#'don't read the last page but i stay when you're lost and i'm scared and you're turning away'

[kusanagihaku]

and i will hold onto you

⭢ haku x mc, 9.6k

n is for new year's day. ˖⁺‧₊⟡ alphabet series | ao3 thinking always about this headcanon; also i know graduation is usually in march but like, artistic license, haha…?

The cheers in Tokyo Dome are deafening. 

You watch as families stream down from the corners of the dome to the field, swarming their loved ones in congratulations as graduation caps are knocked to the floor with the force of their hugs. 

There is a vague current of wistfulness in the air, amidst the celebratory cheers, as is common in most graduation ceremonies. As you stand alone looking around at all the families, you wonder how much of that wistfulness is your own. 

It’s been a little over three years, after all, since you’ve entered Darkwick. Three years since the curse was placed on you and consequently broken, three years since you’ve last seen any of your family. Three years since you’ve found a new one, strange as they are, and two years since they’ve left you, one by one, to take on the world outside Darkwick. 

And now it is your turn to leave. 

“Honour roll,” comes a familiar voice, from behind you, and you turn, hand on your cap, to see Leo’s smirk and the camera in his hand. 

Despite yourself, you laugh. “Leo.”

His smirk melts into something gentle, genuine. “Congratulations. Really. You’re free from this hellhole, once and for all.” 

You dip your head at the Vagastrom captain, “Can’t wait for it to be your turn.”  

“One year to go, then,” Sho says, appearing behind Leo. He grins, waving a sunflower stalk at you. “One year without our precious senpai coming to bother Vagastrom.” 

“You better appreciate that one year.” 

“You bet we will,” Leo says, without any real heat, and you share a laugh as Sho presses the sunflower into your hands. 

Its stem is wrapped with a stiff yellow ribbon printed with the name of their house. You rub it between your fingers. “Which poor first year did you torture into doing this for you?”

Leo shrugs. “Bunch of ‘em. Said it was for the seniors, and they jumped at the chance.”

“Uh-huh,” you say, unconvinced, but before you can probe further Sho’s eyes flicker somewhere behind you. 

A smile unfurls across his face, large and mischievous, and he bobs his chin to your left. “Someone’s waiting for you.”  

You turn around, eyebrows furrowed – who is there left in this school who would look for you, Ritsu, Ren? – but then you see him. 

He’s holding a small bouquet of sunflowers and white roses, laced with baby’s breath and bells of Ireland. There are whispers from some of the students around you, a gasp of recognition from a Hotarubi student or two as he steps forward. The purple Darkwick tie, never once worn when he was still a student, is loosely tied around his collar, slanting slightly to the right like he has tugged on it more than once under the dark grey suit he has chosen for the occasion. 

You don’t notice the pinpricks in the corner of your eyes until he blurs into a mess of green and white and grey. “Oh,” you gasp, and he is there instantly, fingers brushing traitorous tears from your cheeks. 

He laughs, palm still cradling your cheek, and even though you knew he was coming, the aw-shucks grin he gives you still puts an all-familiar lump in your throat. 

“Congratulations, princess,” Haku says, soft and warm. “Well done.” 

-

December 29 - Darkwick Academy  Distance left to destination: 464km 

It is eight thirty-four in the morning. 

Haku stands, hands on his hips, in the middle of your dorm room. There are two duffle bags by his feet.

For what amounts to two years of living in the cathedral, you have fairly little belongings. 

You’ve given most of your items away, of course, in preparation for your move cross-country. All that are left are your clothes, stuffed neatly into a nearly-bursting medium-sized suitcase waiting by the door, and the gifts from various ghouls you’ve accumulated over the years. 

“Ready?” Haku asks. He gathers both duffle bags in one hand. In one of them is a notebook, given to you by Zenji before he, too, left. 

You turn to survey the bare room. You wonder, for a moment, who the next person to inhabit the room will be like - what they will be cursed with - before you turn back to face Haku. 

He is glowing, almost, in the morning light. His grey Hotarubi sweatshirt is rumpled, sleeves pushed halfway up his forearms and creased slightly where his overnight backpack is hung on his left shoulder. He looks at you, head cocked to one side, fond, sleep lines from where he slept on your pull-out sofa the night before etched into the soft of his cheek. 

If you haven’t already been planning this road trip for the past two months over text you’d think he came straight out of a dream. 

“Ready,” you say. You pick up your winter coat and his, and sling your backpack over your shoulder. The bouquet he gave you the previous day peeks out from the top. 

Haku nods. He holds the door open for you as you wheel your suitcase over the threshold of the room. The door clicks closed behind the both of you. 

He takes the suitcase from you, then, carrying it easily in one hand down the rickety old staircase. The third step from the bottom creaks beneath his weight like you knew it would. 

It creaks beneath your weight, too. You fish the key to the cathedral door out of your pocket as you reach the first floor. You leave it on the side table leading into the kitchen – the worker cats will retrieve it later today – and head towards the front door. 

You expect something to change, then, some shift in the air that tells you your time in Darkwick is over, but nothing happens as you emerge out into the watery grey sunlight. You wonder why you expected it to. 

Haku’s car is parked, slanted, on the driveway outside the cathedral. The bright yellow permission slip you obtained from Professor Hyde the week before for Haku flaps flimsily in the wind, held back by the wiper on his windshield. 

He unlocks the car, loads your belongings into the trunk. The wind brushes his bangs away from his face. 

It is eight forty-three in the morning. He looks at you, again, patient, understanding, like he always does. 

You exhale. You look back at the cathedral, one last time. 

Then you walk over to where Haku whisks you away from Darkwick, as swiftly and as kindly as he did whisking you in. 

-

December 29 - Hakone, Kanagawa  Distance left to destination: 365km 

It starts snowing a little before Haku pulls into the parking lot. 

Being in Darkwick for most of the year means you’ve forgotten what the weather outside is like, sometimes. The powdery snowfall encases the both of you in silence as you shake out your winter coats and trudge up the stone steps, bowing your heads as you pass under the red torii. 

The shrine is deserted. Whether it is because of the snow or the time of year you’re not really sure; after all, why come out to a shrine a few days before the end of the year when you’re going to visit again on the first day of the new year? 

But it is peaceful and quiet, something you have no complaints about, and before long you’ve made your way up the long stairs and are standing in front of the main hall, heads bowed in respect. 

This is the reason why Haku suggested a road trip instead of taking the Shinkansen down to Kyoto – to bring you to all his favourite shrines around the country on the way down. Your stops, carefully mapped out over Wickchat and Google Maps, are few but meaningful to him, planned out so that you’ll move into your new apartment before Subaru’s first performance of the year at Minamiza Theatre. 

Haku hasn’t told you the reason for any of the stops, but you can more or less guess his reason for this one; as you descend a different set of stone steps, a tall red torii comes into view, half-submerged in water. Snow drifts into the darkness swirling around the feet of the gates, blurring into the red paint before disappearing on contact with the lake. What lies beyond the gate has been shrouded in mist, a white haze obscured by the oncoming snow. 

It looks like some path to the afterlife, almost. Maybe some sort of adventure into the unknown. God knows you’ve had enough adventures to last a lifetime, though. 

You hear Haku exhale. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

You nod. Perhaps it looks like something out of a myth. 

He points, off to the side, at a strangely shaped rock a distance away from the main path. “Remember when you asked about the scar on my knee? Scraped it right there, running away from my grandfather.” 

You huff a laugh at the image of a little Haku, eyes alight with mischief, dancing out of the grasp of adults. “Didn’t manage to run too far, I guess?”

Haku laughs. He retracts his pointer to rub at his ear. “Not at all. Cried all the way back to the shrine before they bandaged me up.” 

You stuff your hands deeper into the pockets of your coat so you will not reach for where his fingertips are turning red with the cold. 

“I haven’t been back here in a while,” Haku continues, softer. His eyes are fixed on somewhere beyond the gates. “Not since he passed away.” 

You watch as his breath clouds in the cold air. You stay silent. 

He glances at you, eventually, small smile tugging on his lips and blinking the snowflakes out of his eyes. “Let’s go?”

After a second of thought you take your hand out of your pocket to loop your arm through his. You feel him shift in surprise, before he presses himself against your warmth. “Yeah.” 

-

December 29 - Shimizu, Shizuoka Distance left to destination: 295km 

It stops snowing a little after Haku pulls out of the parking lot. 

The rest of the car ride to your next stop is filled with idle chatter and green grape gummies that you picked up from the general store on your way out of Darkwick. Haku keeps his eyes on the lightly frosted road as you feed him, lips barely brushing your pointer and your thumb. You keep your eyes on him. 

You just finish telling him about a mission you did with Ritsu before he slows down, turning off the highway into Shimizu. 

“We stopping for lunch?” You seal the pack of gummies. 

He hums. “Sort of. There’s someone I want you to meet.” 

You wince, and finger-comb through your hair. “I’m dressed for a car ride, not for meeting people.” 

Haku sneaks a glance at you. “You’re beautiful, princess, don’t worry.” 

You flush. “That- you-“ 

He laughs, light and warm, as he makes a right turn. “Just as easy to tease, after all this time.” 

“Shut up,” you say, but his offhand compliment has already burrowed its way under your cheeks and heated them up the same way they always did back at Darkwick. Damn him and his smooth tongue. 

You watch as the train stations flash by – Sakurabashi, Kitsunegasaki, Mikadodai – before he slows down next to Kusanagi Station. You glance at him in surprise. Are you heading to the Kusanagi shrine?

Before you can ask, however, he stops next to a nondescript beige building, throwing the car into park. 

“We’re here,” he announces, and laughs again when you peek doubtfully at your reflection in the side-view mirror. “You look fine.” 

He reaches over to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. 

If his fingers linger longer than they should on the shell of your ear, you pretend you do not notice. You pretend your ears do not blush, pretend your breath does not catch. 

You exit the car. 

There is an old, stooped lady by the restaurant counter when Haku slides the rickety wooden door open, back turned to you as she mops down a wooden table with a bright yellow cloth. All you can see is the checkered bandana resting atop a mop of curly white hair, and a faded red apron sash around her waist, wrapped tight around a stout figure. 

