#also she isn’t physically there the ocean is her happy place in her mind | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

snackhobi · 4 years ago

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pairing: jungkook x reader / word count: 7.4k / genre: pacific rim au with brief smut (NSFW, 18+)

summary: there are no secrets in the drift. if jungkook were to see the mess inside your head and heart, laid utterly bare, he’d turn away from you.

warnings: sexually explicit content (briefly), unprotected sex (please be safe when you have sex) / reference to injuries but nothing graphic, giant robots powered by love punching big alien monsters

a/n: this is a birthday gift for the amazing @yeojaa. happy birthday, erin. this is completely self serving and is stuffed full with inside references that I hope you’ll enjoy. I wrote this in two days and it kicked my ass because I did so much reading and researching that turned out to not even come up in the story 👁👄👁 you know when I said I was studying? I lied. I was writing HAHAHAH ily I hope you like it hhhh (this is unbeta’ed so please forgive any mistakes it’s 1:30am as I’m scheduling this) (also summaries are so hard, I’m sorry)

Jeon Jungkook really is the perfect posterboy for a Jaeger pilot.

Broad across the shoulders and trim at the waist, all sharp punches and hard muscle, resilient and tough, with a face that’s the perfect balance of angles and softness; the cut of his jaw easing up and into his pretty mouth, the line of his brows subdued by his warm eyes—he’s a Goddamn vision, raw masculinity overlaid on rich veins of boyishness, glittering stratum that sparkle and shine even under the harsh lights of the Shatterdome.

He pouts when he thinks and his hair hangs a little in his big, big eyes and he has dimples that appear when he grins, teeth poking out onto his pretty pink lips, like someone took a rabbit and turned it into a man and packed on pounds of muscle alongside. Undeniably powerful and strong, but youthful and sweet, too.

Alongside Kim Taehyung—arresting and beautiful and somehow affable and approachable, all at the same time—they’re exactly what South Korea needs right now, propelling the country’s new look for their renewed assault against the kaiju. They’re the lucky new Rangers who’ve claimed ownership of the only Mark-5 that their homeland has produced, Bulletproof Striker, a fucking gorgeous Jaeger bristling with the latest and greatest technology that the world has produced.

But that doesn’t mean they’re the best that South Korea has to offer.

Cypher Zero is smaller, lighter, older, but she’s fierce. Just like her pilots. You and Yoongi might not be the burning beacons of hope that Jungkook and Taehyung are, polished and buffed to a squeaky shine, but you don’t need to be. You’re vicious and victorious and show no signs of stopping. The kaiju kills painted on your Mark-4’s shoulder are evidence enough of that, notches for each monster taken down, spray painted in one tiny corner of the huge swathe of burnished metal plating, the red edges of her midnight skin.

Bulletproof Striker is almost untouched, deployed just once since her recent launch, flawless exterior so at odds with Cypher Zero’s battered facade. Cypher’s beautiful, of course, but bears the history of your skirmishes, inside and out: scuffed paintwork, dented metal, rust dripping down from the ladder rungs dotted across her, melting into the obsidian of her hull.

Jungkook and Taehyung move in a way that’s practiced, disciplined motions of combat that their Jaeger echoes in turn. Her mechanical movements reflect those of the men inside her head, skilled and superb. Stunning. But you and Yoongi? You fight dirty, violent and rough; messy bar room brawls; shattered glass and clawing hands in beer soaked backrooms, tinged sulphur yellow under dirty lightbulbs; two kids who fought against a world that was against them.

(Two damaged people coming together in the Drift to make something even stronger than the sum of your parts.)

(Two damaged people who survived the rough hands of the Jaeger Academy, trying to take them, push them, shape them, break them.)

(Life isn’t kind. You’d learned that young, surrounded in the splintered remnants of your childhood home, the facade of family and happiness already gone, long long long ago, leaving you aching and lonely and cold. The prospect of fighting thousands of tons of alien hatred, lifting out of the depths of the uncaring, dark sea? At least you can see the kaiju coming. Broken households and loneliness? A little harder to lay your hands on.)

