#Would You Still Love Me If I Was A Frog?

[grand-theft-carbohydrates]

-can a boy who hops really fall in love with a girl who flies?-

"Watch me, Swallow!" cried the frog, "this'll be the one, I just know it!" 

The frog hurled himself out of the water with every ounce of all his might, and went sailing through the air. His wet little body landed with a splat against the lichen-covered side of the old well. Surface tension kept him stuck there for a brief moment before gravity re-exerted its influence and he slid down the stone wall like a blob of snot, tumbling back into the water with a gentle plop. 

The swallow quickly hopped over to the rim of the well and peered over the edge. She sat there motionlessly, her beady eyes fixed on the dark, rippling water from where the frog vanished, counting the seconds. She did not look away until a sleek, green head broke through the surface at last. 

"I made it halfway up, didn't I?" Frog asked proudly. 

"I don't see what you're so happy about," Swallow sniffed, making a show of preening her glossy wings, "you're still nowhere near the top." 

"Yeah, but last month I could only make it a quarter of the way up, and last week I was almost at the half-way mark," said Frog, not at all dampened by Swallow's grim dose of reality. "I'm making more progress every day. If I work hard enough, I'll be able to jump out of here soon." 

"Hm," the swallow gave a non-committal chirp. She had soared across continents and had seen frogs of every shape and size. None of them could make it out of a well so steep and high, and this one was fast approaching the limits of his nature. He would make it to the half-way mark, and rise no more. The old well that had harboured him as a tadpole would also be his grave, and that was the cold, hard truth. The kindest thing for her to do would be to kill Frog's stupid dream before it grew and festered, like removing a maggot from an open wound; one sharp twist, and it would be over. It would sting and bleed, he might even hate her for it, but eventually the injury would heal over cleanly. He would make peace with his position in life. She would take to the skies once more. It would be the healthy thing for everyone. 

But when the frog asked, again and again, "Will you watch me?" the swallow always kept her doubts to herself and answered, "Yes." 

He kept wasting his strength on these fruitless leaps, burning through what meagre prey that fell into his well. She kept putting herself in harm's way by watching him. Perched on the edge of this stone rim, she was vulnerable to attacks, to foxes slinking along the ground and hawks patrolling the sky. Her pretty, scissor-shaped tail still bore the marks of a particularly harrowing close call. This could only end badly for both of them; Frog might have been ignorant to the world beyond his stone circle, but she ought to know better. 

"It helps to have a goal," the frog panted. "After I jump out, I'm going to marry you! We'll travel the world together, and you can show me all the wonderful things you talked about." 

"Marry me?" The swallow stopped mid-preen and stared down at him, as if the frog had suddenly spouted a second head. 

"Yeah! I want to be your husband! I've been making a list on where we'd go after the wedding. First we'll visit your family-in-the-barn, then we'll go to the city and say hi to your cousins-in-the-rafters. I don't know where my folks are, cause I was hatched in this well so we'll skip that part. After that, we'll go to the Western Sea to see the Dragon King--" 

"I can't swim, stupid," The swallow pointed out with a derisive laugh. The whole thing was so outlandish she might as well play along. Poke holes in this fantasy until he dropped the subject.

"I know that!" said the frog, who had in fact forgotten, "...you can wait on the beach, I'll pop down and ask him to come out." 

"And if his royal highness says no?" 

"Then he's a prick who's not worth seeing," the frog said hotly, offended by the mere thought of such a thing. Swallow was the most beautiful creature he'd ever laid eyes on, with her black, iridescent wings that shone like a rainbow, and bright red crown which shamed the sunset. Anyone who refused to see her had to be blind and stupid and was not worth the time of day. The two-leggers who used to visit his well and scoop up water liked to talk about wondrous creatures called "fairies" who lived up in Heaven. When Swallow flew down the first time and sang her song, Frog's heart was beating so fast he thought it would burst right out of his chest. He was dead certain a real fairy couldn't possibly compare to her. "If the Dragon King proves to be a royal prick, I'll steal his pearl and bring it back for you. We'll be gone before he even realises it's missing!" 

"You're going to bring calamity down on tianxia if you do that." 

"Who gives a shit about tianxia?" answered the frog, "I only care about making you happy." 

At these words, the swallow leaped up and hopped rapidly around the rim several times, as she sometimes did when the rocks were hot. This confused the frog, because the day was overcast and the rocks could not have been hot--he was very attentive to these matters, being an amphibian who was vulnerable to drying out. The swallow did not speak, and the frog was afraid he'd upset her, so he decided to give her some space and practice his jumps, hoping to impress her this time. Unfortunately, he was tired and his belly was empty, so they weren't anywhere near as awesome as the first one. He made up his mind to wake up extra early tomorrow morning and have a big breakfast of gnats. Then he can train longer while it was still light.

"Well, will you do it?" the frog asked, floating gently to the surface after his final attempt of the day. "Aiyouyou, my legs are sore…" 

"Do what?" said the swallow, pretending not to understand.

"Be my wife," said Frog, "Please, I love you so much. I've never been in love before, so I'm not sure what it feels like, but when you landed here for the first time and told me about the Outside I felt something I had never felt before. A feeling that was much too big for one frog. Like…like trying to drink a whole thunderstorm of rain at once. I thought I would explode--!" 

"Ew." 

"…in a good way, of course," Frog amended, "I want to feel like this forever and ever and ever." 

"Don't say such stupid things," said Swallow, puffing up her feathers, though she was not at all cold. "I'm a bird. You're a frog. It'll never work." 

"Why not?" 

"Because it's never been done! We're two different creatures! There must be laws about it, or something…" 

"How can you know it won't work if it's never been done?" 

"It just won't, ok?" the swallow snapped, "stop being annoying or I'll fly off!" 

Frog did not stop. He was very persistent. Ever since the day his tail grew into legs and his gills became lungs, he'd been reaching for things that were higher than him. He caught all his bugs this way. "Do you want to stay with me?" he asked quietly. 

"I'm here, aren't I?" the swallow scoffed, refusing to meet his eyes. She started scratching at the crumbling mortar with her claws, like she was hoping to find a worm inside the rocks.

"And do I make you happy?" 

"You make me want to peck you to death!" 

"Would pecking me to death make you happy?"

The swallow shut her beak stubbornly and glared off into the distance. Frog swam over to one of the jutting rocks and climbed up as high as he could go. "Swallow, Swallow, if you really hate me just chirp once and I'll never talk about marriage again. But if you do like me, even a tiny little bit, then say nothing at all." 

Swallow glared at him so venomously it would have made a cobra tremble, but she did not make a single sound, nor did she fly off. Her silence was as good as the world's loudest declaration. Frog was so happy he forgot about his sore legs. He leapt into the water and started doing summersaults. 

"I know I'm very ugly, but I promise I'll make a good husband," he said breathlessly, in between his tricks, "I'll catch lots of bugs for you to eat. The biggest bluebottles, and the fattest, sweetest worms. I'll find a nice, big pond for your eggs, and chase away any fish that tries to eat them." 

"I don't lay eggs in ponds, stupid," sighed the swallow, hiding her face in her wing, "I lay them in trees." 

"Then I'll chase away all the fishes in the trees! I'm very fast!" 

Swallow leapt up from her perch in a flurry of feathers, and in an instant she was gone. Vanished into the small circle of sky that had once been the frog's entire world. For a moment, Frog was so shocked he didn't even cry out. He floated there numbly inside his dark, empty well. Now as silent as a tomb without the swallow to talk to. The cosy walls that had once been his home suddenly felt hateful. Like the cavernous throat of some great beast, keeping him trapped in here. Why did he have to open his big mouth and ruin the moment? What if she was gone for good? Each second alone felt like an eternity past. Suddenly, the frog heard the whirring of wings, and his beautiful swallow appeared silhouetted in the opening, a dozen twigs clasped in her beak. 

"Swallow! You came back!"

Swallow did not answer him. She threw the twigs over the side of the well, and was off before they had time to fall into the water. Frog ducked quickly under the surface to avoid getting hit. This was good! She could chuck all the things she wanted at him. In fact, she could stay mad at him forever if it pleased her, just as long as she never left him. 

