deathlulls

[deathlulls]

These parallels.

[deathlulls]

xie lian: it's been a long time since the three of us did something like this, huh?

mu qing: do you mean fighting side by side or running for our lives?

xie lian: both!

feng xin: we do this all the time!

[deathlulls]

LIGHT A FLAME, banana fish x squid game

pairing: ash lynx / eiji okumura

warnings!: MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH

sneak peak: Eiji’s voice came out. “AAAASH! You never showed me if you were blond down there, too!” and then he giggled, and full-on laughed.

Until Ash heard a noise he had gotten used to, and the laughter stopped.

ꮽ   . we���re walking the line tantalisingly,  crossing it but not quite 

“For this game, you will be playing in teams of two. Please choose someone you wish to be your partner. There can only be two players per team. You have ten minutes to choose your partner.” The annoying female voice was on again. Ash hated it, and it reminded him of those counsellors, always putting on a sweet smile and speaking with sugar coated words as if they knew exactly what he’d been through. He huffed, crossed his arms and sat in the topmost corner of the staircases that were there for no reason at all.

“Ash! Would you like to pair with me?” Ah, yes. That one person whom he both hated and loved. The latter more than the former, but yes. Hated how he could be calm, and so fucking happy even in this godsforsaken place, equivalent to hell, as if people in two and three digit numbers weren’t dying everyday . Loved — well, as cheesy as it sounded, Ash loved everything about the Japanese boy. Loved his accent, and how his raspy but beautiful voice pronounced the word Ashu, loved how his eyes would crinkle when he smiled, and how his black hair fell into his face when he laughed too hard.

And now, his eyes had the same kind of sparkle, like they were actually playing children’s games and not someone’s fucked up idea of genocide.

“No, Eiji, what if we end up competing against each other? You know, one loser, one winner?” Ash looked up at Eiji’s furrowed eyebrows after listening to that particular sentence.

“Of course not! They said teams, and teams play with each other, not against! I thought you had an IQ of two hundred, baka.” 

ꮽ   . the ticklish voice of these feelings,  shakes the middle of a quiet lake 

“Please take a bag of marbles from the staff member before you. There should be ten marbles in each bag. Please check if you have the given number of marbles.”

“In this game, you will be playing a game of your choice with your partner. The player who gets all the ten marbles from the other team member will be the winner. No violence is allowed.” 

Ash’s breathing quickened. He looked towards Eiji, whose eyes were glossed over as a frown made its way onto his pretty features. 

There was no way Ash could allow this.

“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN?” he yelled out. “There’s no way— there’s no fucking way I’m gonna go along with this absolute bullshit. Change the game! Change the rules! Do you hear me?” 

Saying the final part, he grabbed one of the masked men by the collar. They pointed their gun at him.

“Ash, calm down,” Eiji said, pulling him back from the masked man. 

“Calm down? Eiji, you want me to calm down?”

“There is no other way around this, is there?” The smile was there again. Ash wanted to kill everyone and migrate to Izumo and keep everything harmful out of Eiji’s way.

“No, no, Eiji. We could just— we could just, not play the game, yeah? Yes, we won’t play the game.” he looked toward the masked man assigned to them. “Go fuck yourself.”

“If there is no winner within the span of thirty minutes, or if no game is played, both the players will be eliminated,” the masked man said.

And Ash wanted nothing more than to rip his heart out at that moment.

ꮽ   . depending on the light of a single candle  to find each other  our shadows become one 

“Let’s do this, Ash; let’s both think of games, okay?”

 “I will protect you.” 

“Even if the world turns on you, I’ll always be on your side.” 

At this point, Ash’s mind was blank. All that rang in his head were Eiji’s words. He had never taken Eiji for granted— never, but now, it suddenly felt like he should’ve appreciated him more, should’ve told him how amazing he was, should’ve hidden him away from the world, should’ve done something. He shouldn't have joined teams with him in the first place! He had told Eiji that they might end up playing against each other! He pleaded and prayed to any of the gods to reverse the last ten minutes. 

“I can’t do this, Eiji,” Ash managed to croak out, eyes brimming with tears. 

Eiji’s arms were around him in an instant. “If we don’t play, we’ll both die, Ash.”

Ash buried his head in the Japanese's bony shoulder, wishing that the moment lasted forever. Wishing that they lasted forever. 

“I don’t hide things from you, but there’s one thing I haven’t told you yet.” Eiji said, looking up. “My father has liver complications. My mother is having an affair during his recovery.”

That made Ash look at him.

“That’s the reason I came to this awful place. My pole-vaulting was getting me money for my father, but after the injury, I couldn’t do that either. I felt terrible, and Ibe-san brought me to America.”

