there's nothing else for you to believe. Maybe that's where the shiver comes from, or your palms itching, or the sounds of your bedding ruffling as you spin her onto her back, her tummy - pull up on her hips until they're sky high and you can palm her breasts, let her press her knees up and apart on the duvet. Until you get that first look down the column of her spine and the sudden, stunning shape of her ass in a view you never want to say goodbye to.)

Tzuyu slides her hands across your sheets, all this stretch. A flex of muscle. When she opens her hips and you push two fingers deep, inside, easy - then back out -

"How much of that," Tzuyu interrupts, blushing furiously, "do I have left to beg with? Please."

- because she's been soaked and aching all day just thinking about it. Just begging for a good fucking - or so she told Sana, who now giggles and leaves small kisses up the ridge of her spine, crawls alongside the dip-line of the mattress, and after curling her fingers around the column of Tzuyu's throat - smooths a single fingernail up and down and presses, tracing, the groove of her jaw as you nudge your cock against her.

It’s not on purpose, this needlessly drawn-out moment - simple brush of latex against her slick, dripping folds, the tightening in her core and how it matches the tension in Sana's wrist and the coarseness of the bed-linens and the hardness of you - but everything eventually folds, into her.

And you're not helping, the way you're fastened to the narrow point of her waist like it's a handle. Your thumbs riding the arch of her hips, taking every opportunity to sink your fingers hard into the flesh, grip tighter and push, pulling Tzuyu, if only to really work that friction between your hips.

"Fuck, it's all in. Finally." Sana gasps like she's the one being bent, arched, fucked from behind, then lays herself down against the length of Tzuyu's shoulder, chin bumping her cheek. Watching Tzuyu. Taking it all in.

You have a hard time making it out, but Tzuyu starts this half-whimpered litany about how she needs to be fucked (that is, roughly - deep and long, or maybe rough and short and deep, or whatever, as long as it makes her lose composure), followed with some shoddy mix of cursing and your name and Sana's - the things all three of you might consider for another chance meeting.

And as you're following up the suggestion with a low groan, that's exactly how you notice that grind in her hips - a jerk back, a twist, bucking against you. She feels so, so incredibly tight when she writhes onto you, squeezes. Like she wants to tear her heart out her chest, she's so overwhelmed. So thoroughly and totally taken by this fuck. By you. "Harder," is all she says.

This one line does it, then two more. All in-and-out thrusts from behind, fuller the second time, then the third.

Only when you find Tzuyu peering back over her shoulder with a pair of eyes that say, please, pretty-please, all liquid and warm and wanting. "Fucking ruin that cunt, I want - god. Do you have the slightest idea how much," and that is where the words disappear into a slow and sticky whine.

"Yeah baby," Sana whispers.

She knows what it is. Tzuyu wants so much more, so you give it. Give her the just-this-side-of-ruthless fucking and the slow-pace grind you know can push her right over the edge. Give her more, all of you, and get her hands twisting in the pillow and grabbing fistfuls of sheets, burying her face into the space above her wrists and nearly choking on her hair with how she moans and yelps - loud.

Her whole body jolts forward the next time. The arch to her back deepening. Body drawing in on a flawless line.

Tzuyu does cum. Eventually.

She keens and rolls and begs you not to pull out or slow, just stay put and fill her with your cum - keep fucking going, please. The only thing keeping her from landing flat on your mattress as she practically unravels around your cock are fingers you have under her hips, tightening. Bruising.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck me, you’re,” you’re railing out of her lungs, where the words hang on sex-stale air.

First with Sana whispering promises into her ears and letting Tzuyu swallow, and suck around the length of her index, then two, fingers. Then licking a kiss into her mouth, tongue tangling up hers and finishing up the act with, "cum for us, Tzu, like the sweet girl you are - you take him so well."

Then, with your hand held over her ass-

(She could cry from it. From how everything pulls you in, like a riptide, and, really, with no regard for things like safety or drowning.)

-the utterance off her lips has your stomach twisting into knots:

"Keep," you hear her ask Sana. Barely getting the words out as you ride, fast. "Please, keep, telling him that I - god."

It gets worse before it gets better.

"I can't - I need; fuck, I can’t, with the rubber, I want him," and Sana smirks like she knew all along. "Sana, please-"

"You want the real thing, sweetie. Isn't that right, baby? Hm. Of course it's okay," and Sana soothes a hand through her friend's fringe, pushes it away from her eyes and over her ears, making something that sounds like an adoring laugh slip out. "You want him to fuck his cum so deep in that pussy, I know you do, don't worry."

When you slow down the grinding, wipe the sweat from your face, Sana gets your attention and nods to the very place your cock is disappearing between the cheeks of Tzuyu's ass, "go ahead. If you want the mess-up, sweetie - let's make sure that's exactly what he'll give you."

Who exactly wants what most is hard to say. Sana's the one pulling off the condom, the rubber stretching to an obscene limit that has you fearing for your life should it snap back before it breaks. Tzuyu is already a sort of gaping mess with it all, her own fingers snuck under to rub harsh circles in the absence of cock and something firm and heavy to fill her. To feel full.

And there's you, asking, or maybe, double-checking: "Tzuyu, you're saying you want me to-"

"She doesn't care," is what you're interrupted with, courtesy of Sana. "Fuck a baby into her cunt, that's what she wants."

(Like you wouldn't fucking love it too. Or have the frame of mind to even begin to unpack all of that.)

It’s a lot, admittedly.

And not just because Tzuyu has never looked better: on all fours, pressed, and presented. Legs all the way apart and ass and thighs in your grip, with that smile all pointedly certain and wild-eyed, like, she knows, that you know exactly what to give her - what she really wants - filling her so full and marking your claim by fucking your cum right to her very core.

Tzuyu drags her head back, so she can peek over her shoulder and meet your eyes.

She does things. Like sighing this small sound and laughing and - she has this thing for noises, for things breaking under the strain, where she won't say a word, except to murmur some part of your name into your jawline, a raggedness in her breathing. Sheer hunger.

"I want - want you to, fuck me."

You will. Or you are. Or you're going to, only - Sana's lips are fast around your cock, fingers fluttering delicately between your thighs and drawing these stuttering sounds in your breath, "I will. I will. I'm - I will."

Sana just hums, copper hair bobbing in place. Her hot mouth and wet fingers pulling and sliding and pulling and sliding. Tongue moving in all the ways she knows you like.

Which, here’s a fact: Sana can be mean. No one would believe it.

But sometimes this is the price of admission. You have to be honest about what it takes, how, exactly, you intend to break this beautiful brunette whose ass is swaying back and forth in this mesmerizing little waggle of the hips. It's hard not to marvel, not to ask questions and not wonder at what a pair of friends so similar and so opposite do to each other and other people and to themselves in those small, private hours and space no one else shares, that has you panting and burning and her clasping the hollow of your neck and asking with her body if this is okay, because sometimes, in moments of absolute need, just a glance can mean your end.

So, there's no tease; Sana is well aware of what it feels like when you're throbbing and ready to burst - she's working you up and over and right to that point of no return-

"Can I? Fucking-"

"Fine," she replies, maybe having now considered every other way you might spill a hot load out and make a mess of the sheets. "Have at her," and a flick of tongue catches around the tip of your cock - the final tease, the best punishment.

And the promise of how Tzuyu makes that perfect whimpering cry. Something entirely wounded. Because as soon as it begins - your cock in the shallow depth of her creaming cunt - you're both made aware how she's wetter than she was an hour ago and clenching at nothing, hands balling themselves in frustration, palms bunched white-knuckled up in fists. She needs something, anything. Something for her to squeeze against. For her to bear down on and bounce her cunt off-

The sound all three of you make when you grit your teeth and bury yourself deep into her pussy is a guttural, aching thing, with you biting a lip and gasping. Tzuyu half-growling-half-sobbing into the sheets.

It doesn't matter that she lets Sana cover her open and slack mouth in an attempt to quiet it.

It doesn't matter because in a blink, the exact point in which you sink completely inside - where it's the first, the best, feeling of Tzuyu’s hot pussy taking your cock.

(Mind-numbing, is the word that doesn't come to you.)

Under you, Tzuyu is writhing and hot and tight into the mattress - and so desperate.

"Please," is about all that gets away from her. Which is just too cute to ignore: she's been dying to be fucked, ever since stepped into your foyer and was introduced by the softest, most deliberate of gestures that wound up being all-too intimate. "Please- I need - harder, fucking-"

Sana takes to touching you, her own little form of enjoyment that ends with her fingertips mapping the shape of your jaw. Pupils blown, "Isn't she amazing?" Sana laughs into your neck.

"Fucking," is what your first real stroke back into Tzuyu pulls out,  “unreal."

The friction has you both grinding your bodies together at the base, and she arches, this throaty moan, before looking back up at you and letting her mouth fall open - this wordless sentence of plea, over and over again. She's shaking. Body-full. It's almost something painful to see, that she's so undone - and what if you were the only person who'd ever fucked her like this: into ruin.

Tzuyu clenches around the next thrust - begging, so-sore-and-begging to cum.

The demand is practically written in her muscles, and all you want is for her to let go for the second, third, last time - until she loses track of the count. To get there before you have the time to register that she is actually doing it. She's already half-way gone and at your mercy - her only choices now, being: cum, or let you chase the orgasm you're currently rubbing all around the curve of her cunt.

Sana swallows her scream when the first little cry comes, that you've edged out of her. And it gets worse and better the second time her ass meets your thighs, where she's making a real mess on your hips and all but yelling out her orgasm in her state of such incoherent stutter and disarray. The arch to her back is this thing out of your best imagination, which has you - pounding out all her noises - gripping and curving over the plane of her stomach. Until Tzuyu's beginning to make these different cries, somewhere new, somewhere you're finding a whole lot deeper.

"Hold her ass up and fuck her 'til she's full of cum," is the advice you get from Sana in the end, as you fuck her and fuck her through the tumultuous rise and fall of orgasm after orgasm, "oh baby, does it hurt so good? Do you feel that heat spreading down your thighs and getting you all slick? You always knew the best toys are the ones that get bred, sweetheart."

And from her, barely, "fuck, yes."

That's what does it: the desperation just that tangible in all your voices.

Sana manages to get her lips on yours. A kiss that could knock the wind out of your sails under normal circumstances, one that curls a fist and tugs around a familiar part of you. But Tzuyu's eyes roll and drop low, fluttering shut, while your hips crash in quickening succession:

"Fuck-you're so-perfect, cum in me again, daddy - make me," and, "please, so fucking full, just give me more. Want more of you, until it's-"

Tzuyu gets you. Just there. Just the way you needed it. Just like that.

There's something addictive in how her muscles clench and grab around the head of your cock - drawing everything you'd been holding back to a painful front, and - Sana's taste in your mouth still so sweet, mixed with salt and sweat, while you fuck and pound, with absolutely zero respite. Cum buried deeper and deeper until it's spilling and Tzuyu whines for the filthy feeling. Until you're fucked through, emptying every single drop into her open cunt. Until your legs feel sore, a slight shake all through the muscle and the tension in your neck and shoulders, and you're growling this thing that might be her name, and "Tzu, my god, baby, you feel, so amazing," in between thrusts.

It earns you an appreciative whimper.

Something breathy and not-at-all restrained. She doubles down on it when your cock slides out of her swollen, well-fucked cunt.

At first, she only hums a sleepy smile and turns her face in toward the touch, eyes closed and unresponsive. A long exhale. Even like this - especially, perhaps - Tzuyu is lovely.

Either out of exhaustion or overbearing satisfaction, you collapse into her - bodies folding up like that old-cliche about a stack of cards or dominoes - with your cheek to her back and your arms wrapping around her chest, tight, trying to squeeze. Like you're hugging someone from behind. Which isn't too far off. Because for the next five or ten or fifteen minutes or a half-hour, you lie there, pressing your face in against the side of her neck, smelling her hair - how sweet the strands are - then down along her shoulders, and under, listening to the soft way Tzuyu falls into her breaths. 

In, out. In, out.

Sana follows all the while with, "should we not have let her ride, first?"

To which, Tzuyu says, "fuck off."

Sana brushes it off, crawls around your shoulders and slips two, three, five kisses into your forehead. That's when you know to shuffle over, dragging and tugging limbs and muscles and bone in the same direction - careful not to let the sticky sensation linger anywhere it shouldn't. Not even for an instant.

The three of you are laying in a total fucking mess. But it's your mess, and that's beautiful in a sort of thought-provoking poetic way.

You turn your head. Tzuyu's there, still, blinking slowly.

"Hello again, hi," you say and the smile comes up all sorts of natural. "Okay?"

Her gaze shifts into something vague, so much quieter, but she nods. So it must be. Okay.

-

“Is it too early?” Tzuyu asks two weeks later, and nothing has ever, ever started like that.

She’s at your doorstep, a little too dressed up for the middle of the afternoon, hair pulled away from her face in two loose braids, bright eyes, lip-gloss that shimmers just enough. Something innocent in the whole way she looks and stands and smiles. Nothing, on the surface, that gives the truth away.

You lift an eyebrow, skeptical. Always. "I wasn't expecting company."

"Yes you were," and she dangles a set of keys.

"I'm sorry, did you steal those?"

The laughter from her chest is as surprising as it is gorgeous, rich and thick like molasses, rolling over the shape of her tongue. It hits you hard that two weeks - really, any amount of time - it’s not nearly long enough.

And before Tzuyu can admit as much out loud, Sana chirps from her spot aside the door, knee bent and grinning, "maybe I did."

"Well," you say, hands on your hips, "this is all a little..."

"Irregular, I know." Sana's giving her best impression of you: so exasperated.

"Which is, honestly," she continues to explain, pushing away from her perch and approaching in these small, gentle steps. "We need, that thing you promised you'd do," she trails a finger up the buttons of your shirt, under your jaw. You're already drowning. "Whenever" - is her very worst torture - "we called."

(Might just be a little bit of trouble, is the one honest answer, to whatever you were trying to start when you saw their faces and recognized their bodies and said: yes, come inside and meet me and fuck my brains out, all that.

What a way to begin. What a story it'll be.)

a/n: these two are fucking adorable.

[seresinhangmanjake]

Fremen Girl

Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen x Fremen!reader

Summary: The potential wife of any future Baron must prove herself by surviving in the arena before the current Baron will permit the marriage. In this case, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen wants a wife, and he might have just found a woman capable of meeting that challenge.

Notes/Warnings: this is just the first section of this fic, which I can't decide if I want as one long fic (5k words) or multiple short parts (5 or so). If you like it, feel free to provide an opinion on that. Comments help me out and make me happy, so they're always welcome :) Also, Dune inaccuracies and typos.

Words: 900

Feyd-Rautha Masterlist

The toe of a boot jams into your calf. Your knees are the first to crack on the tiled flooring of Arrakeen Palace’s throne room. You land with a grunt, followed by four more grunts as the knees of your Fremen brothers are forced down beside you.

That’s all that remains of the troop sent to attack one of the Harkonnen patrol groups. Out of twenty-one, only five. 

The five of you make a neat line in front of the empty throne with you in the middle. From left to right, one after the other reduced to half height, your heads down, arms bound behind your backs, and blood dripping from various Harkonnen-inflicted wounds. 

Your only wound is a swollen, busted lip, which you found curious until you realized their goal was to capture the remaining few of you, not kill. That swift fist to the face had caught you off guard while you were trying to aid a friend who inevitably met their death, and in that moment, you knew you were going to be made an example of; a warning to other Fremen: Be smart. Don’t end up like this girl. 

So, here you are, in a Harkonnen-occupied palace awaiting your grim fate, forced to bow to an old baron you thought was too lazy to leave his home planet of Giedi Prime, let alone bother with a handful of Fremen who made a minuscule dent in his massive army. 

But then you hear footsteps echoing as they make their way through the vast, hollow room. 

“Are these the ones?” is asked in a low, gruff voice. It’s akin to the voices of the men who brought you here, but it contains a unique richness and lacks the worn, overused quality that comes from many decades of aging. Definitely not the Baron.

“Yes, my Lord na-Baron,” one of the brutes answers from behind you, conveniently answering your unasked question as well.

“And which of them did the most damage?” 

Thick fingers dig into your hair, nails scraping your scalp as your head is yanked back. You swallow your whine from the pain and meet a set of deep blue eyes. You know those eyes—well, you know stories of those eyes. As a small child, you overheard whispers amongst the Fremen elders of the Harkonnen boy with the soulless eyes who killed his mother and maimed his family’s slaves. The promising younger nephew of the Baron: Feyd-Rautha. Barely older than yourself and yet word of his deadly glare was already jumping from planet to planet. 

But those eyes change as they look at you. There’s a quick shift from wicked to amused, a glint flitting across his irises as he scans your face. His lips tick upward—almost imperceptibly—but you catch it before it disappears. 

