#//I'm doing my best which is in fact terrible lmao

[fatedmuses]

//me trying to message people first on here like just do it bitch and then I don't do it and instead just sitting here like 🧍‍♂️

[knifearo]

being aromantic is like. hey btw you're going to live a life that is the culmination of most of society's worst nightmares. sorry lol ✌️ but then you turn around and take a really good hard look at it and it turns out that living in that nightmare is fucking awesome and you get to wake up every day and take that fear that other people have and laugh and hold it close until it's a great joy for you instead. and being happy is a radical act that you define instead of someone else. and you're sexy as fuck that's just a fact of life i don't make the rules on that one

[zettaireido-emotion]

Camus character analysis: games VS anime

If you finished the Uta no Prince-sama anime and your opinion of this man is "wow, he's kinda terrible," I don't blame you. in fact I've seen a lot of people say this

In this post, I want to talk about his characterization in the games and give my two cents on what the anime was trying to do with him, especially in his single focus episode Saintly Territory (S3E6).

Disclaimer: I wrote this on a whim because I'm sick and stuck at home so if anyone reads this, sorry I might go all over the place

Spoilers for all of the games!

The "be my slave" thing

Starting with Anime Camus's most egregious crime: treating Haruka like a servant/slave (however you want to translate it)

Basically in his focus episode, Haruka is tasked with writing a song for Camus. She wants to learn more about him in order to write it, but Camus will only let her follow him if she acts as his servant. She accepts without complaining, Cecil is rightfully angry, Haruka continues anyway and the song gets completed.

Now, am I about to say that Game Camus would never do this? No because he literally does lmao.

The anime doesn't pull this "servant" plotline out of nowhere, here's the context in his route:

Haruka accidentally overhears Camus talking about a plot to assassinate Saotome on the phone. When he notices that she heard everything, he basically tells her that he has to kill her now. But if she served him, he'd be able to keep an eye on her, make sure she doesn't leak anything, so she could escape death.

Okay uh "work under me or DIE" isn't exactly better, nor is it a good start to a love story, but I'm not finished!!

(A side note: I have to add that the anime made him look like an even bigger asshole and borderline dumb when it came to the things he made her do. Like he expected her to know that snapping your fingers means you want coffee without prior explanation. bro

^This might have been for comedic effect but I promise he can be actually funny and endearing.)

What the anime couldn't cover

The Camus episode wraps up with Haruka pulling through and writing a song that makes Camus "sincere," he says it's cool at the very end and that's the episode. I think the problem is that we technically didn't see him being sincere or what that even means to him, besides when he was singing (banger song btw)

It's a shame because in a 20-minute episode you really can't show the game experience of slowly piecing together what this man's problem is.

First of all, in Debut and AS you'll be quick to notice that he always has homeland and duty on the mind, constantly reminding himself that he's in Shining Agency/Japan for a reason, and it's NOT to have fun or make friends

The truth is, he slowly starts to appreciate the banter with his colleagues, music, and working there in general.

But because of his initial mindset, he has to rationalize & justify every connection he forms, like "it's just for work" or worse: "actually it was ALL A LIE and I NEVER ENJOYED A SECOND OF THE TIME WE SPENT TOGETHER, I'm such a great actor haha"

He uses that to fool himself and to push the other person away so it doesn't happen again. This scene is probably the best example:

(I'll be using google lens because it's faster but I checked that the tls were okay)

He also does this in the Non-Fiction drama, which may or may not have actually happened, but I think it's still a pretty good reflection of what could happen in reality because he tells Ranmaru their bond was a lie, then mopes around in his guilt thinking about the good times and wondering why he's sad, and THEN later doubles down on the "it was a lie, I don't care about you" because he just can't let himself get attached to anything.

Basically, he's terrified at the thought of forming actual bonds because he genuinely thinks he's nothing if he stops being a cold weapon:

At one point he does admit he sucks (as a love interest)-

-which is pretty huge by utapri standards. I love these games, but the amount of times where a male lead does something icky, and everyone, including Haruka, acts like it's normal or like it's Haruka's fault is ehhh but I digress

Upbringing

Of course he's very proud of his homeland and status, but sometimes it's to the point of thinking he can't be anything other than his title. So why is he like this?

We got to hear about his childhood from Camus himself a few times, and it often ended with Haruka thinking "wait? that's kinda messed up?" and Camus insisting it's nothing/it's normal so yeah that's something...

His parents were in an unhappy arranged marriage, and his mother was forced to birth an heir which traumatized her so much that she can't see Camus without falling ill. Overall it's a pretty tragic situation since what happened to her was horrible, though not Camus's fault either. Even now she refuses to see him, and I wouldn't say that makes him sad because he never really met her, but simply knowing of her sacrifice probably adds a lot of pressure. As in, he only exists for this one purpose (inheriting his father's title and serving the country), so if he doesn't play his part correctly, it would have all been for nothing.

He was raised by his father not as a child or son but as the heir, always treated and judged as an adult (even during physical training apparently, make of that what you will)

When Haruka asks about childhood memories he has a very hard time finding something that doesn't have to do with his duties or the nation. And then admits he didn't truly have a "childhood" since he was never treated like a child

As for the queen, I think his love for her is sincere: she taught him a lot of things growing up, and according to him, she's also a victim trapped by her duties so he wants to ease the burden.

So hypothetically, if he found things or people that made him happy in Japan, he would feel obligated to lock them away because that happiness is incompatible with his life: he'll have to leave when his mission ends, he shouldn't be spending time on things that aren't "useful" as he doesn't have the free will to pursue them

In his mind he's completely tied down by the fact that he was born and raised for a single reason, and the fact that he does want to serve the queen.

(This is Saotome describing him btw)

Also it might sound ridiculous to bring his self-worth into question because of how pretentious he is, but I've counted a few situations where he seemed to have complete disregard for his own life, only worrying about Haruka and Cecil's safety in scenes when they were present. And he thinks wanting to be loved unconditionally is a childish thought he shouldn't have.

"Double Face" was a lie. There's like at least 10 layers

On the surface he does have two personas, his perfect polite butler act for the media, and his cold bitchy attitude off camera. But honestly, even when he's not acting as a butler, he's often putting up a front to hide any form of vulnerability (from himself as well)

His main struggle is finding who he is outside of what he's being told to do. Before, he never actually stopped to think about what he WANTS because it just never occurs to him, or if it does he ignores it.

That's why realizing that he has his own desires is essential to his character development, and him staying with Quartet Night (and Haruka in his routes) is so important. It's why Reiji feels the need to reach out and when he does, Camus either freezes up or tears up;

This all makes him the opposite of Ranmaru (being true to yourself and sincere), and similar to Ai (gradually learning to view the world in a less cold and logical way), but I kind of want to save that for another post lmao

He is especially hard on Cecil because Cecil says & does whatever he wants, and everything still works out for him, which is a way of life that Camus can't imagine for himself at all (despite maybe wanting it?)

That he can realize this and eventually admit out loud, despite all his pride, is also one of my favorite things about him

Season 2 does hint at something, so that's pretty cool!

Side note, I really love that his theme in the new Oracle series is "Change," the melting of ice.

So what was the anime supposed to do??

Of course there's no way to show all this in a single episode or even during the runtime of the anime, and I never expected them to because the story is very surface-level (that goes for all characters).

It's just unfortunate since the anime is the most accessible and well-known utapri media in the western fandom, and the character's main episode is bound to leave the biggest impression.

I understand the choice of being laser-focused on the servant plotline, it's supposed to be funny (?) and waters him down to a trope that's easy to understand at first glance (the step-on-me guy I guess)

Still, I can't help but compare it to Ranmaru's episode, who was also hard to work with in the games but was chill in S3E7 and got to pet cats. Anime onlys will never know how much Camus loves to dote on his dog smh.....

[tojiscrack]

𝐇𝐈𝐆𝐇 𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐋: 𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐇𝐌𝐀𝐍 𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐑

summary: 18.1k words — you and the rest of your friend group experience all the changes and activities that high school has to offer.

notes: so during the making of this chapter, i put up a poll where i left it up to my little liars (you guys) on what colour the school should be. as much as i absolutely HATED that the majority of you picked blue over red (i'm still salty about it) i'm glad 132 of you actually participated in the vote. now enjoy this monstrosity.

tw: swearing, mention of dicks, mention of suicide in a metaphor, and that's probably it lmao

i do not own any of the characters of jjk, i only own the character of y/n and her mother. the other characters belong to gege akutami.

previous chapter :)

next chapter :)

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・

2017-2018 freshman year

"i don't like this."

"nobody cares, porcupine."

the two of you were currently sat in satoru's — correction: mr gojo's — office at school. it was orientation week and both you and megumi had collected your ID cards and your locker numbers. you were yet to receive your timetable for the coming year, but you were certain that they'd hand it to you some time this week, seeing as freshman year officially started in the coming week.

megumi had put up a pretty stubborn front when it came to admiring the larger corridors and the midnight blue lockers littered around the entire school (which was pretty massive, you had to note). you imagined that it would be terribly easy to get lost in, with the corridors no longer as narrow as the ones back in your middle school and with several other buildings attached to the main one in order to make room for specific departments for specific subjects. currently, you found yourself in the science department, satoru's — mr gojo's — expertise, fiddling with the new keys you'd have to take extra care of.

you'd read about jujutsu high all over the internet (and heard quite a lot about it from satoru himself). apparently, he, ieiri, and suguru attended here back in their youth. the pictures you'd seen in his camera roll, and on several polaroids, indicated that it had been a really good time ("the best time of my life," satoru would never fail to remind you). changing schools for the third time had become much easier knowing that you might experience everything that they did. it also didn't hurt that high school lasted for four long years. there were plenty of things you could do to make tons of memories in that time, especially due to the fact that yuji and nobara had both found seats in jujutsu high too.

sato— mr gojo's office was pretty decent. the walls around you were littered with several display boards showcasing a bunch of his students' work and diagrams of subcellular structures. he clearly took pride in his teaching, even if he randomly spurts out that he'd rather have their yearbook pictures up instead. apparently they had been horrendous, but a good laugh all the same. though, you'd hate to think what this man would do after you and megumi left the school. probably put up our identification pictures, you thought with a grimace.

"so," he'd said, leaning back in his spinning chair with a grin, "you nervous?"

as megumi eyed the display boards with a look of concentration you'd only seen on him when he would read the questions presented to him in an exam, you answered cheerfully.

"excited, mainly." you were seated on the chair opposite your future teacher. "but megumi was throwing a fit about it on the way here —"

"i was not," he harshly interrupted you. you did not have to look over your shoulder to tell that he was glaring at the back of your head.

sa— mr gojo paid his reaction no mind, only continued to tease him as though he hadn't spoken at all.

"i can tell! you look kinda roughed up, kid," he said, and you nearly laughed when megumi patted down his haywire hair as if it were a new thing for it to be standing on different ends. mr gojo merely flashed him a toothy smile. "i mean, that picture on your ID card —"

"that wasn't my fault," megumi snapped coldly, fiddling with his lanyard that was falling out of the pocket of his pants. "the lady kept telling me to smile."

you perked up excitedly. "but get this: he told her that is him smiling."

the picture itself was megumi being typical megumi, a bored expression that could very well be mistaken for anger. you'd never let him hear the end of it. mr gojo threw his head back and laughed.

"i'm leaving —"

"okay, okay, we're sorry!" you said hurriedly, sitting up in your chair because slouching meant that you wouldn't be able to turn and face your friend with urgency.

megumi glowered at you, but did not leave. you took that as a win as he came to stand behind you, eyes narrowed at s— mr gojo.

"i hope we get ieiri as our teacher," he grumbled, because apparently, ieiri had also taken a job here to teach.

mr gojo, looking mildly offended, simply laughed his statement off, tilting his head forward to present his weirdly-blue eyes to the two of you behind his sunglasses. you wished someone would get this man brown contacts.

"keep an eye out for your timetables, yeah?" he responded, his tone all too teasing.

you did not mind having mr gojo as a teacher, to be perfectly honest. as annoying as he could be, he was extremely laidback and matched your humour in ways many adults could not. megumi might hate him, but you supposed that it was only because you and mr gojo would team up to make fun of him, no matter the situation. there were, however, instances where you thought megumi didn't actually hate him. not really, at least. but that was a story for another time.

sitting up straight, your back to the head of the chair, you tilted your head slightly. "wait... did you do something so that we'd be the unlucky few to have you as our teacher?"

mr gojo's lips pursed. if it hadn't been for his sunglasses, you supposed that his eyes were probably wide enough to give you a shock wave and send you straight to a hospital bed.

"why would you be unlucky to have me as your teacher?" he demanded, clearly offended.

mr gojo had always put himself on this pedestal where nobody could ever find him anything but endearing. in short, he truly believed that he was above everyone and that if you have a class with him, you should be grateful, if anything.

you barely had time to respond before megumi cut in coldly:

"you'd lose your own head if it wasn't screwed on tight."

mr gojo raised a brow at him, pulling out a small mirror from his desk drawer and holding it up to take long glances at himself. "how could i ever lose such a beautiful thing?"

megumi looked as though he wanted to shatter the mirror and everything else in the room just from louring.

"you keep a mirror in your office?" you questioned, confused.

mr gojo lowered the mirror and frowned. "you don't?"

"millennials," you heard megumi sigh from behind you.

mr gojo tucked the mirror away and fiddled with the framed picture he seemed to have propped up on his desk, its back facing you. since both you and megumi had entered his office, he seemed reluctant to show it to the both of you, storing it away with a cheeky grin you felt meant trouble. even now, he seemed to be taking glances at it and chuckling to himself, as if the two of you were part of an inside joke you had no knowledge of.

with the framed picture now resting on his lap, cleanly out of your sight, he looked up at you, lazily spinning on his chair.

"are you guys taking any extra-curriculars here?" he asked, perhaps the first ever serious question he'd posed to you that day.

"no, not me," you answered truthfully. you actually hadn't even given it a slight bit of thought. "but megumi wants to take football!"

mr gojo beamed. "really?"

megumi nodded. "heard they had a good pitch and everything."

"great coach too," the white haired male added. "the old one left last year. i had to fill in for him till the new one came around. you'll like him."

in saying that, you had expected his gaze to be directed at megumi, who had shown genuine interest in the sport. however, his head had lowered ever so slightly, showing that he was looking at you instead; you, who had shown no interest in taking an extra-curricular, namely football, at all.

"were you on the football team when you were here?" asked megumi, the harsh tone he usually used with mr gojo now lowered and at ease.

mr gojo shot him a lazy grin. "nah, i did basketball."

"so why did you fill in for the football team then?"

"i'm not bad at football," he said calmly, but you already knew that seeing as the annual family football game was usually dominated by either him or toji. but for once, he didn't sound cocky about it either. "i'm really good at it, obviously. i just prefer basketball."

before either of you could respond, the door behind you opened abruptly. annoyance ran through you, swift as an arrow, for the conversation had just begun to get interesting. all three of you peered at the door, watching as a head of a blonde, stern woman popped through the gap, lips pursing at the sight of you and megumi.

"no students allowed in the teacher's lounge, mr gojo," the woman had stated icily.

you decided that whoever this karen was, you didn't like her much. she stirred up old memories of a teacher from kindergarten that you weren't too fond of, and judging by the bored look on megumi's face, you were certain that he also agreed (a rare occurrence, seeing as the two of you were usually on opposing ends of several arguments).

mr gojo didn't look too pleased at the interruption either. already slouching in his chair as it was, he barely sat up straight to respond to her.

"i'm their legal guardian," he sneered, discontent. "and this is my office."

the woman, clearly disoriented, left without another word. you let out a low whistle.

"who was that beauty?" you said, looking back at mr gojo with raised brows.

"i like to call her negative nancy," he said, before standing up and walking around his desk to gesture to the door, ushering you out. "but anyway, you should check out the football pitch! i think the new coach is out there too, it'd be good to introduce yourselves!"

you and megumi made your way over to the door, a sense of delirium washing over you. the one major thing you'd been looking forward to out of everything was the football pitch and the late night games that would take place. due to mai showing you several clips of how rowdy the games could get, you only wished that high school would come sooner in order to experience it all in real time.

as the two of you made your way down to the football pitch, passing several classrooms filled with people listening intently to an adult doing a speech, you spotted tsumiki leading a line of students down to what looked like the school library. you instinctively glanced at megumi.

"she's part of the student council," he reminded you, continuing to walk past the library and then outside the building. "she has to help out with this stuff."

"ooh, maybe i could do that too," you commented determinedly.

megumi looked down at you, monotonous.

"you have to be elected in."

"that's no big deal!"

"no one would vote for you," he said at last, continuing to walk and not stopping even though you had, stumped and stupefied.

"that's rude, porcupine!"

he ignored you, figuring that you'd follow him eventually; you did.

it wasn't long before your constant bickering had lead you to the football pitch in no time... and it was everything you'd imagined and more.

it was like any old football field, but wider, larger, bigger: surrounding the field of grass was the running track that went round in one giant oval. behind you were the seats, benches upon benches that went higher with each step in order to make space for every viewer to sit comfortably. the field itself was adorned with several white lines, each marked with expert precision, ready and prepared for any football game that would take place. on much higher ground, behind the benches, was a wide, dark blue building, with speakers attached to the left, middle, and right sides of the roof. it was also adorned with several massive windows on the front, allowing you to see that the inside also had seats. you squinted your eyes to clear your vision a bit and found that there was a microphone for each chair.

"i was hoping for the school to be red, like the one your mom wanted us to go to," you stated, eyeing the blue on the benches with disgust. 

"i like blue," megumi countered calmly. 

you scowled at him. "no, red is better. who the hell made the decision to decorate it all blue?"

megumi stared off into the distance, breaking the fourth wall and peering at the people who were left the responsibility to make the choice, deadpanned.

until you broke the silence, tugging on the arm of his shirt to grab his attention.

"am i seeing things or is there someone standing over there?" you asked quietly, pointing at the figure standing in the middle of the field, unmoving. 

you and megumi were on the pink track, therefore the distance between the two of you and the mysterious person in the centre of the field was great. you wouldn't be at fault for making a mistake with your presumption.

 "probably the new coach," your stoic friend responded, simultaneously leering at the person. 

upon further inspection, it looked to be a pretty tall man, perhaps tall enough to be at even satoru's height (and satoru was pretty damn tall, which he never let anyone forget).

"let's go," said megumi, turning away to leave the pitch.

you hadn't moved, blinking at him in confusion. 

"you don't want to introduce yourself?" you questioned, addled.

megumi shook his head; you sighed exaggeratedly and pulled him in by his arm. surprisingly, you didn't need to put any extra effort in doing so: megumi put up no fight when you dragged him along.

"don't be so shy, porcupine," you said, your tone teasing because you knew pretty well that he wouldn't like it one bit. hell would freeze over before you ever neglected a single day of annoying him till he snapped. "the emo in you is showing."

"i'll hit you."

"you wouldn't," you sang, and weren't surprised when he didn't argue with you on that. "now c'mon, malakai —"

"you're really testing my patience, mermaid —"

but you'd found no time to start a brawl with him (as you usually would) at his cruel comment. instead, you stopped dead in your tracks, your arms still wrapped around one of megumi's against your torso, but your eyes were no longer focused on him. instead, you were ogling at something in front of you, namely the peculiar being that the two of you had questioned only a few minutes prior. 

you felt megumi's free hand poke at your cheek.

"what's wrong with you—"

"MASAMICHI?" you yelled, uncaring of the fact that your emo friend had flinched at the sudden volume of your voice. 

initially, megumi had thought your cry of the name of your former p.e teacher from middle school was a mistake. after all, there were numerous times in the long years that he'd known you where you were wrong, whether it be in an argument, a factual comment, or even your opinion on something (he held no regard for the fact that an opinion can't actually be wrong, but you were always an exception for him). however, when the figure at the centre of the field became stiff with your call, he had a pressing feeling that today must've been the night of the blue moon or something: you were actually right.

"MASAMICHI YAGA!" you repeated, louder and with less questioning in your voice. 

megumi's arm had become loose in your hold, he slowly took it back, grateful for the distraction. you didn't mind.

the man had finally turned around as you hurriedly dived forward, more excitement in you at the idea that your favourite former teacher (no matter how many times he'd yelled at you) had followed you here! you had to be dreaming, there was no way this was happening.

coach yaga's appearance had changed over the years since you'd first met him. he was still as tall as ever with a muscular frame and tanned skin. though what stuck out to you the most was his hair. where it used to lie flat on his head, barely any to run his hands through, now he was sporting some that were flying up on different ends, short yet spiky. the rest of his head had remained shaved.

the final thing, along with his frame, moustache and goatee combination that had remained the same, was the tired, annoyed, and exasperated expression on his face, as if simply being in your presence was a chore.

"megumi, pinch me," you said once you'd arrived in front of your former teacher, staring up at him in awe.

"gladly," your friend had responded.

from the corner of your eye, you could see his hand flying towards yours — you slapped it away without a second thought or a single glance. 

"of all the high schools you could've gone to," coach yaga sighed, staring down at you as if you were the bane of his existence (you might as well have been), "it's the one i happened to join this year."