“Miyami-san?” Haku calls out. His voice is soft, reverent. 

“Ah?” There is obvious shock as she turns around. A startled delight washes over her face the moment her eyes alight on Haku, and she hobbles over immediately, hands outstretched and eyes waned into teary crescents. 

“Haku, my dear boy,” she cries. She reaches forward to clasp his hands in her own, wrinkled and gentle. “My, my, you’ve grown taller, haven’t you?”

Haku half-laughs. “I haven’t grown since I last came back.” 

The old lady laughs, too. “Perhaps it’s me who has grown smaller. And who’s this?”

“A friend, from Darkwick. I told you about her over the phone, remember?” Haku’s hand is warm on your elbow through your coat. 

The old lady turns to you, peering kindly. “Yes, I do remember…”

You wonder briefly what Haku has said about you, but under the scrutiny of the old lady you hurriedly introduce yourself, bowing. 

She claps, delightedly. “You both must be hungry, coming down from your school. I’ll whip something up for you real quick, shall I?”

“Anything you make will be delicious,” Haku intones, and he shoots her a charming smile that would have turned half of Hotarubi silly. 

It works on her as well, evidently, as she pats his cheek and makes her way to the back of the room. 

“I used to come here all the time to hang out with her grandkids,” Haku says, removing his coat. His eyes follow her as she disappears into the kitchen, humming brightly. “They moved away when I was fifteen, though, but I just… kept coming. She’s more like a grandmother to me than my own grandma.” 

He sweeps his fringe behind his ear, and rolls up the sleeves of his sweatshirt. His earrings brush the line of his jaw. “I stay here, sometimes, when I don’t want to go back to my family.” 

You blink, looking around the restaurant. There are wooden panels lining the room, black ink on rectangle blocks to indicate the menu, but little else by way of decoration. “Here?” 

Haku chuckles. He points to an entrance hidden by an egg-white curtain, tucked quietly into a corner by the back. “She has guest rooms, upstairs. She usually lets them out, but there tends to be no guests, at this time of year.” 

You both agree on taking your overnight bags out from the car while Miyami-san is cooking, if only to save time. Haku stands, as if to help you, but you swat his hand. “Stay here. If she comes out and finds us both missing, how will that look?”

Haku just laughs, sitting back down in acquiescence, and looks up at you, chin in hand. He looks adorable, like this, adoring, and you are suddenly filled with a desperate wish that you could capture this image, forever. “Like we ran off like a couple of hormonal teenagers?”

You flush, and leave him without a response. 

It doesn’t take long for you to gather his backpack and your duffel bag from the car, and as you slide the wooden door closed and toe off your shoes you hear murmuring voices low enough to make you still before the entrance curtain. 

“Are you going to show her the shrine, then?” 

A pause. “They’re going to be too busy preparing things for the New Year’s ceremony.” 

She hums. “That’s true.” 

“Miyami-san–” Haku starts, but she hushes him. 

“I know, I know,” she says. “I won’t tell them you stopped by.” 

Haku laughs, then, something soft and young and grateful. “Thank you. As always.” 

There is a beat of silence, and you prepare to move, but her voice sounds again. “Who is she, to you?”

You hear the grin in Haku’s voice. “Why?”

“You know… you’re of age… it’s about time you bring someone home for me to meet.”

There is a rustle as Haku shifts around in his chair. “She’s one of the strongest people I know,” he says, slowly, “but she hasn’t had much control over her past few years. Now that she’s free of all that, I’d like to leave as much up to her as possible.” 

You tense. Your heart hammers in your chest, tight and painful, as his words trip over themselves, over and over in your brain. Does he mean–

“–she’s also listening around the corner, so I refuse to say anymore.”

You don’t think your cheeks have experienced this much blood-rush in a while. You poke your head out from behind the curtain. “How did you know!” 

“The door isn’t exactly silent,” Haku points out, and the three of you dissolve into laughter. 

There is something light and warm, there, born in the small of the room. It expands, a golden sort of feeling that stretches beyond the four wooden walls and settles, stardust-like, in the space between Haku’s hands and yours; it collapses, cools under your tongue into a memory bright and sweet and precious. 

If you don’t give it a name, you think, perhaps you can continue pretending that being by Haku’s side does not feel like home. 

-

December 30 - Shimizu, Shizuoka Distance left to destination: 295km 

There is a saying – what is a handspan away feels most like a world apart. 

Haku sits, two handspans away. He is looking up at the ceiling, squinting against a lightbulb he changed prior to breakfast. It’s a different colour from the rest, a cool white against the warmth of the other, older bulbs in the restaurant, and it washes him in a faint crisp light. 

“Well, at least it’s not blinking anymore,” Haku says. His elbows rest against the table. 

Miyami-san sighs, forlorn. “I’ll have to write down the model number so I can buy the correct bulb next time. What time are you planning to head out?” 

Haku leans over to you, taps the screen of your new phone you both spent an hour setting up last night. It lights up, displaying a blurry photo of Haku trying to take a selfie with you, overlaid by the time in white. 

“In about twenty minutes? I’ll wash up before we go,” Haku insists, getting to his feet. “You’ve been more than lovely making us breakfast.” 

He sweeps everything up into a pile before she can protest, and disappears, whistling, into the kitchen. 

“Haku’s a good boy,” she sighs, as you watch him go. She stretches, and leans backwards. “Before he left for school he always helped me with all the odd jobs around the house. Changed all my lightbulbs for me, too.” 

You laugh. “Sounds like Haku.” 

She adjusts the strap of her apron. “He’s so smart, too. Made the top of his class whenever he put his mind to it.” 

You suppress a smile. If you didn’t know better you’d think she was a grandmother eager to market her bachelor grandson off to the next available singleton.

“And responsible, too,” she continues. “Good thing he is, what with the shrine business.” 

She peeks at you, and you quickly school your widening smile into something more presentable. “Has he told you about the shrine?” 

You nod. You can hear Haku, more than a few handspans away, soft humming barely audible over the sound of running water in the kitchen. “The Kusanagi shrine.” 

She hums. “He’s going to take over from his family one day. He’s going to be a better leader than his father is.” 

A silence lapses over the both of you. They’re both true statements, you know, and yet there is something nagging at you about the mention of his father. 

“Miyami-san,” you start, carefully. “If I may ask… what’s his family like?” 

“His family?” She turns her head thoughtfully to the curtain that hides the kitchen from the restaurant, and is silent for so long you wonder if you’ve overstepped. 

You are about to mumble a hasty apology when she turns back to you. 

“They expect a lot from him,” she says, softly. “There’s a great many responsibilities that fall your way when you inherit a shrine. His father had to shoulder it, and his father before that, and so on. He may be running away from it now, but eventually it’ll have to be his turn, and I think in the back of their minds they all know it.” 

You want to nod, but it feels like the wrong thing to do. Running away… except he isn’t, not really. Everything Haku did at Darkwick, every skill you’ve seen him practise and every responsibility you’ve seen him manage in Hotarubi, felt like he was building himself to take over the shrine – from his artifact to the research for his missions to all the summer festivals he helped manage. Even now, from what you understand of his work, it seems like what he has chosen to do is in preparation for him to take over. 

“He’s more prepared than they think,” you say. “He works hard, even though he acts like he doesn’t.” 

She looks at you a little more sharply, then. There is a cool appraisal behind her squint, before it melts into something like approval. “He does, doesn’t he.” 

Before you can respond, though, Haku emerges from the kitchen, running a hand through his hair. “Talking about me?”

“You wish,” you say, and are rewarded immediately with the sparkle of his laugh. 

He pauses next to your seat before picking up his backpack. His hand nearly brushes yours. “Ready to head out?” 

You stand. Your hand nearly brushes his, a world apart. “Ready.” 

-

December 30 - Nagakute, Aichi Distance left to destination: 175km 

“Hard disagree – we turn left here �� you’re only saying that because my name is Haku.” 

You squint at the alleyway in front of you dubiously. It’s bathed in the last rays of evening, a dying honey from the setting sun that does nothing to ward off the winter chill, and it seems to lead to yet another street that looks oddly similar to the one you’re about to leave. “Are you sure?” 

But Haku is already stepping forward, Google Maps winking into sleep on his phone screen, and so you follow behind. The thrift shop he is searching for is supposed to be a mere ten minute walk from where you left the warmth of the Ghibli Park, but you swear you’ve been wandering around for at least twenty minutes. 

“Anyway, no, it’s because he’s a river spirit–“

Haku glances at you, eyebrow raised. “I’m not a river spirit.” 

“-and he’s supposed to know a lot about the spirit world.” You huff at him, and he laughs in acquiescence. You reach the end of the alleyway; Haku squints against the reflection of sun on his phone and directs you to turn right. 

“And he spent a lot of the movie using that knowledge to protect and save Chihiro, didn’t he?” you continue. You look down at your feet even though the evening light is no longer shining directly into your eyes. The worn grey of the road winks at you as you cross residential street. “Like you did with me.” 

Haku is silent for a beat, before he says, lightly, “I think I’m much more like Howl.” 

You cannot hold back your snort. “Because how he gets all the girls?” 

His responding laugh is startled and bright. “C’mon now, princess. Howl only ever loved Sophie, in the end.” 

He looks at you, brows raised, like there is something you are supposed to understand, but after a moment of expectant silence too laden for you to consider you swallow the whiskey-burn of his eyes and turn away. 

“Is it nearby?” you ask, instead. You push the ice blocks you used to call hands deeper into your coat pockets, and push your gaze back down to the grey asphalt under your feet. 

Haku unlocks his phone in response. “One more block to go. Sorry, you must be tired.” 

You shake your head. 

“We’ll get dinner after this, then crash out,” he decides, anyway. “We had an early start today, and we’ve done a lot.” 

(You stopped earlier in the day at Atsuta Shrine to pay your respects before heading down to Ghibli Park, and briefly heard a guide explain about the great Kusanagi sword supposedly stored in the halls.

“Oh, my Kusanagi sword is great, alright,” Haku snorted under his breath; you smacked him on the shoulder and dragged him, holding back giggles, towards the exit before you got struck down for blasphemy.)

