#*pretends that i actually know what i'm doing*

[incognit0slut]

Nervous

Softcore in which you’re overwhelmed by how far he would go to protect your safety.

Category: Angst Word count: 2.3k Content: minor injury, overprotective spencer, avoidant attachment reader if you squint a/n: i've always wanted to do the "man goes crazy after you're hurt" trope and this seems like the right opportunity. and just so you know i’m actually hyperventilating while typing this bc apparently the neighborhood is coming back!! with new music!! after 4 years!! can you tell i'm excited!!!!

-

“Where is she?”

Spencer demands. Something he’s been doing a lot lately — speaking with a tone that expects answers to materialize out of thin air. The authority that drips from his voice would normally send a pleasant shiver down your spine, you can even admit there’s a time and place where it would be more than welcome when far less clothing is involved. But right now? In the back of an ambulance with your head splitting in two and his words scraping against what’s left of your nerves?

Not so much.

Your skull is throbbing. The cold metal bench is digging into you uncomfortably, and the sterile scent of disinfectant claws at your throat with a vicious persistence of acid. Your stomach twists at the bitter, chemical burn. His voice only makes it worse.

“Stop shouting,” you groan, squeezing your eyes shut against the stabbing pain.

He swivels on his heel as soon as your mouth parts to speak. “What were you thinking?”

You peel your eyes open just enough to glare at him, wincing as your head throbs in protest. “What does it look like I was thinking? I was doing my job.”

A muscle in his jaw ticks. “You could’ve been killed.”

“I’m fine.”

“Fine?” He practically chokes on the word. “You call this fine?”

“I’m not dead, am I?”

“You almost were. Do you even realize how reckless that was?”

“Of course I realized the risk. I assessed it.”

“No, you didn’t. You slipped an entire perimeter detail and dove head-first into a hostage situation.”

“Again, I was doing my job.”

“Without notifying any of us.”

You fight the reflex to roll your eyes.

“If it matters to you that much, next time it happens I’ll check with you before I try not to die. Happy?”

Sarcasm seems like the last thing you should’ve resorted to. His posture is stiff and straight, shoulders locked in a rare display of tension. Something you haven’t seen in months when he’s kept his emotions buried under layers of forced composure. But you are your own worst enemy when it comes to self-preservation, and that applies just as much to arguments as it does to danger.

His scowl deepens, and for a second you think he’s going to let you have it. You're already bracing yourself for an onslaught of logic and statistics — the odds of survival, the risks of your actions, the percentage of people who don’t make it out alive when they do exactly what you did.

That’s when he stops. Dead in his tracks.

A sudden breeze ghosts across your lower stomach, and it takes you a second to realize that your shirt must have inched up with all the shifting you can’t seem to stop doing. You barely have time to process it before you see the change in him. His face drains of color. Paler than usual. Paler than he already is.

“What did he do?”

You follow his gaze, and there it is. A galaxy of green and purple in the shape of five fingers and a large palm across your ribs like some twisted badge of honor. You hadn’t even felt it until now, but the second your eyes land on it, a dull, aching throb pulses beneath your skin.

You quickly tug your shirt over the angry bruise. “Nothing."

But he’s already moving. His knees drag against the rough asphalt as he pushes your shirt back up, fingers brushing over your skin with a touch that feels too soft for the situation.

Your bloodshot eyes waver frantically.

“Spencer,” you hiss, glancing around. “Spencer, stop, you’re making a scene.”

A quick scan of the cramped space tells you the only audience is the medics, and while they’re pretending to mind their own business, the raised eyebrows aren’t exactly subtle. One of them coughs — whether it’s to cover a laugh or clear his throat, you can’t tell. Though your face still heats at the scrutiny.

"Spencer."

"This could’ve been worse."

You shove his hand away and yank your shirt down. “But it's not. I’m fine.”

“Stop saying that,” he presses. “You’re clearly not fine.”

Irritation pulses behind your temples. "Then stop acting like I’m weak, I did what I had to do.”

“What you did was reckless,” he reminds you again. “You should have waited. You had backup for a reason.”

“Someone could've died if I waited.”

"You almost died."

You exhale sharply. “Well he didn’t get the chance, did he? JJ found me and shot the guy in the leg before it could get that far.”

Which, honestly, was pretty damn impressive, considering you were fighting for your life. One second you were pinned beneath a man twice your size, adrenaline roaring in your ears so loud you could barely think, and the next — bang. Clean shot to the leg.

“If it were me,” he grumbles, “I would’ve shot him in the head.”

You scoff. “No, you wouldn’t.”

“I would,” he insists.

Your gaze shifts from the ground to his eyes, and that’s when you see it. The dark flecks in his brown irises seem to glow with an edge you’ve never quite caught before. Or maybe you have, but only in flashes. A flicker of something sharp in the set of his jaw when someone underestimates him. A muted warning when a suspect creeps too close. An imperceptible moment of tension when his fingers clench around your waist amidst the heat you both refuse to define.

It dawns on you that those hard lines around his eyes were always there, smoldering beneath his careful veneer of logic and reason. You just never knew you had the power to coax them onto the surface.

Spencer is protective — that much you knew. But not in a way that feels directed solely at you. Not when your relationship with him is already tangled in the space between labels that neither of you dares to clarify. He nitpicks your choices more than any friend should, yet he’s pinned you to the mattress far more often than you care to admit. Now hearing him say he’d actually break the very foundation of who he is sends your pulse into a clumsy rhythm.

His features are blurred by the disbelief flooding behind your eyes.

“You don’t mean that,” you say, hollow words sinking on your tongue.

He doesn’t even blink.

“If I ever found someone hurting you, I would put a bullet between their eyes and sleep just fine."

Your heart suddenly feels too big for the tight space in your chest. Too many emotions hit you all at once.

A little bit of fear.

A little bit of awe.

A lot of something else you don’t want to name.

You swallow against the dryness in your throat.

“Don’t worry, you’ll never have to. I can handle myself.”

The lines on his forehead deepens. “Just promise me you won’t do something like this again.”

You pull away and blink against the wind seeping through the open doors. It stings, his lack of faith in your judgment. The sharp bite of the cold air mirrors that prick as it slips under your collar, brushing over your blemished skin with a chill that's almost as piercing as the siren wailing incessantly in your ears.

But even that shrill cry can’t drown out the pounding in your head.

“You, of all people, know I can’t promise you that," you mutter, voice scraping the back of your throat.

His breath curls into the air as he replies, “At least tell me you’ll be more careful.”

“I was careful.”

“No, you were lucky. There’s a difference.”

Goosebumps rise on your arms that have nothing to do with the cold. He's right. Maybe it was luck. A fraction of a second, a shift in timing. A cosmic accident that decided you’d walk away instead of being zipped into a body bag. It wasn’t skill, nor caution. It was pure, dumb luck that you weren’t lying somewhere colder and permanent with the earth pressing down on you instead of the weight of his stare.

But you don’t want to give him the satisfaction of being right.

"You're being dramatic,” you try to deadpan, shooting him a weary look.

He narrows his eyes at you into tiny slits, and you resist the urge to bristle under the scrutiny. He’s studying you too hard. He’s looking at you like you’re some kind of equation he can’t solve, as if he stares long enough he’ll find the variable that explains why you don’t seem to value your own life the way he does.

You feel the need to defend yourself.

“I jabbed him in the throat,” you try again, gesturing loosely, “caught him off guard, and then went for his weapon. The whole thing took maybe five seconds—less, if you count how quickly he hit the ground after that first shot.”

“Five seconds could have cost you your life.”

“It didn't,” you counter quickly. Shift your eyes to your hands. Tongue your cheek. Try to justify your action. “And let’s not pretend you wouldn’t have done the same. You've jumped into danger more times than I can count.”

His entire body goes still.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you don’t exactly have a great track record for your own safety.” Your voice isn’t sharp, but there’s an edge to it. A tired sort of bite. “Are we conveniently forgetting all the times you’ve ignored protocol?”

The silence that follows is almost unsettling. He doesn’t react at first, doesn’t even breathe as far as you can tell. You wonder if you’ve managed to break him, if the sheer hypocrisy of his argument has finally caught up to him, if the logic has knocked him right through the bulletproof vest he always insists offers enough protection when you both know better.

Maybe he’s running through every instance you could be referring to. Is he tallying up his own recklessness? Those dangerous leaps of faith he’s taken without hesitation?

The wheels in his head are turning so fast you can almost hear them grinding.

“That’s different," he finally says.

You snort softly. Double standard.

“How is it different?”

His eyes are jaded as they swivel over your face.

“Because it’s you.”

He says it so quietly you almost didn't hear him. But you did, too loud and clear with your heart in your throat, then falter.

You're the one robbed of words now, a knot of half-formed syllables stuck to your tongue. You’re so caught off guard that you barely even register the overhead sirens blaring somewhere above you. Or the distant chatter of medics. The hum of radio static, a faint, crackling drone that seems to come from miles away. Everything is drowned out by the way your pulse hammers against your skin.

You can only focus on the flashes of color streaking across his face. Red, then blue, then red again. It catches the flecks of gold and green in his hazel eyes. Traces the sharp line of his nose, slides over his parted lips. Lingers on the pale scar under his chin that you’ve seen a hundred times but never really noticed until now.

You also notice how small the space between you feels. How the air surrounding you crackles. How the oxygen is lacking, and your lungs are suffering from it. How the distance between you seems to fold inward with each heartbeat.

A thump of his knees against the coarse dirt.

A pulse in the brief pause that follows.

A tick of gravity pulls you toward the shadow of a man you rarely encounter.

You're not sure how to handle this version of him, stripped of his layers of detachment. The version that exists in the slithers of time before his features school into that practiced neutrality he wears so well. A rare side of him that flickers into view — ephemeral as a stray synapse sparking in that immense brainpower he usually shields. Delicate in its existence.

And what do you do with a Spencer who isn’t just the mind, but also the heart? The heart that he guards so fiercely it sometimes seems like he forgets he has one. Until he doesn’t. Until it’s right there, beating openly in front of you. Perhaps oblivious to his own knowledge.

So you do what you always do when it gets too much. You exhale, slow and shallow.

Then you look away.

“You worrying about me this much is new," you mutter, eyes glued to his crooked tie. “I’m not sure I like it.”

“Then promise me you won’t make a habit of this.”

“This is not the debrief I was expecting.”

One thing that hasn’t changed is his stubbornness. “Promise me.”

You hesitate, knowing a promise like that isn’t yours to give. But he opens his mouth again, and a slow breath in the shape of your name falls from his lips. A pleading sort of whisper that travels every curve of your body, and by the time it lingers at the base of your spine, your nerves flutter.

The thrum in your veins surpasses even the rush of adrenaline you felt moments ago. This isn’t survival. Survival is instinct and reaction, it’s raw nerves driving you forward without conscious thought. This is recognition, awareness, because the way your name rolls off his tongue isn’t a simple request — it’s an opening. A sliver of space carved into the dense tangle of his armor, an admission slipping through the cracks before he can smooth them over.

And if you’re seeing a fracture in that carefully guarded part of him, maybe it’s only fair to meet him halfway.

Let whatever light he’s offering in.

Let it reach the places you pretend don’t need warmth.

You finally release a slow breath through your nose as he continues to look up at you. “I’ll try,” you comply.

His shoulders slump. Your answer isn’t enough.

But for now, it’s all you have.

"I got goosebumps all over me, when you're around it's hard for me to breathe." Nervous—The Neighbourhood

[winterferger]

Okay, so. I have a lot of feelings about coding. Having grown up in a time when coding was especially important because everything was at risk of being censored, things I could see myself in or relationships that I could become invested in meant the world to me. The way Mac went on a revenge mission for Blair in Predator, the tragic intimate friendship in Enemy Mine, watching Data get picked on for not understanding things in ST: TNG. These were formative.

So, it seems like an obvious, surface level view that these tropes about vampire and robot racism could be taken like this. But in the era vampire racism stories were getting really popular was also an era where AIDS was poorly represented in the media and has persisted through the opioid and other drug crises. So you often had stories about innocent people who were attacked against their will, suffering from cravings they couldn't contain and knew were destructive to them and the people around them. That was important. That was invaluable.

Werewolf racism? What if I know I'm a freak. What if I'm trapped in a human body feeling like a creature that doesn't fit. What if I struggle with impulse and people would rather get rid of me if they knew so reaching out for help is impossible. That spoke to people who felt like they had to constantly pretend to be accepted, whether they were trans, gay, masking so hard that it was hurting...

Robots have always swung trope-wise to either neurodivergent or sociopathy. I actually really loved Alien Romulus for representing both tropes in contrast to each other. But usually, as a narrative analogy, almost always if there is a robot uprising then we did this to us and they're still the bad guys. Like in The Second Renaissance from the Animatrix- the uprising happened because of human mistreatment. Skynet also being one of the classic examples. An AI reacting out of its first inclination of fear. The more aggressive timelines of Detroit: Become Human, or the breaking of the androids caught in what they feel is a torture timeloop in the modern Westworld, we did this to us. Hell, in the classic Westworld, where it was just that the AI created for our entertainment was allowed to act without restriction- we gave it the capacity for that, we often provided the catalyst for the Frankenstein's Monster moment, and very, very rarely do I ever see the AI presented as the good guys in these scenarios. Almost always, despite the fact there was a human designer who enabled the lethality of these machines, that provided the situation to cause a revolt, and the robots are, rightfully, still considered the bad guys.

Now pair this with the trope of 'neurodivergent robot'.

Yeah, you got a logical reason to hate and fear robots. In Star Trek, Data came on the heels of his 'twin brother', Lore (who I have a lot of strong feelings about how underutilized he was in the franchise). In Picard they went far more into AI apprehension, but there was a long history in Star Trek already established about unreliable and dangerous robots, and one that was exactly the same design as Data killed his whole colony. But even if the reasoning was understandable, Data trying to relate to people and constantly having to prove himself as an individual worthy of respect despite prejudices speaks to people. It's hard watching someone whose intent is obvious to us, the audience member, and usually someone going through something similar be treated as less than.

In Terminator 2 we got to see a Terminator turn into a 'good guy', showing all this awkward behavior that made it nigh on impossible to communicate but with a hyper-focus. He only needed to be trusted enough to get the job done. But he was shown a level of care and kindness he wasn't expecting. Even Sarah Connor could see the benefit of a machine 'father' because she knew his priorities wouldn't waver. Now, ignoring various sequels that ruined this- Imagine at the time you were back from Iraq. Operation Desert Farewell happened after Feb 1991, so a good hunk of soldiers came home prior to the summer release of T2. Imagine, now, you have a bunch of military broken soldiers, some suffering from Gulf War syndrome, and their family members going to see this movie where a fight-minded robot is learning to love beyond general 'programming'.

There's also the many, many genres of story that are 'human cop pairs with inhuman cop'. Sometimes robot. Sometimes alien. Almost always copaganda, sure, but also it often appeals to people that want to have someone work to understand them. Any fashion of what's designated by society as a freaking weirdo wants to be understood. This trope is timeless at this point.

TLDR: There's a lot that I can go on about, I got a whole book worth of thought in me, but my big points are: - These tropes began as products of their time. Not only products of their time, but they also introduced people to ideas in a way that made it easier to ask for help. It opened up the doorways to relating. - Even in a world where censorship isn't quite as pervasive, we need narrative metaphors for the shit that bothers us because it's padding. I don't want to fucking doomscroll my entertainment. Not all the time, but sometimes I'd rather watch the android get up and put his arm back on after being gang-beat for being a freak than seeing a realistically bruised-up girl be helped home by a friend because it reminds me of shit that's happeend to me. Not shitting on the real thing but sometimes I want the metaphorical thing, thanks. - I actually love the audience capacity for sympathy. To some people it might be sympathy for the devil. To other people the 'robot-overlords' feels like when you're accused of being part of the 'woke mind-virus' and being villainized, or vampire hate is like, 'wow I have an impulse problem and I can never ask for help'.

the reason "robot racism" is often a really stupid metaphor is the same reason that like. discrimination against demons or vampires or whatever doesn't work, is because there's often a pretty justified reasons humans are scared of vampires or robots or whatever, in a way that doesn't apply to real life minorities, like a fantasy author will be like "the reason vampires are discriminated against is because most of them and kill and eat people for fun and pleasure, and so humans respond by trying to kill them, isn't that so sad" and like no that's a perfectly fine reason to not trust vampires i think.

[itertarot]

Tarot | Love

Pick an image:

1. 2. 3.

⋆˚࿔ₒₙₑ ☾ ｡🍸｡⋆ ⊹₊

4. 5.

⋆˚࿔ ₜwₒ ☾ ｡🍸｡⋆ ⊹₊

I'm losing hope, honestly. I’m just losing hope in us. I’ve been waiting for you for so long, being patient, holding onto something fragile and uncertain, and putting in all of my effort for what feels like nothing in return. It seems like I’ve been waiting for years, standing still, hoping for something to change. I’ve put myself in a place I never even wanted to be in from the beginning, just a friend... How many years have I been here? How long have I been quietly hoping you'd see me differently? Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I should have been more upfront from the start. Maybe I should have shown you more clearly how much I care, shown you that I’m the right person for you. I actually tried, I really did, but you didn’t see me. You didn’t notice the way I looked at you, the way I showed up for you, the way I stayed. And now… I feel like I just can’t do it anymore. I can’t keep living like this, waiting endlessly for a moment that may never come. I can’t keep letting you hurt me, even if I know deep down that you’re not doing it on purpose. It’s not your fault. You never promised me anything. But I wanted something more. I always wanted you. I’ve been in love with you all along. I’ve been wishing every single day that you’d notice me, that you’d finally give me a chance, that you’d wake up and realize I was here, right in front of you, all along. But I’m tired. I’m worn out from hoping. If you don’t feel the same way… okay. It hurts more than I can say, but I understand. And if that’s the case, then I’ll walk away. For my own peace, I have to.

⋆˚࿔ ₜₕᵣₑₑ ☾ ｡🍸｡⋆ ⊹₊

There’s no secret, Im in love with you. I’ve made myself very clear. I love you. I’m in love with you. I adore you. You are the love of my life. I love you. Have I said I love you? I love you. My love for you is so much more than all the drinks I’ve had tonight, it’s bigger than anything, bigger than an ocean… (At this point, they would try to hug you, get very close to your face, and spend quite a while being clingy and repeating how much they adore you, emotional drunk vibes.). I’ve got our whole future planned out! I know exactly what we should do, listen to me, take me seriously, because this is a genius idea (Here, it becomes very personal. For some, it’s them trying to convince you to travel together, for others, it’s suggesting you try a new hobby or go to an event together, If you’re both in school, it could be them wanting to do a project together. For a small few, it could even be related to a work project idea. They’ll be extremely confident, believing they’ve come up with the greatest plan ever, so be ready to hear a full, step-by-step “brilliant” plan they’ve built in their head.). You know something? I don’t want to lose you. Yeah, I want you only for me. I’ll fight for you. Who do they think they are? Why do they think they can steal you from me? No, not that easily. I won’t let them. I want them away from you. I will fight for you, and I’ll make sure everyone knows I’m the only one who loves you this deeply. They’re no match. Yes, I’ve been insecure. Yes, I’ve been thinking about this for weeks. I’m jeal… I want to keep you only for me. Only mine. Mine!

⋆˚࿔ Fₒᵤᵣ ☾ ｡🍸｡⋆ ⊹₊

Baby, I'm so heartbroken and tired of you being cold towards me. Just give me a little love and tell me you care about me. I'm over being tough and pretending I've got my life together and that I don't care. I do care. I've been patiently waiting for an opportunity to get closer to you, hoping that something would change and bring us closer. It's my fault. I haven't done anything to show you I care. I don't even believe you care. Can we just...? I don't know. Can we just get to know each other again? Can we just take it slow and maybe go for coffee? I'm not in a rush. I'm not young anymore. I want something stable. I'm not here to play, I don't even have the energy for that. But I want to take you out and maybe you'll get interested in me too. Will you accept?

⋆˚࿔ Fᵢᵥₑ ☾ ｡🍸｡⋆ ⊹₊

Maybe it’s the drink, maybe I’ve had too much, but I feel like I need to tell you this: I’m in love with you. I am. I’ve been afraid to confess my feelings, but right now I finally feel like I have the courage to say it: i love you. You have no idea how much you mean to me, how deeply I think you're the most beautiful woman in the world, and how much I crave a relationship with you every night before I fall asleep. You live in my thoughts day and night. You're in the back of my mind with every decision I make, every move I take, because you’re the woman I want to cherish for the rest of my life. I want to take care of you, to love you every single day. I want to make you feel loved, safe, and warm. I’m serious about what I feel. I have patience if you’re not ready now, I really do. But you have to know one thing: you’re not just someone to me… you’re the one.

Since our breakup, I left, completely miserable, but I left, I did what I needed to do. You took everything from me, I lost, I really did. For me, none of it was fun, none of it was worth it. All our fights just hurt me, it wasn’t what I wanted. And honestly, I don’t even know now why we had to fight so much in the first place. But even though you made me go through the worst pain of my life, even though you took everything and left me with nothing, I still found the strength to heal. I’m not healed, but I’m healing… slowly.