"right?" you perked up, thrilled. "isn't that great?"

megumi thought he looked anything but thrilled. he seemed to be questioning his choice in partaking in that long process of application forms and interviews for the job here, clearly. and when megumi caught a glimpse of you, practically buzzing with excitement, it was as if all the memories of your troublesome nature had come flooding back to him in one go. he thought he understood what coach yaga was so distraught about. he thinks he might have even experienced it once or twice.

coach yaga seemed to have come to terms with it, for he let out a long, drawn out sigh and then turned to face megumi with a critical look.

"you been practicing over the summer, fushiguro?" he said, voice gruff and stern. "you once said you wanted to take football properly in high school. you haven't changed your mind, have you?"

"no."

coach yaga regarded him stoically. 

"don't bother turning up to try-outs," he'd said after a few seconds of merely nodding. "you're on the team."

you felt megumi stiffen up beside you, so when you looked up at him, gauging out his expression, you were concerned to see that he'd completely frozen, and not even with a half-smile curling at his lips whenever he was secretly happy about something. megumi's face was morphed into an expression of distress, you might even say that it bordered annoyance. 

you couldn't help but question why: he'd been given a free position on the football team without even having to (as a theatre kid would see it) audition for the part. 

unless he was being righteous again, which always managed to irk you to a certain degree. uncle ogi called him foolish because of it, yet his mother had called him an angel. 

"favouritism!" you accused, pointing at him in shock. "masamichi is doing favouritism!"

"if you don't lower your voice, girl —" your former teacher threatened, raising a fist at you, though you knew it was a completely empty threat.

ah, this was the teacher you remembered. 

"...and it's coach yaga to you, for the millionth time." 

"sorry, but i can't accept that," megumi had intervened (though that probably was not the right word for it, seeing as the topic was centred around him to begin with).

both your heads had turned to face him. it was, perhaps, the first time that you and coach yaga could see eye-to-eye on something: you weren't happy with megumi's refusal to the offer. you couldn't understand it. 

megumi was incredibly good at football. in fact, you had so much faith in him, you were certain that even if he did take part in try-outs, he'd get in without question. you had no doubt about it. so why, you thought in your head, ready to voice it if need be, did he have to go on this whole righteous tangent if the offer could save time for both him and coach yaga?

"what the hell do you mean by that?" snapped coach yaga. "you were on my team last year, different school, but my team nonetheless. you've got a talent, i don't need to see it again to decide. you're on the team, that's final."

"you can decide after i turn up to try-outs," said megumi, clearly unmoving on his view. "it's only fair."

"fair?" sputtered coach yaga, as if he hadn't heard of the word in his entire life. you couldn't blame him, simmering in silence as you watched the interaction between them with irritation. "life's not fair, boy! you're on the team. i saw the line-up for the team last year: inumaki's on it, so you'll have a familiar face to work with."

"that doesn't matter," megumi stubbornly continued. "yuji's coming here too."

"well you can tell him he's on the team too, then," said coach yaga, also stubborn. 

megumi glowered at him. "i'm not doing that —"

"then i will!" you added, pulling out your phone from the pocket of your jeans and hurriedly opening up your texts with yuji. 

you could feel two holes being burned into your left cheek where megumi was glaring daggers at you, but you didn't care. you were happy for him and yuji. it was a moment to be proud of. the two were so good at the sport, that coach yaga felt the need to eliminate them from even trying out for the team, insisting that they were that talented. this, if anything, was something to celebrate. you knew that megumi would probably hold a grudge against coach yaga for the rest of his miserable life, but you were also aware of the fact that your grumpy teacher just simply would not care. so long as he has a winning team in his hands, he could not care less. that, you were grateful for.

in the end, like you had expected, megumi gave in (though not without a word; it was routine for him to complain about something) albeit reluctantly. later that day, when you met up with yuji and nobara, your pink haired friend had been as ecstatic as you, only to feel guilty at the look on megumi's face. one righteous grump was enough, how had he influenced yuji to be the same (minus the being-grumpy part)?

as the week continued to roll on — and you began to question when it was that they'd finally hand you your timetables — all four of you had found yourselves sitting around a table at the school, your first official day as a high schooler, excited...

only to deflate the second you examined megumi's sheet, eyes darting left and right, up and down, just to go on repeat.

"megumi!" you gasped, feeling more disappointed than angry.

the only classes that you shared with megumi, out of the nine that you were in, were chemistry, biology, and math. you didn't even share the same homeroom, and aside from the three mentioned, the only time you would be able to see him again would be during study-hall and lunch, all of which were not nearly long enough to compensate for the time lost with each other.

eyes bulging out of their sockets, when you'd darted them to ogle at your dear friend, you thought he seemed to be thinking the same thing. megumi never usually smiled, so it wasn't a shock when his lips pressed themselves into a thin line, but you could differentiate each and every one of his expressions as if they were your own, and megumi (though he'd never admit it) was not pleased with the arrangement of each of your timetables. 

at all.

"this is all your fault," you said, shaking his timetable aggressively. he snatched it out of your hands with a look of irritation. you let him. "what did you have to go and pick business for?"

he glowered at you. "can you imagine me on stage doing performing arts?"

"of course i can!" you snapped, waving a hand dismissively. "i literally edited you on a stage once, don't you remember —"

"you did?" yuji perked up, to megumi's annoyance. "show it to us!"

"yeah, let's see!" added nobara, extending her arm across the table and making a 'hand it over' motion.

"let's not see," megumi interrupted icily, slapping nobara's hand away with enough force, the sound reverberated around the hall; nobara hadn't taken that lightly either, kicking him under the table with an expression of pain and vexation.

you ignored them all, staring down at his timetable, which you'd swiftly swiped off the table again, with confusion. how was it possible that you only shared three classes with him? it seemed that these classes were based off of the end of year exams from middle school, and megumi was at the top of the class for everything, to no one's surprise. but so were you, except for math. last year, the only reason you passed with flying colours was because of megumi, because even though he'd made rude and judgemental comments when tutoring you, he actually happened to be a very good teacher.

the thought did not compute to you. when you'd compared your timetables with yuji and nobara's, you'd been over the moon at the fact that you shared several classes with them, whether it be individually or as a group. it wasn't mentioned enough (mainly because you were quite careless about it) but you had done just as well as megumi in the exams for every other subject, so why were you in only three classes with him?

clearly you'd committed a terrible crime in your past life to be punished with such a sentence. who else will blame megumi for the funny writing on the board the second everyone enters the class? who, other than you, will frame him for the aeroplanes thrown at that one kid you despised for being so cruel for no apparent reason? who, but you, will provoke him enough to start a dictionary fight from two opposite ends of the classroom simply because his angry face was belly-ache-laughter inducing?

from the looks of it, it seemed that you'd have to pass the torch on to yuji. you did always think he would be your replacement... ever since you first met the annoyance.

"this isn't fair," you sighed.

megumi agreed, shaking his head, monotoned and bored. "yeah it's just not fair."

"anyway, megumi might physically abuse me if i show it to you guys right now," you said, changing the subject begrudgingly, only to smile just as soon as a lightbulb flicked on over your head. "but satoru has a ton of pictures of him from our christmas play back in elementary school!"

you did not have to glance at megumi to know that he was scowling (what was new?). yuji beamed at your statement, eyes sparkling with curiosity that was certainly not mild enough to restrain him from demanding that you send every single one of those images to him.

"did you play baby jesus?" he asked loudly, smiling from ear-to-ear as he awaited megumi's response.

"you're intellectually challenged," your dark haired friend snapped, visibly irked at the way you and nobara laughed at the thought of little megumi, ever the grumpy one, playing baby jesus. "how the hell would anyone play a new born?"

"just... wrap them in a towel or something," yuji suggested, though he sounded less passionate now that megumi had set the record straight. if it wasn't yuji, you might have actually felt bad. 

"so what did you play then?" nobara swiftly questioned. "the shepherds?"

"maybe he played the livestock!" yuji perked up excitedly, turning to you for confirmation. he seemd to have effectively recovered from the disheartening moment of being told he wasn't very clever. "he's always loved animals, right?"

megumi let out an exhale of disbelief. "the hell makes you think i wanted to be one?"

"wouldn't put it past you," scoffed nobara. "didn't you try and stay at the zoo when your family went to visit, like, a decade ago?"

surprised at the prospect of megumi's head remaining in tact with his neck due to how fast he'd snapped it round to face you in apparent annoyance, you did not meet his gaze, resting your chin on your hands held up by the table, still examining his timetable that you hadn't returned.

"why'd you tell her?" he questioned, when it became crystal clear that you had no intention of voicing the elephant in the room. 

"it was supposed to be a secret?" you replied, looking up at him with faux innocence. but megumi knew you, and he knew you very well; well enough to tell that you had done this on purpose. if there was one thing you were an expert in, it was trying your absolute best in annoying, shaming, and angering megumi fushiguro. 

and he hated it.

how it worked, mostly, but he hated it all the same.

"uncle ogi said we couldn't tell anyone," he reminded you, firm and very visibly offended. 

you grinned at him. "what, because of the reputation of the zenin family?" you continued before he could answer. "well guess what, porcupine? i'm not a zenin."

"and neither am i," he stated, the frown on his face deepening with each passing second.

"by name, maybe not. you're literally toji's son —"

"i would've found out anyway," nobara intervened confidently. she twirled a piece of her short hair around her finger mindlessly. "you ended up on national television —"

"national television?" yuji repeated, his voice raising several octaves. you expected him to look a bit more impressed, but your pink-haired friend merely pouted at the three of you. "why am i being segregated? what happened on national tv?"

that particular day had been very hectic. a visit to the zoo with the rest of the family (along with suguru and his two girls, mimiko and nanako), was meant to be how any other family would act, admiring the animals and walking in sync with one another... only for it to turn into absolute chaos when little megumi had ended up in the gorilla enclosure and decided that he wanted to live there.

you never let him live that one down.

"megumi became one with the gorillas —"

"did you tell them about your interest in the aquarium?" he cut through your statement coldly.

your eyes widened, gawking at him in something in between disbelief and complete annoyance. if there was one thing megumi knew embarrassed you (and you don't tend to get embarrassed by much) it was the mermaid lie you'd made years ago. 

"i was interested in the sharks," you explained, growing more and more agitated with the way megumi's face became more and more dismissive, as if you were lying. "they were scary but i liked it —"

"makes sense," he interrupted again, "they're a danger to your species."

you could see yuji laughing; the knife lodged itself deep in your heart. you could see nobara holding hers in; you felt the knife twist in its place.

the irritating part of it all was the fact that your dark-haired, cruel friend deserved credit for that one. it was good, and if it hadn't been directed at you, you might have even voiced how impressed you were.

"okay i'll give you that one," you said, turning away with your nose in the air. "it was good, you got me there. but only this time, porcupine."

you hoped and prayed that yuji and nobara would forget this moment: it happened to be the only time your constant teasing came back to bite you right in the ass. you wondered to yourself how many times the four of you could sit like this together, pester megumi because it happened to be something you, yuji and nobara all had in common, a habit you did not believe would ever break for as long as you lived on this great, green earth. from the looks of your timetables, there weren't many classes where the four of you would be in altogether, only a the three that had been previously mentioned: chemistry with ieiri (who you'll now have to refer to as miss shoko), biology with satoru (who you'll now have to refer to as mr gojo) and one of the teachers you'd never met here, math, with mr kento nanami. 

he sounded strict. 

you didn't like strict.

but you also could have sworn that the name sounded familiar. 

you happened to be correct, and you'd found that out in one of your first lessons with mr kento nanami:

he was a tall man, with blonde hair that had been styled in a neat side part. his cheeks were hollow, making the cheekbones on his face seem more prominent and emphasised. he didn't smile, not even during the first lesson, which had mainly been an introduction, and he spoke very formally, like a business man. you had learned that the business attire (the suit, tie, formal pants and pointy shoes) had not been a one-off dress code for him. after attending several of his  lessons, getting to know him better, you'd found that this was an everyday fit for him. 

that tie was a bit weird though, and mr nanami was anything but weird.

so you'd been correct in assuming that his name sounded familiar. he was just a year younger than satoru, suguru and ieiri, a mutual friend (though he did seem adamant that satoru and him were most definitely not friends, no matter how many times the white-haired beanstalk declared that they were). 

mr kento nanami was a funny man, you'd decided. strict, firm, and constantly exasperated, but funny nonetheless. without even trying, that is. you liked his lessons very much. the one thing that you didn't like, however, was the learning part of it — math was not your strong suit. that had been established years ago when you first started learning it, but it only became more emphasised in his classes.

"i can't do it," you declared out loud, using an eraser to erase yet another one of your miscalculations. "this is too hard —"

"you can do it," said kento nanami, who had made you sit right across from his desk because you seemed to need the most help out of everyone in the class. it turned out, this very class had been one of the top sets. it was a miracle you'd been placed there, let alone managed to stay there. though, arguably, you had been moved down several times, only for you to fail even more because apparently, only kento nanami's teachings stuck in your head, even if it was a struggle.

"i can't," you sighed, rubbing your temples, feeling a headache starting to form. whoever created math was going to wish they hadn't. "i'm going to die —"

kento nanami pinched the bridge of his nose: he didn't like it when you became dramatic.

"you're not going to —"

"yes i am." 

"you cannot expect to do even remotely well with that attitude," he said, completely disregarding your dramatic comment. "the last exam you completed —"

you grimaced. "don't remind me! even yuji did better than me... and he never studies!"

"i do study!" the pink-haired idiot lied from somewhere behind you. 

you knew he never studied. in fact, one time, when you spent most of the day at nobara's, her grandmother had forced you to sit and work through multiple equations, meanwhile yuji spent the day teaching football to the neighbours' kids. you knew — you watched him enjoy himself through the window.

"you can't believe him kento, he's lying to you to impress you —"

"i have half a mind to believe him simply out of spite," kento firmly told you, and there was a tick in his jaw. "for the millionth time, y/n, you will refer to me as mr nanami."

there was a habit that you'd adopted, which applied to teachers you really liked, but not limited to teachers you really hated. it was something that had always existed, calling teachers by their first names rather than their last names, if only to show them that they were your friends (or you simply had no respect for them if they were seen as your foe). masamichi, kento, satoru, ieiri, are candidates you liked very much. other teachers... not so much.

"mr kento nanami —"

"mr nanami," he repeated, stoic and stubborn. "as i was saying, the last exam you completed was notably better than the one prior. that shows improvement."

you stared at him, deadpanned. "i was only two points higher."

"any improvement is improvement."

you never considered yourself a pessimist. in fact, you always looked at the brighter side of things when no one else would. but with math, it almost felt like you would become a whole different person, and the last person you wanted to be like was emo, depressed, careless megumi. the thought sent a shiver down your spine.

"this is too hard," you sighed, placing your pencil down on the table with a look of defeat. "just bury me already —"

kento gave you a long and hard look, his expression stern and brows furrowed to the point where a deep line had been formed between them. he looked at you... perhaps not at you, maybe something or someone behind you, as his eyes fell over your shoulder meeting someone else's.

you would soon find out that it had been megumi. 

as if they'd created their own form of communication through the eyes itself, you found yourself sitting by megumi's desk now, his judgemental and critical look only serving to offend you.

"i'm helping you —"

"you literally called me dumb," you scoffed, brow raised in scepticism. 

megumi's eyes grew half-lidded, apparently bored with your accusation. "no i never."

"yes you did," you said firmly. "you said i'm as 'sharp as a marble'." 

the offender simply raised his own brow at you in apparent confusion, as if to say 'and?'. 

"marbles aren't sharp!" you snapped angrily, taking everyone around you by surprise at the sudden volume of your voice.

megumi ran a hand through his hair, dragged it down his face, and let out a small groan, muffled so as to not distract the rest of the class any further. he did not seem impressed, but you didn't care. the audacity he had to call you dumb when his teaching was clearly not working spoke volumes for you. 

you leaned back in your chair, arms folded over your chest, reluctantly sliding your completed work across from you and over to him. 

"mark my work," you demanded, with every intent to make it sound as bossy as you could.

he glared at you, but did not oppose, picking his pen up and going through the questions with you with a look of deep concentration. at times, he would scratch the back of his neck, rub his brow, grasp his chin, shake his head, and you had no idea what any of those actions meant (probably that you got every question wrong, again). 

only for you to be completely stumped when he looked up and met your eyes once more, no longer sporting the look of exhaustion, but one of pride. 

at least, you thought it was pride. all of megumi's expressions tended to be the same: his mouth a straight line, his eyes half-lidded, his brows unmoving, etc. though with time, you had managed to dissect each and every one and figure out whether he was happy, or sad, or angry, and so on. right now, you thought he looked impressed. you knew for sure that he didn't seem annoyed with you — that was usually his default, too!

cautiously and gradually, you leaned over and pulled the sheet towards yourself, eyes darting up and down before finding the final mark:

7/10 - good.

beaming, you met his eyes with a toothy smile, brows raised in pleasant shock.

"i'm so smart!" you declared, confidently and immensely proud.

he let out a long exhale through his nose. "why did you have to go and ruin it?"

you ignored him, snatching the paper and rushing over to kento's desk, taking enough care to slide in between the discarded chairs and tables people are sitting at, and swiping yuji's pencil case off the table just for the fun of it. at his wail of despair, you merely responded with a quiet 'oops' knowing quite well that your actions had been very much intentional. 

you did nearly slip on one of the stray pencils that had rolled out of his discarded pencil case, to your doom, but politely flipped yuji off when he laughed 'karma'. 

by the desk, on kento's chair, sat a baffled nobara, her eyes drooping and her soft, short hair dishevelled through, no doubt, constantly running her hands through it in obvious exhaustion. like you, math was not her strong spot. also like you, she looked ready to absolutely throttle whoever decided to add letters to numbers and make it part of the compulsory curriculum. 

kento himself stood opposite her, bent forward and holding himself up with his hands on the desk, pointing at the numerous equations on her own paper, and giving her extra guidance and clarification on them.

"do you understand it now?" your teacher asked her, looking down, sombre yet patient.

her hands were hidden somewhere beneath her hair, holding her head up as she stared grimly down at her own messy work, slowly nodding.

"yeah... but i'm going to torture, and murder, and torture —"

"— the guy that created math," kento finished off, looking slightly tense as he stood up to his full height, straightening himself seriously, "i've heard it, nobara." he looked over his shoulder and noticed you standing excitedly behind him. "what's wrong, y/n —"

"i get it now!" you informed him honestly, though you could tell the enthusiasm in your voice simply encouraged kento to feel more suspicion than anything else. "i got everything right!"

the small gasp of envy from nobara did not go unnoticed by you; kento tilted his chin downwards to take a better look at your paper, held up proudly by yourself. his narrowed eyes darted left and right, examining each question, each neat tick megumi had left behind, and finally reached the bottom of the page where your impressive score had been written in a bold red. 

kento nodded at you. 

"seven out of ten," he quoted, almost like a machine. "that's more than fifty percent."

"please, ken— i mean mr nanami —" you added when you'd caught sight of the pursing of his lips, "no more numbers. i've retired from being the genius i was just two minutes ago. i got everything right!"

"seven out of ten," kento repeated, voice gruff. "definitely an achievement, but not one hundred perce—"

"i'm still a genius," you interrupted, apparently choosing to select which parts of his statement you truly wanted to hear. "megumi said so —"

"no i never," your traitor of a friend had intervened from somewhere behind you. 

you regarded him, boot-faced and unimpressed. he was sitting next to yuji now, finishing off his own work. but apparently, your little white lie was enough to break him out of this cycle of work, work, and more work. 

"stop lying," he gracefully added.

you felt your eye twitch in indignation, turning around to face kento and plastering on a smile to mask your obvious discontent.

"he's the one lying," you whispered, though that did not stop kento from believing him over you. it became a habit over time, you'd noticed. you were still trying to figure out a way to break it.

"be more humble," grumbled nobara, still slouching on kento's chair with a permanent scowl painted over her face. "some of us are being beaten black and blue with all of this."

