#I feel like I gave myself a nice wide range to work with
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sergle · 10 months ago
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alright okay, so this is basically the tentative temp gauge we're going with rn, for the temperature blanket! there's always the chance that I'll tweak it over the course of the year, but this is the basic idea. also the shade names on there are just for my own memory
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jayybugg · 7 months ago
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study session
Theodore Nott x Fem!Reader
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Summary: You're studying with Theo in the library...or are you?
Warning: Established Relationship, Dirty Talk, No House Specified, Kind of Public Sex, Smut (18+), No Use of Y/N, Google Translate Italian, No Plot literally just sex.
Word Count: 1.6K
Note: Wrote this based on a dream I had.....which was based on an RP scenario that I did. Obviously, Theo takes up a lot of space in my mind. Early birthday gift for my Georgie, @pizzaapeteer, please wish her an early birthday and thank you because she is the reason I got this done. @cafekitsune for the banners as always!
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You raced to the library, giving small hello’s and excuse me's to the people you passed. You had promised Theo that you would help him with his Charms homework after your club meeting, but you had gotten carried away with some discussions causing the meeting to run over. You hoped that Theo wasn't there yet or would just be arriving because you knew the small quips about your tardiness wouldn't stop if he was already there.
You made it into the library, climbing the stairs to the secluded corner of the floor. A small table with two chairs that you and Theo often claimed whenever you both decided to do some studying. You groaned softly, seeing Theo already seated with a shit-eating grin on his face when you rounded the corner.
"So late, bella. Almost thought you stood me up." Theo said as you sat down next to him. You rolled your eyes, pulling out your Charms notes and your textbook. "Oh, shut up. I've never stood you up before."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, why are you late?" Theo leaned in; his mouth curved into a smirk. You flicked his forehead causing him to lean back, rubbing it softly. "I got caught up in the meeting. I'm sorry, Teddy."
"It's fine, principessa." Theo said, opening his notes, "Just like teasing you."
You and Theo quickly fell into a nice rhythm of studying and light conversation. You gave him the notes to copy as you worked on the actual assignment. You always felt at ease when you studied with Theo, it was one of the only times that he seemed to relax. Usually that was reserved for when you both were in the privacy of your dorms and even then, Theo would rather be participating in other activities.
More time passed before you started wiggling in your chair, your butt starting to fall asleep. "This chair is uncomfortable." You whined, standing up to try to regain some feeling. Theo chuckled, leaning back in his seat, and patting his thigh. "Well, I'm quite comfortable if I do say so myself."
You rolled your eyes as you slid over to him, nestling yourself in his lap. "You've been waiting for this moment, haven't you?"
"I'm always looking for a way to get you in my lap, love. It's where you belong." Theo said, winking at you. You smiled, shaking your head, and returning to your reading for your homework.
Theo's hand reached your thigh, running up and down your leg. Once he finished copying the notes, he trailed his hand under your skirt. You glanced up from your reading to meet his eyes that were already trained on your face.
"Shouldn't you be starting on the assignment now?" You swatted his hand away from your thigh, raising an eyebrow at him. Theo smirked, putting his hand back, "Yeah, but I don't feel like reading that text right now."
His hand once again traveled up your skirt to the hem of your underwear. "Why don't you read it to me, principessa?"
"Read it to you?" You raised an eyebrow at him, "What are you trying to do?"
"Nothing, I just want to hear your sweet voice." Theo smiled, "I'll even reward you."
Your eyes scanned Theo's face, landing on his eyes. The usual expressionless eyes held a certain swirl of mischief in them. "You're up to something."
"Maybe, maybe not. Why don't you read and find out?" Theo shrugged, his smirk never going away. You rolled your eyes, conceding to his request.
"Charms are comprised of a wide range of spells. They focus on giving a target new and unexpected properties or making the target perform certain actions, along with other effects." You recited from the book. Theo's fingers softly moved the fabric of your underwear, pressing down on your clit with the pad of his thumb.
You yelped softly, looking up at Theo. He was leaning into his hand propped on the table, his smirk remaining as he held eye contact with you. "Theo," You hissed, "We're in the library."
"I know, bella. Why are you bringing up the obvious? Keep reading, I'm intrigued." Theo contorted his face into fake confusion, all while massaging your clit with his thumb. You narrowed your eyes at him, taking a shaking breath as you felt a familiar feeling boil inside you.
"Charms were distinguished from Transfiguration spells in the regards that a charm will add to or change the properties of an object while Transfiguration spells change the object completely." You continued reading as Theo removed his thumb from your clit, quickly replacing it with his index finger. He trailed up and down your pussy, smiling as you stuttered upon your next sentences.
"Offensive and protective spells f-fall under Charms such as the Stunning, Disarming, mmm, spell, and the Shield spell. The Tickling spell- oh!" Theo’s finger slipped its way into your pussy, pumping in and out as you read. You shut your eyes, attempting to save yourself from the pleasure.
Theo leaned close to your ears, a smirk evident on his face. “What’s wrong, bella?”
“You…. Theo….”
“Blaming me for your distractions?” Theo clicked his tongue, “How rude.”
You slapped his arm, slumping over slightly as Theo picked up the pace of his fingers. Theo chuckled darkly; his eyes trained on your face as it contorted into one of pleasure. “Getting fingered in the library, where anyone could round that corner and see you. Such a fucking slut.”
You felt yourself clench around his fingers due to his words. The adrenaline from the thought of being caught rushed through your body. “Fuck. Please.” You let out a breathy plea, your eyes looking over to the corner that could expose this whole ordeal.
“Please what, amore? Use your words.” Theo whispered into your ear. Your breathing became shallow as you felt a familiar knotting in your stomach. Theo did relent in his pace, smirking as he saw you close your eyes. “About to cum? Go ahead, be a good girl, and come all over my fingers, sunshine.”
A low moan fell from your lips as your climax came in a harsh wave. You fell limp against Theo, who was chuckling lowly. You rolled your eyes, getting ready to scold him. “I can’t believe you- Theo? What are you-?”
You felt your body get picked up and leaned over the wooden table. Theo stood up, taking his place behind you. “What are you talking about, darling?” Theo said, pushing your skirt up to your waist and bending down to be face to face with your cunt.
“We’re in the library! We can’t-” Your words were once again cut off by Theo as his tongue lapped at your clit.
“But you’re dripping, principessa. I can’t just leave my girl soaked like this, now, can I?” Theo smirked against your cunt, lapping at it again. You bit your lip, pressing your face against the hard wooden table. Theo stood up, undoing his belt and zipper as he left a harsh slap on your ass.
“Do you want my cock, baby? Tell me.” Theo stroked himself, pushing your legs apart with his knee. You let out a deep breath, laying your body flat against the table and turning your head to glance back at him. “Yes…... I want it.” You said softly. Theo smirked at you, lining himself up with your entrance, pushing in.
“Fuck, amore, so wet and ready for me,” Theo muttered. You whimpered, your eyes falling close at the feeling of being filled up by your boyfriend. He never fails to stretch you out beyond belief. Theo pulled out slowly, leaving just the tip in before snapping his hips forward, setting a harsh pace.
“Such a fucking slut. Getting railed in the library where someone could see you.” Theo snarled, his hands gripping your hips tightly. You clenched around him again, moans ripping from your throat. “Oh, you like that, huh? You like the idea of someone possibly seeing how much of a whore you are for me?” Theo smirked, reaching around to rub on your clit.
“Y-yes, yes, I like it.” You mewled, your nails digging into the table. Your eyes focused on the open corner, your heart speeding up every time a shadow floated past it. The last thing you wanted was for anyone to catch you in this position, but you couldn’t find it in you to stop Theo or even conceal the noises that he was causing you to make.
Between watching how he disappeared into your greedy cunt and how your ass bounced back every time his hips contacted yours, Theo groaned softly. “S’good…. fuck.” You whimpered.
Theo lifted your leg to be prompted up on the table, knocking the books off the table in the process. With a firm grip on around your thigh, Theo pound into your aching cunt. You gripped the edge of the table, your climax coming fast. “M’boutta….m’boutta cum…” You said, your voice muffled from burying your head to the table.
“Hm? My principessa is about to cum?” Theo spoke, “Cum around my dick, I want to feel you soak me.”
It didn’t take long for you to cum once again, your juice covering Theo’s dick and thighs. He continued to pound into you until his thrusts got sloppy. “Going to cover this pretty ass all in my seed.” He muttered, more to himself than to you. He gave you one last deep thrust before pulling out and spilling his cum all over your ass.
You took deep breaths, your body still bent over the table, as Theo massaged your waist, a chuckle erupting from his throat.
“I didn’t know you were so kinky, bella. Good thing I casted that invisibility charm before you got here.”
Your eyes flew open in disbelief as you turned your head to look at him. That same shit-eating grin on his face from earlier.
Your boyfriend was going to be the death of you.
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come-away-with-me87 · 4 months ago
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The Art of Love Chapter 4
Chapter 3 here
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You typically wore a blouse, pants, and ballet flats to school; it was the most comfortable type of outfit to move around and teach in. On Monday, though, you opted for a different outfit. There was no special reason, you thought to yourself. Today, you decided to wear a pale blue, flowy sundress with a white cardigan, and wedge heels. You took a look at yourself in the full-length mirror in your bedroom, did a little spin, and thought you looked presentable enough. Again, you thought to yourself, there was no special reason for the change in outfit; you just wanted to try something different today. At least that's what you told yourself.
You made it to work at your usual time, and as the students started trailing in, many of them complimented you in their own adorable ways. "You look pretty today, Miss L/N!" one student exclaimed. They always knew how to bring a smile to your face in one way or another. That morning, Mirio dropped Eri off again at school, just as he did on her first day. "Good morning, Miss L/N!" Mirio said with a wide smile. You couldn't help but smile back at him; he had such an infectious personality. "Good morning to you, Mirio. It's nice to see you again." His smile beamed even more when you said that. "Mr. Aizawa will be picking Eri up at school today; he mentioned having a meeting with you?"
"That's right," you replied to him. "That's good! Well, I'm off, I have classes to get to myself." With that, he gave you one last dazzling smile, gave Eri a small hand squeeze and a wink, and took his leave. After Mirio left, you looked down at Eri and gave her a sweet smile, "and how was your weekend, Eri?" She beamed up at you; she seemed a lot happier now than she did during her first week. "It was amazing! I got to spend time with Mirio and Izuku, who gave me candy apples! And I trained with Mr. Aizawa! He said I'm growing stronger every day!" Your heart beamed at her sentiment; she seemed so genuinely happy.
"That's wonderful, Eri! I'm so happy to hear you had a good weekend!" She beamed up at you again; she seemed like such a sweet girl. You couldn't even begin to imagine what kind of trauma that she has been through to bring her to your classroom, but you were grateful she was here. The bell finally rang, so Eri and the rest of the students took their seats. That day, you asked them to draw self-portraits. You were interested in how they viewed themselves.
While they drew their self-portraits, you reviewed their work from the previous week. You looked at Eri's colored mandala once again, thinking of Shouta stating the color choices she made were interesting. Those colors seemed to be the general theme of the majority of the creations she made; variations of purple, green and black. You were interested in talking more to Shouta about her past, and why she seems to normally choose these color themes. You stopped yourself mid-thought; why did your mind keep going to Shouta?
Even though you asked yourself this question, you couldn't lie to yourself; you found him intriguing. You were mesmerized from the moment you laid eyes on him. No man has made you feel anything in years, not since your dear Kento passed. You frowned at the thought of Kento; all of these years later, you did still miss him, and you felt guilty at the thought of even entertaining liking another man. You remembered Kento's funeral, how you decided then and there to close your heart off to relationships from that point forward.
But were you being fair to yourself in this decision? Kento loved you, and would want to see you be happy. You were happy…overall. You absolutely loved your job and your life, but you had to admit you felt lonely at times. You knew that, deep down, Kento would want you to find someone that will open your heart back up. That's not saying that it would necessarily be Shouta Aizawa; you don't even know the man, but Kento would want you to eventually open your heart back up to someone.
You were so lost in your thoughts that day, that you didn't even notice that the bell rang and school day was over. Suddenly, you had a line of students standing in front of you, waiting to hand in their self-portraits. While the students' parents came in to pick them up, you collected their self-portraits, telling them all you would see them the next day. Eri was last in line, and handed in her portrait; it had a child in a light tan dress, wearing what looked to be white bandages going down both arms and legs, and the background was solid black. "Eri…" you trailed off, when you noticed Shouta and another man in the doorway.
You put the drawing down, stood up and welcomed both men in. "Eri, did you have a good day today?" Shouta asked her. She beamed up at him and nodded her head. On the outside, she appeared to be a happy little girl; you could tell that the staff and students at the U.A. took good care of her. However, based on her artwork thus far, this poor little girl is definitely still experiencing inner turmoil. Shouta then turned to you, "hello, Y/N. This is my friend, Toshinori Yagi, or All Might, as you may know him." Toshinori bowed down to you, saying, "it's a pleasure to meet you, young Y/N." You bowed to him, returning the greeting.
Shouta spoke up, "Toshinori is going to take Eri back to the U.A. while you and I talk." He turned to look at Eri again, "Eri, I will see you back at the campus. You'll be on your best behavior tonight, right?" Eri beamed up at him and exclaimed, "I will!" Eri took her leave with Toshinori, leaving you and Shouta alone. You know he was there to talk about Eri, but you couldn't help but feel nervous. Shouta turned back to you, looked you up and down, saying, "you look very nice today." Your heart practically pounded out of your chest at the compliment. What was wrong with you? "Thank you," you breathily replied, "please, have a seat," as you motioned to the seat on the other side of your desk.
******
To be continued…
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Tag list: @lili-pond ; @jaguarthecat ; @big-denki-energy
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savagewildnerness · 6 months ago
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I keep seeing your violin videos in my recommendations and I just wanted to say that you're really talented! How long have you been playing?
Hello Anon ☺️,
That’s so kind of you. Thank you so much! I don’t consider myself a musician, so it really means a lot.
I started playing violin when I was 8 years old. I only ever had free violin lessons in school. When we were 8, a violin teacher came to my primary school & we were told if we wanted to learn violin, we could “audition” (they were just testing for musical aptitude as we obviously couldn’t play yet!) & 4 of us were chosen. I just walked out of school one day with a (school lent us instruments for the first few years) violin, as I hadn’t told any of my friends or my parents they’d chosen me as I as worried my friends would be sad they weren’t picked.
I had violin lessons till I was 18, just under 10 years, just in term time. As I went through school, most children who had had free music lessons eventually gave up sooner or later. Or their parents could afford private lessons too. But I would just miss lessons for my 15 minute violin lessons once a week.
In my secondary school there were two sisters - one 3 years older than me & the other a year younger who were magnificent violinists (one ended up a conductor, the other a violist in an orchestra.) Their parents were musicians too (nobody in my family plays an instrument), they’d played since they were 3 & they were confident & really talented. The girl nearer my age always bullied & hated me & as a quiet child I always felt lucky not to be bullied more. But she did it. I never understood why she hated me. I still don’t understand why she hated me so much. She was way more popular than me & way more talented. Anyway, she was still an incredible musician.
I did get as far as grade 8 violin & my violin teacher told me she’d never got another student who had never had a private music lesson to grade 8, so I suppose it was something. But I always felt (& was) inferior.
When I was 12 (old for this!) I began private piano lessons outside school. My piano teacher taught those 2 girls too! When I was 13 she was going to reduce the number of pupils she taught, semi-retiring & since I hadn’t played long, she told my Mum I’d have to stop piano lessons. But then I had my piano lesson that day. I was still a beginner of course, but she said I played with such feeling that she couldn’t stop teaching me. I only got up to Grade 6 piano, but I enjoy playing piano too.
Anyway, I don’t know whether my violin tags just found you randomly (sorry!), but in case it’s via vampire chronicles (which inspire the improvisations here): I first read them around when I began piano lessons & always associated with Nicolas - as a child who played violin & knew I would never be as good as even others in my tiny school, let alone as good as people in the wide world. And yet, occasionally people said some nice thing about my playing. It didn’t seem to mean much, but it mattered still, because I loved music & I felt music & it meant a lot to me. I felt like Nicolas: like I could never be good enough, but I’d always felt deeply from & deeply connected to music. (I also danced as a child, so I felt music in how I moved to it long before I played violin.)
I am actually now a music therapist & though I still do not consider myself a musician (& there will always be way better music therapists than me too), I am lucky to be able to use my music, though it’s a lot of bashing cymbals & drums & singing silly sounds to tell the truth 😁😂😅. I work in different workplaces, with children & adults with disabilities. I work a lot with children who are nonverbal - some with profound & multiple disabilities, some with visual impairments, a lot who are autistic & well… a wide range. I am so lucky to be able to do what I do & work with the incredible people I work with - each so unique that my work is always so different & often very fun (& funny! Humour, as music is beyond words!) But I have never done anything at all personally creative, so sometimes it’s nice to do that, just for me, hence improvising.
As a child I was a horrible perfectionist too, but life taught me, perfection is impossible. You will never be the best at any thing & you likely won’t be even ‘very good’, let alone ‘great’ at much, or likely any thing either. However, what we can all be is: free.
So this longer answer than you wanted for sure is to say - may we all do whatever little thing, whenever we are able to to feel that little more free! 🥰 I wish that for everyone who may read this.
And - do things you’re bad at too! Sometimes I like to paint or draw & I have the same skill at drawing as I did when I was 7 (0 skill!) yet it can be more fun as there is no expectation of yourself, so you can actually be free like you were as a child. (Well, I wasn’t very free as a child! But you get the gist! 😂)
Thank you again for your question & for your kindness! And sorry for my longer-than-you-could-ever-have-wanted answer! 😇🎻
Do other people play instruments? I bet loads of you are incredible musicians, way, way better than silly me. I always wanted to play cello, saxophone & (random) piccolo too! But I can’t play any of those! 😅 I’d give cello a good try if cellos weren’t too expensive to own a cello when you’re not a cellist! 😂 That’s why I like my nice extra deep C string on my 5 stringed violin. That, and having that extra string can help if I’m working with someone who loves deeper sounds, or just in general - to have that extra range. ☺️
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larabiatasstuff · 1 year ago
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Could you please write something with older Daniel where he has a date night with reader and takes them to meet his kids? And he just comforts reader because they’re so nervous etc.
So we have a premiere on this blog😁 Thank you for your request anon 🖤 It's the first time writing for Daniel but I try my best for you. 🙏 I hope you like it ☺️
I was in the break room having lunch with my coworker Sara, it was Friday and it was the night I would have a date with Daniel. We were seeing each other for a while now and I had the feeling that it was getting pretty serious. "So any plans for tonight?" She asked "Umm yeah I have a date with Danny again. It's the first time we meet at his house so... " "Oohhh it's getting pretty serious huh? Did you meet his kids yet?" "Not yet. But I'm afraid I can't avoid that much longer. Well, I gotta go Sara have a nice weekend." "See you on Monday and I want details! " she yelled after me. I checked my phone on the way to my desk and noticed that I had a message from Danny "Can't wait to see you tonight. I pick you up at seven.Have to sell a few cars first. ;) " He was so cute, just reading this message gave me butterflies. "Same here. Just came back from lunch and now on my way to save the world by answering emails. See you later Danny." the rest of the day was quiet, even my boss was in a really good mood today. After I finished work I drove home went into the shower and started staring at my wardrobe. I absolutely had no idea what to wear but after thirty minutes of throwing clothes on my bed I decided to wear a red summer dress. I just did a light make up and let my hair fall loose over my shoulders. I checked myself in the mirror for the last time before the doorbell rang. I took a deep breath and opened. Danny was standing there with a wide smile. "Wow Y/N you look stunning. I actually feel a little underdressed now." he gave me a soft kiss and we went to his car. "I have to tell you something before we go." he said. "Okay and what would that be?" "Sam and Anthony are at home, they wanted to go to a concert but that got canceled and I was thinking maybe it's a good opportunity for you to meet each other." My heart immediately started beating faster. "Danny do you think that's a good idea? I mean I'm not prepared and... and what if they don't like me? I don't want to mess that up. " I was just seconds away from a panic attack now but then I felt him taking my hands in his "Hey, hey Y/N try to breathe slowly for me okay? Nice and slow just like that. Listen there is no need to be nervous or worried Y/N, I already had a talk with them and they're pretty excited about meeting you. They see how happy you make me and how much you mean to me. Trust me they will love you as much as I do. Look at me. " I did as he said and looked in his beautiful brown eyes." I won't urge you to do something you don't want but I love you and I want you to be part of my family. " his words almost brought tears to my eyes." I, I love you too Danny. I'm sorry I think I just freaked out because I never was in such a serious relationship before but I would love to meet your kids." he gave me the biggest smile and pulled me into a wonderful and sensual kiss. "Are you ready?" he asked and I just nodded.Then we drove to his house and as soon as we entered the house we got greeted by Sam and Anthony who had already set the table outside. All my worries were immediately gone and we spent a really nice evening with talking and getting to know each other.
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broccoliboix5peepeeman · 2 years ago
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With the Midoriya-sensei AU, I was wondering will Shoto talk to Fuyumi after tddk first meet?
Heck yeah!
Part 5.2 of "Breaking the ice"
Part 5.1 | Ao3 Link | Part 6
'So…' Fuyumi's voice rang out from across the kitchen, where she was boxing up the leftovers. 'What do you think of Midoriya-kun? Spoiler alert: if you think he's anything less than amazing I will disown you.'
'You wound me.' Shoto deadpanned as he continued with the washing up; he was particularly fixated on a stain that refused to come off one of the bowls. Switching the sponge to its abrasive side, he scrubbed and added nonchalantly, 'I gave him my number.'
Silence echoed through the kitchen, almost deafening, then Fuyumi squealed with what Shoto could only assume was delight, and the sound of footsteps on the tiled floor preceded the sudden warmth he felt when his sister wrapped him in a hug from behind.
'Did you actually?’ When Shoto didn’t bother answering the obvious, she pounded on his back. ‘I’m so proud of you! Wait…’
When Fuyumi stepped back, Shoto raised an intrigued eyebrow and turned his head to find her regarding him suspiciously; hands on her hips and eyes narrowed. ‘Is that why you’ve been practically glued to your phone all night?’
Shoto squinted back.
‘Perhaps.’
His sister pursed her lips—unnecessarily dragging out the tension—then she flashed him a wide smile.
‘Yes! I just knew you’d hit it off! So, tell me more! What do you think of him?’
Shoto swallowed heavily and turned back to the soapy water, adding the now clean bowl to the draining rack before making a start on one of the plates. What did he think of Midoriya? Well, to start with, he was inordinately kind despite his situation—of which Shoto only knew extremely surface-level details, but he could make reasonable inferences—and he was attentive to other people; he was great at his job; he had a smile that made Shoto feel at ease, and Fuyumi had been right he was…
Handsome… Very handsome.
'He was very nice.' He shrugged, not entirely keen on sharing the full extent of his thoughts. 'You were right about him. At least, from what I've seen so far.'
'Like what you see, huh?'
He could practically hear Fuyumi's smile, and felt his cheeks burn. He understood the double meaning well enough, and he wasn't about to give her the satisfaction of an answer.
It didn't take long for her to relent. 'Come on, I'm joking… sort of.'
'Very funny.' Shoto frowned as he continued washing up, contemplating his options. He could very easily leave the subject there—over the years, Fuyumi had learnt not to pry too much with him, which he was thankful for—but in all honesty, he didn’t exactly want to stop talking about Midoriya. 
It wasn't until he heard his sister return to her previous task that he decided to keep the conversation going, and gathered the courage to call out, 'Don't make a big deal out of this… but I invited him to meet up with me after my shift on Sunday.'
He closed one eye when metal clattered onto the countertop in response.
'Really?' He didn't need to look to know Fuyumi was staring holes into his back. 'Like a da-'
'Not a date.' Shoto whipped his head around and immediately regretted it when he locked eyes with his sister, smiling knowingly. 'I want to get to know him… myself, not just through your work stories.'
That smirk quickly retreated.
'So just as a friend? You don't like him like… that?'
She peered at him curiously and bit her lip with worry. Shoto refrained from asking her why she looked so disappointed.
'He's… attractive.' He clarified, sighing as he grabbed the hand towel and turned around properly to face her; stray puddles of water dampened the back of his shirt as he leant against the counter. 'But you know I don't date people just because of that.'
'You don't date full stop!' Fuyumi exclaimed, with a little excessive flamboyance, if Shoto were honest. 'Actually, I think this is the first time in twenty four years that you've admitted to actually finding someone attractive… not counting your secret celebrity crush on Hawks back in high school that we've all collectively decided not to comment on.'
'So why are you commenting on it?' Shoto huffed under his breath, trying not to let his embarrassment consume him.
‘Okay, okay. It won’t happen again.’ Fuyumi waved him off, tone lacking any sort of sincerity that she’d maintain that promise. ‘But you’ve got to admit though, this is a big deal. It’s one thing to admire someone you’ve only heard stories about, but another to meet them in person and feel a connection, and whether that connection ends up being platonic or something more, it doesn’t matter. You go well together, you'll see.'
She paused for a moment, tone becoming gentle. 'I’m happy for you, Shoto. I’ve got a good feeling about this.’
Suddenly bashful, Shoto turned back to the sink, albeit he couldn’t keep the smile from his face as he brought his shoulders to his ears.
‘Me too.’
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humming-pokemon-helpers · 2 years ago
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Hey, this is @galarianblogger, and I wanted to thank you for your support. I did end up posting the second part of my story, and it does feel like a relief to get my story out there and remind myself that I'm safe and my pokemon are safe now.
I did take some time to explain the situation to my minccino, Skittles. I should make it clear at this point that I can't speak pokemon, but that Skittles does an amazing job of understanding human languages. He got me a blanket after I explained and spent a full 10 minutes snuggling with me.
Since then though, he seems to be a lot more talkative. It's been nice hearing him hum to himself as he's cleaning and chatter when we're hanging out, but I wonder if he wishes he could talk to me.
I know that you're able to talk to pokemon but as someone without that gift, I was wondering what you think would be the best way for me and Skittles to get past the language barrier.
Oh, it's lovely to hear from you again Florence!
I'm glad that putting your story out there gave you some comfort. And I think it will be very useful for others to know what to look for in these shiny farms in the future, especially young people in the same position you were! More importantly, like you said, everything ended with you safe and healthy, and able to rescue some of the poor Pokemon trapped in that facility.
I'm also glad to hear you've been taking the time to recover with Skittles! You'd be amazed at how well Pokemon pick up human language--studies have shown that for many species, the only barrier between them and human speech is the lack of properly developed vocal chords.
One possibility could be a set of communication buttons for you two--there's plenty of fancy high-tech ones, but honestly, touch and laminated paper can work just as well to communicate a wide range of meanings! Even just "yes" and "no"s can get you pretty far with a Pokemon who understands language proficiently, but you can keep adding as more scenarios come up!
Learning to read Pokemon body language can also be a huge help. Usually Pokemon try to match ours in domestic environments, but looking at how Skittles is moving as he chatters at you can be a pretty big clue as to his meaning as well! Ears flicking could mean a bit of annoyance, for instance, or a tail sweeping against you means he's just happy to be with you!
Hopefully this helps at least a little! I think Skittles would appreciate even the fact that you want to break that language barrier--it seems like he's opening up a lot in response to you opening up, too!
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codystottstudio5 · 5 months ago
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Conclusion / Reflection
Looking back at my project I feel a great deal of pride for what I have accomplished. I have historically under researched my design work, and not found the time to create extensive research documents for my work output. However, in this project I have proved that I capable of a high level of research, care, and attention to detail. I have also improved in my design outputs, especially in regard to the brand manual, which when compared to my brand manual last year, is a drastic improvement in every way.
Every project has room for improvement, I would have liked to better advance my illustration skills and created a wider range of assets to use in my asset bank. I would have also liked to have given myself some extra time at the beginning to experiment with crowd sourcing research, discovering what issues young people care most about and using those as my focus policies. Even though this would have been nice, the deliverables were designed to be infinitely repeatable for every policy, so the three created for my deliverables are not reflective of the overall project, and act more as examples for a much wider series.