“Release her,” the future baron instructs. The tension from your abused strands eases as he steps forward and crouches in front of you, much too close for your liking. You want to flinch away, but Fremen do not cower to intimidation. 

“So,” he starts, peering into you, “you're the one causing me trouble, hmm?”

“She took down twelve of our men.”

His brow raises and his head tilts, but Feyd-Rautha does not break your stare. “Twelve? Is that right?”

“She bites as well, the fucking bitch,” the soldier grumbles to his leader. When you roll your eyes, said leader's lips quirk again. “Too much spirit in her if you ask me.”

All sense of amusement drains from the na-Baron’s features. Cold blue eyes flick to the soldier, and with the attention momentarily off of you, you take a breath. 

“I did not ask you,” he says in an eerily calm tone. 

You can practically hear the gulp that struggles to make its way down the other Harkonnen’s throat. “Apologies, my Lord.”

Feyd-Rautha returns his gaze to you. He examines you for a few long beats before lifting his hand and swiping his thumb through the blood beginning to cake on your split lip. 

“Don’t touch her!” comes from the left in your native tongue.

You wince. He’s one of the younger ones, just shy of your age. Well-trained enough to be a dangerous force, faster than the older Fremen at your sides, but so full of hatred for Harkonnens that his enthusiasm has him making silly mistakes, clearly not excluding shouting in a threatening tone when it would be best to remain silent. 

The butt of a Harkonnen weapon slams into the back of his head and he falls forward, landing face-first on the floor. 

The na-Baron doesn’t pay the disruption a lick of attention. His index finger meets his thumb and they swirl together in small circles until they’re thoroughly coated in your blood. Then, one at a time, he sticks them into his mouth and sucks that little bit of you off of each pale digit. 

“Lover?” he asks you, nudging his head toward your knocked-out friend. You shake your head.

Leisurely taking in your features, his eyes trace the curl of your lashes, the slope of your nose, then the V of your cupid’s bow before he says, “A woman more deadly than the men who flank her is quite rare...and impressive.” Your brows pinch at the compliment and he smirks. “I think I might have use for you, Fremen girl.”

---

A/N(just a repeat of the notes up top in case you missed it): this is just the first section of this fic, which I can't decide if I want as one long fic (5k words) or multiple short parts (5 or so). If you like it, feel free to provide an opinion on that. Comments help me out and make me happy, so they're always welcome :)

@avidreader73 @alwaysadreamingoptimist @lost-in-fiction-like-ur-mom @workof-a-rr-t

[irndad]

Oh my gosh!!! Don’t date coworkers was so cute!!! Would you be willing to do one similar with Hotch? <3

It shouldn’t bother him.

Aaron thinks of himself as someone who adores professional candor, and wishes that his team possessed it in spades. It’s not as though she is professional in almost any other aspect. She excels in personality, and if he had any shame, it would be harder for Aaron to admit what an actual delight she is to his daily life. 

She’s kind, in a way that he’s found is rare in this world. Asks about Jack, remembers what coursework he’s struggling in and remembers to ask. She knows his coffee order, which she ascertained from reading the cup. He’s quite fond of her. David is always telling him that life is short and that any girl would be lucky to date him. In less polite terms. 

She’s beautiful. 

She’s all soft smiles and warm disposition, and she’s easy to like. She’s always the first to anticipate your needs, and Aaron can picture how he’d slot into her life, a part of him can see what it would be like to pick her up in his lavish car and drive her to the office, spend the weekends basking in her company. He’d be a good partner- he’d known how, once, and he’d try for her. 

She doesn’t date people she works with. 

The fantasy has gone too far in many ways- a version of life in his mind that lingers. She has morning ritual, and he knows it’s a little creepy he watches it from the perch of his office. She pins her hair up and puts on a coat of her lipstick, before she inevitably forgets she’s wearing it, and leaves a lip-print on her cup. It’s hard not to imagine it with her sat on his kitchen counter. 

But he knows this is a boundary of hers- and even though it’s just in his fantasies, it feels…well, wrong to fantasize about her like that. He’d heard her loud and clear, telling officer Berbrook that she makes a point not to date anyone in the Bureau. It’s arrogant to think he’d be an exception. 

This morning, she’s earlier than he’s ever seen her in the office. She’s got big, wraparound headphones and a skirt on, and two cups. She’d gotten him coffee. He might burst. He speaks out her last name when she realizes he’s in the room, and internally, a warmth blooms in his chest at the wide open smile she grants him. 

“Hi, you!”

“You’re in early.”

“Mm,” she says, her mouth still full of coffee, endearingly eager, “I know, but that coffee shop you love had fritters, and I thought you’d like one.”

Off limits. He feels his eyebrows scrunch into a frown before he speaks. 

“You didn’t have to do that. 

“No one has to do anything. I wanted to. There’s two in there, one for Jack. They keep well.”

A completely ridiculously short amount of time passes before he’s able to speak again, or more accurately as Garcia would put it, word-vomit. 

“I heard officer Berbrook asked you out. That is absolutely inappropriate- would you like me to handle it?”

“Nah,” she says back, “It’s all good.”

“Morgan told me that you have a policy of never dating anyone you work with-“

“I said that about Berbrook, Hotch. It’s not like, an off-limits thing.” She looks down at her feet. Her shoes are green, Aaron notices, helplessly endeared, “y’know, with the right person…I wouldn’t want to close that door, do you know what I mean?”

Her doe eyes peer up at him, and he knows that she’s hear 30 minutes before anyone else is just to be able to get him food, telling him that she’s open to dating coworkers, and once upon a time he could’ve taken a fucking hint. 

In his younger years, when he was bolder and better able to ask for the things he wants, he might’ve asked her out right then. Might have run him and made a dinner reservation, somewhere with candle-light for an evening that would end with her being kissed against a wall or a car. 

But for now, he takes a bite of his fritter and makes some plans. If he’s got a shot with her, that’s a revelation that’s going to need some intense planning and preparing for. He’d like to woo her, if that’s something he could ever get to do. 

“Good fritter.”

“I know, right?” 

[luvjunie]

— headcanons. what life is like for miles!42

a/n: i honestly didn’t mean for these to get so angsty oopsies!! i kept adding on so they’re also very lengthy wc: 1,751

contains: mentions of grief

Everyone thinks he’s rude and impossible to approach—but that’s a common misconception. In reality, he’s actually quite shy and simply prefers to keep to himself. His quiet nature often causes him to come off ill-mannered, which is completely unintentional on his end and partially the fault of those who assume what he’s like instead of actually getting to know him.

He used to be open to making friends and spending time with peers, but after everyone found out his dad died— which was impossible to prevent considering the man who used to drive him to school now had a giant mural made in his honor— he began receiving a ridiculous amount of pitied stares in the halls, began hearing hushed whispers about how hard things must be for him at home now. And even though they were, he hated that he was being treated differently by those he once kept close to him, like a charity case. As if he were fragile and would break— like he often did when he was alone.

His old friends were supposed to be his distraction, something to take his mind off how he now had to grow up faster than he’d liked. Something to remind him that his trauma hadn’t aged him as much as he feared; that he truly was still a kid at heart. But instead, they served as a constant reminder of the worst thing he’d ever had to live through— skated around him like he’d blow up the second they said the wrong thing; responded with heartfelt condolences instead of laughing with him whenever he’d tell a funny story about his dad. So eventually, he drifted away from them and began keeping to himself all together.

Don’t put him in a box because of his prowler side hustle, this boy is smart as hell!! Especially with one parent now being gone and his mom struggling to pay the bills? He takes his academics very seriously, he has no choice. He has to get it out the mud somehow and he doesn’t have the privilege of skipping classes as much as 1610-miles does. He’s working two years above his grade level in AP Calculus and AP physics, and has been accused of cheating on his tests a couple times due to how fast he completes them, as well as the fact that he has never once asked a question from the seat he chose in the back of the room.

It’s not something anyone would expect, but he enjoys baking a lot and he’s damn good at it too. When he was younger, he’d spent one summer with his Mamá Lena (Rio’s mother), who had him in the kitchen helping her cook and bake almost everyday and it just stuck. It’s a secret talent of his that never really comes up in conversation, and that you wouldn’t know about unless you’ve seen him doing it. His banana bread muffins using a recipe he took months to perfect taste like the gods themselves made them, and he’ll slip one into his mom’s work lunch whenever he makes them because he knows they’re her favorite.

He’s a lover boy at heart, if you were to look into his playlist, the songs you’d find in there probably wouldn’t be what you’d expect. Listens to bobby bland, which was heavily influenced by his uncle, old school rap, and he really likes love songs from the 90s because they make him feel calm, and allow him to imagine what his life would be like if he could have something like what they’re singing about. He’s terrified he’ll never be able to experience that due to his inability to open up to others. And often, he doesn’t even try to express the emotions that are tough to swallow, a firm believer in the saying that ‘once you’re down, it’s hard to get back up.’

Keeps his room pretty clean. It’s probably the one and only thing he has control over in his life, a constant for him. His room is his safe-haven so he treats it as such. It’s basically the same as 1610’s, just with a more matured look, a lot less color and less expression. He unfortunately lost that spark for a lot of his interests, so you won’t see more than a small punching bag, some boxing gloves hanging from the doorknob and few stragglers in the form of posters he didn’t feel like taking down.

He doesn’t like to argue, at all. He hates fighting with anyone he loves and he’s very quick to forgive them or squash the disagreement all together now that his dad is no longer here. When Jeff died, they were still on rocky terms from their previous dispute and even while years have passed, Miles still has yet to forgive himself for that. So now, he usually lets bygones be bygones, and never lets a conversation end on a bad note.

Continued growing his hair out once he realized it was a way for him to bond and spend more time with his mom. Within the little availability they do have, between her working doubles at the hospital, him being pulled in every direction now that he’s the ‘man of the house’—uncle Aaron’s words— and having to do things he’s not proud of to assist her while still going to school during the day, they make the time. Miles only gets it braided by her, and he enjoys the talks they have when he’s sat on the floor between her legs with his back to her. And when she’s done, regardless of how ridiculously embarrassing it is, and how he’s now over a head taller than her, he always lets her pinch his cheeks and call him her ‘handsome little man’. He hasn’t looked at a pair of hair shears since.

On that note, he is very, very defensive when it comes to his mother. Miles is not the kind to go around beating people up just for kicks; mostly because he’s not that kind of person, but also because even if he wanted to— he can’t.

In preparation for stepping into the prowler role Uncle Aaron put Miles into boxing/m.m.a classes when he turned fourteen, and he took to the skill very quickly. So well, in fact, that his hands can now technically be considered deadly weapons in the eye of the law due to his extensive training— which means he could get slapped with a ridiculous assault charge that would have him doing some time in a juvenile correction facility over a simple fist fight. (if he’s not masked as the prowler obviously).

But, some kid in his history class thought it’d be funny to make a slick comment about how Mrs. Morales was ‘single’ and ‘up for grabs’ now that his dad had passed, and the situation ended with Miles suspended for a week after he’d basically thrown his desk over to get to the kid, his knuckles bruised, and a tirade of complaints from the boy’s mother about his now-rearranged nose. However, after hearing the disgusting comment he had made about Miles’ mom, she was kind enough to not press charges and forced her son to apologize to the both of them.

That woman is his saving grace, literally. She stepped up in ways he didn’t even know were possible after his dad died, barely taking time for herself to grieve because she wanted to make sure her little boy didn’t fall apart. He doesn’t let anyone disrespect her and that’s always made known by him. He’s a mama’s boy.

They kind of have a titfortat thing going on, him and his mom. Like how she always stops in to ask him how his day was, if school is going well or if he needs anything, even if the time isn’t ideal and she’s talking to a sleepy Miles at 1am in the morning who can barely keep his eyes open. Or how his uniform is always freshly ironed and laid out for him in the morning, regardless of how exhausted she is and how badly she wants to crawl into bed after her shift. Or how when he’s sick, she’ll drive all the way across town to one of the only fresh markets that sells yuca root and white yautia so she can make him sancocho (a traditional puerto rican dish). It’s the one thing she knows always makes him feel better.

And Miles does nice things for her, too. Like draping a blanket over her sleeping form when she dozes off on the couch in front of the TV. Or making sure her phone is plugged in, so her alarm goes off in the morning, because sometimes she knocks out before she can bring herself to do it. He even goes as far as to secretly slip some extra cash he’s made from a recent job into the ‘RENT’ jar she keeps on her dresser— dropping a hundred in every now and then when she’s not there to see him do it. She’s never once asked him for help, but the one time he took it upon himself to offer it, he was shot down in seconds, and was made to promise her that he wouldn’t worry about it ever again. Her exact words being “You’re too young to worry about something like this mijo, okay? You take all the money you make from your after school job, every single penny, and you save it. Mama’s got this.”

But sometimes, she doesn’t. And Miles knows that she wants to be strong for him. For them. But it takes two, he knows that as well, so he helps out anyway.

And with prayers that they’re not short— Rio counts everything in the rent jar towards the end of the month, and a string of celebratory whoops and hollers will always sound from her room when she realizes they surprisingly have some extra cash that’ll allow her to take some days off and relax for once, and maybe even do something fun together. He’ll listen from his room with a knowing smile, more than happy to let his contributions remain undisclosed to affirm her efforts of providing for them the best she can. With her energy so depleted from how demanding her job is, she’s never suspected it was him discreetly assisting, and chalked it up to her forgetting how much she’d mindlessly dropped in there after each paycheck.

[tabithatwo]

What do you think about the scene in ep1 where Shauna masturbates on her daughters bed while looking at pictures of her boyfriend? Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I found it disturbingly similar to younger Shauna sleeping with Jackie's boyfriend

Oh hey, so this response is like perhaps over a year late but someone else asked me about this and I remembered I had 3/4 of this response drafted so hi I’m here now lmao

Anon, I do NOT think you’re overthinking this scene. I actually think there is so much room to think about this scene that a thesis could be written on it. It’s so layered and an incredibly bold choice on the show’s part to include it. It is our introduction to adult Shauna, and I think that the creators of the show clearly felt that it was very important.

This scene made me so uncomfortable as a first time casual viewer that I actually tried to rationalize it away. I remember saying aloud to the person I was watching with “No, that has to be her own childhood bedroom, right? She must be, like, visiting her aging parents?” Clearly I was ignoring the very ridiculous set design of Callie’s room entirely lol, but my mind wanted to find a different explanation. And it took me a while to come around to really loving Shauna as a first time viewer of the show, in part due to how much that scene shocked me.

All that to say, it is absolutely reasonable to find yourself very uncomfortable when thinking about that scene, as many people say that they do when they’re proclaiming that they wish it didn’t exist in the show. But I don’t think that means the scene should be ignored by any means. That discomfort is the point of the scene. Shauna is such a fascinating character, because she swings back and forth from shockingly depraved and cruel, to heartbreakingly kind and loving. She draws both the audience AND the other characters into this unpredictable back and forth with her, and it is easy for us AND them to forget what she is truly capable of when she is in one of her sweeter moments. That is what makes her one of the most fascinating characters of all time to me.

Okay, now we can get into my personal interpretation of this scene. I have always felt it was about Jackie. I think that was clear early on, but, after s2 aired, having more information about Shauna’s relationship with Callie did impact my interpretation of the scene and solidify some suspicions I had.

Shauna clearly does not see Callie as her daughter in any traditional sense. She tells Lottie as much, that she never could fully believe Callie was real and hers. And we see, with increasing clarity as the show goes on, that Shauna views Callie as a peer more than anything. Shauna has both stunted development and difficulty expressing affection. We see her tell Callie that it would’ve been easier if she HAD just had sex with the cop. That’s a very strong indicator of their dynamic. Shauna just doesn’t have the capacity to mother Callie.

That is important context because, with the scene in Callie’s bedroom, Shauna is recreating the thing she used to do when she was young and Jackie was alive. I don’t think she is even thinking about the fact that it’s her daughter’s boyfriend or bedroom, because she doesn’t even really think of Callie as her daughter much of the time. It’s so complex and muddled and, you guessed it, uncomfortable!

In my opinion, people are NOT ready for the intricacies of the ways Callie is a Jackie proxy for Shauna to be developed further. Like the show is establishing it pretty heavily, and I think in a very compelling way, but if it goes down that road more explicitly I have a feeling that people are not going to be able to separate the WAYS in which Shauna sees Jackie in her, if that makes sense.

I think s2 did have some compelling threads of this. Shauna caring for the Jackie corpse doll and getting frustrated and “hurting” her with the ear coming off scene. Shauna not being able to protect her, initiating and endorsing the consumption of her, then hinting at having fears that she’d hurt the baby when she was pregnant, losing the baby, worrying that they’d do to the baby what they did to Jackie, twisting it so much that she can’t help but believe they ate the baby too.