"i can teach you!" you offered, relishing in the smile that nobara's face had formed, extending to her eyes where the spark that usually lay there had been re-lighted. 

giddy, you skipped around kento and his desk to reach nobara on the other side, ignoring his weak protests about how he wasn't sure that you were absolutely confident in your skills at the particular topic. you and nobara were in your own world, sitting on the thin arm of his spinning chair, one half of your body slumped against her side and the other hovering above her as you guided her on the questions.

it was later found that kento had been correct. helping nobara only served to take away the knowledge that your teacher had already tirelessly given her. you walked away in shame after that, completely unaware of the fact that half of the method you'd used to solve the equations out were actually correct...

and not just over fifty percent, but one hundred percent. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・

due to a series of upcoming exams, you and the rest of your little group had spent majority of your break times at study hall, looking over a bunch of your notes from social studies, to performing arts, to biology, chemistry, physics. however, the only one you had to truly focus on was math.

you slumped over your textbook, your expression a mix of frustration and defeat as you stared at the seemingly indecipherable equations before you. to you, math was a labyrinth of confusion, a tangled web of numbers and symbols that ensnared your mind with its complexity. each problem felt like a battle, with your thoughts colliding like opposing armies on a chaotic battlefield. the numbers mocked you, dancing tauntingly on the page as if daring you to unravel their secrets. it was as if you were trying to navigate through a dense fog, each step forwards only leading to a hundred steps backwards. math, to you, was a relentless adversary, an insurmountable mountain that you could never hope to conquer. 

your gaze flickered over to yuji, who seemed to effortlessly breeze through the math problems with a nonchalant ease that left you envious. he was like a graceful dancer, effortlessly gliding across the stage of equations while you stumbled clumsily in the wings. each correct answer he produced felt like a dagger to your pride, a reminder of your own inadequacy in the face of his natural talent. it was as if he had been born with a mathematical compass embedded in his mind, guiding him effortlessly through the labyrinth of numbers and formulas. you couldn't help but feel like a mere spectator in the shadow of his brilliance, your own struggles magnified in comparison to his effortless mastery.

what pissed you off more was the fact that this was yuji. 

yuji.

he barely studied (no matter what lies he fed to kento, your sensible math teacher). you could pass him a math paper without a warning and he would bring it back to you without a single strand of grey in the field of pink on his head. 

so, naturally, whilst megumi tutored an ever-growing depressed nobara, you asked yuji to help you...

you wished you hadn't made fun of megumi's hair that morning, that way, mustering up your courage to ask him for help instead probably would have been easier.

"so first," yuji began slowly, carefully writing out the numbers over your blank sheet. and then it was as if your life went by in two times speed. "you do that, and then that, and then that."

you took a careful glance at megumi's watch. your life hadn't zoomed by that fast: yuji was just a terrible tutor.

he dropped the pencil in front of you, letting it roll right next to where your hand lay, sitting back on his seat with a happy smile on his face, as if he'd actually accomplished something.

you felt your eye twitch.

"how about i show you how i do this, and then this, and then this!" you said, each emphasised word paired with a harsh smack on yuji's head with a rolled up booklet you snatched off the table. you did not know who it belonged to, probably megumi, but you did not care.

"okay okay okay! — ow! — okay, woman!"

"is that my business booklet?" megumi icily interrupted, eyes narrowed, following each and every movement of your hand that waved it around.

you shot him a glance, mild fury smouldering in your eyes.

"no..."

megumi fixed his gaze on you, his face a mask of calm that barely hinted at the storm brewing in his head. his eyes were like twin daggers, piercing through your facade with chilling precision. a muscle in his jaw twitched slightly, the only betrayal of his controlled exterior. 

"it has my name in bold," he informed you, bored.

"okay..." you said, peering down at the booklet in your hands with a masked expression. "you can have it back if you teach me how to do algebra?"

megumi's mouth set itself in a firm line, conveying a silent but unmistakable challenge. though his expression remained stoic, the intensity of his gaze was like a glacier, cold and unyielding, and also a bit tired, as though he'd expected nothing less from you. with a grin, you knew what it meant: you won.

before you could carry out your plan to throw yuji off his seat and reach megumi and nobara, an external voice jolted you out of your intense focus.

the four of you looked up, distracted: it was noritoshi kamo accompanied by chad montgomery, both of whom were part of the school's official football team alongside yuji and megumi. noritoshi (who preferred to simply go by kamo) had dark, straight hair that stopped a little further down his chin whereas chad was rather big, tall, and blonde, with a friendly face to match. it was a running joke that chad was very unlike the typical chads you'd see on tv. he was kinder, friendlier, yet still rather well-known.

"nice catch at gym today, y/n," kamo had said, barely smiling. you thought he had some sort of face freeze like megumi.

"thank you!" you beamed, turning to your friends as the two boys casually walked off. "see? people do appreciate the effort i put in at sports."

"you and nobara weren't meant to be in our class to begin with," said megumi, sliding a worksheet in your direction. you accepted it gratefully, though your attention was hardly on the paper.

"touche," nobara muttered into her own hand, her other scribbling over the doodles she'd drawn around her paper. "our class is boring."

"huh? i thought you liked coach lauren?" said yuji, visibly surprised.

you tapped the back of your pen on your worksheet impatiently. 

"we do! but it's not as fun when she doesn't care about us not participating," you told him thoughtfully. "but when it's coach yaga —"

megumi scowled. "he lost his voice because of the two of you."

you mirrored his scowl. "hey, we didn't tell him to yell and chase us across the field, did we?" 

"and he wouldn't have even noticed us if you hadn't ratted us out, snitch," nobara helpfully added, levelling an accusatory look at megumi while pointing the end of her pen at him.

megumi regarded you and nobara with a blank, almost bored expression. his mouth remained a straight line, devoid of any hint of emotion, as if he were staring at an unremarkable, distant horizon. the only movement was the slow blink of his eyelids, which seemed to convey a sense of enduring your antics with the patience of a stone statue.

"you guys were standing at the back and laughing at everyone," he stated.

"wrong," you hummed. "we were laughing at you."

yuji's laughter erupted, nearly causing him to topple from his chair as he doubled over, resting against the table. his whole body shook with mirth, his laughter filling the room with its infectious energy. 

nobara sliced through it with unbridled ease.

"we were laughing at you too, you clown," she said, narrowing her eyes at him. "you and that todo guy being in your own little word —"

"it's not my fault!" said yuji, defensive. "he keeps following me, even when i go to megumi! he keeps saying we're brothers — i don't even know him!"

"i can't imagine you with a brother anyway," you said, barely registering yuji's alarm and stress, but it had completely disappeared at your comment, now masked over with an expression of pure confusion.

"but i do have a brother," he'd said, resulting in all three of you to look up at him with raised brows, parted mouths and narrowed eyes.

"huh?" nobara voiced, aggressive. "what do you mean? you never told us you —"

"i did!" he interrupted, eyes darting from megumi to you to nobara and then back again. "my half brother!"

"half brother?" you repeated, outraged. 

you spent the next few seconds thinking deep and hard as nobara verbally assaulted him for causing the three of you such distress with such a lie, racking your brain for a time where yuji had voiced to you that he had a half brother, something that you'd been blissfully unaware of for the last four years you had known him. 

"what's his name?" megumi asked, intervening loudly so that yuji would hear him over nobara's attacks.

"choso," said yuji, as though it were the most obvious and easiest thing to remember. "i told you guys!"

"so every time we watched movies at your place, how come it was only ever gramps and your parents?" you asked, notably surprised. 

on the days you'd sleep over at yuji's, you'd see mr and mrs itadori, both of whom insisted you'd call them kaori and jin, as their day shifts at their respective work places would end. never once did you see another being, another male by the name choso.

"he's much older than us, so he's already got his own place to live in," yuji explained, which, as much as you hated to admit it, made sense.

the initial shock of finding out that yuji had a half brother by the name choso had worn out after the next few minutes had been spent looking at different pictures of him and his odd family. they looked nothing alike, with choso sporting dark hair styled in odd pigtails and a more mature face and yuji having pink hair (you still insisted that it wasn't natural) and a more friendly, soft face. they didn't even have the same eye colour or remotely similar features.

somehow, the conversation had spun back to yuji's alleged brother, todo:

"maki told me that when he gets to senior year, he's planning on doing it twice," said nobara, glancing between a panicked-yuji and an exasperated-megumi for confirmation.

you nodded in agreement. "yeah, toge said the same thing."

nobara grinned at yuji. "looks like you'll be dealing with him for as long as we stay here."

yuji looked like he could be physically ill.

the rest of the day had gone by with yuji making multiple attempts to persuade the three of you that him and todo were most definitely not related by any means, and he only grew more and more panicked and alarmed when nobara would make sly comments about how todo would replace megumi as yuji's best friend and run off into the distance together, to which megumi pretended not to care (but you practically spoke in megumi-facial-expressions, and could tell that he very much did).

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・

satoru's classroom was significantly larger than any of the other classes in the school. you noticed this the second you'd entered it back in september. he said it was because of the fact that he's a science teacher and therefore needs a larger room for laboratory experiments and so on, but you knew it was a lie. why did ieiri, who was also a science teacher, have a classroom slightly smaller than his? 

you ran the thought in your head multiple times, before ultimately deciding that he had probably thrown a fit over it and bribed his way up that ladder. it helped that he was also filthy rich, not that anyone else needed to know that.

there were three lab tables in his room, his desk on the left of the whiteboard and projector, and the door on the right. windows surrounded two of the four walls in the room, brightening it up so much so that on the days that you were plagued with headaches, satoru's classes became dreadful (which was saying a lot, seeing as you and several others thoroughly enjoyed his lessons).

you, megumi, yuji and nobara sat on the table in the far left, closest to satoru's desk. there wasn't necessarily a seating plan, but the one time you and nobara sat on the table furthest from his desk, he did act pretty prissy about it the entire day. 

"reproduction!" he said, a little too enthusiastically though knowing him, he most likely meant to. adjusting the circular glasses on his nose, he gestured to the board where a presentation of said-topic demanded each and every viewer's attention. no other topic within the subject of biology ever had this many balloon stickers or confetti gifs. "my favourite topic!"

"fuck's sake," you heard megumi mutter under his breath from across yuji, who was sitting nervously on your right.

the other boys in your class, sitting around the table in the middle and the table on the far right seemed to be getting a little too excited, in your humble opinion: sitting up straighter with ugly grins forming on their ugly faces, looking around and making cheeky eye contact with one another. 

"i know a lot about that," you heard tyler jenson announce, his too-happy face only serving to irk you in ways even megumi could not. but whilst you sat there with a sour expression forming second by second, nobara (seated next to megumi) turned around and voiced your thoughts.

"and yet you've never been touched by a woman."

the classroom was then filled with muffled laughter as many hid the lower halves of their faces behind their hands, giggling and chuckling as tyler's face became more compatible to the colour of a cherry rather than the colour of the skin on his hands and arms. nobara turned back around with her lips in a straight, thin line, shaking her head due to some of the hair that had fallen over her eyes. 

"mr gojo," one of tyler's minion-friends spoke up, very clearly offended. it became quite clear that tyler would not speak for himself from here on out. "aren't you going to — like — say something about that..?"

satoru raised a brow, the smile he usually adorned with pearly-white teeth non-existent, almost as if it were never there. 

"no," he said, hands resting in the pockets of his pants, "because she just demolished you."

he went back to teaching as though nothing had happened. 

the rest of the lesson had gone by quite well. few of tyler's minion friends had gotten the message and remained silent for the remainder of the hour, chalking it up to 'favouritism', though everyone knew otherwise. as many odd jokes that satoru had made, he did eventually teach the curriculum, even when the comments from tyler's other foolish friends had irked everyone by opening their mouths:

"okay," nodded satoru, visibly tense as he stood up and slammed his entire hand against the whiteboard so suddenly, with such aggression, the projector wobbled. "listen here! reproduction? sex? it's bad. who can tell me why?"

you looked around. everyone seemed just as startled as you. as fun as satoru's classes were, when he pulled random shit like this, you were more inclined to feel scared than enraptured. but it wasn't a class lead by satoru gojo unless satoru gojo became melodramatic at some point during it. 

"no one?" he continued, head turning left and right. "megumi?"

"leave me alone."

satoru promptly turned to your other friend instead. "yuji!"

"er... because... it distracts you from school work?" yuji guessed, scratching the back of his ear, a random habit you realised he'd picked up over the last few months. 

satoru nodded slowly. 

"warmer..." he'd said; yuji beamed. "nobara!"

"because men don't perform —"

"no, but i should've seen that comin'," your teacher interrupted mindlessly, the smile unwavering as he turned his gaze to you. although, it was hard to tell for certain, for the silly sunglasses he wore indoors concealed his eyes. "y/n!"

"it's a sin —"

"why on earth did i ask you to begin with?" he said, turning away and shaking his head. "okay, note this down, all of you. you can die if you have sex, yeah?"

clement roy, who was seated by the middle table (also one of the smartest in the class) spoke up with a frown:

"no you can't. having intercourse isn't dangerous."

satoru did not seem impressed. he stared at clement roy with the expression a child would give to their parent over rejection of candy before dinner. 

"all right smarty-pants, want to explain to the class what'll happen when you get chlamydia?" hedemanded, visibly nettled. before clement could even think of a response, the drama queen had already pressed on. "you'll die. you'll suffer in silence because you won't want to communicate to another responsible human being about how you were being irresponsible and then die because chlamydia got you."

you could drop a pin on the floor and the sound would echo around the room and bounce off of the walls with how eerily quiet it had gotten. had it not been broad daylight, you were certain the croaking of crickets would be the only thing perceived in this awkward silence. 

"don't just stare at me, write it down!"

barely fifteen minutes later, satoru had gone back to behaving more positively playful than negatively dramatic. 

at some point in the lesson, he'd handed out worksheets for everyone to go through and complete, filled with a series of questions based on what he managed to teach for the last thirty to forty minutes. the questions hadn't been too hard; you whizzed through them in no time. to check your answers, you stretched your body over the table and snatched megumi's paper without warning, sitting back down comfortably and ignoring his demands of handing it back.

"give it," he'd said, but the look on his face was too funny to pass up. 

megumi's default expression was always that bored, grumpy look. his angry expression, however, was much more emphasised: his nose had a way of scrunching itself up the tiniest bit, his jaw became tighter, and when his brows closed in on each other, he looked as though he'd aged ten times faster. this expression was harder to catch on camera because he always managed to swipe your phone out of your hands whenever you'd reach for it, like his sixth sense was knowing just when you'd go for the kill, the oddbot. that was why it mattered a million times more when he'd look more angry than he did bored or careless.

"i have to mark my work," you told him, placing it side-by-side with your own.

"ha! thanks, megumi!" added yuji, adding his worksheet (with scribbles, writing, and more scribbles on it) next to yours and megumi's. 

"you're not welcome. give it back, y/n —"

"hand it to me when you're done. think i got the last few wrong," said nobara, and without looking up, you raised your thumb, giving her your affirmative. 

megumi growled. "no —"

"what're you gonna do, huh?" said nobara, poking him on the shoulder with the end of her pen. "tell mr gojo?"

"what is this, mean girls?" megumi grumbled, deadpanned. "oi, regina, give me back my sheet —"

you shook your head. yuji came to your defence:

"we're not done —"

"shut up karen."

he gasped. you probably would have laughed if you weren't so occupied with scribbling out the few answers that you'd gotten wrong (based off of megumi's own work, which tended to be correct nine times out of ten). 

before you could blink, megumi's work had been swiped away from you, but not by the owner himself (you were silently surprised that he hadn't marched around the table to snag it from you by now) but by an audibly annoyed yuji, who was mumbling curses under his breath as he sketched something in the top left corner of the paper. 

vexed, exasperated, and disturbed, you pinched yuji's thigh before snatching the paper back, brows furrowed and eyes narrowed. your hardened expression became less tight at the sight of the literal penis that yuji had drawn. two seconds had barely passed before you found yourself gasping for breath, hand over your mouth at a futile attempt at muffling your own laughter. 

nobara perked up, interested and offended.

"hey, don't leave me out," she snapped, back straight and chin held high. "what's so funny?"

with the deliberate intention of ensuring that the sulky boy seated diagonally across from you had also seen his own paper, you lifted it and showed it to her. 

"what the hell?" he demanded, making a move at swiping it out of your hands, but you were quicker, sliding it across the table to nobara instead. 

megumi's face twisted in irritation as his dark eyes landed on the defaced worksheet. a faint flush spread across his pale cheeks, a rare sign of his mounting frustration. his jaw clenched, muscles tensing visibly under his skin as he took a slow, deep breath, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly, betraying the effort it took to suppress a scathing retort. he glared at yuji, his gaze as cold and hard as steel, before flicking back to the offending drawing. with a huff of exasperation, he snatched the paper back, his movements quick and brusque, clearly indicating his annoyance. for a moment, he sat still, radiating a palpable aura of vexation, before muttering under his breath and looking up at you all, clearly done with your antics.

nobara whistled lowly, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. "damn, who pissed in your cereal, megumi?"

"why would you do that?" megumi demanded, his voice edged with irritation as he fixed Yuji with a piercing glare, completely ignoring nobara's teasing remark.

yuji, with his arms folded over his chest with a look akin to a child after throwing a tantrum, returned megumi's glare with one of his own. 

"revenge," he stated simply, his tone carrying a quiet but unmistakable resolve. 

before anyone could chime in with their own thoughts, satoru materialised from behind megumi, sporting his trademark easy grin, which only widened at megumi's apparent annoyance.

"who rained on megumi's parade?" he'd asked, sounding curious yet looking devious. it wasn't a surprise to anyone that satoru enjoyed anything that made megumi unhappy (in terms of teasing, of course).

"yuji doodled a bit on his paper," you said, rolling your eyes. "now he's throwing a fit over it."

megumi shot you a sharp glare, his expression a mix of annoyance and disbelief. his eyes narrowed slightly, silently questioning your choice of words, but refrained from saying anything, opting instead to let his disapproval speak for itself.

until he couldn't.

"stop being such a grump, megumi," satoru chortled, his teasing only exacerbating the tension brewing within megumi fushiguro. "it just makes you look more like your dad, and who the hell wants to look like toji —"

"he drew a dick on my paper," megumi interjected sharply, his frustration evident in his tone, like a rope pulled taut in a tug-of-war.

satoru's laughter bubbled up, a blend of genuine surprise and amusement twinkling in his eyes as he shook his head, a grin playing on his lips. he had obviously not expected megumi’s straightforwardness and yuji’s unexpected action.

"big deal," he said, forcing himself in between nobara and megumi. "let's see de vinci's art —"

"ugh, you're squashing us!" nobara snapped, but satoru had paid no mind to her. in fact, her comment had only seemed to have encouraged him to force himself between them further, all with a knowing smile on his face.

his laughter continued to burst forth as he caught sight of the drawing, genuine amusement evident in the barely-noticeable crinkles that had formed around his eyes, his shoulders shaking slightly with suppressed mirth as he took in the absurdity of the situation. this had eventually caused him to double over, and he instinctively reached out, grabbing onto nobara's shoulder for support. his fingers gripped onto her firmly — though not aggressively — just enough to steady himself as he attempted to regain his composure.

nobara's irritation became palpable at satoru's hand that had landed on her shoulder for support. she shot him a pointed look, her body stiffening slightly as she made subtle attempts to wriggle out of his grasp.

"as wonderful as this is," he sighed, wiping an imaginary tear from his shielded eye, "i have to get rid of it."

it was, perhaps, the first time in that lesson that megumi had looked up in approval.

yuji shrugged, his tone matter-of-fact. 

"i don't care, i did it to prove a point," he stated, his brows furrowing in mild annoyance.

"what point?" said nobara, apparently having given up on trying to pry satoru's hand off her shoulder. even so, she didn't look too pleased about it. 

yuji shrugged, his expression easing as the tension left his jaw and his furrowed brows smoothed out. eyes widened, and his brows lifted slightly, yuji's lips parted, and his forehead smoothed itself out.

the overall expression on his face was one of genuine puzzlement. 

"i... can't really remember to be honest —"

"erase it," megumi commanded, his voice tight with irritation.

"no," yuji shot back, defensive. "maybe you should learn to be more nice to me —"

"after this?" said megumi, voice sharp and cutting, brimming with barely restrained fury. "like hell."

"there's too much testosterone on this table," said nobara, eyeing your other male classmates that sat down a little further down from the four of you. "y/n and i should've sat near the door —"

"oh yeah?" began satoru, bending down slightly to level his face with hers. he did not look too pleased. "and how well did that work for you last time, huh?"

but before she could actually answer his question, he had already moved on, looking around at you, yuji and megumi, and pointing at the cursed sketch on the paper.

"i don't want to do this," he said, leaning over to grab it and slide it towards the end of the table where he stood with an eraser in his hand. 

he pressed it against the drawing, letting out false sobs of despair with each swipe, loud enough to draw the attention of the rest of the class. it was ugly, drawn-out, and extremely sonorous. you regarded him with a look of disgust; megumi slouched in his seat, as though that would conceal him from the onlookers; nobara pressed a hand to her forehead, head bent and gaze averted; yuji watched satoru without shame, apparently still his biggest cheerleader.

"okay you can stop now," you added, when it became crystal clear that satoru would go on and on just for the sake of someone finally addressing his shameless acting. you would rather die than have it continue. 

he grinned, radiating self-assured pride as he addressed your little group.

"now i wish i took a picture before i got rid of it," he sighed, placing the paper in front of its rightful owner. 

from where you were sat, you could still see the outline of the sketch, faded yet visible. it seemed that yuji had released his anger from his hand straight to the pencil, applying enough pressure to leave a mark even when erased. if that didn't teach megumi to be more polite, you didn't know what would. 

a deep voice suddenly interrupted the commotion, cutting through the conversation like a knife. the speaker's tone was unnervingly calm and composed, each word enunciated with precision and the use of complete formal english added an air of false-authority and distance, sounding almost archaic due to the lack of contractions. 

all five of you turned your heads to stare at the figure hiding beneath the table surrounding the outer-edge of the classroom where multiple sinks were built in: malakai the emo, who you had first met in middle school. he just so happened to attend the same high school too. even so, the only classes that the two of you shared were satoru's biology and physics ones.