I gave myself a serious challenge with this project, as on top of my design work I also chose a project that required extensive research, and the necessity to be infinitely repeatable for a wide range of policies. These extra challenges increased my workload, but it was a worthy investment as now, I have a thorough, unique project which I feel very strongly about. This is the first piece of work I would truthfully describe as a ‘passion project’ since the end of first year studio, and I am proud with the final product.
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horizon-forbidden-sheesh · 11 months ago
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Writing Process: Google > Scrivener
When I began writing, I already had plenty of material to work from! For more details on this, read the Preamble. 💋
⚙️ When I began work on the fic, I was working in Scrivener, adapting first-person journal entries I'd drafted in my phone's Notes app. I wanted the full fic to be third-person in order to develop the background motivations for multiple characters. Scrivener gave me plenty of space to hold all the journal entries, timeline notes, and dialogue scraps I didn't know what to do with yet.
I originally planned for 10 Chapters, at ~10k words each. My initial outline looked like this:
I The Bulwark II The Kulrut III Returning IV Rest V What Was Lost VI Waiting VII The Scorcher (👈🏻 After 26 chapters and 90k words, we are currently here.) VIII Rebellion IX Endgame X Finale, or Returning, Reprise
However, I was quickly burning out due to the length of each chapter, and after asking around in Discord, I had a sinking feeling readers would be overwhelmed.
What I Did Instead:
At a certain point in April, after about ~6 months of on-again off-again drafting, I got fed up, a little drunk, and chopped up my enormous existing chapters into smaller chapters: five, to be exact. That night I posted the first one, ironically called 'The Last One.'
While I have been very selective about chapter titles, at the time, I didn't have a title for the whole shebang. But I was wine-drunk and flippant, and said "Oh just fuggin pick something u bish." So I called it 'The Marshal,' because it was just vague enough, y'know?
(I absolutely would have called it 'What I Choose,' if it didn't already exist.)
I told myself I'd post weekly. Just the first 10, ending in that bittersweet conversation Aloy has with Varl about Rost. It gave me 5 weeks to figure out how to write 5 more chapters. And I was off to a great start with 6 & 7 drafted in advance.
But then I got this comment on Chapter 6: "Looking forward to the Kulrut Hopefully we get some more of our power duo fighting together 😁"
I was... absolutely planning on skipping directly to the dialogue scene after the battle. And based on what I'd already plotted, I would need to squeeze in an extra chapter to get'er done, pushing out my 10 chapter outline. But I REALLY didn't want to disappoint anyone, especially if they were LOOKING FORWARD TO IT?!? 🥹
I was also traveling at this time, away from my computer and my stupid, bulky Scrivener file. So I whipped open a Google Doc and started firing on all cylinders to write a new Chapter 8 complete with Kulrut battle scene. And lo, I discovered:
⚙️ Writing in Google Docs gave me SO MUCH MORE FREEDOM. I could access my drafts from my desktop, my tablet, and my phone. These days, I write mostly in bed on my tablet, which is a FAR cry from the early days staying up till 2am at my desk.
It was extra comfy, because Google Docs is where I do all my client work. As I've mentioned: IRL, I'm a copywriter/project manager for print & digital design work. Mostly, I build websites, but as a freelancer, I work on a wide range of projects and the tools I use need to be flexible & accessible to a wide range of audiences.
The Google Suite is perfect for that, and I have a simple filing system for all my projects to keep things nice and neat. My writing work fit perfectly into that system, and the same flexibility & accessibility really supported my writing process.
Here's what my file folder looks like these days:
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Which frankly, is a lot easier to navigate than this dumb Scrivener sidebar:
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I finished chapters 8, 9, & 10 in Google Docs. I'm still really proud of myself for taking the leap and posting. Sharing your work is scary! Or at least, it was for me.
I'd never written ANYTHING on this scale before, and it felt like a huge accomplishment. I'll be honest, impulsively posting that first chapter with a short runway and a clear end-goal made it a LOT easier to be accountable. I would recommend this strategy to ANYONE!
Tips & Takeaways:
🖤 Consistency is key, but I've found it comes at a price. Trying to post once a week in perpetuity will slowly bleed you out. Wait to post until you have at least half your content under your belt, and set a clear end date—if only for your own sanity.
🖤 Be flexible in your outline!! In both Part 1 and Part 2 I ended up with an extra chapter that pushed my intended finale into the next season. I'm still glad I had an outline, but I'm grateful I left room for it to change. (This is something I would have had a LOT of trouble with 5 years ago! Personal growth FTW!)
🖤 When you start to feel like writing is just biting concrete, find the most fun way out. Is it writing the most exciting scene you can think of? Or is it looking at what you already have and finding a new way forward within your existing structure?
🖤 You're gonna be stuck with your title for the long haul, so make sure you like it. Or at least that it's something you can tolerate.
🖤 Do what feels natural. Everyone is different. If you're like 'okay yeah, but I really like writing by hand and then editing as I transcribe it' do that. Go bananas. Have a ball! Find your own way up the mountain. These tools may work for you, or they may send you into the pit of despair. And you should always avoid the pit of despair.
🖤 Write sober, edit drunk.
xo, Sheesh
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kashimos-hajime · 3 years ago
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the colour yellow | jjk
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summary: “You once said love manifests the most twisted curses. I never thought of it that way before, but I’m starting to think you’re right.”
WARNINGS: ANGST!! hanahaki disease but not an au, HOSPITALS, DEATH, DESCRIPTIONS OF DISEASE, UNHEALTHY WEIGHT LOSS, pining, unrequited love, complicated feelings, its just sad. there are some light-hearted moments, and happier/softer aspects in the ending but it is generally sad in the ‘what could have been’ department pairing: gojo satoru x fem!reader, past geto suguru x fem!reader, mentions of satosugu word count: 29.9k lmao
a/n: i just needed to get the hanahaki out of my system. it did not work. i took liberties w the timeline because idc about actual jjk canon in this fic thanks. 
playlist for this fic
crossposted on ao3 x
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Your Innate Technique always gave you a green thumb. Meaning, similarly enough to Yaga, you could plant cursed energy into objects.
Where it deviated, Satoru knows, is the type of object. Plants—trees, leaves, flowers. 
Ironic, he thinks numbly as he walks through the hospital. Shoko had told him that at this point it was palliative care until you died—nothing else would work. Cursed energy only fed your sickness, and even her technique could not heal the damage fast enough. Stupid. Idiotic. Cruel.
Cruel. That was the word.
He hadn’t seen it himself but from how his old friend had described it, it could only be cruel. 
His footsteps tap along the linoleum floors, urgent, but not too fast. A part of him dreads what he will see—his mind swirls with the possibilities, and of guilt.
Why didn’t he just come sooner? Why did he think it was okay to wait, to dismiss Itadori when he said you’d been checked in for your coughing fits?
“She’s strong. She’ll be fine,” he had said. Itadori’s small frown. “A little feather in her throat isn’t going to knock her down.”
Why? Why? Why? Why did he say that?
Because it had to be serious to put you in the hospital. For fuck’s sake, you were still that teenage girl who stood outside his dorm window in the middle of a thunderstorm to bring Fushiguro a birthday present before you left for a curse expedition a thousand years ago, and the woman who welcomed him into your home unprompted on December 24th, your cheeks dry, lips pressed in a brave smile.
You had held him tight enough he could not see the blood, scrubbed him in a bathtub, ran your fingers through his hair until the sweat and grime was gone. You took care of him because he knows the belief that no one should be left behind to suffer alone has been engrained in you since the day he’s met you.
He should’ve known. A girl abandoned for being cursed had turned into woman with a saviour complex who’d barely even think about telling him you were dying. 
Dying, of all things, from a disease no one knows how to cure. And you’re a sorcerer.
He could’ve laughed. The irony is enough to make him smile.
Your room’s in a tiny corner of the hospital, down the hall from a nurse’s station, and as he walks through, he can see the grey sunlight streaming through the window, glaring against his glasses. He lifts them to rub the heel of his hand into his eye.
He doesn’t want you to worry when you see him, and mostly, he needs to stall. His heart is in knots in his chest, and he spots a chair beside the door with your name in the plastic slate, so he sits down. His knees feel gummy and he leans forward, the visitor’s pass clipped to the front of his shirt hanging. 
Satoru tugs the glasses off his face, fits his palm over his brow and squeezes his eyes shut. It’s chilling in this dead end, and he swallows tightly. Everything tastes so dry as he looks up and shoves his hand underneath the sanitizer dispenser, rubbing it all over his hands just so he has something to do.
After a few minutes, he gets up and sets a hand on the knob. 
It can’t be as bad as he’s imagining. At most, you’re a bit sick, but you’ll still be spritely, warm in the lips and with arms outstretched and, “Satoru, finally!”
He opens the door. 
You’re sitting hunched over in bed. Silhouette outlined by the white-grey sunlight from outside your hospital room, you’re trembling as you hold onto a receptacle. An IV is hooked to your arm, a hospital gown is barely hiding anything, and it feels immoral to even look so Satoru doesn’t. Instead, he pauses by the doorframe and closes his eyes for a moment as your gaze flashes to him. 
He feels it, to be honest. The heat of your stare until it is wrenched away by a violent cough you instinctually muffle by your palm, blood splattering over your hand, soft, velveteen purple petals falling from your lips and into the receptacle in your lap. 
You’re supposed to have a green thumb.
Vines bend to your will if you command it, you can summon forth thorns to impale your opponents, send thick creeping ivy to barricade a doorway. It doesn’t matter if there is no greenery in your immediate area. At the sweep of your hand, the ground could rumble with the sound of trees twisting their gnarled roots into feet to march at your command.
Just as long as they’re within range and you’ve touched them in the past few hours, they’re yours.
So, why can’t you stop this?
Plants are supposed to listen to you, right? As he stares at your shaking body on the bed, curved over the plastic tub, thick globs of bloodied spit drip from your lips and soaked purple blossom petals entwine with your life essence. His heart plummets to his chest. You retch, spit, choke, and every sound stabs him in the chest as he takes a weak step forward, hand stretched out limply.
Your name flutters, barely leaves his lips before you’re looking at him again, a bit of a mortifying image but nonetheless.
Even so, you smile, despite the blood painting your face, the exhaustion morphing your body. You look like you haven’t slept in weeks, and your hands shake around the receptacle. You look battered, bruised along the arms where the needles keeping you filled with antibiotics, medicine you need, had punctured you.
And still, you’re beaming at him. He thinks he’s going to be sick.
“Hi, Satoru.”
His hand falls. Eyes wide, he cannot take another step. You wipe at your lips, tossing the tissue into the trash before pushing the plastic receptacle onto the table and swinging your legs off the bed.
“Don’t—“ he croaks but you don’t listen, sliding your feet into slippers and grabbing your IV stand to take a step towards him. Your knees nearly give in but you stick out a hand before he can rush to catch you. Then, you’re pushing yourself up and walking over to him. It’s more of a shuffle, but Gojo finds he can’t care as you land on his chest, hands pressing into his back.
You’re a bit cold in his arms, and he wraps himself around you, trying to rub the heat back into your skin as you shudder, but your heart is still racing as it always does around him, and you…
You’re the type of person who can shift how the air feels and looks to his Six Eyes with your smile or your tears or your frown, and in that moment, the air bleeds yellow with your joy. It’s so bright in his soul that it makes his heart skip as you shift on your feet against him, hands sliding down so your arms can circle his waist and haul him closer. 
“Gojo Satoru turning off his infinity for little ole me,” you murmur, voice raspy, as he closes his eyes, cradling your head. Without another word, he sinks into you. “Talk about the world ending.”
Why didn’t you just call him? Why did you let him stay away for so long? He doesn’t want to ask why it’s happening, or how. He already knows you’ll just lie. But he wants to know if you think so lowly of him that you thought you didn’t matter to him.
After Suguru…
How could you think that? He’s screaming inside his mind as he touches your back, feels the faint protruding ridges along your skin when he pushes down. It makes your spine a bit more pronounced along the knobs, your shoulder blades a bit bumpy, but otherwise, it’s almost normal. One wouldn’t even be able to tell without touching you and actively searching for it. How could you think I don’t care?
This isn’t the work of a cursed spirit, that much he knows. It seems much more seductive, sneaking yet unhurried in its nature. This is agony in effigy. There’s something rotten inside you, but he can’t tell what it is. The energy is everywhere.
You pull back to look up at him with a soft smile, then tap his nose and tell him to join you before turning around and climbing back into bed with energy that betrays your earlier fits. You grab your robe that you’ve left on your bed before getting up again and walking around, shrugging the fabric back onto your shoulders.
He sits down in a visitor’s chair that is still cold.
“It comes and goes,” you explain first with your new, croaky voice, stretching your arms above your head and rubbing your neck. It doesn’t look painful, but you clear your throat a lot to see if it helps. So far, nothing. “So, it’s just like a really bad coughing fit, to be honest.”
“How long has it been going on?” Your hip cracks and you let out a relieved sigh. Satoru arches an eyebrow as you animatedly stretch your face. “What are you doing, silly?”
“It got worse a few weeks ago, enough that Nanami insisted I check myself in around two weeks ago?” you say, after counting on your fingers. Satoru’s heart plummets. “But it’s levelled out since I’ve been moved here and off-campus. And I’m stretching. When I get back out there, I have to remember how to emote.” You flash him a bedazzling grin and a bit of the weight lifts off his shoulders as you swallow down another cough. This time, it’s successful and you only let out a short, raspy breath before shaking it out.
You aren’t even doing that bad. 
The blood, the flowers, that must’ve been just a bad bout, but otherwise, you seem quite normal.
That’s what he tells himself, and he believes it.
With relief, he stretches out his legs, leaning his head back on his hands. Your room’s pretty nice—much nicer than an average hospital room. Plants on the windowsills, some get-well-soon cards and a desk in the corner filled books that you look like you haven’t even begun to read, some paintings hanging off the walls. 
You wave a hand to grab his attention again.
“Don’t look,” you chastise, tying the robe around your waist. “Some of these are works in progress.”
“So Itadori and Shoko were just exaggerating,” he assumes. You look up at him, quirking an eyebrow. “If you’re attempting to paint, I know all that’s happened is that you’ve lost your mind.”
“Shut up.”
“Well, they made it out as if you were dying. If it’s just a lung issue, they could probably just fix it and we can get back to exorcising curses and making fun of Fushiguro’s teen angst,” he says, crossing his legs at the ankles. You step over them to go to the window and examine your plants, and he eyes you in his peripheral, watching you inspect one of the leaves before looking next at some blooming flowers. You don’t answer, and the grey light makes you look melancholy until you shrug.
“The doctors say I need to rest, save my strength and all that,” you finally say vaguely. “And don’t make fun of Fushiguro.”
“I’d never do that.”
You tilt your head and arch an eyebrow skeptically before flicking his forehead with a sharp donk. “I’m not above slapping the shit out of you.” He opens his mouth to argue and you hold up a finger, shutting him up. “And you can’t hit back as revenge. Ill hospital patient rights.”
“You can’t take the moral stand. Vengeance has no gender bias,” he exclaims, sitting up but you merely smirk, leaning over and shoving your face into his space before turning your head to present your cheek. His eyes widen as you poke your own face tauntingly.
“Do it, then.”
Gawking for a moment, Satoru stares but you only wink and he pushes you away lightly. You stumble a bit and he jumps to his feet to catch you but you manage to right yourself up, shooting him a foul glare. He glares back in response.
“Well, obviously, I wasn’t going to actually slap you,” he says, indignant.
“So you pushed me instead? Gojo, in your words, you are the strongest. You never know how to control the strength you push out.”
“Yes, I do!”
“One time, you patted Megumi on the back and you sent him into the pavement.”
“He was nine.”
“It still happened!” you cry, although an impish smile is already curling at your lips and it isn’t long before it spreads to Satoru, warm bright yellow and enough that it absolves any of the remaining pain in his body as you straighten up, holding onto your IV stand for support. The metal rattles a bit as the wheels roll. Your feet brush the ground. You lift your head up wretchedly.
It’s almost like that weakness sobers you.
The expression that overtakes you frightens Satoru to fucking death. 
His face feels like it numbs, staring at the darkness that seeps the light away. You stare at the metal pole your fingers are wrapped so tightly around, and then you look at the bag hanging there, clear and round and soft to your touch as you straighten up.
“Satoru,” you say softly.
“Yeah?” His voice is so quiet he’s not sure he even speaks. He can’t remember the last time you had looked so dispassionate at anything in his life. Even death had left its mark—black frowns, long streaks underneath your eyes.
Your apathy is dark purple, an endless void colour. 
“When I die, make sure Shoko’s the one who cuts me open to find out what’s wrong with me.”
Something prickles at his fingertips. He touches your shoulder and half-thinks his fingers will go right through you.
“You’re not going to die,” he insists firmly. “It’s just a bad cough.” You look up at him and blink. Then you touch your lips and shudder down another cough.
“We all die.”
“It’s not your time, yet.” His fingers dig into your shoulder. You don’t even wince even though you’re clenching his jaw but he can’t find it in himself to loosen his hold. It feels like the Jaws of Death. A crocodile’s bite.
So much for not being able to control his own power.
“It’s just a bad cough.” He ignores everything Shoko had said. Sometimes she’s wrong—sometimes, it’s not even that bad. He’d just seen it, hadn’t he? You were stretching, jumping onto your bed, acting like nothing was wrong.
Palliative care? As if you needed it—
You blink, then, and look at him. Stare at him as if you’d never said those words, and he had never reached out. 
You jerk your shoulder out of his grip. It stings more than it should.
“Right. But I’m just saying. You know how you always say I’ve got a few screws loose. It just makes sense someone will wanna crack me open to see what was going on up there and I want it to be her.” 
You smile, and the yellow cancels out the purple. 
Colour theory. 
But Satoru doesn’t smile back.
“What about the flowers?” he asks after a while. You’ve climbed back onto bed and he’s sat back down. You’re blowing into a spirometer, and every time, without fail, the ball shoots up to the top, clattering against the plastic. He watches, hoping that the next time, it’ll do the same thing again.
You stop and look at him. “What about them?”
“Is it some optical illusion? Why are they in your throat?”
“That’s a harder nut to crack,” you muse. “I don’t really know. It’s like when you’ve got food in your esophagus and you’re trying to cough it up so it doesn’t feel stuck anymore except it keeps building up. That only started a few days ago, though, so maybe, someone drugged me or something.” He doesn’t laugh and you frown. “Not funny?”
He shakes his head. “It’s freaky.”
.
He sits on the bench on campus. 
He’s cancelled classes because he didn’t come up with a standard lesson plan and his students are glad to have a Monday afternoon off, even if they’d never say it to his face. In truth, he’d spent the whole weekend at the hospital until he reeked of antiseptic and pollen. 
You coughed up five petals, and without fail, a nurse would come in hourly intervals to collect them. Shoko came once, to check up on you and to collect the samples. If she was surprised Satoru was sitting in the corner on his phone, she didn’t voice it.
“She’s not even doing that bad,” he says to the air, more accusatory than anything. The woman standing by him doesn’t answer and sits down beside him uninvited. Turning to look at her, his eyes narrow behind his blindfold. “You said she needed palliative care until she died. The doctor said she could leave tonight.”
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive concepts,” she informs, not looking at him. Shoko looks a bit out of place in the warm colours of the garden. Half a corpse herself. Waif-like. “The doctor’s letting her relax in the comfort of her own home before she dies. That’s all.”
“She’s not going to die.”
She snorts. “Denial isn’t a good colour on you.” The words could’ve been delivered colder. Satoru is grateful that they weren’t. 
Shoko rests her hands on her knees, tilts her head up, and sighs. Her long hair is like warm chocolate in the sunlight, spilling down her arched back from the knot she tied. “If you have any idea on how to fix this, I’m listening with both ears.”
“I don’t even know what it is,” he says. “Coughing and flowers? I’ve never heard of a sickness like that before.”
“Nanami pointed out that it could be a curse someone placed on her. I don’t know why, but it’d be an explanation.” Satoru spreads his legs, plants an elbow on his knee and leans forward to look at the ants travelling along the cobblestone before his shoe. “It manifested on some negative emotion lingering inside her and it’s growing every day, but she won’t budge.” Shoko sighs. Her purple eye bags look worse in the sunlight, but he would never tell her that. “Maybe you’d have a better chance digging into her. With Geto gone, there’s no one else to ask, is there?”
“What about you? What happened to girls and their little secrets?” he jokes, trying to ignore the ache that begins to bloom in his chest. Shoko eyes him wryly.
“I have suspicions, but there are some things girls don’t ask other girls,” she retorts. “It’s never been my business anyway. My job is to treat her, and I’ve given her options. It’s up to her to take them. Grief is a birthing ground for curses, and if she’s letting them feed on her freely, you know what fate is waiting for her.”
With that, she gets up and leaves as quickly as she arrived. Satoru swallows the smell of flowers and feels sick.
.
Monday night, Satoru pulls up his laptop and looks through, searching up words he can string together in a coherent sense to get the answers he wants. As rare as it probably is, some research wouldn’t hurt, would it? Some curses had a trademark affliction—maybe this one does, too.
So he searches up flower coughing to see if there has ever been a record of strange deaths that have made the news. If not, he’ll go to the jujutsu databases, but for now, maybe some publicity could put some answers to this question.
He is surprised when one of the first results is flower coughing disease. 
When he hits enter, the white screen blasts into blue irises with numerous results all repeating the same two words.
HANAHAKI DISEASE
And Satoru reads, and reads, and reads. He reads two weeks to three months, he reads unrequited love, and removal, and disappearance of romantic feelings and capacity for romantic love.
He reads fictional disease and wonders how much of it really is fictional. 
His phone pings with a text, and he grabs at it, tilts it just enough to get a glimpse of the screen. It’s from you, and he hasn’t read a text from you in so long he almost doesn’t recognize who it’s from except he does because… who else could it be?
[Greenbean] 11:02 PM
hey!!! guess whos finally fucking free oh my god
ugh out of the hospital and forgot how actual air smelled like lol bitch im so hungry i could eat a zoo
Letting his phone clatter, he sighs and rubs his face roughy, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment before snapping his laptop shut and getting up. His phone buzzes again and he reaches for it blindly, the screen lighting up as he goes to bed.
[Greenbean] 11:03 PM
we should get smth to eat!! i wanna go to that new ramen place in ikebukoro
[Satoru] 11:03 PM
fine but you good???? who picked you up from the hospital? still insulted you didnt let me tbh
also what did the doctor say???
[Greenbean] 11:04 PM
bc ur a menace who doesnt know how to drive 
he said itd get worse before itd get better so still gotta go for checkups but yeah dont worry and nanami came bc he didnt trust me not to try and walk home lol but he did buy me dinner
wasnt enough though!!!
[Greenbean] 11:06 PM
ok but fr does he think im insane
clearly id flash some skin and hitch a ride duh
[Greenbean] 11:10 PM
youre just gonna leave me on read? yikes
[Satoru] 11:12 PM
i was getting ready to sleep silly
and yeah ill come pick you up on saturday for lunch?
[Greenbean] 11:15 PM
sorry making instant noodles rn but yeah that sounds fine
wait youre sleeping so early lmfao
[Satoru] 11:16 PM
im old :/
  [Greenbean] 11:18 PM
u sure are
(image sent)
look!!! my babies are still alive!!! idk how but miracles do exist im tellin ya
[Satoru] 11:24 PM
inumaki, maki, and fushiguro broke into ur home to water them but dont tell them i told u
[Greenbean] 11:24 PM
wtf
[Satoru] 11:25 PM
yeah idk when but i think u teaching inumaki how to pick locks has opened up too many possibilities but also its really funny thanks
now go to sleep u need to rest
[Greenbean] 11:28 PM
whos gonna make me lol youre not my dad
[Satoru] 11:29 PM
lol 
remember how i can teleport 
lol so cool
[Greenbean] 11:30 PM
dude
wtf
fine 
goodnight hoe </3
[Satoru] 11:31 PM
goodnight knock off poison ivy <3
.
“You’ve looked better,” Shoko says. Satoru raises his head wearily as he pushes off the wall. Shoko’s holding a cup of coffee, her lab coat fresh on her shoulders and eye bags looking more printed on rather than natural swelling. Satoru can’t help but feel the same exhaustion. “Definitely looked worse. What do you want? It’s early.”
“Have you ever heard of Hanahaki disease?” he asks. She shakes her head, and he pulls up the page on his phone and hands it to her. She takes it from him and her eyes scan the screen as he continues, “It’s this fictional disease, something that stems from unrequited love, and I think it could be related to whatever she’s experiencing.”
“I thought you were set on willing her to survive,” she replies dryly, shooting him a quick look and adjusting the coffee in her hand. “But this is definitely one of your stranger theories.”
Satoru ignores that last part. “It’d make sense. With her Cursed Technique, maybe it manifested in a way that links to it.”
She pushes into the office, setting the coffee on her desk and sitting down. Satoru sits down on the exam table closest and leans forward eagerly as she continues to read the page, scrolling down occasionally before scrolling back up and sighing. “This is a stretch. The timeline doesn’t match up to what this is saying.”
“This is a curse. It doesn’t have to follow fiction.” His body feels sore, janky even, everywhere. He barely got a wink of sleep last night and he knows he’s paying for it, now. “Hell knows life rarely does, anyway. But the symptoms matches too well, doesn’t it? The flowers—you’ve done scans, haven’t you?”
She deliberates his words carefully as she looks to the file cabinet and pulls out a binder. Satoru catches a flash of your name on the spine before she moves her coffee and his phone out of the way to flip it open.
“The scans we’ve taken have only just begun to show small growths in her trachea,” she allows, “and we don’t fully understand how cursed energy affects our bodies, so I suppose it could be something like Hanahaki, if the negative energy stemming from December 24th was what brought this on or if these symptoms started when we were still students, but she’s been experiencing shortness of breath a few months before Christmas.” Satoru’s lungs squeeze the last of the air out of them at that, and a cold sweat drops down his spine as she hands his phone back to him. “It only started getting worse Suguru’s death, which meant there had to have been a trigger before that.”
In the back of his head, he hears your voice, light and yellow, saying a few weeks. It got worse a few weeks ago. 
“Worse?”
“The first petal fell some time after Christmas. It’s been a slow, but steady progression since then. Sometimes, it’s two or three. When it’s not a good day, there can be as many as seven to ten.” Shoko switches on the lamp on the corner of her desk and adjusting the direction of the white light before flipping the page. “But if we can find the original trigger and alleviate that pressure it’s putting on her, we could buy her more time.”
“So it’s been nearly six months since the first petal,” he says. Shoko nods. Satoru is grateful for the blindfold—she can’t see how blank everything looks on his face. “It said sometimes, the disease can last for eighteen months.”
“As you said, this isn’t a fairytale.” She half-spins on her chair to face him and leans back into it, crossing one leg over the other and jiggling her knee. “I saw that one of the solutions is excise the growths at the cost of the attachment. That was one of the options I gave her when the growths first appeared. She said she wanted more time before she could decide.”
He frowned. “Why?”
“Because she’s smart, and likes to push her damned limits. And if this is truly the basis of the curse”—she gestures to Satoru’s phone. Her expression flickers—“those flowers are feeding off cursed energy. Cutting them out would remove those negative emotions, but at a cost of something else. Maybe whatever feelings she has regarding the trigger.”
Satoru looks down at his phone. It feels heavier than a thousand cinderblocks in his clammy hands. His fingers are numb as his screen dims and finally locks itself. Pressing the button, it illuminates again to reveal a picture of a cactus you gave him for his birthday years ago, blooming with delicate purple petals. 
His heart rends. That cactus is long dead now.
“But, Suguru’s dead.” 
“That’s why I asked you to ask her,” Shoko mutters. 