Swallow came back and threw in a large tuff of grass, still green, with the roots attached. Then a small pinecone. Then three empty snail shells. Most of the stuff wasn't even that heavy, it was like she was just picking up random objects and throwing them in for the hell of it. This went on until the sun had set, and Frog was left floating in a pool of detritus with scarcely any room to kick. Swallow swooped down at last to rest, her cloud-white breast heaving from the exertion. 

"I'm tired and it's too dark," she said with great dignity, after catching her breath. "That old bastard owl is eyeing me up, so I'm going to bed. I'll come back tomorrow and add more stuff." 

"More stuff?" croaked the confused frog.

"I'm going to fill up the well. Make the water level rise so you can get out." 

"What?" Frog cried out, his voice bouncing around the stone walls as if the rocks themselves were shocked by the news, What…? What…? What…? It was not because he couldn't understand her, but because it seemed totally impossible. Too wonderful to be true. 

"You want to get out, don't you?" Swallow said peevishly, "you'll never be able to do it with stubbornness and brute strength alone. This requires strategy." 

"I…but it's so big. It'll take you twenty years at least!" 

"Don't be ridiculous, I'm not filling up the whole thing," the swallow snapped, "I'll just fill it half way and you can jump the rest. So don't you dare get fat and complacent, because once the ten years are up, I won't add a single twig more! I won't have a lazy frog for a husband, you hear me? So you better work hard!"

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

"I have something to confess," Liu Bang murmured with down-cast eyes, he shifted closer until they were sitting knee to knee. This was a baited hook if there ever was one, but Lü Zhi was in a biting mood.

"What is it?" she huffed, turning away from the mirror with a regal air.

Liu Bang grinned like a fox with a stolen egg, "…you'll have to reach inside my shirt."

"Why, you--!" Lü Zhi hissed indignantly. This dirty old man enjoyed playing his obscene games, twisting the natural roles of men and women so that she was the pursuer instead of a passive object of his affections, as was the proper way of things.

"What?" Liu Bang cried, all injured innocence which fooled Lü Zhi not at all. "It's just my chest! There's nothing untoward about it at all. The only thing you'll find in there is my loyal, beating heart."

Loyal. That was probably meant to flatter her. But all Lü Zhi could think about was that Cao woman in the house down the street and the bastards Liu Bang had fathered with her. The only thing that stopped him taking her as a concubine was because he couldn't afford it, and now that was going to change. Fresh from his successful peasant rebellion, Old Liu's star was on the rise. The higher he climbed, the more precarious her position became. Just the thought of it made her burn with hatred, like someone was pouring molten lead down her throat.

She made Liu Bang. It was her family's silver. Her tireless work. When he gate-crashed her father's party twenty years ago, he'd been nothing but a peasant with a brilliant smile and snowflakes in his hair. A lump of raw clay, waiting for a pair of hands. A frog squatting in the bottom of his well, convinced that he had seen all the world had to offer.

Before twenty-seven-year-old Liu Erlang met fifteen-year-old Lü Guniang, he had been coasting along on dumb luck and bullheadedness. Couldn't learn his letters. Couldn't hold down a job. A lovable rogue on the fast track to becoming just another drunken street-swindler once old age and hard living caught up with him. She saved him from that fate. Taught him discipline, tact and subterfuge. Filled him with a desperate hunger that had him pacing the streets from dawn till dusk, searching for something that was too big for Pei County to give him.

Those had been the best years of her life. She pushed him to take higher and higher offices, taught him how to pull the right strings, grease the right palms. Watched him basking in that glory, racing through life with the wind in his hair. She was the silent, swelling tide, raising her prized treasure-ship higher and higher, carrying him over treacherous rocks, skirting ferocious whirlpools and out-running ravenous beasts. The political climate had been inhospitable, but where others perished in grand, hubristic explosions, or withered away in the fog of mediocrity, the two of them were riding high after high. Unstoppable. Inseparable.

But of course, the good times couldn't last forever. Heaven's favor proved to be as capricious as the four winds. First she lost her youth, then her beauty, and finally her husband's favor, having failed to birth anything except daughters. His career slowed, and then stalled. By then, Liu Bang was middle-aged and had given up on becoming anything more than a small-town sheriff. He became depressed and complacent, falling into the embrace of his wine-cup and mistress every night. She was the one dragging him along with nothing but spite, willpower and sunk-cost fallacy. She kept an iron grip on their finances, watched out for new opportunities and sent timely gifts to his colleagues, biding their time, building up a storehouse of favours to call on.

She had walked across knives and fire for him, and what did she get in return? A rival on the verge of usurping her position as main wife. Extra mouths to gobble the food that rightly belonged to her legitimate children. A man's loyalty was different from a woman's loyalty.

Lü Zhi grabbed a fistful of Liu Bang's coat and wrenched it open. There was a loud ripping sound as the side tie of Liu Bang's coat gave out--another thing for her to mend that later--and his right lapel came undone in her hand. She had managed to pull it completely out of his belt--no small feat, considering how much his gut had grown over the years. Part of his undershirt had gone with it too, so now his clothes were hanging slightly open. There was a moment of absolute stillness as the two of them stared down mutely at her handiwork. It was actually a rather modest exposure, nothing a few hours of walking couldn't also accomplish. She was a married woman, anything a man had that was worth seeing, she had already seen. Plenty of farmers went shirtless in the summertime. The effect was singular because this had been forceful. Against his will, following her will. Lü Zhi could not seem to tear her eyes away from the length of Liu Bang's sunburned neck and the sliver of bare chest she had exposed, milk-white and vulnerable.

Liu Bang laughed breathlessly, "have I really been away so long?" He tried to play it off manfully, but his eyes were wide and hungry. Lu Zhi's stomach gave a swoop. This was the middle of the day. Guests would be arriving soon. It felt more obscene than seeing him fully naked.

Liu Bang took her hand slowly and guided it into his clothes. Her husband's skin was shockingly hot, his chest rose and fell rapidly under her hands. Her fingers traced the dip in his muscular chest, the sparse, wiry hairs, and finally closed upon a small, brocaded pouch.

She made every item her husband wore, this was not one of hers. When she opened the drawstring, two pieces of broken hairpin fell into her lap. It was one of the ivory pieces that came with her dowry. She had put this one in his hair the morning after he had taken her maidenhead. The pieces were as warm as his skin.

'At least he hadn't sold it to buy that flashy jade pendant,' She thought coldly.

"I didn't want to tell you about it." Liu Bang whispered, "because I knew how much it would upset you. I had a whole story planned while I was traveling here; how I got attacked by three hundred fierce brigands; how I was accosted by a penniless grandmother and her starving, orphaned grandchildren. But the truth is, I broke it because I was stupid and careless. That's it. I have no excuse."

Liu Bang stared into her face with a pathetic air. Lü Zhi gave him absolutely nothing. Liu Bang used his words to ensnare. Lü Zhi could flay people alive with her silences. They were equally matched in that regard.

"I carried the pieces with me, wondering what I was going to do." Liu Bang continued, "First, I kept it in my pocket, but I was afraid someone might steal it. Then I held it in my hand, but I was afraid I might drop it. Finally, I put it in a pouch and wore it around my neck. I wanted to take it back to you, so we can keep one half each. We're like the two pieces of this hairpin, even if we're separated, we still belong together. Wife, if you're mad at your useless husband, you should let it out. Yell and hit me if you want, but please don't hold it in. It's bad for your health."

"And let you play the victim? I don't think so. You don't deserve such easy absolution." In spite of it all, she was starting to soften. She folded the broken shaft into her handkerchief, and Liu Bang took the flowery decoration. If she ever got angry enough, she could at least stab him with it. "Is that all? Do you really expect me to believe this piece of junk was eating you up inside?"

"You're so cruel to this poor husband. He bares his soul to you and you mock his pain."

Lü Zhi picked up her lip-paper and made a show of applying rouge to her mouth, "Get on with it."

"A strange thing happened to me on the road. I dug this jade pendant out of the ground and Zhang Liang had some very cryptic things to say about it."

An auspicious jade piece and words from the genius strategist. Liu Bang had her full attention. She looked at him sharply from the mirror, "what did he say?"

"Many strange things. I didn't understand it at the time--or rather, I wasn't ready to, but I think I get it now. Do you ever wonder why the rats in the storehouses grow fat but the ones in the sewers stay thin and wretched?"