After two more minutes of sleepy residential buildings, you spot the orange signboard of the thrift store, hanging from a black rod above a shuttered flower shop. There is a chalkboard leaned against the side of the flower shop with carefully scrawled yellow letters and arrows directing you to a staircase around the back. Going up the concrete steps leads you to a wooden door with a heavy handle. 

Haku tugs the door open, and gestures for you to go inside. 

The store is swathed in yellow and orange, thanks to the narrow spot-light beams installed on the ceiling. The wooden shelving look old but well-cared for under carefully stacked clothes, a small contrast to the adjacent metal frames sagging with hangers of coats and jackets. There are mirrors gently leaned on the walls at strategic places throughout the store, reflecting the warm light from the ceiling and making the space look bigger than it actually is. 

A man in a beanie looks up from where he is slouched over the cashier, and waves a silent welcome that you both acknowledge. 

“One of my seniors told me this place has a good curation of sweaters,” Haku says, turning to study the racks. He picks up a bomber jacket in olive green, inspects it, then sets it down. “You’ll probably need more winter wear too, now that we don’t get climate control. But we’ll also stop at another place when we get to Kyoto, just so you can get some new clothes to wear around Subaru.” 

You nod, and dutifully turn your attention to the racks, fingers running across the soft fabrics draped neatly on dark metallic hangers. 

You’re looking at a cardigan the colour and texture of dawn clouds when Haku appears again at your elbow. “Look at this one.” 

He holds up a sweater in washed out sage. It’s slightly fluffy, sleeves softly melting into a cream. When you reach out to touch it it’s impossibly softer than it looks. 

“It’s cute,” you say. Its sloped shoulders are wide; you hold the pale green fabric up to his shoulders. “It looks your size, too.” 

Haku hums in agreement. He takes the sweater, gently, from your fingers, and turns it around, lining the edge of its shoulders up with yours. 

“I think it looks cuter on you,” he says. The honey of his eyes sparkle with mirth as he nudges you to face the mirror. “Like you’re stealing your boyfriend’s clothes.” 

You feel a fire climbing up your cheeks immediately, and you glare at Haku, heatless and helpless, as he bites back a laugh. He shifts away, grinning brightly, and leaves you staring in the mirror with the sweater folded between your hands. 

There is barely any evening light left over from golden hour, the last of the sun’s rays having died shortly before you stepped indoors, but the green of Haku’s hair is still dyed a soft copper by the warm lights of the store. He stands, turning glasses frames over in his hands, under a spotlight beam and the drifting strains of jazz, blurred only slightly by the fingerprints in the mirror and the irregular bump of your heart. 

The scene is so mundane it feels almost unreal – this Haku, suspended in glass and glow. His long fingers are not wrapped around his flute or dusty research tomes, but between folded jeans; his movements are slow and languorous, no longer bound by the urgency of missions or threat of curfew. 

You could stare at him like this forever. 

It is suddenly easy, so easy to imagine him elsewhere, you think – sorting through vegetables at a supermarket, folding laundry on the floor of his bedroom, doing anything and everything far and away from the drizzle of Hotarubi. 

This Haku has all the time in the world. 

So do you. So do you. 

You close your eyes and take a deep breath. 

“How does this look?” 

The heat of his vowels slide across the shell of your ear, and you jump slightly, eyes flying open. 

You are vaguely aware of a chunky grey frame, translucent acrylic that slips low on his nose bridge and blobs shadows on his cheeks, but his eyes have locked onto yours in the mirror as he leans down over your shoulder to peer at his reflection, cheek dangerously close to yours, so close that if you just turned, if you just—

It sends your heart crashing, thundering painfully, cruelly, through your throat, a weight and an untethering from the hypnosis of the moment all at once— 

“You look stupid,” you say. Or think you do, anyway. You can barely hear yourself over the thunderous rushing in your ears. “Try– try this one.”

Your fingers scrabble for the closest frame on the shelf next to you, and hold them up to the mirror. 

Haku laughs, a gentle huff that blows by your cheek as he lifts the frame out of your hand, and straightens back up to slip them on. 

It’s gold-rimmed, this time, a thin wire frame that catches the warm spot-lighting of the store and soaks a glow into his skin. The rounded rectangular shape sits well on his cheekbones, faded gold temples disappearing into his messy green hair. 

You blink, and there is a fleeting glimpse of sun-spots and crow’s feet, of salt-and-pepper hair melting into green, of laughter creasing itself into deep-set wrinkles in the corners of his smile. He is looking at you, still, in the way he always has, this old-man-mirror-Haku, and something blooms, choking and sweet, in the hollow of your ribs. 

Something shifts, then.

Eddies of a future you’ve never thought possible sing like the wind through the holes in your heart; they crash into you, a merciless tangle of relief and frustration and hope that steals the breath from your lungs you didn’t realise you were holding since leaving Darkwick. 

The tremble of it’s over and your curse is well and truly over courses through the map of your veins, and winds its way across where your eyes meet Haku’s through the mirror. The words crack themselves in half, split to show you a future so wide and open and yet so certain it threatens to swallow you whole – of you, alive and un-cursed and getting to grow old. Of you-and-Haku, hand-in-hand, getting to growing old together, looking up at the same sky. 

“-what do you think?” Haku is saying. His eyes are crinkled up in something you think might be fondness or affection, or something equally hopeful and terrifying. 

It looks good on you, your mouth moves on its own accord, you should get it, but that is as far as you get before he blurs together in a sear of tears. 

Haku moves immediately, hand on your elbow spinning you around to face him. His eyes search yours in alarm and concern and confusion, but to both your surprise a laugh bubbles out of you, quiet and free. 

You raise a hand to brush his bangs away from his forehead, and he leans into your touch, in spite of his bewilderment. 

“It looks good,” you say again, and you mean it. 

(He buys the glasses, of course, and three sweaters you said you liked. You leave the thrift shop with paper bags in hand, yet somehow feel a lot lighter than you did going in.) 

-

December 31 - Kuwana, Mie Distance left to destination: 99km

The numbers on the dashboard read a glowing ten thirty-eight. 

The highway stretches before the windshield, a wide belt that melts into the distance. It is empty, save for the occasional cargo truck Haku passes, and the glare of the noon sun reflecting off its smooth grey surface is enough to turn every travelling vehicle into a mini-oven despite the season. 

Haku adjusts his grip on the steering wheel. He reaches, slightly, to wind his window down to let some of the cool winter air in, but his fingers pause before they reach the switch. 

He peeks at where you are asleep, head resting on the passenger window and eyelashes brushing the soft of your cheek. He retracts his hand. 

He reaches, instead, with his other hand to the air-conditioning controls, and turns the dial towards “COOL”.

The numbers on the dashboard wink into ten thirty-nine. 

The packet of strawberry gummies on top of the winter coats folded in your lap crinkles slightly, then slides from where your grip has slackened. It has long since been emptied, with you taking turns to tuck the candies between your lips and his, and its lack of weight slips it neatly between your seat and the centre console. 

Ren recommended them, you said, an hour back, holding one up to his lips. They’re good, aren’t they?

Haku smiled, tamped down the familiar knot that swelled with any reminder of the years you spent at Darkwick without him by your side, and nodded. They’re pretty sweet. 

You grinned and tapped the large yellow zero printed atop ruby-red strawberries. No sugar, too! 

No, he thinks, now – perhaps the sugar had been in the brush of your fingertips against his lips. Perhaps it had been in the glitter of your laugh as you listened to him tell you some work story or another, or in the way the sun had bounced off the dashboard and lit you up all over, all soft glow and contentment as you slipped another gummy between the pink of your lips. 

For a moment, he wonders if you will taste like strawberry, if the curve of your smile will be just as sweet as it looks when pressed against his own–

He shakes his head, to clear it. 

Haku is a patient man. Ceremony is in his bones; he is good at waiting his turn, good at calculating consequences, good at following the rules. 

Except for when he isn’t. Except for when he texted you, midway through your last semester, to ask which branches of the Institute has offered you a job in hopes that he can persuade you to take up some position near his own. When he asked you, two months before graduation, to drive down to Kyoto with him instead of taking the train, just so he gets three days with you by his side after so many days apart. 

When he took one look at you, that night on the train from Kisaragi Station, and took your hand and held it all the way to Darkwick. 

Maybe it is selfishness, maybe it is impulsivity. Maybe it is irresponsibility, and maybe it is the reason why, try as he may, they will never deem him ready to take over the shrine, but oh, when he looks at you–

He is a patient man. He will be a patient man. He has waited two long, excruciating years without you, and he will continue to wait, for as long as it’ll take until you’re ready. 

The numbers on the dashboard wink into ten forty-three. 

Haku reaches over, again, to turn the air-conditioning dial further down. 

His gaze brushes against the new air freshener you bought him the day before at the gift shop. It smells of “clean” and “fresh”, whatever that’s supposed to mean, and he can barely catch its scent, but you unwrapped it the moment you got into the car and hung it neatly on the rearview mirror, and he cannot help but feel some fondness for something that brings you joy. Even if it’s just a small piece of cardboard with a white dragon and a girl printed on it. 

He would have chosen a different one, himself. He would have picked the one with Howl and Sophie - someone who learns how strong she really is, and someone who has waited a lifetime to love her. 

You stir in your sleep, shifting slightly so your head is no longer pressed against the passenger window. The numbers on the dashboard wink into ten forty-four. 

Haku takes the next exit off the highway, and wonders if you remember that in the movies, Chihiro saves Haku, too. 

-

December 31 - Uji, Kyoto

Distance left to destination: 21km 

“Haku!” 

The guy that emerges from the shrine’s prayer hall has a smile only one shade dimmer than the sun. He waves energetically at Haku and you, hands padded in red gloves a stark contrast with his navy blue haori, and bounds over to you. 

“Thought you weren’t coming back for another two days!” the man says, beaming. “We’re prepping the omikuji right now, like you told us to.” 

Haku chuckles, hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. “That’s good. I’m not back for work, though, I’m just here to show my friend around.“

The man looks at you curiously, and he looks so oddly familiar you could have sworn you’ve seen him somewhere before. He tilts his head to one side, like he’s working through the same puzzle you are, before it clicks–

“Honour student!” he exclaims, and claps his hands. “Didn’t expect to see you here!” 