Turning to her binder again, she picks up a pen and clicks it, lowering it to the paper before pausing, and Satoru looks up as she stares at whatever words are printed into the page distantly. A strange affliction is on her face, almost tormented, and Satoru is not-so-kindly reminded that before Suguru and Satoru, Shoko was your best friend first. 
“Tell her how idiotic she’s being,” she enforces quietly. “The longer it lives, the more permanent damage is inflicted. With the unpredictable nature of curses, that won’t take long and by then, it’ll be too late to consider removing it.”
.
Saturday comes too fast, yet not fast enough. By the end of the week, Satoru is all but finished with teaching, and is waiting outside your apartment, leaning against the car as he scrolls through his phone. He’s done a bit more research on this Hanahaki disease, but even the word makes him shiver with the implications. 
“Satoru!” Turning, he catches you loping easily towards him. You’re dressed in billowy, wide-legged dark mint green pants and a pretty white top that makes you look more nymph than human, with a canvas tote bag hanging off your shoulder. You flash him a smile as you fiddle with the fabric tie at the waistband of your pants nervously. “Hi.”
“Hey. Hope you don’t mind I brought Ijichi along for the ride since someone claims I can’t drive.”
“You don’t have your license, sir,” Ijichi says wearily as you bend over to wave through the window. "It would be illegal for you to be on the road in any capacity—oh, hello, ma’am. It’s nice to see you doing so well.”
“Thanks, Ijichi. I think I’m doing better after getting out of there,” you say as Satoru opens the car door for you and he smirks, eyes crinkling behind his sunglasses. You straighten up, looking at him before poking his chest and it’s almost just like the good ole days as you break out into a grin that crinkles your entire face. “What’s with you being a gentleman? It better not be because I was in the hospital.”
“Of course not,” he admonishes. “I wouldn’t dare dream of being polite to you of all people.” Still, he sidesteps and sweeps his arm, gesturing for you to climb in first which you do, exhaling a bit shakily as you settle in and slide over. By the time he’s settled in beside you, you have a fist over your lips and you’re clearing your throat testily.
A worm of unease wriggles into his stomach as he clips in his seatbelt, pulling the lapels of his unbuttoned green shirt free from the strap. Legs spreading, he lets his hands fold in his lap as Ijichi begins to drive them to their destination. You’ve lowered your hand by now, looking out the window, and it’s not bright enough that Satoru can read your expression on the glass.
It’s clear you don’t want to talk about it, but still, that nagging feeling bites at him as he rolls the divider up between the backseat and the front—a mock of privacy.
“The place we’re going to gives me the same vibe as that family-owned restaurant we went to when we were students. The one in Kagurazaka,” you say after a while, turning back to look at him. You’re wearing a bracelet that jangles when you move your hand to adjust the seatbelt across your chest. “I think you’ll like it.”
“Have you been?”
“One time, before I checked in,” you tell him, smiling still. “It was really good. The perfect last meal.” Satoru does well enough to hide his frown at your choice of words as you meet his eyes. “You know, you can ask. I’m not fragile.”
“I don’t have anything to ask,” he lies. “I’m just glad you’re out of the hospital.”
“Me, too. I’ve missed so much and it drove me insane. Yaga-sensei insists that I don’t work until I’m sure I’m feeling better,” you add. “But to be honest, there’s nothing much that can be done to make me feel better.”
“I see. So you’re still coughing up flowers?”
“Petals,” you correct, “and a bit. Don’t worry. It’ll get better soon.” You wave a hand and turn to look out the window and Satoru’s appetite all but vanishes. He doesn’t know why you’re so intent on lying to him about the severity of your condition, but as your knee jiggles relentlessly the whole car ride with unbridled excitement, he wonders if you’re even aware of how sick you could be. 
His Six Eyes scan your body for signs of a curse. Normally, those plagued have their little burdens hanging off their shoulders, prying their head open, biting into an arm or leg, but he finds yours lives inside your chest, just barely hidden by the yellow light brimming from your body as you reach forward to lower the divider and talk to Ijichi.
They reach Ikebukuro before they’re dropped off after Satoru insists on walking the rest of the way.
“Give us some privacy, Ijichi! We both know you’ll just eavesdrop for the juicy details,” he exclaims loudly, leading to the man to blush furiously, stuttering that he’d do no such thing, and earning Satoru a smack on the back of his head, knocking his sunglasses askew.
“Thanks for the ride, Ijichi,” you say warmly as if you hadn’t slapped a concussion into Satoru. The Assistant Director dips his head. “See you later!” With that, he drives off and the two sorcerers are left in the busy street. Satoru looks around curiously, but you tug him along up the main road of the district and immediately turn right into one of the smaller streets. A few cyclists race past, as well as cars, but the traffic seems relatively slow despite it being the weekend. There are people walking along the white lines separating the lanes, chatting merrily as you lead him to the restaurant.
“I forgot how actual sunlight felt,” you sigh, stretching your arms high above your head as if to touch the wind breezing through. Inhaling deeply, you close your eyes. Satoru waits for you to begin to cough, and you hold it in, throat tensing a bit. 
He looks away, and pretends he doesn’t hear your sharp exhale, the soft cough you try to muffle with your hand. Instead, he looks at their surroundings, traces the green roads, watches a man park his bicycle and take the plastic bags out of the basket before rushing into a store. The air smells faintly of smoke, and Satoru waves in front of his face to see if it’ll help dispel the scent, but it’s so engrained with the hint of meat, honey, sweets, and flowers, that he can’t.
“I saw Suguru here once,” you tell him suddenly. He blinks, head snapping to you, and you’re already regarding him with a faint smile, eyes a bit dimmer. The warm yellow energy has faded to a burnt orange as you look ahead. “A year or two after he left. It’s why I moved closer a few years ago. I guess I had this weird hope that I’d see him again, but I never really did.” A faint grin graces your lips again, as if you’re not even aware you’re smiling. Fondness overtakes you. “I think about him a lot these days.”
“Me, too.”
“Of course,” you chuckle a bit, rubbing at the back of your neck. “I’m being insensitive.” 
“No, you’re not. He meant a lot to you, too. I don’t own him, or his memory.”
“I know, but he was still your best friend.” Unbidden, a voice in Satoru’s voice finishes it for you. My one and only. 
“Did you guys talk about anything?”
“Not really anything important,” you say, shrugging, but by the way your eyes shift in the light, glimmer differently, he knows you’re lying. He knows it’s none of his business, but a part of him hungers for new parts of Suguru and it’s powerful enough to take control of his tongue.
“Nothing’s not important. He was a wanted criminal.”
“I think we both know somehow that part never mattered to us.” You look at him, and run a thumb under the strap of your bag. “To any of us. But…” You tilt your head to him and your smile grows tender. “…since you asked, we talked about us. He told me about what he wanted, the kind of world he was determined to create. He paid for my dinner, kissed me goodnight like it was normal, and then he was gone. Never saw him again until last December.”
It shouldn’t sting as much as it does. 
He remembers that day ten years ago in Shinjuku. The coldness in which Suguru had looked at him. He can’t imagine that same poison directed at you. He couldn’t even imagine Suguru looking at him like that in the first place until he did.
“Are you the strongest because you’re Gojo Satoru or are you Gojo Satoru because you’re the strongest?”
“I used to have nightmares about it,” you continue distantly. “Because I could’ve left with him, but I didn’t. And I could’ve killed him, but I didn’t do that either.”
“If you want to kill me, kill me. There’s meaning in that, too.”
Satoru’s chest tightens. His heart feels rotten to the core. “I didn’t, either, until I did.” You smile a bit more, at the irony. “Would you? Have gone with him, that is.”
“I didn’t, so what’s the point in debating it?” you ask before shrugging thoughtlessly and answering anyway. “I think tackling curses at the source is important. I just didn’t like the way he was doing it. If I thought I could somehow change his mind, just a bit, on his methods, maybe, but by then, he was too far gone.” 
Your eyes, chips of glinting sunstone, mellow as a cyclist trills at them with a bell to get out of the way. You step out of the way, away from Satoru for a moment, before returning to him, and when the back of his hand brushes yours, he’s startled at how cold your skin is. 
Satoru is quiet as he absorbs all of this. He doesn’t really know what to say, and you don’t prod him for a reaction as they turn the corner again. 
“It’s just over there,” you say, pointing to a small restaurant, people milling by the door. There’s a sign hanging over the door, off-white with black kanji painted on and your arm falls. “There’s a line. Huh.”
“We can wait,” Satoru says when they stop at the edge of the crowd. “I don’t mind.”
“Okay. I’ll go put our names in then come back.” You disappear into the crowd for a moment before resurfacing and joining his side again, something in your hand. “It should be, like, fifteen minutes. I said the bar was okay.”
“That’s fine.” Shoving his sunglasses up into his hair, he cracks his knuckles and migrates to the wall. You follow, and he slouches against the concrete pillar. You adjust the tote bag against your body and lean against the other side just around the corner. Their elbows brush, and you tilt your head to look at him, smiling. Your face has caught the sun perfectly, and Satoru can’t help but smile back.
He wonders how to bring up this Hanahaki disease theory. You look so perfect, so happy in this moment where their eyes meet, that he can’t bring it up. Maybe it’s selfish, but it feels like it’s been so long since the two of them even managed to see each other for more than an hour. With how overworked jujutsu sorcerers are, it’s hard to recall the last time they both had downtime at the same time that wasn’t spent catching up on sleep.
You look away, shoulders shaking, as if that’s enough to hide your coughing, and he thinks, Later. There’ll be time for that later.
“Here’s the menu,” you tell him once you’ve calmed down, extending your hand. He takes the paper, unfolding it as you cross your arms and tilt your head back on the concrete. Reading down the list, he keeps an eye on you out of the corner of his vision, and your fingers play at your lips as you swallow. Reaching into your bag, you twist the cap of a water bottle and chug half of it down.
“Do you have any medicine? For your coughing?” he asks casually. You hit your chest with a firm fist, clearing your throat and looking at him in surprise. The water bottle returns to your bag.
“Oh, uh, no. It doesn’t work. Just gotta keep hydrated and avoid any possible triggers,” you inform. You turn up the street as you speak, crossing your legs at the ankles and sinking against the concrete. 
“And what are those triggers?”
“And you say Ijichi is the one digging for gossip,” you snort with short, choked huff. Satoru rolls his eyes, but keeps looking at the menu. “Don’t worry about it. I’m avoiding them.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“If I wanted your dry wit, I would’ve gone to the original.”
“I don’t copy off Shoko. I take bits of everyone’s personality and twist it to make it my own.”
You shake your head. “Whatever you say.”
Your name is called a few minutes later and the pair push off the concrete pillar, heading through the crowd and into the small restaurant. It’s not too dimly lit, a bunch of natural light from the street streaming in through the open windows, and the air is rich with the smells of the kitchen as they sit down at the bar.
It’s not long before they’ve ordered, and Satoru has gone through his first bowl and is well into pouring his second into what remains of his broth before he remembers to even check up on how you’re doing. You’d been right—he loves this place. The atmosphere isn’t overly loud, but the mumbling of nearby patrons is enough to make him feel like he isn’t quite alone. It’s sheltered away from the world, and although he’s used to girls staring, no one has gone up to him which is giving him time to his own thoughts and food. Everyone here seems to mind their business—everyone likes to stay in their own bubble. 
Here, he isn’t the strongest, or quite so special. It honestly feels kind of nice.
You’re sipping on your broth, tilting the spoon towards your mouth and your lips are pulled into the warmest smile he’s seen since they were kids. The light’s hitting you just perfect again, more cool than warm, but it’s got you on the cheekbone, illuminated your lips. Satoru wonders if you know how to manipulate light, or if that’s just your natural blessing as you tilt your head towards him, eyes squinting from your own joy.
For a moment, another image flashes in his head. Him along the end of their group of four—you and Shoko, Suguru and Satoru. It’s almost poetry how much of a glimpse he can see in your smile. You would always be laughing, and Suguru’s cheeks would always be red, and Shoko would charm the guy over the counter to hand over a bottle of shochu. Satoru would tease his stupid best friend, and pay for their meal because “I’m friends with a bunch of goddamn freeloaders.”
But that moment ends as quickly as it came, and it’s so fucking heartbreaking that Satoru never thought their last meal together would be their last meal together. He would’ve cherished it more—done anything to make them stay in that ramen shop in Kagurazaka.
“Do you like it here?” you ask. 
He blinks. You’re studying him behind that smile of yours. Watching. Always watching. “It reminds me of when we were kids,” he replies. When he realizes that didn’t answer the question, he adds, “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
You grin, delighted. “If I knew how stupid you’d look sucking up these noodles, I would’ve brought my camera like when we were students. I still have it, you know.”
“Next time, then.”
“Yeah, next time.”
Satoru pays. He insists despite your protests, and snatches the bill from you anyway, swiping his card as quickly as he can. 
After, they walk slowly around the district, looking at the other restaurants and stores for desserts or souvenirs to bring back, and it makes him so nostalgic, his heart wilts a bit in his chest. 
He is saying something about buying some soymilk for Megumi when you stop suddenly, deviating to the side of the road to cough. It grows so intense so quickly that your eyes widen as if you’re surprised, too, and you place a palm flat against your chest as he comes to your side. You wave him back, and he frowns, running a hand down your back as you finally manage to dislodge the petals in your throat and spit them into your palm.
Satoru sighs, staring at the cursed things. The energy emitted from the petals are raw, potent, and his nose wrinkles at the stench that comes from powerful curses as he softly asks, “Do you know what Hanahaki is?”
“Flower vomiting?” you whisper through your raw vocal cords. You shake your head, slamming your sternum with a tight fist and flinging the drenched petals to the ground with a wet slap. “Itadori… said something about it, once. Never really paid attention, I—”
Satoru squeezes the back of your neck gently. “Whatever this curse is, it could be something like that.“
“You don’t want to open that can of worms, Gojo, of what is causing this.” Straightening up, your eyes widen and your cheeks puff up as you choke down another bout. Wobbly, you spit out, “It’s under control. I swear.”
“Are you sure?” His fingers brush your chin to turn your face towards him so he can look at it more clearly, and the instant their eyes meet, you lurch over, slapping his hand away and succumbing to the wracking. Hands shooting out to grab your elbows, Satoru barely eases you to the ground as your legs give in.
You collapse to your knees, hard. A hand is slapped over your mouth but your whole body shakes with the seizing of your lungs. Eyes widening, your cheeks puff up as Satoru grabs your shoulders, falling to his knees beside you.
“Hey! Hey, breathe!” His fingers dig into your shoulders and your nostrils flare, trying to follow his instructions. Bloodshot eyes and blueing lips, your inhales are shaking and incomplete, gasps for air that do not take in any oxygen before you’re kneeling over, hand falling from your lips. Blood splattered over your palm, you let out a low noise of pain. Satoru’s hand glides down your spine, rubbing in soothing circles as red spit falls to the pavement in thick globs. 
People all around stop to stare, eyes masked with concern, but he can’t care less at that moment despite the burning scrutiny. He shoves a hand into his pocket, speed-dialling one of the top numbers of his list.
“Ijichi, I need you to take us to the hospital, now!” Letting his phone drop with a clatter, he scoops you close but you slam your bloody hand against his chest, pushing him away. You throw yourself away, hands twisted tight in the fabric of your white shirt and Satoru looks down at the red handprint on his tee before blinking. “What are you doing? We need to get—“
“I’m—I’m fine!” Your voice, broken, is drenched with ice as you continue to wheeze, grasping at your chest as if you could reach and tear out the growths with your own hand. “Gojo, I’m fine!”
“No, you’re not!” Grabbing his phone, he hears a loud car horn, and looks up to see Ijichi leaning out of the driver’s seat, waving his arm frantically. Without another thought, he scoops you up and runs out into the street, ignoring the tires screeching, the cars horns blaring at him and the angry shouts as he jumps into the car and slam the door shut. 
Ijichi sets off at a drive, no directions needed. Satoru is sure he’s breaking as many laws as he can as he pushes you back against the seat to buckle you in. Blood dribbles down your lips in bubbles as a thick, gurgling sound begins to grow in your throat and he wipes at your chin with his sleeve, clicking the buckle into place just as you pitch forward. He jerks back just in time as you retch, and, slowly, torturously, you gag out three petals, one after another. Your fingers claw at your own throat, panicking and desperate as you struggle to breathe.
The petals fall in wet pools between your feet, landing on the carpet, and he spares them not even a glance before forcing your head between your knees. You’re still hyperventilating and as Satoru sweeps a hand down your back and up to your neck, his fingers come into contact with something sticky. 
Sweat. It drenches through your shirt so suddenly that Satoru reels at the wet marks spreading through your shirt, making the fabric translucent. Your heart is racing, tripping over itself. When you finally stop coughing, you breathe in harsh pants as he keeps your head between your knees.
Your fingers lace at the back of your head and he grabs them firmly, reassuring that he’s still beside you. 
.
“She’s stable,” Shoko announces to the waiting Satoru and six students. The latter came when their teacher had told them of what happened, and Itadori still clings to Fushiguro’s arm by an iron hand, fingers clawlike into his friend’s bicep. Kugisaki chews on her thumbnail, a bit paler than usual and there are crescent indents along her forearm where she had dug her nails in. Maki’s hand rests on her shoulder. Inumaki’s on the phone with Panda, and he turns the screen around so he can see the Strongest Sorcerer who does not feel quite so strong.
Satoru’s assurances that you would be fine had done nothing but send them into a quiet that scared even him. 
“Is she okay? When can she get out?” the kids demand suddenly.
“We’re waiting for the updates on her scans from the doctors, but she’ll need to stay here under observation.”
Satoru runs a hand through his hair, smiling in a way that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Guess that means she gets a few more days off while the rest of us are working our asses off,” he teases. Maki shoots him a glare and his eyes close in a way he hopes arranges his expression in one of joy as he shrugs helplessly. “Well, that means I have another girl I have to spoil.”
“Aren’t you too busy with the four already blowing up your phone?” Kugisaki mutters sourly. Satoru pretends not to hear. His phone has been silent without your texts, and it’s cold and heavy in his pocket.
“Can we see her?” Fushiguro asks. Shoko nods, but holds up a hand and the kids skid to a stop.
“She’s resting. I’m unsure if you know, but certain topics of conversation or trains of thought can lead to more attacks, so stick to talking about your curriculum. Topics you think are safe.” The woman shifts on her feet, a wisp of brown hair swaying in front of her eye. “It’s unavoidable, but use your judgement.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The students walk off down to the dead-end hallway, and Satoru turns to Shoko who has her arms crossed over her chest. She steps up, scanning him like he’s got contraband, and he raises his eyebrows innocently.
“What?”
“It’s getting worse. I hope you managed to get answers,” she says. At once, Satoru’s facade drops, and a sober sensation overtakes his face.
“No, I didn’t. She’s heard of the disease, at least. We talked about Suguru, but it wasn’t like it was under lock and key.” The brunette shakes her head at his words, gesturing for him to sit down beside her. Doing so, he leans back into the uncomfortable chair as she crosses a leg over the other. “She said she thinks about him a lot.”
“She still loves him,” Shoko says bluntly. “She gets that far-off look when she talks about him. You two should trade secrets some time.” A shake of her head, and she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “I healed what damage I could, but I can tell those growths inside are expanding. The attack only seems to have agitated and prompted them to take root.”
“How…” It’s hard to formulate the question. Luckily, Shoko knows him well enough.
“Without seeing the scans, I won’t know. Based on her last ones, I thought at least four months. Now?” Her lips press into a thin line. “She’ll be lucky if she gets two.” Shoko’s eyes flicker down Satoru’s front, and her lips press into a wry line. “And change you shirt. You look like a murder suspect.”
Glancing down, he looks at your dried bloody hand print, stark against white, and he gets up abruptly. Shoko doesn’t stop him.
He walks down to the dead-end hall. He can hear Itadori through your open door cracking jokes, Kugisaki relaying every detail of her shopping trips, and you’re wheezing your laughter despite Maki scolding you to save your strength. Satoru stops just outside your door, out of sight, and rests his head against the frame, content to just listen.
“Tuna mayo.”
“Is that right?” you ask Inumaki. “Lay it on me.” 
You sound exhausted, beaten to the bone, but still, when Fushiguro says something too quiet for him to make out, you still have the strength to tease him for worrying.
.
The night is warm, and he sets the last plant back into its place on your window sill before cracking the window a bit at your request. He’s busied himself making this place as homely as possible as quickly as possible, and in the process, had walked in on you staring at your own scans on the lightscreen mounted on your wall.
“Thanks, Satoru,” you say over your shoulder. He joins you by your side to stare at the scans. Granted, Satoru didn’t cheat his way through medschool like others have, so he doesn’t understand much, but he can tell what is and what isn’t supposed to be there. The floral-like growths situated right where the main bronchi meet the trachea, for one.
The roots spreading across your chest like cracks in concrete, for another.
“The doctors want to monitor this,” you explain, pointing at the roots, “to see whether or not it’ll grow around my lungs or continue outward, around the ribs and spine. If it’s the former, I’ll slowly suffocate and die. If it’s the latter, I’ll slowly suffocate, become paralyzed, and die.” You smile grimly. “Not quite a win-win.”
“Exactly the opposite.” He inspects the growths and through the blue-white-black imaging, he spots the tiny stems emerging from the main growth, sprouting into your lungs. He guesses, with time, those will grow into flowers of equal size before sprouting more shoots.
He wonders…
As if sensing his hesitance, you scratch your collarbone and look at the scans with a new glint.
“The doctors say if I avoid another attack like today, I’ll probably have two months, three if I’m blessed, but because of how big the growths have gotten already and its volatile nature, it’ll be impossible, so we’re looking at a month. Maybe a month-and-a-half?” You smile at him, throat bobbing. “Guess it’s good to have a number,” you add shakily, a short puff coming at the end of each breath as you struggle to fight the cough. “Being a sorcerer, too much uncertainty, I think.”
“You should tell Nanami that. Maybe this time, it’ll convince him to stay away,” he retorts, turning away from the scans. They’re burning his eyes and he doesn’t want to look at the real thing for much longer. You turn with him, walking back towards bed and climbing in. “Are you sure you don’t want the operation? Shoko could do it so fast you wouldn’t feel a thing.”
“No, not yet. There are some complications that’ll definitely occur and I don’t want that to happen.”
“But it would save your life,” he argues. “What risks are frightening enough that you’d even consider not having it?” Your gaze flickers as you take another wheezing breath. The strength seems sapped from your limbs—you’re a scarecrow hanging off its pole as you swallow tightly. Satoru leans against your window sill and crosses his arms over his chest so you can’t see the frustrated fists he wants to make. “If this is about Suguru…”
Resolutely: “It isn’t.”
“You’re going to die if you keep going down this road. I don’t understand why you’re hesitating.” In the back of his mind, klaxons begin to scream.
“Satoru, some things are just beyond logical reason.” He jerks his gaze away, pushing his glasses up his nose pointedly. You sigh. “I know it’s hard, but this is my choice. I just want you to be here so you know it’s okay.” 
Your hand stretches out. Blue eyes flash to your outstretched fingers and he takes it before he can stop himself. Your fingers curl over his palm, tugging him closer and he lets you, sneakers dragging over the tile until he’s sliding into the chair by your bed. It squeaks against the tile.
“Please don’t be angry with me.” That’s all. That’s all I ask.
A hard, heavy sigh, this time from his end. He tightens his hold on you as you sit there, smiling hopefully. His heart thunders in his chest. “I’m not angry.”
You perk up a bit, and his index finger unfurls to rub your wrist. It feels colder than normal. “Promise?”
He wishes he could lie half as well as you. Either way, he tries his hardest: “Promise.”
By the time it’s quarter past nine, you’re already getting ready to sleep. You have enough pillows to surround your entire body, and he fluffs them up, helps you arrange them until you’re sighing against the white sheets, burrowing in with a sedated smile on your face.
Satoru sits down again on his visitor’s chair and you watch him lazily through the dim orange light stemming from behind your bed.
“You don’t have to stay here and watch me, creep,” you mumble, turning your face away to stare at the ceiling. You cough dryly, but it subsides moments later. Your voice is nothing but a croak as you let out a tired groan, and Satoru smiles to himself, cheek to his fist. 
“I feel robbed of our afternoon together. Making up for it now.”
You look at him again incredulously. “We’re not even doing anything.”
“I don’t know when you were told that every second of us being together had to be us doing something,” he huffs. “I like being in here. Isn’t that enough?”
“It’s too much. You’re annoying me.” Even so, your voice turns fond as you roll onto your side, away from him to settle in to sleep and Satoru’s warm gaze lands on your shoulder gently rising and falling as you slowly drift off. 
He already knows you’re gone by the time he’s standing up and gathering his jacket. Walking around the bed, he glances at the bathroom to check the light’s off and catches a glimpse of his shirt. A coil wraps around his gut at the muddy red handprint pressed into the fabric and he turns away to look at you instead.
Your face is in perfect peace, half-buried into a pillow you’re hugging into your chest, and he only soaks in those features. His hand twitches, and his infinity wavers as he raises his hand as if to touch you. Your eyelids flutter and he freezes, fearing he might’ve woken you up, but you only mumble incoherently and turn into your pillow.
Satoru watches on silently just as a breeze sweeps into the room and he looks up where the window he had cracked open. The breeze takes hold of the plants, uplifts them until they sway like a tender dance. 
His chest begins to hurt. The smell of the antiseptic is starting to sting, so he moves his hand to the light switch instead. Flicking it off, he turns to leave.
.
Every time Satoru walks down to the end of the hallway, a different memory will play in his head until he’s playing a movie over and over every single day. Of the first time he met you, although that one is blurry. Your sixteenth birthday when the four of them had piled into your dorm room to drink themselves stupid.
One-and-a-half weeks go by before he realizes that he only replays the moments where you feature. Like his brain is preparing him, reminding him. For what, he doesn’t know. 
He can’t come every day—considering the low number of sorcerers has been taken down by one more, it means besides teaching, he still has to work for the Higher Ups as well as his own personal agenda—but when he does make it, he always makes sure that he soaks in every second. Even the horrible parts. Maybe, especially the horrible parts.
You have scans taken every other day to monitor your progress, so when he arrives at an empty room, he isn’t surprised. It’s when there’s movement in the bathroom that sends his nerves prickling until he catches a slab of golden hair and reading glasses flashing in the sunlight.
“Nanami,” he greets.
“Good afternoon.” His jacket’s off and his sleeves are rolled up. With a quick sweep of the room, Satoru notes that the windows are cracked open and the aforementioned jacket is folded over a chair sat in a square of sunlight.
“Do we need to be so formal?” he complains, bypassing the bathroom and searching for another chair. The one Nanami’s taken by the plants is still warm and Satoru isn’t keen on the idea of sweating so soon. During his search, he stops by the windowsill and his eyebrows rise curiously at the new plants and trash bin pressed up right underneath. “What’s happening here?”
“We were planting new seeds when she had to be taken for her scans. She insisted I finish potting the plants.” Noting the empty terracotta, Satoru bends over and prods at the moist dirt. “I have to go soon, though. I had hoped it wouldn’t take as long as it did and she would be back by now.”
“They started taking MRI scans when the branches continued to grow outward rather than inward,” Satoru informs. “It takes around forty-five minutes, on top of the CT scans they’re taking, too. That’s if she doesn’t start coughing in the middle of it.” 
“I’m guessing she does.” Nanami adjusts the glasses on his nose, wiping at his hands free of the last of whatever dirt might’ve been clinging to his hands.
“Yup.”
“I see.” Satoru looks at the plants again. The blond man across the room throws the towel into the dirty clothes basket.“Has she… spoken to you of what to do with her effects?”
Gaze hardening, he doesn’t move at the question. Of course, he’s thought about it, but those bouts of weakness have never been longer than a few minutes. There’s no use in wasting time on a reality that won’t come until it does.
Hopefully, it never does.
“I’m so sick of everyone talking like she’s signed a death sentence,” Satoru murmurs, turning around to look at the blond man at the door to the washroom. “She still has time. Not a lot. It’s not convenient, but it should be enough.”