"It’s clearly their environment."

"Yeah. At the end of the day, they're both rats. Nothing about their natures are different, they both have whiskers and tails. So what about people? Who among us are fattening up in the storehouses, and who are wallowing in shit? If we're all rats, what's to stop me from moving into the storehouse to become the biggest, fattest rat of them all?" Liu Bang leaned forwards, and whispered hotly into her ear, "I'm going to replace him."

Lü Zhi gave him a steady, calculating look. "You're not talking about Xiang Yu." The hegemon-king.

"No, I'm talking about him." Liu Bang answered, "Qin Shi Huang." The First Emperor of Qin. There was a galaxy's worth of difference between the two names. The little frog had just told her he wanted to turn into a dragon.

"This is the first time I've ever said these words out loud. Even to myself. I was afraid to take that leap because then it would be real, and I would have to do it." Liu Bang took her hands, "I know you think I bed other women because I don't cherish you anymore. That's not true. They mean nothing to me, I forget them the moment I leave their beds. You're the only one who's on my mind, day and night. Do you think I could trust any of those silly girls enough to tell them these things? Do you think any of them could ever hope to understand my ambitions? To be my wife?" 

Lu Zhi said nothing in reply, but when Liu Bang pressed himself against her and put his lips to her neck, she let him do it, "Well, what do you think, My Lady? I think Empress Lü has a nice ring to it."

Lu Zhi retracted her hands primly and took a deep breath, considering her words carefully, "the commoners already love you. It shouldn't be difficult to keep their support, all you need to do is stay humble and relatable. Remember, you're one of them; a man of the people, you understand their struggles and you have their best interests at heart. With the nobles, you must make them underestimate you. Play up the fact you're an uneducated peasant. Drink, whore and gamble. Be as reckless as possible without losing support. Xiang Yu is powerful and competent in his own right, he can pick and choose his followers so they're always uneasy around him. You have to poach his best men, make them believe you can't live without them, that you'll reward them handsomely when you come into power. This will attract opportunists who are as sly as yourself, people who will do anything it takes to win--they'll be treacherous, of course, but you can beat them with experience. They'll think you're just a charismatic face who is easy to manipulate, do not dissuade them of that."

Liu Bang nodded along eagerly, mouthing her words silently, like she was an oracle bone inscribed by Heaven's own hand. His admiration was a heady thing and Lu Zhi could hear a faint roaring in her ears, growing louder and louder with each passing moment. The wind was picking up. The tides were rising again.

Notes:

Liu Erlang: nickname "second son", lang is used to describe a handsome young man.

Lü Guniang: nickname "young lady". These nicknames combined lends a very ironic love story vibe.

tolkien once said allegory was stupid and a cowards way out. but tolkien's not here so LETS GO BABEY!!!! 

i wrote this enormous, rambling dissertation about liu bang and lu zhi's relationship, only to toss the whole thing out when i realised a dumb little fable would convey the whole thing 800 times better and 800 words shorter. 

this story draws inspiration from the myth jingwei fills the sea, where the creator-god nuwa drowns at sea and is reincarnated as a bird named jingwei, who dedicates her entire existence to filling the eastern sea. it fits lu zhi pretty well, since she is both a powerful force and a victim 

Liu Bang's brilliant hairpin splitting was stolen wholecloth from Bai Juyi's poem "the Song of Big Sad"

any story is a romantic love story if you pause it at the right time...

[lovertm]

pins by CaptSassMcGee

[unproduciblesmackdown]

Full Tech Day One pic today from kiko laureano (denizen of skid row / ensemble) & video (that's four seconds of "ya never know" playing over the static image) from & ft. marcia milgrom dodge (director / choreographer) double captioning "there might be puppets in this musical ;)" & "Well Shake my hand! Come see LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS @guthrietheater featuring @actually_will_roland's hand!"

[makingfrens]

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A post shared by Frenny | Crochet Expectation vs Reality (@making.frens)

[cottageivy]

some ava outfits ive done recently (with a mini lore? dump? ish? about fucking CLOTHES in the tags lol)

[automatayaoi]

AAAA IVE SPENT ALL DAY COLORING IN PHOTOSHOP /TRIPS. FALLS. DIES. shaking so much i luv my husband but he is so Black And White. truly barely touched. I think i sucked all the color out of him as unto a leech. thank u so so much @automatonkisser for drawing this my tears are endless

[midnitemoontrip]

it’s valentine time! 💘

[usegravyasaweapon]

Today on “my boyfriend is adorable”

This was completely unprompted btw.

[silasbug]

i have no idea what happened or how it happened, but i can finally play bar chords!!!!!

i am so fucking excited. i know it's nothing special but this is a big deal for me because my fingers are short and that shit is painful, but i can actually sound the chords!! and i can switch to them with relative ease, too!

i'm going to be an absolute fucking menace now that half of the songs i want to play are actually playable for me, ha. hahahahahaha. AHAHAHAHAHA.

[yuriyuruandyuraart]

Jumping on the bandwagon to show you much love and appreciation!!

I absolutelyyyyyyyyyy adore your artwork and the beautiful creations you make!! You are so flipping fantastic that every time I see you on my dashboard I get a smile on my face !

The doodles and drawings you’ve done for killer nights made me so happy I couldn’t stop smiling and I continue to look back at them cuz they being me such joy!

I enjoy seeing your original characters and just your art in general is so fantastic! You’ve grown so much as an artist and I feel so honored and privileged to have known ya since you were writing anon on Zu’s blog!

Remember not to push yourself too hard, take breaks, and know that we absolutely love ya <3

ZQFAGETFFFFFFY JANNN YOU ABSOLUTE MENACEE OMG<3333

why is it always you guys sending me the sweetest little surprises in my ask box ever like?? you DO know i'm mortal and your kind words might just kill me right??? RIGHT!! you're ALL such awesome fantastic people i dunno what to even DO about them sometimes-

like this!! jann you're such an amazing artist AND writer yourself and you should know how much this means to me!! i never ever expected this amont of support coming from anyone when i started out really- much less coming from people so talented like you!! still can't fully wrap my head about it honestly hhh-

what started out as harmless fun trying to improve my english by writing small oneshots grew to having a blog of my own where everyone is just!! so SWEET i genuinely feel like a broken record repeating the same things like "sweet awesome kind amazing" but can you BLAME ME??? YOU'RE ALL SO FANTASTIC!!

i enjoy seeing the repercussions of my stubborn self sticking to people's posts and throwing love at them so much too so it's always such a pleasure to see familiar (and new!!!) names on my blog!! i hope you'll get even mORE support for your awesome works (ESP KILLER NIGHTS you know i like r&r but that fic was just. such a good beginning to their story istg :'Dc <3333)

[bathtub-frog]

🪱🥺👉👈💗❓

[valeriehalla]

I am so utterly fascinated by “Saki”, the 18-year-running mahjong manga in which you, the reader, become gradually, frog-boilingly aware (over the course of nearly two decades’ worth of mahjong tournaments) that none of these girls are wearing underwear and most of their boobs are slowly expanding.

I need you to understand that I have, like, an anthropological level fascination with this comic. From the perspective of someone who is also a comic artist and writer, two things delight me about it:

the fact that I understand completely how an artist gets from “the fans can have a little hint of skirted asscheek” to “the pussy is completely out on center page” over the course of 18 years; and

the way in which the pussy being out is treated by the characters and diegesis as being utterly unremarkable.

Okay. Point 1. The frog-boiling.

Let me put this in perspective for you. There was already a meme about how the characters in “Saki” don’t wear underwear when I was in middle school. I am thirty now. Okay? And it’s still going.

In the time since, this has stopped being a joke. It is now indisputable canon. This is not because anyone outright says it at any point. It’s because the underwear ran out of places to hide. I’m obsessed with this thought: somewhere in the over 20 volumes of “Saki”, there is a panel in which underwear was objectively deconfirmed. And it would be so hard to figure out where that panel actually is. Maybe the artist didn’t even realize it when she drew it! The frog? Boiling!!