(But out of everything you lost, you’d gained one thing—Min Yoongi, another quiet, damaged thing, but with the biggest depths of warmth and love underneath that hard surface; your best friend, your brother-in-arms, growing alongside you, with you. Damaged kids turned bitter teenagers turned razor-edged adults, outcasts in solitude, but together. Not alone.)

(The deeper the bond, the better you fight. Falling into the Drift with Yoongi had been easy, years of tangled connection bleeding into the images that flashed across your brain. The same memories from different angles, overlaid with different emotions, undercurrents eddying under the surface that caught both of you and swept you up in its flow; the same mind, bridged by hundreds of tons of metal and technology and firepower underneath you, linked together in the silence of the Drift.)

There’s reverence, in the way these two new pilots look at you both, reverence and awe and respect alike: older Rangers, more experienced, history written across the worn edges of your Drivesuits, the paint flaking away from your battle armour, scuffs and scrapes on the once unblemished veneer; knowledge etched into the feline slant of Yoongi’s eyes, the turn of your shoulders and hips.

You know Jungkook’s track record. You know of the endless months of assessment and sparring and psych evals and Drift tests and simulation drops that every successful Ranger has to go through, and Jungkook had trumped them all, stood atop them like a conqueror surveying his hard-won lands—gifted, talented, some even said God-touched. And yet for all this indomitable talent and skill, there’s still humility at his core, a willingness to defer with respect.

That deference is obvious whenever he sees you. Jungkook’s dark eyes will touch your own, for a moment, dark and deep and bright—and then his gaze will skitter away, cockiness and bravado dissolving into something submissive, yielding. (Shy.) You’ve watched him orbit you, the younger ranger caught in your gravity, always nearby—the Shatterdome is only so big, for its magnitude and sprawling corridors—but never broaching that final gap, that little step, into Cypher Zero’s space, Yoongi’s space, your space. Keeping himself at arm’s length.

South Korea’s golden boy, less afraid of the Kaiju than he is of his sunbaenim.

Jungkook and Taehyung are both beautiful. But you and Yoongi are less so, unapproachable in ways that the younger pilots aren’t, private and prickly, like grasping a patch of stinging nettles with bare hands, stinging and burning.

As if Jungkook isn’t terrifying and gorgeous in his own ways. As if he doesn’t shine brighter than the sun himself. Taehyung moves through the world with a thoughtless, charismatic ease that Jungkook doesn’t share—but he’s still magnetic, bold and brilliant, monstrously skilled at everything he puts his mind to, training again and again and again to get it right, get it right, get it right.

To get it perfect.

But there’s no level of perfectionism that can surmount the twisted, unpredictable nature of the kaiju belched forth from the breach. No matter how good you are, how strong or fast, how smart or seasoned, sometimes you still get caught in that hurricane, even in a Jaeger.

It doesn’t matter how many engines are packed into each muscle strand. It doesn’t matter how fast the pistons and levers and gears shift and move. It doesn’t matter that the pilots in her cockpit are impeccable and incredible. Under the cloak of deepest night and pouring rain, blanketed in darkness and water from the heavens above and the sea below, movement is impossible to track—and when Steelbrute rises from the waves, no one sees the kaiju coming.

Bulletproof Striker takes the hit. Jungkook and Taehyung fight back but they’re blindsided and overwhelmed, and their Jaeger falls to her knees in the churn of the Pacific Ocean, salt water crashing over her in choppy waves as Steelbrute’s merciless maw gapes wide open.

Cypher Zero is 250ft tall and weighs 1410 tons. You and Yoongi are tiny specks of organic matter in a fearsome behemoth of titanium and tungsten and graphene and circuitry, commanders of a weapon that’s the same size as a skyscraper—and yet you wouldn’t think that for how fast you move. Zero hesitation. No verbal communication. Cypher’s legs cut through endless waves and gain momentum with each crashing step that slams into the seafloor before you leap forward in a flurry of motion and Drift powered fury.

Your motions in the Conn-Pod are ragged and incensed, your arms and legs moving in sync with Yoongi, with Cypher Zero, a snarl ripping out of your co-pilot’s usually quiet mouth as the kaiju lurches underneath you. The world narrows down to this: throwing yourself into the fray, jagged knuckles edged with plasma pummelled into Steelbrute’s skin in a scuffle that’s vicious, aggressive, until Bulletproof Striker regains her footing.