“She’s already considered the benefits of taking the surgery, and yet she actively decides to postpone it. You know she’s stalling,” comes the steady reply.
“And what about you?” Satoru asks. His words are biting, icy, but Nanami seems unfazed as he begins to loop the tie around his neck. “Would you do it?” Blue eyes meet a stoic face, and the coldness seeps into Satoru’s body. Nanami sighs.
A part of Satoru wonders why he even bothered asking. He already knows the answer—
“No.” Eyebrows shoot up. His mouth drops open and a strangled noise escapes his throat. Nanami merely continues on, quiet as death. “Perhaps it’s because I’m willing to accept my death, but, to be honest, I don’t know how to let any part of Haibara go. I’ve accepted it, but he’s still in my heart and my head.” Lips parting, Satoru takes a step forward as Nanami slants his body away, continuing to fold the fabric into a tie. He looks statuesque, unmovable, and something tightens in Satoru’s throat at the stone-like mask taking over his face. “I’m unwilling to do anything to taint that memory.”
Wordlessly, the blond walks over to Satoru to take his jacket from the chair, rolling down his sleeves and slapping his watch back onto his wrist. Standing less than two feet apart, the two men finally meet eyes.
“Gojo,” Nanami murmurs. “I can’t say I understand your burden, but I am by your side. I do not always agree with your choices, but I still respect them. As your kouhai and as your colleague.” His lips pull in a facsimile of a wry smile and there’s an understanding Satoru doesn’t understand haunting his handsome face. “However, she is your friend before mine. I think your opinion matters much more than mine. Don’t abuse that power.”
Satoru’s eyes nearly reflect in the lenses of Nanami’s glasses. He wishes his friend would take the damn pair off. 
In truth, the reason he’s so irritated is because he knows. If he insists enough, begs enough, there will always be a chance that he can convince you. That you will give in, not because you are selfless, but maybe because you’re too selfish to let him stay mad at you.
An unstoppable force meets an immovable object, and sometimes, the force wins.
But he’d promised, hadn’t he? To not be angry with the choices you’ve made?
“Jeez, it’s somber in here. Who died?” you tease as Shoko pushes the wheelchair in after you. Both men look away from each other. You’re still walking steadily, but an IV is hooked into your chest now, and it’s so obvious you’ve lost unhealthy weight that looking at you is hard sometimes. Satoru does, anyway. 
Noting Nanami, you straighten up. Surprised, but pleased: “You’re still here.”
“I was just leaving,” he says. You frown, but don’t protest. A jujutsu sorcerer’s work is never finished until one stops breathing. “I finished planting the seeds you asked me to, and watered them.”
“Thank you.” He dips his head to you, then to Shoko, before departing, and you watch him go for a moment before your eyes land on Satoru and you smile. The air around you shifts immediately to a vibrant yellow. 
“You’re early, Satoru.” You head towards the bed as Shoko parks the wheelchair by the door. “It took way longer than I thought.”
“That’s because you threw up pistils today,” Shoko replies dryly. Satoru straightens up and looks at Shoko more carefully. Placid lookimg—usual for his mortician friend in the jujutsu world—but there’s a blanching in her knuckles that isn’t usual. “The CT wasn’t good. You know that.”
“Well, it’s still more time than I could’ve asked for, you know.” Shoko shakes her head, and meets his eyes before leaving the room, presumably to talk to your doctors. “Party pooper.”
“First day knowing Shoko?”
You laugh sarcastically, adjusting the hospital gown on your body before climbing into bed slowly, as if your joints ache. Satoru’s feet shift on the tile when he realizes his body moves to help and he freezes. You’re breathing audibly by the time you settle in and you meet his eyes, wondering if he’s noticed.
Of course he has, he wants to tell you. He notices everything about you.
Then, you sigh, and the yellow energy around you flickers into something darker, something grey, something that reminds him of summer thunderstorms.
“The roots have reached the edge of my rib cage and are encroaching on my stomach now,” you inform bluntly. “I probably won’t be able to keep food down in the next couple of days so they’re going to up the ante on this thing.” You gesture to the catheter by your clavicle. “So that’s not really fun. And, they want to start taking scans every single day because the growth is increasing exponentially. The doctors think something triggered the flowers to begin blooming in earnest. Like spring has come to my body, and I’m having the worst fucking time of my life.”
Despite your admission, your smile only falters in that it no longer reaches your eyes. Satoru shoves his hands in his pockets because he doesn’t know what else to do.
The word Hanahaki still burns, whispers coyly in his ear. It teases the tip of his tongue as he watches you look to your windowsill where your new plants are and get up, walking over to inspect your friend’s work.
He wonders if he can bring it up again. If he can insist that there’s a way to save you—
But Nanami’s words linger, too, and he bites his tongue until he tastes iron. 
“Oh, look.” He blinks at your voice, turning to look. Your fingers sink into one of the pots and before he can ask, blue energy flares up around your hand and into the soil and a shoot breaks through the dirt, unfurling as it grows higher and higher into the air.
“What is it?” Petals are beginning to form, the shade of a warm, gentle red that fades in shade as it reaches the stem. Satoru comes up next to you as the first flower blooms and his eyebrows rise. “Tulips. Huh.”
“I used to love them,” you tell him, picking it off and extending it to him. Eyebrows furrowing in surprise, he takes it as you sink your fingers deeper into the soil, sending more cursed energy into the seeds. More stems to replace the one you had picked continue to grow and you pull your hand out, wiping at your fingers with a towel.
Satoru tilts the flower towards his nose, taking a whiff.
“Used to?” he repeats, and you nod.
“Trees and flowers have their own language.” Your eyes do not meet his as you watch the plant continue to grow. Your muscles go slack, and your fingers touch the petals, mind not quite aware of how you’re moving. “Red tulips mean eternal love, and fame.”
Blinking, he looks down at his own bloom. 
Suguru. He hears you say his name, even in the silence, and remembers years ago, walking through Tokyo. A neighbourhood he doesn’t remember, his best friend looking at the florist’s shop and immediately perking up to head inside and buy a bouquet after something had caught his eye.
“For a girl,” he had admitted sheepishly. 
“Only one?” Satoru asked, horrified. “You can’t settle down! We’re meant for so many more women than just one!”
A sharp nudge to the ribs. Raucous laughter. “Shut up!”
Quietly, Satoru’s fingers tighten around the stalk as you tilt your head to the sun, inspecting something he won’t understand. He doesn’t have a green thumb, and although you say you aren’t the smartest, he’s seen you grow the college’s gardens in a way that has amplified the beauty already lingering on the grounds. You had dismissed it as a little side project, but seeing you water your plants dutifully, spread feed and root out weeds, makes him wonder if you know how to put half-efforts into anything.
When you garden, you never take the easy route. You labour for the satisfaction, and pour sweat and tears into the soil.
When you love, you love with all of yourself and more. 
It’s what makes whatever he wants impossible.
Because he is the same, and they will never change.
When Satoru goes home, he places the tulip in a vase and the cursed energy prickles at his fingertips.
.
You get worse and worse with every visit. 
Each day brings him another raw wound, salt on blood. You slowly grow more and more ragged, even though you stay in the hospital, confined to your room. 
There are days Satoru walks into your room to you hunched over the toilet, spitting blood and flowers into the bowl and vomiting all you ate the night or day or hour before and he already knows what he has to do. A cold, damp rag to your forehead, a crouching stance beside you as your grip on the toilet seat becomes rigid like steel.
Other days, you’re still asleep because the night before, you’d been hacking up half a lung and half a bouquet. Sometimes, you’re curled around a plastic receptacle already full of your half-attempts to dislodge the pressure building in your chest. 
Or, you’re crying into your hands, breath coming in rapid bursts as you try to force your head between your knees to stop the world from spinning and Satoru holds you when you beg him to, and stands in the corner of the room when you push him away.
Afterwards, you always grab onto his sleeves, his arms, and sink against him, shivering. For hours after, he’ll curl around you on your hospital bed, no matter how much his body cramps, until you insist you’re fine.
“It’s a little like touching death,” you told him once, voice raw and fatigued. “When it’s a pretty bad day, and I think I’m going to die alone, it happens, so all I have to do is not think about it.”
There’s a flawed logic there, but Satoru was too busy pressing his nose into your hair and feeling the warmth of your body to reply any more than, “I’ll be there. I promise.”
Two weeks pass (fourteen sets of scans, a different pair hanging from the lightscreen every day tell him that) and Satoru watches as the branches spread through your body, past the reaches of your ribs, and the flowers have spread to your lungs so quickly he’s sure the time for you to decide is running out. 
You’re near-passed out against him on the bathroom floor one evening, and although it’s not closet-sized, it doens’t make the arrangement any less awkward. He’s up against the bathtub, legs sprawled all around you as he holds you in his arms. On the edge of the tub, there is a bar of bodysoap and a bottle of lotion he recognizes as the same one Shoko used to buy when they still had time. Your sink counter is filled with your toothbrush and cup, handsoap and a microfibre towel hanging off the edge smeared with lipstick, foundation, and black streaks of who knows what.
Shoko must have spent the night while he was out hunting a curse in Sendai. Good. He doesn’t like the nights when you’re alone and he can’t be there.
His fingers brush over your shoulder blade, and he travels over something rigid cloaked by your skin. Your eyes are closed, and you’re nearly asleep as you curl deeper against him. Looking down at you, he presses curious fingers into your shoulder blade only for you to let out a soft groan.
“Did that hurt?”
“No. It just feels like you pressed down on a big sore muscle,” you mumble slowly. He trails his fingers over, feels the bumps of the roots curling around your bones before following it towards your spine. It disappears the closer it reaches the trail of knobs that go down your back, and he moves back to your shoulder again. “Doesn’t hurt, though.”
“Does anything?”
“Mostly my stomach,” you tell him. “I’m so hungry all the time, but I can’t eat.” He glances at the IV stand, the only other witness to the events in this bathroom. It leads down through your gown and past your clavicle. Monitored every day in case the growths dislodge it, it’s one of the only things keeping you alive. “And my throat. It feels like I’ve scratched it out until it’s bleeding.”
He tilts his head. His lips barely brush your sweaty scalp despite how cold you feel in his arms “No surgery?”
You shake your head, what remains of your strength slowly coming back. “They say the flowers and roots have taken up sixty-five percent of my chest cavity. It’s not only inhibiting my lungs, but my heart and stomach, too, so it’d be kind of hard to get rid of it all. Not impossible, but it’s really risky. That, on top of the already-present consequences—”
“So let’s say we start with the lungs,” he cuts off, trying to not sound too desperate but these past few weeks have worn him down to the bone. Although he thinks he’s managed to hide it from his students, Shoko has offered multiple times to prescribe him sleeping pills just so he can shut his mind down.
He said no every time.
Your legs draw up and he squeezes your shoulder carefully, looking down. “Are you ready to get up?”
You nod. “I think so.” He wipes at your lips with the rag he left on the counter and you roll your eyes as he makes sure no blood is left on your face before throwing it back up and carefully adjusting you against him.
“Do you want my help?”
“My answer does not matter to you,” you shoot back teasingly and he lets you pull away from him before reaching up with one hand to push yourself up. Your arm wobbles, your feet kicking back underneath you and slowly finding theirselves on the floor. Satoru withdraws, ducking underneath and back up so he can stand, hands floating around your body as you draw the IV stand towards yourself and grab on. When he’s sure your knees might give in, he grabs your elbow, but you shake your head. “I think I’m okay.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay,” you breathe, raising your head to look at him. Your lips curl in a soft smile, and you clasp his shoulder. “Thank you.”
“I didn’t even do anything this time,” he says.
“Not everyone stays for the pathetic girl on the floor of the bathroom floor,” you quip. Turning around, you begin to head back to bed and he trails behind you carefully.
“If the girl’s you, then I think exceptions can be made.”
“Hospital bonus.”
“It adds that you’re in the hospital, too,” he agrees. “My morals are just.”
“Isn’t that a relief?” 
It is. It is a relief that you still have the strength to joke with him. 
You climb back into bed. Satoru returns to the bathroom to make sure the bathroom is flushed and it’s clean before returning and perching on the edge of your bed. Pulling out his phone, he shuffles his shoes off and tucks his legs to his chest, leaning against the foot of your bed and scrolling through his messages.
Not much to miss, to be honest. 
“There’s supposed to be a lunar eclipse on the morning of the 28th,” you say suddenly. Satoru looks up. You’re leaning back on the mountain of pillows, exhaling and inhaling measuredly in a way he now knows is your way of fighting off another bout. Squinting against the orange glow of the sunset, there’s a longing in your gaze. “I want to see it. Outside and everything.”
“You’re not supposed to leave the hospital.”
You don’t miss a beat. “Oh, we’re abiding by rules, now?”
“If it keeps you around, yes, we are.”
“When did my best friend turn into such a party pooper?” Looking at him, an impish glint lives in your eyes. He balks.
“Don’t you dare insinuate that I’m not fun.”
“Then… take me to see the eclipse.”
“No. There’s nothing to even see.”
“I want to see the moon disappear, Gojo,” you declare. “And if you won’t take me, I will definitely sneak out.” 
It paints a pretty pathetic picture, and he can’t help but arch his eyebrows at your determination. The air purifier drones on. The nurse turned it on after dinner, he guesses, and he has the strange urge to kick it as you fix him with a fierce stare. 
“You probably won’t be able to walk by then,” he says.
“That won’t stop me.” He knows it won’t. The corner of his lips pulls into a slight smile as you continue, “I just want to go outside one last time. Is that really too much to ask?” Your words are tinged with a fine dusting of humour, and he shakes his head.
“You’re incorrigible.”
“Big word for you, Satoru.”
“I still mean it.”
“And I learned that from you.”
He rolls his eyes and sighs. “Fine,” he caves. Your face lights up, and he sets down his phone, legs unfolding to brush the floor as he leans over to flick your forehead. Your eyes squeeze shut at the contact and you slap his arm away sluggishly before he soothes the smarting spot over with a smear of his thumb. “I’ll come by, and we’ll sneak out.”
You beam and he slips his feet back into his shoes and pockets his phone so he can focus his attention on you. 
When visiting hours end, the nurses offer to set up the cot for him like they always do. You pretend not to look at him out of the corner of his eye, awaiting his answer behind your laptop screen, and he spares you a quick glance before saying yes.
“She likes you,” you tell him after one particular nurse with dyed purple hair who always wears a fishtail bids them goodnight. Satoru fluffs up his pillow ceremoniously, having shed his jacket and taken off his jeans to hide underneath the blankets. The fabric is cold against his bare chest, and he pulls his glasses off, sets them on the stand right behind him.
The black frame holding up his mattress rattles a bit as he punches his pillow one last time and lies down. He turns on his side and looks at you. You’re turned on your side, too, and your brow is furrowed as you fight the sleepiness.
“Is that so?” he asks carefully. “What do you think about it?”
“I think if you wanted someone with a hectic schedule, you could pick someone else,” you say vaguely.
He raises an eyebrow. “Does she have a bad attitude or something?”
“I dunno.” There’s a subtle fire igniting in your words. You look a bit more awake, and your eyes are shifting the air into a smouldering red. He squints up. Your face is shadowed, but you’re still silhouetted by the orange light behind your bed as your shoulders rise and fall greatly in staggering, weighty breaths. “She wouldn’t understand. I guess.”
He hums. “So I should find someone who understands me but can’t be there for me? Sounds like the set up to every tragic love story ever.”
You laugh, and it’s the saddest sound in the world.
.
Friday, July 27th arrives in clouds.
Satoru scouted a spot before where they can watch the eclipse. He settles on one of the highest buildings on campus with a balcony where they can sit against the railing and watch the moon disappear. You can’t eat, but he still buys your favourite food from all over Japan, travelling to different prefectures in hopes that they still have your favourite dessert or drink that you mentioned once—he even gets you a new polaroid camera. He doesn’t know exactly how well the eclipse will show up on it, but, memories, right?
Maki makes a dry remark about how much he’s running around lately, probably to make amends to a girl he’s scorned. Satoru deflects and says he’s actually trying to impress one this time.
It’s been a five days since his promise to bring you. You lost your ability to walk steadily two days ago and to speak effortlessly only yesterday. The roots have extended through your body, pushing the muscle of your back and shoulders, and it’s made even moving painful, so he intends to carry you everywhere he can, holding your IV bags if he needs to. 
The doctors say eighty-five percent of your chest is now occupied with foreign growth. Satoru wishes they’d just tell it how it is—you’ll probably be dead by next week.
He arrives at the hospital and walks the path he’s walked so often over the past few weeks that he is sure he could do it with his eyes closed. The nurse’s station, and there’ll be the purple-haired one and the one with a double helix piercing on call at this time. Then, twenty-five steps to the end of the hall where the window often lets a lot of natural light in. Today, it’s grey and not much, but it’s enough to cast his shadow long and blurry.
He stops in front of your door to sanitize his hands when he hears voices within and hesitates.
Your door is closed, which means you don’t want people to interrupt, and he moves away from the rectangular window, back pressing against the tiny slab of wall between the frame and the corner of the hallway. Glasses slipping down his nose, he tries not to listen but he can’t help of himself.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” you say weakly. You sound awful. Satoru wonders if he’s missed one of your panic attacks and curses himself. “If I don’t sound sure, it’s because I’m dying… and sounding like a fragile piece of shit… comes with the territory.” Your words are coarse, and a harsh anger grates his ears as you cough violently, a terrible retching sound ending with a splat following right after. 
“I wasn’t doubting you,” Nanami replies calmly. “But this could be done in so many other ways.”
“Look, Nanami. I’m not… brave enough to say any of it. Now, sit down. Your standing… it’s making me nervous… Thank you.” Satoru’s legs feel numb as he sinks down to the floor, tilting his head just enough to listen clearer through the sliver underneath the door. Resting his elbows on his knees, he runs a hand through shaggy white hair. It feels dry and lifeless. 
He can’t remember the last time he took a shower that was longer than ten minutes and more than ice-cold bordering on just beginning to warm.
“Take care of him for me,” you croak and his fingers tighten against his scalp. Nanami doesn’t answer, and you let out a sound that can only be described as pure agony as another bout grasps you tightly. You’re wheezing by the end of it, gasping painfully for air, and the monitors start beeping rapidly, a dinging that echoes in his head as Nanami’s low voice soothes you, tells you gently to calm down. “I’m—I’m sorry.”
“Breathe with me,” Nanami orders, and everything falls silent. Satoru stares at his lap. His head is beginning to pulse with the monitors when the beeping finally starts to fade. “Good. No sense to waste your strength.” 
Wobbly, spitting: “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” A pause. “It’s not your fault.”
You laugh, as if Nanami’s cracked a funny joke, and it’s gut-wrenching. “Remember how… we can curse each other? Ourselves? True curses.”
Faintly amused, immeasurably strained: “I thought it was still a hypothesis regarding those who don’t have the correct bloodline and the ability to curse through their own will.”
“No…Not a hypothesis. Real, Nanami. Real. No one knows how cursed energy affects us. Not really. Since, in my opinion, it’s entirely based on how we process things… it’s so difficult to say but when you know someone…” You break off to clear your throat. “The curse of adulthood… some of us got that too early… but we can survive that and even if it’s not a curse by… definition, we still feel it, right?” 
Satoru clasps his hands together just so he doesn’t rip the door open at the hinges.
“Right.”
“And… knowledge… can be a curse. Even if we can’t see it.” A ragged breath. Then, another laugh too loud for the grey light outside, too bright, a spark before it fizzles into, again, pained choking. “Nanami, remember last year… the job out in Yama… Yamaguchi?”
“Yes.”
“And we came back… Okkotsu was beginning his first year at the college… what I—what I told you?”
“…Yes.” A beat passes. A chair shifts on the linoleum floor and Nanami clears his throat. “I see.”
“I don’t want him to be so alone. I know I was never the strongest or the smartest or the most talented but I liked to think he let me in because I was there. Not because I understood. Maybe… Maybe because I didn’t. Nanami, please… he always try to stay so far away from the people he thinks he can’t love. Tell him… tell him—“
You break off and Nanami assures you with a steadfastness Satoru has counted on so many times before: “I will.” 
“…thank you.”
Eyes shutting tight, Satoru rests his brow against the heel of his hand. His head is aching, and a hard fist grabs his chest, squeezes his heart until it feels like it’ll burst. So this is how you’re really feeling. When you’re not smiling, this is what you are. Angry at the world, and heartbroken.
So terribly heartbroken.
And you couldn’t trust him with it? Because you thought he couldn’t handle it? 
He can take it. It’ll be okay because he’s the strongest. He has to be. 
I’m the strongest. I should be okay. I’m the strongest.
I’m the Strongest.
The headache gets worse so he gets up from that corner in the dead-end hallway, all the while three words replay in his head like a goddamn gramophone.
Nanami doesn’t come out of the room for a while. When he does, Satoru walks down the hall with takeout and a smile plastered on his face as if he had heard nothing at all.
.
At just past one-thirty AM, Satoru sits up from his cot and rubs at his eyes. After dinner, the both of them had forced themselves to go to sleep in order to have enough energy for their little late night excursion. He glances at you, a slumbering shape on the bed, and gets up, slowly sliding on the lights. They burn a dim orange, glowing on your face, and your eyebrows furrow as he touches your cheek.
“What?” you mumble, vexed, and he smiles.
“Are you ready?” he asks. A backpack is situated at the end of his bedframe and he reaches for it, unzipping it carefully as you crack your eyes open. “We’re going to go see the eclipse, remember?” Pulling out clothes he robbed from your room in the staff facility from when you used to work full time, he grabs your shoulder and shakes you gently. The gnarled roots under your skin feel strange against his fingers as you groan weakly. “Do you want five more minutes, Sleeping Beauty?”
You don’t answer, burying your face into your pillow and he shakes his head to himself. It’s going to be all right, he thinks. I planned for this setback.
Slipping into a dark long-sleeve, he parts the black-out curtains to let light come in. He checks his reflection in the bathroom mirror before running a hand through his hair and washing his hands with a cold stream of water. By the time he leaves the bathroom, you’re sitting up already, heel of your hand rubbing against your brow as you groan. In your other hand in your lap, there’s a splash of blood and a lone petal, and he rushes to your side instantly.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t even hear—“
“It came out easy,” you assure as he grabs a tissue to pick it off your hand and throw it into the receptacle at the table just beyond the foot of your bed. Wiping at your mouth roughly, he hears your complaints and your hand shoves against his shoulder to tell him to quit it. “Ah, I can do it myself!”
“Shh! Do you want every nurse storming in here while we conduct our super secret getaway?” he whispers, and your eyes fix on his. Dark circles mark your face like bruises, but that light is still the same—glimmering, bright, like twin suns and just as warm. Making sure your hands are clean, he wipes the invisible streaks of blood just to be sure before grabbing your clothes and setting them at the end of the bed.
You glance around the place sluggishly, at the paintings you never got to finish, and the books you haven’t finished reading, before settling on him. “What are we going to do about the… about the machines? And my IV…” 
“Oh, trust me. I may have bribed a nurse or two,” he confesses and you send him a scandalized look. He shrugs. “What? You told me a woman liked me and I couldn’t help but turn on my natural charm.”
“You’re awful,” you say without meaning it and he smiles as he moves your bed into a sitting position. You cough lightly, but sit up straighter as he carefully unhooks the huge bag and pump from your stand and gently slides it into the pocket in the backpack, resisting the urge to squish the pouch a bit. Strapping the pump in, he makes sure it’s secure as you peer around him to catch what he’s doing. “Is this… safe for me, you—you know, medically-speaking?”
“Nope.” He adjusts the tubing to avoid any kinks. “But, Purple gave me this backpack and she will come as soon as we come back to make sure you aren’t dying. And, if anything goes wrong, I promised her I’d come back as soon as possible.”
“Promised her?” you echo “I see. So that’s what Purple… was doing before my afternoon nap. I thought you guys traded suspicious looks.”
“Yeah. I’m pulling big strings. Now, c’mon, silly. Let’s get you dressed.”
You roll your eyes with a whistling breath. “Watch the tube… and c’mere, then, Gojo.”
He grabs the jacket first and does exactly as you order. Wrapping it around you, he helps you thread your arms through before zipping you up carefully as your shoulders begin to shake. Bending over, you reach blindly for the receptacle at the end of the bed and he hands it over to you.
A wad of saliva mixed with blood slips between your lips and you let out a low noise before forcing yourself to cough harshly again and again. Satoru watches. No matter how many times he sees you rip your throat up just to breathe with a bit less pressure in your chest, it doesn’t get any easier.
You manage to get up a whole magenta blossom. It blooms from your mouth like something out of a horror movie and lands in the receptacle before he’s wiping your mouth.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
They continue on.
Coat, next, zipped up, and a scarf, then he’s scooping up your legs to help you twist on the mattress until your feet are dangling off the edge. He weaves your legs through the sweat pants, careful not to let his gaze avert from his task even as the hospital gown trails up your legs. You shiver at the exposed skin and gooseflesh pimples your thighs as you lift up your hips to help with the effort. He pulls the hospital gown free from the waistband and lets it fall over the hem so you’re completely covered before falling back.
In a crouch, he pats your knees and makes the mistake of looking up only to find your eyes already on him, searching, nearly mystified. Satoru’s throat tightens. The faint light streaming from the window catches half of your face, as if half-divine. There’s a curiosity there, lingering, and the way you look at him makes him freeze in his spot.
Is this how Suguru saw you a thousand times before, a thousand lifetimes ago? Is this what he felt? 
Did he see the way your pupils dilate, the flare of your nostrils as you exhaled so quietly that it felt like a feather against his lips despite the distance between them? Did he see galaxies in your irises, home in the softness of your stare? Is that why he kissed you the last time he saw you? To memorialize their love for himself, to remember what it looked like when you loved him?  
Did he feel like he could fight dragons, crush demons, rip their world apart at the seams and rebuild it again with bloodied nails if it meant you would never cry again? Is that part of why he did it? So you would never be lonely again? 
Because if so, Satoru understands. 
Because if so, Satoru would do the same.
Because he always saw you as just pretty, because you had always been just his friend, and then his best friend’s girlfriend, and then his best friend, so there were always lines drawn in salt, scuffed and distorted over the years, but…
But in the light, tired and lost in his gaze, you’re nearly ethereal. The only reason he knows you’re not a goddess is because he’s still touching your knees, and your breath quivers, as if you’re just as disconnected from the world as he is in this moment.
Lips pressing together, he looks away, and the moment’s gone. 
He glances at the clock. 
How long has it been since he moved? It feels like hours.
Twenty-seven seconds.
Twenty-seven seconds of temptation, and then Satoru turned away. 
He slants to grab a pair of thick woolly socks to give himself something to do. You’re still watching him, head tilted down just so, and he carefully takes hold of your ankle.
He focuses on the little things: the iciness of your skin, the way you pick at the fabric of your sweatpants absently as you watch him work, the way you shiver a bit when he touches you.
He rubs heat back into the arch of your foot as you reach into your jacket slowly to carefully remove the nodes monitoring your vitals. You seem stiff to the bone, and your fingers are rigid with anticipated pain as you peel off the stickers. In the back of his mind, he remembers the days that feel like yesterday when you weren’t hooked up to so many machines to assure both you and him that you’re still alive.
Removing the cap for the oximeter from your finger, you shake yourself out a bit, clearing your throat. He slides one sock on, and then the other.
“How’re you feeling?” he finally utters.
It takes you a moment to answer. “Bottom half feels tingly. Usual these days. My body feels like a big giant bruise,” you inform quietly. Your voice is nothing more than a rasp. “Very warm and toasty, though… Thank you.”
“Just gotta get the shoes on and then we’ll teleport there.”
“Okay.” He helps you slip your feet in, something straight out of Cinderella, and then he stands up to take your hands. Your fingers slip into his palms, and he holds you so tightly as you slide off the bed. The instant your feet hit the floor, your grip intensifies and your head snaps down to the floor. You find your footing after a moment, and he lets go to crack open your window. Moving your plants aside, he climbs out to glance around. 