And of course there is also the breast expansion. I don’t know how to put a spin on this. They are just expanding. Like, this happens a lot with artists: you define a character as being, in your mind, “the one with the big boobs”, and over the years you emphasize that trait further and further so that the signal doesn’t get lost in the noise. It’s just that normally—in like a wildly popular manga series about mahjong published by literally Square Enix, for example—normally there would be a point at which the boobs stopped getting bigger. Like, an editor would step in or something. Or you would get to the point where you cannot draw the character in the same panel as her mahjong tiles without her breasts spilling over the tiles, and you’d go, “Well, this is now untenable.”

That did not happen. There is no ceiling. The frog is soup.

Point 2. The complete and utter mundanity of all of this.

It’s like this, okay: there’s no shortage of trashy ecchi manga out there. There’s a million other comics doing wildly bawdier things with wildly more improbable bishoujos.

The vibe with “Saki” is different.

It’s hard to explain this, but it feels like the world of the comic is fundamentally uninterested in the fanservice happening on the page. I cannot describe it as “leering”, because I cannot conceive of a person in the story from whose point of view one would leer. I think the artist is probably into it—I can’t imagine anyone is making her do this—but “Saki” the comic has no opinion on the matter.

There are essentially no male characters in “Saki”. Like, there was one guy? Kind of? At the very beginning? But he is gone now. They put him back in the toybox. He does not exist. It appears to be some level of canonical that in the world of “Saki”, almost all humans are women. Those women are sometimes romantically into each other. According to comments the artist has made on Twitter (which I cannot source), they have lesbian baby technology, so it’s no problem. It’s so much not a problem that the story is about mahjong, instead of any of that.

So, like, the fiction here appears to be this: this is the, like, meta-narrative of the fanservice of “Saki”, right: it’s just normal that they don’t wear underwear and their boobs are arbitrarily big. It’s been normal. It was normal before the story of the manga began. It’s just how things are. Nobody bats an eye about it, and if they do, it’s in sort of a lesbian kind of way so like what’s the problem, we love lesbians here. This is literally normal for girls.

The fanservice simply diffuses into this all-encompassing aura of disembodied, ambient sluttiness. The framing of the panels demands you acknowledge it, and the story demands you already be over it, because it’s mahjong time now, and we’re playing mahjong.

Do you get??? why I’m so fascinated??? Are you not a little enraptured???

Anyway, I have no idea how to end this weird post. I guess the conclusion is that women stay winning????

[revivify-inn]

Should I do it?

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Should I?

[yandere-daydreams]

Title: Till The Water Boils Over Or The Frog Drowns.

Pairing: Yan!Gojo x Reader x Yan!Geto (JJK).

Word Count: 5.8k.

TW: No Curses AU, Dub/Con -> Non/Con (Revoked Consent), Fem!Reader, Oral Sex, Unprotected Sex, Kidnapping, Financial Abuse, Psychological Abuse, Infantilization, Spanking, Unbalanced Power Dynamics, and Forced Codependency. Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.

[Part Two]

It started the day Satoru first introduced the concept of ‘time out’ to your relationship.

He was immature and you were stubborn. You loved him, but without Suguru’s even temper and calming presence, sparks tended to fly in a way that left you at each other’s throats. With your arms crossed over your chest and your eyes narrowed, you’d watched him sigh, roll his eyes, and storm out of your shared bedroom, slamming the door behind him. You gave yourself a second, then another – sucking in a shallow breath and shutting your eyes, talking yourself through all your usual cool-down methods. You were supposed to go out, tonight, to a restaurant you and Satoru had both been talking about for weeks. You still had about an hour before Suguru was supposed to get home, before you were all supposed to leave together. It wasn’t a good day to fight, even if you knew Suguru would smooth everything over as soon as he got home.

When you were done, you moved to the bedroom door. One hour was plenty of time to talk things out. One hour was plenty of time to kiss and make up, even if you would hold a grudge for a—

You pushed gently on the door. It didn’t budge.

You tried the knob. It turned, but the door still didn’t open.

You pressed your shoulder into the wood, shoving with more force than you ever should’ve had to use. Something shifted – a chair slotted underneath the handle, Satoru’s back leaning against the other side of the thin wood – but didn’t give.

The frustration you’d only just managed to suppress resurfaced immediately. Still pressed against your side of the door, you called out, attempting to keep your tone soft, light. “Satoru? Baby?”

 The sweetness in his voice was equally artificial. “I’m right here, angel.”

“I—I think the door might be jammed.” You tried the knob again, rattling the metal for emphasis. Satoru only hummed in response, and you grimaced. “Are you gonna let me out, ‘toru? I really don’t have time to be—”

“Ninety minutes.”

“…ninety minutes?”

“Ninety minutes,” he repeated. You could practically hear the smirk in his voice. “After that, we can check and see if you’re still feelin’ so bratty.”

You were almost thankful there was a door between you. If it hadn’t been there, you might not have been able to stop yourself from throttling him. “Satoru, I really don’t have time to—”

There was an obnoxiously loud hum, the sound of footsteps moving down the hall. You groaned, resting your forehead against the cool wood. Whatever. He was being petty, again. You could do ninety minutes. And, even if you couldn’t, he’d probably be back in ten, tail between his legs and pouting for your attention.

You quickly resigned yourself to passing the time as quickly as possible. You laid face-down on your bed, bemoaning your taste in men and picturing all the ways you could break up with Satoru, once he let you out. You scrolled through your phone, spamming Suguru with half-coherent messages and memes from the very depths of your camera roll. You re-organized your closet, sorting your clothes by color and alphabetizing your shoes. You managed to read a full page of one of the bulky historical fiction novels Suguru kept on the bedside table before deciding you’d be better off breaking up with both your current boyfriends.

You checked the time when you were done, and discovered that you’d managed to kill a whopping fifteen minutes.

God, you were so fucked.

Only half-consciously, you gravitated back to the door, slumping against it. You opened your mouth, ready to call out to Satoru and say whatever you had to say to get out, but another voice cut in before you got the chance. “Baby?”

Suguru. He must’ve gotten back early. You let out a shallow sigh, letting your head fall forward in relief. “Right here,” you said, making no effort to hide your exasperation. “Can you open the door? I think ‘toru blocked me in.”

His deep chuckle was muffled, but still clearly audible. “I’m afraid I can’t. He’s still pretty mad, couldn’t stop talking about how you copped an attitude with him.” There was a pause, a shoulder being rested against the other side of the door. “I think he mentioned something about a dress?”

You were glad he couldn’t see you – he would’ve hated the way you grimaced at the reminder. “It’s a nice restaurant. I wanted to dress up a little, but he’s just so immature, and when he saw the dress I wanted to wear—”

Suguru cut in. “The red one, right?”

“Yeah, with the window on the chest.” You sighed. “Please, Suguru? I really don’t want to spend the next hour of my life locked in my own bedroom.”

Another laugh, this one more stifled than the first. “He just knows how pretty you’d look, babe. Probably doesn’t want anyone else to find out how beautiful our partner is.” When you didn’t respond, he added, “Didn’t he just buy you somethin’ brand new? He can’t complain if he’s the one who picked it out, right?”

You pursed your lips. He had – a pure ivory dress, a little shorter than mid-thigh and sleeveless, not exactly conservative, but not meant to show as much skin as you usually preferred to. It’d come with matching gold jewelry, and you’d politely accepted the gift, kissed him on the cheek, and stashed it under your bed to rot. It wasn’t ugly, nothing so expensive could be, but it suited Satoru’s tastes, not yours.

“I don’t know,” you muttered, trying to soften the harsher edges of your distaste. “You know how Satoru is. Everything he picks out is just so—so him.”

“I’m starting to think you both might be causing problems.” You kicked the base of the door, but Suguru didn’t indulge your outburst with acknowledgement. “Just try it on, alright? If it’s that bad, we can always go without him.”

It took another minute or so of condoling, but soon enough, you were slipping into Satoru’s gifted dress, cursing as you struggled with the tiny, finicky zipper and smoothed wrinkles out of abused silk. You pulled your fingers through your hair once before returning to the bedroom door and knocking defeatedly. As if to add insult to injury, the door swung open in an instant, a smiling Suguru waiting on the threshold.

“See? Absolutely gorgeous, as always.” He leaned forward, cupping your cheek. You let his lips brush over your forehead before pulling away. Thankfully, he wasn’t cruel enough to draw it out any longer – his hand falling to yours and taking it up, tugging you gently towards the living room. “Satoru’s going to forget he was ever mad at all as soon as he sees you.”