The sun is rising, grey and cold on the horizon when Steelbrute finally sinks into the sea, toxic blood flooding the water with neon blue. When you step out of the cockpit, Yoongi’s fringe is matted with sweat, and you can feel all the places the circuitry suit sticks to your skin—piloting a Jaeger is mentally and physically exhausting, every muscle and organ and bone working overtime for endless hours as you fight tooth and nail. Without the helmets in the way, there’s nothing stopping you bumping your foreheads together, heedless of the sweat slicked there; Yoongi’s hand rests at the back of your head, a familiar cradle.

“All good,” you say. Yoongi lets out a quiet bark of a laugh, rough and exhausted.

“I want a nap,” he says, like he always does, even if you’re a long way away from that, still fully suited and due to speak to the Marshalls. There are so, so many things separating you from the bliss of sleep.

One thing that’s not part of the normal routine, though, is the other pilots catching you, demanding your recognition, respectful (Taehyung) but insistent (Jungkook). You know that Yoongi doesn’t like attention or hero-worship, but there’s nothing except gratitude, here, bent heads and words of thanks. You’d saved their lives, after all. Saved their Jaeger from being torn apart, pain screaming through their own bodies of flesh and bone, connected to their metal monster. Of course they’re grateful.

You dismiss it with a hard cut of your hand.

“It’s nothing,” you say.

You’re speaking the words you know are in Yoongi’s head—years of friendship and shared Drifts leaving his thought processes wide open to you—although you know you’re sharper than he is, harsher than he is, even, for all that he looks like the cold one from the outside. Long lashes and silken hair don’t translate to something soft and feminine and pretty, and you’re all ragged edges and rough parts, bleeding into the delivery of your words. Yoongi rounds the words in his mouth and places them into the world with a rumble of quiet strength that belies his past, but you? Your tongue is cutting and terse and drips with distrust, even when you don’t mean it to, staring at these two boys, Jungkook’s eyes so brown and large when he stares back at you.

The truth is that you care about humanity, of course. You care about humanity and you care about the millions of people in the cities that line the coasts and further inland, and you care about your fellow pilots, skilled but soft-hearted as they are. You’re stronger. You have to be. That’s what Yoongi is, that’s what you are: fighters. You fight dirty because you fight to win, not to protect yourselves. You’ll fight and you’ll die for this, for them, even if there’s no friendship there. Not yet. You’re still too distant, for all that you’d thrown yourself in the line of fire to rip the kaiju from the younger Rangers.

And when Jungkook levels a look at you, there’s a flicker of something. A spark. All the glittering of his warm eyes comes together like the cascading sparks of molten fire that fall when metal is cut through— his eyes score through you, down down down, right to your core, underneath all the armour you’ve laid about yourself throughout your life. Your heart stutters. You’ve been watching Jeon Jungkook, and he’s all cocky Ranger bravado, or innocent brown eyes and shy, curving smiles, and yet.

And yet. You know he sees this soft part of you, somehow. Past the thorns and sharp leaves, past the hard husk, into the rich, bursting sweetness inside, oozing red gems of pomegranate that yield so easily to the fingers and mouth.

(He’s temerarious and modest and wickedly perceptive too, it seems.)

“That was our kill,” he says suddenly. Taehyung—the voice piece of the two, the one who’s been smiling and speaking, easy and slow—goes still at his side.

“What?” Yoongi’s eyes pierce through him, but Jungkook keeps his focus on you.

“Steelbrute. Our kill. It was a hit from our rockets that took him out,” Jungkook says, eyes still glinting with that sparkling shine. Slicing through you with an explosion of light. “Not your blades.”

Silence steals over you, for a breath. It’s never truly silent in the Shatterdome, an iron fortress that never sleeps, but for a second, there’s quiet. It wraps around you. Tight. Almost deafening.

But then you break that silence.

You laugh.