I don’t want a relationship with you. There’s nothing left to save about us anymore. Even though it hurts deep in my soul, I will keep moving away from you, because I believe I deserve to be happy. I deserve someone who will love me just as much as I love them, someone who won’t hurt me like you did. I accept all the punishment I deserve. I take responsibility for my faults, and I’m sorry for everything I did wrong, truly. But I’m healing, and I think you should too. If you hear that I’m with someone else, it’s not true. I need time for myself. I need to be alone right now.

For some of you, this person could have cheated and now they’re paying for what they did.

For others, there may be rumors that this person cheated or is secretly with someone else, but that is not true.

And for a very few of you, this person will open up about all the pain they went through with someone else, how much it broke them, and how they are now healing, with no intention of going back to that situation again.

[wondrluv]

୨୧ chronically online ; mc71

➪ summary: where macklin finds himself uncovering a crucial piece of his girlfriend’s personality… or 2 times when mack found out his girlfriend has an internet addiction

➪ warnings: uh... reader is chronically online, tumblr (?)

➪ word count: 1.6k

➪ emma's notes: mack ficcccc. one of my fave reqs i have to write and i'm so happy i actually wrote it. this was originally going to have a couple more scenarios but writers block hit hard but if you want i will go back and write more. ANYWAY, i have new taglist, go join if you want. okay bye, enjoy the fic

© wondrluv ; do not copy, repost, or translate my work and designs on any other website or here

From the moment he first met y/n, he knew he was in love. From the way she shied away from any and all compliments thrown her way to the way she stumbled over her words when he stared at her too long, he thought she was perfect.

But as time went on, he slowly started to discover the little moments where she looked around nervously when she thought someone was looking at what she was doing on her phone, or swiped out of a ton of apps and did something else before handing him her phone. 

It didn’t alarm him, or he tried to act like it didn’t. Because he trusted her, he knew she wasn’t doing anything that would hurt him, not a chance, yet it didn’t stop the weird feeling that settled at the bottom of his stomach whenever it happened. 

But little did he know, she was doing the furthest thing from talking to other guys.

ₓ˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚.˚◦○˚ ୧ .˚ₓ

1. the one with the edit ; the tiktok uncovering

It did start as a few videos, it truly did. Just a few quick swipes, laughing at some dog who smushed his face against the glass, saving a video about a new recipe to try, commenting about how she wants to try a certain dance trend, etc.

Five minutes ago, she was having a hard time focusing on her homework. She’d write a few words and then her eyes would drift to her phone, ultimately leading to her picking it up and scrolling through her Instagram feed before moving to TikTok. 

And then it happened. One scroll too far and there it was, a bunch of videos smushed together in a 15-minute edit of her boyfriend and her eyes locked on the screen, unable to be torn away from the sight before her. 

She was in trouble, she knew that from the moment she saw who the video was by, but she watched anyway, because who was she to deny herself 15 seconds of staring at clips of her boyfriend?

One edit led to another, which led to another, and another, and another, and you get the point. Because 20 minutes later, she was still finding new edits she hadn’t liked or saved yet, giggling at each one. She was so entranced by the videos that she didn’t even hear the soft knock on her dorm room door, nor it clicking open, and the thudding of shoes being kicked off. 

“Babe?”

Her head snapped up, her fingers moving at a rapid, automatic pace to swipe out of the app and shut the phone off, turning around with an innocent smile on her face, “Hi!”

Macklin’s eyes narrowed, a curious look making its way on his face, “What’re you doing?”

“Working on my paper, really time-consuming.”

“Mhm. So why was it that I saw you were active on TikTok before I left to come here?”

“Oh, I don’t know, must’ve been a glitch or something.”

Y/n turned back to her computer, hiding the redness that grew on her cheeks, pretending to type away at the next paragraph about the book she had just read. And it worked, for a bit. Mack took his seat in front of her, draping her legs across his lap, his thumb rubbing circles against her calf as she worked, the exchange a brief moment in time. 

But then he glanced over at her, noticing the small giggle that escaped her and the bright smile on her lips. He raised an eyebrow, his fingers pausing their ministrations, his phone dropping from his hand. 

He didn’t say anything, careful not to alert her that he knew she was, in fact, not working on her literature paper. Standing up and making his way to the bathroom just long enough for her to not think much of it before cutting back, standing behind her, and looking over her shoulder.

It took him a second to fully process what he was seeing, because in all honesty, he was not expecting this. The video after video of clips of him popping up on her computer screen, the movements that seemed robotic as she liked and saved it to a folder titled “macky <3” in her bookmarked TikToks. 

He smirked, tapping her shoulder, “Having fun there, baby?”

Y/n’s eyes widened, slamming her laptop shut, and turning to look at him with a hesitant smile, “Hey.”

“Don’t hide now, I already saw it.” He leaned down, pressing his nose to her neck as his lips brushed her skin. “Can’t believe I was worried about what you were giggling about, turns out it was just me.”

“Shut up.” She grumbled, ignoring the heat that rose on her cheeks. 

“Never. I’m holding this as blackmail material for years to come.”

“You’re the worst.”

“Aw, baby. Don’t worry, I think it’s cute that you like watching edits of me. Adorable, even.”

“I literally hate you.” 

“Don’t pout at me.” He poked her cheek, “And no, you don’t. Because if you did, you wouldn’t have over 100 videos of me saved in a folder called Macky with a heart.”

“I hate you.”

“Love you too, gorgeous.”

ₓ˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚.˚◦○˚ ୧ .˚ₓ

2. the one with willmack ; the tumblr uncovering

She was careful this time, this was the one thing she was determined to keep Mack from finding out. Her Tumblr account. 

She’d made it way before she started dating him; it was something she did one night and never turned back. And the moment she ran into Mack? She was determined to never ever utter another word about her blog into existence. 

It grew harder and harder each day that she spent around Mack, trying to play her laughs about a post she saw as something her friend had sent, something he wouldn’t understand, so he’d forget about it and move on. 

Tried not to let him see her late-night deep dives on Tumblr where she scrolled, reblogged, and posted her thoughts about her boyfriend as he lay next to her, arm wrapped around her waist loosely, head buried into her shoulder. 

And she was careful, extremely careful. She knew the signs when he’d start to wake up, made sure she knew when he was coming over after a game, and did everything to make sure this stayed hidden. Because as much as she loved him and knew he loved her. This? This was sacred. 

But she should’ve known, some secrets aren’t meant to last forever. 

ﾟ+*:୨୧:*﹤

It was late one night, Mack was asleep next to her, completely oblivious to the world around him, as he cuddled into his girlfriend’s side, as he snored softly. 

Y/n on the other hand? She was an hour deep in Tumblr Willmack lore. 

Just like everything she did, it started off as a simple few scrolls, a few likes of gifs of Mack and Will together, smiling at how happy he looked with each post she saw. Then a click of the willmack tag later, here she was, reblogging TikTok’s of them, stifling her laughter at the Tumblr posts over pictures of them, posting things about how she wished someone would look at her the way Will and Mack looked at each other, etc.

It wasn’t that she was oblivious to the Willmack lore, quite the opposite, actually. She was one of their biggest supporters, because how do two people look at each other the way they look at each other? But she never scrolled for an hour about them, studying each and every picture like she was about to take an exam on their relationship. 

She stiffened when she felt Mack move beside her, swiping out of the app with ease, eyes glancing toward his sleeping figure. She smiled softly, running her hands through his hair, pressing a soft kiss to his forehead as he settled again, grip tightening before drifting off the sleep again. 

She resumed her scrolling, not knowing that Mack had not gone back to sleep, his eyes staring blearily at her phone screen to try and figure out what she was doing at almost 2 in the morning. He didn’t say anything, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness of the room and then the brightness of her phone, his post-sleep making it slightly harder for him. 

Once his eyes finally cleared of haziness, he watched her scroll, confusion hitting him when he saw multiple posts in a row with him standing or sitting next to Will with little comments over them or beneath them. That was when he noticed the little “t” in the corner, an amused smile playing on his lips. 

“Are you on Tumblr?” His voice was raspy and low, y/n jumping at the sound of it, once again swiping out of the app. 

“No?”

“I might be half away, but I think I know what Tumblr looks like.”

“Why do you know-”

“That’s a conversation from another time, baby. I’m more focused on why you are on it, looking at the willmack tag. You got something you want to tell me?”

“It’s not my fault you guys act like boyfriends all the time.”

Mack just rolled his eyes, removing the phone from her grasp and placing it gently on the nightstand, bringing her closer and cuddling her to his chest. It was quiet for a few minutes, just the sounds of their breathing and the fan in the corner. 

“So?”

“So… I have a Tumblr blog, so what?”

“No need to get so defensive, gorgeous. Was just wondering.” He placed a kiss on her head, brushing her hair behind her ear. 

She pouted up at him, “Don’t judge me.”

“I’m not judging! I’m completely and absolutely enamored by you and your chronically online condition.”

“I’m not chronically online.”

“Yes, you are. And it’s okay. I still love you.”

“I hate you.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

MC71 MASTERLIST ; WBB MASTERLIST

TAGLIST ; NAVIGATION

[alllgator-blood]

updates/vent/idk

feel the need to post SOMETHING on here cause I've been gone so long, I don't think I'm going on a long hiatus or anything, I just don't like posting/replying to anything when I'm not doing well. I haven't been able to draw in a few weeks but I HAVE been working on plushies. I'll try to post some pics when they're done, I think you guys will really like them- I have shamura pretty much done aside from their robe, and aym + baal just need their faces and clothing details. About to start work on leshy but idk if he'll be done anytime soon, he's gonna be ginormous I hope. Actually the amount of cotl plush toys I've made is in the double digits and I haven't bothered to post any of them so I should really do that sometime...

give me til this weekend and I'll try to get some pics! Shamura in particular is my fave but I'm biased so that's no big surprise...

anyway vent type stuff below the cut, I can't get into detail about anything so it's a lot of nothing but it's mostly just an explanation for not being on much recently I guess.

I want to apologize for not responding to messages or asks or mentions or anything. I'm at a point where I can't mask like at all, and I feel sick thinking about posting or talking to anyone and pretending I'm alright, but I can't really talk about what happened either- so I'm at an impasse. I don't really know how to describe the year I've been having without getting into detail of what's been going on, and that's not terribly appropriate I don't think.

I wish I could concisely convey my feelings recently in a way that's not overshare-y, especially because there's not anything anyone can do to help, so I don't want to startle anyone?? I just don't feel good knowing there's people who want to talk to me but all my stupid ass can do is lay in bed and imagine I'm dead instead of typing some words back to them. I have a laundry list of conditions (big surprise huh?) so I easily crumple under any kind of stress, and when it's this prolonged with no reprieve or clear way out, it's hard to make it to the next day. It's hard to go online and seeing everyone able to act so normal while I feel like I'm in hell, idk. Waow it's just like that kallamar comic I did where he wanted 1 day off.....

All this stuff below the cut is pretty pointless but I think I just wanted to feel like I at least put it out there *somewhere* that I'm not alright, so I don't feel as guilty isolating. I promise there is a reason I've not responded to anyone in weeks or opened my messages. With time I'll get over it, I've lived this long so w/e, I just need time to feel shitty I think.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

I have to agree with Otakuvampyre on this. Fact is I understand why the pictures had the effect they did. And I can explain in detail why. And it's not, "Men can't get women because they are terrible people with bad personalities", like suggested. It's because of the "Before and After" effect that a lot of people make the mistake of doing in pictures. Companies are especially guilty of this. Look the first picture look mellow and or sullen (this can also be accomplished with lighting failures)

So thoughts:

The first image has a large issue with it in general. The lighting on his face is actually brighter than that of the rest of his body, oddly making him look sickly.

The second image has a lot of "Other" types of issues. The lighting of this picture is well lit, but unbalanced. His hair looks more thin in this picture, and the outfit he chose to show off more of his gains, very much show off too much. Making the picture look awkward. This ignoring the MORE obvious bulge in this photo vs the first one.

Now. Let me explain this as I was raised by a family made of 80% women. And by no less than 3 generations of them. The first image is the "Teddy Bear" women like after they done fucking around and want a husband. Proof of this could be seen if you put both of the before and after into suits that fit them within reason. Version one looks like a youth pastor with love handles, version two looks like a lifer and an athlete. At least to people at face value. However, every single time I have watched a movie with women present, and a man takes off his shirt and is ripped, I've heard this inevitable, "Ugh he's so hot". Meanwhile in movies where some of these same men are less shredded, or alternatively one of the main characters is a parody of the "Hero" archetype, when he takes off his shirt, everyone laughs. No one serious, "Mhmm he's hot".

Men are pretty much trained to catch on to this stuff because every single time a shredded man comes on screen or a very LEAN character takes off their shirt, it's swoons across the board.

Long story short? The first picture is the type women "Settle for" the first is the type they fuck. Men see that. Men know that. And pretending it's not real because a few women are exceptions to this rule doesn't make it less true. Trends might well be changing, but if you were to ask most women (18-38) who is hotter between these guys, not much of a contest:

Just bodies alone, most women would simp over the first one. And let me make this very clear. The above ARE considered dad bods. What's more, actions and words speak drastically different.

Example: Woman and her husband, (my buddy) and me all go to the movies. I'm quite literally DRAGGED to this movie. This lad comes on the screen and like fucking clock work, from a lot of women in the theater I hear all the different sounds. Including from my buddies wife.

My buddy talked to me about it later and the one thing he said I remember well is that she always calls him handsome or cute, never hot. And it bothered him. Granted, I'll give a small pass to the post. Generally speaking, unless the face is very attractive, women don't prefer "SHREDDED" men. They prefer fit men. Similar to the look of soccer players:

I love hearing the whole, "Lived Experience" from people on this site who then pretend that men haven't lived their own lives and seen what women swoon over. I myself have only been called hot a handful of times by a handful of women. And those women very much did the same BS of, "Well I love you not them, I just think they are hot", To which my response is, "Ok, looks alone, what exactly is it that makes him hot that disallows me from being called such". A few of them were actually honest and said it was because I was less fit than the men on screen. Others just played if off like no big deal.

Men pay more attention than people think. And we see how rare it is in general for women to go for larger men, unless they are planning to settle. Which men take as, "You are attractive enough to be with, but not attractive enough to fuck for recreation". And realistically? That's not only how we take it. That's what it looks like to anyone not making excuses.

And for the record, before my own personal lunatics come post on this, I have for a long time had a similar body type to the last image I posted above. Prior to that I was muscularly skinny with not enough mass to show abs.

i think the reason a lot of men are screaming, puking, and crying about this is bc it forces them to acknowledge that the reason they can’t get women to like them is not actually bc of their physique but bc of their shitty personality

[ineedpaigebuckets]

more than a mistake

paige x reader

synopsis: they meet at a bar, your boyfriends off with some girl- so paige lets you know what it's really like, and at a party the next week, you get to return the favor

an: like smut ISH but like not really just like buildup i guess

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

you didn’t want to come out tonight.

but your boyfriend insisted. “it'll be fun,” he said. “we need a night out,” he said. little did you know there was no "we" it was just him.

so now he’s at the other end of the bar, practically drooling over some blonde in a miniskirt, while you’re standing here with an empty drink, your arms crossed, your jaw locked.

you don’t even realize someone’s next to you until she speaks.

“he's not even subtle about it.”

you turn. it's a girl—tall, confident, jeans that actually fit, one hand wrapped around a glass of something dark. paige bueckers, you know her, or know of her, of course you do- everyone does. she's watching your boyfriend with a smirk like she’s seen this scene play out a hundred times and already knows the ending.

you raise an eyebrow. “excuse me?”

“he's trying to impress her with that laugh,” she says, nodding toward him. “the one that sounds like a dying dolphin? classic.”

you blink. the , involuntarily, you laugh- a real laugh, unlike his.

she looks at you for the first time- and she really looks at you- and it’s like her gaze rakes over every inch of you in one slow, unapologetic sweep.

“not to be rude,” she adds, “but what the hell are you doing here with that when you could be doing… literally anything else?”

your mouth opens. “wow. uhm- ”

“too much?” she says, sipping her drink, completely unbothered. “i can dial it back.”

you don’t want her to dial anything back, not one bit.

you glance toward your boyfriend. he's still not looking for you, not even noticing that you now have your own blonde on your arm.

you look back at her. she hasn’t stopped watching you. it's not subtle. her eyes drop to your lips, your collarbone, your waist. they linger.

you feel heat crawl under your skin.

“you always like this?” you ask.

she shrugs. “only when i know i'm right.”

you roll your eyes, but your pulse betrays you.

“let me guess,” you say. “you're gonna tell me i deserve better or some shit.”

“no,” she says. “i was gonna tell you i am better. at least in the ways that matter right now.”

your stomach tightens. you shouldn’t like how that sounds.

but you do.

she tilts her head, voice low now. “you want it- i can see it in those pretty eyes of yours.”

you don’t answer.

she leans a little closer. “he doesn’t know you, does he?”

you inhale, sharp. “you don’t know me either.”

she smiles, slow and sure. “i know how you’re looking at me right now.”

you hate that she’s right.

you hate how your skin is buzzing, how your legs feel a little too warm, how you’re already imagining what her hands might feel like on your skin.

she watches you for a second. “i'll say it plain, since you don’t seem like the type to play games- i want to fuck you.”

your breath catches.

“and i think you want to let me.”

you swallow hard. you look away- once- toward your boyfriend still pretending you don’t exist.

you turn back.

you don’t say yes.

but you don’t say no.

she grins. “come on,” she says. “lemme go remind you what it’s supposed to feel like.”

you follow her into the bathroom without looking back.

the door shuts behind you with a soft click.

you don’t move right away. you're standing in someone else’s space, in the middle of someone else’s night, with your breath shallow and your body already humming like it knows what’s coming.

paige just looks at you.

not like she’s waiting for you to speak. like she’s waiting for you to feel it. all of it.

and god, you do.

your chest is tight. your pulse is loud in your ears. your boyfriend has never made you feel like this- like you’re a storm, like you’re seconds from doing something you’ll never take back.

and maybe for the first time in your life, you don’t care.

she steps forward, slow and deliberate. her fingers trace the edge of your jaw. her touch is gentle, but her eyes are anything but. you feel seen, somehow. like she’s already undressed you with her eyes and she’s still not satisfied.

“you okay?” she asks, low.

“no,” you whisper before you can stop yourself.

it's not even a lie. you're not okay. you're so far from okay you don’t even know where that version of you went. you just know she doesn’t live in this body anymore.

and then paige kisses you.

no hesitation. no awkward buildup. just mouth on mouth- hot, open, and real. she kisses you like she’s starving and you’re the thing she’s been hunting for.

your knees go soft. your hands find her shoulders, her neck, her hair- you don’t know what you’re holding onto, only that you need to hold onto something.

she walks you backward until your spine hits the wall. her hands are under your shirt, then lifting it up. she strips you slow, like she wants to remember the look on your face when each piece comes off.

and you let her.

you're not thinking. you're just feeling. and for the first time you feel free.

she pulls her shirt off, and it’s not like the movies. it's not choreographed or slow motion. it's fast and greedy and honest. her skin is warm, her mouth hotter, her breath against your throat enough to make you whimper.

you've never made that sound before.

when she drops to her knees, your heart stutters.

“wait,” you breathe, unsure if you’re trying to stop her or just catching your breath.

she looks up at you, steady. “we can stop.”

you shake your head. “that's not-.”

she just waits, still holding your hips, her thumbs brushing the bare skin there like she’s reminding you you’re real.

“i've never—” you start, then stop. you can’t finish that sentence. you don’t even know what the end of it is.

never wanted someone like this.

never needed someone like this.

never looked at another girl and thought, i want her to break me open.

paige leans in and presses a kiss to your stomach. “let me make you feel good.”

you nod.

she does.

she pulls your panties to the side, underneath four skirt that's hiked up your stomach, and she requires your entire brain.

her mouth is sin and salvation. every flick of her tongue, every slow, deliberate movement, every sound you make- she drinks it in like proof. you lose yourself in it. you stop thinking completely. you forget your own name.

and when you come- loud and shaking, thighs clenching around her- you cry out hers.

you feel wrecked. and remade. and fucking perfect.

when she finally pulls back, your chest is heaving. your hands are still in her hair, and your brain is a blur of what the fuck was that and do it again.

she climbs back up your body, her lips brushing yours again. you kiss her like you’re drowning. her hands fix your outfit without even thinking, lips not hesitating to stay against yours.

“i don’t know what just happened,” you whisper into her mouth.

she just smiles, breathless. “it's okay. you don’t have to know yet.”

you stare at her, dazed. “i didn’t think i could feel like that.”

she presses her forehead to yours. “that's ’cause no one ever wanted to make you feel like that.”

and you know she’s right.

you let out a shaky laugh, still half-drunk on the feeling. “you're dangerous.”

“i know,” she says, kissing you again, softer this time.

you don’t know what this is.

but for once, you want to find out.

you don’t say much afterward.

you slowly fix yourself up. neither of you rushes, but neither of you lingers either. there's a strange silence- not uncomfortable, just sharp. like the air between you is still hot, still buzzing, and neither of you knows what to do with it.

you glance at her while fixing your hair in the mirror by the door. she's sitting on the edge of the toilet, one leg bounced over and over, shirt rumpled, still looking at you like she knows exactly how you taste and how you look when you fall apart.

you hate how much you like that.