She associated the baby with Jackie very heavily. And in doing so, I think she parentified herself to Jackie in a really fascinating way, like Jackie was her first failure.

If she couldn’t care properly for Jackie, who loved her so much (and became an actual martyr and saint to her), and she couldn’t care for her children who were absolute innocents, then she must be the epitome of horrible and she should squash those caring instincts bc clearly they aren’t actually Good, type shit. That’s how I feel like Shauna spirals into her destructive behavior.

So what happens here, imo, is that Shauna doesn’t really see any of her relationships clearly. I don’t think she consciously thinks of Jackie as The Girl She Was In Love With, and I don’t think she consciously thinks of Callie as her daughter most of the time. Shauna just thinks of them both as people she has loved and failed, as well as people who piss her the fuck off and make her feel trapped in a life she doesn’t want.

She sees a lot of Jackie in Callie, and she acts out in really horrifying ways throughout the entire show to try and gain control, and this scene is one of them. Shauna has always used sex as a way to reclaim control, even when it is absolutely insanely inappropriate, and often when it isn’t at all about actual pleasure. We see more of this in s2, when she BRINGS JEFF TO THE ART STUDIO OF THE MAN SHE KILLED AND FUCKS HIM THERE (that was fucking INSANELY risky and destructive). With masturbating on Callie’s bed, looking at a pic of her bf, Shauna is acting from the same place she was when taking Jeff from Jackie in a way, and I get why that’s uncomfortable to watch. It makes me incredibly uncomfortable, it is SUPPOSED to!

But I think that we are viewing it with so much more logic and thought than Shauna is capable of applying. We draw conclusions from it that are based on a sane person, and Shauna is far from that. I think Shauna is briefly recreating multiple feelings and motivations that drove her to sleep with Jeff as a teenager. The sexual side of things is so wholly Jackie driven, she is constantly seeking ways to feel the way she felt when she was creating that proxy sexual connection with Jackie that she verbatim discusses with Jeff (which is so crazy btw not over that scene). But the side that relates to Callie is driven purely by the frustration and anger. Again, I don’t think Shauna has consciously thought about ANY of it, but if I had to interpret the driving emotions, then I think those would be the most likely.

And I think what it says about Shauna is that she is not living in reality in the slightest. You can not overstate the lack of conscious thought that goes into her actions when she does these things. She is acting on pure impulse, and without any certainty that anything is actually real.

She breaks my heart and this convo about the masturbation scene is so interesting to me because YEAH, that was a ROUGH introduction! and it took me rewatches to allow myself to dig into her character and that’s the point tbh.

On instinct, people either see the actions clearly and hate her, or obscure them to the point of forgetting they happened and love her. But it’s much harder to reckon with them and dig in and come out still loving her.

(I truly can’t believe I have to say this, but I was recently introduced to the fact that yj incest shippers exist, so disclaimer: this is NOT meant to be taken as a romantic or sexual interpretation of Shauna and Callie’s relationship at all. In fact, when I say that I don’t think people are ready for detangling the WAYS in which Shauna sees Jackie in Callie this is exactly what I mean. I just assumed people would wrongly assume it was That and be horrified. I didn’t consider the opposite, and I would like to continue not considering the opposite, so I will prob block anyone who engages with this in that way simply bc I do not want to see it and this is my social media lol)

[wooobuddyletsgetnasty]

maybe I have some Benedict Bridgerton girlies on here maybe not but I have to get this off my chest with the new season because the man looks good. And don’t think for ONE second that this is anything but self-indulgent.

there is ofc slight porn in here bc WHO DO YOU THINK I AM???

you’ve received your warning, come closer if you dare.

maybe something along the lines of Benedict being a best friend of your older brother, something along the lines of a staple in your household, someone you have grown far too used to seeing.

he is nigh a few summers your senior but still further progressed enough that they hardly allow you to play.

tragedy strikes on your year of three and ten, taking your mother and father, which leads you and your older brother, who is six and 10, to being sent to the countryside to stay until of age, until you are able to care for yourself.

—

it takes seven full summers for the two of you to make way back to the ton— on the eighth year, in the spring, you return— you make your debut with your brother heading the attempt to find a lawful man for you to wed.

that very same spring, you see Mr. Bridgerton again.. but he is different, as are you.

gone is the girl and in her place is a woman.

you are still bright-eyed, despite the tragedy— still quick witted and kind. but you are also different, ethereal— Benedict never realized how your smile lifts your cheeks, never realized how your brow furrows when you speak— Benedict sees you for the first time in years and it feels like he has really, finally seen you.

and he— he is a man now. taller than you remember, more filled out— stout. with strong hands and forearms you linger on longer than you should— something that proves the artist he is. but he is unchanged in mischief, in the way his eyes crinkle when he laughs, in the way he tries to include you in conversation.

it is in the spring, the spring you return, when you realize— you love Benedict Bridgerton.

—

despite your realization, you note that Mr. Bridgerton will never see you as anything but his best friend’s younger sister. you are put out, saddened by it. but it does not stop you. you cannot, will not be your brother’s burden any longer.

it is then your discrete conversation, your inside jokes, and your admiration of Benedict’s art stops. you cannot be so close to a man if you expect to find a good husband, one that will care for you and make sure you are happy.

Benedict, Ben, will never love you and you are fine with that or at least you can pretend.

—

it does not take long for you to find a prospect, Lord Rothschild. he is kind to you— he listens when you speak, he does not treat you like you are lesser. you are content to marry him, happy even.

but it still feels like it is not enough.

his gaze does not burn through you— does not make you alive— it does not make you feel.

but you are fine— you convince yourself. you could be happy. you could learn to love him.

your engagement seems set in stone.

Lord Rothschild has asked your brother for your hand and you agree. your smile does not pull your cheeks in the way Benedict can make it— but the way your lips turn up when he tells you, it is enough for your brother to be content.

—

Benedict, Ben, he calls on you that very night— the very day your brother speaks with Lord Rothschild and there is something about him that seems urgent, terrified.

you speak to him quietly, your maid a shadow behind you, your gown sways in the light spring breeze, “what are you doing here?”

he pauses, hesitating in his answer, “I-I do not know, I do not know.”

you step closer, peering like someone might see you, “we cannot be seen— I am to be married— you cannot be here, Ben.”

he seems awed, struck in the same way he normally is by you, “i cannot tell you.. but i can show you.” you are rightfully confused but nod hesitantly, “alright, Ben. alright.”

“meet me at Bridgerton house in the early morn.”

you agree without question, hastily turning, nightgown ruffling with the movement, motioning your maid towards the door, “Bridgerton house. i will be there.”

—

you hold true and you come to Bridgerton house in the morn— but you do not end up staying there.

in a carriage surrounded by nothing but a stifling silence, you allow Ben to take you into town. your nerves are pooling in your stomach, making you feel ill— but something in his gaze makes you hold out.

when the carriage comes to a stop, Benedict leads you in a direction you are familiar with, and suddenly, he seems nervous to be standing in front of this building— you have seen it before and it does not help with your confusion.

it is his studio— a place you have spent far too much of your time in, wasting moments, talking about your favorite art piece of his, something abstract, something you do not understand but are happy to look at because he touched it.

“Ben.. what are we doing here?”

he swallows thickly, a nervous habit you have picked up on, “you will see.”

it does not quell your nerves.

—

the inside is different than what you have seen before. gone are the abstract arts and in their place is portraits— so many portraits.

you take a turn around, admiring the ones that are full of color, life. you admire the ones drawn hastily with dark lines and desperation. they are all beautifully done. you are awed by his talent, awed by how well done and intricate they seem.

it strikes you suddenly, quickly as you stare into one— those are all your eyes, your nose, your cheeks.

“Ben,” you pause, attempting to find the words, “are— are these all of me?”

you turn, looking at him with a look he has never seen before. Benedict swallows heavily, voice hesitant when he speaks, “yes, they are all of you.”

you turn back, a new admiration in your gaze, “you have painted me?”

you do not turn back when he speaks, “you are so beautiful, it is hard not to.”

you pause again on the one that seems desperate, the line of your brow drawn crudely, like he feared forgetting, “why me?”

there is a quiver in his voice, “even when i am unable to draw— to paint— i can still imagine you. i imagine you in perfect detail, every time. sometimes it’s only you, only you, i don’t even realize i am doing it— not until you, you with that enchanting smile, are looking back at me.”

your chest tightens, “Ben— please— please, explain what this means.”

there is a waver in your voice this time— echoing the same as his.

he answers steadily, a newfound confidence in his tone. Benedict moves, admiring his own art, “i have seen you millions of ways— millions of emotions,” with his next phrasing, he motions to a different art, art made by his hands, “contempt, sadness, anger, happiness..” his voice trails, “i have seen a million emotions in your face,” his lip quivers when he finally turns to face you, deep eyes turning tender, “and i have loved each of them.”

you shudder, emotion overtaking you, but you do not respond to him, instead allowing him to continue to speak, “i have loved each of them and i will continue to love them— each emotion, every passion— i will never, never finish loving them, loving you.”

you can hear nothing but your heartbeat— nothing but the sound of your ribcage rattling, “you— Ben— i cannot… i cannot do this. Lord Rothschild has asked for my hand. i am meant to be wed.. he will propose soon.”

you are rambling, almost trying to deny him— deny what you feel.

Benedict hardens but does not attempt to move closer to you, “you say you are to wed him,” he pauses, turning desperate, “but do you look at him the way you are looking at me?”

you do not recognize that you are looking at him any other way than normal, not until he quivers under your gaze, “stop. do not continue to look at me that way,” his voice drips with hardly there restraint, “do not— or i will ruin you.”

you break under his equal watch, hands going up in desperation, before landing equally at your side, “you, Benedict Bridgerton, have already ruined me. i cannot marry that man,” you cannot stop the absolute noise of desperation that falls from your lips, “i cannot marry that man— and it is because of you!”

he seems aghast at your words, “me? me!” he swaggers closer to you, some part of him sure that this is what you want and you answer by stepping in to his frame, confirming it is, “yes! you! you and your artworks, you and the way you are leering at me— you and just you, Benedict— you have ruined me. i have nothing left for anyone else,” you quiver, but do not deny yourself the satisfaction of finally admitting it, “i love you— i love you.”

it feels like a prayer— like a secret, like something you should not have shared. it is too late to retract— Benedict closes in on you, lips pressing against yours with an anguish you can taste.

—

it takes a moment of his lips pressing against yours before Benedict is pulling away, hands raising above his head, dark hair shaking with the move of his head, “tell me to stop— tell me to back away, please, please.”

you cannot— you will not. you refuse to deny yourself any longer, “no— Ben, Benedict— no.” when he turns away, you follow, making sure he can see you, see the emotion in your face, “you cannot do this— you cannot show me this and expect us to go back to normal.”

he finds himself unable to turn away from you, instead, he cradles you, hands cupping at the sides of your face in a way you can only describe as tender, and he whispers— he whispers in something you can only describe as salvation, “i love you.”

you answer in a kiss, one that makes him back you into a table, one that makes him lift you high, seating you on a table in the very place he paints— he paints you. his hands grip desperately at your skirts— he is temping you, nothing but sin reeking from every pore, “i love you.”

you squeal a noise unknown to you when he disappears under the fabrics, mouthing at the most sensitive parts of you like they are his supper, “wait! wait! what are you—“ you are cut off by a noise so depraved you do not recognize yourself, “oh! oh!”

you gather your own skirts in your hands, trying to take away burden from him but also trying to find something to grab— something to hold. you need it— need to focus on something other than his quick tongue— you need something to ground yourself against the onslaught of his mouth against the place only husbands are supposed to touch.

“Benedict,” you sound hazy, a feeling in your gut pooling in the way you have only felt your own touch make you, “something is happening!”

he hums against you, against your tender most spot, signaling he knows— he knows and it is supposed to feel like this, that it is supposed to happen this way.

you release your skirts, opting to instead grab at the dark hair on his head, pressing him against the part of you that feels the most— the part that tingles from the base of your spine to the tips of your toes, “oh! Ben! oh!”

you do not need to elaborate, he can tell— he knows, knows you are crumbling from his touch.

he pulls away from you, only when your noises turn in to almost discomfort.

he appears from under your skirts, grin happy and face wet. he watches you for only a moment.

Benedict watches the way your brow eases, worries quelled, watches the way your mouth opens in gasps— from him, because of him.

you heave for air, gasping and heaving and he pauses, taking in the way your face changes with each breath.

“i think i will paint you like this next,” you peer at him, him still lingering between your spread legs, his pretty face framed by the silky fabric of your dress, “but only if you will agree to be my wife.”

[storytowrite]

|The FINE Art ~ Hwang Hyunjin|

Theme: Art Student! Hyunjin x Y/N

Warnings: mention of nudity, smut, 18+, unprotected sex, the age gap Y/N is 15 years older than Hyunjin.

Word Count: 5257

Summary: Life wasn’t easy for you. You lost your job, lost your husband who remarried and took everything away leaving you only with an old, sick cat. You desperately needed money. Thankfully, your friend is an art teacher and your body is quite tempting. Especially for the young, talented student.

------------------

“I’m sorry ma’am, but the cat needs surgery if you want it to live longer. We cannot wait long.” The vet said his verdict. Your old cat, Lemon, was ill, and you knew that. The thing was that you didn’t have enough money and you were in a really bad situation. 

“How much is for the surgery?” You asked. 

“It will cost about $3000 in total with all the care.” The vet answered your question and you sighed heavily. Why on Earth does it cost so much?! And more importantly - how will you gather all the money needed? 

“All right… If that’ll help him, please do everything you can. I can’t lose him too.” You said tiredly. 

“We’ll do everything we can to save this little boy.” The vet smiled at you honestly. 

You nodded and left your cat at the vet’s clinic. It wasn’t a good timing for such expenses, but you had to do everything you could to just save your animal. You sighed heavily once again. The previous week was hard and now this. Your life was a mess. You lost the job, since your boss decided to hire “some younger girls” and you were simply too old in his eyes. 

The divorce process was finally over. But unfortunately your ex-husband took everything he could, including your apartment. Because of this, you had to move in with your friend, at least until you get back on your feet again. Fortunately, Lina was happy to help you. 

You returned home wasted and without your cat, which you left at the veterinary clinic. You wanted to cry. Earning $3,000 in a short time seemed unrealistic. Well, because how to do it? 

"Oh Y/N are you back already?" Asked Lina peering at you from above another artwork she was working on. "Everything ok baby?" 

"No, nothing is ok. Lemon needs surgery and I don't have that much money to pay for it. And I still can't find a job. Everything is falling apart for me." You sat down heavily on the couch. "And I also need to find an apartment and..." 

"Woah, slow down honey. I don't mind your company. You and Lemon can stay with me as long as you need, after all, you know that.... And as for work, I think I have an idea." She smiled slightly at you. You knew that kind of smile from Lina's genre of brilliant ideas. 

"Oh no, why do I feel like I'm going to regret this?" You asked, looking at your friend. 

"Don't exaggerate, it's nothing like that.... Besides, we'll both benefit from it." 

"Fine, what's the idea?" You asked, slightly curious. 

"Great... you'll love it!" She clapped her hands. 

After an hour of talking to your friend and her persuading you, you finally agreed to help her with her little project. Lina was a drawing teacher in the art department, and her students were just starting to learn how to sketch real people. They needed a model for this, since the topic was THE FEMALE BODY. 

At first you had a lot of concerns. Lina wanted you to pose nude in front of a group of some of her top students. You had huge objections to this. You didn't feel like showing your body to strangers in their twenties. But you had no choice. The deal was simple, 10 sessions at $300 each, for a maximum of five hours per class. That is, two weeks of work. You were able to do it, right? 

"I don't know Lina, I have to think about it..." You said, glancing at her. 

"Just don't make me wait too long for your answer.... Besides, you have a beautiful body for our age, so what's the problem?" She asked lightly. 

"What do you mean what's the problem? I'm supposed to show off to a group of 20-year-olds? After all, they are children!" 

"Honey, these are young adults. Besides, they are just a few people. I'd rather pay you than some strangers. Think of Lemon. He needs this operation.... And if you prove yourself, who knows? Maybe I'll hire you permanently?" She persuaded you further. 

" Oh, hell no... I'll find a job, eventually." You replied quickly. "But fine. I'll take part in it..." You agreed, sighing heavily. "Just so I don't regret it..." 

"Believe me, you won't and you'll even like it!" She replied excitedly. "We'll start first thing tomorrow morning! Prepare yourself properly, you know, shave and.... " 

"Okay, I'll prepare properly.... Anything else?" You asked in a tired voice, interrupting her sentence. 

"Hm... take some clothes to change into.... And well, put on some nice underwear. Tomorrow we start with the upper body. The students will sketch your torso and breasts above all. Well, and tie your hair in a ponytail, it will be easier to see your collarbones.... But that's at ease, I'll tell you everything exactly tomorrow." She grinned. "Go rest, I still have to finish here." 