“All I mean to say is, I won’t go easy on you, Ash. And you, too, shouldn’t.” he smiled, as if this were nothing. “Now, have you thought of a game? Because I have.”

ꮽ   . pretending like we don’t know but we actually do  that we need today  we already know, losing control 

They both stood about three metres away from the wall. When Eiji suggested that they play a game where both of them throw a marble and whoever’s marble is the closest to the wall would win, Ash looked at him, perplexed, to which Eiji argued that they didn’t have much time left.

Ash knelt on one knee, and threw his marble. It fell a little away from the wall. They both knew Ash had amazing aim and could probably make the marble touch the wall, but he did it for Eiji, hoping that Eiji’s fell closer to the wall than his. 

“Ooh, that’s pretty close!” Eiji cheered. He took his marble and put himself in a similar position as Ash’s, and aimed. He looked so fixated about this; and whenever Eiji looked this serious, Ash would joke and say that he acted like his life depended on the task that he was so worked up about. Except that it wasn’t a joke anymore.

It was time for Eiji to throw, and Ash was waiting for the result so badly. He was waiting for it to cross his, or in the worst-case scenario, for it to fall farther away than his marble.

What he was not expecting was Eiji to drop it right in front of his feet.

ꮽ   . at the end of this mess,  there is a new beginning 

“Oops, it slipped. Looks like you won, Aslan.” 

At that time so many emotions flowed through Ash that he couldn’t think straight. He grabbed Eiji by the collar and slammed his back onto the wall of the fake house next to them. He remembered to be gentle, because no matter what state Ash’s mind was in, no matter whatever happened, Ash would, could never hurt Eiji. Never.

“What the FUCK are you trying to do, Eiji?”

Eiji gave a weak grin. “What do you mean? You won.”

“You—” Ash’s voice cracked. “Please, please, throw again. We can have a rematch. Don’t do this, please.”

“But I don’t want to lose again. Your aim has always been better than mine. Losing once is okay, but losing twice? I don’t want the last memory of mine to be of being a loser!”

“Eiji, please. Remember the day we met? You said ‘if I’m going to die anyway, at least let me die trying!’ Prove your words true, please, Eiji, please throw again. I’m begging you.” At this point, Ash was completely crying. So was Eiji, but his smile remained constant.

“I said that at that time because then, the life I was trying to save was mine. This time, it’s yours. And I would die for you any day, in a heartbeat.” The two of them were full-on sobbing now. They didn’t care about anyone looking at them; it was like the world was on fire, and they were the only ones left.

“You have a family, Eiji. You have to get your father treated. And your sister, she’s still in school, right? You need to live for them! And Ibe-san! He’s basically your second father! They need you,” Ash cried, desperately shaking Eiji’s shoulders to get him to listen to him.

“Please don’t mention them, Ash. I know it's selfish of me to leave them. I know what I’m doing will affect many people, but I’m doing it for you. The love of my life, my soulmate, it’s for you. Please— please don’t involve yourself in any gang activity from now on, hm? I want you to live better. I want you to know that my sacrifice wasn’t in vain,” Eiji said, cupping Ash’s face and wiping his tears with his thumb. “Remember when I said I would never leave your side?”

Of course Ash did. How could he not?

“I mean it. My soul will always be with you. Always.”

And that’s when Ash broke, clutching Eiji’s arms and sobbing hysterically into his shoulders. Eiji hugged him back and kissed the top of his head, running his hands up and down the blond’s back.

ꮽ   . there’s no need for any loud noises  the ticking of the clock is our metronome 

Ash couldn’t think anymore. He grabbed Eiji by the back of his neck and kissed him, their tears rolling down synchronised. Eiji’s lips felt so soft and warm against his, and the fact that this would be the last time he could experience this was slowly eating him up. Why didn’t he do this before? Why did he keep his guard down when he saw that letter— and got stabbed by Lao? Why didn't he go to Japan with Eiji, and ensure a situation where they both didn't end up like this happened? He wanted to kill everyone. He wanted to die. He didn't know what he wanted, but this, this was definitely not it.

ꮽ   . like the constant tick of the second hand  i want to keep going right now 

As Ash faced away from him and showed the masked man his twenty marbles, walking to get outside of this place, Eiji’s voice called out. “AAAASH! You never showed me if you were blond down there, too!” and then he giggled, and full-on laughed.

Until Ash heard a noise he had gotten used to, and the laughter stopped.

ꮽ   . light a flame in my heart.

— im so sorry forgive me 🙏 hope you guys enjoyed!! this is like my first ever time publishing a fic on tumblr pls be kind 🕯️🤍

posted on ao3.