The air is crisp and cold, but not too bad for him. Even so, he’ll probably slip on a hoodie before they leave and he ducks back in to your room to do so, tugging it down his waist before grabbing the backpack.
“Arms through,” he instructs, slipping the backpack onto your shoulders. Guiding you closer, he helps you shuffle as close as possible towards him before turning around and bending over. “Alright, climb on. We’re going.” 
Your arms touch his shoulders, his hands shoot out behind him, and you fall.
Fingers hooking on your thighs, he boosts you up and your arms wrap around him, your own fingers wrapped so tightly around his collar that it nearly chokes him. Haphazardly stepping through the windows, his fingers sink into the fabric of your sweats. Your breath is warm against the shell of his ear, and he can feel your heart pulsing against his back as he turns to look at you. 
He smiles. “How’s it feel?”
“I’m still not sure if you’re going to let me die.” You press your face closer to his head and your arms tighten. “But the wind feels so good. So, so good.”
“That’d be too undignified,” he teases, and then he jumps. Time seems to slow as it always does when he’s about to teleport. He imagines the staff facility on the campus, quiet as a cemetery at this time of night, and his heart lurches forward. For a moment, his senses leave him all at once. He can’t taste or feel or see anything for a fraction of a second, then it comes to him in blinding speed. His hearing, as always, is first, then his eyes, smell and then touch and smell.
His foot lands on stone, as if he’s just finished a small skip, and he grins as he sweeps the courtyard. No one, as planned. The building’s to his immediate right, and he climbs the steps, using your knee to nudge the door open.
“That was fun,” you comment. “Convenient, too. Blink of an eye, and you’re somewhere else.”
“You can’t even begin to imagine how many lines I’ve skipped because of it,” he comments. The lights are all off, and he heads for the kitchen immediately to grab all the food he’s bought. Setting you down on the kitchen counter, he takes out another canvas bag and stuffs all of the food in.
Daifuku with of all kinds of fillings in the fridge, fresh dorayaki, canned coffee and aloe drinks, sweet soymilk and other wagashi they used to feast on when they were younger. Mostly because Satoru would buy enough to feed a kingdom so he always had something on hand for his overactive brain. You watch him with wide eyes as he moves around with such purpose one could think he was preparing to fight an army, but as soon as he finishes, he flashes you a smile.
“I think you’re going to like where we’re going a lot, silly.”
“Didn’t have to buy stuff,” you mutter, fingers playing with the tube leading into your backpack for a moment.
“You haven’t eaten in weeks. I thought maybe we could at least try. Maybe not now, but at the end of the night, before we go back. Just in case.”
“I can’t eat, though.”
“Don’t know until I stuff it down your throat,” he replies cheerily, and you smile at him so brightly it’s almost like you aren’t sick. Then, that smile turns into a cough, a fist in front of your lips, and your expression is frozen into one of exasperation before it flickers into strained. He sets down his bag, already knowing what comes next.
You make a hacking sound, deep in your throat, and he shifts you closer to the sink so you can lean over and throw up. Gagging, it comes in red and clear torrents, the cursed energy spilling out of your body nearly making it incinerating to even touch you as you clutch the edge of the sink basin. 
You fall to your elbows, and Satoru eases you off the counter so he can hold you up instead of the cramping body contortion you sink into. Cupping the juncture of your shoulder and neck, his thumb sweeps soothingly over your root-invested spine, tossing the ends of the scarf over your shoulder and out of the way.
Settling a hand on your hip, he presses you against the countertop so you don’t fall, and hopes your legs can hold you up long enough for him to reach for the hand towel. You spit just as he manages to grab it, snapping back into position and peering over your shoulder to inspect how much you’ve coughed up. You shudder and a tortured moan wrenches out of your throat as you sink, forehead against the cool metal.
You’re scorching to touch, but he tightens his hold on you anyway, setting the towel aside for just a moment. Carefully, he pulls you back up and you let out an drained whine, but he shushes you quietly, turning you around and guiding your head over his shoulder so you don’t stare at the rot any longer.
Satoru knows you would, even if you pretend like you aren’t plagued with morbid, self-destructive curiosity.
Looking into the sink, he counts a few petals and three whole flowers, and you’re quivering against him as he wraps his arm around you. 
“Alright, lean back for me,” he whispers into your ear, and you obey. His arm around you crooks so he supports your head, the other grabbing the towel again. Exhaustion seems to have sluiced through you, and your eyes are nearly unfocused as he dabs at your mouth carefully. His blue eyes focus on the gentle curve of your lips, and your cheeks puff up before you swallow tightly and let out a shaking breath.
“You’re really close,” you mumble in that exhale. He tilts your chin to the light to make sure he hasn’t missed a spot, and your eyelids flutter as the corners of his lips quirk up. His Six Eyes pick up a muted yellow emanating from you, and it’s so warm against his skin that he can’t help but relish in the feeling. “You smell nice.”
“Good. I took a shower before I came today. Well, yesterday,” he amends softly. “Alright, let’s go before you hack up your other lung.”
“Funny.” Nonetheless, he scoops you back up onto his back and he rinses down the sink as you rest your head against his. He feels you breathing steadily, much easier now than before. Red swirls down the drains, and he watches the magenta petals slowly reveal their true colours. There’s a flash of white in the center of each one, and he wonders silently what flower it is and what it means.
Maybe he’ll find out some day.
When the kitchen’s back to the state they entered, he grabs the bag of food and holds onto your legs tightly as your arms around his neck shift and pull him closer. 
This time, when he teleports, it���s not as jarring. Walking around the balcony, he makes sure no one’s in the area before checking that the door to the roof is locked and heading back out into the night air, towards where they can see the moon clearest.
“Hey, open your eyes,” he whispers over his ear, and your head shifts.
“Hm? Oh!” He feels you wriggle, but he doesn’t let you go as he walks closer to the spot he’s set up. Near the railing, a blanket surrounded by pillows is laid out surrounded by a few space heaters. The moon is hanging perfectly in front of them, and the light illuminates the forests in silver as a gentle wind whistles through. Tranquil, the only sound is his footsteps on wood as you manage to pull your legs free with a harsh twist of your torso. Your hand slaps against the railing and he whirls around to hold you up but you grit your teeth. “I can do it.”
Breathing in deeply, you pull yourself past him using mostly your arms. Your feet drag as if they’re not really attached to a living body but you still move steady onward, and he walks ahead to turn on the heaters and set the food down as far away as he can so it doesn’t spoil too quickly.
“Satoru,” you breathe as if for the first time,” it’s so fucking beautiful up here.” Looking up, his heartstrings twinge. Your face is bathed almost entirely in silver, and it drapes down your body like silk, illuminating the cord of your throat he can see above the scarf, the strength of your hands. A smile brighter than even the most blinding sun rays comes across your face and he finds that the moon pales in comparison as your knees begin to give.
Reaching forward, he helps you sink down slowly, and then sit down, legs hanging off the edge and then you’re leaning to rest your elbows on the middle bar of the wooden railing. You can’t stop staring at the moon, and Satoru can’t stop staring at you as he opens the box of daifuku and pops one into his mouth. 
“The eclipse should be starting in a few minutes,” he says, checking his watch. 2:10. Four minutes to go. You finally tear your eyes away from the moon to look at him.
“I forgot…” you muse. “I forgot how bright… the moon was.”  
He settles in beside you and offers a canned coffee, but you shake your head. He cracks it open for himself. 
“We’re about to watch the moon change,” he notes. “But I read that it’ll last six hours.”
“Really?” Excited, you look up at the moon again. The lunar rays outline your already-pronounced eye bags but it also makes you look more beatific. “That’s just proof… our time here on Earth is so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. It really makes you—makes you think how much we really matter. Which doesn’t seem like a lot, compared to things like a… fucking lunar eclipse.”
The moon’s opinion doesn’t matter more than mine, he thinks. “Well, while we’re waiting for your next epiphany to hit you,” he says instead, “you never answered my question.”
You smile, intrigued. “What’s that?”
“What if we removed the flowers bit by bit, rather than all at once?” he asks. Your gaze snaps to him, but he only regards you honestly. “That gives you a fighting chance.” Your eyes widen imperceptibly, and he grabs another mochi ball and takes a bite.
“The roots and flowers are too entangled in my chest to be removed safely. It’s either they remove my lungs completely, or not at all, and finding a… match for one lung is hard enough, much less two perfect lungs…” You trail off and shrug. “Well, that’d take forever… and I wouldn’t get much… longer, anyway. I’m a sorcerer. I always knew… I was going to die, so why not die on my own t-terms?”
He frowns. “Why not try?”
“Give me your phone.”
He does so, and watches you type in a query you must’ve typed before with how quick your lethargic fingers fly over the screen before you’re shoving it back towards him and leaning forward on the railing, chin to your forearms. You don’t even look at him, as if you don’t want to watch him crumble.
He reads: The first year after the transplant is the most critical period wrought with surgical complications, chances of rejection, and infection… Although there are some reports of some people living for 20 years post-transplant, many people do not make it past 10 years and only half make it past 5…
His stomach curdles. “Five years is better than nothing.”
“Five years worrying when my lungs are going to… kick it,” you correct. “Besides, my ribs are mangled by the roots. And my heart. My stomach. My spine. I’m undernourished, exhausted, and everything in here”—you gesture slowly around your abdomen—“is doing overtime. My body’s too weak to handle any kind of surgery that wouldn’t heal me… immediately.” 
Your eyes find his, and it’s as if lightning strikes through him like a spear—piercing cold and electrifying. You’re beginning to blue in the lips like you’re freezing to death, but he’s sweating under the blast of the heaters. 
Pulling off his hoodie, he drapes it around your shoulders. You don’t react anymore than: “Sucks, but that’s how it is.”
A few more minutes pass by in silence. Their knees knock into one another, and Satoru can’t stop looking at you as you breathe in the home you left months ago, head lifted to the inky universe.
“You know I can tell when you’re—when you’re angry with me,” you utter, not looking at him. “No matter how much you smile at me, you’re still too passive aggressive to cover it up.”
The words spill out of his mouth as you lower your gaze to him. “I’m sorry.” No sense in lying. 
“That’s okay.” You smile for a moment, like he hasn’t said something worth ruining a night over, but when you look up at the stars, it fades. Wistful, you cock your head at the moon that hasn’t gone away just yet and lower your chin to your arms again. “It’s not really something that was… fair of me to ask anyway.” 
.
Just as the moon turns yellow, he remembers something. Bending back to root through your backpack, he excuses himself. You frown. “What are you—“
“I got a camera for this occasion,” he announces, withdrawing the camera and a plastic bag, leaning back to snap a quick picture of you. You squint at the flash, mouth opened in an incredulous smile and face half-turned away, before the photo rolls out. “Like the one you used to carry around.”
“Some memories to hold on to, huh.” You reach for the camera and your fingers wrap around it, aiming it right at him. A flash and two peace signs later, another image joins the one of you Satoru slides into the plastic zip bag. “Hold on. I want to take another one.”
“We should do one of both of us.”
“Ugh, fine… I don’t look good at all, though.“
“Too late.” He snatches the camera from you and sticks out his hand, dragging an arm around your shoulders and you lean into him, temple against his cheek as he snaps another photo, and then another of him making a stupid face. Another of you mid-laugh. You’re wheezing for air as he keeps grabbing the polaroids as fast as he can with the arm that’s around your shoulder, leading to a bunch of jostling that has you in stitches at his frantic panic whenever the new photo chugs out of the slit.
When he’s had his fill of making you laugh, Satoru leaves you alone to look at the moon. He can’t stop grinning stupidly with every photo and while you watch the moon slowly descent into the earth’s shadow, he shuffles through the photos he just took of them together, trying to brand them to memory.
The way he looks at you in these photos makes him believe in something. In something that could’ve been there if they had more time, and he could convince you to open your heart up to a new possibility.
.
Another hour passes. The moon hangs a strange transition between black and blood red and a paler peach orange. A glimmering yellow dot sparkles below it, and he wonders if that’s Mars.
The forests seem almost hauntingly quiet, and no one has spoken in the darkness. You regard the moon, so enraptured, and more photos have joined the zip bag, but they’re mostly of you. He’s managed to sneak them in by turning off the flash and upping the brightness settings so it’d still be visible, and he hopes you never realize that he’s got them. 
Satoru has never been interested in astronomy, but the stars in your eyes are changing his mind.
He’s dug his hand into the bag of dorayaki already. He remembers it’s supposed to be for you, too, but his hands are too empty without the camera, his brain going a mile a minute and the air absolutely quiet with nothing. 
Twenty minutes ago, you asked him to help you take off your coat so you can pull on his hoodie, and haven’t moved since zipping yourself back up. The air smells only of canned coffee and the stinging wind carrying the scent of cedar. Feet swinging, he drapes his arms over the railing and looks up at the red moon.
It is pretty. Magnificent, and ominous, almost. The night is so much darker without the moon. Sheesh, colder, too. I wonder if you’re feeling okay. Maybe I should check, but you don’t seem to be shaking. Worst comes to worst, I could up the level on the space heaters…
“I don’t think I ever got to hear his last words,” you muse quietly, voice cracking, rousing him from his monologue. His head swings to you. Your eyes are barely open as you rest your cheek against your forearm, and you don’t look at Satoru despite your head turned towards him. Instead, he can watch the pieces of you fall apart without your scrutiny. “I used to think… that I didn’t care.”
“Do you want me to tell you?” he asks slowly as you continue to stare blankly over his ear. Your chest stutters in its inhale and the exhale is just as shaky as you smile a bit to yourself. He takes that as answer, and as he speaks, he sees Suguru’s smile—bright against the darkness of the alleyway, and a reminder of a simpler time. Satoru’s heart quickens from the memory “‘At least curse me a little at the very end.’”
You’re quiet for a moment, as if soaking that in. Then, you draw yourself up and sigh. “That sounds like him.”
You say it fighting off a laugh, even though it wracks your body with such intense pain you can barely breathe. You begin to wheeze not even a second in, and still, your face is cracked into an agonizing smile as you blink, tears slipping down your cheeks. Your eyes squeeze shut and your body goes stiff as you cough, hands flying over your lips. Your shoulders shake so uncontrollably it’s like an earthquake in your body, but Satoru cannot find it in him to calm you down as you hunch over yourself.
It comes in its own course, until you’re nothing but a gasping body, crying into bloodied palms cupping purple flowers, and the low sobs that spill and stutter out of your throat makes Satoru wish he never told you.
“‘At least curse me a little at the very end,’” you repeat to yourself, voice raw and iron-like, and your eyes finally rise to meet his. Nothing but hollow purple pierces through him once more. “Yeah… Yeah, that sounds like him.” 
An apology bubbles at his lips, but you continue before he can even begin. Your hands fall to to your laps, and you look at the decaying flowers, thumbs stroking the petals. “I could never make him truly happy… could I? Just like he said… nothing would’ve been good enough for him while we lived in this kind of world. No matter how many times I sat by him while he swallowed… swallowed those curses, held his hand, held him, I would have never been… enough to make him laugh from his heart.” Your tears cast dark shadows. “I held him, Satoru, with all my might… and I still felt him slip away between my fingers.”
That’s how Satoru learns you were there that day, December 24th, not a snowflake in sight. Just a few metres away, you stood for only a moment before you walked away from the man you loved so he could die without any regret, at the cost of your own guilt eating you alive.
No one speaks after that. Satoru cleans your hands slowly, carefully, giving attention to each finger, before swiping your lips, and then he wipes your tears away but you’re not crying anymore.
You just look up at the moon emptily and he scoots closer in hopes to keep your returning trembling at bay.
“Ten years is a very… long time to love someone.” You break the silence. He doesn’t know how long it’s been. Fifteen, thirty minutes? He looks at you, and your lips press into a thin smile. He lifts his arm so you can scoot up close next to him. Your eyes never leave his face, regarding him with new clarity. “I just… realized.”
“Ten years is a very long time for anything,” he replies quietly, their faces very close. Their noses brush, and a warmth spreads through his cheeks as he presses the tip of your nose against his. You don’t pull away. Instead, you almost lean closer. Your nose is cold against his hot face, and he rubs it slowly with his own, trying to send heat back into your skin.
“A very long time to… wait.” Your eyes flutter shut, and your breath is warm over his lips as you slowly tilt your head so their foreheads meet. His hand squeezes your waist. You smell like the hospital, but there’s still the fragrance of the fresh-cut grass and herbs clinging to your skin as he moves his head just to the side so his nose presses into your frozen cheek. Your arm moves as if dragging through honey until it’s wrapped around his neck, palm flat against his shoulder, just as their brows press against one another. 
Something ignites inside his chest, incinerating the rot that seems to grow inside his own chest—it’s his dread, he realizes a moment later. An ugly knot of dread for what’s to come, the guilt, the cold grief that’s just out of reach. 
It’ll unfurl soon, he knows, but for now, he welcomes the relief you bring him.
In this moment, you are his, and he is yours, and that is all that matters.
His eyes close. His cheeks are burning hotter than the heaters surrounding them, and he feels a smile pulling at his lips as your fingers curl against the back of his neck.
“When will people… stop waiting?” you ask him, hushed like a secret.
Eyes opening, he answers you in the same soft voice, “Probably when they die.”
Your eyes crack open once more and he catches a sliver between your heavy lids. You’re so close he sees every detail of your irises, the pores of your eye bags, the way memories flicker through your pupils like fish in a river.
Your exhausted smile grows more genuine—something inside you seems to rear its bright little head, but it’s sad, and he realizes, then, what you must’ve been thinking. Words fumble at his mouth, but he doesn’t let anything slip as you lift your face away to rest your head against his shoulder.
.
You’re dozing against him. Satoru is staring up at the moon in your stead. It’s nearly fully that famous shade of dark blood red, but not quite. He can’t hear anything except the buzz of the space heaters and your breathing. His arm is still wrapped tight around you, holding you flush against him. He’s wished he’d done it so many times before that now, he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself.
You’re dying. Even as you rest against him, he feels it. The weakness in your body, the way you’ve turned ghost-like. The strength of your Cursed Energy has become more prominent now that you don’t have the energy to channel it properly, and it’s centred so strongly in your chest that he can feel it poking curiously at him, leaving little marks, a souvenir for when you’re gone.
His fingers dig into your side. You let out a noise, head shifting, and he rips his gaze away away from the sky as your hand falls away from where it had rested around his neck into his lap.
“Satoru?” you whisper brokenly, and he nods, smiling. He pulls you closer, but their bodies are so pressed against each other that it only serves to make you huff a bit.
“Hey. You’re still with us, don’t worry,”
“Not worried,” you mumble, lifting your head with difficulty. “Just glad you’re here.” You tilt your face to the moon. “It’s still… red, huh…” You shake, your hand at the hem of his shirt twisting tightly. He reaches to squeeze your arm and hopes it’ll be enough now. “Pretty.” Throat dry, he does not answer. His white hair falls into his eyes as you look up at him, and he decays at the vulnerability in your gaze. “Aren’t you glad… that we saw the eclipse?”
Jaw clenching, he nods and tries his best to smile. Your hand lets go of his shirt and you shuffle up close enough that your other arm sneaks around his waist. Touching his chin with trembling fingers, your eyes glitter in the darkness of his shadow.
“I’m going to miss this. The moon, stars, how… fucking short… ’n’ beautiful life is,” you finally whisper, throat tight. “Makes shit worth living for. Maybe… won’t miss it… the most… but, top three.”
“Top three?” he echoes. “Top three sounds pretty good to me.”
“And, y’know what, Satoru?” you continue in the same low, husky tone, as if you’re about to change his world one more time.
He drops to the lowest, quietest voice he can manage and moves his head closer. Their noses nearly bump into each other again, and you smile as he quirks an eyebrow. “What’s that?”
“You’re… going to miss me… more.” 
Your hand on his waist travels up his shoulder and he feels the last of your strength in your muscles as you pull him towards you. Letting you, his arms wrap around your waist as your other arm shoots around his neck, clinging on so hard that he’s sure his spine might break. 
Flattening his palms against your uneven back, he closes his eyes and slides a hand to cradle your head close.
“And promise… me something,” you breathe into his ear. Your lips brush the shell of his ear, and a shiver shoots down his spine.
“Anything.”
“When I kick it,” you whisper, “take my body, and bury me… yourself.”
Throat swelling shut, Satoru’s glad you can’t see the way the blood drains from his face as he nods and holds you tighter. “I will.”
.
“One more photo for the road?” he asks. You lift your head from his chest, and he looks as you reach to sweep his lips with cold, trembling fingers. He smiles, his hand on your thigh squeezing meaningfully even though you can barely feel it now. Your arms are bundled between your chest and his, and he hauls your legs on his thighs more securely up his lap, arm tightening around your torso.
“Satoru,” you murmur, tilting your head to him. His eyes never move from yours as he picks up the camera, and your hand falls from his lips. “I’m glad… that it was you.”
He snaps the shot and the only sound that fills the silence is the camera chugging out the polaroid. Your eyes are dark, murky and unfocused, and he feels your stammering inhale in his very lungs as he presses his forehead against yours.
“I’m happy it was you, too,” he whispers. You search his gaze for only a moment, and then turn your head to the moon once more. 
Lowering the camera to the floor, he sneaks his other arm around you and rests his chin atop of your head, eyes sliding shut.
.
Nanami, Yaga, and Ijichi approach, dress shoes tapping against linoleum floors. Satoru and Shoko say nothing to them as they join in watching through the glass doors.
Satoru doesn’t like the room they’ve moved you to. It’s too full of machines, too open to passersby who could just look in if the curtains aren’t drawn, and even then…
It smells too clinical here. Too full of artificial light. The ICU is a mechanical sort of silence than the quiet peace of the dead-end hallway. There is no warmth, no books, no paintings. Your plants have been removed, and Nanami has taken all of them into his apartment except the red tulips which rest on the dinner table in Satoru’s kitchen.
You stopped being able to breathe on your own only a day after the eclipse. That was two days ago, and the ventilator is doing nothing more than prolonging your agony. Soon, the growths will block your lungs entirely, suffocating you from the inside out. 
The doctors have stopped taking scans.
“It’s only a matter of time, now,” Shoko had said. “Her directive says we let her go as soon as she can’t come back.” Quieter: “Her pulse ox has been dropping. It won’t be long.”
Ijichi’s face is stony. Satoru doesn’t know why he focuses on him out of everyone. Leaning against the nurse’s station, he stares blankly at the Assistant Director’s. Maybe because he thought he’d be a wreck. Out of all of them, Ijichi’s the most emotional, but his lips are set firm from where he stands between Nanami and their principal.
Maybe Satoru’s just looking for permission to fall apart, but that’d be stupid. 
I’m the strongest. I’ll be fine.
“I’m going to go in,” he announces. No one protests. Nanami sits down and crosses one leg over the other, fingers steepled and eyes indecipherable. Shoko sits beside him. There’s the faint scent of smoke clinging to her lab coat. 
Ijichi dips his head, but doesn’t sit and Yaga excuses himself to talk to the nurse about your condition.
Satoru sanitizes his hands, approaches the door, and pulls it open before stepping in and sliding it shut behind him. 
Click. Hiss. 
The sound of the ventilator is the only thing that occupies the room. That and the monitors. It’s very dark, despite it being the middle of the day. Mostly because you can’t open your eyes wide enough to withstand the sun anymore, so Satoru had asked the nurses to bring the same blackout curtains from your room here. The lights are dimmed until it’s only an orange glow right behind your bed. 
Click. Hiss.
Sitting down, he doesn’t take hold of your hand just in case you’re sleeping. The intubation tube rests on a pile of towels on your chest, and it takes a long time before your eyes open and your head tilts just enough to look. Your hand twists on top of the covers until your palm is tilted open.
He slips fingers in, takes hold. The feel of your skin making everything worse. You’re colder than you should be—it’s sweltering in this room, enough that Satoru is already beginning to sweat even through his short-sleeve—and your fingers just barely twitch against the back of his hand, tracing strange shapes.
You blink, tapping his knuckle, and he frowns.
“What’s up?” Withdrawing, he feels your nail scrape against his flesh and he looks down. Curiously, he takes your hand and places it on top of his so your fingers can touch the lines of his palm. “Are you spelling something out?” he asks, amused, glancing up again.
Another blink, slower this time.
He leans forward on his elbow to touch your cheek before resting his cheek against his fist.
“Alright, give it your best shot.” 
Your eyelids flutter, lips trembling in a weak smile. Your index finger begins to trace shapes, kanji, into his palm. Your chest rises and fall slowly, pumped full of air by a machine hooked to your lungs, forcing breath into you as your writing grows sloppy by the passing second but you still persist.
ANGRY?
“Angry?” he repeats, and you blink slowly again, fingers insistent on grabbing his palm. Folding his fingers over yours, he arches his eyebrows. “If I was angry at a terminally ill patient, that’d make me the asshole here.” Your eyes squeeze shut, eyebrows rearranging in what he recognizes as your laugh in silence. More seriously, his hold on you tightens and he lifts his head to brush his fingers over your brow. You tilt your head more to him, gaze murky warm. “How’re you feeling?”
It takes a while, but he feels your hand shuffle back to trace your answer on his hand.
BETTER
“Better. Yeah?”
Another lethargic blink. Yes.
“It’s because of me, right? I knew it. I knew it. We should tell Shoko—I’m the newest medical innovation in town,” he proclaims, and his smile begs to slip off his face but he only forces it back on, shoves it into place. Your eyebrows move again, like you’re struggling to hold back your laugh. Your eyes slip shut and do not open again. 
Your face goes lax a moment later, and your fingers loosen a bit, but he doesn’t let go. He just wants to touch your face and trace the lines into his memory. 
Satoru stretches his thumb along the swell of your bottom lip while carefully avoiding the tube. He runs his knuckles down your cheek. His fingers brush your pulse point along your neck, and he feels the slow, weak beat.
Click. Hiss.
He thinks you’re asleep for a while, until your finger drags over the flesh of his palm and he looks down, hand lifting from your face. 
“Hey, I’m still here,” he whispers, and your face turns towards him slightly, the tube in your mouth shuffling. He reaches forward, cupping your face and holding you still. “Hey. Don’t move. Your lungs are weaker than the rest of you and I’m not about to watch you die.” Something grabs onto the front of his shirt near his stomach and he looks down to see your fingers hooking on the cotton of his tee, twisting it weakly. “Oh, sorry.”
He draws back and slips his palm back into yours. Your index finger taps against the heel of his hand before your nail drags deliberately. One stroke. Then another, and another. Gojo wishes your eyes were open, because then he would be able to determine what the rest of the sentence could spell out before you’re done, but he’s patient. 
HERE
“Here?” You tap on his hand. Yes. “What’s here?”
YOU AND ME
“You and me,” he repeats thoughtfully. “Yeah, I get that. At least… now you can see Suguru again, right?” Your hand goes still and he looks at your face, reaching to touch your cheek again. You’re placid—doll-like, eyes shut, living dead. “I’m a bit jealous of that, but you should rest easy. It’s been a hard few months, hasn’t it?”
Another weak twitch of your finger on his hand.
“No matter what happens, don’t think I’m angry at you, or the choices you’ve made,” he continues. “As long as you let me stay here, I won’t waste a single second of it, okay?” Tap. He squeezes your hand so tightly your eyebrows twitch, even as you slip away from him. “For all your saying that you’re weaker than me, I never thought that. Not really.” Satoru raises your hand to his lips and he closes his eyes. “Being the strongest is pretty lonely. Used to be so fucking cocky about it, huh. Thought no one could touch me or the people I cared about because everyone would be too scared.”
Your fingers curl against his palm and he lowers his head to press your knuckles against his brow.
“I was wrong. I’d give anything to have you both back, but I can’t, and I hate it. You’re supposed to be with me at the top. I don’t want to be alone again.” His eyes are burning from the strain of keeping them open, but he refuses to miss a second of you being alive when the time is trickling like sand in an hourglass. He feels it like a heavy stare on his back, wondering if this next breath will be the last one before your brain finally decides to shut down. Your organs have been shutting down for nearly weeks now. He knows it’s out of pure selfishness that they’re dragging precious moments into agonizing hours. 