You sighed heavily and went straight to the bathroom, following your friend's directions. You still weren't convinced about the idea, but the situation forced you to do so. You felt stress above all. You may have had a nice, fit body, but you certainly weren't used to showing it to strangers. 

After a long and warm shower, you headed to your bedroom, where you fell asleep rather quickly. The next day would be a very long one... 

The next day you got up early, got dressed and did light makeup. You left your hair loose, for now at least. Later you'll tie it up in a ponytail. Your friend had already been bustling around in the kitchen since morning. 

"Good morning! Ready for today's challenges?" Asked a delighted Lina. 

"Mhm, I won't be any more than I am." You muttered uneasily. 

"Oh grumpy... Come on, or we'll be late." Lina didn't seem to mind your dissatisfaction. 

"And breakfast?" You asked. 

"We don't have time... you'll get something on the spot." Your friend waved her hand and pulled you with her to the exit. You left her apartment and headed for the car. The trip to the university didn't take long, but you were getting more and more stressed with each passing moment. No wonder, after all, you will be posing naked.... 

You entered the university and headed straight to the room where the classes would be held. Lina showed you everything inside and once again reminded you what to do and how to do it. Your task was quite simple. All you had to do was show some breasts and sit still on a stool for a good couple of hours. 

The students began to fill the room, and you heard Lina greeting them cheerfully. You sighed quietly. It's going to be a long couple of hours. 

"Dear students, I have a little surprise for you today." You heard your friend's words. "A good friend of mine has agreed to get herself acquainted with us. As I said, you will learn sketching on a living organism.... Y/N come join us and show yourself to our students." 

You took a deeper breath and stepped out from behind the screen. You stressed all over. You stood in the middle, right next to your friend, trying not to catch eye contact with any of the students in the room. 

You quickly swept your eyes around the room. There were eight students in the classroom, three girls and five boys. They looked rather uninterested. You glanced out of the corner of your eye at Lina, who continued her argument. 

"Y/N will be our model today. Please be nice to her, she has never done this before. Today we'll take care of the upper body. Your task is to reproduce Y/N's torso and breasts. We sketch from the neck until we reach this point." Lina showed them exactly how much to sketch. "Y/N honey, take off your top and bra and sit on the stool. Do any of you have any questions?" 

The students did not answer Lina's question. You, on the other hand, with slightly trembling hands, undressed from the waist up and sat on the stool. Your friend even gave you a pillow to make you more comfortable. 

"Great, push your breasts out a little more and..." Lina began to correct your positioning. "Perfect! Okay darlings, you can begin." 

The group of students got down to sketching. You swept your eyes around the room. Everyone was focused to make the best possible representation of your body. Lina walked among the students and glanced at their progress. 

Time passed quickly. The students worked in silence. None of them had spoken a word since they entered the room. They were focused on the task at hand. 

One of the men present in the room caught your attention. You had never seen such a handsome man before. He had noble features, his hair was slightly longer and black. He had an earring under his eyebrow, and a black leather jacket perfectly framed his body. 

You swallowed your saliva. The man looked like a prince, and there was plenty of finesse and elegance in his movements. You honestly couldn't take your eyes off him. There was something about him that attracted you to him, something magnetic that you could not describe in words. 

The man in question noticed your gaze. It was as if he sensed that you were looking at him. He raised his gaze slightly, looking deeply into your eyes, and gently raised his eyebrow. You felt a blush appear on your face and your throat suddenly became dry. A strange feeling welled up in your lower abdomen as he smiled slightly and winked at you. 

"All right my dears. Let's take a break for a while." Lina suddenly announced, breaking the silence that had prevailed. "Let's let Y/N stretch her legs.... Come back here in 15 minutes and we'll continue." 

The students put down their sketches and began to leave the room for the break, and Lina handed you a sweatshirt to cover yourself. She smiled warmly at you in the process. 

"Well? Not so bad, huh?" She asked. 

"It's fine... Although I was stressed." You replied and took a sip of water. "Your students aren't very talkative, are they?" 

"As artists are." 

"I thought there would be more students in the room." You said, sipping water again. 

"Nah, I have a small group. But they are the best of the best.... You could say it's such a VIP class." Lina laughed. "You know, it's an extra class for the more ambitious ones." 

"Oh, now I understand..." You nodded, and your thoughts fled to the mysterious boy with an earring under his eyebrow. 

"Would you like to take a peek at the sketches? The students really sketched your body very well..." Lina took one sketchbook in her hand, belonging to the boy you were looking at. "Oh look, Hyunjin did it the best. That boy can perfectly render every detail.... He's my top-of-the-class student." She smiled proudly. So the boy's name was Hyunjin. 

"Wow... This is amazing." You said, sincerely impressed by the way Hyunjin rendered all the details. He even sketched the delicate birthmark you had under your breast. 

"Right?" Lina asked. "If you ask Hyunjin nicely, he might give you his sketch..." She winked. "He has a real talent, and by the way he looks like Aphrodite herself conceived him. He could be a model, but there's a rule at the university that students can't pose, which is a shame..." She sighed quietly. "I myself sometimes wish I could see..." 

"Lina! This is your student..." reprimanded your friend. 

"I know, that's why I leave some things only in dreams." She laughed quietly. "Hungry? I'll get you something to eat." As she said, so she did, quickly leaving the room.

You sighed softly and your stomach growled. Not eating breakfast before leaving was a mistake. You glanced at your watch. The break was slowly coming to an end and your friend had not yet returned with the promised food. In turn, students slowly began to return to the room.

"Hungry?" You suddenly heard a voice behind you. You turned to look at the owner. In front of you stood Hyunjin, who was a head taller than you. He smiled slightly and handed you a banana. "Eat... you've got another 2.5 hours of sitting ahead of you."

“T-Thank you…” You said, taking the banana from him and peeling it right away.

"You welcome... I wanted to say that you have really beautiful breasts." He said, looking you straight in the eye. "I can't wait for the next few days to see the rest."

"Oh thank you?" You replied slightly confused and blushed slightly.

"Nothing." Hyunjin winked at you. 

"Okay, guys! We can get back to work!" Lina called as she entered the room. "Y/N, please sit down the same way you sat before. Perfect! Remember, there are 2.5 hours left until the end of time. At the end of the day, you should have at least five sketches."

Everyone went back to work. The banana Hyunjin gave you, calmed your stomach for a while. You sighed quietly, sitting half-naked on the stool. Honestly, you were counting down the minutes until the end. 

Every now and then you found yourself staring at Hyunjin, who was working intently on the sketches of your body. You couldn't take your eyes off him. He was too handsome to resist. You didn't even feel that time had passed quickly. 

Lina announced the end of class and let you get dressed. Students slowly began to file out of the room. You watched them leave, saying a quiet 'goodbye'. Your friend approached you after everyone else had left the room."You were great today." She grinned. 

"I'm taking you to dinner, come on! And mentally prepare for tomorrow. We'll show them a little more... Can you handle it?"

"Yes, I think I can... Although I don't know if I want to show them everything." You started.

"Well, tomorrow's plan is legs... you can have a thong, we'll move on to the private parts at the end of the week, and next week we'll have poses... Well, I think you should be able to handle everything easily." Lina continued.

“Mhm, if you say so…” You muttered. The prospect of showing your private parts to students didn't make you feel optimistic, but when you thought about Hyunjin, it didn't sound so bad either...

—-------------------

The week flew by very quickly. The students tried to accurately portray all the details of your body on paper. On Friday, the last day of the first week, there was a class on sketching 'private body parts', as Lina called it. And that meant you had to show your vagina. 

The thought of this did not fill you with any optimism at all. You didn't want to expose yourself so much in front of the students, but Lina forced it on you. To be fair, she did suggest that she would pay you more for the day, so with a slight hesitation you agreed. 

You sat in the room wrapped only in a silk dressing gown and waited for the class to start. Your friend went to talk to the dean, leaving you alone. You sighed quietly and stuck your gaze into your phone, trying to calm your thoughts. 

Hyunjin entered the room, but you were so busy with your social media that you didn't notice his presence. The boy walked over to his stand and unpacked all the necessary items before turning towards you. 

"Hi pretty." He said in a velvety voice, snapping you out of your activity. "What are you going to show us today?" He asked and winked slightly. 

"Ekhm... Private parts." You replied feeling a little intimidated, looking up at him. 

"And you're convinced about that?" He asked. "You look confused and scared." 

"Well, it's certainly quite a step out of my comfort zone.... But I can't back down now." You answered honestly. 

"I understand... If it's any comfort to you, I'll try to replicate everything very accurately." He smiled.

"Thanks I guess..." She grunted. "I've seen your work before. You have great talent," he said. 

"Thank you, beautiful." He smiled warmly at you. "But the credit goes to the model I sketch." He winked, and a blush appeared on your cheeks. "It suits you this colour, you know? I wish I could paint a picture of you. In a red see-through nightgown.... What do you think?" 

"A painting?" You blinked, not expecting such a proposal. "I don't know..." 

"I have to create a portfolio for the final exam.... I've already painted three paintings of my friends, but I still have one left. And you are beautiful. I'll pay." He replied, watching your reaction. 

"I have to think about it..." You replied, but didn't finish the sentence because he walked in on you in mid-word. 

"I understand." He replied and wrote something down on a piece of paper. " Here, this is my phone number, if you make a decision, just text me..." He handed you a small piece of paper with the number on it. "Just don't make me wait too long for an answer, lovely." 

"R-right." You replied and hid his number in a safe place. 

The rest of the students entered the room, along with your friend, who smiled broadly at you. She welcomed the students and gave them the guidelines for the assignment. 

"Well Y/N. Sit with your hands behind your back and push your chest forward a little too. And spread your legs..." She said to you and helped you adjust your position. "My dears, you may begin. "

Sitting apart in front of a group of people has not been one of the most comfortable activities in your life. However, you didn't pay much attention to it yourself. Your thoughts were consumed with Hyunjin's proposal. Should you accept it? He said he would pay, and so far there was no indication that you would find a job.... 

You decided to give it a chance and agree to his proposal. After all, it's just another day's work as a "model." You survived a whole week in front of students, you'll survive being alone with Hyunjin too. 

Before you knew it, the class was over and the students had left the room, and you were free to get dressed. Lina was still talking to individuals while you typed Hyunjin's number into your phone. You made up your mind and as soon as he left the room, you texted him. 

[Y/N]

Ok. I agree.... When do you want to do it? ~ Y/N

[Hyunjin] 

Wonderful news sweetheart! Let's meet tomorrow evening at my place. Remember, red nightgown 😘

 He wrote back almost immediately. You swallowed your saliva. What are you actually doing? 

—-------------------

The next day you went to the address Hyunjin sent you in a text message. You were stressed. You didn't know what it should look like or how long it would take. Your body trembled and your mind wandered into dangerous territory. You felt both apprehension and excitement about the whole situation. 

You stood in front of the door of his apartment. You took a few deep breaths and knocked gently. You waited, listening for the sound of footsteps. After a while, the young man opened the door for you and let you in with a smile. 

"I'm glad you agreed." He said, taking over your coat from you. "Make yourself comfortable... Would you like something to drink before we start? Coffee? Tea? Water? Maybe wine?" 

"Water is enough... Although I won't actually despise wine either." You replied and timidly entered his living room. 

The room was large, definitely bigger than your friend's entire apartment. Not surprising, after all, Hyunjin lived in one of the more expensive neighbourhoods in your city. The white leather furniture, laced with gold accessories, perfectly matched the aura that this man was producing. Everything seemed truly royal. 

"Wow." You gasped in awe. 

"Do you like it? My parents made sure I was comfortable in the city.... Would you like a tour of the apartment?" He asked, handing you a glass of red wine. 

"I'd love to... If I can, of course." You accepted the drink from him and took a sip. 

The boy showed you his entire apartment. He had three bedrooms, but he had transformed one into a studio, and the other was used as a dressing room. 

"Okay, ready for us to start?" He asked as you walked through the apartment.

"I think so." You replied hesitantly.

"Great!" He smiled broadly. "Come on, I'll paint you in the studio... I'll get everything ready and you can go and change in the bathroom. Leave when you're ready. It'll take me a while to paint though... It'll take all weekend, actually. But like I said, I'll pay. $1000 is enough?"

"H-how much?" You were stunned when you heard the amount he gave.

“If it's not enough, just tell me…” He replied, watching you.

"Not enough? I didn't expect it to be so much..." You started. "It's too much…"

"Hmm... I don't think so." He shrugged. "We'll talk about it later... You can go change in the bathroom now and I'll set everything ready here." He said, unimpressed.

“Sure…” You replied and headed to the bathroom.  $1000 to pose? You were shocked. How much money does this young man actually have? 

After a few minutes you were ready. You looked at your reflection in the mirror. You were wearing a slightly see-through red nightgown that hugged your body perfectly and highlighted all your curves. You decided to leave your hair down, but you put a small decoration in it. You fixed your delicate makeup and went out to Hyunjin.

"Wow, you look amazing." He said as soon as he noticed you. "Like I said, this colour suits you very well."

"Thank you." You replied, slightly embarrassed.

"Okay, you can lie down." He pointed to a small sofa in the center of the room. "I would like you to lie down comfortably, and if you want to sleep, just close your eyes. The only thing that matters is that you stay in the position I put you in."

“Sure, I can do it…” You replied and followed his directions. You settled into a comfortable position on the sofa and Hyunjin stood over you. He leaned down gently and positioned your body. His touch was pleasant. You felt the nice warmth radiating from his body.

"Perfect." He said and smiled contentedly. "Okay, let's get started. If you want a break then say so." 

Hyunjin began to paint. You lay there without moving, watching his every move. You began to wonder how it was that your life had brought you to the point where you were. 

Hyunjin painted in concentration, and there was silence between the two of you. You didn't seem to mind. You felt your eyelids become heavy and you didn't even know when you fell asleep. 

You woke up after some time and stretched slightly. It was already twilight outside. You looked around the room you were in. Hyunjin was nowhere to be found. You stood up and stretched your stagnant body again. You were curious to see how Hyunjin's progress was going, but before you could get closer to the painting, the door of the room opened. 

"Oh, you're awake already." Hyunjin smiled slightly. "Hungry? Come, I've prepared dinner." 

Only when the boy mentioned food did you feel that you were actually hungry. You followed him into the kitchen, where delicious smells were coming from. 

"You are handsome, you paint and you cook. Is there anything you can't do?" You asked, sitting down at the table. Hyunjin glanced at you laughing. 

"Thank you for the compliment, beautiful." He winked, at which you blushed. He served you dinner and you began to eat. 

"Enough with the painting for today, it's late." Hyunjin said. "If you want, you can stay the night.... We'll start again first thing tomorrow morning anyway." 

"I don't want to get..." You started. 

"But that's not up for discussion." He interrupted you in mid-sentence. "It's late, I don't want you to go home when it's dark outside.... I'll prepare a bed for you." 

"Hyunjin, but really..." You started again but his one look left you unsure what to say next. "Okay. I'll stay the night." 

"Great." He smiled at you. "Come on, I'll give you something to sleep on..." 

" You know, after all, I can sleep in what I'm wearing." You replied while watching him. 

"Believe me, if you stay in this red nightgown, I won't hold back."  He replied with full seriousness. 

"Oh..." You made a sound. " All right..." 

You followed him to his dressing room, which occupied the other room. Hyunjin walked over to a cabinet and pulled out an oversized hoodie and handed it to you. "It should fit." He smiled slightly. 

"Thank you." You replied with a slight smile. "I'll take a shower." 

Hyunjin nodded and you parted the rooms. You went to the bathroom to take a quick shower, and a pleasant feeling once again settled in your lower abdomen. Hyunjin, on the other hand, was in the bedroom preparing a place for you to sleep. 

After some time, you came out of the bathroom in his hoodie. You could smell his perfume lingering on his clothes. You smiled slightly, to yourself. His scent was so soothing. 

"Do you like the smell?" You suddenly heard his voice behind you, at which you jumped slightly. 

"Y-yes." You stuttered, at which the boy smiled. 

"I have to say, no matter what you're wearing, you're every bit as beautiful." He said, walking closer to you. "I like you Y/N." 

"Thank you, I guess..." You took a gentle step back unsure of where this conversation was leading. 

"When I say I like you, I really mean it." Hyunjin leaned slightly over you and brushed lightly against your waist. You swallowed your saliva as you looked straight into his eyes, your back resting against the wall. Hyunjin was leaning with his hand right next to your head and his body was leaning against yours. You bit your lip slightly and gently moved your legs, feeling yourself slowly getting wet. The situation you found yourself in was definitely not on your bingo card. 

"Hyunjin, we don't..." You began, trying to keep up any semblance of a smile yet. However, his closeness and magnetic scent were too tempting to resist. 

