#AriTsukemo's 2025 Appreciation STELLARONHVNTERS'S Appreciation Reading Party Order: Crow!

[aritsukemo]

Birth of New Beginnings, Death to Old Comforts

Sunday x GN Reader ( Amnesia AU )

Summary: Sunday is approached with a second chance at life. Unbeknownst to him that what was sacrificed to obtain it was scarier than any death penalty.

Warnings: This was loosely inspired by Crow's amazing oc, Hark, so a lot of stuff can be referenced to them. Furthermore, this is my first time writing for Sunday so don't drag me too much please 😓 As per request, I'm keeping this purposely ambiguous. Also angsty themes ahead but what do you expect from me at this point? You have been warned!

A/N: The first gift is up! This is a book with a golden covering and silver vines on the face, a bouquet of white orchids, earl grey tea, and a fresh batch of brown butter waffles for....Crow! Enjoy @rainswept!

Event: AriTsukemo's 2025 Appreciation STELLARONHVNTERS'S Appreciation Reading Party

“The real world is not about happy endings,” Was the absurdity spewed when your betrayal to The Family was solidified and you stood on the side of the foolish — yet not completely hopeless — crew members of the Astral Express.

You had never truly seen eye to eye with Sunday, going to mock his aspirations at every turn, and yet, you stook around as though you didn’t mean it. As though you were merely rudely jesting like when you were both still teens. Maybe that’s why he turned a blind eye to his own suspicions — that sinking feeling that came with the inevitability that you’d turn on him without batting an eye to your history together and the ideals you did share with him at some point — and he found himself in slight disarray when it finally happened; that he felt his golden hues twitching ever so slightly at the ends and he felt his hands ball into fist behind his back.

That he felt, though only for a moment, anger at what you did.

He’ll prove you wrong. The thought cemented itself in his brain as he rose before you and was embraced by his ideals in its most physical form; wing-faced to shield him away from his opposers — just as he had been doing for Penacony in the shadows — with long mechanical limbs — one bearing a long, thin baton — that could play on forever without growing tired. It was a form he had taken on willingly, determined to subject himself to endless encores and tiring performances for an eternity for the sake and wellbeing of those he cared for down to his deepest core.

He rose as a god — one that was willing to do what those otherworldly beings that looked down upon them could not, would not — and he was ready to fight for what he believed in. Ready to prove to you, the Astral Express, and everyone else who fought against him that this was truly for the best, and that with the right person pulling the strings behind the stage, there could be a world where only happy endings came to fruition and pain, anguish, and sorrow was a forgotten concept that would never be felt again.

But then he lost and everything, quite literally, came crashing down.

The dream he fought so, so hard for went up in smokes the moment he was able to caress it, and yet, the frustration only boiled over when you stood before him again after his title of Head of The Family was stripped from him and he was tangled in chains and stationed to sit and await his just punishment for his crimes.

Oddly enough, you were also in a similar fate — though your chains were much more translucent and only seemed to be visible for a fleeting few seconds when you spoke through that thinly-veiled sarcastic tone of yours.

 “Despite how hard you fell, you don’t look as bad as I thought you would. I mean, I would even go as far as to say that you’re full of vigor,” Your words irked him, but it was his just desserts for being the loser in his own grand scheme. Nevertheless, he let his irritation play like a show on his face, and ultimately, his tone as he hissed out his words to you.

 “Have you come here merely to poke at my pride for old times’ sake?” He asked, fully expecting to get a response equally as agitating as the last — and of course you delivered as you always did.

 “I’ve come to congratulate you on your freedom,” You told him that as though it were obvious. As if he wasn’t sitting before you, unable to move and on death row. He found himself gritting his even teeth.

 “I will not stand for your mockery, leave,” He told you despite the table of power having been flipped. He didn’t have that capability to boss anyone around. Not even a fledgling would listen to him, much less you.

 “You can’t stand…” You quipped, but the way you trailed off had him raising his spite-filled brow towards you, and ultimately, his gaze — though only a little — as you continued, “...at least not yet.”