"there is a disturbance occurring on that table near the desk belonging to the teacher," he began, voice slow, almost snarling. "and i do not like it very much..."

satoru frowned, watching him with obvious exasperation. if there was one being that threw even satoru gojo, the drama queen off, it was malakai the emo (who, if anyone had forgotten, preferred to be called 'kai' and will visibly glitch if referred to as 'malakai').

"disturbances should never occur inside classrooms..."

you scoffed. "coming from the biggest attention-whore of today's history."

satoru waved a hand in your direction, a silent dismissal, one that very clearly communicated that he would handle the issue. 

"and this is my class," he told the emo, raising a white brow. 

"mr gojo..." malakai began, still borderline snarling, "you do not know how to manage this class very well..."

you couldn't exactly tell due to his opaque glasses, but judging from the way his brows shot up dramatically, nearly disappearing beneath his white hair, you knew that satoru's eyes widened in exaggerated shock. his mouth dropped open in a perfect 'O' of disbelief. he gasped audibly, the sound loud and theatrical. his usually playful demeanour transformed into one of theatrical indignation, his entire face a portrait of mock outrage. his head tilted back slightly, as if to better display his expression to everyone present.

"you don't even know how to stand without glitching, kid," he teased, with every intent of offending malakai. "ah-ah, not another word outta ya," he added, pointer finger raised with a smile. "i'd send you to miss shoko —"

you did not need to take a look at malakai to know that he was smiling hopefully. if there was one teacher he loved, it was ieiri, for her classroom was shielded from the light outside, and she did not have a care in the world for whatever he did.

"— but she said she'll beat my ass if i do that again. so, i'll make sure you sit on the table, kai, not under it."

context: malakai had this thing where he detested sitting in the light, hated classrooms where the blinds weren't down, and loathed anyone who wore bright colours. according to him, the 'darkness will consume him'. on the first day of high school, he'd sat underneath the sink where it was dark, tight, and cramped. when satoru made an attempt to get him to sit on the table (like everybody else) he visibly shook and caused a scene, turning animalistic over nothing.

satoru had never made another attempt since.

at some point in the year, it had come to your attention that the teachers in his other classes had forced him to sit on the tables, but not without a negotiation: he would sit on a table on his own, so long as he was at the very back of the classroom, in a secluded corner, where no visible sunlight would reach him. even then, he would glitch and tweak, but he would sit there quietly nonetheless. 

there was a time where kento had to teach one of his math classes due to his regular teacher falling ill, and when you'd asked malakai about it, he'd described it as 'hell'. you could only assume that kento hadn't let him sit under a table, nor made an effort in following any negotiations. 

but, surprisingly enough, malakai's grades in satoru's classes were the highest out of the rest of his classes. perhaps sitting under a table like he wants actually has its benefits. 

malakai let out a loud hiss at satoru's words, as if they'd burned him to the point of no recovery. 

satoru had given up.

"okay i'll risk the ass kicking, go to miss shoko."

malakai crawled out from his spot beneath the sink and sprang up, a maniacal grin plastered on his face. his arms flailed wildly, as if he had downed ten bottles of alcohol in one sitting. malakai's eyes widened, the gleam of anticipation shining through the heavy kohl lining his eyes. a wide, ecstatic grin stretched across his face, revealing a flash of his sharp canines (apparently he loved to use charcoal toothpaste). he practically bounced on his feet, his whole body vibrating with eager energy as he ran across the classroom in that weird way that he runs — body bent forward and arms extended backwards (satoru once said that he should be part of the ninjas in naruto — you couldn't get the image out of your head now).

"yes — miss shoko — and her dark, dark under-eyes —"

the rest of you watched him ninja-run out of the classroom and down the hall, his footsteps echoing and fading. 

satoru adjusted the glasses on his nose with an air of quiet concern. "there is something seriously wrong with that kid."

barely five minutes had gone by before his phone vibrated in his pocket; he took it out, checked it, and then smiled up at you all.

"if i don't turn up tomorrow, it was ieiri shoko: thirty one years old, brown hair, brown eyes, about this short —"

he did show up the next day, but with a cut on his lower lip and quite the story to tell. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・

as several other paying customers walked into the quaint cafe, the bell above the door chimed softly, announcing their arrival. the interior was a charming blend of rustic and modern elements, creating an inviting atmosphere for its patrons. the space was not overly large, you'd noticed since your introduction to the place, but it was very clearly thoughtfully designed to maximize comfort, with several circular tables made of beige wood on each side of the room, all of which were adorned with fresh flowers in small vases. your favourite part, however, was the soft ambient lighting from the hanging pendant lamps that created a warm glow, casting a muted illumination all over the space.

the walls were also furnished with framed artwork and vintage posters, which you thought added some character and charm to the place. where you and megumi sat on the stools by the counter, a large chalkboard stood behind it displayed the day's menu offerings, written in elegant script with colourful chalk illustrations of pastries and beverages. the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and baked goods wafted through the air, tempting your senses and inviting customers to indulge in the cafe's delectable offerings. 

you and megumi tended to avoid the place during peak time, but if you just so happened to be passing by, sometimes you'd force your way to the front to offer some help to the distressed, kind lady (also known as miss B) serving everyone. since it also happened to be local, you had become regular customers and people she looked forward to seeing during the day. 

with kento's gruelling homework laid out messily over the counter before you, the gentle chatter and soft music filled the air, further distracting you from the cruel equations on the papers waiting to be solved. 

while you and megumi had come here to study together, you only did so for, perhaps, twenty minutes before the laptop you'd stolen from the bakery woman working diligently behind the counter had been used for activities other than studying math. it wasn't a new occurrence: it was a daily routine to search up the reviews on the cafe (buttercup brew) and respond to any that were badmouthing miss B, the food, or the place itself since the two of you both acknowledged the fact that she was too lenient and nice to do so herself.

"'what's the opposite of delicious?'" you read out, leaning in to megumi's side to read off of the laptop that he had pulled towards himself.

megumi scoffed, his pale fingers typing away aggressively at the keyboard before him. 

what's the opposite of clever? he had silently written.

your eyes widened in both surprise and delight, a bright, melodious laugh escaping your lips, eyes crinkling at the corners, sparkling with amusement. your laughter eventually subsided into soft giggles, and you looked at megumi with a twinkle in your eye.

"impressive," you praised, glancing back at the laptop, intrigued. "any more?"

megumi nodded, a carefully manicured finger gently swiping down the touchpad.

"'came in the day they were trialling savoury dishes. the food was bland. this is a bakery, stick to sweets,'" he'd read out, monotoned. "by a woman, this time."

your cheerful demeanour fades slightly as megumi read out the negative comment, brows furrowed as a small frown tugged at the corners of your lips. you pulled the laptop towards yourself, eyes narrowed in mild irritation.

"i got this one," you told him, reading as you typed. "you'd... know... all... about... bland... wouldn't you... no-season-susan?"

you hit 'enter' and smiled, self-satisfied. 

but before you or megumi could voice your thoughts on your comment, the soft sound of the bell chiming behind you had the two of you turning in your stools to examine the stoic man walking into the cafe. you pinched megumi's thigh, hard enough for him to angrily slap your hand away with a low grunt. you didn't mind, smiling as you watched the aloof man with the undercut walk up to the other side of the counter and order his food.

"i want to do this one," you said, voice low so as to not attract the attention of the man. "he dressed up as levi and went to the military, asking to join the scout regiment."

megumi peered down at you, blank faced. "where the hell are you going with this?"

"he got sent home."

you watched his face carefully, noting how his eyes shifted away from yours, as if he were suppressing his emotions. you could tell he wanted to laugh; it was evident in the subtle curl of his lips and the slight tremor of his shoulders as he exhaled through his nose.

"that's not levi," he finally settled on saying, glancing at the man in question. "that's ivel."

you grinned. "close enough... i was thinking more along the lines of evil."

your usually stoic friend let out a rare chuckle. with a broad smile, you nudged his side, eager to show him that you had the unique ability to make even him laugh.

"look," you called out to miss B, preparing what looked to be black coffee for mr evil-not-levi, the strong aroma of the coffee beans wafting in the air. "porcupine's smiling! quick, take a picture!"

miss B chuckled, her brows raising so that her soft bangs fell over her closed eyes as she stirred the mixture in the cup. megumi, on the other hand, scowled, any trace of what once held a small smile eradicated.

"too late," he'd said, moving the laptop so it was in front of him instead, and holding the bottom arrow to scroll further down the website with critical eyes.

"you should just take it secretly from now on," you told miss B, watching as she handed the fake-levi his coffee and politely told him to take a seat. she now stood opposite you, smiling as she adjusted the red baker's hat resting on her head. "megumi smiling is a super rare occurrence."

"why would you say that in front of me?" said megumi, looking up and facing you with an expression of mild irritation. "defeats the purpose of secrecy."

"what are you gonna do, attack us?" you challenged, rolling your eyes. "i'll tell my dad never to bring you any of those weird artifacts that you like."

"stop lying."

"okay so maybe i wouldn't do that... but i could change my mind! so you're treading on thin ice, porcupine! i'd be really careful if i were you."

megumi's eyes grew half-lidded, his expression teetering between a scowl and a look of complete disinterest as he stared down at you.

"i'm so scared right now," he stated, the obvious sarcasm making miss B giggle at the interaction. 

you had a witty response resting at the tip of your tongue, but could not execute it in time before the bell by the door had chimed again. all three of you had turned your heads so as to check who had entered. you beamed in excitement, watching as a rather beefy man waddled up to the counter to place his order.

before he had reached it, however, you glanced at miss B, lip curled in interest.

"why don't you have a go?" you asked her, sounding slightly pleading. "i promise you, it'll be fun!"

"because no matter what you say, they're paying my wages," she said calmly, though not unkindly as she prepared to walk over to the other end of the counter to take the man's order. "and it's mean!"

you pouted, looking over at megumi with slightly puckered lips and a frown.

he got the message and (as always) feigned reluctance before turning to scrutinise the stranger. you sat up straighter, a rush of excitement coursing through your veins as you awaited his theory, the disappointment that you had been feeling for all of two seconds evaporating as if it had never been there to begin with.

"he definitely had a wife and three kids with him years ago," he began leisurely, as if to build some suspense to this unconfirmed story, "but someone called cps on him because they would resemble skeletons and he'd resemble the do-the-roar-kid , but if he was older."

"he ate all their food?" you gasped, surprised at the dark turn of events. 

"and their plates too."

"oh!" you nodded, focused. "so like your dad?"

the corners of his mouth turned downwards, and his eyes narrowed, darkening with annoyance.

"i'm not having this conversation with you," he stated matter-of-factly.

you smiled sheepishly. "yeah, don't tell him i said that."

"won't make any promises."

"well then i'll tell satoru that you and hana reunited at the hilltop downtown —"

"he knows you like lying."

"doesn't mean he won't tease you for it regardless."

"..."

"yeah, that's what i thoug—"

"i'll tell everyone tonight about what happened when you lied about being a mermaid —"

your embarrassment surged like a wave, your face growing uncomfortably warm. you felt the heat radiating from your cheeks, a prickling sensation spreading across your skin. your heart pounded in your chest, a mix of anger and mortification causing your pulse to quicken, the heat of your blush intensifying as the urge to defend yourself burned inside you, evident in the way you jammed your elbow into his side. 

you relished in the pained grunt he let out as he rubbed the targeted area, slightly bent forward as he glared up at you through narrowed eyes.

satisfied and proud, you pulled the laptop towards you and scrolled down to find more rude and dishonest reviews to casually debunk and argue with. 

 "'saw rats around in the shape of two kids... they should get an exterminator'..." you read out slowly, a tense silence falling over the two of you and (in your mind) the entire cafe too. your stomach dropped, eyes widening as you snapped your head over to face an already-disgruntled megumi. "is this incel talking about us?"

"ye—"

"how dare it?" you gasped, angrily typing up a response, the sounds of the buttons on the keyboard being pressed more aggressively than it should be resonated around the small interior. "look at the profile picture, that's the guy we shouted at last week!"

megumi leaned in, chin resting a little over your right shoulder as he examined the image with a glower. 

"he could afford to skip a few sweet treats —"

"it, megumi," you corrected, hitting 'enter' after you finished typing up your response. "it could afford to skip a few sweet treats."

he read out your response, tone bland and unwavering:

"'is that why they call you the rat whisperer?'"

he locked eyes with you, his usual blank expression barely masking the faint trace of amusement in his gaze. you looked away, back at the laptop to find another rude comment to respond to. 

"oh, one star review! look!" you said, pointing at the screen enthusiastically. "'chocolate too sweet. bad.'" you stared at the review, unimpressed. "i mean, it's almost as if that's the point."

you sighed and rolled your eyes, fingers flying over the keyboard as you typed a response to the absurd comment. megumi watched quietly, noting the way your eyes narrowed in unimpressed concentration as you crafted your reply. you wouldn't be actively defending this cafe and miss B if you truly believed that her food and service was not good: her bread, pastries, cupcakes, sweet treats were the best in the town. people ought to know that.

your response was quite simple, written in the same manner this liar wrote his:

dave schlager too stupid (chocolate is meant to be sweet). bad.

the bell behind you gave a soft chime, heralding the arrival of yet another customer. however, when you and megumi eagerly and robotically looked over your shoulders to observe the newcomer, you hadn't expected to feel that familiar strain in your stomach, an itch that ran all the way up to your throat, prompting you to laugh. you usually had this reaction when you'd see men, but the sight before you proved otherwise.

the woman who had entered the cafe was a sight to behold. her hair was an untamed mass, sticking out at odd angles that defied any sense of natural order. strands of grey wove through the wild mane, giving it a streaked, chaotic appearance. her eyes were wide and bulging, darting around the room with a manic energy that made them seem even larger. her clothes were dishevelled, adding to her overall rugged and eccentric look, only making it more of a struggle for you to suppress a laugh, her appearance so wildly unconventional, that it seemed almost surreal. you had half a mind to ask megumi to pinch you, but refrained, knowing he'd enjoy it too much. 

the two of you faced the front again. megumi didn't seem too fazed, face stony and tired. you, on the other hand, found your shoulders shaking with the effort of holding back several incoming giggles. he looked down at you, very clearly unmoved. 

"i'm gonna take a wild guess and assume you want to take this one?"

you slapped a hand over your mouth and faked a cough, forehead nearly meeting the table as you hid your laughter, bent forward and chest heaving. you felt megumi's hand tapping and rubbing at your back, almost as if to hold up the act that you were ill. 

you almost thanked him before you heard his low, grumpy voice.

"you're not embarrassing me today."

you didn't even have it in you to shrug his hand off. instead, you straightened up and made an attempt to mask your expression as much as possible, facing him with a sheepish smile.

"her story's not too long," you began, almost letting a giggle slip. almost. "megumi... she stole from the bank and the fbi tased her. and then — and then she got electrocuted!"

you laughed harder at that, making little effort to conceal it. even megumi, who barely ever smiled in a day — and who you very much expected to scold you for this one — looked like he was struggling to hide one (but just scarcely).

he eventually let out a small chuckle, which only encouraged you to laugh some more. you doubled over slightly, gripping onto the counter for support, some of your abandoned math sheets falling on the floor, your infectious giggles filling the quiet air. megumi's lips twitched slightly, a silent chuckle escaping him as he watched your reaction, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. at the sight of him joining in on the fun, you pointed at him, realising something else.

"why are you laughing?" you inquired, then reached down to retrieve a mirror, holding it up so he was met with his own reflection. "haha! you both got struck by lightning!"

his smile had disintegrated, only watching you as you rocked yourself back and forth at his expression, feeling a stitch in your side with how funny the situation was. silently and angrily, he swiped the mirror out of your hands, raising his own hand to flick at your forehead. 

you choked, the minor pain at the centre of your forehead jolting you awake from your laughing fit. scowling, you rubbed at the area he'd intentionally hurt, barely registering the fact that he had taken the laptop to continue attacking the bad reviews.

you let him, acknowledging the fact that what you had said was rather mean. 

"'i came not once, not twice but THREE times for food, every time it tasted not up to par,'" megumi's disinterested voice read aloud, the annoyance from what you'd said still lacing each word with slight venom. you laughed. "why would you go back to a place if you didn't like it? idiot."

"you tell 'em, porcupine," you encouraged, anticipating his response. 

megumi's witty comebacks were always funny. he didn't even mean to make you laugh with them, but even then, they were enough to have you practically rolling around on the floor, belly aching and heart running a million miles per second. his nonchalant behaviour only added to the amusement.

he wrote his reply, sent it, and then slid the laptop over to you. you leaned forward, reading and judging:

stop coming for breakfast, lunch and dinner, we're not a food bank.

you gave that one an 11/10 — the man behind the account would need to change his name, date of birth and identity, and then remove himself from the face of the earth if he ever wanted to recover from that, you concluded wisely.

your praise sat at the tip of your tongue, only to be abandoned at the echo of the bell's chimes that bounced off of the walls, signalling the arrival of another customer. figuring that this would be megumi's turn to create a theory, you turned on your stool excitedly, only to have your jaw drop to the floor and under.

standing in front of the door was none other than your favourite (and only) math teacher of the year: mr kento nanami! 

your heart skipped a beat as you caught sight of your math teacher entering the cafe. shock painted your features as you gawked, wide-eyed, hardly believing that the business-attire man was standing in a setting that wasn't your typical school environment. you exchanged a quick, incredulous glance with megumi before hastily adjusting your posture, trying to appear composed despite the unexpected surprise.

it was typical. he still wore the same clothes (which made sense since you and megumi had too seeing as you went straight to the cafe right after school had finished). but something about seeing him enter such a cottage-vibe, almost feminine cafe made you recoil, not that you were displeased at all. in fact, you thought that this was the best arrival that the bell had drawn your attention to yet!

"kento nanami!" you yelled, ignoring megumi wincing at the sudden volume of your voice as you raised an arm over your head to enthusiastically wave at him. 

a slight scowl of annoyance marred his usually composed face when he heard you call out to him using his government name. his brows furrowed, and a hint of disapproval flashed in his eyes, portraying his strict demeanour, but you didn't mind. surely school rules did not apply outside of the school environment? surely it didn't matter whether you referred to him as kento or mr nanami or whatever?

"kento, look!" you tried again, turning halfway to grab your math homework sheets and present them to him. "i'm sitting here doing your homework! in this beautiful cafe! because of you!"

"actually, you spent the last thirty minutes laughing at my customers and arguing with the bad reviews again," miss B corrected you, apparently materialising out of thin air. 

you jumped slightly, the sheets scattering and your brows furrowing as you watched her shut the laptop and take it away. kento's response also took you by surprise.

"i was correct in believing that it wasn't you disrespectfully responding to them."

he had made his way further down the interior, leading up to the counter where miss B, you, and megumi were.

you beamed. "no, it was megumi and i."

megumi grumbled something along the lines of 'wasn't me', which you knew was a complete and utter lie. megumi was your accomplice in all of this; it didn't matter whether you were the mastermind behind it all. he still served his purpose and did it brilliantly too. you couldn't have asked for a better partner. except, perhaps, nobara, who was equally as good as him at silencing people when it was necessary.

although, kento did not look as though he believed you. you didn't like that much.

"keep an eye out for the one where he told the guy that he shouldn't come so often because we're not a food bank!" you told him honestly, still smiling despite kento's obvious disbelief.

he glanced at megumi as if to say is-this-true? 

you chortled, knowing full well that megumi would not lie with his chest, especially not in front of you.

"megumi is sensible," said kento, with such confidence, you almost felt bad for him. you wondered what his reaction would be if you told him about that one zoo incident where megumi jumped into the gorilla enclosure and declared that he'd stay there for the rest of his life? or the occasion where little you and megumi had been scolded by your parents so badly, he made the suggestion of running away together (and went through with it) even though it was bound to have failed from the beginning? or the time where he helped you torment your unfriendly, rival neighbour mrs daphne on facebook to the point where she had marched down to your houses to complain to your parents? 

megumi is sensible, you thought, and nearly laughed. how comical, loud, and wrong.

"why do you think the punctuation is so perfect?" you asked, raising a brow. "you think i'd care enough to put capital letters and full stops everywhere?"

kento's eyes widened slightly, a flicker of surprise crossing his face as he processed the unexpected news. a momentary pause followed, during which his features tensed with mild astonishment, and yours only grew more joyful. megumi, on the other hand, was silently forcing down the urge to push you off your stool and walk home without you (he would never).

"the usual?" miss B interrupted, still smiling the elegant way that she does. 

kento nodded slowly, she began organising his order behind the counter. you blinked several times.

"the usual?" you repeated, bewildered. "kento nana—"

"y/n," he snapped, still composed even so. "refrain from referring to me with my first name."

"we're not at school," you reminded him.

he adjusted the odd, spotted tie he wore, looking irked. "doesn't matter —"

"you come here a lot?" you asked, curious. even megumi seemed interested, and he had been frowning and grumbling the second kento had walked past the door. 