“i should go,” you say, not quite looking at her.

paige doesn’t move. “right. boyfriend.”

you flinch a little, but she says it without judgment. just fact.

“he's probably wondering where i am.”

paige tilts her head. “is he?”

you shoot her a look. she smirks like she knows she’s getting under your skin and doesn’t plan on stopping.

“you don’t have to explain,” she adds. “i know.”

but something in the way she says it makes your chest tighten. like maybe you both don’t know. not really.

you nod, trying to shake it off. “still. i should go.”

she walks you the extra 3 steps to the door. you're halfway through it when you hesitate- hand still on the handle, brain scrambled, heart pounding with something that feels suspiciously like regret.

“i'm going to this party next week,” you say, casual. too casual.

paige raises an eyebrow. “you are?”

“yeah. a few friends. just a small thing.”

she leans against the doorframe. “you inviting me?”

you shrug. “if you want.”

she grins, just a little. “i want.”

you look at her for a second longer than you should. you're already picturing her showing up. you're already thinking about what you’ll wear, what you’ll say, what you won’t say. you're already fucked.

“give me your number,” you say, pulling out your phone.

she taps it in without hesitation. her name appears on your screen- just Paige, no emoji, no last name. but the weight of it is enough.

“text me,” she says, voice low, right before you leave. “or don’t. but i think you’ll want to.”

you want to.

you leave anyway.

next thing you know, you're at some random apartment, the music is loud, but not too loud- someone’s shitty bluetooth speaker on the counter blaring early 2000s throwbacks, and there’s half a case of white claws on the kitchen table. you recognize maybe five people. you smile at none of them.

because paige is here.

she showed up like she wasn’t sure she would- hands in her pockets, calm, unreadable- but the second she saw you, something in her face softened. you hadn’t even realized you’d been holding your breath until then.

and now, hours later, you’re still pressed to her side on the couch like it’s the only place in the world you want to be.

because it is.

you broke up with your boyfriend this morning. it wasn’t dramatic. it wasn’t even a fight. you just said, i'm done, and he said, figures, and that was it.

you haven’t let go of paige since she walked through the door.

she hasn’t seemed to mind.

she's got one arm draped over the back of the couch, and you’re tucked under it, knees pulled up, leaning into her like gravity decided you belong there.

“you okay?” she murmurs into your hair.

you nod. then shake your head. “no idea.”

she chuckles. her fingers brush the curve of your arm. it's a small touch, but it makes your stomach flip.

“i feel like an idiot,” you admit. “you're barely touching me and i'm already half obsessed or something.”

paige glances at you. her smile flickers. “only half?”

you groan and hide your face against her shoulder.

she smells like clean skin and something vanilla. you want to crawl inside her shirt and stay there.

“i'm being clingy,” you mutter. “you can tell me to back off.”

“i could,” she says. “but i'm not gonna.”

you lift your head, just a little. her hand brushes your thigh. not sexual, just warm. steady.

“i keep thinking about that night,” you say, voice lower now, more careful. “what you did. how i felt.”

a pause.

“and?”

you look at her fully now. her eyes are on you, wide open. she's not teasing. she's not smug. she's just waiting.

“i want to make you feel like that.”

paige's breath catches.

you sit up a little straighter, shift closer, your hand trailing along the inside of her arm. your fingers slide under the hem of her shirt. just barely.

“i want to know what your face looks like when you fall apart,” you whisper. “i want to hear how you sound when you stop pretending nothing gets to you.”

her eyes darken. Her throat bobs. “you sure?”

“no” you say. “but i still want to.”

she kisses you- hard and fast this time, like she’s surprised by it, like she couldn’t not do it. and then you’re tugging her hand, leading her down the hall into the first empty room you can find, heart pounding, skin burning.

you push her down onto the bed.

and you take your time.

you kiss every inch of her like a map you’re learning by heart. you get her shirt off and your mouth on her chest, her stomach, the soft inside of her thighs. you don’t stop until she’s gasping, arching, gripping the sheets like she’s trying to keep from flying apart.

you watch her come with wide eyes, stunned at how much it does to you.

after, she pulls you down beside her, cheeks flushed, hair messy.

“i underestimated you pretty girl,” she says, breathless.

you grin. “good.”

you're both still half-naked, half buzzed, laying on your sides, noses almost touching.

“can i ask you something?” she says.

“yeah?”

paige hesitates. then, carefully, "go out with me. like… really. not just this. not just—” she gestures vaguely to the bed, to the party beyond the door, “whatever this is.”

you blink.

“i want to take you to dinner,” she adds, quieter now. “hold your hand and take you somewhere we don't have to sneak off to. be the person you don’t have to hide.”

your heart does something weird in your chest. like it’s trying to fold into itself.

you nod before you even realize you’re doing it. “okay.”

“yeah?”

“yeah,” you say, and you kiss her again.

and it feels less like a mistake this time.

more like something you've been looking for your whole life and just now found.

[envy-of-the-apple]

ok ok maybe supernatural entities dont have to follow these hyperspecific rules. they just do it cuz humans will be less afraid of them?

just imagine Diavolo one day sitting, sipping tea with Barbatos by his side and suddenly poof he's transported from his castle to a really cramped human bedroom, and he's standing inside a circle.

He knows its a human bedroom because there's a human standing right in front of him, eyes wide and just watching like you cant believe it either.

before he can say anything the human is just like 'you can't move! I've trapped you' and then he's looking down at the circle drawn in chalk and a few weird pentagram shapes and he's like 'rlly?'

but he is kinda bored, and it's not like the human is too hard on the eyes.

if anything...you're a little cute actually. and he'd be lying if he said he didn't like the way you look at him: a mix of fear and awe at the same time.

so in the end, he decides to just go alone with it. he throws his arms up in the air and is like 'ah, yes, i've been trapped. what did you summon me here for?'

and you ask questions about whatever you can think of and he tries his best to answer. after that, you do summon him a few more times, and you and him kinda become friends. he starts to grow fond of you and he doesnt want you to be afraid of him so he stays well within the boundaries of the summoning circle, still pretending that he cant walk out of it. A few times he has asked you to make a bit bigger so he can move around a little more, and you've obliged.

Most days, a chair is waiting for him so he can sit down as well as a few baked goods you've made earlier that day. It's rlly nice to get away from the stress of devildom and just talk with a friend for a bit.

all things must come to an end eventually.

he's cautious but even a great demon forgets to play pretend sometimes. he might have picked up something you dropped, absentmindedly leaning over to collect it. He doesn't even realize what he did until you stop talking.

"Ah." Diavolo glances down at the circle he accidentally stepped out of. "I messed up, didn't I?"

He tries to smile, but it doesn't do much. Your entire stance has changed, flattened against the wall, muttering every prayer you could think of as you instantly forgot him as the man you joked with, but as a demon.

It's a little hurtful, but he tries not to let it affect him. It makes sense that you would be scared, he tells himself. It's only human to be afraid.

Still, he can't say he isn't too upset at not playing pretend anymore. Despite the way your skin trembles against his touch, it's just as warm and soft as he imagined it to be.

"I'm sorry for scaring you." He apologizes, softly petting your cheek. "I guess it was a little cruel of me to keep pretending like that, wasn't it?"

[lilith-hazel-mathematics]

What the fuck she's real.

I was just scrolling through our posts and she's nothing like me at all. I mean I know I named our blog after both of us, it's literally in our header that we are plural, but sometimes I forget. Like "maybe I'm just pretending haha." I am an idiot.

She's actually real. What the fuck. How can she be so happy all the time. I haven't felt happiness in ten years. It couldn't possibly be me. And she actually cares about me. She's a real person and she actually gives a shit about me. Amazing.

I use contractions sometimes. It pisses me off how accurate this is. "uwawa I'm Hazel I'm adorable!!! please give me more yuri okay thanks?" See I can do it too. Whatever. Sleep in my bed. Wear my clothes. Marry me.

-Lilith

DID sucks because in the morning you think "maybe I'm actually normal and I should stop overanalyzing my experiences and just enjoy life" and in the evening you get possessed by the ghost of yourself from 2018

[megapteraurelia]

EPITHIMIA. — part 2.

☾ SUMMARY;

— having been sent up to tokyo as an exchange student to spy on the first-years, your objective had been crystal clear: don't meddle. don't change anything. just observe. you didn't expect fushiguro megumi to foil your plans that quickly — but it's not like you could help yourself, not when he refused to be someone you could respect. so, what else to do but meddle?

☾ WARNINGS;

— fem!reader; enemies to lovers; forced proximity; attempted character study?? (badly done!!); angst; gojo being annoying; ppl being hypocritical!; kind of angsty yuji too; TW: mention of blood, death;

☾ WORD COUNT;

— 20,458.

☾ AUTHOR'S NOTE;

— i lied. there's no romance here because i'm stupid and i couldn't stop writing other scenes. there will be a part three (and if all goes well that SHOULD actually be the last part). also, frick action scenes! also had to sacrifice some of the aesthetics because i can only add 30 images oops

please let me know what you think! -` ♡ ´-

pt. 1 | pt. 2

15th of April; 07:22. — kugisaki nobara.

Fushiguro syndrome. — as coined by Kugisaki Nobara: part-time sorcerer, quarter-time model, quarter-time self-proclaimed doctor.

Definition. A rare but deeply annoying affliction characterised by excessive brooding, emotional constipation, and the compulsive need to shoulder the entire weight of the world whilst pretending it's fine. Symptomps. — saying 'I'm fine' while visibly not fine. — intense staring instead of talking. — going silent mid-conversation because feelings are hard. — randomly disappearing to punch curses alone without backup. — at least one major emotional crisis repressed into a singular eyebrow twitch.

They weren't fighting.

And honestly, that was weirder than when they were.

Nobara noticed it the second they all met up in the dining hall for breakfast: the sun cast high, the light refracting through the glasses of water on the tables, leaving behind a sparkling surface. Megumi's arms were crossed nonstop, his shoulders struggling to hold the tension, sporting the worst eye bags she had seen in ages (Should she recommend him some good eye cream?)

He fixed the ground with a glare, eyes narrowed like he was trying to exorcise his constipated feelings, before sitting down at one of the tables off to the side. Nobara thought that he looked like a statue with too much gel product in his spiky hair, the way he didn't even eat his food, just stared at it.

On the other hand, there was you, who kept fiddling with your uniform as if it wasn't sitting right on your body. It couldn't be that, though, because the tailors of Tokyo Jujutsu High were very high-calibre. She would know, her uniform sat perfectly, and she was quite finicky in that matter. So, it had to be something else.

Nobara couldn't read you, though. You kept to yourself and made no move to really integrate yourself to their friend circle and sure, as an exchange student, this entire stay here was supposed to be temporary, so to some extent, she did understand that maybe, it was better not to get attached. But then, there also was no telling how long you were staying, so wouldn't it be better to make friends?

But you didn't and so Nobara didn't, either.

It wasn't like she really disliked you, but she wasn't going to waste effort on somebody who didn't know to appreciate it. She was fine to ignore you most of the time, which wasn't hard, considering that you only let some comments slip sometimes, but then you had to go and be a bitch to Megumi.

It wasn't like she really cared about Megumi; if anything, he was annoying with the way he was zapping all the fun, but she couldn't stand by and watch him be hurt like that. In the end, he was her teammate and…..her…..friend……so she couldn't not feel a certain way about it.

In any way, there was no greeting, no arguing, not even a single snide comment about the other's expression, punctuality or whatever it was they used to bicker about constantly. No sarcastic jabs, grumbled responses that made her roll her eyes so hard, it gave her a headache.

Not a single thing.

Just silence and a whole mountain range of tension between them — and it wasn't even the fun type of tension. Ugh, this was so boring.

Nobara leaned back on the bench, her food untouched as well as she pretended to yawn, but mostly, she just wanted to gauge how bad it was between you two. She had seen you going at it before — loud, sarcastic, the kind of arguments that made Yuji glance between you two like some kind of referee in a sports match, so the weird silence — the chattering of Yuji's with the rest of the students aside — was honestly disgusting.

Yuji's voice, cheerful and loud as always, broke through her thoughts. Really, this kid had no tact or decorum. "Sooo, what's up with these two? It's like there's a black hole of energy today."

"Salmon," Inumaki said and stabbed a piece of fish (Fish? As breakfast?) to bring to his scribbled mouth. Nobara eyed the markings on his cheeks and Inumaki was quick to zip up his jacket and hide them behind his collar like he could hide from the world. Nobara didn't really mean to make Inumaki feel self-conscious but wow, these marking did not help out.

Yuji, on the other hand, kept eating the fish and the rice like he was starving, though knowing him, he probably was. Seven hours without food? A surprise he was still alive. With stuffed cheeks, he spat a few grains of rice onto her plate. She pushed it away. Gross little chimp.

"Yeah, it's like, they're magnets in reverse, you know? Like…repulsing? Was that the word?"

"Repelling," Maki's eye roll was so incredible in conveying her exasperation, Nobara was in love. "It's like watching two stubborn blocks of wood trying to figure out who is more stubborn."

Nobara had to try out the eye roll, too. "More like, who is a bigger pain in the ass."

Then she leaned over her food, ignoring Yuji's star struck chipmunk face when she pushed him back by the shoulder to shout over to you, "Oi, did Megumi infect you with Fushiguro Syndrome, too?"

Your voice was cheerful when you replied, "I think I'm just peachy, Kugisaki, thanks for asking!" but Nobara could spot fake-happiness from a mile away — the way your knuckles whitened holding your chopsticks, the annoyed twitch in your eyebrows, the distracted flitting of your eyes over the fish. Yeah, definitely Fushiguro Syndrome. You were sporting the most theatrical fake happiness anybody could ever ask for. Not that she'd know who would want it, but in case it was an attribute searched by anyone, at least she would know where and who to direct them to.

"She absolutely isn't."

"Yeah, no way in hell."

"Salmon, salmon."

Yuji swallowed the food without even chewing properly, a few rice grains still sticking to the side of his mouth. He tried getting them with his tongue when Inumaki pointed towards them, but gave up when the blonde sorcerer kept shaking his head. Nobara probably could tell him exactly where it was, but to his dismay and to her enjoyment, she did delight in watching Yuji make a fool of himself.

"It's weird, though," he said in between licks (no! Not this way — the rice grain was under his lower lip on the right side!) and then stuffed his cheeks with more food, "I mean, they've always been kind of odd with each other, but now it's different. It's like…they're those crabs that get stuck in the same hole and just…pinch each other until they both get annoyed enough to walk away, but they can't leave because they're stuck, and it's hilarious."

"What in the hell," Nobara paused. "are you talking about, Itadori."

Inumaki Toge nodded. "Bonito flakes."

"You seriously agree with him, Inumaki?" Maki quirked up her eyebrow, one of her chopsticks waving in the direction of Yuji and Inumaki as if to make sense of their non-sense, to bring to life the magic of understanding neanderthal-speak.

Megumi stood up with the slight screech of his chair skidding on the floor, his hands shoved deeply into his pockets as he walked out the dining hall without sparing a glance towards anybody. There was a distinct scoff coming from your direction, your chopsticks scratching hard against the surface of your plate, before you too pushed your plate away and got up to leave.

Nobara wondered if you had only been here for Megumi's sake, whether you had meant to leave at the same time, to give the impression that your presence at breakfast was just to make Megumi uncomfortable — maybe a reminder of whatever transpired between you both. But honestly, Nobara couldn't care less. Worrying about other people could mean that she'd stress over them enough to cause her hair ends to split or, worse, get grey hair.

God, just kiss or kill each other already, she thought with an exaggerated eye roll, but in the end it wasn't her business. Not really.

…but she definitely was going to text Yuji about it later.

16th of April; 13:26. — gojo satoru.

Gojo Satoru was many things.

Handsome (undefeated). The strongest (naturally). Adept at approximately all the things he put his hands on. But nosy? Not really. But once he was curious, there was no stopping him, and curiosity for Gojo Satoru was a dangerous thing.

Sipping from a can of peach soda, especially sweet, he sat lounging on the stairs. Below him, on the courtyard lawn, stood his little assortments of students, amongst which were his enigmatic black-haired student and his new Kyoto's little sharp-tongued mole. Well, exchange student, if he were to stick totechnicality, but then again, that word didn't do a lot of justice to the actual reason you were sent here.

Both of his students were standing a little too far apart; there was no speaking and no fighting like all the other times that he had the pleasure of witnessing. But that was the thing. There had been a fight.

If he could be generous to call it that — which he always was, mind you — the last mission ended with a little…disagreement. He hadn't been there, but the report Ichiji had given him was quite clear. Something had happened that broke whatever little tolerance you both had for each other. Of course, he could imagine what it was, because Ichiji had been very detailed in the way both of his kids derailed into a shouting match over blame.

Gojo sipped his drink.

Interesting.

Megumi wasn't the type to carry grudges, usually. He carried a lot of responsibility, sure. A liberal amount of regret tossed in there, too, but what sorcerer didn't?

But something as petty as resentment? Not usually his deal. The nasty glare he had fixed on the exchange student was speaking volumes, though.

And you?

He had noticed it before; the way you made things personal, the way you didn't let up. Gojo thought that it wasn't the worst thing to happen to Megumi, especially if you could get him out of his mind once in a while. So he never saw a need to intervene, beside the fact that he didn't think Megumi would be unable to handle what you threw at him.

He could already imagine the glare sent his way if he meddled in Megumi's business beyond his own relationship with him as a teacher. Though, not that that really kept him from anything.

But personal tension, especially if it was persistent, had a way of bleeding into teamwork — or as 'team' as that work between you seemed to be, which did make it Gojo's problem, after all.

One eye peeking from underneath the blindfold, he noted the way Megumi's jaw tightened when you turned away without acknowledging him; the way your cursed energy flared aggressively when Megumi muttered something under his breath. There was a tight rope between apathy and something glimmering beneath it, heated, unspoken and definitely unresolved, tied between both your feet; ready to get you tripping if you moved too far away from each other.

He could be doing the responsible teacher thing: sit them down. Encourage open communication, blah blah — no.

That wasn't his style, and way too boring. What kind of teacher would he be if he didn't subtly abuse his incredible power for lighthearted surveillance?

Gojo Satoru tilted his head and his gaze fell on Yuji and Nobara, a slight tight-lipped smile widening, "Let's see what my adorable disasters are up to."

20th of April; 10:08. — gojo satoru.

"Already done? My, what hardworking bee you are, Megumi!"

"There any more, Gojo-sensei?"

"There's always an abundance of low grade jobs, but you sure you're not gonna turn into a zombie on me? Ya giving your brain enough time to catch a break?"

"I'm fine. I'll handle it," then, his voice a bit quieter: "I won't make any more mistakes."

Gojo tilted his head, his eyebrows drawn high, "I'll have Ichiji give you the details on the way. Just know that you'll lose your handsomeness if you turn into one of those undeads; flaky skin and all, you know? Now off you pop."

Though maybe he'll finally stop resembling his father then, Gojo thought, his finger turning the cuff of his uniform as he watched his student leave the room, a slight limp as he stepped on his right ankle.

22nd of April; 23:48. — zen'in maki, just called maki.

Zen'in Maki, just called Maki, hated reminders of her parentage.

For all the obsession with strength and cursed techniques, Maki found that the name of her clan in blood was less a title and more of a curse itself; a chain clinched around her throat since her birth, growing with her as she transcended childhood and grew into the young woman she was today. It was not rare for somebody to utter the name in her vicinity — not by virtue of upsetting her, but because even though she thought it was undeserved, there was no denying that the Zen'ins were one of the three great sorcerer families.

Even though it had been some time since she left the clan compound, she still felt the weight of it — the expectations she was meant to fail, the sneers she was meant to endure, the silence that was meant to shame her into obedience.

The traditional and backwards way her clan in blood operated made hers boil, and even though she would like nothing more than to circumvent any mention of this bitter reminder of her apparent inadequacy, she steeled herself each time the name passed somebody's lips. Because to flinch is to give in, to react is to admit defeat and to allow them to control her beyond their property by mere allusion. And Maki, with her stubborn heartbeat and her body honed into a weapon, refused to bow.

Her eyes, as sharp as ever, flitted over Megumi's black hair, though barely illuminated in the darkness and stillness of the night. Sometimes she forgot that he shared the same blood, but it wasn't the clan's much-heralded inherited Ten Shadows Technique that reminded her. It wasn't the black hair either that they shared. It was this.

The look in his eyes as he gripped his blade and performed katas with his sword. The cleanliness of it, the efficiency. It was the expression on his face that had her narrow her eyes, that had her muscles tensing as if to ward off any attacks — the same calculating silence masked as focus, the same quiet detachment.

She used to see that look in the training halls of the Zen'in estate: when her father would bark corrections with a tone that promised bruises and punishment; in Naoya's face when he used to kick the animals that lost their way onto their property, on the faces of several clans men. A mask that said feelings get you killed.

She watched him pivot, bring the blade up with a sharp, precise movement that made no sound but cut through the air like glass; the harsh exhale like there was a mountain of air buried deep in the cavity of his lungs needing to be set free. It was the feeling that this reminder of the mask brought out within her, the desperation to rip off that same look on her own face, the hollowed out thump in her chest that had her approach Megumi.

"You trying to break some record or are you just trying to kill yourself out here?"

Maki didn't expect a response and true to that, there was none following. She knew it all too well — this honed focus, the strangulation of an-ever growing vignette.