 “What are you going on about?” He asked, initially gaining silence in response, which forced him to fully look up at you to search for answers himself. He locked eyes with yours, and despite your tone, he found this unfamiliar gleam in them. It was one that has lit his gaze countless times in the past as well as many others. He remembers that look when you took a stance on the other side of the coin and told him that everything he had built so far was a travesty.

And then it clicked at last; you were looking at him with utmost seriousness.

 “Like I said, I'm here to celebrate the moment you become a free man again,” You walked towards him as that uncanny glimmer in your eyes slowly went to overtake your entire face. You grow closer, and though he knows it's futile, he leans as far back into his chair as he can only to quickly run out of space to escape mere seconds later. 

You finally stand right in front of him where he helplessly sits in your reach. You, rightfully, tower over him — the light from the room outside bleeding in as if to further shove your victory in his face — yet it's only for a short moment before you're dropping down to your knees and willingly shrouding yourself further into darkness. Just like how you once walked behind him, managing life and aiding him whilst being in the cold embrace of his ever-growing shadow..

You reach for his leg — which had been locked in place by a bulky shackle — as your other hand goes fishing into your vest pocket. He flinches away when your fingertips graze against the fabric of his pants, and it was clear to you that it wasn’t out of fear nor out of disgust. The way he jerked away was as though he were stripping cheese away from a rat. It was a test — one that he hoped would reveal to him your plans and give insight on the oddity of your responses. Alas, you manage to see through what he was attempting to do — which maybe would’ve been helpful if you hadn’t already shackled yourself to your own undoing.

You finally find what you searched for and you’re quick about getting it out. So quick, in fact, that he doesn’t catch what exactly you grabbed. He opens his mouth to inquire about it, but he’s given an answer before he can ask the question as you loop your hand around his calf and he feels your grip tighten before—schlink.

  “What do you think you’re doing?!” He asks, his voice rising like his temperament, a stark contrast to the cool way you respond, as if you were drowning in subzero waters.

 “I’m getting tired of repeating myself,” You simply tell him.

 “And I’m getting tired of your nonsense,” He retorts — a first for him. Having been a product of growing up together, you knew how he operated and he knew you in turn. Both of you knew what made the other tick, and yet, you were the only one who’d crudely press and poke at him until the wings that protruded from his ears twitched ever so slightly with vexation. Never once did he try to jab back at you — as though it were above him. Maybe he thought it was at some point — that you were being immature for having a sense of humor — and to that part of you was snickering like a little kid.

You release his leg, and as though you were the chains that weighed him down, he feels ten times lighter when you pull away. He felt almost relieved until he realized how literal that weightlessness was and he kicked his leg forward to glimpse at it. Sure enough, it was free from its cold, uncomfortable prison, but you give him little time to gawk before you move to undo the chains that crowd around his other leg. It’s then that the surprise subsides and a frown graces his features.

 “I won’t accept this,” He said with a grimace. No matter what your reason was — what kind of change of heart you may have had or what you were told you could gain for doing this — he won’t have it. He doesn’t need charity. Not from anyone and certainly not you, who fought tooth and nail to get him here in the first place.

But you seem to be equally as stubborn on fulfilling whatever motive drives you because he barely gets a chance to resist before your grip turns inhumane and your unclipped fingernails — which he used to always chide you for as it would infuriate him to no end — dig into his pants leg and a jolt of pain forces him limp as you manage to pierce him through the thick fabric, just barely managing to avoid breaking skin.

 “You don’t have much of a choice here,” You tell him, “Everything’s already been set in motion. Neither you nor I can change this fate.”

 “Stop speaking in riddles and just tell me what you mean—!” His screams come to an abrupt halt as your eyes briefly lock after you freed his other leg and you reached up to do the same to his arm. He sees something in your eyes again, something he’s never ever seen on you. It had a tinge of poorly placed satisfaction like you had just come back from a casino where you lost everything but managed to regain a slither of your previous fortune, specifically just enough to get by. There was something else that swirled there too, something he could not hope to place in the state he’s in now, or maybe in his entire lifetime, as it was carefully masked behind this thick hollowness that dimmed your pupils — like something had once been there but was stripped away. Was it sorrow? Happiness? Pride? Or…no, you wouldn’t..