[deathlulls]

im gonna love you for the rest of my life, im gonna protect you forever and ever, i love me and i will keep him in the safest, fairest, happiest place, baby.

— fujii kaze, damn

[deathlulls]

constantly thinking about THAT episode in banana fish where yut lung told ash the only way he could save eiji was by sho*ting himself and ash, without a millisecond of hesitation grabbed the gun and pulled the trigger.

[deathlulls]

every time i wanna do something i think about what hua cheng would do in that situation and then do the complete opposite

[deathlulls]

the world is moving too fast — i can't keep up

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my unpopular aot opinion

I constantly think about how eren stans completely hate zeke like... they were two sides of the coin. they literally had the same ideology. eren's idea was k!ll the bullies, there won't be any bullying then. while zeke's idea was k!ll the bullied, there won't be bullying then. morally they're both just genoc!de but you can't defend one while degrading the other.

[deathlulls]

Xie Lian would drop the most traumatic facts ever as an anecdote and then get surprised how much it upsets Hua Cheng.

[deathlulls]

royal requiem ▬ geto suguru ✧୭ series.

PAIRING: royal painter!geto x princess!reader x duke!nanami

SUMMARY & TEASER: spanning over two decades in the nineteenth century and told through the lens of sanem's most respectable publications and infamously salacious scandal sheets, the tale of the princess of the land remains to be anything but unheard of. while the townsfolk of the kingdom hold love matches with unmatched reverence, the match of their monarchy can not be further from the same. yearning for what can never be in a world where reputation and regality are omnipotent, you, sanem's only heir inhabits the most gilded of residences, and yet, love remains a luxury that only the destitute can indulge in, and one that she is limited to observing from afar. "heavy is the head that wears the crown," your father tells you, unbeknownst to the fact that far heavier is the heart that belongs to suguru geto.

CONTENTS: royalty au set in the 1800s, afab reader, unrequited love, forbidden love, ANGST, childhood friends to lovers, age gap (b/w reader and nanami), references to sex/copulation. this series will have some written chapters, but most chapters will be newspaper clippings and letters. ﹙✧ = angst��� ﹙୭ = suggestive﹚

WARNINGS: will be added chapter-wise. 16+.

SERIES MASTERLIST

i. April 06, 1823 (0.4k)

ii. September 25, 1823 (0.7k)

iii. January 27, 1825

iv. February 16, 1828

v. October 08, 1832

TOTAL WORD COUNT: [tba]

TOTAL PLANNED CHAPTERS: 28-30

AUTHOR'S NOTE: my first series :> i've posted a little bit of this previously on wattpad (now removed), and i'll be continuing it here. this is not my conventional writing style, so i'll try my best! please send an ask to be part of the series tag list! enjoy reading <3

please like, share, and reblog <3 do not copy, repost, plagiarize, edit, translate, or feed my work into ai or chatbots.

﹙users under 16/ageless blogs will be blocked.﹚

[deathlulls]

your highness, i understand your everything. your courage, your despair. your kindness, your pain. your resentment, your hate. your wisdom, your foolishness.

if i could, i would have you use me as your stepping stone, the bridge you take apart after crossing, the bones you need to trample on your climb, the sinner who endures the agony of a million knives. but i know you won't allow it.

— hua cheng, heaven official's blessing

[deathlulls]

"hee hee hee hee, ha ha HA HA HA ha ha" — Qi Rong, Heaven Official's Blessing

[deathlulls]

Obsessed with Xie Lan as a character. Like I know everyone reads these books for the romance but the individual character concepts are hilarious.

Xie Lan is a prince. He eats poison on the reg. He’s forever stuck looking like he’s nineteen. He’s the oldest guy in the communication array. He knows kung fu. He dressed in drag to catch a ghost on two separate unrelated occasions. He’s the world greatest detective. He’s kind. He was forced into a trolley problem and chose to pull the lever. His cooking is awful to the point it could kill a god. He’s kind. He tried to give CPR to a ghost. He’s the unluckiest man alive. He’s been kicked out of heaven multiple times. He’s kind. He caught a kid from certain death and everyone was pissed at him forever about it. He regrets nothing but coming back to heaven.

[deathlulls]

˖˙ ᰋ ── welcome to my blog ! ˚

i'm avi, ꒰ 17 ꒱ go by she/her and honestly idk what im doing here. i mostly post quotes/lines from anime/movies/dramas that i watch, or books i read. tumblr is basically a place for me to showcase words that i liked. might possibly write fanfiction (?). im high into anime and like to yap a lot. (religiously loves hualian). more about me.

about me still in construction, will add more soon.