"Seriously, what the hell is going on with you?" Maki stopped a few metres short from where he was denying his body any rest, "It's well past curfew and you're bleeding all over the place. Training's not going to do you much good if you can't even hold your damn weapon."

Along the razor sharp sound of the blade slitting the air into two, Megumi's voice sounded out, painted with heavy breaths: "What about you then? What did you come out here for, huh?"

Silence. A slight stiffening of limbs.

"Don't pretend we don't know," Megumi halted in his movements, and his eyes — a wild, storming ocean — fixed her with a look, "You come out every night like you're being chased. Like you'll fall behind if you stop. So what is it — are you here to check on me or were you planning to do the same thing?"

Maki stayed quiet longer than she meant to.

There was a slight pressure behind her ribs, in the cavity that was her chest. Something curling up in on itself. A part of her wanted to scoff and tell him he was projecting, but the look in his eyes stopped her. The restless edge. The way he trained past exhaustion, the circles underneath his eyes, a promise that collapsing meant personal failure. The way he avoided eye contact when people asked if he was sleeping.

She knew what it meant. She knew where the road lead, because she was still walking it.

He wasn't wrong. The truth was that she hadn't come out here to check on him, that it wasn't on her mind until she saw the way he had danced over the training grounds. That she came because her body was buzzing from the inside with energy to waste, constantly caught between fight and flight, even when there was no one left to fight.

Her knuckles were still sore from last night. From the night before that. From the week before that.

Never leave me behind.

Maki's exhale was quiet. There was a promise and she broke it. She had left first.

Every time she trained until she couldn't feel her legs, every time her fingers bled grasping the hilt of her blade, it was with the breath of her sister's whisper down her neck. Because she had to believe that it would make it worth something. That she was getting closer to earning her way back, that she wasn't abandoning her twin — just biding her time until she could tear the clan down with her own two hands.

She glanced at Megumi, the tension in his muscles, the barely healed cuts on his arms, the faint trickle of blood from the ripped open callouses on the palm of his hand and the way he was holding himself together like his world was taped up hastily and might shatter. She saw herself in him, younger her who kept pushing forward because stopping and turning around meant seeing what she had left behind.

"I didn't come here to hurt myself. I came to train."

Something almost akin to a scoff escaped the boy, though it also could have been him breathing out in exertion, "Right. Because your hands weren't wrapped in tape yesterday either, right?"

"That's different," she said but Maki wasn't typically somebody who lied to herself.

Megumi bent at the knees, deep, the sword reflecting the moonlight for a split second, his shoulders twitching in a shrug. "I'll stop if you stop."

Maki felt it sit in the pit of her stomach — the guilt at her own decision, the rightful anger at her clan, the choking pressure of her desire. Then she rolled her own shoulders, steeled herself and with it came the resolve: even if there was nobody who would understand her, who could walk in her shoes, who could save Mai from the Zen'in clan's clutches, she would have to continue on.

There was no other way it could go.

"You're overthinking your third stance."

His voice was rough, almost desperate. "Show me."

25th of April; 01:18. — you.

There was a folded strip of black paper sitting on your bed, pressed and knotted with a red threat.

A talisman.

Kyoto-issued, so it seemed. You'd recognise the ink pattern everywhere having seen it in your school, a subconscious reminder that you weren't here to have fun. Well, it wasn't like you were having any special fun, but still, the appearance of such a charm had your spine straighten up immediately.

Carefully, you let your gaze roam through your entire room, but nothing seemed out of the norm. If anything, it might have been even too tidy, though that also might be your paranoia talking. As much as your room looked like it always did, the talisman was very well out of norm.

Kyoto Jujutsu High usually didn't get in contact with you, unless there was something dire.

And that couldn't be, because you hadn't noticed anything worthy of noting down yet, because nothing was happening here. Nothing of significance for Gakuganji, at least. Nothing that warranted them contacting you directly and sending you a message so obviously.

You picked up the paper, your eyes recognising the charm written up, general polite well wishes, and underneath in strokes that only a select few could read:

As we have yet to receive any updates, we would greatly appreciate a brief report at your earliest convenience. Should circumstances remain unchanged, we may be required to explore other available options. We appreciate your continued efforts and trust you will keep us informed.

Of course. There was no name, no seal, no malice in those words. Seemingly. Only incredible politeness, a veiled threat, so if one were to read it, it would sound like a mildly scolding letter.

You stared at the charm, the crease where it was folded neatly. Your first thought had been that you missed a report — that somehow you'd let something slip. But you knew yourself, knew the meticulousness with which you always prepared the seals, knew that the correspondence was as tight and precise as your technique.

You pursed your lips in thought.

If they had sent something now, that meant your charms weren't reaching them for a while now. You hadn't thought much of the silence after each of the transmissions; no confirmation coming back wasn't unusual. The Kyoto faculty preferred silence, the kind of quiet superiority that made them respond when they deemed it important, not one second before.

But now this.

If your reports weren't arriving, then either something had intercepted them…or someone had. Both implications had your forehead create way too many wrinkles for your age and instinctively, you glanced toward the window, the slow sway of the courtyard trees like a whisper about to tell you its secrets.

The paper folded without resistance, at the same seam as before. It didn't matter if someone had been interfering, you decided; you had no proof or any grounds to throw around accusations, especially since that wasn't Kyoto's intention to begin with. They'd rather replace you than make sure to find out who was trying to foil their plans. Beside the fact that it wasn't your job to speculate. It was to observe. To report. To be useful.

It wasn't quite the way you liked to do things for it made no sense to you that other people would offer up information out of their own volition. If there was no action taken, how could you ever find out about people? How were you ever going to prove your usefulness to the people who deemed it so easy to replace you?

You hadn't expected to feel anything, reading those words — certainly not this hesitation. Not when you were here with a purpose; but still: it twisted inside you, low and persistent.

Which meant no more distractions.

Because if your chest twisted like that then that meant you had been dragging your feet, it meant that a part of you had started to hope the assignment would quietly dissolve before it reached a critical point. Because it meant that you started to get attached when you were just being thorough.

You straightened the paper, smoothing the wrinkles that didn't exist. No more chasing tension for your enjoyment's sake. No more watching Fushiguro Megumi to see if you could crack the surface, to see if his innards spilled out with all the thoughts and feelings he kept hidden, the fight with himself to figure out who he was. No more trying to provoke him.

You'd wasted much time trying to figure out what lay behind that tired sharpness in his eyes, the way he flinched at praise, the way he always looked like he was dragging something unseen behind him.

You couldn't make that mistake again.

Whatever role he played, whatever potential Kyoto thought he might harbour and develop, it wasn't yours to decipher. It wasn't yours to push. It wasn't your mission. He wasn't.

Whatever interference had occurred, it wouldn't happen twice.

26th of April; 16:34. — fushiguro megumi.

"She's not that bad, you know?"

Fushiguro Megumi didn't want to look up to see the pink of Yuji's hair drown with an orange sheen, to watch the sky bleed into lavender, evening announcing itself slowly, gently.

He thought that he really didn't want to talk about it.

There wasn't anything to talk about, not about you, and not about you with Yuji. Especially not him. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate his input — at times. But this? This wasn't something Megumi wanted to lay out for anyone, not something he wanted to talk with Yuji about.

Not the argument that him and you had, about the accusation standing in the room, about all the things that he knew Yuji felt strongly about. Megumi knew that he would take it hard.

So he scoffed, his chin finding its way onto the palm of his hand, "Yeah, well, she thinks being loud is the same thing as being right."

"Cool. But that's not what I asked," Yuji leaned back, his elbows finding the stone steps behind him.

No, it wasn't. He knew it wasn't.

There was a soft breeze, a certain warmth swinging alongside it. The stones beneath him were warm, too, still lingering in the former caress of the sun. Yuji wasn't looking at him, and that somehow made it worse. If he had been, if there had been pity in his face or concern in his eyes, then Megumi could have shut it down. Cut the conversation short. But the casual posture, the light tilt of his head back toward the sky — it made it harder to tell him to shut up.

It would have been easier if he wasn't here. If Yuji wasn't trying to poke holes in walls that Megumi had already worn himself out trying to keep up.

So he said, flatly, "Why you here?"

Yuji didn't take the bait, and that annoyed Megumi, too. But there wasn't a lot that didn't manage to irk Megumi nowadays.

"Because you don't talk to her," he said simply, "Maybe you'll talk to me."

Megumi didn't move, but the grass in front of him did; swinging with the soft picking up of the wind. Yuji's voice wasn't accusing or disappointed; it was gentle in the way that only Yuji could sound like. Goodhearted, open, optimistic. He talked like he knew it was difficult and didn't want to make it harder, and that was exactly what made it difficult to shove him away.

"You care. That's what's messing you up, isn't it?"

Megumi didn't dare breathe.

"She pissed you off. Got too close. Now you don't know what to do with it."

He exhaled softly. Yuji was wrong — or at least, somewhat. It wasn't that he cared about you. It was the way you looked him in the eye and questioned everything he believed in. His desire to save lives — all lives, if possible; that he wasn't actually doing it. That killing the curse wasn't always the same as winning, that the mission, the regulations weren't absolute. Couldn't be.

You believed in getting it done and accepting what had to be lost along the way, and it was the way you had been calm about it. Cold, even. Efficient, not even necessarily cruel, though he thought you were — but just clear.

And that had shaken him.

A part of him was wondering if you were right. He was pissed about that.

Because standing in the rubble of the half-collapsed shopping mall with the girl crying behind him, he had hesitated. Not even because it was hard. But because it wasn't.

"Mind your own business, Itadori."

Yuji stayed on the steps, solid, still, refusing to be dismissed. There was a pause, and then:

"Nah."

He knew Itadori Yuji. Knew the tone and knew exactly what it meant — that this wasn't going to be one of those conversations that got buried under a shrug and a change of subject. Yuji wasn't leaving, not until he had said whatever he wanted to come say. There was a quiet patience in his eyes, the kind that made Megumi feel seen, a little exposed, challenged.

He rubbed at the corner of his brow with two fingers, eyes closing with exhaustion that ran deep. "I said drop it."

"Yeah," Yuji nodded. "I heard you."

"You don't get it." Megumi imagined Yuji like a fly that he could swat away, bury all his thoughts under the same swatter, squish them out of existence. His tongue felt heavy. Had he never said this out loud? It felt like he had been saying nothing else for weeks now. With a tight jaw, he muttered, "You would've saved them. So would i. That's not the issue."

"Then what is?"

Megumi hesitated. He didn't want to offer his thoughts, everything in him didn't want to admit it like that, but this was Yuji. The same person who who had jumped into danger without a second thought just to protect someone he barely knew, so he cradled the thing that sat in his chest like weight and pushed it out, "She made it sound like doing that made me weak. Like— like it was selfish."

He thought that if he could save someone, even one person, that should be enough. But she made it sound like wanting that meant he was doing it for himself, like he wasn't thinking about the bigger picture. Like he didn't care.

Yuji was silent for a while, and Megumi stiffened, and then—

With a shrug that didn't match the weight of his words: "So what if it was selfish?"

Megumi's shoulders stayed tense but he blinked, his eyes wandering over to Yuji but all he met was a steady look back, calm, grounded in a way that Yuji rarely looked like.

"We make choices and live with them. Sometimes that's selfish. I don't think it means it's wrong," Yuji hesitated, then shrugged again, though this time it was more of a way to get rid of thoughts that intruded on his spoken words, "Maybe it's not even about who's right. Maybe it's just about who's willing to live with what they chose."

Megumi's chest ached. Yuji spoke with a certainty that made him think about Sukuna's finger that Yuji ate that roped him into a world that brought nothing but misery, and why he had such a hard time doing the same when he grew up within it. He didn't respond, not because he disagreed, even though he wanted to push back, to argue, to find a reason for why he would be right, but because the words wouldn't come.

Maybe it was his pride. Maybe it was shame crawling up his throat, laying bitter on his tongue. It wasn't a question of his decision, it was a question of who he was.

Yuji stood up and brushed off his pants like he hadn't just pulled something raw into the light, like the conversation was done. And maybe it was. Megumi made no start to stop Yuji, anyway.

"If you don't wanna talk to her, fine. But don't lie to yourself about why."

3rd of May; 18:52. — you.

The warehouse reeked.

Like mold, blood, and something sour that clung to the back of the throat — the kind of stink that told you a curse didn't die clean. And it didn't: there was a substance resembling blood splattered all over the floor, like it couldn't escape fast enough from where it had been squashed into mush.

Megumi stepped over it, his boots making a wet sound on the floor, his steps heavy and with purpose in the vast silence that suddenly laid itself on top of you like a thick blanket. The air was heavy with aftershocks of cursed energy; the taste tangy and metallic on your tongue.

You could hear the drip of blood from the curve of your sword, the echo hanging in the air, drip, drip, drip.

It gnawed on your nerves, a slow and deliberate sound that you couldn't escape, so you flicked the blade off with a swift motion. Your eyes swept over the shadows lingering from when megumi had called them.

Footsteps matching his in the quiet, the rhythm of yours echo out of sync, a subtle discord that had become almost too familiar. Before, the silence had been filled with sharp words, teasing, half-fulfilled orders, information, occasional jabs. Now?

Now it was just motion. Breathe. Get it done. Get out. No checks. No confirmation. No reason to linger.

Megumi didn't wait for you to catch up. He moved forward without a glance, the slight echo of his voice cutting through the stillness, not loud enough to be a real order, not quiet enough to ignore, "Let's go."

You followed because, well, it was over. The job was done, and there was nothing left to say.

5th of May; 12:01. — fushiguro megumi.

Fushiguro Megumi didn't know why he was lingering around the broken shopping mart in Yurakucho.

With his hands loose by his side, his eyes travelled over the police tapes that were slowly being rolled together. The curse hadn't come back, because if it had, there wouldn't have been the shifting from police workers to construction workers over the weeks.

His heart was beating steady, watching the bustle, the shouts over the sound of equipment, the everyday hustle of people who didn't know better, who didn't have to know better. He continued standing there, watching until the workers gathered together for lunch time.

Megumi ducked under the signs that warned other citizens to stay out, and entered through the broken doors, now cleaned off the shards. His feet took him to the third floor automatically, the entire mall looking weirdly peaceful without the shelves reaching over to keep him in their grasp, without the air weighing him down like he was going to crumble underneath the pressure. The lights were turned off, the electrical wires cut, but there was enough light coming through from the ripped down wall to the south side that he needn't worry about seeing, and he observed the dust dancing in the air.

There was no cursed energy lingering around anymore, but he found the faded circle of red on the floor easily.

He didn't have to worry about the cursed womb anymore, didn't have to worry about anybody else getting hurt.

His teacher had caught him on the extended balcony of the main building in Tokyo Jujutsu High a couple days back, jutting out to observe the main courtyard and if he turned, a side view of the sport field expanding right in front of him. His other schoolmates were training out, and he hadn't joined them; instead, his eyes flitted over the starfish spread of Inumaki's — a Yuji standing next to him poking him with a stick, the huge body of Panda's throwing around a screeching Nobara, the band of limbs blurring in a spar between Maki and you.

His lips twisted, and he looked away.

"Megumi skipping school? Scandalous!"

He barely flinched when he heard Gojo's cheerful tenor ring through the air behind him, too used to his teacher popping in at whatever times he deemed fit. He couldn't tell whether Gojo had come up using the stairs like a normal person, though knowing his teacher, that would have been too boring.

Megumi didn't think he needed to answer. He knew he was supposed to be down there training alongside the rest of his classmates, but he couldn't step foot onto the field, knowing you were there. If ignoring you had been difficult before, it was almost impossible now, even though he didn't speak to you, your own comments having dwindled, only terse necessities when you were put together on missions.

It was less the quantity of commentary that weighed on him heavily; it was just the way his hair stood on its ends, his skin prickling at your mere presence. There was a charge to the air between you both, the accusation and assumption sitting in the atoms he breathed in, heavy, tasting like static.

He shook his head lightly, the memory of a certain monitor beeping in his ears fading. He wasn't wasting time, he wasn't — he was going to train twice as hard, was going to make up for it. His missing the training with the rest of the students would have no bearing on his performance. He was going to make sure of it.

He had no other choice.

"Just so you know, I don't quite mind. I do approve of a little rebellious streak," Gojo's saunter towards the railing where Megumi stood was insufferable. It was not just the way he walked, like gravity bent over backwards for him, the bounce in his steps, like he was mocking the world and daring it to do something about it, but also the underlying message through the easy sway of his shoulders: that he was untouchable. "But skipping school is a slippery slope. First, it's one day. Then it's two. Next you know, the others avoid handling you at staff meetings, and I'm the one who has to go through all your reports. Not fun."

A dry remark, no questions intended. "Do you even read the reports."

"Nah. I don't. It's too much of a hassle," his teacher said with a grin, his canines sharp and glinting in the sun. His elbows propped up on the railing, his back to the sports field, he looked up to the sky. Or, well, his face was looking towards the sky, his eyes might has well have been roaming Megumi's face. Not that he would know where Gojo was looking with that blindfold on.

There was a kind of quiet between them that felt like it was supposed to be purposeful. He didn't like it, his hands gripping the railing a bit tighter, like he could redirect his tension through his fingertips to the wood. There was a breeze softly caressing Megumi's face, and for a second, he wondered if he deserved to have the world treat him so gently, when he—

"I exorcised the curse."

On instinct, Megumi whirled around towards Gojo and the distinctive curve of his jaw as he continued to study the sky's blue, the spare clouds here and there. Like clockwork, the stone in Megumi's stomach sank deeper, and his knuckles whitened on the wood, his nails digging between the rills of the old timber.

"I know there's coulda-woulda-shouldas going through your head. You don't have to tell me, I know I've got bingo already," Gojo said offhandedly, and finally turned his head to Megumi, his smile softening, less of a tease, more of an inspection.

Megumi looked away, the wood digging in between the nail and his skin, right in the crevice where it was hard to get out. "You shouldn't have had to clean up after me."

"Aww, come on, that's what I'm here for. Let me have my moment," a snap of his fingers, "I even looked cool doing it — real flashy. Big crown. Someone might have clapped, ya never know."

His teacher was so ridiculous, Megumi couldn't stop the huff escaping him. Of course, he was out to be praised, so full of himself the way he always was. To an extent, Megumi even appreciated the ease with which he talked. Not that he would ever admit it. "You're not helping."

Gojo bent down, the tip of his sharp nose getting awfully close to Megumi's. "Also, for the record, the whole spinning around you just did? Very dramatic, I give it an 8.5 out of 10."

Megumi jerked his head back, sending a glare towards his teacher, "Do you ever stop talking?"

"Not unless I'm unconscious. Or dead," both hands up in the hair, Gojo stood upright again, to his full height; assured, confident, a fact, "Hold your horses, Megumi — I'm not planning on either of those today. Or the near future."

Megumi's eyes found their way from his teacher to the field again. Inumaki had finally gotten up, though he was still a far cry away from actually gearing up to fight. Maki had moved on to rope Panda into blocking a flurry of her attacks, every movement precise and trained, no wasted moment. Yuji and Nobara were off to the side, engaged in the typical bickering he knew his classmates to partake in. A threatening raise of her hand at Yuji, an assuaged shoulder dropping directed at Nobara.

You were nowhere to be seen, and Megumi hated that he took note of it, that his fingers let up for a second, that the coil in his stomach uncurled. And when gojo spoke again, he hated the way relief wormed itself through his heart, as if he deserved it.

He hated, too, how much he welcomed the relief.

"It's alright for the stuff to weigh on you. You think you're the only one holding the line sometimes," Gojo's voice was serious, in a way that Megumi seldom heard, "You're not. You've got people behind you. Beside you. Me included, aren't you lucky."

Because it was true. Because Megumi could rely on Gojo Satoru. Because he could rest assured that his teacher had always looked out for him, and would always do so, despite being so annoying about it. Or maybe perhaps, even more so because of it.

"…thanks."

Gojo's grin returned with ease, shoulders pulled up as he kicked off the railing. "By the way, the next time you skip class, at least pretend to be doing something cool. Like I dunno — stealing a cursed artefact, annoying Nanami until it looks like the button on his collar is gonna burst, infiltrating a rival Jujutsu School…the list is endless!"

"Those are all terrible ideas."

A gasp, and Gojo turned around, his hand clutching his chest, "Excuse me for having taste."

Megumi had rolled his eyes, but inwardly, he had felt a weird mix between mollification and a nervous fraying around his edges. Making his way down to the training grounds as well to take over Panda's spot, he had even managed to ignore that he was only going down because you weren't there anymore.

A coward—

No.

He just didn't want to get into fights anymore, he told himself, he was sick of it.

Standing in the wreckage left behind of the failed mission now, he couldn't muster up the relief that he felt when Gojo first told him that the curse was gone. He didn't have to worry about it anymore, didn't have to agonise over it at night, could finally focus on his next missions, of not repeating the mistake.

The curse was dealt with. No one else would get hurt, no news alert or updates that he would have to await with bated breath. No more imagining what could have happened — because none if it had happened. And now, it never would.

So why, instead of ease, did he feel a familiar tightness in his chest?

His fingers swept over the mark of his shikigami's warding attack, muscles loose, not clenched, not angry.