You free his hand, and immediately, he shoots out to latch it onto your neck. His grip wasn’t nearly as vicious as yours — you’d even go as far as to describe it as quite the tender hold — as he tilted your head up to look at him once more.

And there he sees it, or rather, he doesn’t. The fiery spark that he could once use to differentiate you from any impersonator or lookalike…was nowhere to be found, leaving only the hollow shell and this off-putting wit you’ve been throwing at him this entire time. 

And so he asks, his voice dropping down to a strained whisper as if he were the one being choked right now,  “..What have you done?”

And you answer casually — too casually for how dire this could possibly be, “I’ve done nothing but strike a deal with a pretty woman.”

 “Jade,” He says her name like he’s muttering a curse word, his teeth clicking like a lighter trying to produce fire, “What deal have you struck? What have you so…so foolishly—”

 “Does it matter?” You grab his wrist, and just like you thought, it takes no effort to peel it off your skin nor does his hand leave any prints or markings on your jugular. It truly was like an embrace, one you’d give a friend or even a loved one. Someone that you, at one point, could’ve possibly fit the bill. You’re not sure, and quite frankly, you didn’t want to know.

 “What’s done is done. No use fretting over the details,” You unclasp the final chain which confines his left arm and your hand lingers there longer than it did the rest. As if unlocking that bulky, iron bracelet finalized your future strife — one of unknowingness, anxious innocence that never belonged to you, and blank faces that once gave meaning to your life and filled your childhood with inexplicable bliss — you froze up, and at last, muttered your demise with a carefully spoken, overly thought out one-liner.

 “It’s not like I’ll be able to remember soon anyways.”

Sunday didn’t process it at first; the way his breath caught at your words and the way he too froze in place. It was as though he had immediately been given new shackles despite just being freed of the old ones — these ones being much heavier and possessing no key to free him of.

Well it does, but if what you say is to be taken literally, that key will soon forget its color of purpose, the hardened convictions that shaped it, and its hardships and blessings that formed the ridges necessary to slot perfectly into its keyhole.

 “Soon, our roles will be reversed — in some ways anyway,” You mutter, “I’ll be sitting in a chair of my own, littered in invisible chains, and what’s worse? I won’t even know about them,” You sigh. It was meant to be a chuckle of some kind but without the usual dry humor to reflect off of, it ceased to exist entirely. That said, you had no choice but to fall back on vocal clarity to get your point across, “It’s such funny irony. The victor ends up worse off than the defeated.”

 “But don’t get things twisted,” At last, you snap from whatever melancholic trance you were under and rise to your feet. Your hand retreating to station at your hip as you say, “I’m not angry. Not in the slightest. I’m the one who proposed this deal in the first place after all.”

And in his shock, he manages to force out a shaky, “Why?” but you take your time to answer.

As if you wanted to be insufferable one last time, you turn on your heel instead of opening your mouth to award him with the answer he yearns for. Just as you approached him, you walked slowly, as if you had all the time in the world. Your feet click in a spasmodic pattern that stabs into him one by one, forcing him to take your appearance in at last.

He can see the white of your undershirt peeking from your vest — which he noticed when you first came in was sloppily buttoned aside from the top, which remains unclasped altogether. There seemed to be just one too many creases in your attire and he could just tell it was nowhere in alignment with the loafers you adorn on your feet. It irked him to his very core to the point his fingers twitched, eager to grasp at the mistake that was you and fix it immediately.

But maybe some part of you wanted that. Hoped that his first decision as a free man would be to chase you down for once. To hold you, even when trembling with rage, and to engrave you into his being. Maybe the entire point of your visit was to ensure that you left an impression that satisfied you — one that would replace the interpretation he had of you during his descent from godhood, when you turned away as the final strike was dealt and the ideal you once shared together went up in flames.