[deathlulls]

playing dangerous ▬ nanami kento ୭

PAIRING: police officer!nanami x pop star!reader

SUMMARY: the house was already on fire—or at least, that’s what you tell officer nanami when he cuffs you, suspecting you of arson. so, naturally, you switch to your honeyed tone, layering your words with a saccharine lilt to slip out of the situation. oh, but if only you had as much brains as you did charm. ﹙inspired by playing dangerous by lana del rey.﹚

WARNINGS: implied afab reader. cussing. reader is kind of a horndog LOL (forgive her she's trying to get out of jail), plot revolves around fires, arson, federal crimes, police & law enforcement, etc. talks of a corpse. mentions of motives of homicide, etc. ﹙୭ = suggestive﹚

WORD COUNT: 1.5k | masterlist

﹙minors/ageless blogs will be blocked.﹚

Your ex-husband had it coming.

If he believed you would silently endure the burden of his transgressions—the callous, cruel murder of your career as a world-renowned pop-star—then he was either foolishly misguided or tragically unintelligent.

You supposed you were at fault too, but you were obstinate enough not to acknowledge the same. It was you, after all, who had pursued a relationship with a mogul in the production industry, driven by ambitions to gain traction with your music by working under a more prominent name.

It had been a year ago when the scales had finally tipped irreparably, when you had discovered that he had usurped your music's legal protection and ownership rights—without so much of a whisper of an explanation in regards of the matter—which allowed him to reap all of the financial benefits that should have been yours alone.

But a divorce and an even heftier alimony wasn't enough.

All that was insufficient to rectify all that he had inflicted upon you and your career.

He had to go.

Now.

So, you watch as flames engulf the charred skeleton of his luxury mansion, and as vestiges of diminishing trails of stygian smoke claw at the night sky. The gentle drag you take from your own cigarette minimally contributes to the thriving volume of the thick fumes as you watch the home burn to the ground.

The inevitable presence of panicked neighbors fills the roads, their anxious and fearful murmurs of observance blending with the arrival of the fire department dousing the remains of the building, followed closely by inbound police officers and guard dogs. As they disembark from their cars, sirens punctuate the silence of the night, alongside the periodic flashes of red, white, and blue.

Some shakily film the scene, and others watch in horror from their windows and terraces, while the firemen and officers attempt to placate both the flames and the onlookers.

It's then that Officer Nanami notices the rather serene eye of the storm.

You, heedlessly leaning against one of the many lit lamp-posts, the glow of which renders your figure almost incandescent as you watch the authorities attempt to extinguish the destruction. Observing the scene with the faintest hints of a succubus-like simper with a knowing glint in your eye, it doesn't surprise you when the officer approaches you, in demand of an explanation.

"Miss," an observant voice comments in your direction, looking from you to the paperwork in his hands, and back again. His chest pocket gleams with a police badge and several accolades of duty, and his hair—blond—is effulgent in the halo of the streetlight. "Would you care to explain?"

"Explain?" you reiterate, turning in his direction as though the perilous display of committed incendiarism in front of you both was a mere commonality of a spectacle. Elevated fire hoses spurt boundless water and cause a draft of wind afoot in your direction. Your sheer nightgown sways gently with the breeze, the rippling silk deeming your appearance almost ghostly. "Explain what, officer?"

"You are Mr. Ricci's ex-wife, are you not?" he elucidates, glancing from the annihilated ruins of the home to you. "And you just so happen to be present at the scene of this crime, utterly and completely peaceful. That alone, along with your publicized hatred for the man, is enough for us to bring you in as the prime suspect of this crime."

"Whoa, crime?" you answer, eyebrows raising in almost mock-astonishment. "You need to slow down with your assumptions, Officer..."

Your gaze drops to the gold star resting below the collar of his shirt, and you deliberately make a show out of reading the name printed underneath the metallic insignia.

"... Nanami," you complete.

He has no reply, awaiting yours.

"Well, I suppose your conjecture is sensible. I do hate him. Publicly, as you specified," you continue, arms folding casually as you speak with utmost indifference. "But ... no, I wouldn't do a thing like that, that's for sure."

Officer Nanami raises a speculative eyebrow, non-verbally contradicting your shallow explanation. His mien is brusquely schooled into something of vexation.

"He called me." you elaborate, honestly, unlocking your phone and showing him your recent calls. Three incoming calls from the contact FUCKFACE and one outgoing lets Officer Nanami know that you may not be guilty. Not entirely, at least. "He found some of my belongings in his attic this morning and asked for me to take them back. And when I did get here, the house was already on fire, I swear I'm not a liar."