Haku laughs, and shifts closer to you. “Darkwick just had their commencement ceremony, so I’m helping her settle into her new apartment soon.” 

Koji – the name comes to you in a flash, a vague impression of a Hotarubi general student floating to the top of your mind from when he helped Haku on a mission once – wiggles his eyebrows. “Will it be near to us?” 

Haku looks at you, thoughtfully. “The Institute put her in Kyoto, near Subaru, but I suppose…” 

Before he can finish the thought, however, a soft holler comes from an open window in the back of the sales hut. “Oi, heartbreaker!” 

A man sticks his head out of a back door. He looks pleased to see Haku, and disappears for a few seconds before emerging from the wooden doors, wrapping himself in a warmer coat. 

He waves a sheath of papers at Haku as he walks over. “We’re more or less ready for tomorrow, but I need you to sign a couple things–“

Haku moves over immediately, head bent over the documents, and leaves you in company of Koji. 

“Heartbreaker?” You murmur, and Koji beams. 

He nods his head, fluffy hair bouncing in his enthusiasm. “That’s Haku! Didn’t he tell you? When he first joined, half the local girls who came up to pray during Lunar New Year instantly fell in love and we had to barricade the shrine and defend ourselves with swords so our Haku wouldn’t get overrun–“ 

“Koji,” the other man says, severely, “stop making things up.” 

Koji pouts, and you have to bite your lip to keep from smiling. “Anyway, he’s built up quite a following among the locals. It’s good for business, though.” 

“I can imagine,” you say, and you can–

Haku, looking out the sales window next to the shrine, chin in hand and head slightly tilted as people come up to buy omamoris. The way the honey of his eyes will crease, slightly, as he smiles at their approach. The soft of his hands as he counts out their change, and wishes them a good day. 

Haku, head bent over a candle box before he reaches in to select an appropriate one. The curl of his long fingers over theirs as he presses the candles into their palm, a blessing, a benediction, conferred with intent. The soothe of his voice as he comforts them, wishes them well, after. 

Haku, this Haku that belongs to the people, whose heart swells with their aches and whose words are carefully chosen to quell them. This Haku, who works for the people by day, and works for them still by night. 

Haku looks up from where he is flipping through documents, pen in hand, and grins as he meets your eyes. “Maybe we should spread word that my heart already belongs to someone else.” 

Your cheeks burn immediately, and you open your mouth to stutter out a reply, but Haku’s senior beats you to the punch. 

“Disgusting,” he mutters fondly, barely louder than Koji’s awww, then flips a page for Haku. “Sign here, then get out of my sight. Word from HQ is that you’re on four concurrent missions in January, so make the best of your break.” 

Haku groans. “Best go pray for my own damn safety, then.” 

His senior rolls up the freshly signed document, then raps him smartly on the head. “No cursing on shrine grounds. Come on, Koji, you’re still not done with the omikujis.” 

Haku grins, rubbing his head where he got tapped, then turns to face you as Koji is dragged, mumbling in protest, back to the hidden back doors. “Shall we?” 

The rest of the shrine is fairly quiet. Sunlight dances through the bare branches as you cross the courtyard and duck around some gates to the main shrine. There are rabbits printed on cream-coloured lanterns attached to the gates, faded slightly by the elements and swaying in the wind. They look like they are dancing in greeting as you pass them. 

The main shrine Haku comes to a stop at is up a set of steep stone stairs. It is covered with wooden slats, painted warm by the noon light. If you didn’t look too closely you’d think the structures inside were glowing by themselves. 

Haku fishes out coins from his pocket, and hands one to you. He leans forward to shake the thick rope after you toss your coin into the wooden offering box, then you both bow and clap twice. 

You have so many things to wish for that you almost don’t know where to start, but the words flow out of your heart faster than you can think, afloat with intent and hope – for Haku to be safe. For Haku to be happy. For all the ghouls you’ve helped and been helped by to be happy and healthy. For all the anomalies they’ll run into to be a little less fatal, for the anomalies themselves to be safely captured and treated well. For all their futures to be a little less perilous, a little more secure. 

For your future to be a little less dangerous, too. For your future to hold warm soup and cosy evenings, for your days to hold laughter and ease and familiarity, for your nights to hold home and sighs and moonlit dances across the kitchen floor with Haku–

Your eyes flutter open, and you bow, quickly. 

Best to not hope for too much. 

You sneak a glance at Haku. His head is still bowed, hands still pressed together. He is washed in the bright of sunlight unshaded by winter’s branches, and in the silent sun-stirred dance of dust motes around him he looks almost like a painting. 

His bracelets shine a radiant translucence as they catch and absorb the sunlight, nearly covering most of a scar underneath. Your heart twinges slightly – you were there when he got injured. 

It was to save you, really, some tiny anomaly or another changing directions and hurtling towards you with a vengeance. If Haku didn’t knock it off its trajectory with the back of his hand… you can’t imagine what would have happened. 

Instead, you’d brought him home to Hotarubi and carefully cleaned his cuts and wounds, and stayed with the soft glow of his smile and the even softer glow of his words, well into the night. He’d murmured gentle reassurances into the quiet of the night, thigh pressed up against yours as you sat side by side and looked out onto the still Hotarubi gardens; yet the feeling of guilt has never gone away, cementing itself into the cracks of all that you owe him. 

I’m sorry, you said, again, for the fiftieth time that night. If it weren’t for me you wouldn’t have gotten injured. 

He had laughed before a ghost of pressure landed against your temple, so soft you think to this day you’d imagined it. Anything for you, princess. Stop worrying about it. 

It sent your heart racing, back then, his words wild fireworks popping in your throat. 

The same way his words send your heart racing, now. 

Maybe we should spread word that my heart already belongs to someone else. 

You exhale. Haku has never hidden his affection for you, not really – whether it was proclaimed in front of a beaming Zenji or murmured into the drizzle of Hotarubi, the flirtatious comments you once believed were just part of his personality or simply lavished onto everyone you eventually realised were only ever directed to you. 

And you understood it, back then, the same way you understand it now. Haku has never been shy about you. How much of it was guilt over bringing you to Darkwick and a burgeoning sense of responsibility for your curse, you will perhaps never know, but this is what you know now, after two years of turning the thought of Haku over and over in your mind: 

That you never agreed to start because you were always afraid of the end. That you perhaps wished he would forget about you after his time at Darkwick, if only to make things easier for him after your transformation into the Kyklos; that you wished to forget about him, too, after his time at Darkwick, if only to avoid the real possibility of Haku finding someone else.   

But now your last page has been ripped out, a future of a curse torn out by your very own hands and shredded into the wind… now that you’re out and free (albeit still working for the Institute) and ready to rewrite your own ending… 

Haku looks up from his hands, and bows. He turns to you, smile fond and sweet, and extends a hand to help you down the steps. “Ready?” 

You take his hand, lace his fingers into your own. The word on your tongue turns into a candle turns into a lantern turns into the sun. “Ready.”

-

December 31 - Uji, Kyoto Distance left to destination: 19km 

You cradle your hot cup of tea in your palms. 

The cold of the bridge railing beneath your elbows seep past your coat and into your bones. The last of the sun’s rays cast a glow on the trees on the opposing shore, turning them into a sea of reddish-gold, but they do little to warm you as you watch the sun sink below the horizon. 

Haku rests, one handspan away, identical cup nestled between his hands. 

“This is my favourite place to watch the sunset,” he says. “You can see the train tracks and the Uji Bridge from here.”

A train rumbles by in the distance as he says it, slicing the scene in half. It takes a few seconds before the sky meets the river again.  

“I think about bringing you here, all the time,” he says, quietly. He shifts the cup to his other hand. “I come here after work sometimes, and stay until the sky is dark and I can see the stars. Then I wonder about whether you’re looking at the same stars, too, in Darkwick.”

You both watch the sun creep steadily downwards, meeting its wavering counterpart in the water. 

Haku exhales. He does not look at you. “I’m glad you’re here.”

His words wrap around you, hushed and gossamer. How much you’ve thought about him, too, looking up at the night skies as you dragged yourself back to the cathedral. 

Whenever you walked out from Hotarubi, shutting your one-person umbrella and looking up at the moon, you’d think of him. 

The way he’d walk you back, shoulder to shoulder as if you were still sharing an umbrella. The way he’d look at you, moonlight tangled into his eyelashes and the arc of his hands, the way he’d smile like the night was a secret only the two of you shared. The way he’d sit you down on the campus stone benches to talk about your missions with other houses, the way he’d reassure you, again and again, that whatever you were doing was enough. That you were enough. 

The memories twist themselves onto your tongue. You do not look at him, either, when you say, “Me too.” 

The last sliver of sun slips away, and then it is gone. 

The conversation turns to seeing Subaru on stage in two days and what flowers you plan to get him, then to your new Institute-funded apartment, a small place buried near a Galaxy Express station, and the furniture you plan to get. 

You wonder out loud how long the Galaxy Express would take to get to Uji if you and Subaru were to come visit, as compared to taking the regular train from Kyoto Station. It’s already a very short distance, you think, but maybe it’d take half the time. 

“It takes sixteen minutes from Kyoto’s HQ,” Haku says. He taps the top of his now-empty cup with a long finger. “Or twenty-two, if you count the time it takes to walk back to my apartment.” 

“Damn, these cats really know how to run a railway line.” 

Haku laughs, quiet and breathless, before he says, “Move in with me, instead.” 

You pause, cup halfway lifted to your lips. You lower your hand. 

“It’s only a slightly longer commute,” he murmurs, “and you won’t have to buy new furniture.” 

He looks at you, eyes full of morning sun. You read in them something that feels a lot like a future. 

You won’t have to spend your nights alone in a drafty old room anymore. We will not have to untangle ourselves at the end of the day, and pretend we do not want to stay. Now that I’ve spent three whole days with you I don’t know how I’ve ever managed without; it feels like I’m never going to be able to go back. 

You exhale. 

This is how it has always been - this is how the two of you are - him building a bridge between you both and reminding you that if you ever want to cross it, if you ever need to cross it, he will always be on the other side, waiting. 

He waits, now. 