He knows you’re exhausted. 
Resting his chin on your fingers, he swallows. “I don’t know how to let you go. I wished I’d come sooner. I was careless. I know that. We could’ve had more time…”
Your fingers squeeze his as tight as you can before letting go. Somehow, he hears your voice in his ear. Something about being grateful for the time they did have.
“You were right, silly.” He chuckles to himself, bitter, anguished, and lowers your hand back to the bed, not letting go yet. “Ten years is a long time to wait. I let you down, but I’ll make sure you go easy. I promise.”
Satoru lays his head down on his forearm and he swears he catches your lips pull into the faintest smile. He stays there for hours, watching your face, stretching up to touch your unmoving face. The only sound is his steady breaths, the beep of your monitors and the click-hiss of your ventilator. 
It’s 1:04 PM when he falls asleep to the sleepy circles you trace into his wrist
It’s 6:22 PM when only one of them wakes up.
.
At 11:00 AM the next morning, during one of the hourly tests, they declare you brain-dead. With the announcement of your directive being honoured by your chosen proxy, Satoru himself, classes are cancelled and they are scheduled to take you off life support at six.
Ijichi brings them lunch and dinner. Satoru doesn’t eat. Only sits by your side, leaned back into the chair and looking at you while he still can until the clock ticks and ticks and ticks towards doomsday. The kids come to say final goodbyes while he watches on. Inumaki, as always, brings Panda through his phone, and Satoru wishes there could’ve been some way to sneak Panda into a high-class hospital just so their last moments together aren’t cheapened by a screen.
Shoko enters five minutes before it’s time, hand finding his shoulder and he looks up just long enough to catch her blank stare resting on your face.
She doesn’t say anything, only moves to the other side of the bed and sits down in the other chair.
The doctor pumps you full of sedation drugs, so you won’t feel any of the pain, unhooks the machines, and extubates you, explaining all the while what he’s doing just to fill the silence. As he pulls the tube from your throat, something in Satoru turns icy when a purple petal is plastered to the side of the plastic, but the doctor does not acknowledge it any more than murmuring that he will give them privacy.
Your rattling breaths echo in his ears as he watches the numbers slowly drop, but even your inhales fade to nothing more than soft, slight wheezes. The tape has left a strange mark around your mouth, and you’re unmoving otherwise. Shoko gently reaches and touches the eye bags that are, for once, worse than hers before shaking her head and pulling back. Everyone else waits outside.
Hours pass by in torturous years. 
Satoru wears the same stony expression the whole while, finally surrendering into his desire to hold your hand. 
His heart hardens. He goes completely still. Shoko talks but he can’t really hear anything except the slow beeps of your monitor once you pass certain thresholds. 
There are nurses waiting outside. They’ve grown used to the company, he thinks. He thinks one or two are crying. Soon enough, they’ll come in to turn off the machines tracking your vitals so the sounds don’t drive them crazy, banging in home that you’re dead, dead, dead.
After a while, Satoru realizes you aren’t quite breathing, although your chest moves. Sometimes, there’s a gasping sound, like someone surprised the breath out of you and you’re inhaling sharply to replace it, and he imagines your fingers twitching against his hand one last time.
It’s very slow. Much slower than he imagined it to be. Maybe you’re still fighting. Maybe you don’t want to go.
Satoru can’t imagine why. Where you’re going, there’s no pain, or exhaustion, or blood. Where you’re going, Suguru waits.
He leans against his hand, elbow on the slight incline of your bed. Letting go of your hand, he touches your face, feels the soft puff of your breath, the curve of your jaw. You’ve lost so much weight from the sickness you barely look like yourself, but you’re still you. The cursed energy is still yours. His Six Eyes sees it. His soul feels it.
It tangles with his own where he touches you, and a wave of exhaustion washes over him. 
He wants to sleep, let time pass, and wake up to you dead.
It seems a much better alternative to watching you slip away, but he’s always been selfish when it came to personal affairs.
.
You die two hours later.
Shoko closes her eyes and leans back into her chair as the nurse comes in to turn off the droning monitor. Her face is dry and she takes long, measured breaths as if trying to temper something swirling inside her. Satoru’s hard heart cracks as he squeezes your hand to see if you’ll wake up. It doesn’t quite sink in, even though he can hear someone crying outside, and when your limp hand doesn’t react at all, he shakes his head and gets up, pulling his sunglasses off the collar of his shirt and sliding them back onto his face.
He shoves his hands into his pockets and rakes his face over your body, your face.
He’s seen a dozen dead bodies before, maybe more. You look just like he did on December 24th. At peace, younger. Like you’re glad the suffering is over, and Satoru turns his face away sharply and leaves the room. He doesn’t know what to say and he’s not sure if his voice is still here. 
Everything feels dry and dull and grey.
“Sensei,” Itadori whispers wetly, reaching out a hand, making him stop. The students are all sitting in a small area, but they stand upon seeing him leave the room, and he gives them a plastic smile that makes all of them flinch. Maki is scowling furiously at the ground as Inumaki takes hold of her bicep but she flings the hand off and stalks away, hiding her red face.
“It’s going to be okay,” he tells them as Kugisaki runs after Maki. He watches the two go before turning his attention back on the students. “The important thing is that she didn’t suffer. Arrangements will be made, but there won’t be any rush, alright?” The words feel lacking, but he still manages to smile. “It’s been a long day. Go home. Rest, shower, eat. Let’s remember that she doesn’t want us to be here, slumping around looking like idiots. She wants you to all to take care of yourselves.” He arches his eyebrows insistently at his students, but they don’t seem to hear him.
They’re only looking through the glass doors at your coolling corpse, at Shoko who stands, and speaks to the doctor when he comes back in.
Fushiguro is the only one really looking at him, and the teenager has a silent question in his stare. 
Satoru shakes his head, and Megumi nods.
“Classes are cancelled for the rest of the week,” Yaga adds. “Ijichi will drive you all back to the college in thirty minutes. Make sure you tell the girls.” He directs this to Inumaki, who nods.
“Salmon.”
Later, Megumi finds him smoking a cigarette leaning against Shoko’s car. Satoru’s never liked the taste of the stuff so he doesn’t really know why he’s smoking other than the fact he doesn’t know what to do. 
Up is down, left is right, and you’re dead. 
Nothing seems right, but Megumi gives him a good excuse to stop. Flinging the cig to the ground, he stomps out the ember and re-arranges his expression into that shielded smile of his, but it feels a bit weaker. Sharp, janky, wrong.
“Why haven’t you gone home yet? Ijichi should’ve taken you all back by now,” Satoru says wearily as Fushiguro stops before him, hands shoved in his pockets.
“I stayed behind to look for you,” informs Megumi. He looks a bit fractured, but the boy’s never been one to wear his heart on his sleeve. Satoru makes a mental note to dig into his psyche at a later date, and stretches an arm out to wrangle the boy into a hug against his side.
For all of his complaints and mumbles and scowls, Megumi’s body still relaxes a bit against his, and even though he doesn’t hug him back, when he tells him, “You should go home and get some sleep, too. These past few months haven’t been easy on you, either,” Satoru feels a part of his old self raise its bloody head. 
Glancing down at a head of spiky hair, he knocks his knuckles into his student’s skull. “Have you been keeping an eye on me?”
Megumi crosses his arms, glares over Satoru’s elbow, but even his voice is quieter. “You need to take care of yourself.”
Satoru smiles again. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “But you’re not worried about me, are you, Fushiguro?”
Megumi ducks his head and doesn’t answer any more than, “Someone has to pick up the slack, now.”
.
“Thanks, Ijichi,” Satoru says with a huff, digging the shovel into the ground and stepping on the metal edge. “Not every day you help me carry a dead body and dig a grave, huh.”
“No, sir,” Ijichi replies. He sounds a bit hoarse and tired as he wipes at his brow.
It’s been two days since you’ve died. The college grounds feels a lot less lively. He took a walk in the gardens yesterday, and saw Yaga planting new flowers. He had strode past and ignored the tears on his sensei’s face, and absently wonders now why he hasn’t cried yet as he grabs the shovel and yanks it out of the dirt, tossing it to Ijichi.
It feels kind of stupid, but despite how eviscerated everything inside him feels, he just can’t.
Either way, he’ll deal with it when it becomes a problem.
Satoru wipes at his brow, too, with a heavy sigh, and heads to where a cloth-covered shape is resting on the ground. Your corpse is light in his arms as he bridal carries you to the hole he’s just dug into the grass. It looks suspicious as hell, but it’d probably be even worse if he’d been walking around with a dead body over his shoulder, stitched back together after an autopsy by your best friend. 
Good thing they’re only in the forests outside the college campus. There won’t be any civilians for miles.
“You can go,” he says over his shoulder, setting you down by the hole they’ve dug. He takes in a deep breath to calm himself and Ijichi’s footsteps hesitate before beginning and fading away moments later. Falling to his knees, Satoru begins to carefully unfold the cloth just enough that he can see your face and chest. 
He squints behind his blindfold at the ripples of energy still seeping from the stitches along your chest. Sinking his hands into the lush, cold grass, he twists the blades with rigid fingers at the stench of rot coming from the curse before he draws back.
Hands on his lap, he stares at your face. You look frozen in time, eyes closed, skin clean, and there’s that unnatural stillness about you that only comes with the dead. It’s strange. He probably couldn’t have imagined someone so vivacious could be so motionless if he hadn’t seen it first with Suguru.
He had asked not to hear the results of your autopsy. Not now, maybe not ever. It’d be fresh lemon juice in a weeping wound. All he knows is that the curse clings to your corpse, and Shoko could only remove the growths that were no longer being fed for examination.
“Weird that this is where we’ve found ourselves,” he begins humourlessly. “With how we were living, Suguru always said I’d die first. Doing something stupid, being too cocky.” He slides a hand into his pocket and withdraws something he’d snipped this morning from the last plant you had grown with your Technique. A red tulip with a short stem that’s a bit crushed, and beginning to decay, but… everything can’t be perfect.
“I never thought I’d outlive you.”
Reaching forward, he places the tulip gently on your chest, takes your cold arms that are just beginning to loosen up again from rigor mortis, and folds your hands over the stem.
“Eternal love, and fame,” he repeats to himself. The energy nearly swallows up the tulip, but as it radiates from your chest, flickers in the slight breeze, Satoru sees flashes of red and green, much brighter than everything else around him, and knows that it won’t be consumed. Sitting down, he hugs his legs to his chest and stares at your dead body blankly, chin on his knees.
He had had a plan. He was going to just… put the flower there, exorcise the curse inside you, and bury you so you could finally rest. He wouldn’t hesitate because this is something you entrusted him to do.
But this is the first time in months he hasn’t had a cloud hanging over his head, and his body feels so much ligher without the burden of your disease hanging off his shoulders, that he can’t help but relish in it. Speak to you without worrying about saying the wrong thing, of people overhearing. He’s finally… free. 
It feels fucking awful.
“You were right, by the way.” His voice is dull, resonating deep in his chest. There is no August sun breaking through the trees above, only from behind him, and the golden beams touch your chin, down your throat and chest. It sets the red of the tulip on fire. “I miss you. And I wish I could’ve said so many things, but we ran out of time.” A faint smile. “No matter what you think, Suguru loved you. It’s why he came to see you one last time. I knew him better than I knew myself, and I know he was happiest knowing you were at his side.” Closing his eyes, the ache in his heart swells as he utters out, “So was I.”
Burying his his face in his forearms, a cup inside him seems to tip over and everything feels too hot for him to breathe in. Ripping his blindfold off and tossing it away from him blindly, his eyes snap open wide as he tries to breathe. His ribs constrict his lungs, and he presses his eyes into his arms, hands shaking as he sinks his nails into his biceps. 
Harsh pants puff against his face as he tries to reign in his shuddering, but he can’t. The knot in his heart twists until he thinks he might die, and distantly, he hears soft footsteps so faint he’s not sure if he imagines it. Gritting his teeth, he stifles the bruising feeling welling up in his throat.
Gentle hands brush down his shoulders soothingly, sending a wave of nausea through his body, and he jerks away.
“Damn it, Ijichi, leave me alone!” Wrenching his head up, his eyes widen at the figure crouched in front of him.
Arms falling lax to the grass and his knees widening, his jaw drops as a thumb teases his parted lips. You step between his legs and crouch down, limber and strong. You look healthy again, bright eyes and full cheeks, young like spring, and when you smile, it fills him utterly with light. In your hands is his blindfold, and you ruffle his hair, tilting your head curiously.
“I’m not Ijichi, but… do you really want me to go so soon?” you ask as he rakes his gaze up and down your body. There is still a purple shell encasing your legs, but as you shift your weight on your feet, it falls like fragile eggshells to the ground and sinks into the dirt, disappearing for good. Peering around you, his eyes widen when he sees shards of a purple shell in shatters all over your corpse.
He’d only seen this once before, eight months ago, with a certain student of his and the cursed spirit of the girl he loved and who loved him.
Face burning, his gaze snaps back to you as you poke his cheek and continue to grin. Leaning back on his hands, he tries to stop the intense shattering of his walls by clenching his jaw, but the shudders overtake his body, his chest, his throat until he’s letting out an ugly sound and blinking hard as if that’ll hide it away from you. Something devastatingly warm immediately shoots down his cheeks. Covering his mouth with the crook of his elbow, he turns his face away but your warm hands cradle him carefully, thumbs brushing underneath his eyes.
“Yuuta, you’re right. Rika isn’t cursing you.”
“No,” he whispers, arm falling. His fingers sink into his shoulder as if that would be enough to wake him from this nightmare. “No. I can’t—Did I—Did I kill you?” You squint studiously, not letting go of his face as he lifts the hand from his shoulder and reaches to touch you. It shakes, and he snaps it into a fist to stop it, looking at his fingers that have done so much harm—shed so much blood. “Did I do this to you?”
“You cursed Rika.”
You chuckle fondly, like he’s said something silly, and set a hand on his fist, pushing it down firmly. “You can’t control how other people react to your words, Satoru.” Your voice changes, and your eyebrows draw together in something bittersweet. “And you can’t change something you didn’t know. The chances of you cursing me and me cursing myself are irrelevant. It doesn’t change anything about where we are, now.”
Satoru watches you, lips parted, as you tie the blindfold around his neck. You feel so real, so close, and as you slide your hands down his shoulders, to his chest, he jerks his head down to stare at your shoes in the grass. 
So he did. 
“I see,” he murmurs.
That’s it, then.
“Satoru, please look at me,” you whisper, fingers stretching to his chin. With the gentlest of pressures, you prompt him up and he finds your face, your smile, where all colours begin and end. For a moment, the world seems to inhale all of its life back into its core—the leaves whistle, the sun is warm and golden, and he lifts his hand to touch you again, but you pull back before he can. 
“I can only thank you for being my friend. For staying with me until the very end.” You laugh quietly to yourself and lift your hand from his face. “I would make a joke about a curse, but I know it still hurts, so I’ll save it for when I see you on the other side, okay? When it heals a bit more.”
“It’s never going to hurt less,” he croaks. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know how much you mean to me.”
Your smile softens. Satoru tries to eternalize that expression forever. “I’m honoured, but, I hope it does heal. I don’t want you to learn how to carry so much pain around. I don’t want you to be numb.” You touch his cheek again, as if you’re trying to soak in as much of him as you can, too. 
“Do you have any last words?” he manages to ask raspily, and you chuckle, tilting your head and running your hand through his hair again. His eyes flutter shut at the scratch, the sensation of your nails against his scalp, and then there’s your hand at his jaw, holding him all together. He wants to hold you so badly he thinks his muscles might cramp into stone at the desire.
“What does it matter?” you ask curiously. “You already know how I feel. That will never change. And if you ever want to know what I think, or what I’d do, you can just ask Shoko and think about it yourself. You know me well enough to not need me nagging about it.”
“But, it won’t be enough.”
“It never will be,” you agree. “But isn’t it wonderful that we even got to know each other at all?” You lean forward, and his eyes flutter shut as you hold him to your chest. He can’t hear your heartbeat anymore, but your warmth is almost the same. The echo of your voice rumbles in his head as you speak, and maybe that is enough. “If you want my last words, you already have them.”
You draw him back, and give him one last smile. The air shifts golden yellow to his Six Eyes, for the last time. 
“Until we meet again, my Satoru.” 
You fade without giving him a chance to answer, taking all the colour with you. 
Staring at the empty air where you had been just a moment before with wide, burning blues, he whispers your name brokenly before burying his hands in the dirt, squeezing his eyes shut, and letting boiling tears scald his face red.
.
“If you want my last words, you already have them.”
Spinning the key ring on his finger, Satoru looks dully at the door knob he had just unlocked. There’s no one in the hall, and he debates whether or not he should turn around, but Shoko had insisted. There’d been something left for him in your old apartment, and according to her, it would be spoiled soon if he didn’t go.
“Oh, what the hell,” he mutters, catching the key in his palm and shoving it into his long coat. Tugging it tighter around himself, he twists the knob and pushes it open. He can’t remember the last time he was in here. Maybe five or six months ago, when they both had a day off that didn’t need to be spent at the college.
There aren’t any plants anymore. He supposes Nanami, Ijichi, maybe even Yaga have taken them. He swears he’s seen a few in the gardens lately, but who is he to say? Toeing off his shoes, he makes his way down the hall. 
 Everything is just as you left it, with clean counters and empty tables. The curtains are spread, letting in so much September sunlight. It hits random display pedestals of different sizes, all the surfaces big enough to fit a pot on. Your watering can sits by the sink. There are photos hanging on the walls, propped up on the desk, on your shelves, polaroids taped to the walls. 
Reminders that someone did live here. That there is a whole life unknown to strangers but evidence enough that whoever used to be here, they had people who would miss them.
Walking up to the counter, he drags his fingers along the surface, feeling the dust collect up to a square of pale light. A clean circle is all that’s left as a clue that there used to be something there, and his heart twists.
Who knew he could miss fucking plants of all things?
Sweeping his gaze around, he brushes off the dust on his jacket and hooks a thumb on his blindfold, sweeping the area with an eccentric eye. The TV is off, your bookshelves are in their usual untidy state, but even the reaching vines of the bean plant is gone from the highest shelf.
 “They really scooped this place dry,” he muses dryly to no one. He can still hear the music you’d play for late nights, the smell of dumpling soup. He walks down the hall and still remembers how many steps it takes to reach the bathroom that guests would use. 
He had hunched over that bath on December 25th, and let water soak through his hair as strong fingers worked the sweat from his scalp and skin.
Four more steps to the guest best room on the right, and another three to the end of the hall where a door leads to your room. It’s already open, and he steps in easily, tugging his blindfold all the way down off his face. Hair falling over his eyes, he sweeps it aside and surveys the room. The walls are still that pretty shade of cream, and your bed is made carefully, dark olive blankets resting atop your white sheets. He smiles to himself, despite the twang in his chest.
Walking deeper, he approaches the cabinet by your bathroom, and picks up the photo you have by your jewelry stand.
A smile curls his mouth. He remembers this one. First year, their first September. All four of them had gone together to Sapporo for the autumn festival. 
He sets the photo back down and looks into the bathroom. Your toiletries are all lined up, waiting for their next use, and he swallows as he raises his gaze up to the mirror. His blue eyes look a big too big on his face from the past month alone, and there are red-purple half moons printed onto his face that have only just started to fade. He swears it only looks worse because of how much pale light is streaming in from the windows, and he tugs at his collar uncomfortably, clearing his throat.
Turning around, he looks at the offenders for making him look so awful, and finds a medium-sized pot sitting on the window seat. It’s the only thing sitting on the flat, wooden surface, in partial shade and almost unfurling before his very eyes.
Satoru frowns, walking around your bed to inspect the plant. 
The flowers are a warm magenta colour, and his eyes widen at the flash of white he can see leading to the center of each bloom. Brushing a thumb over the petals, his jaw sets as he tilts his head to get a better look at the plant. So this is what was growing inside of you. Huh.
There’s another slip of white near the dirt, and his eyebrows furrow, fingers seeking the thing. It crinkles when he touches it, and his frown deepens as he manages to grasp it, pulling it free underneath the leaves and stems of the plants. Sitting down beside the pot, he dusts off the dirt clinging to the paper, and reads his name along the front in your print before flipping the envelope around. There’s something sticking out of it, a sloping shape that’s hard but not too big.
Curiosity peaked, he tears the envelope open carefully and peers inside. A binder clip is inside, holding something together, and he flips it upside down, letting everything fall. The letter slides out first, followed by whatever the binder clip is holding together and he squeezes his thighs together so it doesn’t fall to the floor.
Setting the letter aside, he picks the bundle up. 
Polaroids.
They’re polaroids of different sizes that have him smiling despite the heavy sorrow twisting his entire chest.
Various pictures of Satoru, Suguru, Shoko, and you together, and he finds most of them are of him and you. Pictures of him hiding behind plants of various sizes, a picture of him drinking soju, because Suguru liked it the most and insisted he try, while leaning against Shoko who was knocking back a shot of tequila. There is a shot of Suguru, wet with mud and smiling like sunshine, while a drenched Satoru was in the background, flipping the camera off in the middle of a storm. 
More and more pictures, enough to spill out of his lap, and he picks up each one, desperate to remember when or where you took them.
And, sometimes, he can’t. Sometimes, they are just moments that he’s lost because he never thought they’d be important, and now moments he’d give anything to remember.
There are pictures of a fern he had named their first year, little annotations on the bottom of some others. Dates, but with no context otherwise. Names scribbled in black ink. 
You’re in a lot of them, your smile timeless, your joy infectious even through film.
Arms slung around Suguru, face smushed against his, artfully blurry perhaps on accident, and annotated with scrawl that read: I call this masterpiece “Dumb Sweethearts” by Gojo Satoru :)
A picture of him and Shoko and Suguru, of them in one of Tokyo’s night markets, you behind the camera, the lights flashing and warm and pink, making them all look like they’ve transported to some other kind of cyberpunk world. 
You and Shoko lounging in the gardens, having a tiny picnic at your insistence, and in Suguru’s handwriting in black: JUST GIRLS BEING PALS
Satoru stares at Suguru’s writing the longest, not even at his words, just the strokes of his pen. This is a new part of him Satoru thought had been destroyed, and he starves for it. It’s like his one and only lives and breathes in the ink, in those snapshots of him caught in eternal youth. When they’d been happy and unaware and not innocent, but cocky enough to think they could rule the world. 
It’s hungry, the way he goes through each photo, searching for another glimpse of you, of him, of them together, until Satoru is all out of moments to feed on, and still, he feels empty, flicking through the last few photos.
You in a pool, arms wrapped around Shoko and beaming like the sun.
A shot of Satoru and Suguru climbing trees shot from below, your eyes and skeptically raised eyebrows in frame, captioned big dumb monkeys
And the last one…
He holds it to the sunlight and his gaze softens.
A selfie of you kissing Suguru on the cheek. It’s mostly dark, but they were definitely in the bathroom, and the flash made Suguru’s outstretched arm look pale as a ghost, but even so, there’s no mistaking the happiness captured there. He was sticking out his tongue, winking, and red as a beet so he was either drunk or you had said something or both. Your arms were wrapped around his neck, nose squished against his cheek, eyes squeezed tight as he took the shot.
Turning it over, Satoru’s heart plummets into his chest. In Suguru’s clean, blocky writing:
THE GIRL IM GOING TO MARRY ONE DAY <3
And crossed out is your reply followed by a little note:
dummy doesnt have the nerve to propose SHHH!!!! ONE DAY C:
One day.
It sounds so much emptier now.
He lowers the photo back to his lap, and glances around him, at all these scattered moments captured forever. Gathering them up again, he relives them all over again, looking at each photo for longer to see if he’s missed anything, but mostly his stare lingers on your face, and on Suguru’s, and his own, too, because he can’t remember what it felt like back then, but he is sure it feels so much better than now.
The polaroids come together a neat stack and he is careful not to scratch any of them when he clips them together. The top photo is of you with your arms wrangled around Suguru and Satoru, your face split in a maniacal laugh, their mouths open in shock, eyes bulging in how you must’ve scared them witless. 
Shoko’s messy writing at the bottom, for it must’ve been her who had taken the photo: BREAKING NEWS: Japan’s Strongest Conquered by a Woman.
A smile cracks his weary face and he runs a thumb over their faces before sliding the photos back into the envelope for safe-keeping. 
Then, he grabs the letter. His name is written again on the first flap, and he reads it three times over before unfolding the paper, not quite ready but also not sure if he ever will be.
Immediately, a faint, herbal-like scent slashed with antiseptic flows from the page and his stomach curdles as your script pours down the page. 
Swallowing, Satoru shifts and leans against the wall, hiking a foot up onto the seat and holding your inked characters to the light. There’s a date inscribed at the top.
Thursday. 
The first Thursday after you had been released from the hospital. Your last Thursday before you were back in for good.
“Shit.”
He folds the letter again and tilts his head back against the wall, staring at the ceiling.
Does he want to read this? Does he really want to fucking read this? 
Taking a deep breath, he clears his throat and lowers his gaze to stare determinedly ahead of him. The purple flowers greet him warmly and he shakes the shiver out of his body before tightening his grip on your letter and unfolding it again, forcing his eyes on the page.
My Satoru,
I sent all the pictures I had of Shoko to her, and she has some of Suguru, too. Now that I’m gone, there’s no use if I keep them. Maybe you two could share some time, laugh it up over these old memories. I know she says she can’t stand you, but to be honest, who else is there that will remember us now? Who else is there to remember Suguru for more than his bloody hands and me as more than that girl too sick to do anything but die? 
Some legacy we said we’d leave, huh.
I don’t think I told you this, but with this disease catching up to me, it’s hard not to form hypotheses on why it’s happening or how. I have quite a few theories, and, unfortunately, none of them are pleasant or unriddled with angst. By now, you’ve probably figured out it’s a curse, and if you’re smart enough to ignore how much I’ll probably deny it, that it’s some love bullshit. If you didn’t know, now you do.
I know it’s weird. Suguru is dead. It shouldn’t be happening, right?
That’s what I thought, too
You once said love manifests the most twisted curses. I never thought of it that way before, but I’m starting to think you’re right. I don’t want to curse you by dying, but I can’t help but wonder if we can control who we curse. If I hadn’t heard you say that, would I still be here? Healthy? Okay? 
I don’t know. I can’t predict alternate timelines, because I got to live one life, and that’s more than most people get. But, because I know you, you want me to entertain you. I’m sighing as I write this.
Look, I know the pain would still be there. I know I still wouldn’t be able to forgive myself for what I did, even if it was what had to be done. I know I would still miss him. I know that I would still long for the day I didn’t feel guilty for loving someone else.
If you didn’t curse me, I cursed myself. It drives me crazy that this is how the die was cast, even now, even after months where I could’ve accepted this, but at least this physical manifestation almost makes me… calm. Like seeing what this life has done to me makes me brave enough to fight it. If anything at all, the curse brought me a greater understanding of how powerful our world is in comparison to people who… are normal. The people we have to protect.
I’m sorry. Reading this back, it sounds like I’m the one cursing you now; telling you all this knowledge that can only bring you more anguish. I promise, this isn’t what it is. I just want you to understand. You couldn’t have saved me, Satoru. I couldn’t have given you the absolution you wanted, and if that’s how it is, then I just hope that one day you can look back on this and it won’t hurt anymore.
It’s always been so complicated between us, after what happened to Suguru, and after what he did, even ten years ago. What we couldn’t stop and what we had to do that day. There was always a line that I thought I couldn’t cross, or a line you didn’t want to cross, and it was shaped a lot like him. I don’t know if it was just in my head, but there was something holding us back, and I was fine dancing around it because I saw how you felt about him and I understood. Your eyes always changed when you looked at him. When you spoke of him. Even after.
Always after.
Don’t think I’m angry. I’m not blind. I know how much you two meant to each other, and I could never be angry that Suguru is so cherished. Missed. It makes everything so much harder, so much more painful.