He examines your screen once more before returning your device.

"And your first instinct was to simply ... stand there?" he inquires, wanting desperately to coax a slip-up out of your honeyed words. "Not to, perhaps, inform the authorities? That said, I do not believe anyone with such enmity and distaste for their previous partner shows up to the home of the aforementioned in—shall I say—nightclothes? Barefoot, even?"

"The neighbors were already calling the fire station and the police," you counter swiftly, the tips of your fingers brushing along the bare length of his forearm. You quietly ignore his comments about your attire. His hands clench the paperwork tighter at your fleeting touches. "I wouldn't want to overwhelm the station with a barrage of calls so close to midnight. Tell me, do you always work alone so late?"

"I will not tolerate any inane deflections from the subject," Officer Nanami huffs, watching as your hand falls back to your side. "Stick to the case on hand. If you remain so uncooperative, you are reserving yourself a place in the interrogation room back at the precinct. Where is your vehicle? Can you tell me just how you arrived at this location?

"Always so serious," you muse in response, eyes flitting to the lamentable, drenched remnants of your ex-husband's home (and his pitiful corpse too, you hope), wicked hints of a grin teasing your lips. "The precinct seems like a better idea. I'm a little shy standing here in my nightgown."

"You are anything but shy," Officer Nanami manages to speak amidst his own impetuosity, patience thinning and frustration growing like the very embers of fire that had erupted from Ricci's mansion when you had doused the home's electric cabinet in gasoline mere hours ago, flicking your lighter on seconds later. "Answer. My. Question."

"You're no fun," you groan, flicking your extinguished cigarette into a nearby trash can. "My black Aventador is outside the neighborh—"

You're interrupted by the deafening crash of the final few standing planks of wood in the compound, which drop to the amalgamation of soil and soot with numerous crackles of traces of fire.

"It's so noisy," you remark, nose scrunching distastefully at the disruption. You continue almost cloyingly, pulling another cigarette out of the thin pocket of your robe. "Let's get in the back of your cop car, officer. You can ask me anything you want."

As though clinging to the final fragments of his thinly veiled patience, Nanami sighs, and his eyes flit to your pocket for a moment, clearly having noticed something of interest. Before you know it, your cheek and shoulder hit the firm, metallic surface of the streetlight pole, and Officer Nanami gathers your wrists behind your back with one hand and cuffs them together with another.

"You have the right to remain silent," Officer Nanami tells you, tone deadpan as he takes hold of the chain binding both cuffs together, all but dragging you to his police van as he informs his colleagues of the arrest over walkie-talkie. "Anything you say can and will be used against y—"

"Do you really have to put those tight handcuffs on?" you cut him off grudgingly through gritted teeth, as you near the vehicle.

Officer Nanami's only response comes in the form of you both stopping against the hood of the van, where he reaches for the objects in the pocket of your robe, pulling out a half-consumed Marlboro box, and...

Your lighter.

Fuck.

"Yes, I do," he tells you, almost ridiculously smug, as he bags the belongings in separate evidence folders. When you board the backseat of the van, he closes the door behind you and shuts the lock before he gets into the driver's seat himself.

Officer Nanami lowers the incessant, mindless hum of the radio as he drives you to the station. You glance out of one of the caged windows, and—ironically enough—spot yourself posing on a billboard, advertising a luxury fragrance called Flames of Lust. You almost snort at the sight, resentfully rolling your eyes.

Your gaze willfully turns to his hands, bare and wrapped around the leather of the steering wheel, and you have to restrain yourself from saying something brash.

You're pulled out of your salacious reverie when he leads the van through a traffic-laden road and turns on the sirens, the reverberating alarms making you realize the true gravity of the situation.

Officer Nanami may have bested you for just this one instance.

But this was far from over.

PART 2, coming soon ╱ © kissytoru

AUTHOR'S NOTE: my first ever fic on here eek 😬 it's been ages since i've actually written anything, so let me know if this was good in my asks plz :> pt 2 out soon 😋

﹙please like, share, and reblog <3 do not copy, repost, plagiarize, edit, translate, or feed my work into ai or chatbots.﹚

[deathlulls]

"you saved me. i've always watched you.

there are countless people who have seen more success than you, but none of them saved me the way you did, and none of them could possibly accomplish all that you have.

you have no idea how much courage you've given me, or how you allowed me to become who i am today.

in my heart, you are the only god."

— hua cheng, heaven official's blessings

[deathlulls]

xie lian: it's been a long time since the three of us did something like this, huh?

mu qing: do you mean fighting side by side or running for our lives?

xie lian: both!

feng xin: we do this all the time!