For a moment, you think you are brave. 

Ready?

But the moment passes, and the words that have swelled up on your tongue are familiar and terrifying and comforting and too heavy and mean too little and too much, all at once, and you swallow the waves that rise up in your lungs, and you close your eyes, and you pretend you are not in love with him, have not been in love with him since he held your hand in the dark of a train carriage three-odd years ago. 

“Imagine the paperwork,” you say, instead, and Haku leaves it at that. 

-

December 31 - Uji, Kyoto Distance left to destination: 16km 

Haku’s apartment is small, but homey. 

It is much more modern that you expect it to be, and feels infinitely more Haku than any Hotarubi dorm could. The kitchen you step into is tiny but sleek, with just enough space to fit a boiler, a tea set and an induction cooker before ending at a large fridge. The green glow on the microwave tucked onto a shelf a bit higher than eye-level reads eleven forty-two.

He lucked out on the Institute lottery, he tells you, setting his keys in a bowl on the kitchen island and flicking on the kitchen lights – where others only get a studio apartment he at least gets a bedroom attached to the living and dining area. Ghoul perks, perhaps. 

Where you expect a kitchen island is instead a mountain of books, shuffled neatly into piles not unlike what you used to be greeted with in his old dorm, bookmarked full with post-its covered in his chicken-scratch writing. 

You pick out a barely-used blue post-it pad from a pile of neon-yellow ones, and run your thumb over the winking tanuki in the background. “Is this the one I bought for you, back on that shrine mission?”

Haku peeks over your shoulder. His laugh brushes your ear, soft and warm, before moving away to roll your luggage into the living room. “Yeah. I can’t bear to use it much, though. It feels as though I should treasure it.” 

You snort, looking up at him. “I can always buy you another one.”

“I’m not opposed to that.” 

(You’d buy him one set everyday for the rest of his days, if he’d let you.)

Haku tucks your suitcase next to a soft grey sofa set opposite a plain white wall, and sets your duffle bag on a small wooden coffee table in between that looks like it hasn’t been dusted in years. “There are fireworks bound to start in about fifteen minutes. Wanna watch those on the balcony?”

You blink – you’ve almost forgotten that today is New Year’s Eve, what with all the sightseeing you’ve packed in today around Uji. 

Haku tugs the pale blue curtains apart, revealing glass doors to a small balcony overlooking residential neighbourhood. The night is quiet, still, buzz of the city conspicuously absent from the streets despite the celebratory date and even though most households have their lights on and curtains pulled open in anticipation of the fireworks, you don’t hear much beyond the whistling of the wind when you step outside. 

You settle against the railing on his balcony. “It’s so nice, here.” 

Haku joins you. “When everyone’s lights are off, at night, you can see the stars.” 

You tilt your head up. Haku’s apartment is high up enough the street lamps that you do not have to shield your eyes from their orange glow, and as you peer up at the heavens you see constellations slowly starting to take shape. “Wow.” 

Haku shifts, closer. His shoulder is pressed up against yours. “Any New Year’s resolutions yet?” 

You laugh. “Other than learning how to survive outside Darkwick?” 

“That’s enough,” Haku says, softly. “Sometimes surviving is tough enough, on its own.” 

You bite your lip, and look down at the street below. A stray cat dips in and out of the shadows. 

“I’m going to be brave this year,” you tell him. 

I’m going to be brave enough to face what’s coming. I’m going to be brave enough to decide what I’m going to do with my life, instead of obeying missives from a corrupted Academy and existing at their beck and call. I’m going to be brave enough to tell you what I really want to say, to build my own side of the bridge, to finally meet you on the other side. 

Haku tilts his head to look at you, then. He raises a hand from where his arms have been crossed on the railing, long fingers tenderly tucking a stray strand of hair behind your ear.

It sends daylight swirling down your spine, leaves you breathless and August-warm when you catch his gaze. 

“I think you’re already plenty brave,” he says, quietly. 

Before you can respond, however, the street explodes with noise. Windows are pulled open and chanting spills out onto the street, a clamour of three, two, one– 

Tiny lights hang themselves across the sky, a mere flash before tightly packed colours dazzling as the sun explode across its inky canvas. Brilliant reds and blues and yellows and greens burst into bloom over and over again; they paint everything on the street with their glow. The distant booms and whistles of their journey travel through the neighbourhood, wind their way through the festivities and laughter and cheer. 

It is at once so extraordinary and normal, this celebration of the Earth making its way around the sun yet again, that you find yourself giddy, smiling, joyful. You turn to look at Haku, tinted a faint red from the vivid glows in the sky, only to find he is already looking at you, gaze warm, fond. 

You learnt once, on a mission with Jabberwock, that firecrackers and fireworks set off during New Year were as much meant to scare away the bad things as they were to celebrate the good. 

I think you’re already plenty brave. 

In the bright of the night his words soak into your skin. 

Perhaps you are. 

You lean up, and press a small kiss to the corner of his lips. This is me, building my side of the bridge. This is me, ready. “Happy New Year, Haku.” 

His palm catches your cheek as you pull away. The spread of his smile, wide and bright and delighted, sends stardust settling into the hollow of your throat, sets its own fireworks off within the hollow of your ribs, pulls a smile onto your own cheeks. The gold of his eyes shine with something more than the pyrotechnics, something full of devotion, full of beginnings. 

“Happy New Year,” Haku says, and leans in to kiss you again. 

[toonice113]

New Years Day ⋆ ★ N.Hischier

Pairings: Nico Hischier x fem!reader

Genre: fluff

Summary: just reader being completely in love with Nico, based on New Years Day by Taylor Swift.

Warnings?: Mentions of alcohol, mentions of a fight.

Word count: 701

⋆˚࿔ tina's note 𝜗𝜚˚⋆ Happy New Year! here's a little something I wrote in like 10 minutes

There's glitter on the floor after the party

Girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby

It was 4am by the time you were leaving the hotel ballroom where the Christmas party had been, Nicole, Bree and you with your heels in your hands, arms intertwined laughing about some dumb joke one of you had made while Jesper, Dougie and Nico walked behind you with their own chatter, a lot more sober and quiet than you three. Nico couldn’t help but get distracted by the way you looked, how your eyes were glossy from the alcohol but also from how much you had laughed, your hair flowing as you threw your head back in laughter and your flushed cheeks.

Candle wax and Polaroids on the hardwood floor

You and me from the night before

Walking out of your room you groaned looking at the mess you had left last night. Nico had been away for a roadie during your birthday and while you had gone out and celebrated with your friends on the actual day, Nico had prepared a night in for you two that had ended in both of you rushing into your room spilling some candle wax on your way there and leaving behind a stack of polaroid pictures from your night together.

Don't read the last page

But I stay when you're lost, and I'm scared, and you're turning away

I want your midnights

But I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day

The New Year’s Eve party had started out great, your friends filling your apartment, drinks flowing, good food and good music, so you weren’t sure how you’d ended the night in an empty bed while Nico slept in the guest room. You had no idea who had started the fight or how it had escalated to where it had but you knew this wasn’t how you wanted to start the new year, so after tossing and turning you finally got out of bed, the clock reading 7am, you had gone to bed just after 4. Walking out of the room wearing only your underwear and one of Nico’s hoodies you could see him picking up cups and bottles that had been left out, he looked just as tired as you and you couldn’t stand being so apart from each other so you took a few strides his way and held him from behind feeling him tense up for a second before relaxing and turning around pulling you into his chest, both of you melting right into each other, an unspoken promise to never go to bed angry at each other ever again.

You squeeze my hand three times in the back of the taxi

I can tell that it's gonna be a long road

I'll be there if you're the toast of the town, babe

Or if you strike out and you're crawling home

You knew Nico was not excited for this event, he usually didn’t mind going to fundraisers and charity events but this one was different. Tonight would be filled with investors and boring speeches, having to act like the people at the dinner were the most interesting ever even though neither of you cared, sitting in the back of the car the team had sent to pick you up you felt him squeeze your hand three times, you squeezed back letting him know you were there for him “We can always sneak out early if this is horrible” You whispered at him as you climbed out of the car, a small chuckle leaving his mouth as he buttoned his suit jacket before holding your hand again and pulling you in for a forehead kiss.

Please don't ever become a stranger (hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you)

Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere (I will hold on to you)

Even from the other side of the dark room, you could recognize his laugh making you smile, a warm feeling consuming you as you sipped on your drink and chatted with the other WAGs, you had his laugh engraved in your brain and you prayed you could keep hearing it for the rest of your life. 

[essenceofelegance]

new year’s day

Luke Castellan x aphrodite!reader

m.list

warnings: angst </3

There's glitter on the floor after the party,

He’s giving her that smile.

The one reserved for you.

The one you adored so, so much.

Girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby

Luke took her hand in his larger one, leading her back to her cabin.

He laughed at something she said.

You directly your attention back to cleaning up the Aphrodite cabin after a party, alone.

Luke used to do it with you.

Candle wax and Polaroids on the hardwood floor You and me from the night before, but

While you were cleaning you own bed, you found a polaroid picture of you and Luke from a year ago, probably.

You were wearing a pink, feathered cowboy hat, you were leaning into the camera, a bright smile on your face.

Luke’s hands were on your waist, he had a pink fur boa around him to match your hat.

You would give anything to have him hold you just one more time.

Don't read the last page But I stay when you're lost, and I'm scared, and you're turning away

Of course he would like an Athena girl.

They’re smart, they can fight, and they’re pretty.

Sure, she doesn’t have that radiant glow around her like you did, but she was still pretty.

She had h/c hair, like you did.

She also had e/c eyes.

But her’s… looked so much better than yours. It glowed.

She looked better, she could fight better, she was actually smart.

Your siblings reassured you, insisting that you were a daughter of Aphrodite, there was no way she was prettier than you.

But that wasn’t the way you saw it.

And in your eyes, that wasn’t the way Luke saw it either.

I want your midnights But I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day

You were teaching your usual archery lessons, when you spot Luke and his new girlfriend in a sparring match.

He looks happy.

Only, a different kind of happy.

Sure, you were good with a dagger, but not sword fighting. You were never good at sword fighting, you were only good at archery.