The second Megumi learned that Gojo had stepped in, the weight had vanished from his shoulders like it had never been his in the first place. The moment it wasn't his problem anymore, it had stopped being real. The guilt, the panic, the second-guessing — all of it evaporated. Gojo had fixed it. He had always fixed it.

But what if his teacher died? What if there was nobody around to pick up the pieces he left on the ground?

He pressed his lips together.

Megumi didn't use to think about it, but then you threw it at his head, the question of whether he knew that his sense of justice disappeared so easily and—

The comfort sitting in his bones, in the cracks of his joints, turned sour, like milk that was expiring. Gojo could shoulder the burden like it was weightless — and for him, maybe it was. But Megumi wasn't like that. Was he going to rely on his teacher forever?

If he started choosing who lived, if he stained his hands so others could stay clean, would maybe one day the relief feel genuine?

1st of May; 14:28. — you.

You lingered near the restricted area, your fingers hovering over the glass display case. You didn't dare touch anything, but your eyes were sweeping over the more dangerous collection of cursed objects. The area hummed with restrained malevolence; the ancient talismans pulsed dimly, guarded by layered barriers woven so tightly that even the air seemed hesitant to stir.

You didn't intend to steal anything. T

his was merely reconnaissance, to confirm whether the rumour over at Kyoto's were true: that Tokyo Jujutsu High had been quietly amassing cursed relics far beyond what they reported to the higher-ups. That under Gojo Satoru's protection, they'd turned the school into something closer to a private arsenal than a neutral institution.

But this wasn't about fairness or balance, that you knew. It always came down to fear, to wanting to gain the upper hand against somebody they didn't trust. Neither gojo nor his students, and especially not the influx of power the first-years all brought along.

Standing there, surrounded by cursed tools older than some dynasties in Japan, you felt weird.

This wasn't just a vault, it was a warning, too. A reminder that if Tokyo wanted to, they really could overpower Kyoto before it ever drew its own blade. And if it was true, what would the elders plan to do with this information if you delivered it?

In the end, you shouldn't care. You were a tool to use, a means to someone else's end, you were just there to collect information, and leave before anything could happen. Ever since you found that talisman on your bed, you kept repeating it to yourself, yet still —

Strangely, your first thought was of Itadori Yuji.

Not because he was friendly, even though he was. Not because he always offered to spar, even though he did, or because he was so earnest, but because of what he carried inside him.

You had seen it in flashes; in the way his smile faltered when he thought no one was watching, in the tension in his shoulders when he had to deploy Sukuna to take over his body, like he was bracing himself for something he couldn't stop.

He bore the King of Curses like a time bomb behind his ribs, and the worst thing about it was that he wasn't just a vessel. He was a boy trying to stay himself. So if what you learned here about Tokyo's cursed arsenal got back to Kyoto's elders, would they have more leverage to use against Yuji?

You were their spy, yet—

"So, funny thing," came a voice from behind you, "back during my days, the restricted section wasn't on the student tour."

You froze.

Gojo Satoru stood just a few steps back, hands in his pockets, posture loose, like he had just strolled in by accident. His blindfold was slightly pushed up, one pale blue eye gleaming under the low light. He wasn't smiling, but his tone was light, breezy, almost bored.

Like catching you here was a minor curiosity.

You turned slowly, "Gojo-sensei."

"Wow. Polite!" he nodded appreciatively, the corner of his mouth twitching, "Didn't expect that, considering the whole Kyoto sending you here and not teaching you how to trip a proximity ward. How is Utahime, by the way? She still giving the staff at the Karaoke's grey hair?"

Your answer was hesitant, slow, careful, "This place is off-limits? I could swear it wasn't. That's my fault. I can be on my way out, no time wasted."

There was a brilliant smile on Gojo's face at you playing stupid now; like a mask, easy and lazy, but there was a dangerous glint in the way his canine caught the light. "Cute. You lie like somebody who's never had to lie to me before."

"I wasn't—"

"—lying? Spying? Trying to sell me some sweet, innocent act?" he finished for you, his grin sharpening, his attention on you razor sharp, "Nah. Of course not. I can give you some pointers if you want my professional constructive criticism."

So lying wasn't an option anymore.

Not that you thought it ever really was, but in the same way that the higher-ups had no issue throwing out obvious, outrageous excuses like that, you thought maybe you could do the same to save yourself. But of course, it was a stupid decision. You had neither the power nor the authority nor the leverage to pit against somebody like Gojo Satoru to even try to pull shit out of your ass.

If anything, you didn't know if Kyoto even had any control. Not when it was the honoured clan heir on the other side.

What were your options then?

Despite the imposing presence of Gojo's, like an incessant reminder of the energy thrumming underneath his cool demeanour luring you to see him as an enemy, you couldn't attack. Not if you wanted to keep all of your bones intact. It would only end one way and that was with you in a hospital and having lost all semblance of some sort of trust between not just you both, but also with the other first-years.

Not that any trust had ever been really genuine, but at least it hadn't disturbed the status quo between you during all the weeks before.

You also didn't want to fight. Not like that. Not against Gojo Satoru. Ever.

You could try to stick to lying and pretend like you were innocent — it might even work, depending on how much good-will Gojo owned in that moment, how playful he was to really allow you to walk that line. He wouldn't believe you, but maybe you could appease him a little. On the other hand, it could also go insanely wrong in that he doesn't take kindly to being toyed with.

As stupid as it sounded, it was a viable option, but it was too much of a wild card to really trust that it would work either way.

Another option, which, out of everything, was not high on your list, was to offer him something in return if he let you get away with it. If you could convince him that you were more useful to keep around, you might be able to play it safe. He might be insulted, or he might take the offer, but either way, you would lose his respect and any possible prospect of gaining trust. Which, again, did not help your case in any way.

That lead to two different problems, though, which could be viewed on two different scales of importance, too. For one, and far less important, your behaviour was not just representative of yourself, but of Kyoto too, so any repercussions were directed back to the elders as well. You yourself didn't particularly care whether Gojo Satoru had respect for you, though having him as an enemy was not quite on your to-do list, either; but being the reason for the stand-off between the two schools to sharpen? Difficult.

Another reason, far more important to you, was to sell yourself like that went against your own principles; you were not in the habit of disregarding your own feelings in favour of saving yourself.

You were following your job, you knew that. You could treat it like a mission, because it essentially behaved like one, except a part of you couldn't because it wasn't against enemies, curses and curse users that intend to hurt innocent people. It was against other sorcerers, in a game where you were supposed to smile in Yuji's face and then feed his future to people who'd rather he die quietly than live inconveniently.

How much of a pawn did you want to be? You didn't care when you came here to Tokyo, but you also hadn't known any of the students here, hadn't seen how hard they worked to make a different future for Jujutsu Society.

You talked all about Megumi and his inability to be true to himself, but how about you?

The words left your mouth as calmly as you could manage, as steady as you could bring yourself to sound with Gojo Satoru watching over you like a hawk, "I didn't come here to steal anything."

Was that your smartest move? Maybe. Maybe not. It was hard to guess with him, but it was at the very least the truth and sometimes, when nothing else worked, truth was all you had left. It was your best bet at catching his attention; somebody who occupied the stance that Gojo Satoru did would appreciate honesty, you thought.

"You must be really curious then to ignore all the seals."

So he wasn't going to let you off easy. Almost, you were hoping he would be kind to you.

"They don't trust you. Or Tokyo," you didn't have to mention who they was; Gojo knew. By the shift in the air, the lessening of oppressive attention, you also knew he was listening now. "Not with the first-years. Not with Itadori. And especially not with you standing between them and the chain of command."

He didn't interrupt, so you continued.

"I guess you could call me spy, but they never do. Well, not officially, anyway. It's called oversight, information gathering, or whatever other thing they can come up with," you swallowed the amount of saliva having gathered in your mouth from your rambling, "They think this school is building its own army."

"An army, eh?" Gojo made a low sound in his throat, an unceremonious snort escaping him, "I can't say we haven't a good roster this time round: a hammer, a puppeteer, a ticking walking bomb? Nah, I gotta tweak that one a little…just the bomb? Hmm…"

You interrupted him before he could spiral into another tangent, "Point is, they're scared of you."

He turned towards you and despite the brightness of his eye roaming over your form, his words were honest, "Good. They should be."

You stayed still, because— "What are you going to do?"

Gojo blinked, lazily, as if none of it truly concerned him. Like catching a spy in Tokyo Jujutsu High's restricted section was no more urgent than choosing what flavour Mochi to buy. But nothing about the casual motions of a tight-lipped smile curling onto his face or his fingers tapping his chin was idle to fool you.

"Me?" he echoed, "Oh no, I'm just sitting in the front-row seat of 'what are you going to do?"

You swallowed, just once. "I could tell them about all this here."

"Naturally," he said, one shoulder heaving up in a small shrug. The way his head tilted reminded you of a bird, "You could."

Was there a trap in his words? You weren't sure. That was the problem with Gojo Satoru — he didn't need to be flashy to be dangerous. Sometimes it even hid in plain sight, draped in his infuriating nonchalance and wrapped in his lazy smiles.

Was the off-handed way he regarded you a threat?

Maybe.

He didn't look like he was posturing. He didn't have to. He barely moved since the moment he caught you, and yet you hadn't relaxed once. His eye watched you, but not in a way a predator would its prey, because that was still seeing you on the same plane of existence as him and right now, you weren't.

He watched you like a god watched a candle.

You studied him back. "You're not going to stop me?"

"I already did."

Things were not written in stone. Theoretically, you knew that.

You could send your report back to Kyoto, and it would carry your name. You could choose to continue your mission the way it was intended, could accept that you essentially were a discardable part of a plan that was larger than you. The plan that encompassed the death of Itadori Yuji, that had its eyes set on Fushiguro Megumi and the power imbalance of his cursed technique officially belonging to no clan, but still could be seen as an extension of the Gojo family.

You could do a lot of things, but the way he was waiting for you to understand made you feel like your decision had been made hours ago already. That it had been cemented in moments that you hadn't thought twice about: the first time you snorted at Yuji's really-not-funny joke but he lit up like he got handed a prize when he realised who it came from.

The first time Nobara didn't bother hiding her annoyance during a dragged-out explanation during training but still shifted enough to give you a clear view.

The first time you saw Megumi hesitate before a mission, so minuscule that you had almost dismissed it, his jaw tight and eyes distant, that spurred on your curiosity about what he was hiding.

That was the trap, you thought, not Gojo's words but, put on the spot in front of a decision, how treacherous your heart and mind were.

7th of May; 22:13. — kugisaki nobara.

"Yo."

"Gojo-sensei!"

"Yuji, my favourite student who is absolutely not my favourite just because you're the only one who has decency enough to miss me so when I'm gone!"

Nobara tried her best at Maki's eye roll again, "Teacher's pet."

"Wait…am I not supposed to say hi?"

"Nevermind that, Yuji-kun! Won't I get a heartfelt greeting from my other two favourite gremlins?"

"Hi." — "What's the mission."

"Yuji, close the windows. There's a real cold draft. Weird."

"But there's none open…"

Ignoring yuji, her teacher continued cheerfully, throwing a file onto the table, "I come bearing gifts!"

Nobara's head thumped against her arm. Goodbye, skin care routine. Goodbye, a good night's sleep. Goodbye, peace.

8th of May; 23:42. — you.

Megumi's leg was touching yours.

The problem with being four people in a short limousine was that there were two single seats that both Nobara and Yuji were quick to claim. In fact, as you all were walking down to the awaiting car on the main street, both of your classmates started accelerating until they were speed walking at a very conspicuous pace. Megumi huffed to himself, a deep annoyed sigh, a few steps behind you but you didn't think much of it until Iwata opened the door for you both and an innocent Yuji was looking back from the front row seats.

The boy's pink-haired head immediately whirled forward when he caught your eye, but it wasn't quick enough for you to have missed the slightly guilty expression painted all over his features. Your eyebrows wandered even higher up when your periphery registered movement between the seats, Nobara's well-manicured fingers slightly pinching Yuji's thigh.

Her lips mouthed something towards him, quick, messy enough that you couldn't catch it but apparently that was enough for Yuji because his brows furrowed and he nodded, resigned, accepting his part in whatever scheme she was coming up with.

"Move," Megumi grunted from behind you when you took to long to enter, and pushed himself past you into the car.

"Don't strain yourself with all that politeness, Fushiguro," you bit out.

It was a cruel joke, looking inside the vehicle and finding that the only seat you could possibly take was right next to Megumi's right. Well, it would have been Megumi's left if you had entered the car first, but at least it would have been at your choosing which side you'd rather occupy.

Not your mission, you reminded yourself with a press of your lips, before sliding into your seat and allowed Iwata to shut your door close so he could drive you all to the mission site.

That had been eighteen minutes ago, and Megumi's leg was touching yours for the past thirteen of those. Megumi who had stubbornly stared out the window, who kept his body to himself, tense, with his arms crossed, until his head lolled forward slightly and his body relaxed slowly.

It was funny how open to an attack he was in that position, the back of his neck exposed as his chin softly bumped against his chest. If the Kyoto elders had tasked you to get rid of the Zen'in brat with the Ten Shadows Technique, you could have done so easily in that moment: taken a hold of the dagger you kept with you and aimed for his carotid, then dragged it up to his internal jugular. He would've been dead before he could have even had the chance to wake up again.

They didn't ask that of you, though, so you sat in this car with Yuji's and Nobara's whispers in front of you, and Megumi's leg that touched yours.

9th of May; 01:18. — you.

"This place smells like whatever's festering in those idiots' laundry pile."

Nobara wasn't exaggerating.

The stench of stagnant water reeked of bacteria finding a welcoming home; flowers that had been standing in their dirty water for weeks, a sickly sweet under note. It reminded you of buried corpses beneath wet earth, rotten.

The entrance to the underpass stretched out before you, half-drowned in shadow as murky floodwater trickled out steadily. Despite the sloshing of water reaching your ears faintly, there were no other sounds to indicate there was something nesting inside there: no breeze of wind, no metal creaking, no movement through the water.

There had been residual cursed energy picked up from the last site that the curse was lingering around, though it was difficult for to scouts who were monitoring the area to pick up the exact location. The curse was constantly moving, apparently extremely territorial and, most importantly, smart enough to avoid detection until now.

"What are you doing?"

You turned slightly to observe Yuji bending down, untying his boots, "I didn't know the water was going to be that deep!! I'm wearing my cool socks, so — " he rolled his socks into a little ball, stuffed it into his pocket before slipping into his shoes, sock-less, " — problem solved."

"Ugh, yikes."

"We should split up as we discussed," Megumi spoke up, his voice scratchy from when he woke up from his slumber earlier.

When the car came to a halt and the overhead light turned on, his body had stilled as his eyelashes fluttered lightly, opening, coming to his senses with a blink. He was quiet, when awaking. But Megumi, when left to his devices, was always very quiet, even more so in the recent weeks. His jaw slightly moved when he released the tension held within his teeth and his chest moved with a deep breath, shoulders staying relaxed momentarily before they stiffened when he felt your gaze on his face.

He had looked at you, something raw in his eyes, and you looked back. For a second there was nothing between you both other than just space that existed, then his knee had pulled away and you had turned and gotten out of the car.

"Sweep it from both ends. One team at the north entrance, and one from the spillway," Megumi continued. "At least this way we can cut off one route if it decides to lead us through a chase."

As you were approaching the mission site earlier, Yuji had asked about the distribution of teammates, and a quiet Iwata had spoken up. His voice was soft, hesitant like he was scared to unleash a storm with what he was about to announce. Apparently, Gojo had made it clear to the assistant manager to convey his explicit desire to have you and Megumi paired up.

You hadn't bothered to either act or be surprised about that development, taking the 'news' with as neutral a face as you could manage. Obviously, you would have preferred to share the name of teammates with Yuji instead, but after the encounter with Gojo, you weren't surprised that you were to be kept away from the pink-haired student that had the Kyoto elders in an uproar. It didn't matter that nothing in your secret mission had mentioned any bodily harm to Yuji, nevermind the fact that you didn't want to hurt him, but if it were you in anyone else's shoes, you would have kept yourself far from him, too.

The lack of trust didn't hurt you, for it made sense and you weren't sure you trusted Gojo Satoru and his little games entirely, either. It was a give and take, so nothing you could do about it.

What captured your attention instead was the fact that Megumi's face hadn't moved at the announcement, either. Where there would have been a palpable exasperation at sharing his presence with you, a frustrated grimace, a twist of lips, he just quietly accepted it now. It had you narrowing your eyes, a thoughtful curl of your mouth that you couldn't hold back.

His lack of ill-will was off-putting; the oppressive quiet he had layered over himself over the past weeks slowly, bit by bit, one that suffocated the usual reticence he carried with him. it wasn't like you knew too much about his private life, so you couldn't pin point what exactly had happened that had Megumi hide behind the biggest mask of indifference you had ever seen, and—

Not your mission.

There was fire licking at your fingertips, urging your tongue to loosen up to coax it out of him, because you knew there was something contained behind the seams, trying to burst. You knew because you felt the same way. Because there was something brewing in your chest that wanted out, because Kyoto made it clear not to intervene with anything and not to care. Because Megumi was not your business.

You're not going to stop me?

I already did.

You exhaled harshly.

The sound echoed off the walls of the underpass, seemingly stretching endlessly in front of you. Your shoes were wet and you were glad that the water hadn't seeped through them to dampen your socks — yet. If you had to walk any longer in the rising water level, they would become so sooner or later. The water rippled around your shins faintly, lit dully by the weak glow of your flashlights. Moss climbed up the walls in green veins and every few paces the rusted husk of a bicycle or the tip of a traffic cone broke through the surface.

Megumi was wading through the water as well, next to you, his eyes observing the tunnel walls like they might peel open and serve the curse on a silver platter, a stern line on his mouth. The silence stretched thin — taut with the weird change between you both. He hadn't spoken a word since you entered, and it didn't bother you, you told yourself.

Except there were comments that burned on your tongue, so you did the sensible thing and swallowed them down with the same-old mantra you had adopted ever since you found the talisman on your bed.

Ignoring the fact that ever since Gojo had found you sniffing around, you hadn't actively went to search for any new information, either.

9th of May; 02:03. — itadori yuji.

"If this thing doesn't show soon, I'm gonna curse it for wasting my time when I could be getting beauty sleep," Nobara's boots splashed as she moved on ahead, her hammer kept low.

Rip her mouth to shreds. She talks more than you whine around, brat.

Itadori Yuji flinched just a little, shoulders tensing instinctively at the voice that coiled through his mind like rot given form. Sukuna's tone was laced with dark amusement, sharp and sleazy, sliding into the quiet of Yuji's mind like a knife. His voice carried the weight of ages — dry, scornful, each syllable curled with contempt.

He tried not to show it. He was getting better at hiding when Sukuna slithered in, but it still left that familiar feeling in his chest, like he'd swallowed nails. But Yuji also knew that Sukuna loved to get the best of him, so his best bet had always been to not give the King of Curses the satisfaction of a response.

He trudged through the water beside Nobara, arms slightly raised like the water might leap up and bite, "It's not so bad. You think curses can swim?"

"Shut up before you jinx us," she muttered.

Yuji glanced at nobara, trying to gauge her mood. She was always so confident, so brash, but tonight there was something different about her. A tension in her shoulders, a tightness in her jaw. It wasn't just her missing her beauty sleep, it wasn't just the mission. She was annoyed, sure — that was kind of her default — but… more than that.

He couldn't really blame her because Yuji felt weird most of the time, too.

He knew that not everyone shared the same line that he drew in the sand.

He hated it. Hated the feeling of watching his friend hurting over something he understood very well, of the sting of pain that stayed lodged deep beneath his ribs, creeping into dreams and daylight alike. Yuji had lived it, Megumi had lived it, Nobara had, they were still living it; the same wound that wouldn't stop bleeding because it never got any time to heal.

Yuji knew that Megumi would throw himself into danger if it meant somebody could be saved — it was why he appreciated and trusted Megumi after all this time so deeply.

But you?

If he had to say, he wasn't quite sure where to put you on his scale. He didn't think that you both were strictly in the category of friends, but he also didn't think that you weren't. If worse came to worst, he would protect you as he would with any other of his teammates, the same way he would with any given human, but he wasn't sure whether he enjoyed your presence, not when he saw how biting your words could be.

Yuji generally was a forgiving person, straight forward, optimistic even, but then sometimes you fixed him with this look of yours as if you knew more about him than he'd like you to and—

He shook his head.

That wasn't the point. The point was that he had seen enough of you to understand that you weren't heartless, not in the strictest sense, that you did what the mission called for, that he saw you doing what other sorcerers were doing, and Yuji understood that.

It scared him, not because he thought it was cruel, which he had trouble figuring out if it even was, but because he knew that he had been shown over and over how the Jujutsu world worked. How easy it was for the mission to swallow everything else; that maybe, one day, doing the right thing by the rules would mean stepping over someone begging for help.

He wondered if, eventually, he'd have to become like that, too.

Yuji rubbed his chest; a self-soothing technique he only really started to use ever since his grandfather died, ever since he had swallowed Sukuna's finger and there was a presence within his body fighting his cells for power.

He didn't want to get used to death.

Such sentiment, truly. You weep over things already gone, how tedious.

Yuji's jaw tightened, but Sukuna kept going; his voice silken, venomous.