"this place has the best bread in town," he told you, stiff. "better than my local supermarkets."

you grinned. "and miss B is the best cashier and server ever, right?"

you sensed megumi's gaze on you, causing you to adjust the way you sat slightly in your seat. you ignored the feeling, understanding that megumi knew what you were trying to do and was making it extremely clear that he wanted you to look at him for a second, if the way he was tugging at the bottom of your sleeve aggressively was anything to go by. you slapped his hand away, grin widening ever so slightly as the hiss he let out, still getting into character. your role? temporary matchmaker.

kento watched miss B work behind the counter.

"i respect her a lot," he said, barely answering the question. 

you wanted to gruel him for some more information, but your time had been cut short when miss B's soft voice had driven a smooth knife through the heated conversation.

"here you are," she said, handing him his food in a bag. 

he exchanged it for some money, she tried to give him some change, he told her she could keep it. with a final look at you, megumi, and the homework he'd assigned you, he told you to take care of yourselves and left the cafe, his strides even and his back straight. 

what took you by surprise was the fact that miss B had followed him out, waving at him from the door and telling him to come again after a brief conversation with him that you and megumi, from where you were sat, could not hear. she never did this with any of her other customers. you were here so often that you knew she did not. the two of you exchanged looks of obvious bafflement, sitting up straighter and raising your chins to nosily observe the sight before you.

when she returned, you did not miss the rosy pink in her cheeks. 

"miss B —" you began, only for her to interrupt you with a laugh.

"he's a regular customer, quite like the two of you," she said, and then looked around at the mess on the counter that were your unorganised math papers. "and he told me to tell you that you only needed to do page ten and eleven of the booklet."

you felt your stomach flip itself upside down.

you had fried your brain for no reason at all, for you'd completed nearly half of the booklet instead of the assigned designated pages. perhaps that would teach you to meddle in business that wasn't yours, you thought you heard megumi grumble from next to you, but you weren't so sure...

not when you'd dropped your head on the table, hopeless.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・

bonus scene:

megumi and yuji were both traitors. 

during gym class, coach lauren did not seem to mind that you and nobara had migrated to the corner of the gymnasium, gossiping and laughing about who-knows-what. naturally, the class grew quite boring for the two of you, so you'd snuck out and gone to the football field where you knew coach yaga's class would be residing. 

long story short: megumi and yuji both rat you out and coach yaga had kicked the two of you off his field and had you stay with him for detention. 

all. because. of. them.

so in conclusion, the two of you had seated yourselves far, far away from them in any class that you could, which included satoru's physics class.

you were wary not to sit near malakai, who always had something odd to say to nobara. in fact, when she'd come into school with a brighter, new hair-do (no longer the dark colour that you were so used to) malakai had a few things to say... but that was a story for another day. 

now, you only just realised the mistake you had made sitting on the middle table instead of your regular seats. and it was not because of megumi or yuji, no.

it was because of the drama queen that just so happened to be your male, adult, mature teacher: satoru gojo. 

when taking the register, which usually went by pretty quickly, the second he had come to either of your names, he had started an act that made you believe that perhaps he should have been the one taking performing arts as a subject:

"y/n?" he'd called out, looking around the class as if you were not seated across the whiteboard, the first seat on the middle table. 

"here," you said, unfazed. 

"huh — oh!" he said, resulting in the eyes of everyone in your class to look at you as though you'd done something wrong, as though you were malakai, even. "oh, right, y/n... are you new here?"

you scrunched your nose up in something in between confusion and annoyance. what the hell was he talking about? unlike majority of the people sitting in the classroom, this man knew of your existence since you were four years old. what game was he playing?

"you're joking, right?" you said, watching him carefully as he scratched the top of his head and shrugged. "sa—"

"o-kay!" he perked up, rushing through the register with such ease, you hadn't expected him to stop and squint a second time. but he had. "i might get this one wrong so forgive me but... no— nobara? nobara?" he called out, once more, looking up and all around the classroom as though he couldn't see her sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with you.

unlike you, she had a much shorter fuse that he'd lit.

"what's wrong with you?" she demanded, eyes narrowed. "i'm here."

he raised his eyebrows up at her and nodded, muttering to himself. the two of you were both equally confused, and so was the rest of the class, it seemed, if the whispers were anything to go by.

the register had been completed not long after that. you assumed his weird antics would also finish too, but you were proven wrong once the idiot had opened his mouth to address the class again.

"so we have two new students with us today!" he said, excited. "make them feel welcome! their names are... nobara and..." he thought long and hard before looking over at you, tilting his head forward so you could see the terrifying blues that were hiding behind the circular lenses. "hmm... what's your name again?"

your anger simmered like a pot left too long on the stove, bubbling beneath the surface. as you stared back at satoru's clueless expression, it felt like a storm brewing in your chest, thunderclouds gathering with each passing moment. his feigned ignorance was like a slap in the face, a sharp thorn pricking at your patience, igniting the flames of your frustration.

how dare he?

he moved on to teaching the class before either of you got to call him out for his bullshit. 

only for it to slowly get worse as the time went by. 

he was sat at his desk, explaining the slide from the powerpoint that he'd presented on the board with a lazy smile and stretched out legs that resting on a spare chair.

"what's at the centre of an animal cell?" he asked the class, encouraging people to raise their hands.

nobara raised hers, eager to answer.

"new kid!" he said, and when she glared at him, he backtracked. "i mean nobara! — that was scary — what's at the centre of an animal cell?"

"the nucleus," she answered. 

he frowned. "huh?"

she frowned. "the nucleus," she repeated helpfully.

he leaned forwards, a hand cupping his ear. "sorry, i can't hear you, you're too far away."

oh, it made sense now, you thought in your head. he was throwing a fit over the fact that the two of you had chosen to sit in the centre of the room, a little further away from his desk, than at the back table with megumi and yuji, closer to him.

what a diva.

he directed the question to maryam, who sat at the table closest to the door and furthest from his desk.

"you're right! it's the nucleus!" he cheerfully praised her, continuing to teach as though he hadn't just distracted the entire class due to his theatrics. even malakai sensed something was wrong, claiming that 'the darkness is starting to reach the lightness of his hair... it is consuming him', whatever the hell that meant.

it hadn't ended there though, for when the worksheets were being handed out by yuji, he had completely skipped over you and nobara (though he looked quite frightened at doing so). it was no doubt satoru's instructions he was acting on behalf of.

"give it," nobara demanded, standing up and approaching him.

yuji held the papers close to his chest. "but mr gojo said —"

"mr gojo also once said that he's married with thirteen kids, do you believe that?" 

she forcefully snatched two sheets from him, marching back to where she was sat with you and slammed them down onto the table with such force, it shook, your pencil committing suicide off the edge.

"men will be the death of everyone, mark my words," she'd said.

when you raised a hand for help, your pencil clasped in your curled fingers, he asked what happened to gravity and why an inanimate object was suddenly floating. 

that was the last straw for you. 

if he was going to pretend that you had miraculously turned invisible, then you were going to do as you pleased with this ability. pencil still in your tight grasp, you stood up, made eye contact with your childish teacher, and sprinted out of the classroom.

satoru perked up, alarmed as he ordered for help.

"whoever's closest to the door, close it before she —"

you'd already left.

he let out a long sigh, only to raise a brow when you'd returned the second you'd disappeared from view, running across the classroom to take nobara's hand, glance up at your teacher, and say...

"malakai."

— before taking off with your friend, chaos ensuing behind you.

the chaos being malakai emerging from under the sink, arms flailing around himself, eyes rolling to the back of his head, snarling and growling as he shook, only creating more issues for satoru who, everyone knew, hated dealing with the odd emo.

that'd teach him to pretend that you (out of everyone) were invisible.

lesson learned, he thought in his head, letting out a loud and drawn out groan when malakai refused to stop.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・

(random tweets cuz i think you guys waited long enough for this chapter to come out, eat well 😁)

(p.s. ignore the date on the tweet, it was meant to say 2017 lmao)

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・

notes: i'm so tired, gonna take a longgg nap. not my favourite chapter tbh, but it's needed to set the scene for high school because the real part of the story (the one where all the drama starts and stuff) is arriving in less than three chapters!! and we also have a lovely character, important to the plot, to introduce next chapter, so stay tuned my little liars?

previous chapter :)

next chapter :)

taglist (send an ask or comment to be added):

@1l-ynn @shaigimo @shuupiu @myguumi @momoewn @xbarrjallenx @reinaswrld @anintrovertedechoe

© tojiscrack (previously ack4rwoman)

if you enjoyed my writing, i’d really appreciate it if you tipped me — tumblr no longer has the tip function, so maybe here in my tip jar :)

i do not own any of the characters of jjk, i only own the character of y/n and her mother. the other characters belong to gege akutami.

[wileys-russo]

best friends sister II platonic!a.russo x reader

y'all have been sending in the requests for AI alessia being her gay older sister who plays for arsenal and i hope it satisfies because it was tricky to write lmao, so picture that ^ is isabella

best friends sister II platonic!a.russo x reader

"-and you promise that you're not mad?" your best friend bit down on her bottom lip nervously as you smiled as reassuringly as you could. "less of course i'm not mad! why would i be?" you laughed and shook your head at the blonde you'd all but grown up side by side with.

"because we always said the plan would be for you to go to university and me to play professionally in whatever club was closest so we could do it together, and i've ruined that!" your best friend sighed guiltily, collapsing back into her pillows.

"alessia. you are one of the best up and coming footballers there is, you've got a huge career ahead of you and this is the perfect next step to launch you into it. i'd be selfish cow and a terrible best friend to try and keep you from it." you promised sincerely, grabbing her hand and squeezing with a nod.

"will i miss you? of course. but i want you to go, i promise." you affirmed firmly. "and i promise that i'll make sure we don't drift apart. best friends for life means for life, and you better come and visit!" alessia held out her pinky as you grinned and interlocked it with your own.

"okay well that makes me feel a bit better because i was stressed about telling you!" the girl sighed and sat back up. "i've also been stuck with you for like ten years now, i'd really like a break." you shoved her playfully, ducking as she swung back at you with a grin and slid off her bed.

"please we both know you'll be a blubbering mess at the airport, your only friend off on a whirlwhind adventure and you...stuck here." alessia pouted sarcastically as you gasped. "i have loads of other friends thank you! you just refuse to accept that because you're notoriously posessive and needy." you teased back with a grin.

"and i'm off to university anyway you dickhead! where i'm sure i'll find myself a new blondie to spend my every waking day with." you jeered as she fumbled around in her cupboard for something. "you better not or i'll be forced to come back and kick her head in." alessia warned making you laugh.

"unless its a girlfriend of course, you desperately need one of those so you can stop kissing your hand." your best friend shrugged dropping a large box on her bed. "less! that was one time years ago and i told you that in strict confidence!" you kicked at her as she grinned, your cheeks blushing red.

"what? i wouldn't blame you for dating someone who looked like me, i know it's your biggest shame that you're secretly in love with me." the blonde pouted patting your leg making you roll your eyes.

"please. you know it's actually homophobic to assume that because i like girls that i like you, and here i was thinking you'd be an ally." you tutted as her eyes widened and she scrambled to ramble out an apology.

"an ally? please." you both looked up at the new voice, alessia's older sister isabella leaning in the doorway with a smirk. "have you heard of knocking?" alessia sighed as bella shrugged. "have you heard of not caring?" the older girl retorted walking into the room further as you covered up a laugh with a cough and alessia shot you a glare.

"see? she thinks i'm funny. why are you so in denial?" bella pouted, the two always arguing about something which amused you to no end given it was often over something so incredibly small it seemed they just enjoyed bickering.

there was only two years between them and they had more in common than either would care to admit, in fact both would argue they were one anothers opposite that really wasn't true.

you knew isabella had been training with arsenal in their junior academy and was hoping for a professional contract now she'd made her senior debut for the lionesses, both goals alessia was quickly following in her footsteps to also achieve, the entire russo household all football mad.

"what's all this then? college bribing you not to come anymore?" she began to rifle through the large box on the bed which you realised was full of various UNC swag. "get your filthy hands off it thank you! god knows where they've been." alessia scoffed, pushing her away and snapping the box closed.

"they're squeaky clean. want to check?" the older russo smirked, grabbing alessia by the face with her hand and pulling her into a headlock as you watched on in amusement. "get out! god i'm gonna miss you the least." alessia eventually pulled away, shoving the taller girl across the room with a glare.

"still admit you'll miss me though, and mum wants you." the girl winked backing away. "for what?" alessia questioned with a frown. "mm she did tell me, but i didn't care enough to remember." with a shrug bella left the room leaving alessia fuming and you quietly chuckling.

"why do you always egg her on by laughing! she's not funny she's infuriating!" alessia huffed glaring at you now as you held your hands up in defense, your best friend dragging you with her downstairs to see what her mum wanted.

~

"dinners ready. can you go get your sister and her friend please lessi?" carol asked, shooting the blonde a firm glare when she groaned at the request. "why do i have to come?" you laughed as she grabbed the back of your top, tugging you up with her.

"just think of it as me wanting to spend as much time with you before i leave." alessia grinned as the two of you ascended the stairs, her brothers already having moved out it just left alessia and isabella living at home.

"oh thats it is it?" you rolled your eyes knowing she was full of it as you reached her sisters door, alessia giving her sister the same courtesy she gave her as she flung her door open without knocking.

though she wished she hadn't.

"get out!" the older russo sat up quickly half naked spare some shorts and a bra, having been previously hovered over the girl pinned beneath her, the two clearly making out.

"jesus my poor eyes! dinners ready, looks like you were just about to eat though bella." alessia smirked before leaving the room, purposefully leaving her sisters door open.

"what are your ears painted on? fuck off!" bella scowled, throwing a pillow at you as you stood frozen, quickly spinning around and almost running out of the room, the door slamming closed after you.

safe to say she didn't come down for dinner after that.

"it's not even scary less, its a thriller!" you argued as you and alessia made your way back upstairs, each of you stating your case over what you wanted to watch tonight.

"my names not lily? jesus you're worse than what everyone says!" you both glanced down the hallway before entering alessia's room, the girl from earlier standing there with her arms crossed and an angry look on her face.

"sorry?" bella shrugged leaning in her doorway, clearly not sorry as the mystery girl whose name was not lily scoffed, shoving the taller girl and hurrying off downstairs to leave. "you truly are disgusting." alessia grimaced as her sister only grinned.

"careful now ally, did you used to say the same about all the girls gio snuck round?" the older girl winked, leaving her sister scoffing and about to defend herself before the door thudded closed.

"god she is insufferable."

~

"can you go make more popcorn?" alessia asked, head buried in her phone as you nodded, more than comfortable to help yourself to anything in the russo household. "can i go and make more popcorn..." you trailed off expectantly as the blonde tossed her phone beside her.

"now?" she guessed with a grin, causing you to flip her off as she tossed an m&m at your head and began to rummage around for the remote to select a new movie.

with it being half past ten at night you expected the kitchen to be vacant, though you noticed the lights were all on and as you rounded the corner you saw the older russo sister sat at the benchtop eating a plate of leftovers from dinner.

her attention on her phone she didn't notice you at first, only looking up as she heard you start to rummage around in the pantry. "surely we've started to charge you rent by now?" the older girl teased as you emerged with a bag of popcorn, rolling your eyes and tossing it in the microwave.

"i'll make sure to sign a jersey for you once i get my pro contract so you can sell it and buy my family some food since you consume so much of it." the taller girl shoved your head to the side playfully as you moved out of her way so she could rinse her plate.

"so. did you enjoy the little show earlier pervert?" she smirked, glancing at you as she dried up her plate. "what? you're so weird." you frowned, pulling yourself to sit up on the counter.

"please. you know if you asked me nicely i'd kiss you so you can stop wondering what it feels like." she grinned, moving closer to you as your frown turned into a scowl. "or so you can stop using your hand. less talks quite loudly you know." she teased, standing in between your legs as you tensed up a little.

if you were honest with yourself you'd always found her to be quite attractive but you'd never ever go there, both for your own and alessia's sake.

"i've kissed girls!" you defended truthfully, and you had, you'd just not ever progressed any further than that. "mm but have you been kissed by a girl?" the older russo quirked an eyebrow, leaning in closer as her hands fell either side of your body, somewhat caging you in.

"thats the same thing." you rolled your eyes, trying to ignore how hard your heart was hammering in your chest. "that means no then." bella chuckled, tilting her head slightly.

"i mean have you ever been properly kissed by a girl? when she's got her tongue roaming your mouth, her teeth nipping down on your bottom lip before she sucks on it to soothe the sting-" she leaned in closer as your eyes widened.

"-where one of her hands are on the back of your neck so you can't pull away until she lets you, and the other hand...well it touches other parts of you." the older girl grinned wickedly, her mouth ghosting yours before she put her plate back in the cupboard behind your head and pulled away entirely.

"baby gays are always the cutest." bella winked, ruffling your hair and walking off as if she hadn't just sent your head into a spin, the beep of the microwave making you jump a little as you slid off the counter, shaking your head to try and rid it of the thoughts you'd just had.

she was your best friends sister, she'd always be off limits.

~

"just when i thought we'd gotten rid of you." you rolled your eyes as isabella opened the door for you with a sigh. "no one else is here and your best friends in another country, so then you must be here for me?" she grinned as you pushed past her, heading for the stairs.

alessia had been gone for months now and you missed her like crazy, so much so you'd booked a flight to go and visit her during what was to be her spring break and your time off from your own university course.

though of course that meant the girl had texted you a rather elaborate list of things she'd left behind that she requested you bring with you to see her, which despite the ongoing teasing that she'd lose her head was it not attached to her body you agreed to go and collect.

"she'd kill you for being in here." you sighed as the older russo collapsed onto her younger sisters bed, making herself comfortable as you began to gather what alessia had requested.

"only if you snitch me in." the girl grinned, watching you as you fluttered around the room. "surely you have something better to do? being a big pro now and all!" you sighed, looking at her with your hands on your hips.

"so you did hear! not even a congratulations? thats just poor manners." bella tutted with a shake of her head, sitting up and moving to the edge of the mattress. "i'm not an arsenal fan." you teased with a smile, hearing her scoff in mock offence.

"you don't have to be, you can just be my fan." bella challenged as you again rolled your eyes. "you know if i had a pound for every time you rolled your eyes at me over the years i could have bought a house by now." the older russo sister grinned.

"must mean you say a lot of stupid things to have girls always rolling their eyes at you." you quipped, rummaging through and grabbing out two hoodies, tossing them onto your growing pile.

"i personally prefer to make their eyes roll back into their heads." the taller girl commented quite casually, your eyes widening for a moment at the abrupt statement but choosing to ignore it. "so what are you doing after this?" she stood and made her way out, leaning in the doorway.

"going home?" you quirked an eyebrow unsure where she was going with this. "do you want to watch a movie or something?" she asked surprising you.

"are you asking me to hang out?"

"maybe. you miss less, i miss less, though if you tell her that i'll deny it till the day i die, we may as well keep one another company."

"plus i'm older so less's entire personality comes from me anyway. so it'll be like she never left, just swap one russo for another!" she added on with a smile as you shook your head.

"yeah sure, why not."

~

"burn yourself with the straightener did you?" you flinched suddenly as the girls thumb gently pressed into a fading love bite on the side of your neck, the only lingering evidence from an incredibly drunken hook up at a university party you'd gone to over the weekend.

and much to your best friends horror and delight, where you'd finally lost your virginity, before her.

"none of your business!" you pushed her hand away as she smiled and turned her attention back to the movie. well, for a few minutes. "finally dropped the baby gay card then, feel good?" she teased as you rolled your eyes.

"stop calling me that."

"oh sorry, prefer if i just call you baby then?"

"stop, bella seriously."

"what?"

"can you not keep it in your pants around anyone? or do you just shamelessly flirt with anything that moves?" you shot her a dirty side eye only making her smile widen. "well the something has to be female, obviously." you tried to hide your smile with your hand but she grabbed your wrist.

"saw that!" she teased as you tried to pull away, the two of you messing around for a moment before she leaned in and your heart began to race, recognize her eyes flicker down to your lips.

"we can't." you whispered, hating how unsure your voice sounded. "tell me to stop and i will." she whispered back, leaning in even closer as you opened your mouth and she paused, but you couldn't speak.

taking that as permission she closed the small gap in between you both, pressing her lips firmly to yours. you'd have loved to say you pushed her off, told her again that you couldn't, thought about your best friend and what she might think.

but the only thing that consumed your mind was her and how good her mouth felt molded with your own. as you began to kiss back you felt her hands move, grabbing your hips and pulling you to straddle her lap, movie long forgotten in the background.

"alessia." you pulled away remembering your best friend as the older girl nipped at your bottom lip and your stomach twisted. "doesn't have to know." bella promised and you hesitated for a moment, but as her lips curled into a cocky smile and her hand flew to the back of your head, you knew you were a goner.

~

safe to say that was not the last time it happened, far from it.

you ignored the guilt which bubbled up in your stomach as you pretended it never happened, flying over to see your best friend and spending two blissful weeks with her, then flying over again a couple of months later to watch her in the she believes tournament where she would finally get her senior national team debut.

though of course that also meant isabella would be playing, and their whole family would be there with you.