Maybe Luke wanted something who appreciated the things he liked to do.

You squeeze my hand three times in the back of the taxi I can tell that it's gonna be a long road

"It's not you, it never was, its just that I feel like we don’t get each other anymore." Luke said.

"Yeah, I get it." you looked down to hide your unshed tears.

"Thanks for... everything," you gave him a forced smile.

“You were great. You were a great experience,” Luke said, as if to comfort you.

‘You were everything!’ you wanted to scream at him.

But you just smiled and walked away.

I'll be there if you're the toast of the town, babe Or if you strike out and you're crawling home

You watched as Luke celebrated his capture the flag victory with his new girlfriend.

You weren’t jealous,

you just felt replaced.

How could he replace you so easily when you felt like your heart would be empty for years?

Did you really mean that little to him?

You couldn’t bear watching them anymore.

Don't read the last page But I stay when it's hard, or it's wrong, or we're making mistakes

A total of 17 guys sent you flowers.

If you were a logical person, you would have at least hooked up with them, but little old you decided that you should wait for Luke.

So, you rejected every single guy that came up to you.

All your siblings are just straight up worried about you now, they knew how important Luke was to you, but not to this degree.

You still cry yourself to sleep every night,

they find you in the middle of the night going through a photo book of you and Luke.

I want your midnights But I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day

Hold on to the memories They will hold on to you

You still wear the matching bracelet he gave you for your second anniversary.

He’s wearing a new one with his girlfriend.

You see them connecting their magnetic heart charm on their bracelet at campfires, while you’re here playing with yours that no longer had a match.

Hold on to the memories They will hold on to you

You still have his favourite hoodie under your bed.

You still have his favourite shirt under your bed.

You still have one of his camp t-shirts on your bed.

He caught you wearing his hoodie on you way to the bathroom in the middle of the night when you bumped into him.

He never questioned you or asked for it back.

Hold on to the memories They will hold on to you

You still have everything he gave you.

And I will hold on to you.

Everything reminds you of him.

That one bench where the two of you used to hang out on everyday,

ever your own bed, where he used to sneak in to talk to you at night.

Please don't ever become a stranger Whose laugh I could recognise anywhere

You hate it when she makes him laugh.

You hate it when you hear that damn laugh.

You hate it because it didn’t happen because of you.

Please don't ever become a stranger Whose laugh I could recognise anywhere

You hate him because he’s not yours.

-

There's glitter on the floor after the party Girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby

It’s been a couple of months.

You still wear his hoodie to sleep.

like this? or want something better? City of Stars is much more heartbreaking </3

author: yay

Copyright © 2024 essenceofelegance. All rights reserved. 

⋆

Please do not re-upload my work on any platforms without permission.

Any reblogs, comments, likes, shares, and follows are appreciated.

[elliesmainhoe]

New Year's Day

Ellie Williams x Fem! Reader

summary: you and Ellie host your first ever New years Eve party, and as you both clean up the mess your friends had left in their wake.

Content Warnings: alcohol?, nothing really just fluff tbh.

(based on 'new years day' by Taylor Swift)

there's glitter on the floor after the party.

as your eyes flickered open, the smell of alcohol and cheap perfume immediately hitting you, immediately feeling regret of offering up yours an Ellie's shared apartment to host your friends annual New Year's Eve party.

"g'mornin' pretty girl" a rough voice rasped out, the feeling of your girlfriends hands brushing through your hair as you both slowly awoke from your slumber on the leather couch.

the sight of Ellie was amusing for sure. hair tussled and frizzy, your lipstick mark on her cheek and glitter speckled around her face from the cheesy sparkly 2024 glasses you had forced her into wearing.

"morning Ells."

girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby.

dinas arms wrapped around you in a goodbye, promising you to send the pictures of you and Ellie kissing under the fireworks that you watched on your balcony and thanked you for the cheap champagne and food.

you glanced over your shoulder to see Ellie talking to Jesse, who looked just as... worn out. soon her eyes focused back on you as the two approached you and Dina. Jesse's hand reaching for dinas, dinas free hand interlocking with Jesse's, her occupied one clutching her heels that she had given up on wearing a long time ago.

after bidding each other farewell Dina and Jessie left your apartment, Dina walking barefoot towards the elevator. a smile graced your lips, you'd been there too. who hasn't? dancing too much where heeld feet turn blistered and sore.

candle wax and polaroids on the hard floor, you and me from the night before, but

after the door closed and the last person left your messy apartment, Ellie's arms snaked around your waist, synchronised sighs leaving both of you as you looked around the post-party mess.

melted candles that used to be standing proud in cake now discarded on kitchen counter tops. an old Polaroid camera laying on the couch, pictures it produced scattered around like a treasure house.

there was one of the cake

the champagne

you and Ellie dancing

you sitting on Ellie's lap, head resting on her shoulder

your lips touching in a tender kiss while fireworks explode behind you.

don't read the last page, but I can stay when you're lost and I'm scared.

new year means new challenges and as Ellie's lips press softly against your temple, swaying side to side in eachother's embrace, moving to the sound of Ellie's humming a song you can't quite remember the name of, you know it'll be alright.

"I love you" you whisper softly.

"I love you too" comes the reply.

and your turning away, I want your midnights

you remember the fun from last night, the cheers of triumph after winning a stupid party game, the clinks of champagne flutes and the sensation of the bass of the music that shook the floor.

but I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day

but now here you both are, kneeling on the hardwood floors as you pick up empty bottles of beer and discarded glasses of half drunken wine glasses and flutes of bubbly.

the smile on your face is beaming despite the thudding headache your hangover had so kindly given you. the warmth in your chest still blossoming. the boring clean up feeling just as special as the night of fun before.

you glance up as Ellie silently puts various items in a large trash bag, her eyes meeting yours. and just from the loving glint in them you knew so well, you could tell those feelings were reciprocated.

you squeeze my hand three times at the back of the taxi, I can tell that it's going to be a long road.

you think back to yesterday, your group of friends piling in the back of a taxi after you had partook in pre drinks at your all time favourite bar. and now you were all on the way back to the apartment you had so enthusiastically decorated with gold '2024 ballons' and gold tinsel.

Ellie's hand was wrapped in yours, her thumb brushing over your knuckles as she squeezed three times, a gesture you knew too well.

three squeezes, three words.

i.

love.

you.

you squeezed back four times.

i.

love.

you.

too.

I'll be there if you're the toast of the town, babe or if you strike out and you're crawling home

2024 will be the fourth year you and Ellie have been together, four years. the road was bumpy, you both had the highest highs followed by the lowest of lows, but there was one thing that stayed constant. the warmth you felt when you looked at her, and the feeling of you heart growing more and more every word she spoke of endearment.

and Ellie felt it too, which was why a diamond encrusted ring was hidden in the back of the closet. this would be the year she popped the question.

Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you. Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you. Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you And I will hold on to you

New year's day came and gone, polaroids now hung on the wall by the front door, a ring now adorning your finger. Dina was giggling through the phone as you jokingly scolded her for not telling you that Ellie was going to propose, that the girls spa day and manicure was all a ploy for good engagement pictures.

Ellie sat behind you on the couch after grabbing you both drinks from the kitchenette, pressing a kiss to your forehead and waving to Dina who waved back.

"oh God you should have seen it, Ellie, Joel, Jesse and me all huddled into the poor jewelers shop downtown- I'm honestly surprised we weren't kicked out." she laughed. "but I think it paid off- I mean, you're never going to be able to shake Ellie off now, she's going to hold onto you forever, I pity you." she joked which was swiftly replied by Ellie in a middle finger.

Please don't ever become a stranger, whose laugh I could recognize anywhere

Ellie's face was flushed and red, her soft hair falling in front of her face covering up the tears that stained her rosy freckled cheeks, your hands interlocked, both ring fingers dressed in golden rings.

"I now pronounce you wife and wife. you may kiss the bride."

the world seemed to slow, the congregation of guests vanishing as you both leaned in, lips meeting as the sound of muffled cheers hit your ears. you could feel the way ellies lips twisted into a smile as you kissed.

as soon as you pulled apart you heard the joyous laughter resonating from her chest as she offered you her hand, an offer you gladly took.

your footsteps land in sync as you walk back down the aisle.

3 squeezes, 3 words.

i.

love.

you.

4 squeezes, 4 words.

i.

love.

you.

too.

•••••••••••••••••••

A/N: I had to describe holding hands one too many times. anyways HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

NOT PROOFREAD

[kaliforniahigh]

Same anon, I found your original post and decided to try a prologue blurb for you as I was feeling creative 👉👈

you just moved into a new house and you take this picture of Noah, and after a couple of weeks, strange things start happening, like stuff moving on its own and suddenly your camera stops working and you can't sleep separately anymore and you can't be alone in the house because you're so scared

Search for missing 23-year-old gone cold.

The front page headline taunts you accompanied by the picture you took of Noah a year ago to the day. You don't bother to read the actual article, it's been the same regurgitated nonsense for the past year, the same speculations which throw a spotlight on you: prime suspect #1. No one believes you when you tell them the truth. You got tired of trying to explain, being scoffed at and mocked as you tried to defend yourself to members of a community in a town you wished you no longer lived in. You were the town pariah and chose to accept that. "Come on. Don't look at that." Nicholas' hand on top of yours pulls you back from your thoughts. "Don't do this to yourself." He knows what you're doing, that you're beating yourself up again. Since Noah went missing he's been at your side, you know it's because he lost his best friend that night too but you can't help but wonder if a part of him blames you.

This never would have happened if you had just left when it first started happening. You're convinced that this is all somehow your fault, because you weren't truthful about how bad things got inside that house when something would creep in with the darkness, whenever he wasn't home.

You don't answer. You sigh because you're tired of the same old merry-go-round of lies your conversations have become. He's been supportive and good friend, allowing you to stay at his ever since because you're too scared to be inside that house even once the crime scene tape was ripped from the door. You can't sell it because no one wants a house with an active missing persons case attached to it, or to buy from the girl who is their number one suspect. You'd rip it down if you could but know that if you did whatever that thing was living inside there would only find a new home, a new person to torment. Somehow you prefer to be the one in control of that.