Look, in the end, I loved him, and you did, too. And if we both still do, that’s okay. He deserved love. 
I guess it just feels like a stab in the back that it wasn’t enough. 
But life isn’t a fairytale. None of it really matters. To be honest, I wouldn’t trade any of it for a second, and I hope you wouldn’t either. 
Maybe life isn’t supposed to be lived happily, but lived contently. And I did. I am satisfied with what I’ve done, even if I wanted to do so much more. 
I’m so grateful to have known you, to have had you by my side. I hope you can say the same. 
Don’t regret my death. Remember how much fun we had when we were stupid kids, and smile. Because I don’t want you to think your best years are behind you. I want you to be happy, even if I can’t be there to see it. I want you to be excited for your future, even if I can’t be in it.
I’ll always be watching over you, so smile for me every once in a while. Even if it seems like you’ll never feel anything again. One day, I promise you will, and it won’t feel so bad.
Yours forever and ever and ever,
(Name)
.
Throat crushed, he reads one line over and over the most. He’s memorized your letter heart, but he still carries it around with him, anyway.
“I know that I would still long for the day I didn’t feel guilty for loving someone else.”
Sometimes, he just wants to imagine your hand whispering over the page, the pen tapping against your chin, your face as you wrote, the sigh that you said you heaved. Because he’ll never hear you laugh again, see your smile. Your voice will never tease his ear, your fingers will never touch his face. There is no more laugh-wrinkles set in a face always perfectly hit by sunlight, and this is all he has left. His memory, and what you’ve left behind.
It makes him laugh how almost lovestruck stupid he’s being, but… he doubts anyone blames him. As long as he’s still doing his job, as long as he’s still the Strongest, what does it matter if he carries a dead woman’s letter in his pocket everywhere?
“Warm weather, even in the evenings. That’s a bit unusual,” Nanami observes, startling Satoru and he looks up at the blond who stops by him in the gardens. The man is wearing his grey suit, as always, and his watch glimmers in the fading gold light. “How are you?”
Satoru’s fingers tighten around the letter in his hands. As usual, the urge to crumple it up, throw it into the garbage to never see it again, has reared its head after his latest re-read, but he’ll stave it off. He always manages to.
“Fine,” he replies, glancing at the startling blood red and burnt orange leaves casually. Colours seem a bit brighter, and Satoru still squints a bit against them, despite the soft light of the sunset. He doesn’t know when his Six Eyes got so sensitive to that kind of stuff, but it almost feels good to be distracted by something so trivial as sensitive eyesight. “It is a bit warm for October.” 
Nanami hums. “How are your plants doing?”
“Mine are doing good,” he says, smiling. “The tulips have gone dormant, so nothing to worry about there. The one with purple flowers, though. It’s a tough one. It took me a while to figure out what it liked, but it didn’t go dormant or anything as long as I gave it enough water and paid attention to it.”
“That’s good.” Nanami adjusts his green lenses and sighs like he’s bracing himself for something difficult. “Gojo,” he begins, but Satoru merely folds your letter up and slides it into his breast pocket, holding up a hand.
“Whatever you’re going to say, Nanami, I don’t need to hear it.”
“Are you sure?” he asks skeptically, gaze following as Satoru stands, patting his jacket. Adjusting the lapel, he turns to his friend and when he grins, it feels like it reaches his eyes behind his sunglasses for the first time in two months.
“I’ve done this before, Nanami. I’ll be fine.” He waves it away. Nanami frowns. “I’m gonna get some dinner, though. Care to join? There’s a real good ramen place in Ikebukuro that you have to try.” The blond man observes him for a moment, before shaking his head, saying he had dinner already. “Suit yourself. Next time, I’m treating you, though.” 
Lips puckered in a whistle, Satoru turns around and begins to walk away. 
A breeze sweeps through the gardens, rustling the leaves in a discordant harmony, and sneaking into his jacket, sending a slight shiver up his spine as Nanami’s voice follows after him.
“The flower she left you is the sakurasou.” Satoru stops, hands in his pockets, but he doesn’t turn around as Nanami continues, “I wasn’t certain if if you knew.”
“Nope, I didn’t. Thanks for the info.” Lifting a hand, he barely looks over his shoulder before saluting with two fingers and smiling cheekily. It’s not as forced as it used to be. In fact, it comes quite easy as he reaches into his pocket for his phone. He knows what he has to find out now. “See ya later, Nanami.”
“Good evening,” he replies, and in a blink of an eye, Satoru is gone.
On the windowsill of his empty apartment, the sakurasou soaks in the last remnants of the day before wilting against two photos.
One of four students, arms entangled, and faces framed in eternal youth.
And another immortalizing what could’ve been longer than a few shaky months if someone had been just a bit braver.
a/n: satoru’s google search result: the meaning of sakurasou - desire and long-lasting love. 
and yes, there was an actual lunar eclipse on july 27th, 2018 (28th in japan time). it was very pretty. i researched a bit about both the lunar eclipse and the medical stuff, but excuse any inaccuracies! tis but a work of fiction <3 also, fun fact: the polaroid camera is supposed to be the instax mini 90 but ive never used it so excuse those inaccuracies as well SKNDALSDKN
ngl i did wanna write an alternative ending, but i can’t see this ending any other way. this is it. this is the canon, and we got a bit of happy feelies at the end as a treat. thank you for reading!
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shorkbrian · 4 years ago
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Cottgecore
Prelude - This is all @dearestdynamight ‘s fault okay I take no responsibility for the horny..... or do I? aha Sorry I said I’d write a drabble but it turned into a one shot whoops
Pairing - Yandere Bakugou Katsuki X Fem Reader
Warnings - NSFW, noncon, predator/prey dynamics, unsafe sex, 
Music - https://open.spotify.com/track/3R8PKPTPgHApBhCt3NUJ0q?si=uLON1Rw_RHaEpH2WaCfYBA (This music has a great runnin tempo/ it made me think of heartbeats skippin like outta fear so)
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“Alright-” Bakugou has you by the arm, dragging you past the threshold of the cabin he keeps you in.
You’re scared. Sometimes he lets you outside, to feel the sunshine and the nice breeze, to go for a walk down to the creek, hiding his smile as you gawk at all the pretty flowers.
But he seems... agitated today. Restless.
“-Here’s how this is gonna go.” He shoves you down the front steps, and you barely catch yourself from falling, turning to look at the blonde while he sits himself down on the top step, legs stretching out. “I’ll give you hm, five minutes -  got that? You got five minutes to fuckin’ run, and then I let myself loose.”
“Wh-what?” You’re not understanding, hands anxiously twisting at each other. There’s a predatory look in Bakugou’s eyes.
“We’re gonna play tag. I’m fuckin’ bored and I wanna get a nice little workout in. Chasing your pretty little ass through the forest should be enough to get my blood pumping.” Is his simple explanation.
He’s letting you run?
You don’t dare to hope for a second that you’ll actually be able to get away, escape from the monster of a man that’s lounging on the steps in front of you. 
He’s hurt you, abused you, kept you locked away from society, far enough that no one’s able to hear when you scream every time Bakugou fucks you.  
“I..... I don’t want to play.” Your bottom lip quivers, but you can’t tell if you’re going to cry out of frustration or nervousness. You can’t believe that you’re nothing more than a toy to Bakugou, something he can play with when he’s bored, keep tucked away in the dark when he has better things to do.
Bakugou leans back, rests on an elbow, lets his crimson eyes rake up your form before they reach your gaze. “Yeah? You don’t wanna play? Is that cause you know you’ll fuckin’ lose? I bet you’ll cry like a little bitch when I catch you.”
There’s nothing that you want to say to him. He’s trying to egg you on, but you won’t fall for his mean tricks.
“Fucking fine.” He shifts, smug smile appearing. “Time starts now. I don’t care if you don’t run, but know that I don’t have any qualms about fuckin’ you right here after your five minutes are up.” His gaze his burning into you.
At least if you run, you won’t just be sitting here, waiting as Katsuki counts down the minutes.
You take off, down towards the creek behind the cabin, grateful that Bakugou let you keep your sneakers when he had first dragged you here, all those months ago.
They’re practically falling apart, squishing through the mud by the creek, and you almost lose your footing, scrambling to right yourself, splash across to the other side.
It doesn’t matter that your shoes are all wet now, that the bottom of your dress is dripping. Truthfully, you hate the dresses Katsuki brings home for you to wear. Hate that they’re clothes you’d love under normal circumstances, flowy dresses and cute patterns, fitting in so nicely to a cottage core aesthetic.
Branches snap underfoot as you crash through the brush, panting, focused on one thing and one thing only; getting as far away as you could, as fast as you can.
You don’t want to think about what’s going to happen when if Katsuki catches you, this twisted little game of tag he wants to play. You want to scream, this isn’t even how you play tag, he’s just using it as an excuse to hunt you down, to take pleasure out of your fear.
Moving too close to a tree had you yelping as your shoulder collided, the rough bark scratching up your skin, tearing your dress. No matter, you just needed to keep going, keep running, keep moving.
It was starting to hurt to breathe, lifting your legs was tiring, burning. You’d never been much of a runner, and being kept under lock and key at Bakugou’s cabin hadn’t exactly done wonders for your endurance.
You found yourself cursing that fact as a loud shout rang through the forest, words indiscernible. But you knew it was the blonde, could recognize raspy, manic voice that comprised the shout.
Five minutes was up.
Wheezing now, you pushed on. You briefly considered hiding, but quickly discarded that idea. Bakugou could track you, and you didn’t have enough time. You would have to worry that he’d be even rougher when if he caught you, hiding instead of running like he had wanted.
No time to rest, but you wanted to, lungs burning. You had a stitch in your side, your shoulder hurt from scraping against the tree, and your mouth was dry, throat parched.
It wasn’t long before you began to hear noises behind you, brush crashing, branches snapping, pleased laughter. You knew Bakugou was toying with you, knew that he could track you silently if he so chose. But no, he wanted you to know that he was coming, chasing you down, relentless.
It hurt to push your legs faster, muscles fatigued, cramping. Your left calf seized up, and you held in a shriek, pleading, begging your body to keep moving as you limped on, hurriedly dragging your cramping leg, refusing to stop.
“Keep on runnin’, I’ve almost fucking got you!” Bakugou crowed, and you spared a glance behind you, thankfully seeing nothing but an empty forest behind you. It meant you still had time.
But not enough time.
With a start, you realized the noises behind you had stopped, which meant that Katsuki was beginning to actually hunt, silent and ruthless.
You don’t know where he is now, nothing left to do but urge your body forward still, exhausted and terrified.
Then a weight’s pushing against your back, and you’re hitting the dirt, tackled by Bakugou, pinned down.
“I knew I’d fuckin’ get you.” He whispers to you, breath coming out in proud, ragged pants.
You whimper into the dirt, body already aching, your own breath knocked completely out of your chest because of the way the male had tackled you. You hurt all over, and now you were dirty, and Bakugou wouldn’t get off.
“Goddamn, you gave me a run for my money there. Didn’t think you’d be that fuckin’ fast, Jesus Christ.” You can tell he’s almost proud of you, proud of his ability to choose a partner.
He pushes his weight off of you, rising to his knees, and you quickly try to follow him, not fond of being splayed out on the ground underneath him.
But Bakugou doesn’t let you get far.
You’ve gathered your legs underneath you, pushing up off the ground, but the man curls a hand around your hip, the other gripping at your uninjured shoulder. You don’t even have time to draw in a breath to ask him what he was doing before he’s shoving your face back in the dirt, lifting your hips.
“Bakugou, wait!” You screeched, hands fumbling backwards as you try to grab at him, push him off you.
The man just laughs, loud and rough, shuffles closer so he can push his crotch against your ass, let you feel the sizable bulge he’s sporting. “What’s wrong princess? I won fair n’d square, now let me take my fuckin’ prize.”
A part of you knew, knew that this is how things would end. But you had wanted to believe, had hoped that it’d be different. 
“Please, wait, not here-not out here.” You choked, feeling him shift the fabric of your dress up over your ass, just enough so that he could tug at the fabric of your panties, snap the edges against your skin.
“N’d why the fuck not? ‘S not like anybody’ll hear you when you start screamin’.” The reality behind his words made your stomach curl, legs trembling as Katsuki snickered.
“Look at you, shakin’ like a scared little deer.”
Your panties get tugged down to your knees, and you hear the slight squish of Bakugou gathering his saliva in his mouth seconds before you hear him spit, seconds before you feel the glob of wet land on one of your cheeks.
Fingers swipe through the mess, before trailing down to your pussy, spreading Bakugou’s spit against your folds.
He apparently isn’t satisfied with that though, because you can feel him shifting, right before he grips a cheek in each hand and spreads you wide, pulls your hips backwards at the same time so you’re angled just right.
Just right for his spit to land directly on your cunt this time.
“S-stop it, please-” You shudder, giving up on trying to push him off. It’s never worked for you in the past, and you’re tired from running, sweaty body yearning to go limp.
A finger enters you, too soon, with not enough spit to ease its way. You yelp at the burning stretch, but Bakugou snarls at you too shut up, take what he’s given’ you as he slaps your ass.
You can feel the burn of his gaze as he watches your flesh jiggle from the force of his slap. 
He works fast, doesn’t have enough patience to go slow, to open you up properly for him. The mans riled up from the chase, full of adrenaline that has no where to go, and he wants to hammer away at your little body until you break. Bakugou knows he can build you back up again when you do.
It’s alarming when you feel fingers pull free, feel the hot, spongy head of a dick pressing up against your entrance. You aren’t ready, nowhere near wet enough. “Bakugou-Bakugou wait, wait! Bakug-oh!!” The scream that leaves your mouth is loud enough to startle birds, cause them to rise from their resting places in the trees.
Bakugou laughs a little at that, the sound quickly tapering off into a groan as he works his cock deeper into you, wiggling his hips from side to side so he can fully seat himself into your cunt, balls snug up against your clit.
“Yeah, go ahead and scream princess, lemme hear you.” He encourages, pulling out just an inch or two so he can slam back in, hear you sob, watch your shoulder shake. with each heaving breath.
He’s fucking you into the dirt like an animal, feral and uncontrolled, wild. You barely have the coordination to try and protect your face with your forearms, keep your sensitive skin from being scraped raw on the ground.
You can’t protect your knees though, or the places that Katsuki holds you from, his grip too tight, blunt nails pressing so deep into your flesh that they draw blood, the pressure biting.
It’s impossible to hold back your noises, tearful, fearful screams reverberating into the forest, choked off as you’re rocked back and forth by vicious thrusts.
The man moves easily, fucks you with the strength of a stallion, growling out your name, letting out throaty groans as he chases his release.
And it hurts, so much, your body battered and becoming scratched and bruised; it hurts so much. Until heat pools in your gut, Katsuki hitting a special spot inside you. It makes your toes curl in your sneakers, has the slide of his cock going just a bit easier as you get that much wetter.
“Unh, n-no-ooh, please, ah! Please, ohh, Bak-Bakug-” You can’t even finish your sentence, not with the blonde reaching around, hand creeping across your stomach, down to where his balls keep smacking against your skin so he can rub tight little circles around your clit.
“Fuck-fuck yeah princess, there we go. Feelin’ good now? Shit, you’re squeezing me so goddamn tight.”
You hated his voice, hated how deep and raspy it was, how his gruff moans of pleasure made your stomach jolt with arousal.
“You tryin’ t’ milk my cock or somethin’? You want my cum that fucking bad?” The man pounding you into the dirt laughed, changing his posture so that he was curled over you, chest pressed to your back.
His hips rabbited into you, and you sobbed freely at the sensation, at his horrible fingers that wouldn’t stop drawing shapes on your little clit, making you feel hot and too close to cumming.
“No, no, no-” You whimpered, trying to hold back your orgasm, but it was too little, too late.
Bakugou’s hips stuttered as you gushed around his cock, barely managing three more full thrusts before burying himself deep, cock twitching inside of you, spurting out his warm cum.
Disgusting.
You were too tired, too spent to care how long the two of you spent on the ground, regaining your breath.
When Bakugou peeled himself away from your body, soft cock slipping easily from your warmth, you couldn’t help but cringe at the wetness that spilled against your thigh, no longer plugged in your cunt.
“That was real fucking good.”
Yeah, maybe for him.
Your panties were pulled back up, Bakugou smoothing them down before flipping your dress back into place as he rose to his feet.
He urged you up, supporting most of your weight as he easily tugged you upright. “Knew you’d be too much of a baby to walk back.” He grouched as your knees trembled, almost sending you crashing back to the ground if not for his firm arm around your waist, holding you up.
The next second, you were being lifted into the air, easily swung up into Katsuki’s arms, carried bridal style.
You felt his eyes on you, scanning over your face, your arms, your legs. Cataloging the various scratches and bruises marring your form. “You look like shit.”
You didn’t have a smart retort, just rested your head against his chest, grateful that he wasn’t making you walk, legs weak and jelly-like.
Your throat hurt from screaming.
Bakugou took you home, back to his cabin, to the cottage core life that you’d think was perfect... if only he wasn’t in it.
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sslytheringhufflepufff · 4 years ago
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Tranquil
Min Yoongi/SUGA x Chubby Reader
It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything so I hope you guys like this
It’s very fluffy so if you want more like this from other members let me know <3
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The day was slow, painfully slow to be exact. You opened a couple of weeks ago but you still weren’t as known as you wanted to be. The door’s bell rang bringing you back from your thoughts and two young men walked in, one a little bit taller than the other “Hi, welcome to Tranquil, how may I help you?” You said smiling at them politely “Hello, can I please get a large Americano” the tallest of the two said “Sure, anything else?” You asked and the tallest turned around and asked “What do you want?” “An Iced americano, large” said the other one in a broken English but easy to understand “Okay, Name for the order?” “Namjoon” “Okay it’ll be ready shortly” you said smiling at them “Ask her” the other men said while taping Namjoons shoulder “Do you have any private place here where we could work?” “We don’t have a private seating area but the shops barely gets customers, but if you guys want you can take a seat on the booth at the back, that’s where I hide from my boss” you said laughing “Great, thank you” Namjoon said turning around “You heard her, head out” the other one nodded and gave you a small smile “Here’s your order, you guys can stay as long as you want, the shop gets lonely sometimes so its nice to know that there’s people here” “Thanks” Namjoon said smiling and taking the order walking away with his friend.
A couple of days have passed and Namjoon and his friend whose name I still don’t know but came to the realization is extremely adorable have been to the shop everyday usually ordering the same thing always which I don’t mind because it’s easier than making other drinks that take more time. The bell at the door rang making you stand up smiling you greet the customer you know but not his name “Hi, you’re alone today, same as always?” You smile at him and he nods “What’s going to be the name for the order?” He stared at you for a moment before answering “Yoongi” you smile finally learning his name writing it down on the cup “Ill take it to your table” “I’m going to sit there today” he said pointing at the table by a big window in front of the counter “Okay” you nodded and smiled as he turned around and walked towards the table setting down his bags and sitting down. He took out a notebook, his computer and some earphones and started writing as you made his drink looking at the name on the cup “Yoongi, hmph cute like him” you whispered smiling, grabbing their drink taking it to his table “Enjoy” you say smiling at him, he smiles back which gives you butterflies in your stomach, he has a really cute smile, you start walking back “Hey, wait” you turn around looking back at him “Yes?” He stares at you for a while before speaking “ Your Name?” Smiling “Y/n” he smiles and nods “Pretty too” you look at him and blush lightly laughing at his comment “Thank you” you say walking back to the serving counter heading through the back door closing it behind you letting out a sigh and replaying his words on you mind smiling at them jumping a little as you try to calm yourself and grabbing something random to make it look as if you were looking for something in the back and heading back to the counter sighting as you look up staring at Yoongi, he has white hair and is very pale but he looks angelic, the sunlight is hitting him in the face lightly making his dark brown eye look lighter ‘he really looks like an angel while I look like this’ you thought to yourself as you looked down. You were chubby, which there’s nothing wrong with it, but boys like Yoongi would never go for a girl like you, heck no boy ever went for a girl like you, at your age you’ve never had a boyfriend or anything close to that it it was fine but it got lonely sometimes, you just wished for something special, someone special. You sighed going back to work cleaning the floor and making some orders here and there, the night was getting close and Yoongi was still at the table sometimes glancing up looking at you without you noticing, he stared at you while you talked to other customers, your charisma and personality shinning with them, he really thought you were beautiful with your chubby adorable cheeks that made him want to squish them and kiss them but he didn’t really have the nerve to even talk to you, hell he just asked your name after a week of convincing Namjoon to come with him everyday until today where he had to come alone because Namjoon was meeting up with one of their other friends, he invited Yoongi but he really wanted to see you again so he declined and got the courage to come the the shop, and here he is, staring at you while you prepared another order.
The next day Yoongi came in with a small smile on his face as you greet him “Ice Americano?” “Actually not today” “oh?” “I came by to ask you on a date” he said smiling wide showing his adorable gummy smile “Really?” “Yes, unless you don’t want to” he said hurriedly as his cheeks turned pinkish red “I mean i would love to but are you sure? You look like an angle while i look like-“ “A Goddess” you stared at him looking for the lie in his eyes but all you saw was honesty “Yoongi I-“ “Please” you sighed “you don’t have to do that” “Do what?“ he said looking at you confused “I really want to take you on a Date y/n, look maybe you don’t like me like that but-“ “No Yoongi, i really like you and i would love to go on a date with you but I don’t want this to be a joke” “It isn’t, i swear its not, since the first day i saw you i had to convince Joon to come with me because i never had the nerve to talk to you myself, then i just started coming alone and it felt great because you talked to me like a normal person, you didn’t mind the language barrier and even helped me learn new things, I’ve had this massive crush on you since the first day that you smiled, those cute chubby cheeks that with all honesty it has taken everything inside of me to not reach out and grab them and kiss , because y/n, I think you are the most beautiful person i have ever seen, inside and out. “ he sighed looking at you “I swear the least i want to do is hurt you” he said smiling a little making your heart flutter “You really want to squish my cheeks?” You said giggle at the comment “Yes, I really do, i also want to squish other things but that’s for another time” he said smirking making you turn tomato red “So what do you say?” “Maybe you’ll get to squeeze my cheeks tomorrow after work” you said smiling at him he let out a chuckle “It’s a date then” he said smiling walking away “Hey wait, here” you said giving him and ice americano “You didn’t ask for it but i had it already made for you, its on the house” you said chuckling “I want to marry you” he said grabbing the coffee chuckling while you just stared at him as he walked away feeling you cheeks heat up at his comment that he literally said as if it was nothing out of the ordinary right after asking you on a date “This boy is going to be the death of me.” You said while you ran your hands through your hair smiling lightly thinking about him.
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ragingbookdragon · 4 years ago
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I'm Only A Crack In This Castle Of Glass (Hardly Anything Else I Need To Be) PT. 3
Batfamily x Batsis Story!
Word Count: 2.1K Warnings: Explicit Language, Angst! Tags!: @itsnottilly @cloudyskylines
Author's Note: DUN DUN DUN!!!! Y'all enjoy this now, because it's only gonna get so much more angstier soon. -Thorne
Set Three Months After PT. 2:
She didn’t have to look up to know who entered the shop, because his voice carried over the air. “Melisandre!”
Humming, she immediately plated a pastry and a hot coffee, sliding it on the counter just as he sat down. “Good morning, Wally,” she greeted, watching him take a bite. “Right on time, as always.”
He smiled, cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk. “Morming Merisamdmur,” he replied, and she rolled her eyes with a snort.
“Jeez Wally, didn’t your mom teach you to not talk with your mouth full?”
Shrugging, he swallowed and said, “I was trying to be polite.”
“I think it’s more polite to chew with your mouth closed and speak after you swallow.”
They glared at each other before one of them cracked a smile and they fell into laughter. She tossed a napkin his way. “How’s your day going so far?”
Wally groaned and laid his head on the cool marble countertop. “I’ve got so much to do today, it’s not even funny.”
“Well, well, Wally the procrastinator is finally feeling his toes at the fire, huh?” She ignored his glare. “What do you have to do?”
“Barry needs my help with my cousins and my friends are coming over today to hangout and I haven’t bought any food or drinks for that and I have yet to even start cleaning my house.”
She giggled and reached over, patting his head sympathetically. “There, there, Wally. Everything will be alright. Why don’t you just bring your cousins over to your house and watch them while you hang out with your friends?”
“Because my cousins are annoying and I’m not subjecting my friends to that,” he countered and propped his chin on his palm. “Unless…”
She cocked a brow and waited for him to continue and he offered, “You come over with my cousins and help me watch them?”
“No.”
“What! Why?”
“Well for starters, I don’t know your friends and it would be weird for me to just show up.” She countered.
“They’ll like you though!” he cried, and his hand shot out, wrapping around hers. “Please, Melisandre!”
“Wally, I’ll just watch your cousins at my apartment and Iris can just come get them later, that’ll be easier and won’t force me to sit in a group of people who don’t know me.” He tried to speak but she tossed another napkin, hitting him in the face. “I’m watching Dawn and Don so you and your friends can hang out without being bothered, and that’s final.”
His face pinched. “You sure you can keep up with them?”
Something passed between them and she quirked a brow. “I can keep up with you, can’t I, Wally?”
Wally chuckled and nodded. “Yeah, that’s a fair point.” He glanced at her. “They would like you though.”
She ignored the comment in favor of, “Tell me about them. What are they like?”
He inhaled sharply and took a moment to think. “Donna’s strong willed, Roy’s loud, Lilith likes to get in your head, Garth is easy to annoy, and Dick’s kinda the glue that keeps us together.”
“Dick? He get that from Richard by asking nicely?”
Wally barked a laugh. “Oh, I’m definitely gonna tell him you said that.” He nodded. “But yeah, his name is Richard Grayson, but he goes by Dick.”
Her eyes almost bulged out of her head and she was lucky that Wally was looking at his watch then.
Don’t ask. Don’t do it. Leave it alone.
But she couldn’t stop herself.
“Richard Grayson?” she feigned. “Why does that name sound familiar?”
Wally met her eyes. “Bruce Wayne.”
She snapped her fingers. “Right! The ward.” Wiping the counter, she added, “I heard they added a new addition to that family too. A daughter, right? Cassie? Cassidy?”
“Cassandra,” Wally corrected. “Yeah, that’s Dick’s new sister.” He put his elbows on the counter. “She’s nice, doesn’t talk a lot though.”
“The quiet one, then?”
He laughed. “Of them all.”
Don’t dig any deeper, (Y/N). Keep your fucking mouth shut and let it go.
“I always wondered what happened to that other daughter he had,” she murmured, and Wally’s face blanched like he’d witnessed a murder.
“What?”
She met his gaze. “He had another daughter. I think her name was (Y/N).”
He swallowed thickly. “He does.”
“Does? She’s still around?”
“Yeah, she’s in some Italian villa.”
“Wait really? I thought she died or something?”
“What? No! She left—” Wally snapped his mouth shut like he was about to reveal a secret, but she knew anyways. “She left and went to Europe for a mental retreat.” He finalized and she wondered if that was the story Dick told him to say if anyone asked. Or maybe it was Bruce.
“It’s been like three years now, right? You’d think she’d post something on social media.”
“The whole point of a mental retreat, Melisandre, is to get away from social media.”
Oh please, I know plenty of elite who do that shit and still post crap on their socials.
“There’s no way that girl hasn’t.”
“Why do you say that?”
She scoffed. “Oh please, she’s the daughter of a multi-billionaire. There’s no way a girl that wears Gucci belts and carries Prada purses keeps herself off social media.”
Wally’s eyes narrowed like he was thinking hard about something and she internally cursed.
Oh, smooth move you dumbass.
She coughed and waved a hand. “Well, it’s all theory anyway.”
After a moment, he nodded. “Yeah…theory.” Wally got to his feet and handed her the empty plate. “I should go ahead and get back to my place and clean up before they get here.”
“Have fun,” she smiled, and he grabbed her arm.
“Take a pic with me.”
“What? Why?”