If that was your true motive for coming here in place of that woman, you only half-succeeded. You achieved in your goal to erase that as his final memory of you, but failed in cementing it as what he’ll later remember you — this version of you — as. There are a plethora of other memories that come to mind in that case, some even dating back to when you could still both smile at each other without other veiled emotions diminishing them into something faux.

 “The real world isn’t about happy endings. It’ll always be that way no matter how much you or I wish it otherwise,” You told him as you finally reached the door, the light pouring in now blinding — as though what waited for you on the other side was the afterlife itself. In a way it was. You were dying, or at least, the you he and so many others had known was.

 “—And to answer your question from earlier, the reason I did this was because of my own belief; that this heartless world — that fills everyone with its fuel of suffering that pushes us to do the most insane things sometimes — is about taking your bleeding heart, your life, and fighting like hell to keep it beating until you no longer find a need to.”

Then suddenly, you look back at him, “I made this trade to follow my beliefs, and for that I must give it up too. If you accept her offer, the same may happen to you, but I still suggest that you at least consider it. I mean, your wings are already severed, might as well walk the mortal realm and see what it’s like.”

This time he doesn’t say anything, simply taking in your words as a sour taste pools at the root of his mouth. He wonders what it is, but doesn’t take the time to delve into himself to find an answer as it may take too much time and give you the chance to disappear into a cloud of smoke and reform somewhere else as someone entirely new.

Then again, that’ll happen anyways. He knows that now, but he still watches you like a hawk because he at least wants to give you that satisfaction of knowing that some part of him is giving chase albeit it's not in the literal sense you may have hoped.

You finally break your prolonged staring competition with him and face the light. It burns your retinas and you’re sure that, sooner than later, it’ll give you a horrible migraine. Nevertheless, you pretend that it doesn’t bother you — soon, it won’t for real.

 “Take care, sunny. The next time we see each other, we’ll be completely different people with lives that no longer crash into each other. …Heh, maybe we can even be civil to each other for once,” You take a step forward, most of your body out of the door as you find yourself murmuring under your breath.

 “...But, part of me wouldn’t mind if it were still the opposite.”

⇢ On the last page, you notice hearts and smiley faces circling around a note of some kind, it reads..

Before anything else, I just wanna say Happy Birthday Crow!!! Second off, I wanna thank you for creating the StellaronHvnters Network. If it weren't for this network coming into my life, I'd probably still be this sad sack who likes to write sometimes. You have singlehandedly gave me so much motivation along with many, many laughs and tears of joy!! Our late night chats are one of the best pleasures I get out of this network!! No matter how bad I feel, talking to you always manages to cheer me up!! Whether it be you yapping to me about your ocs ( which are the coolest btw I love them!!! Hark especially lmao they're my spirit animal at this point ), or HSR, or something else entirely, I'm always smiling behind the screen!! There are times where I let myself slip and I yap about all the fucked up shit that's happened to me over the years and you always managed to make me feel heard and comforted and safe beyond belief and to that I thank you so, so much!! ( Also your voice is really nice to listen to!! It's calming, like more than any ASMR or comfort audio I've listened to!! I could listen to you for hours like you're just like soothing in every aspect to me )

No matter what you may think otherwise, you are an amazing person with amazing skills in your arsenal!! I'm always blown away by the things you create ( still gnawing at the bars, waiting for another Aven fic btw ) and I'm always itching to hear more!! Not just that but your characterizations GOSHHHH they're so good!! Thanks to them, I've finally been able to grasp some understanding for Sunday and finally, finally write for him!! Again, you're so awesome!!

Honestly you just feel like a close, if not best friend, to me. Granted, many of the people in the StellaronHvnters are like that to me, but you especially!! You've always been a blast to talk to ( over text and on vc ), you're funny, you make me feel safe and never, like, make me feel judged or ashamed and just...aghhhh I love you so much. Please, let your mom know that I'm thanking her a million times over for having you!! Not just that, but I want to personally thank you for existing and being you and creating this safehaven for me, I owe you so, so much!!

I hope your day, and days to come, are as bright as you make mine!! And, once again, happy birthday!! <3

Dividers were made by me, pictures used are from Pinterest, post formatting is inspired by @xxsabitoxx