When you look across at Nicholas you can see it in his face he wants to ask you about it again. Every so often he gets the same look in his eye, the one that tells you he wants to ask because he doesn't believe you when you tell him what happened the night Noah disappeared.

Maybe the fact he doesn't believe you stems from the way your answer never changes, nor does the infliction in your voice. You repeat it like you're reading from a script, you weren't awake when he was yelling, it was too dark for you to even see anything, you don't know where the blood came from, you don't know anything.

Truthfully, you do because you were together that night, the same way you had been for the last few months when the nights became to unbearable for you to sleep alone. You felt safer with him, or convinced yourself that you were. Nothing came when he was there and the night terrors and sleep paralysis had come to a stop.

"I know you've told me before but what actually happened that night? Maybe... maybe you missed something?" There's a crack in his voice which betrays his own emotion. You know he's fighting hard to believe you, to have sympathy. You feel guilty every time you hear that break in his voice because you want to tell him.

So you start recount the events of that night, like reading from a script, because the only thing you know is: you can't tell anyone the truth.

ANOON!!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING????

I'm actually freaking out right now because this is PERFECT. You wrote it perfectly, I don't even have the words to describe it!!!!

Poor Nicholas and poor reader. And she was there too when it happened :( She felt so safe with him and then this happens? And when you mentioned the blood???

Please, come back whenever you're feeling creative again!!!!

[cosmiclove-heavenstruck]

(For anyone avoiding ME! -- There's an acoustic cover called "me." on spotify that I love and its what I imagine the surprise song to be like.)

I've tried to make them somewhat fit/parallel each other:

"I promise that you'll never find another like me" / "I'd give you my sunshine, give you my best, but the rain is always gonna come if you're standing with me" (the dualitiy of the best and worse)

"But he leaves you out like a penny in the rain" / "Just know I'm right here hoping that you'll come in with the rain"

"And I know that you see what you're doing to me, tell me why" / "Why would you wanna break a perfectly good heart?"

"I'm no one special, just another wide-eyed girl who's desperately in love with you" / "I watch you fly around the world and I hope you don't save some other girl" (this combo would just be funny yk)

"While she waits up, you chase down the newest thing and take for granted what you have" / "In search of glorious happenings of happenstance on someone else's playground" (do you see the chaos here)

"Who you are is not where you've been, you're still an innocent" / "Guilty reaching out across the sea that you put between you and me, but it's fake and it's oh so unnecessary"

"Don't read the last page, but I stay when you're lost, and I'm scared, and you're turning away" / "You should find another guiding light but I shine so bright"

"But you dream of some epiphany, just one single glimpse of relief" / "desperate people find faith, so now I pray to Jesus too, and I say to you, soon you'll get better" (family trauma :) i don't think she'd ever sing these together tho)

"Call my bluff, call you "babe", have my back, yeah, everyday, feels like home" / "And I want you right here, a red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground"

"But I believe in whatever you do and I'll do anything to see it through" / "These hands had to let it go free, and this love came back to me"

[deadboyquotes]

Dead Boy Detectives as Taylor Swift Songs Reputation Edition

Crystal - Look What You Made Me Do

“I don't like your little games, Don't like your tilted stage

The role you made me play of the fool

…

But I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time”

Edwin - New Year’s Day

“Don't read the last page

But I stay when you're lost, and I'm scared, and you're turning away

…

Please don't ever become a stranger

Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere”

Charles - Don’t Blame Me

“Don't blame me, love made me crazy

If it doesn't, you ain't doin' it right

Lord, save me, my drug is my baby

I'll be usin' for the rest of my life”

Niko - Delicate

“Is it cool that I said all that?

Is it chill that you're in my head?

'Cause I know that it's delicate”

Jenny - Getaway Car

“I knew it from the first Old Fashioned, we were cursed

We never had a shotgun shot in the dark”

Cat King - Gorgeous

“You make me so happy, it turns back to sad, yeah

There's nothing I hate more than what I can't have and

Guess I'll just stumble on home to my cats (ugh)”

Monty - Call It What You Want

“And I know I make the same mistakes every time

Bridges burn, I never learn, at least I did one thing right”

[1moremilgram-enjoyer]

Okay hold on you know that name on Kotoko's cap in HARROW? Jacques Roulet?

I always thought that was just a brand or something, but I looked it up and- it's a story about a supposed werewolf that killed a child?! Kotoko what the fuck-

CW Gruesome murder, werewolves (???), clinical lycanthropy (?), mentions of drugs

Okay so here are the sources I'm using for this:

-WordPress by Jim McNeill

-Monstrous.com

Because this shit so obscure it doesn't even have a Wikipedia page.

Here's a summary of the story, though be warned, it's gruesome.

Basically, a few villagers in Angers, France, found the warm corpse of a fifteen year old boy being mauled by two wolves. The boy's father was the first to run up after his screams were heard, apparently. They chased the wolves off, but after they lost track of them, they found Jacques Roulet, half naked. He had long hair and beard, and his hands were dyed in fresh blood, his nails "long as claws."

Roules was "a beggar from house to house", and had been staying in a neighbouring village with his brother John and his cousin Julien, though he'd disappeared eight days before the murder. He admitted to having killed the boy by smothering him, and that the only reason he didn't fully eat the corpse was because the wolves scared him off.

In court, he claimed when he rubbed an ointment given to him by his parents on his skin, he could turn into a wolf. He claimed his hands and feet were those of a wolf when he killed the child, but he wasn't sure what his head looked like. He also claimed to have killed many more children. Adittionally, he said his brother and his cousin were the (other?) two wolves at the scene, but his parents actually proved the two had an alibi. You know, in case anyone was considering whether or not that was true.

He was originally sentenced to death, but he managed to appeal it, and in the end his sentence was reduced to staying two years in a mental institution.

The WordPress article mentions the salve Jacques claimed to rub on himself could have possibly had hallucinogenic properties, or alternatively, it's possible his diet included bread infected by the Ergot fungus, which contains chemicals similar to LSD and can also cause hallucinations. This can serve as a possible explanation for his belief of being a werewolf.

... What the fuck does this have to do with Kotoko.

Like, okay, I get the werewolf thing. She's a furry, we get it. But, she doesn't kill children though. If anything, one would assume the one supposed to be Jacques is Kotoko's victim, the dude that killed ten middle school children. But he's not the one wearing the cap, and he's... okay he's sorta connected to wolves.

It's always looked to me like his shadow vaguely resembles a wolf's snout, but maybe I'm just going crazy.

I honestly don't really know what the deal is with this. My best guess is that the HARROW serial killer is meant to be Jacques, since Kotoko believes he deserved death (as evidenced by the fact she killed him) like the original sentence given to Jacques. Maybe you can read into something about the murdered boy's father in the Angers story being the first to find the body, if you're inclined to believe one of the HARROW killer's victims was part of Kotoko's family. Or maybe the idea of two wolves scaring off Jacques? Like, Kotoko and some kind of partner in vigilantism?

?

I got no idea. The issue with that is that the wolves in the Jacques story also ended up mauling the boy's corpse, but maybe that's not 100% off-brand? Seeing her distorted quote in the second trial voice reveal trailer.

[Kotoko] From the beginning I've never asked for your understanding! My actions, one by one, are bringing Earth closer to peace. Useless Weaklings should just shut up and let me protect them!

Uh, yeah, I don't know.

I feel inclined to point out, regarding that last point, the line that plays when she first shows off the cap is:

Feeding on food so I don't burn out

Which is- not the greatest line to say as you show off a cap referencing a story about mauling a fifteen year old. (And yes I do think the Japanese lyric explicitly references eating)

To be clear, the cap is in other scenes: at the end of the second verse before the pre-chorus-

[HARROW] Shall we replace the poor soul, and the miserable delusion “I didn’t mean to offend”, “I won’t do it again” How many wins in a row?

-and at the very end, where it infamously lays on the ground right next to the murder scene.

But it's still introduced with the line about eating, which I find worrying.

I really am not sure what's going on with this one. If any Kotoko scholars out there have better ideas, please let me know, because I am very curious to know what the deal with this is. Take care!

[tolerateit]

Don't read the last page But I stay when you're lost, and I'm scared, and you're turning away -> I tried to hold onto the days when you were mine, but the woman who sits by the window has turned out the light

[cherryys]

I have heard all of your encouragements and so I'm going to start sharing my songs from my itafushi playlist and break down the lyrics I see fit for them <3 bc what better way to cope with the last 3 chapters than mixing my two favorite things: music and itafushi

starting off strong with this one:

There's glitter on the floor after the party / Girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby /Candle wax and Polaroids on the hardwood floor

I've had this song in my playlist in a while, but 266 reaffirmed the vision I had for this song.

New Year's Day is a song that talks about wanting the simplicity and domesticity of being with a partner, which I feel fits what Megumi envisioned for 266 perfectly, especially with the Polaroids on the hardwood floor, which also fits Yuuji and his hobby of immortalizing all the good moments in pictures.

You and me from the night before, but / Don't read the last page / But I stay when you're lost, and I'm scared, and you're turning away / I want your midnights / But I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day

I LOVE the lyric Don't read the last page. the desperation of not wanting their romance to end framed as if someone's flipping through a storybook, and honestly this could work for either Megumi or Yuuji wanting to live in the moment with the other rather than worrying about the future.

but I stay when you're lost, and I'm scared, and you're turning away reminds me alot of Yuuji's thought process during the entire Shinjuku Showdown trying to save Megumi. He will stay, even if Megumi's lost (submerged in the bath with no way out) and he's scared (the fear and desperation he had felt when Sukuna first took over Megumi) and Megumi's turning away (him rejecting his help in 251)

I want your midnights / But I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day is about This lyric works for either of them, like how Megumi wants Yuuji's midnights, as in, the good moments of their relationship, the nice ones, the easy ones, but he'll also be there after the party's over, those moments after where it would be hard (after Shibuya). He will be there by his side, no matter what, even with the threat of Sukuna. Or how Yuuji wants Megumi's midnights, but also wants to be there for Megumi's lowest moments (Shinjuku). He will always try to save him, no matter what, even with the threat of Sukuna.