You didn’t bother responding, only slumping against his side and letting him guide you forward. Distantly, you heard Suguru calling out to Satoru, but you were already busy – too occupied promising yourself that this would never, ever happen again to care what either of them was saying.

You would, of course, be wrong.

~

Barricaded doors quickly became a weekly inconvenience. You and Satoru fought often (never intensely and never for very long, but often), and he owned the apartment – meaning, despite all your whining, you couldn’t exactly tell him that his doors couldn’t all lock from the outside. Your ‘cool-down sessions’ (Suguru’s words, not yours) lasted anywhere from twenty minutes to a couple of hours, and Suguru was always the one to let you out. When you couldn’t be locked up and left to stew, Satoru would take it upon himself to leave the apartment – if only for as long as he thought it would take for you to forget you’d argued at all. You got used to it quickly. It wasn’t fair, you didn’t enjoy it, but you got used to it. You’d always had more patience than you really should’ve, when it came to Satoru’s antics.

And then, Suguru started showering with you.

Finding time to spend together was an ever-present obstacle in your relationship. Satoru alternated sporadically between planning lectures and grading papers late into the night to rolling his eyes at the concept of due dates and dulling out extra credit on a whim, and trying to guess if Suguru would be free was a pursuit in futility – his sermons were scheduled, but he was almost always being called out on some mysterious errand on behalf of one of his countless, faceless apostles. You didn’t work at all, but you went to school, and you kept yourself busy. You’d never be as busy as Satoru and Suguru, but you did your best to keep up with them.

Currently, you were basking in the afterglow with Suguru, your head resting on his chest and his arms wrapped loosely around his waist. Satoru was already gone, rushed off to some early-morning lecture, but Suguru didn’t have anything to do, and you—well, you could miss a lecture or two if it meant spending time with him. And, even if you couldn’t, it was hard to imagine tearing yourself away from the feeling of his calloused fingers tracing aimless patterns into the small of your back, of his lips pushing warm, open-mouthed kisses into your shoulders, your collarbone, your throat. His hands drifted to your hips, grip tightening ever-so-slightly, and you felt a raspy groan reverberate against the side of your neck, Suguru pulling you close as he—

“Save it,” you said, drawing back. He pouted and you grinned, pecking the corner of his jaw and sitting up, letting his sheets pool around your waist. “Just for a few minutes – I feel gross.” A full groan, this time. You laughed, combing his disheveled hair back and pressing another kiss into his forehead, this one lingering just a beat longer than the first. “You’ll survive a shower, Suguru.”

You felt him shift underneath you. Before you had a chance to pull away, he was sitting up, his arms still around your waist – keeping you messily laid across his lap. “I’ll come with you.”

“You’ll wait your turn.” And then, when he only hummed in response, “I’m being serious. Somebody in this relationship has to wash their hair every now and then.”

His face was already buried in the crook of your neck, and he was moving toward the edge of the mattress with your body still tucked against his chest. He was planning on carrying you, presumably. Sometimes, it felt like if it were up to Suguru, you’d never walk anywhere on your own again. “I know.” His voice was still raspy with sleep, his usual articulation weighed down by the fatigue that came with a morning spent in bed. “I’ll help.”

“That’s really sweet, but—” You strung your arms around his neck as he stood up, taking you with him. “—I think I’ll be alright on my own, Suguru.”

For the first time all morning, his eyes flickered open, wandering idly in your direction. He held your gaze for a beat, then another.

Finally, the edge of his lips quirked upward – the sly, knowing grin you’d fallen in love with soon painted across his lips. When he spoke, it was in a tone to match, all confidence and cloying, calculated sweetness. “No.”

You faltered, at that. “…no?”

“Don’t wanna be away from you for that long,” he mumbled, by way of explanation. “Whatever you need to do, I’ll take care of. Don’t want you to have to worry your pretty little head over anything.”

You tried your best to laugh, but it was a weak effort, better left unacknowledged. “I don’t know how I feel about my boyfriend offering to, I don’t know, shave my legs or something.”

He only soldiered on, as if you hadn’t said anything at all.

~

You felt Satoru’s hands on your waist first, then his chest against your back. His mouth found the curve of your throat as if by instinct, teeth grazing against a bruise Suguru had left in the same spot the day before. You felt him lean against you and dropped the knife you were holding onto a nearby cutting board, bracing yourself on the edge of the counter to compensate.

You glanced over your shoulder as his head bowed, face soon buried in the dip of your shoulder. He must’ve just gotten home – he was still wearing his sunglasses, only the first three buttons on his shirt undone. You grinned, twisting around just far enough to kiss the top of his head before turning back to your ingredients. “Rough lecture?”

“Grad students,” he muttered, the dread in his voice plainly audible. “One more fucking extension request, and I swear, I’ll fail the entire class.”

You hummed, letting him sink further into you. You might’ve let him stay there, too, if one of his hands hadn’t fallen to your ass while the other slipped underneath your loose shirt. Before he could creep upward, you jabbed an elbow into his chest. “Keep it in your pants. You still smell like a college campus.”

Of course, he didn’t budge. “But I missed you,” he whined, as shameless as he was clingy. “I had to leave so early, and I was stuck in my office for so long, and I’m gonna die if I have to wait any longer. Is that what you want? For me to die?”

“You could always go to Suguru, if you’re that insatiable.”

“But I want you.” You felt a thumb slip below the waistband of your sweatpants (or, Suguru’s sweatpants, technically – he’d been unbearable unless you were wearing his clothes, recently) and batted his hand away. Your efforts were, predictably, unsuccessful. “Please, baby?” And then, after a beat. “You don’t care about dinner more than you care about me, do you?”

You felt something delicate inside of you falter, crack, then fall apart entirely. It was strange – how long you could nurse a wound without acknowledging it existed at all. “It’s not that, I just—” You stuttered, then stopped entirely. You deflated underneath Satoru’s weight, and as if in response, he held you that much tighter, keeping you as close as you could be, lest he carve open his chest and force you into the open cavity. “I… I guess I feel like I haven’t really been doing a lot for you two, lately. You pay all the bills, and Suguru goes out of his way to take care of me, and there just… It makes me feel kind of useless.” You tried to punctuate the confession with a smile, a laugh, but both were hollow beyond the point of recognizability. It would’ve been better if you hadn’t tried at all. “You get it, right? I just—I don’t want to be the only one not doing anything.”

There was a beat of silence. You felt Satoru settle against you, his chest pressing into your back before he pulled away, detaching from you entirely. You sighed, letting yourself relax.

And then, just as suddenly, you were off of your feet and in Satoru’s arm, one tucked under the bend of your knees while the other supported your back. You managed a stammered, half-coherent protest, but if Satoru was listening, he wasn’t bothered.

He carried you out of the kitchen and into the living room, your half-finished recipe forgotten in favor of dropping you onto the nearest couch and kneeling over you, already pulling on the collar of his shirt. “Sounds like our baby’s been thinkin’ too much.” He was grinning, his glasses sitting low on the bridge of his nose. “Let me put a stop to that.”

You opened your mouth, but you didn’t have time to respond. His mouth was already crashing into yours; swallowing down anything you might’ve said and replacing it with a breathy moan, a haze over your conscious thoughts.

You didn’t bother trying to talk your way out from underneath Satoru, again.

~

You couldn’t breathe.

It took you a moment to realize what was wrong, another to put together why. You felt the blunt tip of Suguru’s cock hit the back of your throat as Satoru’s chest pressed into yours, the latter pressing the air out of your lungs while the former forced you to choke what little was left up. Satoru had set a relentless pace; his thrusts brutal, his tempo erratic, his hips crashing into yours with enough force to bruise. Two of Suguru’s thick, calloused fingers were lodged between your body and Satoru’s drawing quick, precise patterns into your clit, while both of Satoru’s hands were wrapped around the underside of your thighs, keeping your knees pinned to your chest, your body folded in half and pressed into the mattress. They’d always been taller than you, with Suguru kneeling by your head and Satoru looming over you, they both seemed so much bigger. They both seemed so, so much stronger than they ever had before.