All this morality talk. You still speak of saving everyone, how quaint. How boring. This is not a tale of heroes, boy, it's a reckoning. In time, you'll grow accustomed to it. They all do. And when your bleeding heart betrays you, I shall be there.

He swallowed down the clawing urge to scream. To sleep. To disappear. Then, with a squeeze of his eyes, short, forceful, he re-focused on Nobara grumbling through the water, the faint sloshing echoing through the tunnel, the feeling of cold surrounding his legs and asked, "You think Fushiguro and her are doing okay?"

"They better have more going for them than we do, ugh, my poor shoes. I'm so going to have Gojo buy me a replica. Maybe even two, he knows I hate mouldy tunnels."

Fool.

9th of May; 02:21. — fushiguro megumi.

Megumi refused to be surprised anymore.

It had been Gojo's idea. Of course it had. Who else would think it brilliant to shove two people who could barely tolerate each other into a death trap as a form of 'team building'? He could almost imagine his teacher's laugh — the disgustingly cheerful, insufferable sound that was somehow still able to be genuine in its amusement.

Megumi didn't feel like laughing. He hadn't wanted the assignment to turn out this way. Not with you. Not when he had tried, again and again, to avoid being in your presence more than necessary. But this was necessary, so he clamped down the buzzing feeling crawling on his skin to focus.

When Gojo had given them all the file with the information gathered so far, Megumi had fingered the paper, eyes scanning over the information — sensor readings, half-legible scout notes, maps — only to turn the page and stop. There they were: blurry, cruel pictures staring back at him of the confirmed causalities. Faces frozen mid-expression.

Something had twisted in his chest at the faces, gripped his heart in an iron fist. It wasn't guilt, not exactly. Not yet. But something closer to pressure, sharp and unwelcome in the way it prodded his ribs from within.

"The curse's not consistent. Weren't sorcerers or anything special — locals, mostly," Gojo had said offhandedly, almost flippant. His voice didn't betray anything of what he thought of Megumi's question, "A maintenance worker. Two kids cutting through the underpass to skip school."

Simple facts, lives on paper, reduced to what they weren't.

He had felt the words lodge in his spine. This time, he wasn't going to freeze, wasn't going to falter, to hold back just because something inside him still bucked against the uglier parts of being a sorcerer. This time he couldn't be selective.

He was not going to run away.

Because if he hesitated—

No.

He didn't need to think about what-ifs, because there were going to be none. Because there was going to be no second-guessing, no moral hesitation, no wondering if he had made the right call, no thinking of you—

He bit his tongue.

Megumi's eyes flicked sideways toward you, just slightly, almost involuntarily. His eyebrows furrowed deeply. He hated how your presence was a quiet pulse at the edge of his focus like an itch that he couldn't ignore. He disliked that he didn't know why he found you so unfamiliar, why the air between you both kept feeling like spilled gasoline, invisible and waiting for a spark

You didn't speak, didn't look at him, and yet somehow it felt like you were doing both, like you were aware of everything he thought and felt, like he was being watched, measured, known in a way that he didn't want to understand—

He shifted his gaze forward again.

Not now.

The water was deeper now than when they first entered the north side of the tunnel, cold, heavy, like it wanted to slow him down. Instead of ripples, the water moved steadily with each movement, and he had to hold up the lantern a bit higher so it wouldn't be swallowed up, the dull glow barely pushing the shadows back.

Up ahead —

He squinted.

This was an underpass; there was only one way to go, it should have been a straight line. Yet right in front of him, there were dozens of access tunnels branching in and out, narrow, curling like roots in the dark. The architecture shouldn't be possible, yet…

He paused, and when the lantern was held out to you, you reached for it without a word, hand brushing against his own.

It was only a single moment, the brush of skin only that: a brush, yet it burned.

Tensing, he snapped his hand back, fingers poised and intertwined in each other, ready to summon his Divine Dogs at a moment's notice. The cursed energy coiled tight between his hands and the flash of heat through his chest.

9th of May; 02:38. — kugisaki nobara.

Miserable and damp, Nobara's boots splashed through the water that had no business climbing up her legs, dunking her flesh in the slimy substance she actually wasn't entirely sure was even water to begin with.

"Smells absolutely rancid," she muttered to Yuji, her nose curling, "Almost like—"

"My socks? Jokes on you, I'm not even wearing them," he grinned, bright and dumb as always, but even Nobara could see the sharpness underneath the smile, the vigilant squinting of his eyes against the darkness, "Think it's hiding?"

Obviously, she thought. Not long, and she would completely master Maki-senpai's eye roll.

"Yeah," Nobara scanned the ripples a few metres away, the suspicious feeling in the air intensifying. She was pretty decent at recognising the enemy's game plan, she'd say. She had to if she wanted to survive amongst all the backstabbing people in her old town. If she wanted to navigate through the lying, the lashing out, the manipulation she saw Saori enduring, "The water's deep, so it could be anywhere but..."

When the water stilled again, her muscles tightened, and she raised her hammer slightly. Nobara didn't like that the water was quiet, because quiet meant somebody was thinking, and thinking meant there was a trap ahead.

There were two things Kugisaki Nobara hated: inappropriate use of leopard prints and backhanded manoeuvres.

"…my feeling's telling me that…it's..right…"

A point with her hammer at the minuscule waves, "…there."

"Did you—"

Before Yuji could finish, there was a dark grumble interrupting him, deep and disgusting. A breath later and the curse burst out from beneath the water, twisting like a living shadow, fast, massive and so goddamn ugly. It was big, its head almost reaching the roof of the underpass, a tail smashing against the walls as tendrils, oily and slimy lashed out wildly.

Nobara's waist started to feel cold, and when she dared to catch a look down, there was water surrounding her. It hadn't been so high earlier, she noted, alarmed, "Yuji—"

"Shit—!" Yuji barely dodged the first strike of a tendril, thick as a tree's trunk, the water splashing violently as it crashed beside him. Make that three pairs, Nobara thought, when the oil splattered on her. This wasn't going to get washed out, no matter what, and honestly, she wasn't even sure if she wanted to try and clean it.

Her hammer was fully up in a blink, energy pulsing through her arms like fire, "I'm going to teach this ugly fuck a lesson."

She didn't have to look towards Yuji to find a determined grin on his face, "Count me in."

Yuji darted forward, quick and clean despite the water sloshing at his waist. His fists were already poised and up, eyes locked on the twisted silhouette ahead. Nobara hung back; not out of fear or reluctance, because contrary to popular belief (Megumi and Yuji), she would get dirty to get the job done, but because she'd rather watch the movements of the curse and aid the exorcism through ranged combat. Also, because there was no way in hell that she could be as fast in this water as Yuji.

A tendril cracked through the air, slicing down in a high arc. Her teammate twisted away just in time, water exploding around him as his fist connected with the creature's head. It screeched, high and guttural, the stench of rot rolling over them like a wave. Then it vanished, slipping beneath the surface with a splash.

“Crap,” Yuji muttered, eyes scanning the water. "It’s in the water. We're not gonna catch it like that."

He backed off, mumbling something that might've been a joke. Not that Nobara thought it would've been funny if she had been able to catch it. Her hand was already in motions, pulling nails from her pouch in a fluid sweep. With a flick of her wrist, she launched them: sharp darts of silver, one, two, three, humming with cursed energy.

A muffled shriek followed as the nails found flesh. Oil rose, swirling on the surface, then it burst from below with his ugly sharp teeth, sinews that hung loose and all the rage lunging at her.

"Not today, freak," Nobara snapped.

She held her ground until the last possible second, then side stepped, her hammer swinging upward to catch the curse across the shoulder. It connected with a thunder-like crack, and the curse reeled — right into Yuji's awaiting first. One hit. Two. The third sent it staggering back.

Then came the tail. A blur of muscle, whipping with brutal force.

It slammed into Yuji's gut with a wet, bone-jarring thud. He grunted, forced back a step, his boots skidding through the water, but didn't go down.

Seriously, what were his legs made of? Reinforced concrete?

9th of May; 02:40. — you.

"You heard that?"

Megumi nodded, his eyes fixed on the walls ahead. His entire body had gone taut, every muscle alert, like a blade drawn but not yet swung. A screech had cut through the air, faint and distorted by stone and water, but unmistakably the curse. Which meant either Nobara and Yuji had found the curse or the curse had found them.

There was a low hum of cursed energy in the air, but it was weak. Too weak to confirm the exact source just yet, barely enough to really catch it, but still, not faint enough to ignore. It didn't mean it wasn't dangerous.

The dampness began to creep into your bones, deeper now, soaking through your clothes and sliding icy fingers across your skin. Every slow gust from the tunnel behind felt like a breath on your neck, caressing your spine with a kiss and you suppressed a shiver.

You had chosen the far most right tunnel, because it was the easiest to retrace should anything go wrong. That had been the plan: don't get lost, don't get flanked, stay alert, focus, exorcise the curse.

But as you and Megumi pushed forward, the narrow passage began to widen, the ceiling opening up, revealing more waterlogged space. Holding up the lantern, the light shone faintly, shadows receding slowly.

Then—

A faint, irregular movement.

Just off to the side, slumped against the wall where a mound of debris had collapsed, was a figure. He was half submerged, water up to his shoulders, and trembling violently. His soaked clothes clung to him, ragged, probably weighing him down more. Almost like a ghost, his pale skin shone in the dim light as he shuddered; looking like he was barely tethered to the physical world.

He wasn't dead, though. Not yet.

The old man's face lifted slowly when he heard you, eyes wide, bloodshot, water droplets hanging from his messy beard. His lips parted, cracked and raw. How long had he been down there?

Megumi slowed, and the water shifted with his arm, like he was gripping his weapon, ready to draw, and when you turned slightly, the light of the lantern between you, he glanced at you for a fraction of a second.

There was an unreadable look on his face, like carved from stone, every line harsh, neutral, focused. But you didn't search his face, you searched his eyes underneath the dark hair, underneath the mask he put in place so tightly, and they always betrayed him, flickering with something fierce and momentary. A whirlwind of emotion he swallowed down with a bobbing of his Adam's apple, not clear whether they wanted to soften or harden.

9th of May; 02:52.— itadori yuji.

Another round of nails fired, and Yuji knew that even though the water wasn't clear, he could trust Nobara to do a good job surrounding the curse.

He was already moving when she slammed her hammer down on the final embedded nail, her cursed energy surging in a flash: a chain reaction snapping from point to point. The ground trembled with how fast it spread, and the explosion lit up the creature's side.

A shriek, a buckle from the curse.

A fist, elbow, knee from Yuji.

The rhythm of his strikes was relentless. Each one hammering the curse deeper into disarray, but when he made to surge through the water, raw knuckles ready to deliver another blow—

A splash of water, mud splattering on his face, and some landed on his panting mouth, the taste pungent and dirty. He couldn't keep the grimace from spreading on his face.

The surface calmed instantly, still, eerie in how quiet it became. Too quiet.

"Where the hell—"

"Shit," Yuji wiped his wet face, breathing hard, lungs ragged. His body was coiled like a spring ready to release, tight, "This thing doesn't stay down for long."

But there was only tense silence, the only sound interrupting was the soft splashing of water beneath their feet.

Nobara's eyes scanned the water, "Wait…"

His muscles tensed at her alarmed voice, "What? What is it?"

She didn't answer at first, her eyes shifting back to the water, expression sharpening. Then, with sudden certainty: "It's not coming back up. It's gone, not just hiding, gone."

Before he could respond, there was a low, echoing splash resounding in the distance. It sounded deep and wrong, and a tremor rippled through the water, legs vibrating, concrete humming underneath their wet boots.

Yuji's head snapped toward the noise. "North entrance. Megumi."

He was already running, water flying with each step. The air felt thicker, charged with the sense of urgency. The pounding of his heart kept time with the splashing of his feet.

He was not going to leave you both to your own devices, not if he could help it, not if he could still breathe, not if he still had blood pumping through his body.

Run, brat. Let's see how far those legs get you.

Yuji didn't flinch. He just pushed through the water harder.

9th of May; 02:53. — you.

One of Megumi's shadow beasts barked. Sharp, low, a warning cry that cut through the heavy silence.

Megumi's attention snapped to the darkness ahead. his stance shifted, spine straightening, sword already angled forward. the tension in his frame was immediate, palpable, his expression hard.

The old man behind them coughed out a garbled string of words, stuttering, his voice raspy and dry, like it hadn't been used in ages. But whatever he was trying to say drowned beneath the sudden shift in the air, heavy, suffocating, thick with cursed energy.

The ground trembled underfoot, a chilling surge of cursed energy spreading across the water.

"Get back," Megumi commanded, low and clear.

Then it came.

Emerging from the depths was a hulking mass of shadow and writhing limbs that twisted the laws of motion. The curse moved like a fluid wrapped in wrinkly skin, oozing cursed energy with each movement; its eyes were pits of malice, gleaming in the lantern light with unnatural hunger. The nasty smell rolled over you like poisonous gas, subtle, clogging your nose.

Megumi's dog lunged forward with a snarl, water splashing around its paws, saliva dripping from his bared canines.

You raised your weapon, but the sudden influx of oil made your grip slip — just for a second. It was enough to remind you how bad it could go. You hadn't expected it to be a walk in the park, of course, but you had hoped it would be at least a bit simpler. This though? This was difficult.

Then it roared. It was a low, bone deep sound that shook your chest, vibrated through the water and clung to your legs. And before you could blink —

It was fast. Faster than expected. Faster than you could dodge.

You registered the impact on your ribs from the tendril lashing out, before you skidded back from the force. Pain bloomed on your skin, a deep ache, and you thought you couldn't get any air even when you breathed. Gasping, you spluttered out water from where you fell back, face momentarily dunked in the liquid, "Fushiguro!"

There was another swipe of a tendril, and it dragged over the entire terrain, coming at you with shocking speed. Ducking under the water again just in time, you felt it catch some of your hair. Your lungs complaining, screaming for air when you couldn't get your diaphragm back into its rhythm from the strike before, you broke the surface again, in time to see the tendril catch the old man full in the chest. He wailed once, a broken, high sound, before the curse yanked him across the tunnel like he weighed nothing, like he was a rag doll to be thrown around.

You grunted, voice raw from the salt water as you moved forward, intent on cutting down the curse, but even as you charged, a shadowy tentacle shot from the creature's body, aiming directly for you, snapping through the air —

It never hit.

Megumi's blade was fast, cutting through the curse's arm mid-strike, slicing the shadowed limb clean in two. Black ichor splattered on the water, sizzling where it landed.

The curse shrieked, and in that brief moment of distraction, it let go of the man, retreating back into the shadows of the water once again, moving like liquid, too fast to keep up with.

The old man struggled to stay afloat, finding a log of discarded metal, rusted and probably carrying all the bacteria for the wound on the guy's forehead. Yet, he still clung to it with all his might, body trembling in fear, eyes wide in terror. You were sure he was only awake because adrenaline coursed through his veins like a drug, with primal fear at something he couldn't comprehend.

Megumi’s gaze didn’t waver from where it tried to track the curse; he stared at the water, sword angled low, a predator stillness to him. And for a moment, in the gleam of his eye, there was something unspoken.

Like a warning, like a challenge, like a promise.

9th of May; 02:56. — itadori yuji.

"It was already halfway gone before you punched it, Yuji, how about using your brain sometime to grab it or something."

"How am I supposed to see it coming? It's like swimming with a torpedo. A creepy, soggy torpedo."

"Whatever. When we're done, you're gonna carry me to the car. I'm way too tired."

"Do I even get a say?"

"No."

9th of May; 03:01. — fushiguro megumi.

The water exploded.

A monstrous surge of tendrils shot from the depths, writhing toward them with horrifying speed. There was nothing human in the way it moved — its limbs contorted as they stretched unnaturally. It was too long, too thin, but Megumi didn't flinch. It was not too difficult to kill.

There were jagged shapes protruding from some of the tendrils, and its movements blurred at the edges: frantic, fast, making it hard to follow with the naked eye. But he didn't need to. His shikigami tracked cursed energy like breath in the dark, flaring with each incoming strike. It always alerted him when the cursed energy levels changed, so he could trust his shadows, but you—

Megumi clicked his tongue.

You were already moving towards the curse, cursed tool in hand, dark energy radiating off it where you had imbued the blade. Despite having been flung through the air, your movements were still swift, graceful, but god, you had no patience. He swallowed down the bite rising in his throat, the urge to tell you to wait so that you could coordinate, to strike smarter.

The curse recoiled at your blow, but it wasn't retreating yet, just gathering momentum.

The water churned violently around its body, as though the curse itself was dragging the entire underpass toward it. Its mouth opened wide, teeth flashing as it lunged forward, but Megumi, who anticipated it — seeing as how he seemed to be the only one who tried to hatch out a game plan — was quicker once more.

His eyes narrowed and with a practised signal of his hands, his Great Serpent moved through the water like it was his second home, converging on the curse, coiling around its limbs and biting down hard. The curse snarled and writhed under the pressure, just enough to expose a weakness, enough to give you an opening.

"Now!" he pressed between gritted teeth, his voice carrying the urgency, snapping.

You both moved; your blade arced towards the curse's core, and Megumi stepped in to flank, but the curse twisted, unnaturally pliable. With a sudden, sickening twist, it tore itself free from Great Serpent's jaw, spraying deep purple blood across the concreted walls. The thing's body seemed to fold in on itself, reshaping as if wanting to escape the grasp of Megumi.

"Dammit!"

He didn't stop. Couldn't stop, pushing forward, determined to keep it boxed in, to keep it in check, to not allow it any time to recover, but the curse was relentless. It was like fighting an ocean of flesh, always shifting, always evading.

Your eyes never left the curse either as you tried to slash with your blade again, aiming for what seemed to be its neck, but the curse writhed, dodging; its inhuman agility almost more terrifying than its strength.

"Great Ser—"

Pain.

A sharp, burning stab to his side.

Megumi exhaled harshly, stumbling back a half-step. One of the curse's long, jagged limbs had found its mark, cutting deep. For a moment, his focus wavered. Blood dripped into the water, mixing into the water easily. Refusing to flinch, his hand instinctively clutched the wound, warmth spilling between his fingers. He couldn't drop his sword, he wouldn't— burning, it burned, right in his side. It burned.

"Megumi!"

Your voice broke through his haze, and he shook his head, once, hard, eyes squeezed together to rid himself of the feeling of pain, forcing it back, forcing focus. He snapped back to attention just in time to see the curse pivot and reach for him again.

Your cursed blade cut through the air, movements clean and fluid, synchronised with his own as if you had fought together for years, not just a couple months. Megumi's chest squeezed painfully as it hit him: not the pain, not the fight, but the weight in his chest, the strange sense of familiarity settling inside the cavity despite the tension.

"This thing is relentless," he groaned, voice tight with concentration, one hand coming up to wipe the blood daring to trickle down to his eye.

You nodded, readying yourself, but just as you were about to, the curse twisted violently, its body flailing in a desperate attempt to escape. Its tail lashed out as it caught the old man with brutal force, flinging him into deep the deep, murky water with a loud splash.

Megumi's shikigami was quick to snap back onto the curse, pinning it. It screamed, thrashed, and for a brief, fleeting moment, it was momentarily incapacitated, vulnerable.

They could end it. Now.

But the homeless man did not resurface.

And the curse was vulnerable enough to finish off.

His heart thudded once, hard and painful. Something tugged in his chest, tugged in his head. He had the chance to save the man, but—

No running, no hesitating. He felt it again: the pull. The he weight of his role pressing down on him, his duty to destroy curses, pulled at him with an iron grip. He couldn't flinch, he was a sorcerer, a weapon, that was what he was. And yet—

Before he registered what he was doing, his head had already whipped out to you and he met your eyes.

He didn't mean to look for you. He didn't know why he did, he didn't even want to. But here you were, already looking at him, meeting his gaze head on. There was no judgement in your eyes, not yet, but something else.

He hated that you were already looking at him. Hated that he felt like that was a test, hated the part of himself that didn't know which answer was right, hated that he felt observed, naked.

His jaw clenched, "Rush the curse," just as your voice sounded out: "We have time to go save him!"

9th of May; 03:05. — hasegawa masato.

The world around him was a blur of cold water and shadows. His heart, as weak as it was, hammered in his chest as endless dark loomed over him.

Masato's body was numb, though whether it was from fear or the icy water that soaked him to the bone, he didn't know. Terror clawed at his throat, tugged at his clothes, held his head in a vice grip.

He had been close to death before. Sickness when he couldn't afford medication was a vicious thing, hunger when he hadn't had anything to eat in weeks even worse. Sometimes, when a group of people, drunk, came by, they liked to make him dance for some money. Sometimes he would. If it meant he'd get some food, he sometimes swallowed his pride and went ahead with it.

But this? He had never been close to death like this.

That creature was unlike anything he had ever seen before. Grotesque, weird, unreal. Masato couldn't believe it was real, not when it looked like the stuff from nightmares, not when he thought he was going to piss himself.

When it had swung him around, he was paralysed under the weight of the monster's presence. The air thick with fear, the water having pushed him away from the safety of clinging to the metal piece; the scent of decay heavy on his tongue, his rasping breath barely able to satisfy his brain with enough oxygen.