You squeeze my hand three times in the back of the taxi / I can tell that it's gonna be a long road / I'll be there if you're the toast of the town, babe / Or if you strike out and you're crawling home

this lyric gives the same message as the ones before; to emphasize how much either will be there, even if they can tell its going to be a long, and rough road. they will be there at the other's highs and lows (also, the imagery of either Megumi or Yuuji squeezing the other's hand as a silent gesture of love despite all they've gone through is making me keel over and cry)

Hold on to the memories / They will hold on to you / And I will hold on to you

banger lyric. probably my second favorite out of the entire song. No specific breakdown, but it just pretains to both of them in general, to hold on to their good memories, because they will hold on to the other.

Please don't ever become a stranger / Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere

this is my favorite lyric out of the entire song. It's the quiet pleading of never parting, never having to learn how to live without the other, because they would never know how to unlearn each other, unlearn their laugh. they'd be strangers to each other then, but strangers whose laughs the other could recognize anywhere, no matter what.

You and me, forevermore

third favorite lyric, no notes. very itafushi. 10/10. (banger fic title too)

OVERALL, it's a song about Megumi and Yuuji loving the domesticity and simplicity of their life, of learning to love each other in the simple gestures, especially when they've spent so long trying to love each other in grand ones. it could be sung from either prespective, and each is just as heartbreaking lol

my playlist currently has 121 songs, you're free to send a random number in my inbox and I'll give you the breakdown of the song corrosponding with said number, and you're also very encouraged to suggest songs too!

[womanexile]

do you think new year’s day is about harry?? i’ve always thought so bc of the polaroid lyric but everyone tells me it’s ab joe so idk..

First let’s talk about how New Years relates to Haylor. During the Red era HS and TS share a New Years Eve kiss in Times Square. It was literally like the cutest thing ever!!

In the Lover mv she has a New Years Eve party in the Red era room.

To me this is a strong indicator that she associates New Years with Haylor. Now to the lyrics.

There's glitter on the floor after the party

Girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby

Candle wax and Polaroids on the hardwood floor

Now we know TS also associates Polaroids with Haylor.

OOTW “You took a Polaroid of us”

TVFN “didn’t read the note on the Polaroid picture”

Then in HS unreleased Hunger there’s a line “candles burned down to the floor”

You and me from the night before, but

Don't read the last page

But I stay when you're lost, and I'm scared, and you're turning away

TS is saying she’s the one that stayed while HS is the one that left.

Him “you were right, there’s always two, the one who stays and the one who’s leaving you”

I want your midnights

TS also associates midnights with Haylor.

Style “midnight, you come and pick me up no headlights”

YAIL “small talk, he drives, coffee at midnight”

But I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day

You squeeze my hand three times in the back of the taxi

I can tell that it's gonna be a long road

I'll be there if you're the toast of the town, babe

Or if you strike out and you're crawling home

Don't read the last page

But I stay when it's hard, or it's wrong, or we're making mistakes

I want your midnights

But I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day

Hold on to the memories

They will hold on to you

Hold on to the memories

They will hold on to you

Hold on to the memories

They will hold on to you

And I will hold on to you

Please don't ever become a stranger

Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere

Please don't ever become a stranger

Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere

During a Secret Session for reputation, Swift explained:

‘There are two lines in this song that I had been saving for a long time for the right moment and I had picked them for this song, and I’m really excited about them. The first one is, ‘Please don’t ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere.’ And the other one is, ‘Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you.’

These lines were in her notes app for years!! She was still in her first year of her relationship with joe. So these lines aren’t about him. Lots of us believe these are the lines HS is referring to in his song Him “I was with you when you wrote that line, it was me that you had on your mind”

There's glitter on the floor after the party

Girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby

Candle wax and Polaroids on the hardwood floor

You and me, forevermore

Don't read the last page

But I stay when it's hard, or it's wrong, or we're making mistakes

I want your midnights

But I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day

Hold on to the memories

They will hold on to you

Hold on to the memories

They will hold on to you

Hold on to the memories

They will hold on to you

And I will hold on to you

Please don't ever become a stranger (hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you)

Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere (hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you)

Please don't ever become a stranger (hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you)

Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere (I will hold on to you)

[notoriousbeb]

Don't read the last page/ But I stay when you're lost and I'm scared and you're turnin' away

[cyarsk52-20]

happy 2025

There's glitter on the floor after the party Girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby Candle wax and Polaroids on the hardwood floor You and me from the night before, but

Don't read the last page But I stay when you're lost, and I'm scared, and you're turning away I want your midnights But I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day

You squeeze my hand three times in the back of the taxi I can tell that it's gonna be a long road I'll be there if you're the toast of the town, babe Or if you strike out and you're crawling home

Don't read the last page But I stay when it's hard, or it's wrong, or we're making mistakes I want your midnights But I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day

Hold on to the memories They will hold on to you Hold on to the memories They will hold on to you Hold on to the memories They will hold on to you And I will hold on to you

Please don't ever become a stranger Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere Please don't ever become a stranger Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere

There's glitter on the floor after the party Girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby Candle wax and Polaroids on the hardwood floor You and me, forevermore

Don't read the last page But I stay when it's hard, or it's wrong, or we're making mistakes I want your midnights But I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day

Hold on to the memories They will hold on to you Hold on to the memories They will hold on to you Hold on to the memories They will hold on to you And I will hold on to you

Please don't ever become a stranger (hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you) Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere (hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you) Please don't ever become a stranger (hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you) Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere (I will hold on to you)

[junejuly]

"Don't read the last page, but I stay when you're lost, and I'm scared, and you're turning away."

[foxes-that-run]

New Years Day

This song is bittersweet, placed at end to the album because NYE/NYD is an end and a beginning. Like Clean, this song is about moving on, but now with someone who stays. It was a surprise song when 1989 TV was announced. The subject and timing indicates it may have been cut from 1989. Also note the light up Anchor - like Harry's tattoo covering 'I can't change' in the World Premier video.

When Taylor performed it at the 2 June 2018 AT&T Secret Session in Chicago she introduced it by talking about Reputation being a 'bait and switch' that the album is about finding real love in the noise and learning who your friends are. Taylor Nation has a version of this with part of the intro by cuts Taylor off half way through a sentence at 24:38! They removed the part about a 3am icy swim (1:23)

"So... I found myself, um.. like 2 New Years Eve's ago I found myself in the midst of a very like incredible 3am moment where you think you are invincible and you end up like jumping in a pool in the winter and you feel super untouchable in that moment and the next morning you feel very fragile. And you're like this is love, this is what love really is. Like we all wanna find someone to kiss at midnight, that's cool or whatever But who is gonna want to hang out with me the next day? When you are like Advil or nothing! So this is a song about finding real love and finding someone to hang out with on New Year's Day."

WHY did Taylor Nation cut that? Is it because she sounds high? Because Joe was not there??? Inquiring minds need to know. The rest of their video is complete apart from a 8 second intro.

In her 1989 Grammy Museum talk Taylor talked about making 1989 sonically cohesive after Red didn't win AOTY on 26 January 2014. (6 mins) In other words, a song like New Years Day would have been cut to get AOTY. Harry and Taylors NYE kiss is well known and also in Question...?

Lyrics

There's glitter on the floor after the party Girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby Candle wax and Polaroids on the hardwood floor You and me from the night before, but

The first verse sets the scene of a morning after a party. On NYE 2013 they stayed in the Greenwich Hotel which does have hardwood floors in the suites and a lobby in which girls can carry shoes in. (I have always wondered about that combo!) Polaroids are a key theme of 1989.

(Chorus) Don't read the last page But I stay when you're lost, and I'm scared, and you're turning away I want your midnights But I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day

"Don't read the last page" is asking her muse to not close the book on them, to stick the relationship out through the hard and unfun times. There is a similar, or almost responding lyric in Death by a Thousand Cuts: "You said it was a great love / One for the ages / But if the story's over / Why am I still writing pages?" (Avoiding spoilers there’s also chapter references in a 1989 vault track)

Taylor is saying she will stay when it is hard and unglamorous. 'Stay' is in many HS/TS songs. Most recently in As it was "Seems you cannot be replaced / And I'm the one who will stay".

In the last lines of the chorus Taylor says she wants her muses midnights, meaning fun times, but that she will also be there to clean up the figurative and literal messes.

You squeeze my hand three times in the back of the taxi I can tell that it's gonna be a long road I'll be there if you're the toast of the town, babe Or if you strike out and you're crawling home

The first line of this verse gives us a glimpse of what happened after that Times Square kiss, Harry squeezing her hand to reassure her, them both knowing it was going to be hard. This video captures them as kids, people were yelling their names and police to get to the car. This line explores both 1 night and what was part of the downfall of the relationship.

The second half of the verse is Taylor reiterating that she will stay, if he is the toast of the town or strikes out, meaning regardless of fame. In Sweet Creature, (Released 6 months before Reputation) Harry has a similar message "When I run out of road, you bring me home"

[Bridge] Please don't ever become a stranger Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere

In the Bridge Taylor entertains that they may not stay. “whose laugh I could recognise anywhere" is so beautiful, perfectly capturing holding someone so dear fearing them becoming distant.

[Verse 3] There’s glitter on the floor after the party Girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby Candle wax and Polaroids on the hardwood floor You and me forevermore

After the bridge the first verse is repeated with 'you and me forevermore' instead of 'from the night before'. Making a vow to hold onto the relationship forever.

[Chorus] Don't read the last page But I stay when it's hard or it's wrong or we're making mistakes I want your midnights But I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day

Lost/scared/"you're" turning away becomes hard/wrong/"we're" making mistakes. This shows maturity. Rather than turning inward or away in a hard time they are supporting each other and accepting their mistakes.

In the context of the end of the Reputation album about drama and feeling alone Taylor is matured, looking ahead to a partnership.

[Post-Chorus] Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you And I will hold on to you

In the closing Taylor is imploring her muse to hold on, remember the good in them despite hard times and promising to hold on too.

New Years Day has Taymojis

[imhereonthekitchenfloor]

"Don't read the last page but I stay when your lost and I'm scared and you're turning away" only for Joe to be lost and turn away way too much and Taylor to be scared and leave 😭