"Shhhsh." The boy moved his thumb over your swollen lips. "You don't even realise how sexy you look right now." He whispered in your ear while biting your earlobe, which was met with a quiet sigh that left your lips. You felt his gentle smile as he moved closer to your neck and gently moved his velvety lips across it. "You like it." He stated, observing your reaction to his touch. "I wonder if you'll like this too." He added and moved his hands a little lower, slipping them under the hoodie. 

"Hyunjin, it's not..." You started, but feeling his long fingers glide across your skin, leaving goosebumps on it, you were unable to control your senses. Hyunjin's lips attacked your neck more boldly, and you tilted your head further back so he could have better access. 

Hyunjin glided his lips along your neck looking for weak spots, and once he found them, he immediately started leaving red hickeys in those spots, which was met with your moans of approval. 

You rested your hands on his torso, and the young man delicately lifted you up, grabbing your buttocks. You put your legs around his waist as his lips found their way right to yours. 

"I want you." He whispered, brushing his lips lightly against yours. "And I know you want me too. Say it." 

"Please." You said quietly. 

"You're asking? For what?" He asked backing away slightly which was met with your disapproval. 

"Kiss me, please." You moaned pleadingly. Hyunjin smiled at you and pressed his lips into yours. His kiss was firm and forceful, but that's what you liked best. You moaned blissfully into his mouth as he grabbed your buttocks tighter. Hyunjin took this as a sign of approval and carried you to his bedroom. 

Hyunjin put you on the bed immediately, finding himself above you. His knee came between your legs pressing lightly on your spot. He leaned over a little more and cupped your hoodie with his hands. 

"You are phenomenal." He said, watching you. His hands moved over every bare patch of your body, exploring every inch of it. Following his hands, Hyunjin placed you on the bed immediately finding himself over you. His knee came between your legs pressing lightly on your spot. He leaned over a little more and cupped your hoodie with his hands. His hands moved over every bare patch of your body, exploring every inch of it. His hands were followed by his lips, which also explored your body. He left wet footprints in his path, interspersed with huge hickeys. 

You moaned blissfully when his lips found their way to your lower abdomen. You felt his smile against your skin. Hyunjin gently spread your legs and moved his hand over your core. Your reaction encouraged him to continue. 

He bit lightly on the inside of your thighs, which was met with your slight jump. His strong hands, however, held your body as his mouth took up your pussy, embracing it completely. 

You moaned loudly and slid your hand into his hair. You pulled his hair gently as his tongue penetrated your insides, melting with pleasure. 

Hyunjin drove you to pleasure, and your body arched in an accompaniment of moans. The young man licked and returned his lips to your mouth, kissing you. You immediately responded to his kiss, hungry for his velvety lips. 

Your hands moved over his body. You wanted to get rid of his clothes as quickly as possible. Hyunjin laughed quietly. 

"So eager, huh? Patience darling, be good and you'll get what you deserve." He said amused and helped you undress himself. Once he was standing naked, you moved your hands over his penis, which was already ready for use. "I don't have condoms..." The boy began. 

" Doesn't matter, I want to feel you, now, right now, please!" You moaned needily. 

"I like the way you are asking." He snarled quietly and slid his full length into you. 

"Oh yes!" You whined loudly and moved your hands down his back as he began to move. 

His movements became faster and less precise. He went deep, perfectly attacking your g-spot. Your and his moans filled the entire room.

"Hyunjin! I…" You started digging your nails into his soft skin.

"Come on baby, cum for me." He groaned loudly. "Fuck!"

"I'm cumming!" You moaned loudly, clenching around him. 

A few seconds later, you felt warmth spreading through your insides. Hyunjin collapsed on top of you after a moment, his head resting between your full breasts. You were both breathing heavily.

“You are my muse." He murmured after a while. "Be my muse forever?"

"With pure pleasure." You replied quietly, gently stroking his back, making him smile.

"You know what? You are the FINE art." He said. "My muse."

And After an eventful night, you both fell asleep cuddling together.

-> Masterlist

[rozcdust]

The little princess

Pairing: Haitani brothers x younger sister reader

Genre: Fluff, crack

Word count: 2.3k

Warnings: Canon divergent, ooc, profanity, Shion is a fucking moron, teaching kids swearing, if you’re one of those people who thinks platonic affection between siblings is weird please go away

pt. 1

Shion was only a tad bit salty that he was the only Tenjiku member to never be allowed to be left alone with you - with the exception of Hanma and Kisaki, Ran banned that in a heartbeat.

It’s not like you’d spontaneously combust and die on the spot under his watch, and come to think of it, he wasn’t even allowed to pick you up or throw you in the air as Mochi and Mucho did, Izana banned him from that personally, under the guise of, and, this is, in fact, the direct quote from the King himself:

“Madarame, you were born next to a nuclear power plant, got an IQ of 2 and got hit in the head with several rocks as a child. How do you expect us not to think you’ll kill y/n purely on accident?”

As if it was his fault the doctor dropped on the head upon birth.

At least you seemed fascinated by his tattoos, so he had that going on.

He huffed, not even noticing that Rindou, who was probably babysitting Shion more than he was babysitting you, excused himself to the bathroom, figuring leaving you alone with Shion for 3 minutes, tops, won’t hurt anyone if Ran and Izana don’t find out.

Oh, how wrong he was.

“Mr. Shion, why do you look mad?” You toddled up next to him, looking up in curiosity.

“Your brothers never wanna leave you with me alone. Or let me do your hair, even if Hanma is allowed to do your hair, and Ran hates him.” He absentmindedly booped your nose, sighing.

“Oh. Why?”

“Well, Ran just has a bad feeling about Hanma, apparently-“

“No, Mr. Shion, why don’t brothers let you watch me?”

Shion huffed, annoyed, pulling on the edge of your coat to straighten it out.

He personally thought he’d make a great older brother.

“They probably think I’d accidentally kill you. Or teach you a bad word.”

“Bad word? What is that?”

“Words kids under 10 can’t say.”

“Why?”

“They’re bad words.”

“Like what?”

“Fuck, bitch, cunt, probably?”

You tilted your head in utter confusion, causing the bow Kakucho fixed to your hair earlier to slip.

“Fuck? What does that mean?”

Shion knew, at that moment, that he fucked up.

“Don’t say that word!” Panicked, he glanced around, sighing in relief when no one else was around to hear you speak profanity.

“Fuck? Why?”

“No- Kiddo, you just can’t, wait until you’re older.”

“Is fuck like tattoos? Rinnie said I can’t get those until I’m older as well!”

“Please stop saying that word-“

You suddenly perked up, looking behind Shion with a grin.

“Ran!” Giggling, you sprinted past Shion to attach yourself to Ran’s leg, nuzzling your face into his thigh.

“Hi princess.” Ran gently fixed the bow on your head, offering you a small pat on the back.

Shion gulped, a sheepish smile on his face as he turned around to look at the eldest Haitani.

“Hi. Ran.”

Ran stood behind him with murder in his eyes and baton ready.

“Madarame.”

“You goin’ for a nap?” A small voice asked, the child’s head barely reaching the edge of his bed.

Ran smiled, turning to peer over the edge and into the face of the small girl, looking up at him with bright eyes.

Rindou took charge of her hair and clothes this morning, which meant she was wearing a frog onesie that was absolutely too big for her, almost swallowing her tiny frame, and sporting the single hairstyle Rindou ever really picked up, one that included two tiny braids on each side and an ungodly amount of butterfly clips.

Come to think of it, the hairstyle made her look a little like Ran when he was younger, and at this point, he had to wonder if Rindou did that on purpose.

“Yes, princess. Wanna nap too?”

Nodding fiercely, his younger sister gave a valiant attempt with trying to get up the bed on her own, but after a few failed tries where Ran merely looked on in amusement, she gave up, pouting and raising her hands towards him in a worldwide recognised motion for ‘Up!’

Slipping his hands underneath her armpits, he hoisted her up, much to her delight.

The one problem was, he continued holding her up, arm’s length away, grinning as she wrinkled her nose, pouting again, crossing her arms.

“Put me down?”

“No. You’re adorable when you get pouty.”

“Ran!”

He finally seated her on his lap, cooing as he kissed the top of her head. Carefully so as to not tug on her hair, he started removing the butterfly clips, setting them on his nightside table, to ensure they don’t break or tangle her hair during their nap.

“You’ll be a big girl soon, and big brother won’t be able to pick you up at all! So I wanna while I can.” Smiling softly, he pinched her cheek, softly ticking her neck in the process, making her squirm as she giggled, tryna push his hands away.

“That can’t be, Ran and Rinnie will always be able to pick me up.” Decisively nodding, she grinned up at him, “You’re both so tall and strong! I’m sure you’ll be able to pick me up in 10 years when you’re old and grey too!”

Tilting his head, Ran chuckled in amusement, finally removing the last clip before getting to unbraiding her braids.

“Baby, how old do you think Rindou and I are? We won’t be old nor grey in 10 years.”

“Oh,” Frowning in a way eerily similar to Rindou, the girl shook her head, “No, you’ll definitely be grey. You say I give you grey hairs whenever I wander off somewhere!”

“You know what, fair point.”

Finally finished with her hair, he ruffled it softly, giving her a peck on the forehead when she turned around to face him.

“We can sleep now?” Excitedly, she attempted to wrap her arms around his waist, but they proved to be too short for the task, much to her disappointment.

“Yes, princess, we can.” Finally laying down, y/n curled up on his chest, almost like a cat, warranting another chuckle out of the older man as he adjusted his arms to hold her, ensure she won’t fall.

Both of them were out like a light in mere seconds, not noticing Rindou calling out Ran’s name as he entered the room in search of his phone charger.

Quickly shutting up when he saw the sight, he chuckled, leaving to retrieve his polaroid camera, coming back to snap a quick shot of the two.

A soft smile made its way on his face as he watched it develop, showcasing Ran, more serene than he ever was awake, and y/n, her mouth slightly opened and hair tousled, her entire body gently moving up and down with each rise and fall of Ran’s chest, looking content and safe in her elder brother’s arms.

Leaving his glasses, the camera and the developed polaroid on Ran’s desk, Rindou cautiously crawled in under the covers, hoping to not disturb the two.

Ran, still asleep, extended his arm so it went over the side of the bed, opening a space for Rindou to settle in.

Rindou nestled up against Ran’s side, curling within himself as Ran unconsciously turned to his side, throwing an arm over both of his siblings as y/n slipped from his chest into the space between her brothers.

Rindou closed his eyes, relaxing his muscles, revelling in the comforting sound of Ran’s heartbeat and y/n’s even, steady breathing.

No matter what happens, his siblings will always feel like home.

“These look pretty.” Kokonoi commented, his fingers softly passing over the petals of a large bouquet displayed in the store.

Kakucho was merely a few feet away, curiously looking at ornaments.

“No, those aren’t the right flowers.” The small girl shook her head, nervously tapping her foot against the marble floor of the flower shop as she waits for a worker to come around, her hand extended to hold Kokonoi’s pinkie.

A worker finally appears, a smiling man with a pink apron and a neat ponytail.

He looks at Koko when he asks how may he help him, but you respond instead, politely saying ‘Excuse me?’ to draw his attention towards you.

“Hi, sweetie.” Smiling, the florist crouches down, clearly attempting hard to not coo at the small child sporting such a serious expression.

Kokonoi could understand, Ran has really outdone himself this morning when he dressed you up, braiding your hair into an intricate pattern resembling a halo, a purple heart-shaped clip, matching the colour of your frilly dress, holding back the few loose strands trying to escape.

You were cute enough to even coax out a smile from Mikey when he saw you this morning, politely asking him if he wanted some of your dorayaki.

“I’ll need two bouquets, please! One with purple orchids, and one with bluebells! Could you add a ‘Happy Father’s day’ card on both too, sir, pretty please?” Reciting as Kakucho and Kokonoi practised with you this morning, you looked up at Koko for approval.

He smiled, nodding.

“Why, aren’t you adorable? Are they for your daddies?” The florist got to work right away, grabbing flowers and snipping various ribbons as he started putting together the bouquets.

“No, my brothers!” Beaming, the girl was bouncing on the balls of her feet, excited whenever the worker asked her opinion about the colour of ribbons and glitter.

When you shyly asked Kokonoi a month ago, after he picked you up from school, if there were any chores for you to do so you could earn a little money, he was confused, after all, Ran and Rindou bought you everything you as much as laid your eyes on without a question, what could you possibly want that they didn’t want to buy you?

You shook your head, explaining that Father’s day is approaching, and when you said you wanted to surprise your brothers with bouquets, it took all of his self-restraint to not pull his wallet out of his pocket and empty out its content into your hands immediately, the idea so utterly adorable he agreed in a heartbeat.

He tried offering you to just give you the money, but you refused, polite as ever, shaking your small head and explaining how it had to be earned, after all, your brothers worked so hard and took such good care of you that it would be unfair to just accept a charity.

He agreed, and if the other Kanto Manji Gang executives saw you around with a tiny broom Kokonoi bought specifically for you (he feared the average sized one would fall on you and crush you), they didn’t question it, more often than not cooing when you refused any help instead.

Kokonoi offered you to name your price, and the comically small amount you chose was nowhere enough to actually pay for a bouquet, let alone two, but that wasn’t an issue, he’d shoulder the rest of the cost with no regrets.

The florist finished both bouquets after about ten minutes, and Kokonoi assumed you’d be bored by then, but you stood and waited, your impatience only showing by the way you started tugging on his coat, silently asking to be picked up.

Kakucho appeared just in time to pick you up instead, your small arm dutifully wrapping around his neck as he adjusted to support your weight and so you could still look at the florist, Kokonoi paid with the money you gave him earlier, and he allowed you to hold one of the bouquets, even if the comically large flower arrangement made it so you disappeared behind the vivid, soft flowers.

He picked up the other, and bidding the florist goodbye, they were on their way.

Kokonoi and Kakucho both secretly couldn’t wait for Ran’s and Rindou’s reactions.

“Hey, thanks for watching her, she really wanted to go with you two for some reason today-“ Ran opened the doors, looking as if he has just woken up, raising an eyebrow as he observed the two men standing in front of it, a lack of his younger sister obvious.

Ah, there you were, hiding behind Kakucho’s coat, small giggles escaping you as Koko and Kakucho both shielded you from Ran’s keen gaze.

“You should call Rindou.” Smiling softly, Kakucho took a step inside right after Kokonoi, closing the doors.

Still sceptical, Ran obliged, leaving briefly to drag his brother out of his room.

“What is it?” Impatiently, Rindou tapped his foot, his headphones halfway down his ears.

“Surprise.” Softly exclaiming in unison, Kakucho and Kokonoi parted, revealing you holding the two bouquets.

The bouquets were bigger than you, but you still insisted on being the one to hold them.

“Happy Father’s day!” Beaming, you took a clumsy step towards your brothers, holding out each of their respective bouquet towards them, “Thank you for taking care of me, and cuddling me when I have nightmares, and for never getting angry with me when I break something!”

Ran and Rindou kneeled down to be on eye level with you in sync, each of them taking the bouquet off your hands

“Thank you, sweetie.” Ran pulls you towards him to pepper kissed on your face, grinning wide with a soft expression.

“I bought orchids for you because your name means orchid! And Rinnie’s name means bluebell, so he got bluebells!”

Rindou does the same as soon as Ran lets you go, holding you in a firm hug.

“Thank you, princess.” Whispering, Rindou buries his face into your shoulder, the tiny space not doing much to actually hide it.

Ran’s soft smile turns into a shit-eating grin.

“Aw, Rin, you crying?”

“ShUT THE FUCK UP!”

You beamed.

“Fuck!”

“Y/N NO-“

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[rune-rambles-art]

Okay I have to yell about Koleda Belobog Zenless Zone Zero because I feel like I love her in a very specific way that I haven’t seen a lot of people talk about. More under the cut because I have,,, so many thoughts.

Koleda is such a good portrayal of someone who struggles with their perception as an adult. A pretty easy conclusion to make with the first thing she usually says on the character select screen being “Hey, don’t look down on me!”, but it definitely goes a lot deeper the more you spend time with her. Specifically, she seems to struggle in her perception of herself as someone much more mature than her younger peers, but still not on the same level as the adults in similar positions of power as her. I kinda. Hate zenless for not explicitly stating how old she is, but given she rose to her position at Belobog “when she came of age” (which honestly, I still can’t give a concrete answer to what hoyo means by this? Some searches I found claimed the working age to be 16 in China, I’ve seen others online claim 18 but that’s not reliable. Hoyo I'm begging you put official ages on your characters it's a cool and based practice), she waited for a significant amount of time before taking up her role as president. She is an adult from what the game implies, and a core part of her character is fighting against the constant infantilization she faces due to how she looks.