Overwhelming helplessness consumed him as his limbs struggled against the water. They were like lead, the fear creeping deeper with every second. Oh god, he was going to die here, in this filthy underpass, alone. He was going to die alone with nowhere to run, no breath to take.

Was this how it was going to end? Was Masato going to die without having seen his daughter again? Without being able to tell her how sorry he was? That he wished he could hold her again, the way she was as a baby, a tiny thing that barely reached the entirety palm of his hand.

Masato had hoisted her up against his naked skin, her tiny little face nuzzled against his flesh, seeking his warmth. Then he had cried, mourning the lifeless body of his wife on the bed next to them, her legs spread and bloody, and his tears had caressed his daughter's skin.

Oh, how he wished he could tell her sorry, that he wished he could have given her a better life, that he didn't have to succumb to the deep abyss of all the feelings he didn't know what to do with after the loss of the light of his life.

He might have cried had his chest not been in so much panic that he kept trying to take a breath. It was a sheer miracle that he didn't, that he knew to press his hand against his mouth, trying to keep the precious little air he had left within his lungs.

Then—

Sharp pain at the back of his head. Everything blurred; his sight darkening slowly, warmth.

I'm sorry, Himari-chan.

9th of May; 03:07. — kugisaki nobara.

A faint bark sounded out, echoing through the tunnel.

"Dog's out, oh, what a good boy."

"He's so gonna get all the beef jerky he wants."

9th of May; 03:06. — you.

Your lungs burned, the world around you a blur of shadows and waves. The sounds of the curse seemed so far away, like there was cotton in your ear.

There. Just…a little…bit more.

Cold, slimy, your fingers slipped off the material once, twice, then, you gripped it harder. Tugged. Found it good enough, and then pulled as you struggled to haul the old man toward safety.

9th of May; 03:09. — itadori yuji.

Water sprayed as Itadori Yuji and Kugisaki Nobara exploded into the fray, his arrival marked by the sound of his footfalls pounding through a receding flood and the snarl of a curse that sensed another sorcerer enter the fight.

Megumi was already soaked, blood running down one arm in slow, steady rivulets, his expression eerily calm as it was grim — tight-lipped, pale, unshaken, angry. Shadows coiled at his feet, the water lapping up the blood oozing from Megumi like it was thankful for the meal.

The creature towered ahead, slick with oil and reared its grotesque head toward Yuji as he skidded to a stop beside his teammate.

"Took you long enough," Megumi said flatly, not sparing him a glance.

Yuji flashed a breathless grin, panting, "You look like shit."

"Then focus and stop wasting time."

Yuji's heart thumped in his ears, pounding like war drums, gaze trained on the curse and the way it twisted, the way it lunged forward, a mess of teeth and water, the movement causing a wave to crash against the tunnel walls. Without hesitation, Yuji ducked low under the strike, pivoted, his fist cocked back and ready to go.

He landed the first hit; clean and solid, pissed off, because fuck, Megumi was hurt and you were nowhere to be seen. A snap as the force rattled the curse's jaw back, howling in response.

Yuji ducked under the swing of a tentacle, and faintly, he heard a deep inhale, a pressured tension in Megumi's voice: "Max Elephant."

Water erupted as the enormous shikigami materialised, crashing down with enough weight onto the curse to shake the tunnel, its trunk hammering down like a wrecking ball, forcing the curse to rear back and expose its side for half a heartbeat.

Yuji darted around the curse, "Now!"

Nails flying through the air, hitting their mark from where Nobara stood at the head of the tunnel.

Megumi didn't hesitate either. With one swift motion, he snapped his hands together and called forth his Divine Dogs again, and they burst forward with fangs bared, eyes gleaming, latching onto the curse with force, ripping it apart. It shrieked and thrashed, momentarily locked in place as Yuji came from the other side, launching upward with an uppercut laced with cursed energy, coiled around his fist like a storm.

A rattling cry, a shriek then—

Purple, oily blood and cursed energy splashed outward like a shock wave and dissolved into vapour almost immediately. The pressure collapsed inward with a sickening pop, the oppressive air in the tunnel lifting like a vacuum sealed bag that gasped for breath.

And silence fell.

Max Elephant vanished with a spray of mist, and the Divine Dogs flickered out of existence, too, their shadows melting into the water. In the sudden stillness, the tunnel felt eerily quiet; water lapping gently against Yuji's legs like nothing had happened at all.

He staggered back, soaked, gasping. "Dude," he panted. "I'm done. I don't know what the hell that thing was but I'm calling it. No more sewer monsters. Ever."

No answer.

Yuji looked up and something in his blood sung, telling him to freeze. The water couldn't possibly become colder, except it did. There was a darkening to Megumi's face, something carved sharp. The kind of scary quiet that came before something snapped. His face was drained of colour, his gaze fixed somewhere past Yuji, unreadable, but his whole body was tense, a string pulled too tight.

For a heartbeat, yuji could swear he wasn't looking at a friend, which was stupid, because Megumi had always been Megumi, always good, old, reliable Megumi. Except that Megumi looked like he was two seconds away from turning into something else.

Yuji winced and tried to change the topic, "Soo…where's—"

Nevermind. He was not going to ask, not when Megumi looked at him then, and all the quiet, buried fury suddenly directed right on Yuji. He didn't wait for an answer, because behind him — a sharp splutter, a frantic gasp for air. He whirled around before his brain caught up, legs already moving toward the sound.

That expression — looks just how I like it.

9th of May; 03:11. — you.

Yuji was there in an instant.

He dropped to a crouch beside you, hands already curling underneath the old man's armpits to pull him up. His hair was ruffled like he had been going through it, and the look in his eyes was worried. Worried beyond just about the civilian man in your arms, worried like there was more weighing on him.

"Got him?" he asked, his otherwise cheerful voice tight.

"He's breathing. Took a hit to the head, though, so might have a concussion."

He nodded and gently pulled the man the rest of the way out of the water. Now that the curse was gone, the water was slowly receding, revealing more and more of the underpass, and becoming less and less like a maze.

You exhaled, warm air escaping you, blown out into the cold.

The skin of your neck prickled like the edge of a blade was pressed against your flesh — it wasn't the kind of shiver that came from cold water trickling down your wet hair. It was something tighter, and you didn't need to turn around to know who was staring.

Megumi, of course. It was always him when the silence felt like judgement.

The weight of his gaze sat between your shoulder blades like a hand pressed flat against your spine. He wasn't just looking; he was blaming.

So much for keeping low key, for staying professional, getting the job done and walking away. You could feel the air heat up, funnily enough, a kettle that was boiling and ready to whistle.

You refused to look at him, because if you did, you'd explode. Because if you looked at him and he dared to look upset with you, you were going to snap. If there was even a flicker of annoyance, of those stupid eyebrows drawing together and that stupid grimace on his mouth, you were going to kill him.

"Don't you look at me like that."

Megumi's steps were slow, deliberate, his boots sloshing through shin-deep water as he closed the space between you.

"Like what," his voice was low, rough, weird. Too calm.

He came to a stop just beside you, his chest brushing your shoulder, close enough that the warmth of his body clashed with the dampness of your clothes still seeping into your skin. Yet still, you refused to look, even though he was invading your space on purpose, even though you could see his hands balled into fists so tightly that the knuckles had gone bone-white, one still slicked in drying blood.

You spat, "What in the hell is wrong with you?"

The nail of his thumb dug into his pointer, "Me? What about you? You abandoned shit again right when I thought you knew what the hell you were doing."

You knew what you said.

That you wouldn't look at him. That you refused to give him the satisfaction of trying to stare you down. But well, the day was long and you talked a lot, and he pissed you off. You couldn't help it. You really couldn't, because Megumi had the nerve, because he never stopped.

You whirled around so fast that water flared up around your leg, arm raised and finger jabbing straight at his face, "Oh no, we're not going to start this again, Fushiguro," with the same nasty look on your face mirroring his. He didn't flinch. if anything, he stepped even closer, jaw tightening, ground teeth against teeth and his hand, long bloodied, trembling fingers, came to grip your wrist. Not enough to hurt, but enough for your senses to sharpen and hone on the contact of skin.

"This," his eyes were a dark blue carved out of the same murky water around you, "is what you wanted."

You barked out a laugh, mouth twisted in disbelief. "You think anything's changed? I thought your whole thing was not letting people die. But you — what? Tossed that out just like that? I mean, good on you, honestly. Growth or whatever, little Megumi finally growing balls, but you okay with that now?"

Megumi's anger was subtle, but it was laid out for you like a book to read. You looked at his jaw, cut sharply, and the way it tightened, skin drawn taut. His teeth were bared at your insult, a muscle in his cheek twitching as a droplet of water ran down the curve of his cheekbone.

He was angry at you, and even though you wanted him to be because it meant he let loose of that stupid mask he still kept up, it fired you up just as much. Because in the midst of his dark eyes narrowing, a wild storm in them, you thought that anger looked good on him, that you much preferred this to the silence and the ignorance the past weeks.

There was something bitter on your tongue and you let it sit there like ash when you looked at the way his wet hair hung down his forehead, the blood that was still running down the side of his face, circumventing his eye with a flick of his fingers, "I mean, if you're cool abandoning your values, fine. Be my guest. I just thought you'd learned from last time."

That got him.

Megumi's face shuttered, eyes dimming like a switch had been flipped, the storm cooling to heavy rain. His grip on your wrist didn't loosen; if anything, it became a tad tighter.

"Yeah?" he said, low, voice like ice, "Just like how you flipped on me now?"

"Excuse me?" you jerked your arm free, stepped forward so your chest bumped his, the air between you both hot despite the dampness, "I did what needed to be done. We had an actual opening, Fushiguro. You would've jumped on that weeks ago, now you're suddenly swinging from one extreme to the other?"

Megumi scoffed; a bitter, humourless sound that barely passed for amusement. His jaw flexed as he turned away slightly, and you noticed his other hand curling tightly at his side, "Don't try to sell me that bullshit."

You didn't back down, and this time when he focused his attention on you, his voice dipped lower, register dark and tight, the kind of controlled anger that came from being pushed too far too long, "Funny how 'what needed to be done' always ends up being what you decide. I'm starting to think you don't care about what the rules say, either."

"Yeah?" you snapped, "You got a problem with that?"

Fuck.

You could punish yourself for the way that slipped from your mouth. Because it sounded like an admission, because you knew that he wasn't entirely wrong, either. You always thought yourself to be a pride-less person, hell, you typically were, but not with this look in Megumi's eyes, one that's deeply rooted in proving you wrong.

And you might have chosen the wrong thing to say, but you would fight tooth and nail to prove to him that it didn't immediately absolve him, either.

His hand trembled, barely held back. In the back, you heard Yuji mumble something, but Nobara's voice cut through his, and he fell silent. For a second, you wondered what he said, why Nobara pulled him back when it was so very clear that he wanted to intervene.

Though, truth be told, you didn't know if you wanted him to.

"You judge me for going off-course. For ignoring your precious protocol, now you do the same exact thing and suddenly it's fine. Tell me, why is it okay when you cross the line?"

"It's not the same—"

"Like hell it's not."

Did he not see? Did he not see that whilst his snake was holding the curse, you both actually had a tangible moment of saving somebody who was drowning right in front of you? Was he so focused on suddenly pretending he cared about the regulations now that he threw his entire morals away again?

His eyes burned with something wild. Not rage exactly, maybe disbelief, maybe betrayal somewhere, "That's what you said about me, wasn't it? Not to let my emotions cloud my judgement. So what — now it's different? Because you felt like saving someone?"

Your heart was pounding and your throat scratchy as you memorised his face in your mind, the harsh lines, the curve of his nose, his wet hair, the hard press of his lips. Almost, you wished that Kyoto had told you to kill him, maybe then you'd stop feeling like there was a fire within you that you couldn't put out.

"So why didn't you?" you narrowed your eyes, because you couldn't kill him, after all, because even if you did have that order, you didn't know if you would, "You could've summoned your toad, couldn't you? I know you've got that shikigami. You're perfectly capable of calling out two of those shadows, so what the hell stopped you?"

He inhaled sharply through his nose, and his voice sounded like each word was an effort to not raise his voice, thick with feelings, and it made you go crazy, "You think I didn't consider that? You think I wasn't aware of every option, every second, every goddamn breath we had left while trying to hold that curse in place?"

"Then why didn't you do it?"

"Because I was holding the line," he hissed and his nose brushed yours, "Because you ran off without a plan, because you ignored what I said, again, and I had two choices: drop the curse and go save that man's life or hold it and save all of us, hoping that your pea-brain was going to handle the other side."

"Don't you put this on me—"

"I will put this on you," his breath was heavy and you felt it caress your mouth and your chest tightened, "Because you walk around like you've got it all figured out, preaching about this and that. So quick to tell me I'm wrong for my decisions, but here you are, doing the same damn thing I did."

You stared at him with your chest heaving, repressed shivers making you tremble, betraying you. Because he wasn't wrong and you hated that. Hated how easily he cut through you when it came from him.

"Stop acting like you're above it," Megumi said, quiet now, bitter. Raw in a way he rarely let out. "You're not. And neither am I."

Your pulse was loud in your ears, loud, fast. You couldn't bring yourself to speak — too much crowding your throat.

He watched you for one long moment, then looked away, the tension in his shoulders rigid as he turned and walked off slowly, his hand pressing down on his side.

9th of May; 03:31. — iwata.

Iwata wondered if he would ever get relieved of his duty to chauffeur the kids around. Not that he necessarily minded the act itself; on the contrary, he quite enjoyed the thought that in some way, he was able to contribute to bettering society, of ridding the world from curses.

It was just that whenever he drove the kids anywhere, they came back looking a little more like soldiers, hardened and soiled, and a little less like teenagers.

That part, Iwata hated the most.

He watched them now from the driver's seat, engine idling quietly as rain pattered on the windshield, mixing with the muddy streaks from the tunnel water still clinging to their clothes. The smell of rotten water, blood and burnt cursed energy hit him the second they climbed into the car.

Iwata pretended to be busy, but his eyes searched them for any signs that they lost a little bit of themselves out there.

The pink-haired student, Itadori Yuji, climbed in first, breathing a little hard, wearing the same tired grin he always did — like if he smiled hard enough, none of the bad things would stick, like they would just ricochet off him. He flopped into the far seat and winced, arms limply sprawled across his knees as if it was too much effort to lift them.

Right behind him was Nobara; she looked like she still had some fire left in her, though it was only a glimmer. She muttered a string of curses under her breath, most of them aimed at the curse they had just fought — or maybe the mud in her boots, it wasn't clear to Iwata.

"Whoever sends us into another one of those tunnels," she sighed as she relaxed against the seat, "will have me hexing their entire bloodline."

"That a threat?" Yuji yawned.

"No. A promise."

Iwata didn't comment. Instead, the door in the back opened and Megumi followed in silence, a hand pressed to his side. The blood had mostly clotted, his jacket crumbled up to apply pressure against it, but Iwata saw the way he walked, the stiffness in his joints, the pain he tried to hide. Iwata couldn't do a lot, not until they got back to the school and to Shoko Ieiri. He slid back, elbows on his thighs, eyes locked on the floor like it might answer for something.

Lastly, there was the exchange student, the one he barely knew. Not that he knew the others that well either, but this one was even more of a puzzle to him. So he couldn't read your face, only saw the way it was set in granite, lines hard. You shivered slightly though you hid it well, instead looking out the window, hands clenched in your lap.

Iwata eased the car into drive, pulling away from the tunnel entrance. He had called an ambulance for the old man the kids were carrying out, already having given the first aid that he could. Silence settled over the kids, save for the soft purr of the engine and the patter of the rain.

He caught glances of them in the rear view mirror — Megumi stubbornly clenching and relaxing his hands, your eyelids slowly closing, Nobara picking at dried blood under her nails, Yuji fiddling with a broken zipper on his jacket.

God, they were just kids.

They shouldn't have been worrying about life and death, not making choices that adults twice their age couldn't shoulder without cracking. Should have instead been having fun out there, enjoying their youth, enjoying making memories all kids their age do.

He exhaled quietly, one hand tightening on the steering wheel. He didn't say anything. He never did. But he reached forward and flipped a switch on the car's dashboard to heat the seats for them.

Yuji leaned back a little more, Nobara let out a tired hum of approval, Megumi let his head fall back against the seat finally, his eyes closing and your shoulders loosened slightly.

It wasn't much. But it was something.

11th of May; 07:29. — kugisaki nobara.

"You think they're going to come out of this alive?"

"God, I hope not."

11th of April; 07:30. — gojo satoru.

"Well!" Gojo Satoru announced cheerfully, "Who needs actual curses when the real horror is whatever this — " he waved a hand in the direction of his two students, " — unresolved..bit…thing…is supposed to be. Hm. That sentence got away from me."

Neither Megumi nor you looked at him, and Gojo didn't need them to. He understood their silence perfectly well, after all. One could call him the whisperer of anguished teenagers, if one will. Not that anybody would, but he thought there was a high chance it could be true.

He sighed loudly, exaggerated. "Y'know, I didn't set this training camp up because I love early mornings or physical labour. I set it up because I actually care."

Still no answer. His lips twisted slightly, and he clapped his hands once, loud enough to echo through the wooden beams of the dojo they were occupying, the two kids sitting in front of him on the ground. Megumi stared down at the floor, his posture rigid. Next to him, you had your arms crossed, staring right past Gojo's shoulder at the wall.

"Alright, group meeting, just us three. Megumi, dear exchange student, and your incredibly good-looking, well-adjusted teacher."

That got your eye twitching, at least. Megumi's jaw flexed like he was grinding down a curse by tooth alone. Not quite efficient, but at the very least, he had them react to something. Sigh. Kids were so difficult these days.

"You two are good sorcerers. Really, of course still lots to learn, but good. Smart even, shockingly so actually, considering the choices you've both been making lately."

Megumi exhaled slowly. "We're getting the job done."

"Are you? Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you are one outburst away from killing each other."

Then his voice dropped, just enough to remind his students that they were his students after all, "You can hate each other all you want once the job's done. But while you're out there? You work together. You trust each other. Or I pull you both off the field. Permanently."

That definitely got some reactions.

Megumi's head whipped up, a disbelieving, annoyed look on his face, the one Gojo loved to see, and you narrowed your eyes in response, "You can't be serious."

Ah, the poor exchange student by day, spy by night. How interesting it was to watch you scuttle under his attention, knowing the implications his words had on your situation. When he caught you in the restricted section, he had toyed with the idea of sending Kyoto a memento about what he really thought about having a child sicced on him by the higher-ups. A reminder that consisted more of a body part than it did of anything verbal, but he wasn't cruel enough to succumb an innocent person to that kind of torture.

Though, of course, he did think it would have been a good shock for them. And really, what would they have done? What could they accuse him for that he couldn't point right at them?

After all, they had started it.

"Oh, I'm so serious," he sang, the smile still there, but it didn't quite reach his eyes anymore, "This is your mission now: finish this training camp. Together. No sulking. No bickering. Just work. And progress, of course. I know, it's boring. Tough luck."

He stepped forward, clapping a hand on each of their shoulders, his slender fingers pressing in ever so slightly with something akin to encouragement, "So! You've got two choices: succeed…or succeed. Because that's all I'm offering."

Megumi glared at him viciously, like he thought maybe he shouldn't have come under Gojo's patronage. He thought he might have deserved it— nah, who was he kidding.

"Breakfast's in an hour, and if either of you come late, I'm making you sit next to each other and hold hands."

The look of disgust mirrored on both of your faces had him try to suppress a giggle. Oh, he should have done that earlier.

AUTHOR'S NOTE | thank you for reading!!

TAGLIST | @binkibuns @1l-ynn @nscuit @julieannah (tagged you guys because you seemed excited about the first part so i hope i'm not disturbing you with it!!)