You couldn’t breathe. The lack of oxygen was already rushing to your head, already replacing your sense of logic with a shrill, panicked buzz. Your body hurt everywhere they touched it, the warmth pooling in your core and arousal left behind by previous climaxes not enough to dull the sharp sting of Satoru’s nails against your skin, not enough to soften the harsh edge of the grin you could only barely see spread across Suguru’s lips out of the corner of your eye. It was a struggle just to move your jaw, and even then, any sounds you were able to make were borderline incoherent – your little chants of ‘red, red, red’ so stifled and so garbled by Suguru’s cock that you couldn’t have blamed him for not hearing you at all. It was only when you tried to pull your head back that his eyes fell away from where Satoru’s cock was fucking into your dripping cunt and to your face, tears of distress already beginning to prick at the corners of your eyes. You let out one more panicked cry, hoping beyond hope that he’d be able to see the fear in your expression and know something was wrong, but that grin you had loved so much only widened, sharpened. “Like that, princess?” You felt his free hand on the top of your head, fingers carding through your hair while the patterns being pushed into your sensitive clit sped up, intensified. “Faster,” he cooed to Satoru, his voice laced with something vicious and mocking. “If she can still cry, she can still fuck.”

He didn’t mean it. He couldn’t mean it. Suguru just liked to be mean in bed, and Satoru liked to indulge him. That was the only reason they were doing this to you, that was the only reason Satoru listened; leaning that much more of his weight onto as his cock beat against the walls of your cunt. “Fuck,” Satoru muttered, as Suguru’s cock twitched against the roof of your mouth. “Got tighter when you said that. Is that what you want? For me and him to fuck you unconscious?”

This time, you didn’t try to pull back, you jerked – lurching out of Suguru’s hold, drawing back until you could gasp and pant and fill your aching lungs. “Red,” you half-choked, half-cried. “Red, red, stop, too much, I can’t—”

Satoru cut you off with a throat groan. You felt his form tense against yours, heard a shameless moan spill past his lips, and suddenly, it was like you’d forgotten how to breathe entirely. “Too close for that,” he muttered, his lips close enough to ghost over the shell of your ear. “You can take it for me, angel.”

You couldn’t, but you didn’t have time to tell him that. You opened your mouth, but all you could seem to spit out was a keening, pitiful whine as you felt something deep in your core pull taut and snap, as your cunt clenched around him and you came undone on Satoru’s cock for the nth time. At the same time, he went stiffed above you, forcing his hips flush with yours and filling your abused pussy with something thick and searing. The feeling was alien, strange. You could’ve sworn he said he would wear a condom, tonight.

It felt like you laid there for a small eternity – trapped under Satoru’s limp body, Suguru still petting idly through your hair. You stared unblinkingly at the ceiling until, days later, Satoru pulled himself upright with a raspy grunt, turning to Suguru. You were vaguely aware of his head being lowered into Suguru’s lap, moving to finish the job you hadn’t wanted to, but that seemed distant, unimportant. The room was too small, too closed-off. You weren’t getting enough air. You were too warm. You were too small. You—

You needed to leave.

Your body was on the edge of the mattress before your mind could make the conscious decision to move. You were shaking, despite the damp humidity clinging to your skin, but you tried to ignore that and focus on getting your feet underneath you, on fishing Satoru’s shirt off the floor and pulling it over your head. You’d need pants, too, and your wallet – maybe you’d still have a little cash stowed away, something from before Satoru insisted you start carrying one of his platinum cards. You’d spend the night in a hotel, or better yet, rent a car – get out of Tokyo altogether. You had a friend who lived outside of the city – or, you used to, at least. You couldn’t remember the last time you talked to someone other than Satoru and Suguru.

You made it to the doorway before Suguru called out. “Going somewhere, princess?”

You froze, but didn’t look over your shoulder. You could barely stand. You needed to go. “I just—I think I need a little air.”

“Give us a minute. Me or ‘toru should go with you.” There was a lull to his voice, an airiness just barely audible over the slick, sloppy sound of Satoru’s mouth moving over his shaft. You could remember admiring that about him, once, constantly thinking about how lucky you were to have such a cool, confident boyfriend. Right now, though, it was hard to think of his unfaltering composure as anything but inhuman. “It just wouldn’t be safe to let you—”

“I need air,” you repeated, because it was true, because you did. Little, black spots were already starting to dot your vision, and it felt like someone was trying to wrap their hands around your throat and squeeze. “I… I think I might be gone for a while, too.”

For all his tenderness, Suguru didn’t sound very concerned. “How long?”

“A couple hours,” you tried, and then, much more quietly, when he let out a disbelieving hum. “…a few days?”

This time, Suguru didn’t have to say anything at all. Leaning against the doorway, Satoru’s cum still dripping down the inside of your thigh, it took less than a minute for you to crack on your own. “I think we… I think I might need a little space.”

There was another beat of silence, occupied only by a soft groan from Suguru, the sound of noisy swallowing from Satoru. Finally, he sighed. You didn’t dare to look, but you could picture him shaking his head, smiling as he rolled his eyes. Acting as if you’d just said the stupidest thing in the world. “What do you think, Satoru? Have we waited long enough.”

“—too long.” Satoru’s voice was hoarse, breathy. In your peripheral, you could see him dragging the back of his hand across his lips as he raised his head. “We’ve had everything ready for months, now.”

That was all Suguru needed to hear. He turned back to you, letting his head lull to the side. “Come back to bed, won’t you, princess?”

You didn’t respond. What little air you still had hitched in your collapsing throat as you attempted to move forward, only for a hand to catch your shoulder and hold you in-place. It was Satoru – now standing less than a full step behind you. He didn’t bother with a warning before wrapping his free arm around your waist and dragging you into his chest and off of your feet. You made a weak effort to thrash, to squirm, to dig your nails into the forearm laid over your midriff, but Satoru didn’t make a sound, didn’t let you go, only hauling you back to where Suguru sat on the edge of the mattress. You shouldn’t have felt as betrayed as you did. They’d both always been able to pick you up and throw you around like a kitten, being carried from place to place by its scruff. It was always only going to be a matter of time before they stopped listening to your half-hearted protests entirely.

“Over the knee,” Suguru said with a sort of flippant, beckoning gesture. “I want to make sure we get off on the right foot.”

Wordlessly, unceremoniously, you were dropped face-down into Suguru’s lap – his thighs pressing into your exposed stomach. Satoru lowered himself to the floor in front of you, sitting cross-legged and reaching out, cupping your face delicately. More out of reflex than anything intelligent, you tried to push yourself up, but a hand on the small of your back was enough to keep you paralyzed. Sometime between the doorway and the bed, the shaking had gotten worse. You doubted you’d be able to keep your legs underneath you, anymore. “Twenty-five,” he announced – an executioner reading out his victim’s sentence. “Fifteen for trying to leave us, and ten more for not listening to me. Does that sound fair, Satoru.”

“So mean, Sugu’,” Satoru whined, but you could already see a crooked smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. “The poor thing doesn’t even know what’s going on.”

“Which is why we have to make a strong impression. I want her to know there’ll be consequences for misbehavior.” You felt his hand drifting up the length of your spine, lingering on the sensitive junction between your shoulder blades. “Twenty-five, okay, princess? I’m going to need you to count for me – if you lose track, we’ll have to start over.”

“Suguru, ‘toru, I don’t—I don’t understand what—” You were cut off by a sudden, bruising blow to the plush of your ass – all force, no friction. It took you a second to realize that it was Suguru’s hand, another to consciously acknowledge that he’d spanked you. Like you were some bratty toddler. Like he wanted to hurt you.

It took another lash to know you out of your spell-bound state and send a keening, pitchy cry spilling past your lips. The tears you’d managed to hold back minutes ago were back in full-force, dripping down your cheeks and pooling on your chin, accompanied by the occasional sniffle or ragged sob. Suguru hummed, but any sympathy he might’ve had remained unexpressed, hidden behind a thick veil of strict impassivity. “I need you to count. I know it’s hard, but it’ll only get more difficult if you don’t cooperate.” He paused, clicked his tongue. “We’re still on one. Are you going to be good, or do I have to get the belt?”

“Hurts, Suguru, you’re hurting—”

Another blow, this one to the back of your thighs and twice as harsh as the first two. Meekly, you mumbled a weak “…one.”