Let’s start with her love of desserts (and a honestly this is the reason I started writing this). It’s her most highlighted character trait (it is also the first known attribute in her trust rank profile when you unlock her), and most of her trust events on 6th street revolves around them. Initially, she hesitates in proclaiming her love for them, likely to avoid being perceived as childish.

Her rank 4 trust special event is, admittedly, my favorite, but it’s one of the best breakdowns of this.

In order to maintain her image as a mature adult, she uses her position as company president to get around having to request a special dessert drink by name (in her defense, "Sweet Girl Fluffy Marshmallow Lambkin Milk" is an insane mouthful of a product name). At the end of the event she admits that saying its name “wasn’t as bad as she thought”, but her initial kneejerk reaction was a complete rejection of even entertaining the idea of doing something that could put the image she worked so hard to create and maintain at risk. Despite this, she still refuses desserts that aren't tooth-rottingly sweet, even if they are seen as the more mature or "refined" option. It's only around people that she really trusts does she allow this part of herself to be known, because she knows they wouldn't misconstrue this behavior as childish.

I also think her perception on the differences between kids and adults is interesting ("thank you agent story quest" we all say in unison). She doesn't ever feel like she fits in with other kids, probably due to all the responsibility she had to take on as the eventual heir to her father's company. But she also holds a vocal distain for many of her adult peers. Her declaration of "When I was younger, I thought the whole world was rotten, trying to make people just as rotten when they grow up." is a reflection of how she struggled to find her place in the world as she was forced to suddenly transition into adulthood, while still trying to understand the actions of the adults around her.

Her relationship with her father becoming strained contributed significantly to her world outlook as well, and may have caused such a specific distinction of what she deems "the world of adults". I don't want to dive too specifically into that because spoilers and the game is only a few weeks old so. Pin that for another time maybe? It definitely matters in the sense that the loss of her father is the catalyst for the loss of her childhood, but a lot of the specifics in how that affected her are speculative (and I don't wanna get too headcanon-y in this particular post) and she explicitly chooses not to discuss it too in-depth with the proxy (which, girl. Valid). But she's slowly learning to cope with that loss, at least it seems that way by the end of chapter 3. Honestly I could probably find more to add about the agent story in particular, but I would have to replay it to get a better idea.

To me, Koleda Belobog is very solid representation for women who had to grow up too fast, struggle with the perception of being seen as an adult, and hold guilt about indulging in acts that can be perceived as childish by their peers because they never fully got the chance to just be a kid. It truly did resonate with me, and it feels like such a specific "if you know, you know" kind of experience that I don't feel is talked about as much in media, especially with people who identify as female during their youth.

Also, also! I hope they dive in a bit more on how she got/has so much hollow corruption at a young age. Because they imply that she is so short as a result of this hollow corruption. Like that's so damn interesting conceptually and I know they delved on it more in Rina's agent story but. It was more of a mental affliction than a physical one.

Anyway I've been working on this for like 2 days now but that's all I have in terms of like. A canon-compliant character analysis.

TLDR; Koleda is such a perfect example of "God forbid short women exist" and I love her for that. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

[shkika]

Hi! I have a question regarding how close pebbles is to moon! I just finished reading pebbles pearl reading dialogue and in all his dialogue he just refers to moon as his neighbor. And he refers to suns as a close friend so do you think that canon pebbles doesnt feel close with moon while moon feels close with pebbles?

Oh no... do you know how much I love Pebbles and Moon's relationship. How well it's written, how every event makes sense and how much I love them?? Anon... you're sending me into a spiral..

Short answer to your question is yes! Moon thought of Pebbles as closer than he considered her in my opinion.

Incomprehensible ramble incoming! Since I NEED this information for my Moonie blog, I've researched this quite a bit, but I'm scatter brained so I'm sorry if it's hard to read.

We actually know this as a fact even merely from NSH talking about their relationship from him perspective!

Actually Sig and Suns are PERFECT candidates to peer into what Moon and Pebs were like! As they were their close friends from different sides of the coin!

Look at this for example.

Pebbles has always been distant. Moon tried to be a big sister to him and Sigs felt like she was never truly appreciated for it proper.

Suns acknowledges this and gives the reasoning that Pebbles sought independence. He didn't want to be told things. Which combined with Moon's seeing him as a younger sibling, it probably led to him being coddled too much.

Which.. no doubt probably annoyed him!

And how could he NOT seek independence on the other hand! He might sneer to Artificer about the protests concerning his creation, but they NO DOUBT left an impact on him! That's my opinion at least.

Not only was his very existence protested against from both the Shaded Citadel people, but ALSO from the very city that built him to MOVE there!!

WE KNOW that not everyone even MOVED!!!

(Ashy green pearl quote- Pebbles)

They did not want a new iterator!! They wanted Moon. No doubt he was compared to Moon as well. He didn't even get the luxury to have his own grounds of sorts. He and Moon are the only example we and hell maybe even they know of iterators being built so close together.

Which is especially sad when we put into perspective that Moon doesn't even like her citizens or have strong fondness for their art and culture. Unlike he very much does!

His last comfort was a pearl containing their hymn. He shares how he viewed the relationship he had with them as mutually beneficial (Very funny when she compares them to parasites.)

Moon is the one with seething hatred for them, not him which is just... so good. It only deepens as the game goes on by the way. Moon you are such a good character.

Back on track though.

What this entire situation reads to me as. Moon wanted to help and be there in any way she can for her little brother. She had responsibility over him. Pebbles was literally the only iterator out of them with another iterator administrator and it was her. She wanted for him to view her as family not as a boss or direct example.

But they were still attached and compared to one another. And although she tried her best, you can see how being treated as the lesser of the two, led to him wanting to be more distant.

Instead he grew very attached to Suns! Who seems like the opposite of Moon in all ways honestly. EXTREMELY BAD with their words, nihilistic prick!!!

It just makes sense. It's sad. I wouldn't blame anyone for the fact they grew a little distant.

I also don't in any way think Pebbles didn't at all like her or didn't care for her or all of that. His feelings were just complicated. I still think they loved each other.

[kiraisrika]

Update for y'all that hungry for Harold kills the killer AU

Helped by my beloved beautiful friend @adriviyaa I made the dialog and she helped me with the paragraphs.

Original AU is by @eavee-ry my AU is just an AU of an AU

Invitation from an old friend.

The silence is interrupted by a knock. The one who opens it is the one he'd come to recognize as Duncan's mother.

"Yes! Wait a minute," a voice answered from inside the house. The door opens with a creak. And her eyes widened in surprise, one that quickly melts into a smile.

"Oh! Mr. Mcgrady!" She said, her tone infused with the smile that can be seen on her face.

He smiled politely back.

"No need for formality ma'am, afterall, I am younger than you." He paused, before asking, "is Duncan home?"

She nods. "Ah.. yes he's inside,"

He gestures vaguely. "Can I have a chance to meet him?" He ask with a polite tone, although one of inquiry.

"Of course!" She brightens considerably. "He.. hasn't been himself lately you know, since the incident...." She trails off, her face sobering into a melancholic one.

He nods. A gesture to show he understand that much. "I see," he starts. "Well i wanted to make sure he's doing okay now," he says.

"So nice of you Harold," She opens the door and gestures for him to go inside. He does so with a practiced movement of being a guest in somebody's home. "He doesn't want to talk to anybody," She confesses with a sigh.

"That is a natural response to trauma," His sentence might not sound like it's one for comfort, but his tone definitely is. "Even I don't want to talk with any of my peers earlier. But luckily, I can pick myself up now." He explains, looking around the neat house.

"I hope you can convince him to do better..." She trails off, showing him the stairs to Duncan's room. He understood as much, he supposes.

"I will, don't worry," Harold assures, and ascend the stairs.

The door to Duncan's room shouldn't be that imposing, but really, maybe it's just the thoughts swirling around his head in that way.

The door creaks open, and Harold could see Duncan lying across the sofa, half of him sprawled on the floor.

His eyes are covered by his forearm, but the creak of the door got him opening his eyes.

His lips pursed.

"What do you want, nerd?" He scoffed half heartedly, moving to sit properly.

"Woah," he held up his palm. "The first thing you throw at me are insults?" There is a genuine grin on his face, one that unpromptedly made its way on it.

"That is so... you, I'm glad you haven't changed much," harold smiles. Duncan sits up with an aggression that he would've thought impossible.

"FUCK OFF! I don't need your pity," he shouted. And couldn't help but think of someone feeling cornered lashing out at anything that could go around itself.

"Pity? Now where did you get that from?" He raises an eyebrow in inquiry.

"I know your kind," Duncan's eyes trail down to the floor, but there's fury dancing in his eyes.

"Just because you got famous you go around parading yourself like you're better than anyone!"

Harold sighs, not wanting to push the argument uselessly.

"Assume what you want," he relents.

Silence hangs uneasily in the air. Harold swallows, hard. He starts, "Your mother."

Duncan's eyes snap up to meet his. "She's fond of the ocean, right?" He asks.

"Wh- yeah. She likes to go to beaches, how do that-?" His question got cut off by an awfully out of place cheerful tone from Harold, who is currently making space for himself on the floor, almost too easily.

"Do you know that murder on the international sea doesn't count as murder?" He says cheerfully.

Duncan's face scrunched up in confusion involuntarily. "Wh-?"

Harold laughs it off, like he just said an out of topic fun fact. Which he might be, but the fact doesn't seem fun at all.

"Haha, I'm being off topic. How are you?"

Perhaps it was the whiplash from moments before. But Duncan's truth slips out before he could process what was asked of him.

"Not fine, obviously." He seizes up when it caught up to him what he had said.

But Harold didn't look surprised, or concerned for all that matters. It looks to him that it's barely news, like saying the sky is blue.

"Of course," he offers easily. "Are you still in touch with Courtney?" He asks.

"...yes," there is apprehension in his lungs, but he ignores it like he always does.

"Thats good, that's good." nods, and while there is a sense that he might be planning something, Duncan finds himself... not minding.

"Spit it out," he says finally, because he wouldn't confess to anything if not prompted. "Why did you visit me, four eyes?"

"As observant as ever," the smile is far too sharp, too cold. "Duncan, do you remember our dear host?"

His throat constrict, and anger is easier than everything else that comes with the memory.

He shouts.

"WHAT DID HE HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING?"

Harold shrugs.

"He didn't go to prison. As you know," he just says, and that answers nothing at all.

"That fucker," he mumbles underneath his breath.

"I know you hate," Harold stops. "No, loathed him," he corrects himself.

"What do you expect?" His eyes meet a sharp glint of the glasses he wore, instead of the eyes. Somehow, that's ominous. "He left us on that fucking island and he makes you..." He trails off.

"Murderer of the killer. Yeah, I know." Harold nods.

"They should've kept that fucker locked for the rest of his life." He grit his teeth, and clench his palm. Harold opens it, indent left on the skin where his nails dug into.

It could've drawn blood.

He didn't feel much of that, though.

"Prison would only be a breeze for him. Prison is not enough, no. We have to torture him the way he torture us," Harold offers, and continuing the talk feels like making a deal with the devil.

That too, hadn't mean much when everything else had been taken into account.

"What are you trying to say, nerd?" It's a need for verbal confirmation, really. Because Duncan knows what went through Harold mind with the way his eyes sharpen.

He knows him well, he thinks.

"Let's hunt down the host, Duncan." Harold smile is too sharp, wrong. But Duncan had come to know that wrong, sometimes is _right_.

How does the saying goes?

The hunter has become the prey.

[catsafarithewriter]

Day 1: Red Thread of Fate

A/N: Hello, and welcome to day 1 of the 2024 TCR Birthday Bash! Today's prompt is "red thread of fate" and I decided to go down a fairytale-esque vibe.

However this is the one that got away from me, and once I hit 4K I realised I needed to split this up, for my own sanity. So other half of this story (muse willing!) will be on Day 5: Bodyguard.

Enjoy!

x

Baron is quite accustomed to his appearance making a stir – after all, he does have the face of a ginger tabby cat – but as he ignores the whispers of the court around him, he can't help think a household with a cursed heir should really know better.

The servants eye him from the corner of their gaze, bodies angled carefully to their duties, but their attention drawn invariably to him. The ladies murmur behind their fans and the men make no attempt to hide their mouthed comments passed on smirking lips, and the lord of the estate makes the least effort of all to obscure his gaze. Baron can feel himself being measured – from the feline features, to the tired but well-made suit, to the stone crow carved atop his cane – and found wanting.

Still, Baron didn't come to win approval. He glances briefly to the younger woman at the lord's side. Her eyes meet his, carrying all the curiosity of her neighbours, but neutral in every other respect – unlike the guard standing at her elbow. He scowls as Baron approached, but it feels strangely impersonal. Baron suspects he'd receive the same glower if he'd arrived human and dressed in gemstones.

Baron bows, and the whispers shift. He is sure he hears a fan-muffled, "Well, at least he knows his manners."

"My lord," Baron addresses, in a voice that had once been taught to command a room's attention, "I am Baron Humbert von Gikkingen, and I have come in hopes of breaking the curse on your daughter." He nods respectfully to the woman on the lord's left. "Lady Haru, I presume."

She inclines her head to him, a diplomatic smile offered in return.

A bespectacled man at the lord's shoulder coughs. He looks to be a scholar but, given his placement on the dais, Baron suspects he is instead an advisor. "If I may be so bold," the man begins, with the tone indicating this is a polite sentence starter and not actually asking for permission, "but if you have come hoping to break two curses with true love's kiss, then you will be sorely disappointed."

Baron smiles. "Then it is just as well I came with no thoughts of my own curse, and have not in the half-dozen years since it became permanent." He does not add - as fitting as it may be - that if Lady Haru's curse is also time-sensitive, then she has likely missed her deadline as well, judging her age to be akin to his. "Since then, I have devoted myself to travelling and helping those I meet – which is precisely what brought me to your home today."

"And how exactly do you propose to break Lady Haru's curse if you were unable to break your own?" the advisor asks. He peers doubtfully over his spectacles at Baron. "Are you a wizard?"

"I possess a touch of magic, self-taught through books, but I rely primarily on the knowledge, rather than the magic, of my extensive library."

"And where is this library, pray tell?"

"At hand," Baron says, and plucks a book out of thin air. In his library, it belongs on the fourth bookshelf along the west wall, three shelves up, five across. He tosses it to the advisor, who catches it clumsily with sleeve-obscured hands.

"A Gentleman's Guide to Courtly Manners?" the advisor reads.

"Keep it. Consider it a gift of goodwill, if by chance your library doesn't already possess a copy."

He is sure he sees Lady Haru smirk, if only for a heartbeat.

"Onto the matter at hand," Baron says, before anyone else can discern the veiled insult in his donation, "while I have heard many speak of the curse laid upon the Yoshioka line, few seem to know its exact nature."

"Remove your gloves," the lord commands, "and then we shall speak."

Baron doesn't respond immediately. He glances subtly across the court, to see if this is some sort of joke – but the faces are eager, open. Some further back are even straining their heads above the crowds. The advisor readjusts his glasses in preparation.

"If you wish," Baron replies, and tugs off both gloves.

There is a reason he wears the gloves; his hands are as altered as the rest of him, padded on the palms and furred along the back. Even regardless of the advantages of sheathing his claws (books never fare well with them) he has discovered people find them... unnerving.

Still, the court exhales a collective breath of... what? Disappointment? Relief? Certainly a far cry from the usual discomfort.

"Does that meet your approval, sir?"

"It will suffice."

Baron smiles wanly. "I have removed my gloves, sir. Now I believe you promised me a tale."

"There is precious little to tell," the lord dismisses. "In my younger years, I angered a fairy who sought revenge by later placing a curse on my only daughter. Haru."

The name is a command, not an introduction, and at her name, Lady Haru sheds her own silken gloves. Baron waits for the reveal, but her hands look perfectly ordinary – save for a thin red thread bound about her left little finger. As she turns her hands over, Baron sees the end of the thread seemingly vanish into nothing.

"At the other end of that thread is the man my daughter is fated to marry," the lord says. "I want you to find a way to destroy it."

"Why? Is the man not of her favour?"

"The man is impossible to find," the lord replies. "Since my daughter was a babe, I have searched far and wide to find one who posseses the other end of the thread, but all in vain. At this rate, my line shall end here, as doubtlessly the fairy intended. Find a way to free my daughter from this curse, Baron Humbert von Gikkingen, and you shall be covered with jewels."

The advisor critically assesses Baron's height. "Or at least up to the shoulder," he adds.

x

As Baron steps into the lord's library, alone at last, the stone crow atop his cane uncurls into life. It fixes him with a baleful stare. "That little book trick was needlessly petty."

Baron circles the room, assessing the titles on display. "They earned it."

"And if the lord had taken insult? I would have thought you, of all people, would understand the importance of first impressions."