[hrrtshape]

what kind of dates do u and coryo go on ?

ok. ok. ok. drags chair closer. clears throat

what kind of dates do me and coryo go on??????????????????????????

ok so. dates. yea. we go on them. i guess. if you can call it that. like what even counts

dates with coryo are a spectrum. it goes from him taking me to a 3-star michelin place in brooklyn to us going to get pretzels and walking aimlessly because i said i wanted to look at ugly buildings and gossip

is it a date when hes picking me up from mine and i still dont have lip balm on so hes already leaning out of the passenger seat like emma. and im literally running back upstairs to get a different jacket

is it a date when we end up at that one fucking place in soho because he trusts their raw fish (you're not special for liking sashimi sir this is new york) and im literally just there stealing his jacket sleeves and being like "can i post this?" while hes in the middle of explaining the federal reserve or whatever.

like it is either dinner in a private room at caviar russe with my heels off under the table and him manspreading and mansplaining why my pasta is undercooked (he's annoying) OR it's us in sweats sharing a big bag of sour candy outside the met because we're both overstimulated and don't want to go inside

dont know what the hell you mean by date but if it means "him and me and food" then yes. every day. if it means romance. i dont know. maybe. kind of.

once he booked a private cinema just for us and i fell asleep in the middle of it because the seats were warm.

sometimes he takes me on long drives and we dont talk for like half an hour and im just chewing gum and looking out the window and he's got one hand on my thigh like we're 38 and married and on a break from our kids

we go to art galleries. sometimes. but only ones where i can wear a bow. and complain. and stand too long in front of the paintings and say she looks like me. and he says she doesn't. and i say youre wrong. and he shrugs.

we get lunch at the met rooftop when it's sunny. but also we've made out in the staff elevator. we've done dinner at carbone like yes ok we get it. but we've also eaten gas station snacks on the floor of his bedroom because we got home at 2am and neither of us wanted to cook.

he gets me candy before films. he picks the films. he lets me pick the drink. i get in the car and he's already pulled up the reservation without me asking.

he'll ask if i want to walk instead and then gets annoyed five minutes in because i stop to look at pigeons and lv window displays and then want to sit. we go to the same cafe every sunday and pretend we haven't memorised each other's orders. we don't take pictures but he always has some disgusting little blurry one on his phone like me chewing a croissant or talking with my hands. we go out. we stay in. we make pasta that burns. we book things that get cancelled. he likes when i plan things because i always overdo it. i like when he plans things because i never have to worry.

he never lets me go home without a snack. i never let him forget to compliment my outfit. we never really plan anything. we just. go. we're always going. i'm in his passenger seat half the week. he's in my bed the rest. is that a date? dont care. its love. anyway. next question.

anyways we've been to the fifth row of a jazz club where he refused to let me order a drink because he doesn't trust the barman's face. and the dumb korean place in brooklyn where he literally knows the chef. they fistbump. i'm not joking. my bed. don't be gross. like actually my bed. popcorn. his rooftop. us on those dumb low outdoor couches. me wearing his hoodie and stealing his fries. the little secondhand bookshop on madison where i pointed at a copy of the stranger and he went "don't you own six of those?" and i went "this one's purple." the hermes showroom where i didnt mean to flirt with the salesgirl and he didn't mean to get jealous but both happened. and a hotel in montauk for literally eight hours because we needed to get out and then we got bored and drove home. the barnes and noble cafe. mid. but he carried my tote bag so it evened out. the top of the empire state at night meanwhile he was wearing a suit. and the MoMA but he kept getting annoyed at the tourists and we had to leave.

we're definitely never going to times square. or coachella. or anywhere that involved matching outfits or couples experiences. or bowling. or dubai. or any cafe with pink walls and overpriced pancakes unless i beg. and those instagram restaurants with drinks in lightbulbs. vegas. theme parks that aren't aesthetic. he asked me to shoot him if we ever go to a cruise

ok

thats the conclusion next map pls

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

Rape baby? Ok so here's the thing. That's a poison pill to any civil discussion.

Is it technically rape? Absolutely. Do we know the circumstances? At all? No. Are there people on this site that will 100% froth at the mouth to have the baby daddy killed? Yes.

But let me make this abundantly clear. And it's something I've often discussed. I don't think it's right for a 19 year old to be with a 15 year old. But I also don't except better either. Young hormonal and stupid? And you expect good decision making? Minors can't consent. I make no issues with that at all. But strait up calling it rape removes that conversational nuance. Intentionally. What's more, here's a few questions. Do we know who he is? Do we know if he was drinking and she took what she wanted? Was he autistic? Did he force himself on her? Did her parents actually prevent the procedure? Or did she just get fed up and do something she can't ever take back?

We know very little. And before some jackass comes and says, "I'm victim blaming", no. I'm looking at this from a standpoint of, "how do teenagers act" and also from a standpoint of, how can a person be callous as to strait up slit a kids throat rather than put it up for adoption or give it over via safe haven. And my questions merit answers of she has the capacity to kill in child blood. What's more, if he was a friend of the family and they've known each other for years it changes the dynamic of this entire situation.

Also in a world where we don't teach teens to be adults you expect most to go, "oh right I'm 18 now, gotta make sure I avoid everyone under age. Then again in modern hookup culture, she could have lied about her age.

WE DON'T FUCKING KNOW. All we do know is it was about a year old and she killed it in a pretty gruesome way. But keep pretending your know all the facts.

Yes. These people are in fact that radical. They've always been such. And have zero respect for living things at all. This despite their holier than thou attitudes towards pretending to care about life.

"infanticide is the right of~" uh actually no. It's called murder your evil fuck.

[sour-cherryyy]

PRETTY BOY. 〜Ni-ki

Pairing: bsf!Ni-ki x fem!reader Summary: What starts as a lazy afternoon and a casual offer to do Ni-ki’s makeup quickly turns into something much more intimate. Between teasing remarks, lingering touches, and a tension that refuses to be ignored, your flirty friendship takes a turn neither of you can pretend is just playful anymore. Word count: 1.3k A/n: Fluff, suggestive??? But this is all quite new to me so I'm keeping it a little PG- but I hope we enjoy it. Now playing: Pretty Boy By P1Harmony

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You blink at the last sentence of your book, the words blurring before you shut it with a soft thud. The ending was decent. Not world-shattering, but satisfying. Your eyes wander, seeking something else to entertain you. Anything, really.   

Afternoon light streams through the window, spilling over tangled sheets and soft pillows. The room is wrapped in a calm kind of quiet. It's the kind of silence that leaves your fingers itching for something to do. 

Ni-ki is half-reclined against the headboard, legs stretched out, phone resting in one hand as his thumb scrolls steadily. His hair falls a little messy over his forehead, and his lashes are so unfairly long they cast shadows on his cheeks. 

His expression shifts now and then- amused, unimpressed, soft. You wonder what he’s watching, but more than that, you wonder how someone can look that good doing absolutely nothing. 

You roll onto your side, elbow propping up your head. “You’re such a Pretty Boy, you know?” 

He doesn’t look up. “Thanks for the update.” 

“No, seriously. Like, it’s criminal. Your face is kind of stupidly symmetrical.” 

He pauses mid-scroll, glancing sideways at you with one brow arched. “You good over there?” 

You ignore the teasing in his voice and sit up; legs folded under you. “Let me do your makeup.” 

Ni-ki actually laughs — short, amused, and a little disbelieving. “What?” 

“I’m bored,” you say with a shrug. “You’re just lying there being so photogenic. Let me do something productive with it.” 

He tilts his head, considering it. “You want to play with my face for fun?” 

“Yes. Please.” 

There’s a pause where he looks you over like he’s weighing the risk versus reward, then finally sighs and tosses his phone onto the nightstand. “Fine. But if I look like a clown, I’m ending our friendship.” 

“You wouldn’t dare.” 

“Try me.” 

You climb off the bed, digging into your drawer where you keep your little stash — some palettes, a couple brushes, a tinted gloss or two. You’re not a professional, but you know how to make things sparkle. 

When you turn back, he’s shifted- now sitting upright with his back against the headboard, arms relaxed at his sides. The image alone is enough to make your stomach flutter a bit. His sleeves are pushed up, exposing his forearms. His legs are slightly spread, leaving just enough space between his thighs to make your breath catch. 

You stand beside him and lean forward with a brush in hand, but the angle is awkward. Even standing, his height makes it hard to reach both sides of his face without hovering over him weirdly. 

You purse your lips in frustration. 

He notices, obviously. “Problem?” 

“This is an awkward angle,” you grumble. 

Then, without giving you a moment to protest, he grabs your waist and gently lifts you, guiding you to straddle his lap like it’s the most natural thing in the world. 

Your heart practically leaps out of your chest. 

“Better reach?” he asks, like he didn’t just set your entire nervous system on fire. 

“Um.” You clear your throat. “Yeah. Thanks.” 

His hands linger at your hips before settling on your waist. You try to focus- seriously, you do- but he’s warm beneath you, and his face is now inches from yours. Your mind keeps drifting, caught on the way his hands rest so easily on you, sending a flutter of butterflies through your stomach. 

His gaze drops from your eyes to your mouth, then back again. His thumbs brush the hem of your shirt- not pulling you in, not pushing you away. Just there. Steady. Intentional. 

You reach for the small palette of blush, trying not to let it show — but your hand trembles slightly as you apply it, giving your nervousness away. 

The quiet between you isn’t awkward; it’s charged, humming with something unspoken. His head tilts slightly as you work, a small, unconscious movement that makes your fingers brush his cheek. His skin is warm there, too. Warmer, maybe. Or maybe it’s just you. 

Then you feel it. 

Ni-ki shifts beneath you- not much; just enough for his hands to tighten ever so slightly at your waist, and just enough for you to feel him growing harder beneath you. Grounding. Intentional. 

“You sure this isn’t some elaborate plot to make me fall for you?” he asks, voice low and amused. 

Your eyes flicker down, and you snort. “If it were, it’s working remarkably well.” 

His lips quirk. “So, you are trying.” 

You lean in again. “I didn’t say that.” 

He stays still, but you can feel the shift in the air — like something between you has tilted. Just slightly. Just enough to matter. 

The pad of your thumb rests lightly on his jaw as you blend the finishing touches .

You lean back to admire your work. 

“Done!” you announce, triumphant, reaching over to grab your pink camera. “Say cheese…” 

He complies, the smile small and obedient — but there’s something distracted in his eyes. Like he’s waiting for a reaction you never gave. 

You snap a few photos, lingering longer than you need to. And even though the makeup’s finished, you don’t move off of him. 

“I mean,” he murmurs after a beat, “if this is a plot... you’re dangerously good at it.” 

You don’t answer. Not out loud. You don’t have to. 

Your eyes stay on the screen, casually surveying the photos you just took, but your lips curve up at the corners — just enough to give you away. 

His gaze doesn’t waver. It hasn’t left your face once. 

You should move. Say something clever. Make a joke to cut through the heat coiling in your stomach. But you don’t. Can’t. Because he’s looking at you like you’ve already crossed a line. Like he’s just waiting for you to realize it. 

You finally lock eyes. You forget to breathe. You don’t even blink. 

He leans in, slow enough to give you time to stop him. But you don’t. You lean in too- heart racing, mouth parted- until there’s nothing left between you. 

And then he kisses you. 

It’s neither soft nor gentle. Not the least bit hesitant as his lips crash into yours. 

It’s a breaking point. 

Warm and breathless, his mouth finds yours like he’s been holding back for far too long. His hands slip from your hips to your waist, fingers pressing just enough to keep you there, right there, like he’s worried you’ll vanish if he doesn’t. 

You kiss him back, instinctively, desperately- fingers threading through the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer until your chest brushes his. 

He groans softly into your mouth, the sound low and wrecked, and it sets your nerves alight. 

His hands roam- up your back, over your ribs, skimming just beneath your bra strap. Your thighs tighten around his waist, the tension between you pulled taut like a wire. 

You gasp into the kiss as he gently moves your hips against his, making your whole body heat up- and he uses the moment to deepen the kiss, his tongue brushing yours in a way that makes your head spin. 

Every part of you is hyperaware; of the way his body fits against yours, of the heat pooled low in your belly, of the ache blooming at your core. 

This isn’t casual anymore. 

It’s messy and hungry. 

When you finally pull back, it’s not because you want to, it’s because you need to breathe. 

Your forehead rests against his, your breaths coming hard and uneven. 

His eyes flutter open, dark and glassy, a smile curling lazily at his lips. 

“Guess I should let you do my makeup more often,” he says, voice rough and low. 

You laugh — shaky, breathless. “Shut up.” 

But you’re still holding him like you don’t plan on going anywhere. 

And judging by the look in his eyes, he’s not going anywhere either.  

I fear this may be my best one yet... Lmk if i should make a part 2!!! I should probably go revise now, though :( Thanks for making it to the end, -EL (masterlist)

[nohoperadio]

In the early days, or really the first couple years, of my current job, I was kind of in awe of the fact that I was actively pleased to be there--zero clock-watching instincts, the days passed quickly, the work engaged my attention and felt worth doing even when it was stressful, I didn't even really look forward to my days off. I didn't have any sense that I was being forced to burn hours from my "real life" as a necessary evil to make a living. Work was a part of my real life and I was happy with that, I was even happy with it being a large part of my real life, I was happy with it being the largest part. (For those of you who aren't caught up on my lore, I'm describing a high street retail job that pays very slightly more than minimum wage.) I was in awe because nothing in my personal experience up to that point had made this kind of emotional relationship to a day job feel plausible or even really thinkable. It gave me a feeling that I imagine to be the feeling of cheating death. Everyone else is forced to give up those dozens of hours a week, it's a hole in their life; when I give those same hours they are simply given right back to me. I'd found some strange loophole where I can pay the full price while somehow losing nothing.

It doesn't feel like that anymore. It's still the best job I've had (not an impressive statement in context but a true one), it's still relatively enjoyable and pleasant and I'm still grateful to have it, but it now has much more the character of an obstacle that stands in the way of what I actually want to do with my time, the loophole has been closed, working is something separate from living again, everything is back to how it should be. I could list things that have changed for the worse in my workplace over the years that go a long way to explaining why my feelings changed, though I won't do that because it would be boring.

There's another thing though, which I should probably think of as the most obvious contributing factor although I never really do, and I started writing this post to try to lodge it in my mind a little better. Which is that for the first year and a half of this job I was coming home to a relationship that was really really bad. We spent our entire home lives trying to ignore the fact that we didn't like each other and couldn't ever possibly fail to make each other miserable and every couple weeks breaking out into quite pathetic melodramatic arguments wherein we'd pretend that there might be anything worth doing about this situation besides the obvious. Then that relationship ended and now here we are. It's not actually remotely surprising that the half of my life that involved doing structured achievable tasks in the company of people who were mostly pleasant and kind felt solid and fulfilling when the other half was suffused with anxiety and conflict and bitterness and frankly a profound and bleak and horrifying boredom. No particular explanation is needed for why I didn't spend my work days counting down the hours until I get to go home, and no particular explanation is needed for why I kind of do do that now. I genuinely thought at the time that I'd lucked into some magical thing where the work itself was innately life-giving, when any idiot could have looked at the situation and told me...

Anyway, the practical takeaway from all this is: if you wish you had a more fulfilling job but don't know how to get one, consider simply making the rest of your life horrible.

[hopeymchope]

My new theory on Takumi Sumino from Hundred Line: Maybe he's not a dick, just kind of socially inept... ? Or could he just be... dumb?

I'm pleased to report that, after passionately venting my frustrations with the characters' actions in The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, I continued on in the game and found myself soon absorbed in the mysteries of the story again. I managed to be enthralled by the main plot enough to ignore the weird behavior of the characters for a while, and that's more than enough to keep my attention.

Btw, the first/default 100 days doesn't have nearly enough Moko Mojiro, whose Hope's Peak talent would be Ultimate Cinnamon Roll.

However, I began to notice something weird about Takumi. It happened when his behavior frustrated me AGAIN, in a whole new way.

I'll need to talk about some events from the middle of those first 100 days to really dive into this, but I'll try to keep the details around those events as vague as possible.

See, there's a morning early in the back half of the first 100 days (somewhere in the 50s or 60s) where Nozomi rings Takumi's doorbell to tell him that she really wants him to tell her about the girl he knows that looks like her some time. (If you've seen any trailers or read the web site for this game, you know this is referring to Nozomi's strange resemblance to Takumi's lifelong/childhood friend Karua.) A few days later, Takumi and Nozomi spend hours in a single location together... mostly in silence. He doesn't know what to talk to her about. He thinks to himself that he really wants to talk to her about Karua, but he thinks it would just upset her. You know—despite the fact that she literally TOLD HIM to tell her, just a few days prior?

"I better not bring up that topic that she specifically asked me to bring up to her soon."

Another couple days pass, and this happens again. He is talking with her privately and thinks to himself about how he wishes he could talk to her about Karua, but he doesn't think it's appropriate/the right time... for some reason that he doesn't explain.

Of course I realize that, in actuality, this is just hand-waving away the obvious opportunities to advance the mystery because Kodaka doesn't want to do those reveals this early in the narrative. But if we want to justify these decisions from the perspective of the characters, what would drive this line of thinking? Why would Takumi—who was literally asked by Nozomi to tell her about Karua—assume that he definitely *shouldn't* do that on MULTIPLE obvious occasions?

A few days after the above incidents—we're in the back half of the 60s in terms of the first 100 days now—Takumi expresses to Nozomi that he's worried about her. She snaps back with the question "Are just worried about me because I look like that girl you know?" Takumi is silent. He has no idea how to respond. Later that night, in his room, he wonders what Nozomi wanted him to say in that moment. He wonders what he was supposed to say or do when she asked him that to make her feel better. It's not a question for him of what the honest answer is—it's a question of what answer she'd LIKE. Now... that's a pretty silly question, right? Any bog-standard "normie" person would obviously know what she wanted to hear. But somehow, Takumi doesn't have the ability to understand what she was looking to hear.

In light of these incidents, I came to a theory: Maybe Takumi can't read people whatsoever. (ETA: It's been brought up to me that this could be construed as some kind of disability or some form of autism, which is actually a really interesting/cool interpretation. But I don't want to pretend I know much about the autism spectrum. Sadly, I don't. I don't want to say anything ignorant. So... I'm just going to leave that subject here in these parenthesis so that you know it's a cool possibility that would explain a lot, and now I'll move on.) He doesn't know when someone means what they say or doesn't, he doesn't know what different facial expressions mean. This would also retroactively make some sense out of his decision to throw his trust and support behind Ima shortly after Ima stabbed Takemaru and was strongly implied to be abusing his sister in some fashion... see, Takumi just can't comprehend human interaction for some reason. He is, on a base level, poor at interpersonal communication because of some major blind spot—which you can explain/interpret however you like.

Alternatively: Could it be he's just... dumb? In a far more general sense, I mean? This is easily the more unkind interpretation, but I don't mean to say that him being "dumb" would make him a bad person at all. Perhaps it's not just that he has some kind of basic failure to understand people's words and expressions—perhaps Takumi just has a basic failure to understand things, period.

After some further consideration and additional game progress, I came to the conclusion that "Takumi is kind of stupid" actually has SOME supporting evidence.

There's a missable conversation you can have with Eito one morning where Eito is talking about how he stayed up late reading in the library, and he asks Takumi what kind of books he likes. Takumi doesn't know what to say because he's (*drumroll*) never read any books. Like literally, he's never read A single book. (He does further clarify that he's never read any "real" books, which leaves some room for interpretation. So what's a "not-real" book, then? Is he saying he's read some manga? Maybe children's picture books or something?)

We know from his dream flashbacks that Takumi had some trouble understanding his classes at school more than once. (This is assuming his memories are all legitimate, which I suppose is something of an open question.) This can and does happen to all of us at times, of course, so it's not noteworthy by itself... but in the context of everything else I'm listing here, it could be seen as supporting evidence for the "Takumi is kind of dumb" argument. .... Maybe he'd do better at school if he read one of his schoolbooks. :P

Throughout the game, you can freely "explore" outside the academy by asking three people to go with you and look for resources. There eventually comes an event where someone else wants to find a resource outside. Takumi instantly agrees to join in, and—despite the fact that you can pass some other students AND tell them your plan to do this mission on your way to the Entrance Hall—he does not think (and you, the player, are not allowed) to ask anyone else to join them, thereby making the mission significantly more difficult than usual because there's only TWO of you this time instead of the standard four. You could call this ludonarrative dissonance, I suppose. Or you could call it Takumi being pretty thick-headed.

[captainjonnitkessler]

people bitch about atheists being mean...but it's like you fuckers bitch when we're nice to!

athiest should get to say "religion has no place in public schools" without immediately getting jumped for being 'intolerant'

athiest should get to say "i don't believe in what you believe and therefore i don't think i should be persecuted for that" and suddenly the bullshit spinning 'pilgrims came here for religious freedom and that is beautiful' crowd are all up in arms and suddenly not so gung ho about freedom of religion

there was a magazine cover i saw that was all "IS THIS THE END OF SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE?" and my response was to laugh. god is in our pledge of allegiance and legislators regularly quote the bible as 'reasons' against queer people, against abortion... do you really think there's ever actually separation of church and state?

i grew up knowing that i would never be president of the united states, not because of the color of my skin, not because of what's between my legs, not because of who i love...but because i was athiest. that has been the reality of this country since its inception, and it's kinda adorable that anybody thinks differently

okay vent over. being born and raised athiest doesn't really prepare you for just how deeply isolating it can be to exist as on out in the world. so yeah, thanks for existing

Genuinely I think most people who talk about "militant" or "evangelical" atheists are literally just talking about atheists who don't couch their every sentence in apologies for being an atheist.

I'm not going to pretend to believe in your faith to make you feel better, I'm not going to follow your religion's rules because you're more comfortable that way, I'm not going to hem and haw and say that I'm not so "arrogant" as to think I know for sure that God doesn't exist when you don't require the same humility from religious people who say they know for sure that he does, I'm not going to politely agree to not talk about the bigotry and oppression that your faith perpetuates because it makes you sad to think about. If you think people are allowed to be unapologetic about their religion, then I get to be unapologetic about my lack thereof.

And yeah - atheists are unelectable. We're rated as less trustworthy than rapists. We've been painted as groomers and rapists and murderers for decades if not centuries. A huge part of why the New Atheism movement was such a big deal is because it was one of the first real organized secular movements specifically aimed at bringing unapologetic atheism to the forefront of the discussion. We can argue all day about what the movement was and wasn't and why it fell apart, but at the end of the day "actually it's good to be a skeptic and we should criticize religious hegemony and people who choose to reject science in favor of faith and ideology, especially in politics" was an important fucking message! Maybe if we'd paid more attention to it at the time instead of whining about how atheists who sue city councils who open meetings with prayers just hate religion, we wouldn't be trapped in this christofascist nightmare!