You couldn’t see past your own tears by the fifth strike, and by the tenth, you were sobbing openly. Each blow leaves your skin burning and your ass pulsing, but despite everything, he was far from brutal. His pace was measured, precise, and he was strategic – careful to never abuse the same spot to the point of numbness. After the fifteenth, you sniffled and forced yourself to raise your head, meeting Satoru’s eyes and silently pleading for his pity, for his help. Rather than empathy, you found a glassy stare and his hand in his lap, pumping idly over his cock. A few hours ago, you could picture yourself teasing him for not being able to go a full minute without someone touching him, even himself. Right now, the sight alone was enough to make bile rise into the back of your throat.

His thumb ran over your cheek, his palm settling under your chin and tilting your head back. “Don’t give me that look. This is twice as gentle as he’s ever been with me.”

By the time it was over, you were near-inconsolable, every number followed immediately by a string of distorted gibberish, a disjointed plea for him to stop, or be gentle, or let you go. You laid limp across Suguru’s lap as he drew slow, tender patterns into your abused flesh, every little touch sparking a new kind of pain, dragging another ragged sob up from somewhere deep and visceral in your chest. He was talking to you, cooing sweet nothings, but you couldn’t hear him. You didn’t want to hear him. You wanted to leave.

But, you couldn’t, and even if you’d had the strength to try, you wouldn’t have gotten very far. You hadn’t seen him move, but at some point, Satoru must’ve left the room. When your crying began to wane and you could bare the thought of opening your eyes, you found him standing in front of you, holding a glass of water in one hand and three white pills in the other. “Open up,” he said, drawing out each syllable for a beat longer than he really had to. “It’ll help with the pain, promise.”

You pursed your lips, grit your teeth, but Suguru’s thumb pressed into a fresh bruise and fear immediately overwhelmed your sense of caution. Suguru took precious seconds to reposition you – drawing you up by your shoulders to straddle his thigh – and Satoru’s hand found its way back to your cheek, his thumb tapping your bottom lip and slipping onto your tongue as you, reluctantly, opened your mouth. The pills were first, allowed to sit on your tongue until their bitterness reached the back of your throat, then the water, poured sloppily enough for the excess to spill out of the corners of your mouth. The reaction was instantaneous – a wave of nausea, then fatigue, your eyes immediately too heavy to keep open, your body too distant to justify attempting to control. You went slack, falling against Suguru, and he chuckled, bowing his head.

The last thing you felt was his mouth against your throat before everything went numb.

~

You woke up hours later, tucked into a bed that wasn’t yours and in more pain than you’d ever felt before.

Shock and terror startled you into consciousness before you could so much as attempt to fade back into blissful oblivion. You tried to curl up, to make yourself as small and as safe as possible, but your leg caught on something – a leather cuff, discovered after throwing the sheets that’d been laid over you to the side. A shackle, lined in velvet and sitting loosely at the base of your ankle, a silver chain connecting it to an unseen point underneath the bed. You gave it another tug, just to check, and unsurprisingly, it refused to budge. You choose to look away before the pit quickly opening up inside of your chest could deepen any further.

Instead, you turned your attention outward – to the rest of the bedroom. It wasn’t the one you shared with Satoru and Suguru, or the undecorated guestroom Satoru had semi-converted into a home office. The walls were a pale pink, the shelves already stocked with stuffed animals, fairy lights, jewelry boxes that (knowing Satoru) were no doubt filled to the brim. You weren’t wearing Suguru’s shirt anymore, either. Your blood ran cold as you glanced down and found yourself in a pastel blue nightgown – all lace and silk and frills no one could ever hope to actually sleep in. You didn’t know whether to be disgusted that they’d re-dressed you while you were unconscious, without your permission, or thankful they hadn’t waited until you were awake enough to try and stop them.

Seconds seemed to move in thick, dripping clumps. You couldn’t be sure how long passed until your disoriented stillness was interrupted, but by the time the plain, white door (a neat row of undone deadbolts visible above to the knob) swung open, Satoru stepping through with Suguru following shortly behind him. Automatically, you started to move towards them, but caught yourself, pressing you back into the headboard and crossing your arms over your chest, as if that gave you any kind of authority. As if there was any authority you could have, chained to the floor in the bedroom of a pre-schooler.

“You were beginning to worry us,” Suguru started, sitting on the foot of the bed. “But, then again, our little princess was always a delicate one, wasn’t she?”

You stiffened, bristled. You opened your mouth, but closed it as Satoru draped an arm over your shoulders, collapsing next to you. “Here,” he said, holding something out. “Suguru wanted to make you ask, but I’m not that stingy.”

 You attempted to shift away from him, but Satoru had never made things that easy. He clung to you that much tighter as your eyes fell to his hand, finding—

A cup.

A sippy cup, pink and plastic and decorated with little, glittering clouds.

The nausea was immediate, nearly overwhelming. You wanted to vomit. You wanted to throw it across the room. You wanted to do anything but accept it, but your throat was bone-dry, a steady throbbing already begging to root in the back of your skull. Wordlessly, you snatched it out of his hand and (with more than a little strain) pulled off the lid, drinking as quickly as you could. Satoru’s nails scraped against your bicep, but neither of them commented.

Suguru waited until you were finished to go on. “You’ll get used to it, after a few weeks. It’s really not that different from our prior relationship, just a few aesthetic changes ‘toru and I thought a—” He paused, grinned. “—softer environment might suit you.”

“We can be more honest now, too.” Satoru sounded too giddy, too happy. “Those last couple of days practically killed me – having to watch you leave the apartment, acting all independent n’ shit. This way, there won’t be anything stopping us from keeping you all to ourselves.”

A beat passed in silence. It took you a moment to realize you were supposed to say something, and another to actually open your mouth, to find your voice when all you wanted to do was shrivel up and shut your eyes. “I don’t really understand what’s going on,” you muttered, like that would make it true. Like enough stuttering, simpering obliviousness would be what made them change their minds. “When are you going to let me go?”

Beside you, you heard Satoru try and fail to suppress a breath of a laugh, and Suguru’s grin only seemed to widen.

[foldingfittedsheets]

When I was in third grade I got Weird with writing. It makes sense in hindsight. Oppressed people find their own ways of carving out space for themselves.

The first bit I did landed me in trouble more immediately. I was given, god knows by who, one of those enormous giant pencils. I loved it. My tiny nine year old body was consumed with love of this pencil that was roughly 1/3 of my height. I insisted that I would only use this pencil in school.

It was an unlucky year to be stricken with whimsy. My third grade teacher was a tyrannical Japanese woman fueled by her dislike of children. I suspect the cultural divide between how she expected children to behave and the reality of American children broke her.

She was three foot nothing and getting berated by her was the first time I’d ever looked down at an adult. I also saw her once standing next to her white 6’ behemoth of a husband and tried to conceptualize how two such disparate people had sex. I never could.

If you think I’m exaggerating her wrath it’s worth noting that my best friend at the time developed a stress disorder from this woman and I fell into a bizarre stutter that cleared up the moment I was out of class. In her classroom breaking down crying was a weekly occurrence.

But despite the frigid conditions, I persevered. I stayed silly. I brought my enormous novelty pencil to class every day. It was an act of rebellion that I sank my teeth into and refused to let go. I could barely sharpen it because its girth defied standard sharpeners the way I defied my teacher. This was my pencil.

When she attempted to confiscate my giant pencil I rose an unholy ruckus. This would not turn into the confiscated holographic Charizard, my tamagotchi, or my little pop frogs that she never returned to me. No. This was my goddamn pencil. There was no rules against enormous novelty pencils and after a heated week of debate she finally conceded I could use the hated thing.

It was stolen by my kleptomaniac friend a week or so after that a fact I’d only discover at the end of the year. But my tiny mind was convinced the evil teacher had stolen it.

In retaliation, instead of resuming normal behavior I decided that I would do all my writing upside down and backwards. No one, least of all myself, could explain why I felt this was necessary. Maybe I felt I’d be cool like a spy, maybe I just needed to buck the teachers hateful authority, or maybe I was just a little autistic kid.

When taking notes or writing essays I’d arrange the paper to be upside down. It may surprise you to know that my penmanship was actually quite decent, albeit I wrote a little more slowly than my classmates. That’s why it took the teacher a while to realize what was going on. There wasn’t a drop in the quality of my writing.