“So, I can tell my friends about you and prove I’m not lying.” He pouted. “Pretty please, Melisandre?”
Don’t do it. Dick will know. You know he’ll know.
She smiled despite her internal thoughts. “Sure.”
Wally grinned and raised the camera where she was in the background. She threw up a peace sign and gave a cheesy grin, momentarily blinded by the flash of the camera.
She spun and filled a bag with pastries then handed it to him. “Here, so you can give even more proof.”
Wally took the bag and hopped onto the counter, leaning down to press a kiss to her cheek. “Thanks Melisandre!” And he was dashing out the door.
You’ve ruined it all. This is going to come back to bite you in the ass. And it’s going to come quicker than you think.
She frowned and wiped down the counter again, trying to ignore her thoughts. Maybe. Just maybe, it wouldn’t.
***
Waving Barry and Iris off, she smiled as the twins climbed into the backseat of their car and the taillights signaled their departure. She closed the door behind her and glanced at the mess the two tornadoes had left. Even for the little she had in her apartment, they sure did know how to make a mess.
She sighed as she bent over to pick up one of the cushions when her doorbell rang and she stood up, confusion coming over her as she made her way to the door.
“Hello?” she asked, and a muffled voice echoed from the other side.
“Melisandre, it’s me, Wally. Can I come in?”
She opened the door, surprised to see him. “Wally? What are you doing here? I thought you were with your friends?”
“Yeah, I told them I had to do something really quickly,” he said as entered her apartment. He took a moment to examine her living room. “Man, Dawn and Don did a number here, didn’t they?”
She chuckled. “We had fun building forts.” Nudging him in the side, she added, “I don’t mind the mess.” She looked at him. “Do your friends know? About you being…you know?”
He nodded. “We’re all special in some way.”
Understatement there, Wally.
“So, why tell them you need to do something then come to me? Is everything alright?”
Busying herself with the couch cushions, she waited for him to explain, but nothing could’ve prepared her for his words.
“It will be once I get to the bottom of it…(Y/N).” She froze for a split second, but it was all he needed. “It really is you, isn’t it?”
(Y/N) stood upright and gazed at him. “When did you know?” Her voice was a lot colder than she meant for it to be.
“I had suspicion for a while, but when I showed the picture to everyone, Dick said it looked like you.”
“Really?” she laughed. “I thought I did a good job changing my appearance from three years ago.”
Wally didn’t laugh, he merely gaped at her. “Why?”
“Why what?” (Y/N) knew what he was referring to.
“Why’d you just leave?” He took a step towards her. “Do you have any idea what your family has gone through since you disappeared on them? The grief? The shame?”
She shrugged. “I explained everything in the letter I wrote my dad, Wally. There’s no reason why they should still be concerned with me.”
“They love you!” he shouted, taking her by surprise. “They love and miss you so much!”
“My family ignored me for eighteen years straight, Wally!” She yelled right back. “What was I supposed to do? Sit and pretend being forgotten was all normal?!” (Y/N) couldn’t help but shove at his chest. “I chose to leave because my next choice was taking a swan dive off Wayne Enterprises!”
His eyes went wide, and she shook her head. “I left because the only person who cared about me, was me.” She turned and fixed the final couch cushion while he watched her do so.
“They’re still looking for you, you know. Dick is always staring at his phone hoping there’s a text from Jason or Tim that they’ve found a sign of you.”
(Y/N) sighed. “If you’re trying to guilt trip me, Wally, it’s not going to work.” She shot him a glare. “I got over the fucking guilt the second the flight to Central took off. I got over the fucking guilt the night I laid in a hotel room bed curled into a ball where I cried myself to sleep. I got over the fucking guilt the moment I realized I’ve done so much better on my own than when I was there.”
She marched up to him and got in his face. “I got over the fucking guilt when I realized Barry and Iris Allen were more of a family than four brothers and dad ever were.”
They glared at each other and finally, she let out a sigh. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve already started a new life here and I have no plans of ever going back.”
“At a college that doesn’t have a real name. You know that’s illegal, right?”
(Y/N) scoffed. “What’re you gonna do, Wally? March into four-C and tell them Bruce Wayne’s daughter is going to school under a false name? We both know you wouldn’t.”
“I’ll tell Dick,” he suddenly shot back, and she went rigid.
“You wouldn’t dare,” (Y/N) threatened and he took a step towards her, getting nose to nose with her.
“Try me.”
They stared one another down and she said, “I think you need to leave, Wally West.”
His eyes narrowed. “Yeah, I guess I should.” He spun on his heel and marched to the door, but stopped when she questioned,
“Are you really going to tell him?”
Wally gazed at the ground for a moment then he murmured, “…No…it’s not my place to.”
(Y/N) swallowed and nodded. “Thank yo—”
“Don’t thank me, (Y/N). I’m lying to my best friend about knowing the real location of his baby sister he misses dearly.”
She looked away. “Cassandra is his baby sister now. He should focus on her.”
“You really have no idea about what they feel for you, do you, (Y/N)?” He asked, and she grunted.
“Get out, Wally.”
“Don’t worry, I’m gone,” he spat, slamming the door behind him, hard enough that it shook the walls that held the doorframe.
(Y/N) stared at the door for a few moments then cursed sharply and collapsed onto her couch, eyes directed to the ceiling. Three years down the drain in one conversation.
Way to go, (Y/N). You did a spectacular job of keeping it all under wraps.
She groaned and picked herself off the couch, not caring about the mess as she headed to bed. She’d deal with it all in the morning.
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energybetterpent · 2 years ago
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I spent months in chastity while Mistress and I chatted online. Eventually she gave me her phone #, but only after Nair-ing my entire body, and sending her the full set of keys to the custom chastity device we picked out together.
Over the next 60 days she broke me further by making me donate most of my “boy clothes” and throw away my boxers. Before I knew it, bralettes and thongs under my work attire, work out attire, and single “dumb boy” outfit were the norm.
Plugs became routine. All day. Every day. One Friday an Amazon box arrived in the mail. It was a wifi camera, and wifi enabled shock collar & electrical perimeter set. This was getting scary. It was day 80 of my chastity and denial. A note in the box read.. “camera stays on at all times. Move it with you. If you’re reading this, you now must request permission to potty, and to leave your home. At night, the camera stays on you. When you shower, I watch. No more privacy.”
The doorbell rang just as I finished setting up the perimeter and buckling on my shock collar. The red light blinked on the camera… I knew Mistress was watching… in yoga pants, a tank top, padded bra and shock collar I opened the door and sheepishly signed for the package… throbbing in my cage I opened it, in view. It was from Mistress… inside were a half dozen or so vacuum sealed bags containing her worn socks and panties, along with a leather hood, and inflatable gag which looked like a pacifier with a head of a dick as the sucker… squirming and wet I looked into the camera with wide pleading eyes.
“Nap time slave.” Her voice commanded sweetly from the wifi camera. Still stunned, terrified, and desperately turned on I froze like a deer in headlights and just let out pathetic whimpers, my fingers fondling the soft array of bags, and the smooth rubber tip of the gag. I was entranced. Deep in sub space until a nasty shock reminded me how deep I ~actually~ was.
“I said NAP TIME little slavey. That means you say, ‘Yes Mommy’ slave. Ok?” Mistress said.
“Yes Mommy. Nap time.” I said.
“Good little boy. Now, rub that ugly little clit of yours on the counter while you find the baggie with the pink lace thong in it. Once you do, put it over your head, backwards. So the strap that was snugly up my ass while getting fucked in it is over your nose. Good slave. Do you like that?” Said Mistress.
“Yes Mommy.” I groaned.
“Good slave. Are you my neutered little baby?” She said.
“Yes Mommy. Thank you for letting me sniff your panties Mommy.” I softly groaned.
“No pussy for you today. You need to get used to that. Just sniff my ass. That’s where your nose belongs anyway. Now put on the hood and zip it up tight, then your gag. There we go… good little slave. *giggle* did that hurt? I like this shock collar. We need one for your balls next. Mmmm.. ok. Grab the camera and face it forward I know you’re blind and helpless, I’ll guide you to nap time….” She said.
This didn’t feel like the familiar route to my bedroom, but I knew better than to argue. I heard “stop. Kneel. Lay down.” And I obeyed. Curled up on the bathroom floor, my nose touching the base of my toilet through her thong and my hood, I waited for electric shock after shock as a cue to inflate my pacifier gag again… and again… and again.. until she was satisfied. Using a toilet paper roll as a pillow, my yoga pants half pulled down, exposing my light grey cotton thong, highlighting my throbbing cage, smooth legs, and the dark grey slimy crotch between my two purple, fat balls, I attempted to nap for Mistress. As she watched.
“Good slave. Nice and sleepy. Mmmm.”
I was kept like this for two hours. Eventually I was allowed to remove my gag and hood and eat and hydrate with her permission. She made me wet myself in the tub and sit in it for another hour. An icy shower was next… then I took her on a tour of my closet.
She watched me sleep that night. Ensuring I was gagged and plugged.
“No touch” became more and more common as it was now easily enforced.
It’s day 100. And there is still no talk of being allowed to cum.
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novamirmirsblog · 3 years ago
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No more bed
Word count: 2113
Genre: Not actually sure :3
Request: No
Warnings: Swearing, kissing?
A/N that's the end of the only one bed trope. Technically requests are now closed but if you think of another overused trope you want me to write then feel free to send it in!
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
You didn't eat that night and went straight to bed when you got too tired to focus on the words. You had made sure the pillow wall was twice the size it was to begin with. You turned off your light when you heard Natasha's footsteps come to the door, turning your back to her and pretending to be asleep. Your breaths were deep and completely even, there was no way Natasha could have guessed you were still awake. You felt her hesitate over you and the smell of reheated food invaded your nose and then heard her walk away.
The words she said back in that forest shouldn't have hurt you as much but they did. You shouldn't care what she thinks. It doesn't matter that she doesn't believe in your skills as an agent, that she doesn't think you're pretty enough to grab someone's attention.
If Natasha thought the bickering and coolness was bad at the start of the week, she was in for a shock. When she finally came back to that tiny, godforsaken bed and did her usual trick of sliding her foot over the pillow wall, you got up, took a pillow and the spare blanket and went to sleep on the rug in the living room.
When morning rolled around, you couldn't even be bothered to talk to her, focusing much more on the task ahead, just wanting this week to be over. It wasn't even the hurt you were feeling, it was the frustration that you felt hurt that drove you to stop talking to her. You hated her. She was annoying. She had no respect for anything anyone does.
You spent most the day preparing for the party that evening. Sure, it shouldn't take you over half a day to get ready but you had finished your paperwork early and you wanted to try on every single dress and suit SHIELD had supplied you with. You ended up choosing a navy blue, off the shoulder ball gown. Thinking logistically, it was quite possibly one of the worst things you could have worn. A pantsuit would have been a much more suitable choice and yet you looked and - more importantly - felt hot in the dress.
~~~~~
"You're not seriously wearing that are you?" Natasha asked as we both began to change into our formal wear. She had let you splurge out on a taxi but only after you had to walk what felt like 500 miles so no one would know where you were staying.
"Why not?" You asked with a fakeness in your voice "It's a no contact mission, plus, no one would look at me anyway, right?"
"Y/n, that's not what I-"
"Oh look. We're here." You get out the cab before Natasha can finish what she's saying.
Ivan might be an evil person, but he sure does know how to throw a party. It was elegant and high class and he made his way over to you as soon as he saw you. You had both agreed that you would keep him distracted while Natasha grabbed the relevant information.
"Dorogaya, u tebya poluchilos!" (Darling, you made it!) Ivan opened his arms wide, grabbed you by the shoulders and placed a kiss on both of your cheeks.
"Konechno, kak ya mog ignorirovat' takuyu ​​zagadku?" (Of course, how could I ignore something so mysterious?) You laughed and he moved his arm to around your waist.
"Prikhodite, prikhodite, yest' lyudi, kotorykh vy dolzhny vstretit'" (Come, come, there are people you should meet)
~~~~~
Ivan spent most the night introducing you to different 'modelling' agencies. You knew what he was doing, he was showing you off to potential buyers. Ivan ran a human trafficking ring along with some other not so nice business. You weren't worried - not in the slightest. Although, as the night drew on and Natasha still hadn't said anything, you were getting a little more... concerned.
You managed to excuse yourself to the bathroom. Once inside, you tapped the earpiece repeatedly, praying Natasha would answer you.
"Romanoff where are you? Have you got the data?"
Silence
"Seriously, I'm sorry I've been ignoring you but this is childish now."
More silence
"I'll let you have the bed?"
Static rang out in your ear.
Of course SHIELD gave you a crappy ear piece. It was ridiculous. They provided you with three million dresses but couldn't give you a working piece of tech.
Just as you pulled out the burner phone, you felt a needle slide into your neck and the world went black.
~~~~~
"Y/n I have the data."
Nothing. Maybe you were still mad at her.
"Y/n do you copy?"
Still nothing.
"Y/n?"
Natasha's heart beat a little faster.
"Come on Y/n. I'm sorry. I'll let you have the bed?" Her burner phone pinged. It was your location. Shit.
~~~~~
You woke up and looked around, seeing that you were in the rundown hideout, you put your head back on the pillow. Everything felt heavy.
"You were drugged." Natasha states, standing in the corner of the room, her arms crossed and eyes never leaving you.
"Oh." It was all you could muster up the energy to say.
"We leave tomorrow morning."
You push yourself up into a sitting position. "How long was I out?"
"3 hours."
You looked at Natasha, really looked at her. "Then why are you still covered in blood?"
Everything of Natasha's had some kind of bloodstain. She hadn't even washed her hands. It may have been dark in the corner she was standing in, having only the side lamp to illuminate the room, but her skin seemingly glowed, making the blood stand out.
She turned around and left, heading towards the bathroom. You wanted to get up to follow her but while your mouth worked again, your legs did not. Apparently whatever they used on you was a lot stronger than you thought because you fell out of the bed. Again. Natasha rushed out, getting to you in an instant, except this time there were no sly remarks.
"Careful princess, people might think you care." You grin, only for it to drop immediately when you saw a slight wetness to the corners of her eyes. "Hey, it's okay." You said softly. If she wasn't as close to you, Natasha would have missed it.
"I didn't know where you were. I-I thought you had gone off to try and prove something and then I saw you lying there, in some basement Ivan had. You-you looked so... dead."
"But I'm not." you reached up and gingerly stroked her hair, not wanting to spook her. "And look!" You gestured to your toes that were wiggling "I can feel my legs again!"
Natasha let out a slightly wet laugh. "I'm really sorry."
"For what? These things happen all the time. Although I will say, you seem to be unlucky because my missions always go wrong with you." You nudged her shoulder, crossing your legs so you faced her, both of you still on the floor.
"For making you think you weren't attractive. For basically drugging you myself."
"Don't be ridiculous Natasha. You didn't drug me."
"I might as well have done! If I had just agreed with you instead of fighting you, then you wouldn't have felt like you had to prove anything."
"You think I'm attractive?"
"Seriously? That's what we're choosing to focus on now."
"Umm yes? I know it wasn't your fault at all but now I want to hear about how attractive I am." You smirked and Natasha stood up abruptly.
"I'm having a shower."
"Is that a nice cold shower for you to try to get over me?" You shouted as she slammed the door shut.
~~~~~
Natasha came out of the shower half an hour later, towel drying her hair.
"I think you're attractive too." You whispered out, half hoping Natasha wouldn't hear it.
She stilled. Looking at you, trying to see if you were lying.
"Then why do you hate me?"
"I don't think I do. Not anymore."
Natasha stayed silent, encouraging you to continue.
"I didn't like the avengers in general. You guys all act like you're so much better than us. You get all the perks of looking good and none of the paperwork. You don't know the amount of times I've seen top level agents filling out avenger paperwork when they should be out in the field. I thought you were all lazy but spending this week with you... well it made me realise that maybe you're not all that bad."
Natasha had moved herself to the bed, just watching you speak. You looked over to her, signalling that you had finished all that you wanted to say.
"I'm sorry I ever made you doubt yourself. I'll talk to the team about actually doing their paperwork. Who's the worst?" She asked, curiosity laced in her tone
"Steve."
Natasha let out a full blown laugh at that. "Wait seriously?"
"Yup. I see him all the time, constantly trying to offload his paperwork to someone else. I always thought it would be Tony but it's definitely Steve, then Bruce. Then it's probably Tony."
"I promise I'll try to make them stop."
"I wouldn't make promises you can't keep." You laughed.
"Why...why did you doubt me?" You asked, a little more serious than before.
"It's not that I doubted you... I guess I just didn't like the way you spoke to Ivan..."
"You mean the flirting?"
"Maybe..."
You sat in silence for a bit, you couldn't figure out why. It's not like it was against any rules and it all worked in your favour. Then, it clicked.
"Natasha Romanoff were you jealous!" You let out a slight gasp and grinned at her.
"No. No of course not." Natasha got defensive. There was no way she was jealous of that old, wrinkly, nasty smelling man.
"Aww princess!" You adjusted yourself so you were completely facing her. "I can flirt with you too if you want." Your voice got slightly lower and your eyelids dropped a fraction, making your pupils seem bigger. While you raised your voice a few octaves for Ivan, you knew that to seduce a woman you had to lower it a little.
"Stop it." Natasha hit you.
"But why baby?" You grabbed her chin and tilted her face towards you. "Now you don't have to be jealous." You sent her a wink and let her chin go, watching as her eyes got a little darker.
"Go away. I want nothing to do with you or your terrible flirting."
"You say my flirting is terrible" Your voice now back to normal, "But your body is saying something different."
"Wrong. My body is saying nothing."
"No?"
No."
"Okay then! Night night princess." You leant over to switch off the light when Natasha grabbed your arm, causing you to look back over to her.
"Calling me princess... it - ugh... well it -" Natasha looked conflicted before glancing up to you, looking at your lips and kissing you.
You were shocked. You knew you shouldn't have been. All the signs were there and you were a very good flirt but actually feeling her lips on yours made your brain short-circuit. You kissed her back and climbed into her lap.
"We're not doing it here." You said when you both broke the kiss
"Why not?" Natasha looked at you, her hands running all over you.
"Because I'm 90% sure there are rats and I really don't want to catch something"
Natasha laughed and kissed you a little more. "Fair enough. We should stop this now then."
You kissed her neck. "Yes. We should definitely stop now."
~~~~~
Just before you were due to leave, you called Natasha into the bedroom.
"Y/n, we have to go."
"I know I know but watch." You bounced excitedly as you threw a match at the bed.
"Y/n what the hell!?"
"Well, if you remember correctly, I said that if you crossed the pillow divide, I would burn the bed with you in it. As you can see, I'm generously leaving you out of the bed. You're welcome."
Natasha just looked at you. "I can't believe I like you."
"Aww you like me? That's kind of embarrassing for you." You laughed as you linked arms with her, walking to the jet, but not before Natasha convinced you to put out the fire on the bed.
You watched as the fire fizzled out and silently thanked that damn bed for bringing you and Natasha closer. Literally. It didn't mean you weren't going to have a long chat with Fury about proper size beds though.
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young-dumb-and-vaccinated · 3 years ago
Text
The Sommelier (Hannigram x Female!Reader) pt. 26
Hannibal, Will and y/n host a dinner to put an end to everything
@dovahdokren @deadman-inc-bikeshop @lov3vivian @wisesandwichshark @scpdragon
Trigger warnings: PTSD, violence
"Hannibal, baby," You called down from the wine cellar. "Which one pairs best with the paella?"
"A Spanish white!" Will interjected.
You rolled your eyes, then looked at his shelf full of Spanish whites. "Thanks, Hannibal."
"You're the sommelier, [F/N]." Will shouted back. "Go with your gut!"
"Verdejo it is." You said to yourself, grabbing the high-shouldered bottle from the shelf.
You returned from the cellar and headed to the dining room, where Will was dutifully setting the table.
"Well aren't you the perfect little homemaker?" You commented, making sure he caught you eyeing his backside.
Will playfully snatched the wine from your hands. "We can't all be the breadwinners, can we, Ms. Restaurant Owner?"
You laughed, looking around at your triple-income house and accepting a kiss from your Will. You put your hands on his shoulders and broke the kiss.
"You know Hannibal isn't going to let you attend one of his famous dinner parties in a flannel, right?" You warned him, lips hovering a few inches from his face.
"Two guests is not a dinner party." Will corrected you. "I figured you'd know this after six months but, baby, Hannibal is always overdressed for everything."
"Better overdressed than the other way around, my treasure." Hannibal said, standing in the threshold. "Why don't you go slip in to that suit I bought you?"
Will threw his hands up. "Do you two just live to gang up on me? You know I can buy my own clothes, right?"
You scoffed. "Babe, you spent your last paycheck almost entirely at Bass Pro Shops-"
"And then we spent the day workshopping new seafood dishes for the restaurant with the fish I caught." Will shrugged. "You don’t get to benefit from it then complain."
You put up your hands in surrender. "Fair enough."
"So I don't make an ordeal out of this in front of guests," Hannibal said, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out two small drawstring bags and gave one to each of you. "Happy six months, my darlings."
"Six month anniversary presents?" Will laughed. "What are we, high school students?"
"Do you not want it?" Hannibal raised an eyebrow.
"I didn't say that." He mumbled.
You opened the bag and slid the contents into your hand. A beautiful solid white ring with ornate carvings tumbled out.
"It's beautiful." You smiled, sliding it on to your finger. "What is it?"
"A ring, my indulgence." Hannibal chuckled.
You narrowed your eyes at him. "Sure, but what is it made of?"
He hesitated for a moment. "Ivory."
"Should I be concerned that you somehow know both of our ring sizes?" Will asked, admiring how his fit perfectly on his finger. 
“I think you mean ‘thank you, Hannibal’.” You corrected him. “Even if it is a little uncanny.”
The doorbell rang. Hannibal threw a dish towel over his shoulder and pointed to Will.
"Go change." He ordered. "I will not have my guests seeing you in such an unsightly state."
"It's Jack and [F/N]'s friend." Will protested.
"Sure, I'll get the door." You said. "Gee, thanks [F/N], that would be so helpful!"
You opened the door with a smile.
"Agent Crawford!" You greeted, shaking his hand.
"Oh, please." He laughed. "Call me Jack."
"And this must be Bella." You said, offering his wife your hand. "Jack has told me all about you."
"So you're the infamous [F/N] [L/N]?" Bella accepted with a smile. "It's so nice to meet you."
Jack removed his hat and coat, then handed you a bag. "For you."
"You shouldn't have." You said, knowing immediately that it was wine. Then you pulled it out of the bag. Your eyes went wide and your jaw hung open.
"Holy shit you really shouldn't have." You repeated.
Jack shrugged and smiled smugly. "I pulled some strings in evidence. Figured you might want it."
You threw your arms around his neck, keeping a tight grip on the 1907 Heidsieck Monopole.
"Hey, do I get a hug?" Said another voice.
Charissa waved to you from the porch.
"Holy shit, hey!" You opened your arms. Charissa jumped into your embrace and squeezed you. She'd always hugged you tighter after seeing you half-alive in a hospital bed with your seldom-seen lovers at your bedside.
"Jack, this is my friend Charissa Rodriquez." You introduced. "She was the one who sent you the address."
"So you're 'tip', huh?" Jack's face lit up. "The FBI owes you a debt of gratitude, Ms. Rodriquez."
"Tip?" You said, looking at both Jack and Charissa.
"The address we received came from an obvious burner email." Jack explained. "We thought it was from Chase, so we arrived with a ton of backup anticipating an attack. Turns out we needed it."
Charissa shrugged. "I thought you could never be too careful."
"Well, intentional or not," Jack said. "You helped us a lot."
"You're Charissa Rodriquez?" Will said from the staircase. He wore a grey suit with a dark blue dress shirt that fit him scarily well considering he hadn't even tried it on.
"Enchanté, monsieur." Charissa said, eyeing him up with a hungry smile. "You must be Will."
"Down, girl." You crossed your arms. Your tone was playful, but had a slight threatening bite. "He's all mine."
"Not all yours." Hannibal corrected, entering the scene to finally greet his guests. "Agent Crawford, Bella, Ms. Rodriquez, welcome."
"Wow." Charissa said, dumbfounded. "I feel like I'm meeting a celebrity."
"Oh, surely the rumors unraveled after the old place went out of business." Hannibal answered. "There are far more interesting things to talk about than myself."
"Very few, but they do exist." Jack commented.
Charissa folded her arms. "Like the bartender who stood up to a psychotic cult leader and found two wonderful boyfriends to take care of her?"
"I've heard that one!" You added. "I hear she bought the restaurant for next to nothing after it became a stigmatized property."
Carissa narrowed her eyes at you. "I still cannot believe you told him."
You shrugged. "I think it all worked out."
Hannibal gathered everyone around the table and tasked you with pouring the wine.
"Surely you know why I've invited you here tonight." He asked, taking a seat at the head. "The high courts have ruled Chase's death a suicide."
"Cheers to that." Will said, raising his glass.
"Nobody actually believes it was a suicide." Jack clarified, trying not to look at you too obviously. "But the jury didn't want to dignify him with a proper homicide ruling."
Charissa glared at you, not trying to not be obvious. "Only one person at the table knows for sure."
You shook your head. "I hit my head really hard, the details are just not there."
"But [F/N]'s DNA was on the gun." Bella added.
"But not her fingerprints." Jack said. "It was saliva. We think he tried to choke her with his fingers before reaching for the gun."
"Did you ever find that finger?" Charissa said like it was nothing.
Jack, who was more interested in the paella than the conversation, shook his head. "Never."
Your eyes widened. You left the finger with the gun, you were sure of it.
"Must we discuss the gory details over dinner?" Will said, sensing your discomfort.
Charissa rested her chin in her hands. "Would you rather talk about your three-person couple?"
"I distinctly remember spitting the finger out." You insisted.
"We found so many pieces of bone in that room," Jack continued. "It's genuinely of far less concern than the dynamite lining the walls and bunker full of cocaine, stolen medical supplies and baby coffins."
"And the stained glass window made of human skin." You added.
"You know a case is fucked when a lost finger is of the least concern." Charissa commented.
"The important thing is that it's over." Will said. "He's dead and [F/N] is alive."
Bella smiled at you. "God really is looking out for you, [F/N]."
You forced a smile, telling yourself that Bella had the best intentions. But her good intentions revived Chase's voice in your head, which was a voice you'd spent the last six months trying to forget. You tightened your grip on your utensils to relieve some tension, but it didn’t work.
The table went quiet, waiting for Bella to realize her mistake. Will put his hand over yours and looked into your eyes. He mouthed the word 'breathe' and some similar affirmations.
Hannibal raised his head, knowing the light casting shadows on his face intimidated people. "Ms. Bella, we generally don't talk religion here."
She covered her mouth with her fingertips. "I'm so sorry, [F/N], I just meant-"
You put your hand up. "Please, just don't."
"The important thing is that [F/N] recovered forty missing women and reunited them with their families." Will said. "And there was no divine presence involved in that."
You smiled softly. "I'll drink to that."
"And you'll also be happy to know that the woman who assisted him in luring all those girls into the cult," Jack added. "She's looking at twenty-five to life without parole."
"What about the babies?" Bella piped up. "Weren't there, like, at least twelve newborns?"
"That's where the department of family and child services took over." Jack answered. "Whether the biological mothers kept them or put them up for adoption is out of our hands, but I do know each child was thoroughly examined and are all up to date on their shots."
"Seriously, though." Charissa interjected. "How do you misplace an entire finger?"
"It's one of the easier appendages to misplace." Hannibal answered, speaking with experience. "I heard it wasn't just the one that you couldn't find."
Jack looked up from his plate, confused. "Now how did you know about that?"
"The man took a 12 gauge bullet directly to the hand, Jack." Hannibal said with a small chuckle. "It's more likely you find no fingers than any at all."
"The bones will turn up somewhere." Jack said, resignedly. 
He just happened to say the word “bones” as you were glancing at your ring. 
You smiled a little too wide. “They just might.”  
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