You laugh at the cheeky grin that pulls at Jungkook’s lips, the boyish lift to his face. You laugh at his shamelessness, the sudden 180 from his earlier fear. You laugh at the way he’s diluted this astonishing, formidable thing—humanity coming together to destroy alien predators that threaten the planet—into a competition.

“You’re a menace, Jeon Jungkook,” you say.

Stinging nettles you might be, but if you’re grabbed hard and fast by confident hands, you don’t wound. Jeon Jungkook defers to respect, avoids confrontation, bows his head and quiets his mouth, but he knows, now, that he can do this. That he can push you like this, and you’ll let him, sway against it, let yourself be pushed.

Yoongi slides you a glance out the corner of his eyes, a light touch, a tacit agreement to an unspoken question.

“You can have it. Steelbrute’s yours.” There’s the smallest curl to your lips as you speak for you both. There’s something weirdly easy and familiar to this, to this interaction, even if you’ve barely exchanged words before now, giving this triumph to the other pilots hand over fist.

(Giving it to Jungkook on a platter.)

You can see the flare of triumph in Jungkook’s eyes. You know it’s not for the notch of their first kill, one they can add to their Jaeger. It’s for something far harder to achieve, something far more ephemeral: digging down and past your cool veneer and lifting out a smile, spreading it across your lips like warm butter, liquid gold.

And he keeps making you smile.

Jeon Jungkook, you find, is a force of nature, relentless, an ocean. Sometimes he’s soft, loving waves of glittering blue that crash on pearly white beaches, playful and bright. Sometimes, he’s intense, the crashing waves of a storm tossed sea, powerful and unstoppable. Always, he’s striking, even when he’s not trying—even more so because of it, moving without thought or uncertainty, a silence settling over your thoughts whenever you see him like this. See him in this raw state, so unafraid where before he’d curbed his tongue and bent his head in front of you. Now, he’s just himself, without filter.

Taehyung is there too, of course. Both pilots join your small, fiercely private circle, not just a path from you to Yoongi any more. They become intertwining lines, a pattern that’s drawn between the four of you, pilots, friends. And you learn, that for all that you’d thought that Taehyung was the dominant one outside of their Jaeger, social and extroverted and unabashed, Jungkook isn’t quiet. Not when he’s comfortable.

(Not, now, when he’s with you.)

He’s a myriad of things, endlessly deep, so different from you, from Yoongi, but—the truth of it settles inside you, your joints, the marrow of your bones, the blood that pulses forth from your heart each time it beats in your chest, liquid life running through you.

Drift compatibility.

Not that it matters. You already have a partner. You’re never going to open yourself up to anyone that isn’t Yoongi, who’s seen every part of you already. There’d been no fear about letting Yoongi see inside your brain, your heart, the raw, bleeding parts of you—because he’d already known them. Just like you’d known his. Yoongi stands to your right, inside the Conn-Pod and out, a driving force, even in his silence.

But Jungkook is softer, sweeter, for all his raw power and skill, respect engraved into his every motion, even when he’s teasing and making you laugh. Even when he ignores the social guidelines that he should follow, does follow for others, everyone except you.

And you don’t mind. You don’t bite out insults at him when he slides into the quiet hollow you’ve scraped out, a small space with just enough room for the people you keep in your heart. You’re still barbed and spiked, warding away unwanted attention, but for Jungkook, the claws retract.

You’re still you, of course. Jungkook calls you mean, says that you bully him, even as he’s flopped across your bunk, eating your rations, shovelling coveted popcorn into his mouth. He might pout and sigh and cry oppression, but you’re soft on him and he knows it. That quiet hollow in your heart is a little larger, now, a little louder. Jungkook is brazen in his claim of this space, spreading each of his limbs wide as he fits himself into every part of it. He doesn’t know every piece of your past, and you don’t plan to let him see all the messy parts bundled in your chest, but. But he’s still there.

And you let him stay. You make a home for him inside you and let him take the key. He might tilt his head and goad you, might pretend there’s a genuine challenge in the set of his jaw, but you know it’s all tempered with admiration, veneration. Friendship.

(And where he clearly respects you, you admire him in turn. You’re reminded of your differences every second he moves and breathes and just exists in front of you, but you don’t have to be similar to someone to realise just how incredible they are.)