"i'm so so proud of you!" you yelled happily as your best friend jogged over, shit eating grin on her face as she wrapped you up in a hug, isabella hanging back as she chatted with some of her team mates, though her eyes lingered on you.

and it was those lingering eyes which eventually did you both in.

you were all out for dinner after the game, you seated beside your best friend and luca, gio opposite him as the other russo sister sat across from you and mario across from alessia, carol at the head of the table.

you'd hardly spoken to her the entire time you'd been around, focusing all of your time and attention on the rare moments spent with your best friend who you knew you'd have to say goodbye to again in a few days time.

however that didn't stop the defender from trying to gain your attention, sending you subtle looks across the table as she kicked you playfully, winking at you when alessia wasn't looking.

well, when she thought she wasn't looking.

dinner finished you excused yourself to the bathroom, declining your best friends offer to come with you with a laugh as you promised to meet them outside the restaurant.

you did your business and washed your hands, hearing the door open but not bothering to look up, jumping in shock as arms wrapped around your torso and a familiar pair of lips pressed themselves to your neck.

"bella we can't." you chuckled, though still leaning your head back a little to give her more access, eyes fluttering closed as she peppered the warm skin with butterfly kisses. "can't we?" she smirked at you through the mirror with that same cocky smile that made your knees weak every time.

"i've missed you in camp." she confessed softly, spinning your body round and pushing it into the bathroom counter, wasting no time rewarding you with a searing kiss which sent your head spinning.

"they'll wonder where we are." you exhaled shakily, using all your willpower and pushing her off you. "you won't escape me later." she warned playfully, nodding for you to leave first as she hung back.

it was several hours later, you and alessia hanging in your shared hotel room together catching up just like normal, your combined laughters echoing around the room as the girls phone suddenly buzzed.

"hey i have to go talk to the training staff about something. but find a movie, i'll be back!" she promised, rolling off the bed as you nodded, not bothering to question why she was suddenly needing to speak to the training staff at almost ten at night.

alessia wasted no time marching down the hallway to where her sisters room was, knocking impatiently as she answered. "oh come on in!" the older russo chuckled as alessia shoved past her, checking the two of them were alone.

"how long?" alessia asked, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at the taller girl who frowned, sitting down on the edge of her bed. "pardon?"

"how long have you been fucking my best friend behind my back?" alessia spat, scarily calm as a storm brewed behind her bright blue eyes. "look less-"

"no, don't lie. i saw your little fuck me eyes across the table, and it wasn't her leg you kept kicking at the table. so tell me the truth." alessia warned as her sister sighed, rubbing her face with her hands unsure how to find a way out of this.

"we haven't slept together, i promise."

"but?"

"but we've done, other things."

"you are seriously unbelievable. you couldn't just be happy plowing your way through every insecure footballer in london, you had to go for my best friend?" alessia yelled angrily, fists balled by her sides.

"woah okay less i think you're overre-"

"you're going to stay away from her bella. she's not just another name for your books, she's my best friend and a better sister to me than you've ever been!" alessia fumed, hurt flashing across the older girls face momentarily before it hardened.

"it takes two to tango. you gonna go yell at her too then?"

"she can't have known any better, which is why you're going to stay away from her. i won't let you take advantage of the fact she see's the good in people, as little of it exists in you."

"fine. get out!" the taller girl stood, shoving her sister back who scoffed, turning on her heel. "happily!" the door slamming after her, you none the wiser of anything that had just happened as alessia returned, plastering a fake smile on her face and not uttering a single word about it.

which is why it hurt all the more as you slipped out of your room to call your mum that next morning as to not wake your best friend.

making the mistake of glancing down the hall, you watched as a random girl slipped out of one of the rooms, a familiar face kissing her goodbye with a grin.

you froze and thats when her eyes met yours, not a single look of regret on her face as you stared one another down for a moment before she watched you hurry back into alessia's room.

she was your best friends sister, and that's all she'd ever be to you.

[king-candybug-backup]

#I’M SO NERVOUS BECAUSE THERE’S A THING THAT HAPPENS IN IT WHERE I FEEL LIKE PEOPLE MIGHT NOT LIKE THE CHARACTERIZATION #BUT I’M DOING IT ANYWAYS BECAUSE IT’S BASICALLY THE CATALYST OF INSPIRATION FOR THE WHOLEASS FIC #I’M GONNA DO THINGS MY WAY AND NOBODY CAN STOP ME SFGHDFGVJB

Color me both extremely curious and slightly terrified of what these tags might mean. What are you planning. Mom come pick me up I'm scared.

But let me tell you, judging from the AMAZINGLY fitting characterization in this fic so far, I feel like you could do the wildest shit with these guys and STILL have it feel satisfying and in-character, so try not to worry so much and trust your instincts! I know for a fact that I'll be happily eating up whatever you dish out. :) Your writing is so awesome that I already know it's going to be a fun time lol

DFGHSCHG DON'T GIVE ME TOO MUCH LEEWAY, WHAT IF NEXT CHAPTER TURBO APOLOGIZES TO EVERYBODY FOR ALL HIS WRONGDOINGS AND THEY BECOME THE BEST OF FRIENDS AND MAKE EACH OTHER FLOWER CROWNS ALL DAY LMAO (I jest, of course, but y'know 😂😂😂😂 Thank you though, I appreciate that so very much, I'm just constantly overthinking crap augh)

For a bit of extra context on The Upcoming Thing, I am writing him through the lens of having NPD, and there’s one particular aspect of it that I see get kinda glossed over A LOT (not just regarding King Candy, I mean about NPD in general), so I’m gonna be getting into some nitty-gritties that I feel like people might view as a little “OOC” as compared to what we’ve gotten in canon (which is totally fine ofc, I’m basically working off a headcanon after all (though there is one very specific scene that also kinda got glossed over in the movie which is what extra-convinced me he’d probably have it, but I will get more into that when the chapter is published) and my interpretation of him is in no way gospel, but one of the main comments I’ve gotten doing this fic so far is how people seem to appreciate how “in-character” King Candy feels, so I’m just feeling like I might disappoint a few people in that regard if they don’t vibe with my interpretation for this particular scene coming up, lmao) but it’s something very important to me that I really, really want to touch on, so I’m doing it regardless of what others may think, hopefully people will still enjoy it, but if not, ah well. 😂 It’s my fic at the end of the day, and I’m not gonna change one of the core aspects of what inspired it gfdgcfhvb

(There will be a bit more explanation in the chapter notes, so it’ll be a bit of a “hear me out” lol, but try to bear with me! 😂)

Also I just want to make it VERY clear that this will not be a "King Candy is a terrible person because he has NPD" kind of story, that is the exact opposite of what I am going for, the reason I'm approaching this topic from the angle that I am is because there is a very, very misunderstood mindset towards NPD that I want to get into, and hopefully things will be made more clear when the chapter comes out. It may sound a bit counter-productive, doing the whole "give the villain NPD" headcanon thing, but I hope y'all can trust that my intention is ABSOLUTELY not to demonize, and that you're willing to hear me out about what I mean when the time comes! 🙏

[moonmeg]

Heeey! I've always adored your comics. They're even the reason that I'm into the Wittobane Fandom! Anwayyy, I wanna know how Caleb's different viewpoint on some subjects from Evelyn and his lack of organic magic might affect his dynamic with his family in the au in which he does live

Will Caleb struggle to manage the life of a Dad, especially when his kids are a mix of another being AND a different culture? Do you think he'll keep his past a secret? I'm sure he'll try his best to be a great dad and protect his kids, but will that mean telling them of their origin (of being relater to both witch hunters and witches)? Or let them grow up with the belief a lie, something like "he's an orphan with no family or connection of any sort" since that is half true..

Ah! Caleb's dynamic with characters is always so interesting!! I'd love to know your thoughts :)

Heyyy! I'm so happy and flattered to hear you enjoy my silly little comic! Seriously, no idea what I'm doing but it seems to work lmao

As for your question: there is a comic where Caleb voices thoughts of guilt he'd have if Evelyn's and his child would turn out more human than witch. Be it appearance wise or related to magic abilities. He's scared others will put it at too high a pedestal and be mocking or excluding. Much like is actually the case with Robyn and his school yard taunt.

But he wouldn't keep part of their identity from them. They are half human, and they deserve to know that. If they'd ask him to tell more about the human realm, he'd answer their every question. Well... almost every question. He wouldn't speak much about his past, and especially when they are younger, he would keep the fact he participated in witch hunts unspoken, but he will tell them once they're able to grasp it better. Before that happens, though, most of the time, he simply says he has made many terrible mistakes in his youth.

That aspect is among the only things that might affect his relationship with his children negatively. He's trying his absolute best to be a good father overall, and he's quite successful with that. His children love him, they seek comfort in him, they love and want to spend time with him, they trust him. That is so sacred to him because it lets him know he's doing something right in his fatherly role and that essentially, he is better than his own father.

He is so scared of staining his darlings' adoration and trust in him by telling them what a horrible person he used to be. A liar, a thief*, an accomplice to murderers. Evelyn and his children are his everything. They are his world, his heartbeat and the air that he breathes. Evelyn forgave him. But will his children? This fear they may not, the fear that after they know the truth, their relationship will never be the same again, eats him alive. His only comfort is his wife's embrace and her reassuring words.

He does eventually tell them. He's met with different reactions initially, and some father-child bonds need longer to heal again than others, but if the Clawthorne kids inherited one thing from their mother, it's her forgiving and understanding nature.

[problematicfactive]

Fruit Salad is a new discord server. They are a fun. Welcoming community. Too bad they're actually not accepting of anyone they don't agree with and believe trying to come to an understanding is "unproductive"

If anyone is able to provide image IDs, that would be amazing, I'm physically incapable at the moment

The first red flag was their rules saying something along the lines of "be respectful to sources, of a source is problematic, report it in a ticket" surely that will go well.

Our host clued into it, and immediately opened a ticket to ask what that meant. of course they claimed they knew Introjects don't choose their source BUT problematic introjects have to source separate.

Fellas, is it appropriate to claim that any introject, problematic or not is "parading" their source by simply. Existing?

Now I will admit. When we were asked "what we were trying to do" we assumed they meant "why are we having this conversation" and did our best to explain that. However, looking back, this may not have been the question they wanted an answer to. The question feels too vague to answer, and we did our best. It also seemed like they were just trying to change the topic of conversation because they didn't want to be face with the fact that they were wrong and we had a good point.

Again, I don't understand what they want to know when they say "what is your end goal" my end goal is to know what's okay so I can know if I'm safe in this community.

To be as insensitive as to make a joke about using a discord bot being torturous when I had just been talking about abuse of individuals is what told me I wasn't safe. Someone after that when said "LMAO" which I skipped over to make the whole conversation fit better

And this is actually a problem I've been having for a while so I have something that people need to get through their heads and we need to help people to understand

No one has to disclose a SINGLE BIT of information about their system to ANYONE. If a mod is trying to coax the information out of you or shaming you for not giving it, you need to call them out for being innapropriate because asking these questions and using your position to ask these questions or shame for not answering is a absolutely innapropriate

Now I have explained this before, but I will explain this again and probably 100 more times. When my system found out who my source was, I was abused. at the same time, I was forced to undergo name changes and identify under different faces. It was a terrible and isolating experience and absolutely a part of the abuse I endured. And while another system can easily say "okay, whatever, Ted can be Dan in this server" we can't. Because I can't. Because of the abuse I endured I can't lie about who I am it is torturous to me. It leaves me unhappy. It leaves me feeling sick. I don't deserve to be exposed to old abuse I endured because you relate source separation to keeping your old name.

Guess what, a name is a word someone calls to get your attention.

And a pic of you is what you look like

And neither of these things have anything to do with what i support or enjoy

Stop acting like my worth is based on my source and start acting like it's based on what I do for my system. People who show up to the hypocrite competition go home when they see people like you (directed at people like this not any reader) because you're the all time champion and that's not something to be proud of. Don't run system friendly spaces if you think source connection comes from how much like you your pfp looks

[diabolikpersonals]

I would like to hear your thoughts on the DF diaboys routes you have played at this point.

yessir!! under the cut:

Shu: Shu's DF route is an exercise in meeting him where he is. We know Shu loves his family, but we have to understand it isn't easy for him to show it. We're right at the precipice of a big change in Shu and Reiji's relationship, but we have to accept that acting the way Reiji wants him to just isn't what's best for Shu. Yui wants confirmation of Shu's affection for her, but she has to learn that he shows his affection in other ways. It's kind of like this route is showcasing Shu's flaws and you're going, "That's okay! I like Shu because he's Shu!" so I think it's sweet. Take your time, Shu! ...If I had to complain about this route, I'd say that we spend so long away from the other characters that it gets lonely. I guess that's the point, though...I just don't really find all the "hiding from everyone else" scenes very exciting after a while. We could've spoken to Reiji more, and I honestly feel like Shu and Reiji have bigger breakthroughs in other routes, so this one feels like it's missing a big scene with the Beatrix bros.

Ayato: If you had asked me when I had just played HDB and MB, I would have told you, "Never in a MILLION YEARS will I feel anything other than hatred for Cordelia," but well!!! Surprise!!! This one will make you feel things other than hatred for Cordelia, whether you like it or not. I truly understand how the triplets felt when they said they loved and hated her. The situation is too complicated for me to get into it very much here, but in short I'll say that I really liked the direction they took with the plot of this route, and I came out of it feeling like Ayato and Yui took a well-earned step forward. Absolutely loved this one. So proud of both of them. Whenever I play through the DF Sakamaki prologue, it makes me feel cruel if I don't pick Ayato's route lmao

Laito: If you are an angst lover like me then you will eat this shit up. It's an extremely bad time for every character involved. It hurt so good. I had to spend 70% of this route convincing Laito not to kill himself. In this route, Laito discovers a fact about his father that changes his outlook on his entire life, like every single thing about his life, and the performance that Daisuke Hirakawa gives is like.. It's pure art idk what to tell you. Reading this route is not good enough, you need the audio. I was scared, I wanted to cry, and as a triplet lover there were high points too, but my heart ached for the entire route, even through the good ending! I like that even the obligatory fanservice scenes don't let you forget how terrible the situation is! Strongly strongly strongly recommend

Yuma: Alas, I can only give you a super biased review of this one. It's my favorite route because it has so many good Shu/Yuma scenes. This route is our last bit of "Shu avoids Yuma and keeps secrets from him for his own good!" drama before Yuma finally gets the whole truth about his childhood. We get the cute flashback scenes, Yuma gets some awful nightmares and has some panic attacks, there's a little of everything! :D Even Zweig is there and he and Yuma are super cool, and if you know anything about Lost Eden then you know how hilarious that is. Anyway, this all culminates in THE YUMA BEST FRIEND MONOLOGUE which is one of my favorite dialovers scenes, period, because it makes me so happy. It feels soooo good to watch the arson recovery trio...recover from the arson. 10/10. Shuuma shippers, this one is required reading.

Carla: I'm definitely not shaming you if this route is to your taste, but it certainly wasn't to mine :') Most diaboys talk down to you, but Carla talks down to you to such a degree that I started getting offended over stuff I've never been offended about before. Like, "What do you mean you don't like the taste of my blood?! My blood is fucking delicious!" lol. I am not into all the forced pregnancy stuff, I am not into the demon racism stuff, I am not into how often Yui is reminded that she has no family and no one will come save her. I personally found Carla to be unbearable until he collapsed and started the process of dying. Then he got all sensitive and lonely and I was like "ok I can deal with him now." The ending isn't very satisfying either (What do you mean sucking Yui's blood will stop him from dying for now? He's been sucking her blood this whole time and his symptoms got way worse.) and Carla's blood sucking noises made me want to take my headphones off and throw them away (sorry toshiyuki morikawa I respect you so much toshiyuki morikawa) soooooooooo.........I didn't like it. I grew to like Carla around CL so don't be sad if you like him, ok? He's my friend now, but this route is still just unpleasant to me hgfghsdf

Shin: I know I said I hated the forced pregnancy talk and the demon racism plans and I did hate them, believe me, but Shin's route was successful in getting me to like him. I love that they put him in jail and beat the shit out of him, that was such a good scene and I really feel like my tastes are finally being represented lmao. Because it's his introductory route, he's pretty rough around the edges (true for every diaboy—everyone is a huge jerk in their introductory route) but there was still a lot to enjoy! The flashback scenes were fun (dare I say...he was...cute?!) and when put together with Carla's, the Tsukinamis have a super interesting story & dynamic together, and it fits the themes of dialovers really well. The differences with Carla's route, to me at least, are that Shin's scenes feel more like "playing with a diaboy" even when he gets mean, Shin has the added appeal of being teasable and of being a BIG FLUFFY DOG, and of course, Shin's blood sucking scenes didn't make me want to die. I'm clearly in the minority here, though, because Shin is at the bottom of every popularity poll I see lol...Anyway, it didn't make me LOSE MY SHIT like some other routes did, but I had fun playing this one!!

[dreadsuitsamus]

Anytime | Kensei Muguruma x Reader |

author's note: this hurt a little bit to write lmao and i apologize in advance if it hurts you too

pairing: kensei muguruma x fem!reader

warnings: reader and kensei are divorced, a little bit of angst and jealousy

"I'm on my way."

It rings in your head, over and over, as you sit on the side of the road and wait for your ex-husband to come save you. Stomach a pit and each and every nerve wired and frayed, tears nearly brim in your eyes at the anticipation of his arrival. Being stuck on the side of a road you're sure hasn't seen a single driver on it in at least a week is one thing, and it's another when you've got three flats and an ex-husband with a hefty I told you so locked and loaded.

Your divorce with Kensei was finalized over two years ago, but the sad fact remains that he's the most important person in your life, and vice versa— which is why you informed him of this last-minute road trip, only to be warned against it.

"I don't think your car can handle that trip. Put it off until I can make sure everything is functioning properly."

And like a fool, you neglected to take it seriously and off you went to the festival. Perhaps it's why you had as great of a time as you did— karma was evidently waiting with a dish best served cold.

Your heart jumps at the sight of a black Silverado truck pulling up. He hates that damn truck, much preferring his fuel-efficient Elantra, but you've left him with no choice today. You're so distraught you can't even take much time to appreciate those long legs of his as he steps out of the truck; sometimes you wonder how you could be divorced from the most handsome man you've ever known.

Dressed in jeans with the platinum chain you'd gotten him many moons ago attached, boots and a black button down shirt, your gut tells you he was busy when you called. Looking so fine… He was on a date, wasn't he?

It burns.

With a resounding sigh, you meet him in the halfway distance between your cars. Kensei's never been particularly talkative and mouthy unless angry, and though there's certainly some simmering beneath the surface, he's calmer than you initially expected. He passes you a bottle of water and a protein bar before going to inspect the damage, subsequently sighing and rubbing his temples with his long fingers. "I'm amazed that your luck is so shit that you only got three flats so your goddamn insurance wouldn't cover it."

"I'm still trying to figure out how I only got three."

"Divine intervention." Kensei mutters bitterly and starts to roll up his sleeves past the delicious forearms that once would hold you up against the inferno that is the rest of his body at night. "When's the last time you even got these rotated, let alone changed?"

"I don't even know what having them rotated means."

Kensei sucks in a sharp, irritated breath and steels himself; it'll do no good to get upset this early into the project. He just… Wishes you fucking listened to him. About anything, at this point. "New rule. Get it done every time you get an oil change." And thank God your car is one that will bug the hell out of you about your service interval— he doesn't want to consider what your oil and other fluids would be like otherwise.

"Okay." You mumble and crack open the water, taking a long pull from the cold drink. It's refreshing and perfect, pulling your spirits up just a tad as you start to feel a little bit better physically.

"Eat that protein bar." Your ex-husband demands, heading for the bed of his truck and lowering the tailgate. He's got everything he needs for the swap— including time. "I know you, you little shit. You're running on a refresher from six hours ago and had a hearty helping of hopes and dreams to eat, didn't you?"

You scowl as you chew the protein bar. It's terrible, like every protein bar you've ever tried, but at least he got one that doesn't make you want to vomit. "I didn't call you here so you could lay into me about my eating habits."

Kensei's brown eyes cut to you as he lowers a tire to the ground. "You rather me go off about the rest of the shit you got yourself into now, then? 'Cause I was saving it for later."

Rolling your eyes, you look away from the man you married six years ago. He huffs and resumes himself, setting up a workstation and prepping your car to start swapping the new tires on. You find a spot nearby him, settling down onto the lawn chair you took to the festival as he begins cracking off lugnuts. Sparing a glance your way, Kensei feels a bit of a tug at his heart despite his rage. You may be his ex-wife, but you've never been bad to him a day in his life. "How long did you sit here before you called me?"

"About two hours." You sigh, finishing the water after forcing the protein bar down. "I tried to get my insurance to help me. They wanted to charge even more because it's a Sunday and I just don't have the money for all that. I considered just camping out for a night and having them come out tomorrow, but…"

Kensei shakes his head. He was waiting for your call or text announcing you were back home; that plan would never fly as long as he's in your life. "We gotta get you a new insurance policy, babe. You're done paying for one that would leave a woman stranded like that."

"Yes sir."