"To take insult, Toto, the lord must first recognise his own lack of manners, and then be willing to acknowledge that to the court." He pulls free a tome and flicks it open. "As it is, it appears my little joke flew over the heads of most."

"I thought it was funny," comes a voice from the doorway.

Baron snaps the book shut and turns to their guest. He bows. "Ah, Lady Haru. What a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"I thought it wise to meet the most recent 'hero' intent on breaking my curse." She enters, and the bulking form of her guard shadows her. The man is built like a mountain, and about as intimidating. Lady Haru must read something of that in Baron's face, for she adds, "Oh, don't mind him. That's just Muta – he has a heart of gold once you get to know him."

Muta doesn't look like he's interested in getting to know Baron – perhaps unless it's introducing his face to a brick wall.

"The most recent?" Baron echoes, choosing to focus on a safer topic at hand. "How many have tried to break the curse?"

"It depends. Are we counting the snakeoil merchants, or only those who honestly thought they could provide a cure?" She stands across the room from him, but even from that distance, Baron can see she looks more alive than she had by her father's side. She shrugs – the action is loose, easy. "I suppose it doesn't matter – I've lost count of both. But it's been a while since someone has tried. Your crow talks, by the way."

Baron glances down to Toto, still perched atop the cane. "I wouldn't do him a disservice by calling him my crow – he is his own – but yes. This is Toto."

Toto bobs his head in the nearest thing a bird can achieve to a bow. "Delighted."

Lady Haru grins. "You, sir," she says to Toto, "could teach the court a thing or two about manners." She nods her head in return. "Forgive my forwardness, but weren't you a cane when you arrived?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Okay."

"It's a form he often takes upon our arrival somewhere new," Baron explains, in lieu of Toto. "Sometimes it has its uses to have a pair of eyes unknown to others."

"And he likes the drama with my reveal," Toto adds. His tone is fond – but still notably judgemental.

Lady Haru's grin becomes conspiring. "I won't tell a soul."

There comes a series of bells from further within the estate.

"Chicky," the guard warns. "We gotta go."

Lady Haru nods. "Sure. Well, it was a pleasure to meet you, Baron von Gikkingen, and Toto of the cane."

"My friends call me Baron," Baron says. "Or, at least, Toto does, and he's the only friend I have. I would be honoured if you would do the same."

Lady Haru pauses, hand against the door jamb. "My friends call me Haru," she says. "At least, they would if I had any."

Muta snorts. "What am I, furniture?"

"You're practically family, Muta," Lady Haru shoots back. "Anyway, do you want me to invite him to call me Chicky, too?"

"Just Haru's fine."

"Good." She glances back to Baron. "I'll see you around, Baron."

Baron bows. "As you wish, Haru."

x

"Well," Baron says once the room is theirs again. "She seems..."

"Surprisingly okay with siding against her father?" Toto offers.

"I was going to say nice."

"You only say that because she liked your book trick."

"It is nice to know someone in this place has a sense of humour," Baron admits. He sighs and rounds back to the desk. "Well, time to see if I can deliver on my promise. And our first port of call: establishing what my predecessors have tried."

x

The Yoshioka household keep extensive records of all official attempts made to break Haru's curse – although by the perfect (albeit dusty) conditions of the paperwork, Baron supposes he is the first in a long while to check. Possibly ever, actually, considering how many hopeful heroes have repeated past methods.

Even so, it takes the good part three days to collate all the details into one set of notes.

Baron closes the current record and glances down at his efforts. At the start, his notes had been detailed, but by this point they've devolved into a tally score. The movement draws Toto's attention.

"So? What's the verdict?"

"The verdict," Baron says, looking at the long row of tallies for 'cut with blade', "is that I'm amazed Haru has the patience to speak to any aspiring saviour after everything she's been through. Do you know how many times she's had to deal with leeches?"

"I'd really rather not."

"Or the number of potions, elixirs, or panaceas of dubious origins she's been given?" Baron ruffles through his notes. "I think this one is just ditchwater and salt. How about the attempt to override it with another curse, or the three times she's allegedly had to drink powdered unicorn horn? One man even suggested severing the finger in question!"

"Her father allowed that?"

"My father promised to cover the man with jewels if it succeeded," Haru says. She grins ruefully from the doorway she's appeared at, but there is a bite behind the smile. "When that didn't work, he suggested removing the hand entirely, but my father drew the line at that. Apparently it would 'hamper my marriage prospects.' So," she says, "what's the verdict?"

Baron startles back to his notes, still trying to process Haru's nonchalant admittance of her father's willingness to take a butcher's knife to her. "It's... extensive, the attempts made..."

"And repetitive," Haru adds. She perches on the arm of a chair, close enough to spectate but still keeping her distance. "When I heard you had requested the official records, I had to come see for myself. I'm impressed." She leans forward. "Verdict?"

"If my spat of research is enough to impress you, then I am mortified on behalf of my predecessors," Baron says.

"I meant on my curse," she clarifies, but not without humour.

"On your curse? That the fairy did a very good job." Baron picks through his notes, but he can't help but feel pleased at Haru's smile. "Given the... numerous attempts to cut the thread with a blade, it is clear that it cannot be severed by any means. Indeed, it seems to be intangible to all but yourself, and while you can make contact with it while holding a blade, the blade makes no mark on it."

"People always seemed so smug to think up that solution," Haru says. "All they needed to do was ask me – I've known since I was a child that I couldn't cut it."

Baron files this remark away for later inspection. Something about it seems off, but now is not the time.

"People have tried following the thread, burning it, cursing it, uncursing it, cleansing it, all to no avail. In cases where removal of the thread involved... more than just the thread," Baron says, as tactfully as he can manage, "the blade couldn't even cut the skin, let alone remove anything substantial." He tries to ignore the metallic taste the words leave in his mouth, and looks over to Haru. "Is your little finger invincible then, or...?"

She laughs, and a little of the tension dissipates. "No, but that would be nice. No, I've had my fair share of paper cuts and bruises and the like, but when it came to purposeful removal..." She shrugs. "It's almost like the curse knows the intent. It's an ordinary finger until you try to detach it, and then suddenly it's diamond as far as a knife is concerned."

"Just as well, otherwise you would have crushed the finger of anyone you pinky swore with."

"Pinky swore?" she echoes.

Baron blinks. "It's a children's way of making promises. You curl your little finger around the other person's, and then you make a promise. Like this."

Before he can fully process what he's doing, he's leaning across from the desk and intertwining his little finger with Haru's.

"See?"

She freezes.

Suddenly he realises he's holding the finger about which the curse rests – a finger prodded and poked so many times only the magic bestowed on it has probably kept it from turning black and blue... if not worse. He stammers out an apology, makes to retreat, but her finger curls tighter around his with the strength as if it is diamond.

"Like this?" she asks. "Now what?"

From this distance, he can see the way the light catches in her eyes and the way her shoulders square, as if preparing to fight or preparing to laugh and ready for it either way.

"Now I make a promise."

"And what will you promise, Baron von Gikkingen?"

He likes the way she says his title, bereft of awe or hunger, but teasingly instead.

"I promise," he says, and he lingers over his answer. Despite her jokes and her humour, he's also seen the glimmer of a shadow – not just in the corners of her smile, but in the ink of the records too, in the years documented where she has been little more than a riddle to be solved, a puzzle promising riches.

This feels like a test, set by her.

He could assure her he will undo her curse, save her from her fate – but every predecessor of his has promised that, in one form or another.

He could offer something more heartfelt, something genuine to show he understands – but then he remembers her comment about snakeoil merchants. She knows people are capable of saying the prettiest lies with crocodile smiles, promising remedy or help or care, if it gets them what they want. He wonders if any promised her more than a cure – if they set their sights higher than jewels and eyed marriage into the esteemed Yoshioka family.

He wonders how many promised Haru their heart, in hopes of a rich bride.

"I promise," he starts again, "to never use leeches."

She laughs, and he can feel the way it shakes through her from their joined hands. He's passed. "Or ditchwater elixirs?" she asks with a grin.

"Not even with salt," he promises.

x

"Baron," Toto says later, "you absolutely cannot fall in love with her."

"Absolutely," he agrees cheerily. "Cannot, will not, shall not. All the nots."

"Baron. I mean it. Even if you manage to break her curse, do you think her father will approve her marrying someone like yourself?"

Baron raises an eyebrow at Toto. "Do you really have such low opinion of me that you think a pair of pretty eyes and a good sense of humour are enough to make me forgo all sense?"

"I had hoped not," Toto says, "but you're the one calling her eyes pretty."

x

It takes a couple more days for Baron to search through his own library in search of possible remedies. The story of joined lovers is not unknown in his homeland – although the terminology tends to be soulmates – and some books even mention a red thread. No, the difficulty lies in the fact that nowhere is this connection considered a curse.

"At least," he says to Toto, "not by the end. Oh, there are plenty where people ignore it, or try to escape it, but then they fall in love with their fated other half, even if they don't know it. Nowhere does it say how to break a red thread."

"The fairy knew how to lay a curse then," Toto says. "Give an unwanted blessing."

Baron stills. His head tilts in a way that sends Toto's stomach plummeting.

"What is it? What have you just thought of, Baron?"

"There's no record of anyone attempting to find the fairy who laid Haru's curse. Perhaps if they can be found – reasoned with–"

"Then maybe they'll curse you for good measure too," Toto finishes dryly. "You, of all people, should know how capricious fairies can be."

"I'm already cursed, Toto. What else can they do?"

"Lots! How do you feel about spending the rest of your existence as a tree? Or a statue? How about spitting toads every time you talk?"

Baron pauses. "That's a real curse?"

"It's the sibling curse to the blessing where you spit jewels."

Baron considers this. "Spitting jewels doesn't seem much better. Probably hurts more, because at least frogs are soft. What if you sleeptalk? What if you talk while you're eating? What if you swallow them?"

"Remember what I said about fairies being capricious?"

"And yet this is the best lead we've found so far. No one else has tried it yet."

"For good reason."

Baron rises to his feet. It feels good to be moving forward after nearly a week of looking back. "We shall never know if we don't try."

x

"Impossible," the lord says.

Baron smiles, because that's a safer expression than any he might otherwise inadvertently give. "Some would call a red thread of fate or a man with the face of a cat impossible, and yet our world is made of such things. Who are we to determine what is impossible or not?"

"The fairy does not want to be found," the lord retorts.

"And the curse doubtless does not want to be broken, and yet I persevere in the latter. If this can free your daughter, then surely it is worth pursuing–"

"I forbid it," the lord growls.

Baron's mouth snaps shut, curtailing any fine-worded arguments to the contrary. His smile remains, frozen in place, but gone from his eyes. "I see."

x

"You're not going to listen to my father, are you?" Haru asks. She sits, perched on the steps of a bookcase ladder. Baron wonders if she has an allergy against sitting in an actual chair. "You're going to try to find the fairy, right?"

"Lady Haru, the lord of the estate made it quite clear no attempts were to be made in that department," Baron says breezily. "So, naturally, I shall not. But, for good measure, I should probably know all that is already known about the fairy, so that I don't accidentally find them."

"Naturally," Haru echoes, with that familiar conspiring grin. "What do you need to know?"

"Anything, at this point."

"Well then, prepared to be disappointed," Muta grunts. The guard keeps his distance from Baron, but Baron has no doubt that should he attempt anything untoward, Muta would be there in an instant. "When the fairy came to curse Haru, they were robed. No one saw anything of them."

Toto hops across the desk, eyeing Muta. "And you saw this?"

"Muta became my guard only after the curse was struck," Haru says. "But my father and the rest of the court has spoken about it at length. It seems even the fairy's voice was impossible to describe – everyone heard the fairy speak in their own voice."

Baron's shoulders drop. "So, there's nothing to identify them."

"Well... there was the peasant girl."

"Peasant girl?"

"Chicky, if yer father heard you talking of such things..." Muta trails off. "You know he's already reluctant to let you spend time here."

Haru's mouth twists into an unhappy line, but she does not counter her guard's point.

Baron flips a book open, and it does a little to alleviate the strange silence. "Well, in absence of our finding the fairy, we must be moving on to other options. Now, I believe I read here that there is a spring nearby rumoured to possess healing powers..."

"That's already been tried," Haru says.

"Yes, twelve times," Baron agrees. "What harm will one more visit do?"

"Lord Yoshioka knows you've studied the records," Muta says. "He knows you know it won't work."

"True, but how about..." Baron flicks through his notes for inspiration, "mixing salt and powdered unicorn horn into the springwater?"

Haru's nose wrinkles. "You have powdered unicorn horn?"

"No, but no one will know I don't."

Now it is Muta's turn to pull a face. "And how are yer gonna pull that off? Put a little chalk in and hope no one can tell the difference?"

Baron catches Haru's eye, and he can see the exact moment she cottons on. She clasps her hands demurely before her, the very picture of a meek and mild maid. "Such an auspicious visit should be done in meditation, don't you think, Muta? With a small entourage, so that I can better achieve the necessary reflection to partake in such a pilgrimage." She raises her head, smirking. "What do you think?"

"Drop the pilgrimage line, Chicky. It's only an hour by carriage."

x

It takes some persuading, but eventually the lord agrees to the spring visit – with some caveats. Firstly, that Haru's guard will accompany them. (Reasonable, Baron admitted. After all, he has just suggested taking the only Yoshioka heir into the depths of a forest. If he was in the kidnapping business, this would practically be a gift wrapped opportunity.)

And the second is...

Well, Baron knows the man's name to be Natoru, but that is all Baron is sure about. The man in question is short and plump, and carries a permanent smile and a scroll and, as far as Baron can discern, Natoru is here to record the event.

The fact that Natoru has been sent – and not the undoubtedly more senior advisor – makes it clear how little stock Haru's father has put in this attempt succeeding.

That's fine by Baron. If this little outing does cure the curse, then Baron will be the most surprised of all.

The carriage ride to the edge of the forest where the enchanted spring lies is mostly in silence – or at least for the majority of the carriage's occupants. Haru wears a mask of serene grace, and Baron makes a similar show of determined concentration, while Muta is sat out in the driver's seat.

Natoru chatters.

(The speed at which Muta had insisted upon taking the reins (and his further assurance of no passenger space in the driver's seat) makes Baron wonder if he knew just how much Natoru can talk. He doesn't want to assume but... well, if the boot fits...)

So when they reach the forest's edge, Baron is quick to depart, leaping down from the carriage and offering a hand to Haru.

"Lady Haru wishes to make her approach to the spring in meditative silence," he tells Natoru. "So it is best, I think, if you go on straight ahead, and we shall make our slow approach."

Natoru flusters – there's no other word for it – wringing his hands with evident distress. "Oh, but I'm meant to record everything that happens! For posterity! I should be there."

Muta jumps down from the driver's seat. The carriage bounces from the release. "Buddy, it's a half hour walk in absolute silence. It's gonna be, what, two lines at most in the record? You ain't missing anything."

"Well, I suppose..."

"And this way, you can be assured the spring is ready when we arrive," Baron adds. "Ensure there's no unpleasant surprises waiting for us."

"A very good point!"

They watch Natoru's bustling form vanish into the forest. No one speaks until they are quite sure he's not about to bounce back.

"What's his official title, again?" Baron asks.

"I don't think he has one," Haru replies. "Yes-man?"

Toto stirs into life, shrugging off his wooden façade. "Be glad he's no sharper, or he might have taken more to shake. I don't wish to pressure, but we should probably start making tracks, before even he becomes suspicious. You said something about a peasant girl, Haru?"

"Well, I suppose she'll be a peasant woman by now," Haru says. She steps into the forest with such surety that Baron has no difficulty believing she has traced this trail a dozen times. "She was under the care of the fairy who cursed me."

"Like a godmother?" Baron offered.

"A what?"

"Someone who's not blood-family, but who still has a duty of care for a child," he explains.

"Oh. Yes, I suppose you could call it that. Anyway, when my father came of age, his father threw a series of balls – three masquerade dances over three nights – and on each night, a mysterious woman dressed finer than even an empress arrived."

Haru hitches her skirts as the trail narrows, and Baron falls behind her. He leans forward to push the branches around her face out of her way. She throws him a smile that immediately makes the inconvenience worth it.

"On the first two nights, the woman fled at the stroke of midnight, but on the third and final night, my father slathered the stairs to the ball with tar."

Baron falters. Several twigs slap into Haru's face. "Sorry! He what?"

"Tar," Muta says. "On the stairs. Weren't yer listening?"

"Of course, I just... tar, really?"

"It nearly worked too," Haru continues, unfazed. Baron supposes she's had several decades to come to terms with it. "Only, she slipped out of her trapped shoe instead, and still ran. But my father was intent on discovering who this mystery lady was, and so announced that he would marry whomever the abandoned slipper fitted."