Unsurprisingly she hated it when she found out. She lambasted me both privately and in front of the class to write normally. I asked if my writing was illegible. She had to admit that no, it was not. I shrugged. I did not see a problem.

Like the pencil my new writing fixation was cited as being a distraction to the other children. But similarly she didn’t have an easy way to make me stop. She marked me down, gave me several talking tos, and generally bullied me into writing like everyone else.

All attempts at correcting me simply ran off my back. I had found a way to cope with how miserable she made all of us, by inflicting misery back upon her. I was unswayed for the rest of the year.

When I graduated up into fourth grade and had a teacher I adored it suddenly stopped. I looked at the paper and thought, Well that’s silly, and flipped it the right way round.

I can still write upside down, though, a testament to my worst year in public school.

[hoshigray]

Request! Geto never had to worry bc reader basically never interacts with guys. That 3we until he saw her hugging her male coworker and now he has to put her in place if ykiwm😋

𝐚. 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: oh yikesss, possessive sugu incoming, oof. lmao this is lowkey like the one i did for my kinktober, but what the hell

⊹ 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬: Geto x afab/fem! reader - explicit content; minors DNI - canon divergence; Geto is a jujutsu tech sorcerer - shibari; rope bondage (cross-chest box tie, frogtie) - sex toys; use of a vibrator - fingering (f! receiving) - clitoral play (swiping and pinching) - pleasure denial - mild possessive behavior - pet names (angel, baby, pretty girl, my love, sweetie) - cameo: Gojo - mention of drool/saliva.

⊹ 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 1.3k

“Hahhh…ahhaa, Sug’ruu, I can’t…Mmm!”

“Aww, are you feeling well, my love? You look awful.”

And whose fault would that be?

Geto removes his jacket to put aside one of the chairs of the many desks. He stretches his sides and cracks his neck, releasing a massive sigh after a long inhale. He’s now relaxed that he’s back in his classroom. 

However, he isn’t the only one here. Someone he knows is here with him — waiting for him to return. And Geto’s lips curl into a smile once he looks down to see someone on the cold wooden floor.

You were in nude form, clothes sprawled to the side of you. A long red rope contorts around your body, binding your arms behind your back with your wrists tied together. Your thighs and ankles were restricted together; the red ropes tied the leg together to that of a frog-like position. And a red blindfold covers your line of sight. You were whining and writhing in this bounded position. Why? 

Geto slowly walks around you to take in the view, noticing that the vibrators he placed on your body were still where he had left it. Your nipples had a vibrator taped on to each, and the buzzing noises made Geto’s skin crawl. There was another set of bullet vibrators buzzing down south. Three white wires are connected to a remote lying on the floor, and they seem to be stuffed inside the wet entrance of your chasm. So, five vibrators are teasing your body all at once. What a hell. 

He comes down to your level, bringing you up with a hand to lie on his propped knee, and your breathing so low and hushed. “How are you feeling, angel?” He lifts the blindfold to have you peek at him, noticing your eyes are puffy and wet. Poor thing was crying for him.

“Sugu…” You called him by his nickname, a tool in hopes of getting on his good side. “Can you…please…”

Dark eyebrows raise, “Please what, pretty girl?” He shields your eyes again and slithers his hand down from your chin to your neck, and he loves how your breathing lessens when he approaches your breasts. He pulls off one taped vibrator to free the bud. For a moment before he blows on it, “What do you want from me?”

“Can I—Ohh!” His tongue flicks your nipple; it’s so sensitive and sore! “Can I please…cum…?”

“Ahh, what a dirty girl,” Geto chuckles to you as he kisses your mound, his hand now traveling further down to the three wires on the floor. He gently pulls one, a loud noise of one vibrator bumping into another. “You were doing so well being patient for me. I have one more meeting, baby; why can’t you wait after that?”

Your breathing gets shaky, leaning towards his frame to get through. “Because...Mmmm, I want you to make me feel—Ohh…! Good...”

“Is that right?” More laps around your nipple before he sucks it in. “You want me to make you feel good? Not Satoru?” You gulped at the mention of the other’s name, feeling Geto’s intense, indigo gaze on your face. 

In all honesty, Geto admits he can be a jealous man — especially regarding you, his sweet angel. The reason why you’re in this situation is because your partner saw you hug another man yesterday. Satoru Gojo, the dark-haired man’s best friend of all people! Granted, it was because you were only giving a gift of sweets to the tall sorcerer because he came back from a terrible, dangerous mission with Geto. And the white-haired fool, oblivious to personal space as always, brought you in for a hug as he thanked you for the bag of sweets you handed him. 

Putting his hands on you did make Geto unpleasant, yet this was Gojo we were talking about; the guy acts like personal boundaries don’t apply to him. However, what did upset the man more was you reciprocating the embrace with a cheerful smile — a smile only Geto was to bear witness to. It twinged his heart – cliche, but it did. You toyed with his feelings, and he had to correct you for such behavior. 

The man increases the intensity of the vibrators inside your cunt, and your body jerks unexpectedly. He then slides a finger inside your vagina to play around your walls with the toys, and you have to remind yourself not to scream as his fingertips scrape the velvet texture. “You hurt my feelings, sweetie,” he listens to your whimpers get higher and higher as he increases the speed of his finger. “You know I’m not one for sharing — especially with Satoru.” 

“Hahhh, Sugu’uuu, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—“ You press your lips together to suppress a moan once Geto takes your nipple back into his mouth, pushing the nub to the roof of his mouth and skimming it with his teeth. A sharp gasp escapes your frame at the addition of another finger inside you, and more tears well up from how much stimulation is happening. “Nmoohh, please, I won’t do it again…”

“You promise?” He whispers into your ear, slowly removing his fingers to increase the intensity of the vibrators inside you. Those same fingers now go to your clit where he swipes in slow circles, and you nearly choke on your spit. “Tell me, who’s my favorite girl?” 

“Mee! I’m y’re favorite…!” Despite the ropes tightening around your ankles and thighs, your lower half still jolts to his touch on your delicate pearl, trying to sway your hips to move with the friction. 

“And who’s your only favorite man in this world?”

“You, Sugu!” Oh, the way you desperately said his nickname was so pathetic to hear — so sweet. He couldn’t stop the sneer from flourishing on his face. “You’re my favorite—Mmmph! Always…”

Good girl. “You wanna come so bad, baby?” His thumb and forefinger rub against your clitoris, evoking cute squeaks to fly out your drooling mouth. You nod hastily; that’s not what he wanted, so he pinches your clit. “Words, pretty girl, words.”

“Yessh, please let me cum, my love…!” Now that’s what he wanted to hear, being all cute and pitiful for him to grant you what you’re craving. And you can feel it coming, your nerves heightened with the climb of your orgasm.

But then, you sense his fingers gone from your clit, the cold air occupying their absence. Instead, he puts the vibrator that once teased your nipple back and rests your figure onto the cold wooden floor once more. Your brows screw together with quivered lips, “No, pleaseee! Don’t leave me again!” You whined.

Too late, he was adorning his jacket and heading out for the sliding door of the classroom. “I’m sorry, angel, but I gotta get to this meeting first. Don’t make too much noise while I’m gone, okay?” God, you pulled his heart the way you helplessly laid there. “Don’t give me that look, my love. I’ll be right back when it’s done.” He steps outside and closes the door behind him, swiftly locking it while checking for his surroundings.

And it was a good thing he did, too. Because right around the corner came his best friend, Gojo, the blindfolded sorcerer, retrieving the raven-headed other. “Yo, there ya are, Suguru! The meeting’s about to start; don’t slack off before Yaga comes for our heads.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” he walks alongside his companion, heading to the other side of the hall. 

“Hmm, by the way, where’s Y/n?” The white-haired man inquires while scratching his ear. “I haven’t seen them since this morning.”

Geto hums to the question, the shrug of his shoulders to seal the deal. “They felt sick all of a sudden, went to go see Shoko to check.”

The taller sorcerer tilts his head with a scoff. “Who said you were a good liar?”

“You’re one to talk.”

© 𝐇𝐨𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐲2024 – reblogs and comments are appreciated wholeheartedly ☆ header edit done by me + dividers by @/benkeibear.