Silence settles in for a while as you watch Kensei work. A light bead of sweat trickles from his temple to his neck, and then he tosses his tools down to carefully slip the buttons open and take off his shirt. If it's somehow possible, his biceps are bigger than they used to be. Leaving himself in a white tank top, he tosses the shirt your way. "Keep that clean for me, yeah?"

"Mhm." You slip into the oversized shirt, his handsome smelling cologne flooding your senses. He's not slick at all; it's chilly out in this wasteland, and rather than simply ask if you're cold, he'd rather ensure you won't be.

His unstoppable air of authority wraps you up, even now.

"Were you busy?" Tumbles out of your mouth after the beat of silence lasts too long. He's finished one tire already and it's really hit you how much you relied on him during your marriage.

It's no wonder he didn't fight to salvage it.

"No." He lies through his teeth and it's easy. Just a little too easy.

It's no wonder you served him divorce papers.

Huffing softly, your brow draws together. "Yeah, right. You got dressed all nice just to come bail me out? Bullshit. I'm smarter than you give me credit for, Ken."

"And yet, you went on this trip without getting your car checked out." Kensei snaps right back, irritation creeping up and warming his neck and ears. "If you didn't wanna wait for me, fine! Why not take it to Abarai's place?" He's got a point— You've known Renji for years now, and he'd always make time for a friend, his business needs be damned. He'd have it done in a day, easy.

Still, the embarrassment of being scolded like this lights your temper. "I told you, Ken, this trip was not planned. I had a friend up north mention the festival and we decided to go to it and meet up."

"Even if I accept that answer, which I don't, there's no reason for you to let your car get this bad! I don't even wanna look under the hood! Why do I always have to take care of your shit for you?? Time and time again, you fuck up and then you call me to bail you out!"

Your eyes widen with a series of blinks. He doesn't sound pissed as much as he's simply… Tired. Upset. Kensei being angry or frustrated is not foreign to you— on his surface, it's the only emotion he knows. But as his wife, you saw the softer side of his feelings. He does get sad, he does cry and he does have bad days like anyone else. And as you take in his tirade… The realization hits that those glimpses of his belly showing were almost entirely gone by the time of your separation.

That marriage was already doomed by the time you attempted to save it. Serving the papers to him wasn't supposed to do anything but show his true colors— he'd fight for you, or he'd give up. And Kensei chose the latter.

"Ken." You murmur carefully. "What were you doing when I called you?"

Kensei throws the tools down, rubbing his hands over his face. "I was on a date."

You'd rather have been left on the road to die than hear him say those words to you. The sinking feeling in your stomach threatens to send that protein bar back up just at the thought of him sitting at a restaurant with another woman, treating her in the same ways he'd treated you way back when. Kensei dating isn't unusual, per se. He's a single man, attractive and still quite young…

But he's yours.

"And you came for me?"

Kensei's hands drop to his lap. "For better or worse, babe: that's the promise I made you."

"The wedding vows don't particularly mean shit after the divorce." Tears of shock and hurt fill your eyes, though you refuse to blink and let them fall. He will not make you cry again, ever, but… The turn of your head to look away from him sure does accidentally force them out.

Kensei drops his head— he hates it when you cry, and hates himself for being the reason. He should've just lied again, brushed it off and moved onto the next flat. It wouldn't have worked though; the guilt he shoulders when he lies to you eats him alive, and it triples due to the look on your face when he does lie. You know he's not telling the truth, every time he tries it.

"I don't know why you think I'm the type of man to leave any woman stranded, much less you. You're the exception to every rule I have, always have been."

Your lip wobbles. It's true, you've always been the one to break Kensei's rules. He said he didn't date coworkers. But he dated you. He said he wasn't after a serious relationship. He married you. He said you shouldn't see each other after the divorce. Yet, he was calling and asking how you were doing not even a week later.

He's always loved you.

It's quiet for a while, and eventually Kensei gets back to the entire reason he's here. Clouds are rolling in, and he'll be damned if he gets caught in the middle of a rainstorm right now. His chest cavity feels empty and he wants nothing more than to crawl into his bed and sleep these horrible feelings away.

"Why?" You ask after a while, your few tears mostly faded now.

Stop, stop, stop! Stop asking questions, stop crying over your ex-husband moving on!!

"Why what?" Kensei mutters as he torques the lugnuts on the second tire.

You sigh to yourself, a beat of silence taking over again. Kensei's amber eyes flick over to you, snuggled into his shirt and avoiding his gaze as you curl into your chair. You're at war with yourself, that mental battle clear as day on what he can see of your face. His heartstrings tug, and next thing he knows he's wiping his hands and kneeling in front of you, cupping your cheek in his hand so you'll look at him.

His thumb swipes away a small tear. "Babe. Talk to me. You're not gonna feel better otherwise."

Your chest heaves at his touch, at his sincere eyes and warmth that keeps you so in love with him even now as a shudder wracks your entire body. "You keep your promises to me. You're always there when I need you. But why didn't you fight for our marriage?"

Kensei's silver brows raise before knitting together. "You wanted to leave. I wouldn't force you to stay if you weren't happy."

"I wanted you to care! I wanted my husband to tell me he still loved me and that we could work it out, but you didn't! You let me leave without so much as asking why!"

Kensei withdraws his hand. "Of course I cared! Does this—" He gestures back to your car. "Look like I don't care?? You had my whole heart in your palm, and you broke it! But I still come for you! All I want is for you to be safe and happy, and if it's not with me, so be it! You matter more to me than I ever have!"

"I've never wanted anybody else." Your eyes burn with fresh tears. You've never so much as entertained another guy for a potential date, let alone go out with someone after the divorce. There's nothing but your love for Kensei stopping you, but foolishly you hoped he would do the same; how unrealistic and unfair of you.

How many dates has he been on with this woman? Has he kissed her yet? The entire idea makes you want to scream and cry and cuss an innocent woman out for banging your husband. Ex or not, he's still so much of your heart that to lose him would ruin you.

"Then why divorce me?" He murmurs, standing and stepping back. The clouds are darkening, and he feels a hefty drop on his shoulder. "Why put me through a divorce if you wanted to stay together?!"

Anger boils inside your stomach, blood churning at an incredible pace as you rocket out of the lawn chair and fill the space he's created between you. "Why not fight?! If you love me as much as you keep saying, why didn't you fucking try?!"

"I already told you!" Kensei yells right back. "You wanted to go! So I let you go, because it's what you fucking said you wanted! You ended our marriage over a goddamn test, like the six years we spent together were some kinda fucking joke to you. You can't accuse me of not caring when you ended a four year marriage over petty shit!"

"I gave you a choice, Ken! I served the papers, but you signed them." You poke his chest harshly as two raindrops bounce against your forehead.

"I'm not having this argument with you; the shit's been said and done with for almost three years." Kensei turns his back to you as the rain starts a steady fall to swap out the last tire and get the hell away from you.

"Is she pretty?" It's beyond petty, so stupid and childish but you've got to know. If he likes this woman, or God forbid loves her, you'll never call him again. You'll die cold and alone before even considering reaching out to him, as an ex-wife to an ex-husband should.

Kensei stops in his tracks. "Yeah."

"Do you love her?"

"Never."

"Why?"

Kensei looks up at the sky, the gray clouds swirling as the rain descends. He closes his eyes and breathes deeply, and it's the same as always every time he's left to gaze at the back of his eyelids— you and him on the night of your wedding, laying together in bed and giggling like teenagers at the prospect of your happy life together starting.

He turns, white tank top half soaked as he comes back to you and holds your face like porcelain. This beautiful face drives me crazy… "Nobody's ever gonna be able to be you."

You whimper and a fresh set of tears mixes in with the rain as Kensei leans down and kisses you, his passion so pent up that he's picking you up and pressing you to his truck before you can make heads or tails of anything. His shirt is swiftly bunched into your hand as the surprise subsides and the gratification fills you to the brim, your lips and tongue sliding with Kensei's in a messy reunification. Too long, it's been too long since you had this, since you felt his warmth on you and reveled in it.

His silver hair is silky between your fingers and he groans as you massage his scalp with your nails. He's always been a bit like a cat in that sense. Your legs around him and his arms around you tighten as you urge your bodies closer, leaving no room for even Jesus now. The rain pours around you, leaving you drenched by the time you've got no choice but to pull back, lest you die making out with your ex-husband.

All in all, not the worst way to go.

Kensei kisses your cheek gently, his lips lingering as he maneuvers to open the door to the passenger seat and shield you from the onslaught of rain. Peppering small kisses while he wipes the rain from your face, he turns the truck on and sets the heater up to keep you from getting sick.

He strips himself of his tank top once he's left you safely in the truck, tossing it in the truck bed before running to finish up the last tire change with this lucky break in the rain. Your fingers come to touch your tingling, smiling lips and you close your eyes as the space of Kensei's truck encompasses you.

By the time Kensei's back, his tools and your old tires all loaded up, you're beyond sleepy. Scooping you into his arms, your husband walks slowly and kisses your temple as he carries you to your car. "C'mon. Time to go home."

You steal a kiss off his lips, and by the time you're back in town, you weigh every option as you sit at a red light behind Kensei. Taking the next turn leads you home, but going straight will bring you right to Kensei's apartment building.

The light turns green.

[seriousbrat]

Seriousbrat… I admire your commitment to preaching the word of Mid Remus Lupin in this website… but you go so hard I’m starting to think you hate the guy… so I dare you to throw the stans a bone and tell us what do you think were the guy’s best qualities and compile a small list of things that he was above average at, if you can muster it. I double dare you!

LMAo it probably does seem that way! I definitely don't hate Remus. In fact I like him quite a lot. I also enjoy writing him and his plotline for this next part of my fic has been a lot of fun!

Honestly, I tend to cut Remus a lot of slack, especially as a teen. I'm not sure if you're referencing this post but believe it or not that was a list of things I find interesting about him because flaws are a good thing for a character to have in my book! I also feel like I defended him in that post or at least empathised with him haha.

The thing is, being a werewolf just seems so awful, in a way that's obviously difficult to comprehend in real life, that I find a lot of his behaviour much more understandable than I do the other Marauders/Snape. Everything he does has to be viewed through that lens. And despite everything he manages to be kind, thoughtful and brave and I do find that very admirable!

Moony's best hits:

Bravery: he's avoidant, sure, but I don't think this is out of true cowardice. Or it might be cowardly in a sense, but I don't think this precludes him from being brave in other ways. It stems from his self-hatred; Remus would rather be miserable himself than inflict himself on others. VERY SAD. But he's willing to put himself into danger, fight for the Order, risk his own life, live in terrible and dangerous conditions for the cause. I don't think it can be said that he's not brave at all, even if he displays cowardice at times. He isn't scared of dying for what he believes, but he's terrified of himself, which is a totally different type of fear and requires a different kind of bravery to surmount.

Kindness: I do see Remus as very kind in nature. He immediately identifies Neville as having potential but needing a little extra guidance. It's him that befriends Peter and includes him in the group, and I see it as the same thing. The moments that Remus seems less than kind (ignoring Snape's bullying, for instance) I think he is actively going against his own nature, but unlike the other Marauders he's aware of that and it does cause him internal conflict. He has to choose between possibly losing the only friends he might ever know, or doing the right thing, and that's a more difficult choice than I think we realise, particularly for a teenager. But I see him as essentially very empathetic. As an adult he expresses remorse for the way they treated Snape, much more than Sirius does when Sirius has more to feel guilty about, and does his best to be civil and respectful even when Snape gets him fired and is horrible to him lol. Which is something.

Cleverness: He is very smart, although I imagine at school this was somewhat overshadowed by James and Sirius. But he has a different kind of intelligence imo, one that's more understated and thoughtful. I also think his own brand of unassuming yet witty humour is what drew James and Sirius to him initially, once they spotted it. If you don't know Remus very well, you might not think he's particularly funny but he is. Similarly, I think he was a good, hardworking student, and particularly adept at Defence Against the Dark Arts. Again, he was overshadowed by the flashiness of James and Sirius- I don't think Remus totally minded, though, as he would have wanted to fly under the radar for the most part.

Thoughtfulness: I know this is kind of similar to cleverness, but where Sirius, and to a lesser extent James, is very driven by instinct and recklessness, I see Remus as much more circumspect. He thinks about the impies (implications) of things. In fact, he thinks a LOT. The Lupin brain is constantly turning, and his inner world is very complex with a lot of conflict that he's constantly sorting through. I think in part he longs to be carefree and careen through life the way he sees Sirius doing, but obviously his condition means he has to be very cautious. And this also means that he's very considerate towards others. He picks up on suffering around him and thinks about how his actions might affect others. A little too much, but there it is.

Honesty: This might seem strange given he has to lie and hide things throughout the books, but again I think this is him going against his true nature. The way I see Lyall and Hope, I think Remus was raised with honesty as a core value. I also think he was a BAD liar lol, unfortunately for him. This is in complete contrast to Sirius, who is an excellent liar because he was raised in a way that necessitated it. I know I keep comparing him to Sirius but that's just the kind of juicy wolfstar #Dynamics that I live for. I think Remus values honesty and the fact that he can't practise it causes him turmoil. It must have been a huge relief when his friends discovered his secret and he could stop lying to them; for this reason I think Remus would have been reluctant to get close to anyone outside of their group.

I know a lot of these are "Remus is X but he doesn't actually do it" but that's the point of his character!!! Remus is constantly at war with his own nature, and this is made literal through his being a werewolf. The contrast between who Remus is (mild, polite, thoughtful, kind) and the violent beast he carries around within him, the complete opposite, is the whole point. That's why I can't stand fanon Remus being this swaggering aggressive alpha male lol. but anyway

Hopefully that's enough! I also think he was loyal, obviously, particularly to James and Dumbledore, who had shown him unprecedented acceptance, and later, Harry. His speech about Harry on Potterwatch after parting on bad terms is always a touching moment for me. But I think his loyalty has to be won, and it is rarely bestowed. He just can't trust like that 💔

[bahja-blix]

😐💀 A Dumbass Appeared (Ask Edition) A post regarding Viv Stans (Part 2)

Before we begin I want to say that I will absolutely not be censoring the person in this for valid reasons. I'll however censor the people who are just regular visitors.

What brilliance unfolds in my ask box? They put themselves out there on purpose "because reason"... I guess?

Reminder This is the Internet, you put yourself out there, your out there forever and if you do something stupid or say something stupid, your idiocy might go viral enough where you get called out so don't expect people to cover you up when YOU did this To Yourself

When I changed my bio to say "Bored ASF, Ask a Goth" I didn't mean be a god damn loser and make up shit on purpose for Bait reasons.

Yes this is real and Yes these were sent by a Viv Stan and it's OBVIOUSLY Bait but I still wanted to review it just for fun because I was literally laughing my ass off and I ain't even high!! 🤣 that And the actual person was Serious about deleting their profile along with taking the time to remove one by one every like and post from their profile which is hilarious. I didn't even make a post at the time and they disappear Anyway 😂. So I had absolutely no option to respond regardless. Lol you didn't think I'd see that but I did LMAO. You took the time to send me this but couldn't take a couple seconds to block me right after so I don't see your profile disappear but I guess you're just that stupid. What stopped you from just deleting your account without going through lengths to type this shit up?

We start with Kona, a boot lickin Viv stan living in denial over the fact that their obviously a Viv Stan. I said I wasn't going to answer this but this is HORRIBLE 😂 How could I Not share!

I love how you literally sat here and took the time to go ""Anonymous"" on the first ask you sent me showing your name and profile only to turn around and send me Another ask and Then another begging to me down on your knees basically telling me to forget I saw your ass 🤣🤣🤣

Omfgfgfggg🤣🤣🤣

I absolutely applaud how you "went out of your way to ALL these critics" like your some kinda Big Dawg white knighting for Viv telling us to "Listen up" because God Damnit "This town ain't Big Enough for the two of us" only to completely disappear off the face of the earth because you knew I saw your ass and you got scared.

I'm assuming you saw my last post where I said "Stick it" when referring to someone else that didn't agree with the helluva boss and hazbin hotel critical community...so you took it to heart and used it in the ask!? Did my post offend you 🥺🥺🥺? Omg I'm terribly sorry that I'm not a boot licking Viv Stan... I truly am (⁠◡⁠ ⁠ω⁠ ⁠◡⁠)

So... you attack Showtoonz for no reason other than *Double Checks Notes* ahh here we go "Having valid opinions" fresh off the table *chef kiss excuse* lol

LMAO they really said "Ass takes" omg no wayyy 😂

I also applaud how you basically said that the entirety of the helluva boss and hazbin hotel critical community an "embarrassment to our democracy" lol where that come from? and that the best argument you can come up with is that "*ughhh* your all "cOnSeRvAtIvEs" like did you travel across time and space through the Internet, see my page, and pretend to get triggered over the fact that I'm p***tically balanced in every direction?? Open minded if you will!? What does critiquing a show have to do with what's going on outside in the world? You do realize a lot of these people critiquing Viv Are in fact Democrats (me included in that spectrum) that Were fans of Viv and don't agree with Viv because she messes shit up on purpose 😂

Love how your one of those people that's obviously too far on the edge who are an actual embarrassment to society because this is the shit you put out there along with the

"YoUr NoT oNe Of Us" argument because what else would you pull out of your ass like legit your literally the type of person that likes to sniff your own fucking farts... Geez

I can't stop laughing 🤣

"One of Us! One of Us! Gooble gobble, Gooble gobble, One of Us! One of Us!" Like I can't. We Dems ain't gonna bow down to you and kiss your ass like your some kind of King so you might as well get over it buttercup

Regarding the last one for Bait reasons you decided to bring janky brained Joe into this... What a legend! You really showed us Dems the middle finger and went "Fuck ALL of You" 😂 Hey pal I'm NGL, but all I'm saying is that maybe you shouldn't be so into your own p***tical fart clouds so much because all that methane n shit will clog up your thinking.

"OMG I've been exposed by my own "Brilliance" in taking down these critics, please don't expose me"

W H E E Z E !!!

this last bits my favorite part

"*Clears throat* "If you disagree with me I'm going to "delete my account"

(Welp I guess I disagree with you :D, have a nice day ^^ Adios!! 🤣) Wait? You were actually Serious??? 🤣🤣🤣

"run to Twitter" with all my problems (because of course your one of those losers) and "bitch" to my two followers that "Will raise all hell" down onto those "Antis" who are so Mean and Negative where my post is sure to go viral enough to take down the entire critical community and reap their rights away from them"

Without any proof, but instead your tail tucked between your legs as you run and hide.

PA THETIC

Managed to get this on the way out. A Viv Stan in denial who's also a hypocrite. Oh but we "anti Viv Stan critics" have "ass takes" and "no valid criticism" You blindly support woomy... The same person who attacked multiple people in our communities for having valid opinions!

Fucking Cringe dude

[cosmiclion]

If you thought I couldn't outdo myself more with the fluff for this AU then you haven't seen my true power yet 😈

I don't know if I got OCiel's bangs right but, realistically speaking, human hair never stays in the same place, that's how physics works so whatever lmao.

Anyway, trying to write a Black Butler AU with some fluff where Sebastian and Ciel have a parent-child like relationship WHILE keeping them in-character (Sebas more than Ciel tbh) and still basing it on canon material but making changes and making said changes make sense requires a bit of work ngl.

I mean, I know it's just a project I'm doing for fun and technically there's nothing stopping me from going nuts and making them completely OOC and disregarding canon at all, but I feel then it'd become a separate story with new, original characters who simply happen to be inspired by Kuro (which is also okay, and who knows, maybe in the future I'll repurpose the whole thing to create my own Kuro-inspired original story, even if I don't think I'll ever fully lose interest in Kuro, this cursed series has me in a chokehold lmao). Full ramble under the cut.

Sebastian is the hardest one to write, though I think I'm finally more or less figuring it out. I didn’t want to write him as suddenly learning to love the way humans do thanks to the power of cute children or something, as it just didn't feel natural (or I couldn't personally make it feel natural, I know other people have managed to write that concept very well). What I have so far is that when he does act nurturing he’s simply imitating the behavior of human parents he has observed, but he doesn’t love the kid the same way humans do because he literally doesn’t have that ability. BUT that doesn’t mean he feels nothing at all and that it doesn’t mean anything to Ciel, after all this weird creature is the one who saved his life and raised him with care and patience. The closest comparison I can think of is the relationship between people and “unusual” pets like reptiles, amphibians, insects, etc. We know they can’t love us the way other people (or even other mammals) would but that doesn’t make our bond any less significant! Some bits of canon material also come in handy here, for example I based the fact that familiar Sebas finds Ciel adorable as a kitten on the canon fact that he likes squishing his cheeks because they remind him of a cat's paws 😂 Just know he's an awkward demon who doesn't know how to human but is doing his best 🥺

I think in Ciel’s case I have more freedom since he is, after all, human, and a human’s personality is strongly shaped by their environment and life experiences. Like, what exactly counts as making a character OOC? Sure, I can agree that in a fanwork set in the exact same universe with the exact same events as in canon there’s some things a character would never say or do, but I think AUs were created as a way to explore what-if scenarios. What if this character had been raised by different people? What if they had grown up in a different place? What if this or that event hadn’t happened or had gone differently? Tbh I think it’s just fun to explore endless possibilities, it’s maybe a form of character analysis in some way. And if we think about it, canonverse Ciel was originally sweet, shy and affectionate, and if he’s the complete opposite now it’s only because he went through an utterly horrific and traumatic event that forced him to grow up before his time and toughen himself up because it left him with little to no support system, on top of having to be hyper vigilant because the only thing that "saved" him from that is a literal demon who wants his soul and is haunting him.