"Wasn't that risky, though?" Toto asks. "After all, there surely were a good number of young women who would be a potential fit?"

"It was a slipper clearly created by magic," Haru explains, "made from glass that no mortal craftsman could replicate. And it seemed to work – no matter who tried it, even if it looked right, it never fitted. That is, until a scullery maid stepped forward."

Baron tilts his head. "A happily ever after for all," he says. "But I fail to see how this translates to angering a fairy. Was he intended for another?"

"He didn't marry her," Haru says. "Once he realised that she wasn't an empress, not even a high-born lady, but a servant girl favoured by a fairy godmother, he refused. He smashed the slipper and claimed another woman – a lord's daughter – had fitted it instead. And he believed nothing would come of it – until I was born." She picks up her feet and continues into the forest. "And that's when the fairy cursed me."

"Because of your father's actions?" Baron demands. He hurries after her, resorting to his cane to keep the narrowing path at bay.

"Wielding the other glass slipper and decrying my father for refusing true love in favour of riches," Haru says. "So the story goes, anyway. The fairy claimed that the scullery maid was under their protection, and for his callousness, I would bear a fate worthy of being his daughter." She waves her hand airily. "And poof, red thread of fate. Honestly, if you ask my father, he'll say the fairy must have bound me to someone who's already dead, or some other impossible soul."

"And you?" Toto asks.

"I think it'd be far more fitting if I'm bound to a peasant," Haru replies. "Perhaps a pig farmer. Or a miller. Maybe a shepherd."

"Your father implied your soulmate was impossible to find," Baron says.

Haru snorts. It's decidedly unladylike and a clear indicator, Baron suspects, of how much time she has spent around Muta. "My father has only searched as far as the nobility, and refuses to consider anyone who hasn't got a title. There's probably a fisherman somewhere with a red string around his thumb and no idea what it means."

"And you?" Toto asks. "Does it matter to you if your soulmate has a title?"

"Why would it? Even before I was cursed, I was never going to have a say in who I married. If I didn't have the curse, I would have been long ago married off to whomever my father decreed fit." She shrugs. "I still may not have a choice, but at least I should love them. That's what a soulmate is meant to be, right? Someone you're fated to be with?"

Baron's heart twinges. He studiously ignores it. "Haru, would you prefer it if we found your soulmate instead of breaking the curse?"

Haru snorts again. "If you do, be prepared to start running. My father will have you diced and fed to the koi fish if I end up marrying a pig farmer."

It wasn't a no.

x

To nobody's surprise, the spring trip doesn't work. That's fine, Baron never expected it to. Instead, he thinks on the journey home, brow knitted in concentration.

The key, he decides, is the scullery maid. A fairy might be able to disguise their form and vanish as the need takes them, but mortals are usually far easier to track. And if the fairy really considers themselves a godmother-like figure, they won't have just abandoned the maid the moment Haru's father rejected her.

"The difficulty is," he remarks to Toto as he later pores over yet another record, "the lord did a very good job at scrubbing all mention of her from history."

"Did you expect anything less?" Toto asks. "You wouldn't have even known about her had Haru not told you. It embarrasses him."

"He fell in love. That happens."

"He fell in love with her riches," says a voice from the door. Baron looks up, expecting to see Haru accompanying Muta, but it's only the guard. His disappointment must have been plain in his face, for Muta chuckles disdainfully. "She ain't here. She's off meeting another potential suitor for when her pa's able to marry her off."

"Oh." It occurs to Baron, not for the first – or likely last time – that regardless of whether he breaks Haru's curse, he still has no chance of winning her hand. He opts for a safer topic. "Can I help you?"

"Why would yer want to?"

Baron blinks. "Because that's what I do."

Muta snorts. "No, yer don't."

"I really do."

"Let me tell you a secret I've learned from all these years bodyguarding: nobody helps for nothing. People are kind for money, or power, or for a bride that can give them both." Muta looms over Baron. "So which are you?"

"I'll answer after you."

"What does that mean?"

Despite every instinct screaming at him to flee, Baron stands his ground – even if he can feel his knees shake. He offers a smile. "It means that I can only imagine this show of intimidation – which, top notch, is working – is intended to ensure I don't have any ulterior motives concerning Lady Haru. If people are only kind for money or power, then what is the cause behind your apparent care for her? Tell me, power or riches? Surely it cannot be mere altruism."

Muta stares at him for several long moments, in which Baron is sure he's about to be violently introduced to the nearest wall. Then, "I know all about you, Humbert von Gikkingen."

Somehow, the use of his name feels more threatening than anything else Muta could have said. "If you have any questions, you only ever needed to ask."

"I know what you did to get cursed."

Baron's smile doesn't falter, but it does harden, just a touch at the edges. "Then maybe you'll understand why I have devoted my life since to helping others."

"Because yer scared you'll get cursed again. Yer know there comes a cost with refusing help, so yer make sure yer can never be accused of standing by idly again." The guard tilts his head. "Or maybe yer hoping that enough good deeds will break the curse. But once a curse misses its deadline, it's stuck for good."

"I have no delusions of breaking my own curse. I know my fate."

"Then maybe yer looking for a different kind of prize." Muta smiles, but there is nothing friendly in it. "After all, Lady Haru comes from a rich family. Plenty of money to be made in breaking her curse, but why settle for a hero's bounty when you can marry into a lord's lot instead?"

"I have no interest in riches–"

Muta looms over Baron. "Break her curse, and her father'll marry her off to the highest bidder. Fail, and she'll still be bound to the guy at the other end of the string. Whichever way you cut it, she's outta your reach. Remember that. And if you try to mess with Haru anyway, I'll make sure there'll be so little left of you, the only fish you'll be fit for will be the bottom feeders. So leave, Baron. There ain't anything for you here."

[yukisubmarino]

In my opinion (now and throughout this post) Oshi no Ko’s biggest issue is the narrow motivation of its lead, Aqua Hoshino.

Aqua’s motivations are clear from the start: To take revenge against the person who killed his mother, who he watched bleed out and die as a child. A perfectly human and understandable motivation, one that would make an interesting storyline regardless of medium, era, etc.

So why doesn’t it work in OnK?

Because it’s just too simple, and this story has already evolved beyond that type of simplicity. OnK has demonstrated an ability to handle complex challenges with multi-dimensional characters, creating an impressive web of intrigue among people who all share adolescent traumas at the hands of Japan’s entertainment industry:

Kana Arima - acting only at the behest of her mother, gets really good but doesn’t particularly want the spotlight for herself, but is driven by her mother’s unfulfilled dream and her own base desire to satisfy the only person who genuinely loved her.

Akane Kurokawa - chasing validation from the child (Kana) who gave her this acting dream, while simultaneously looking to surpass her abilities in the court of public opinion—with the knowledge that she cant do both tearing her apart

Melt - Plucked by an agency after coasting on his charm, chooses a more difficult and less satisfying acting path because more talented peers made him feel guilty for following a career he wasn’t suited for

Taiki - Auteur stage actor possibly acting only to please the career theater man who raised him (i dont read the manga so this is just based on the most recent episode and could very well be incorrect).

All of these secondary and tertiary characters provide more complex motivations than Aqua, and would make better choices for the story’s main focus considering the show’s strength for investigating complex motivations. So why exactly is Aqua the main focus, here?

I can’t say for sure. I suspect focusing the story on a character with simpler motivations makes him more digestable for a mainstream and younger crowd, which is understandable. Its like when a romcom with fun, interesting side characters chooses the beautiful but boring guy as the main romantic interest just to get as large a swath of the audience as possible to get interested.

But OnK isn’t a forgettable romcom, or a C-minus shonen or a half-hearted manga adaptation. It’s a banger that’s fucking excellent at everything, which makes it so frustrating that we spend more time in Aqua’s head than we do with anyone else when anyone else would provide more interesting narration.

The most recent episode gets close to revealing some actual depth in Aqua. He taps into his base emotions and realizes the dark cloud that’s been motivating him to seek revenge is the little Aqua inside of him that feels guilty for “letting” his mom die (which is of course bullshit, but you know, childhood trauma). Introspection! Growth! Good stuff!

So what does Aqua do with this breakthrough? He collects cigarette butts to do dna tests—because revenge must be had, damn the psychoanalysis. Damn the half brother discoveries, damn the harmful effects on all the women who love him—there is a man out there who must PAY.

This would be fine in a lesser show, but OnK not only should be better than this…it IS better than this. When I complain every week that this show should be about Kana and Akane, its not because i think Aqua has unreasonable motivations or is portrayed badly. Its because a show as excellent as OnK deserves a lead that is equally so.

[fuedalreesespieces]

one of their downtimes in the present after school, kagome braids inuyasha's hair (twins, french, dutch, etc.) while they watch magical girl anime. inuyasha is surprisingly into it (the anime and having his hair played with)

oh, you are so right about this.

.

.

.

"So he's the other guy?"

Kagome's fingers raked through his hair, parting it in two. He had no idea what she was doing, but it felt nice. So nice, in fact, that his attention was starting to wane from the television screen in front of him, if that was possible.

"Sort-of," Kagome amended, bringing a comb to the right side of his hair. Silver locks spilled down his shoulders, brushing against the enormous bowl of potato chips they shared. "He's kinda like a vessel for him, but he doesn't know it."

"Geez," Inuyasha grumbled. "All that power and he doesn't even know it exists."

Kagome let out an airy laugh. On screen, the boy called Yukito transformed into Yue. The bright colors fascinated him just as much as the feeling of Kagome's hands carding through his hair. He didn't quite get the concept of animation until she made him an example and even then, that simple jumping ball she'd created was leagues away from...whatever this was.

How did this even get on the screen, anyway? He'd suspected there was someone trapped in the back, but the box was much too tiny for even a kit like Shippo, and it was all clogged up with tangled wires. She'd explained the broadcasting system to him, but he still didn't understand how waves could translate to pictures. Eventually he'd given up on working out the concept, and his confusion never kept him from settling under her gentle hands and letting the story unfold in front of them.

She'd called it anime, a category for the style of art and animation used in the show they were watching, and Inuyasha had to admit it was wildly entertaining. Convoluted plots be damned, the fights were terribly engaging. Sota had told him that the sort of shows Kagome dragged him into were called magical girl anime, and which thereafter prompted a giggle from the younger boy. Inuyasha didn't quite get the joke, if there was one to be had. The way he saw it, the magical girls were just like the metal golems ("Mechs," Sota had corrected him) in the things Sota liked to watch - albeit better dressed.

On screen, Yue spoke, voice eerily cold compared to his counterpart. A chill ran down Inuyasha's spine. "He looks like Sesshomaru," he muttered.

Kagome finished one his braids and peered over his ears, her chin digging into his shoulder as she leaned in to see what she'd missed. "You know...I haven't really thought about it, but he sort of does. Minus the angel wings, of course." At Inuyasha's bark of laughter, she inched closer and smirked. "Think he'd make a good magical girl?"

An image of Sesshomaru wearing a skirt seemed to enter their minds at the same time, and upon making eye contact, they both collapsed in a fit of laughter. "Evil," he said between breaths, "absolutely fuckin' evil, what you just said."

"I was merely asking a question," she said innocently, her grin wicked. "But now that I think about it, I think you'd fit in better than him."

"Me?" he said incredulously.

"Why not? You've got a weapon-"

"A massive sword, not a magic wand-"

"-transformations-"

"One of 'em is useless and the other kills people-"

"You are not useless," she said immediately. "You're wonderful just as you are."

He was thankful the room was dark. "Kagome-"

"All you really need," she said, "is a change of clothes. Have you ever even been out of the Fire Rat?"

He scoffed. "Why should I? It's my armor. Why, you suggestin' I wear your clothes?" His attention returned to the television, where Yue was drawing an arrow back, but Kagome's ridiculous smile quickly emerged in his vision. She'd finished his hair and had come to sit beside him, fiddling with one of the two braids she'd done.

"Well...I do have an old school uniform-"

"No."

"Oh, come on, Inuyasha! Please?"

"I'm not wearing one of your skirts!" he shouted, face as bright as a plucked tomato.

"But I just finished your hair!"

"And what the hell does that have to do with it?"

"You would look good, I promise!" she assured. "Nobody's around."

"Your entire family is in the house, Kagome."

"And I'm sure they would all support your decision to finally be the magical girl you were born to be."

He rolled his eyes and twisted his head so she couldn't tempt him with that smile of hers. "You're crazy."

She slipped into his view and batted her eyelashes. "For me?"

"Woman, if you don't-"

"Please, Inuyasha?"

He told himself not to look. Her voice alone couldn't tempt him. He thought of happy things in his mind, like ramen, or cooked steak, but the image of her sad, droopy eyes kept tainting the images, and when he eventually cracked one eye open, she was still kneeling in front of him, hands clasped and wide, grey eyes lit up like silver by the artificial light of the television. The decision to keep staring at her, like a stubborn fool, damned him. She had him wrapped around her finger the second he chose not to close his eyes - or perhaps he'd been doomed to agree from the start.

Either way, all paths lead to him wearing the skirt.

"Oh my god," Kagome whispered. "Oh my god."

"Shut up," he snapped. The waistline was too tight, but he'd somehow managed it. The outfit he wore was simply a spare uniform she had stashed away in case hers was ripped up in the feudal realm, but she insisted that plenty magical girls wore similar clothing (did the schools purposefully let their girls dress up as magical girls?) At her request, he'd worn a pair of elbow length gloves, boots, and "Happy?"

"Oh, Inuyasha," she sighed, and his face turned another shade of red. "You have no idea."

[winterrlunarhalo]

At a party with everyone I’ve ever known and I immediately know that this is a dream.

That’s easily remedied. I shake myself awake and try to throw myself off the drinks table. It hasn’t worked. Except I see a group of my friends (could I even call these people my friends anymore?) talking about how every three seconds a baby is born. My brain has gone into a whir of 1 2 3 born 1 2 3 born 1 2 3 born.

I walk around the room and try to rearrange groups. Now what would be the criteria? Do I group people on the basis of what age they knew me at? Do I group them on the basis of whether they know how I got the gash on my forehead? Or do I group them based on how I act around them? This is mortifying.

Once a month light refuses to pass through my body and I ignore all the messages I get. Right now we make eye contact across the room and you know so much about me and yet not enough. I thought being in your vicinity will make things so much easier but you are not who you usually are in my head. I remember telling her once about how I wrote something about being my own tragedy when I was 16 and we make eye contact and laugh because as corny as it was, it still holds true to this day to some extent.

We are standing at the corner of the room and you both are questioning everyone I know. A part of me is defensive but deep down I agree fully. See, most of my life I went through with the dire need of being liked, never questioning once whether I even liked. Instead I landed up with you both, who saw me at my worst and decided to stay and love the fuck out of me. I’m seeing the world in double now and the entire room is spinning and it feels like someone has set my brain on a spinning top and in one of the visions we are back in that kitchen and I’m heating up food made for one, for three.

Anyway back to the party, I am handing out vol-au-vents I learned how to make on a whim for a beach birthday, and some of these people desperately need to leave. The sun is almost up and I can feel my senses come alive. I don’t yet know what you look like but I am sure I will once I see you. I check your horoscope before mine because I’m just that pathetic and I know it doesn’t matter in the big scheme of things but hey, can’t hurt to be wary. You help me rush out the people I don’t want in here anymore, and it’s nice (and so scary) that you know me this well.

Now I’m at a party with the people I love and now I’m anxious for entirely different reasons. I don’t think there will ever be a way for me to let them know that I love them. My mouth aligns and curves to say I love them but it ends up coming out as a joke or a slight nudge against them. I also realized that I’m bad at writing for the people that mean the most to me, which is so …? Writing is the one thing I can do?

The sheer act of placing a piece of my heart that is you for you to peer over and finish with your cheeks turning into apples is so daunting to me. I still try. I still talk through most of it lest what I feel should bubble over and cover us both in it. Best believe my skin is going to be covered with laugh lines and crow’s feet in less than 20 years, a mark of fondness so unbearable that it left behind its stains. That doesn’t matter. None of this does.

Coming to terms with the fact that I have lived a life suffocating my lungs, barring it from truly breathing has occurred to me recently. At the first breath of oxygen my heart beat so loudly and fast that I was sure it was enough to power up my room. Consequently it learned that this is the way it’s going to be now, and that it doesn’t store up for the future. The sun is over the horizon and the sky is pink and there’s a nice hum settling into my bones as my spinning brain returns to equilibrium.

There’s music playing and I get pulled into all of us while dancing. Love was something that was supposed to happen to other people, according to a much younger me. I would meet her at a crossroad and tell her that love has happened to you and that its a joy to be “another person” and that it doesn’t have to be done alone.

It’s almost over. We will have to leave soon. And so we hold each other tightly and materialize us in pictures and frames and canvases as to say that I was here and you were here and please don’t forget that love was here. Love still is.