So I just wanted to create this alternative timeline where maybe things aren’t as terrible, or they start out as terrible but then some good things come from the most unexpected sources. Ciel is five years younger and thus has more time to process everything and try to heal as he grows up. Sebas isn’t entirely a bastard and willingly does nice things for the child, even if he still doesn’t understand human needs, and while he stills views him as a potential meal (at least at the beginning) he's actually respectful. There’s another demon who understands humans all too well and is happy to lend a hand. His friends and the relatives he has left are more involved in his life. So Ciel more or less has a support system now, albeit a weird dysfunctional one, and doesn’t entirely lose his sweetness (also like... he's 5/6 at the beginning of the story, we really can't expect a preschooler to be an edgy emo who craves violence and revenge ☠️). I imagine he grows up to be just as calculating and cunning as canonverse Ciel, maybe even just as ruthless in his job because it’s a requirement, and is still pretty much a little shit, but this Ciel is not as cold and undemonstrative. He’s still very much an introvert who prefers to be left alone, but he smiles (as in genuinely smile) more often and it’s a little easier for him to express emotions and feelings (more through actions than words, but still meaningful). Hell he may allow himself to be playful and silly sometimes if he’s in the moment.

And if it wasn’t clear from the picture, little Ciel ADORES Sebastian. Sure he's (understandably) a bit skittish around him at first, but once they bond he comes to fully view him as a parental figure. Yes, he's hurt, sad and traumatized, but he's still a resilient little kid, and with enough kindness Sebas can coax his old self to come out of his shell, and until the kid becomes more independent they're like a mama duck and her lil duckling. Their constant banter and bickering when he's older is more a teens being teens thing than anything.

[blackgirlsuperherorants]

Alright, thoughts on Kaos, after watching the first three episodes. I'm going to try to keep this more organized than it's gonna wanna come out, but no promises lmao.

I REALLY want to like the show. In fact, I don't hate it, strictly speaking. It's... interesting? But it's also a really frustrating watch, for me. I guess the biggest problem for me is that it very much feels like a show that would have worked better if it was made 15 years ago. Like, it's a very late 2000s, early 2010s show. Which isn't terrible, but compared to other recent shows in the fantasy genre, it just feels like... something that would've been edgy and boundary-pushing in like 2009, but falls flat in 2024.

And I hate to do a lot of comparing, but as a creator, as a writer, as a show runner, they needed to expect comparison to happen. Especially when they're dealing with figures from one of the most studied, most read, and most adapted mythologies in human history. And like, yes, please do your own take on Greek gods-- on Greek myth in general. I am not expecting a 1 to 1 interpretation, and the fact that the show is doing it's own thing with these figures is not a problem for me. It's just not hitting. And in a time when there are VERY POPULAR books, movies, shows, and plays using these same characters and telling versions of these same stories, like... you gotta compete. You gotta pay attention to what others have recently and popularly done with the stories, and yours has to be as good or better or it's just going to fall short. And for me, that's what's happened, here, with Kaos. I'm going to try to go into detail about what I think works well and what I think isn't working, so be mindful of spoilers.

Their version of Zeus... I dunno. I like him, I guess? But I'm not sure if that's just because Jeff Goldblum is very interesting to watch or not. I think the thing they got really right about Zeus, and many of the other gods depicted here, is the casual cruelty and indifference. A lot of shows and movies about these Greek deities are either afraid to depict them as too cruel (making them Good Guys TM), or make them just villains-- rarely is the balance met well. And, well, I think that's one of the things that this show does best. When Hera disguises herself as Zeus and fucks Zeus's little human lover, then makes the girl go through a full pregnancy in seconds and turns her into a bee and makes Zeus kill the baby-- that was GREAT. I hated it and loved it because it was so mean and cruel and Zeus just snapped the baby's neck like it was nothing, because it was nothing to him. A very good depiction, in my opinion, of how cruel these gods can be without even an ounce of remorse for the mortal they're being cruel to.

But, again, I dunno if I like what the show is doing with Zeus, in particular, or if I'd just enjoy watching Jeff Goldblum read the phonebook for 9 hours straight, you know?

Hera? She's wonderful. 10/10, no notes. I love this Janet McTeer as Hera, I love the way Hera is depicted, I love the way she looks. She eats.

Now, to my biggest problems with the series, and I apologize in advance because I have A LOT OF FEELINGS about it. I've been ranting about it every time I try to sit through episodes.

Let's start with my beloved Dionysus. Now, I want to be clear: Nabhaan Rizwan is great as Dionysus. He is giving such a good performance, it's just... something is lacking. Which makes me feel like it's on the creative side. Like, it's the direction or the writing or something that is off. So, they're obviously going for this... like... youthful boredom, with Dionysus. Dionysus is often depicted as, like, one of the youngest gods, and his whole thing is theatre, wine, debauchery, pleasure... so, yeah, having him be this kinda youthful party boy is perfect. I get it 100%. I just think the idea they had is SO GOOD and wasn't well executed at all. Here is where comparison is going to come in, so I apologize in advance if this is a problem for you--

We live in a time of very good television. Okay? And the trope they're going for with Dionysus is something we have seen done extremely well. Even, like... Klaus from Umbrella Academy fits that trope, and was done extremely well. The way they're trying to depict Dionysus is very pansexual, very life of the party, very "knows everyone who is anyone at all the spots", very "casual sex just because." And like, we LOVE those characters. Bratty disasters who live in the moment and are perpetually into some shit. And we've seen so many versions of them on recent television shows that, while ALL different, were all executed way better than this version of Dionysus. Lestat on AMC's Interview With The Vampire. Blackbeard on Our Flag Means Death. Klaus, as I mentioned before. The whole disaster bi/pan dude thing.

Dio, in comparison, seems very half-baked. Very 2009. I think out of all of the characters, he feels the most 2009, you know? Like, back when making a bi/pan character was edgy, and even then, it wasn't explicit or was even played for laughs. I know this is a comedy, but so is Our Flag Means Death, you know? And even when the whole Blackbeard/Stede thing was funny, it was never because being queer is funny. And like... this show DID THAT with Dionysus. There's a moment where he goes into The Cave with Orpheus and he casually orders drinks from the (male) bartender, and the bartender flips him off-- implying some prior knowledge of each other-- and then Dio goes off to have a quickie with the bartender. And like... he's getting fucked by the man, and in that moment it didn't feel like... like a male character having desire for a man and having a sexual tryst with him. It felt like "isn't it funny that Dionysus is getting FUCKED in the ASS?!" Which, like... no? Like, that's so 2009. It's so passe to play the gay for laughs. Like, even in other fantasy comedies, like What We Do in the Shadows and Our Flag Means Death-- the CHARACTERS are funny, but their same-sex attraction never is. It's not funny that Stede and Blackbeard fall for each other-- it's lovely.

And let's be clear-- I'm not expecting Dio to "fall for" the bartender or anything, but it's clear that they were going for "Dio is a fuckboy who has probably had casual sex with this man before, and probably scorned him in some way, and so he uses the casual quickie to make up with the guy and possibly get free drinks." Cute, fun, I like that. I don't like HOW they did that idea. Like, Dio did not react like someone who enjoys getting fucked. He reacted like a straight boy playing getting fucked in the ass for laughs. IDK.

To be fair, this version of Dionysus is very bored with his whole debauchery schtick and we do see him boredly getting his cock sucked by a girl in a club in an early scene, too. But even that looked more like someone who enjoys getting their cock sucked but is just bored, and less just... "it's funny because of what it is." Does that make sense? IDK.

Like, it feels like a direction problem. Because this Dionysus seems to work very well on paper, and the actor doesn't seem poorly cast, to me. It just seems... executed like it's directed by a dudebro older man who was very cool in the 2000s and still thinks the way dude filmmakers thought in the 2000s.

Then there's the Orpheus.

2/10. I do not... like him. And like, not because of the story-- we all know Orpheus and Eurydice. (Which is part of the problem.)

I think it's because he very much gives CHRIS MARTIN, gives COLDPLAY, and not in a good way. Like, yeah, I like Coldplay alright. They're fine. But for ORPHEUS? Orpheus' whole thing is that his music is supposed to be... extremely special. Like, nobody is touching him. His music is so beautiful it can like... literally change the world. Move the gods. All of that.

And they chose to make him... COLDPLAY? This man whose music is the most special, beautiful thing anyone has ever heard. Like, I don't understand that music direction choice. At all. Who... decided that this was the move? I need something otherworldly. Something ethereal. Like, when he's playing the piano at The Cave for the fates in an attempt to get them to allow him to go into the underworld to retrieve Eurydice's soul... as soon as he started, I was like "This basic ass piano." Like, THAT IS NOT "the greatest, most beautiful music-- music that breaks your heart so much that you'd let him defy the gods and get his lost love back." It sounded like he was playing Christmas hymns at the Christmas morning service. Basic as fuck.

And again, I hate, hate that I have to compare, but YOU CANNOT GIVE SUCH A MEDIOCRE MUSICAL PERFORMANCE IN A WORLD WHERE HADESTOWN EXISTS. Like, we cannot hear Reeve Carney give the most beautiful performances of the most heartwrenching songs in a hit Broadway musical as the same character, and then you give us Chris Martin playing Christmas hymns.

Again, you are allowed to make your own interpretations, and the showrunner did not need to try to copy Hadestown. That is not what I mean. But you need to pay attention to what perhaps the most popular telling of that myth OF ALL TIME did, and you need to try to match or exceed it. Why even both with Orpheus and Eurydice if you're not going to slay us with the music? YOU NEED TO SLAY US WITH THE MUSIC! THAT'S ORPHEUS' WHOLE THING!

Honestly, full stop, even though they have every right to tell their own versions of these stories and create their own versions of these characters, you're fighting an uphill battle when AMERICAN GODS, PERCY JACKSON, and HADESTOWN exist and have done EXTREMELY WELL and been EXTREMELY POPULAR touching this same mythology. You have to MATCH OR EXCEED. Because why would I want to sit through your mediocre Orpheus when I could listen to Hadestown and hear a far superior Orpheus?

Now, their Eurydice? She is beautiful. She is fierce. She is heartbreaking. I love her. Hera and Eurydice are the best characters on the show, and the only ones I just full-on like without much complaint.

And maybe the point is that the men suck? IDK. Like, I don't give a fuck about this Orpheus. I'm not sad for him. His reaction to Eurydice's death is selfish and not at all heartbreaking. I don't even believe him that he wants to go into the underworld to retrieve her. I feel like Dionysus wants it more than he does. But Euridyce. I feel so sad for her. She lost her mother to Hera's cult. She dies tragically. Her stupid husband took her coin, so she can't even pass through to be Renewed and have a new life. She wasn't happy in her marriage, and she isn't happy in her death, and all I want is for her to succeed.

IDK if their goal was for us to dislike Orpheus, but if that is the goal, they've succeeded. Like, I want my heart to break for Orpheus. But I just feel like he's shitty. And I don't care about him at all.

And the other thing was small, but Theseus and Nax being in love was brushed over and not fully explicit and the Nax actor didn't play it well enough. Theseus actor was believably in love and heartbroken that Nax might die at Minos' hands, but Nax was almost playful, like his whole purpose was to reveal that Theseus was not for Ariadne rather than to truly be Theseus' lover. Which, again, feels like a director problem. They WROTE "Theseus is revealed to be gay and in love with Nax, the secret prince of Troy". He DIRECTED "and then we learn that Theseus is actually gay and Nax sassily reveals it to Ariadne because lol they're gay and she doesn't get the man isn't that amusing?" Which, again, is very 2009. Very "see? It's EDGY, the character is GAY! But not too gay, because eww, amirite?" And like, again, in a decade in which we have OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH and INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, that just doesn't work anymore. We have pirates and vampires being openly gay and kissing and being casual about how in love they are with their partners... and you play your gay Theseus as if it's edgy just to imply he's in love with this prince and that you don't need to show us that he is because you let the prince call him "babe" and let their hands touch a bit and let Theseus cry for him. Like? Coward shit, man, it's so outdated. I don't know how else to say it. Like, even having Nax just show an ounce of empathy for his partner who is terrified that he is going to be executed would have been enough, but Nax was just sassy and smirking and resigned to his fate as if it was just words on a script. Even a man who knew he was probably going to die because of his actions to save his people should have more emotion and conflict than just "Oh well, I'm not afraid to die, lol, Theseus babe stop crying omg lol"

Anyway, I think this was more negative than positive. But... I like the modern setting. I think it's fun. Very "Romeo + Juliet", which is I think what they were actually going for. I love the Fates and the Furies. I think they look so cool, and I think the gnc Fates was a great choice. I liked their Poseidon. Didn't like their Hades and Persephone, but there's nothing wrong with them, actually. I just don't like what they did with them personally.

I like Prometheus, and I like that he's serving as the narrator. I think that's interesting. I like that Zeus keeps summoning him and sending him back-- again, that casual cruelty thing that the show does so well. (Also, when Poseidon drowns the servant girl for no reason. That was very fun. Just, perfect Poseidon behavior-- he's such a piece of shit, and I love that this show decided to show us that.)

I also like the story it's trying to tell, with the three humans who are prophesized to bring down Zeus/the gods. I'm interested in seeing how that works out, and especially in seeing Eurydice's role in it. The show has a REALLY good premise, and has some REALLY nice elements. It's just, honestly, the execution that leaves something to be desired. Like, I feel like I'm pulling my hair out every time I try to watch an episode. Like, I pause every few minutes just to rant about something.

And to be fair, I'm a mythology girlie. I read a lot of mythology. I watch a lot of mythology shows and movies. I listen to mythology podcasts. Like, it's my special interest. But also, I understand completely when people adapt these myths to tell their own versions, or use these characters in their stories in ways that don't match the mythologies. I understand, and I've even done it myself. And so does the mythology. There are so many different versions of these gods, of their myths, so many different ways they were worshipped and things they were worshipped for-- it's perfectly on-brand to change them in your own ways for your own purposes. I don't think that's my problem with Kaos. I just think... I don't like how it was executed. It's a very "sounds good on paper" show, at this point. And I feel for the cast, because they're not doing a terrible job. It really feels like the problems are on the director/producer side. I even think what the writers wrote sounds better than what the creative team did with it.

And... that's all I'll say. I'm still going to finish the season. Maybe I'll give final thoughts after I finish the season. Sometimes things that you think are problems are there to pay something off in the end. But some of these things, IDK, I just think they're problems in general. And, like... I'm kinda disappointed, because I really want to like this show, and right now, I can't say that I do.

[queenlua]

okay let's make tibarn/naesala happen

let's enumerate every possible way to make them work. for funsies. because i am normal and have normal 3am hobbies:

option 1: reyson and leanne both die tragically somehow; tibarn and naesala have weird sex about it

pros: ngl this is my Default Option for like 80% of my ships for a reason. it's just fundamentally neat when ppl are sad about their dead former lover and think about them constantly even whilst they are flinging themselves into the arms of a new one. if you can get TWO people doing that simultaneously? with each other?? hell yes

cons: honestly...,,, both of these boys seem enormously terrible at providing anything remotely resembling comfort. like, i feel like they try to have weird angsting-over-reyson-and-leanne sex, but then they just have normal-ish, boring, wham-bam-thank-you-m'am, vaguely-unsatisfying sex, so then you're not even getting Demented Catharsis out of it, and then WHAT IS THE POINT. like have you ever known a dude who takes up jogging to try and get over his ex? and then he quits after a couple weeks when he remembers Wait Cardio Is Boring As Fuck? it's like that. i think they try it for a bit and it's blah and all purely physical and then they're done. i'm just not quite seeing it here!

option 2: naesala's the weird skrunky sometimes-third-wheel sometimes-third-partner to reyson/tibarn

pros: i think this meshes best with all their personalities as presented in canon. tibarn & reyson keep letting naesala off easy because, y'know, he's more useful to keep around and guilt-trippable, but also because he's pretty fun to drag into bed sometimes, right

cons: this is avoiding the tricky bit, right? i specifically said naesala/tibarn because i want to figure out how to emulsify these oil-n-water bitches together. if you let reyson be the glue between them, you're taking the easymode way out!

option 3: do you think love can bloom even on a battlefield

(aka, naesala and tibarn both murder the hell out of some senator who dicked both of them over, and they look into each other's eyes and realize that despite all their differences they do both find Murderous Justice very hot, deep down. and maybe also each other? like it's hot that this guy also Gets It right)

pros: ok, come to think of it, you could make this one really funny. like, suppose Reyson's been kidnapped or something, right, and Tibarn's like I Will Do Anything (Even Ally With Naesala) To Get Him Back

and so Tibarn fights Through Hell And High Water to rescue his twinky boyfriend

and they SUCCEED, and Reyson's super-unconscious but safe, and in that moment he looks into Naesala's eyes and... they get supremely frisky, and it feels incredible and right in the moment but boy that's gonna be awkward the second Reyson actually wakes up lmao

cons: dissolves the second reyson wakes up, alas. like the Weirdness hangs around after, that's still fun, but.

option 4: naesala has a little bit too much fun being the powerful one for a change

i'm pretty sure naesala would Literally Die rather than ask tibarn for help, ever. but tibarn? tibarn might in fact get desperate enough to call on naesala for help. you could probably spin some toxic yaoi out from there, right. tibarn very much trying to hold onto a sense of self and telling himself he's just doing this for instrumental reasons, but also having his sense of self lowkey fucked up by having to play second fiddle to naesala. naesala very much enjoying stringing this guy along. that kind of deal

pros: wasn't thorki big for a while or something. i feel like we get thorki vibes out of this. can i steal some MCU ppl away to spur on a Second Great Awakening Of Tellius...

cons: this would require me to have a good Theory Of Mind for Tibarn in particular, which i do not, alas!

anyway god i should get some sleep. further options welcome

[autumn-foxfire]

Another KID episode! Time for KID's Teleportation Magic!

I make it a habit to rewatch every new OP to see them but I hate the ones that push the romance between Shinichi and Ran. Yes, I know their relationship is a plot of this anime, but it's terrible and the OPs are giving people a false expectation of what it's actually like. Well, at least it had Kaito in it so that made it a little better. As much as I love seeing Kaito in the OPs I will not be watching that one again.

Anyway, time to focus on the amazing episode that this is!

Lol, they're discussing plans to present the jewels and one of them said put it in a block of ice. Well, you eventually do get a chance to use that plan, doesn't work though XD

Jirokichi is going to have a heart attack because of Kaito one day.

If Sonoko isn't the first one to clock that Shinichi has a massive crush on KID in fanfics I don't want it. She adores KID herself, she knows the signs.

Kaito is doing what he does best, performing in front of adoring fans, including his dear husband who is much harder to impress but he still always succeeds in doing so everytime.

Jirokichi, you could have killed someone with that net XD

LMAO I love the crowd telling Kaito to disguise as them to escape.

Kaito purposely sending his first card towards his husband T-T And you know he's enjoying the shocked look on Shinichi's face!

And Shinichi tries to kick Kaito in the face after he starts gloating to himself over his success. Yes Kaito, wearing such a happy smile to almost being kicked in the face is the response a normal person should have. God he's so in love (delusional).

Kaito is going to be so annoyed when he gets home and realizes he has to clean ketchup off his cape.

Shinichi is moody because he hasn't solved Kaito's trick yet XD

LMAO Mitsuhiko you're not wrong, Kaito does have a twin of sorts and you know him XD

Shinichi always gets so excited for Kaito's tricks and Haibara knows it and calls him out on it. She ships them. (Delusional)

Jirokichi's reason for wanting to capture Kaito being because he stole his front page is so goddamn funny and I'm glad it is.

I wonder if that guard gets teased for being a baby face.

KAITO DRAWING A SAD FROWN ON HIS CARD IS HILARIOUS.

And Kaito also hypes up his crowd XD He's such a ittle shit!

TIME FOR THE GAYEST MOMENT OF THIS EPISODE! Which is a very big accomplishment considering it has many gay moments between these two dweebs.

Kaito: I want to have a chat with my husband before the heist!

He really had no reason either, he just wanted too.

I love Kaito explaining the principles of magic to Shinichi when we know he breaks the first one when he sees his husband compliment another magic trick near him and he got jealous.

Ah, it's setting up the next episodes. Damn, Gosho at least let Heiji make some comment about Shinichi's gay crush on Kaito.

Shinichi knowing that Kaito has bugged him and not letting him onto the fact that he knows his trick because he wants to surprise him like Kaito surprised Shinichi yesterday. Gay, gay, homosexual, gay.

SHINICHI YOU'RE JUST AS DRAMATIC AS YOUR HUSBAND. They were made for each other.

Jii, you're going to make Shinichi jealous by holding Kaito's hand like that XD

And Shinichi looks into the night as he thinks about his husband.

SHINICHI KNOCKED OUT A GUARD TO SEE KAITO.