(But though you’re different, there are similarities. You’re not a mirrored image, a reflection, like you are with Yoongi. Instead, you’re a line drawn between two separate places, an isohel, sun lighting up your world for the same sweep of the clock even for how far apart you are. Sharing that same, tenuous thing, for all your contrasting parts.)

(This thing that’s growing, held in your hands. This soft, gentle thing, shimmering, frail, unfurling slowly but undeniably. Tinged with happiness, disbelief. Disbelief that you’ve found this, that you can see Jungkook across the echoing cavern of the Shatterdome’s main hall, so far in the distance, barely visible at the foot of his Jaeger—and something will settle in your chest. Featherlight, iridescent. Something comforting.)

When you fight the kaiju, now, it’s with a deeper reserve of desperation. Taehyung and Jungkook aren’t just fellow pilots, dongsaeng that you’re obliged to look after: they’re your friends, something more than that too, part of the rare handful of people in the world who understand, this overwhelming pressure to fight and win and protect the things you love. The people you love. They understand what it’s like to step into someone else’s head, to be connected to that person on a level that’s unfathomable, anchored in a depth of love that’s endless. You’re their aegis, now, their shield.

(Jungkook’s shield.)

Maybe that’s what’s to blame. Maybe that’s why you’re so sloppy, this time. Maybe that’s why you throw yourselves in the way of the blow that was meant for Bulletproof Striker. Maybe that’s why Ojousan shreds Cypher Zero’s chest apart, her head, why Yoongi is almost ripped from you, his fear and pain screaming through your neural connection. You feel everything he feels and more beside, your heart hammering in your throat as you scream, Jaeger’s arm swinging up and around in tandem with your own motions as you try to rip the kaiju away, anything to protect Yoongi, so scared of losing him, always always always, scared of being left alone.

But you’re not alone.

Bulletproof Striker lifts up like an avenging angel. Her horns roar a challenge, an echoing battle cry as the younger pilots move in. Heavier and stronger, keeping her balance even in the turbulence of a fight, she takes the hits, gives back her own, sends the kaiju down into the crashing waves, waits for it to rise. But the monster is crafty and quick and even as you’re lifting your left arm—Yoongi’s hurt, so hurt, you know this, feel this, but he moves with you to ready the plasma cannon buried in the mechanics of your Jaeger’s hand, even if he’s keening with pain—you watch as the other pilots, too, fall victim to the clawed tail of the kaiju, screeching through layers of alloys and across their Conn-Pod.

Terror strikes through every part of you and morphs into hate. You hate the kaiju, hate your own weakness, hate the pain that’s been saved from being written into your own body while Yoongi screams and sobs even though he still fights. Your motions are anguished and desperate as you battle to overcome this beast that’s almost taken away everything that matters to you—and Cypher Zero, Yoongi, as damaged and hurt as they are, come through. (Like they always do, for you, always.)

And somehow, despite everything, for all the self-hatred and pain and fear, you pull through. You pull through. Damaged and hurt but alive.

Barely.

Barely alive.

(One hand gives, the other takes away.)

It takes hours for them to pick Yoongi’s Drivesuit from his body, crumpled around him from Ojousan’s claws, cutting into the soft flesh of his body, body ruined further by the fighting he’d been forced into despite his injuries; so many of Taehyung’s bones are shattered, and when you finally see him awake and with his eyes open, there are burst blood vessels that cast red across the usually warm expression, his friendly eyes.

You should be grateful that they’re alive. You should be on your hands and knees, weeping, benedictions dripping from your graceless mouth as you thank whatever merciless God above decided to turn their gaze on you and grant you this leniency. So many pilots have died and will continue to die, you know this, but somehow your partners are still alive.

And you are grateful. You are. But there’s bitterness on your tongue, twisted across your palate, sour and acrid and filling you with its taste. You’d been foolish and reckless and you’d almost lost the things you cared about most, even if you’d destroyed the kaiju, torn it apart and left its fluorescent indigo blood to corrode the ocean.

That’s what’s important, isn’t it. Saving humanity. One person, two people, four people—you’re the tiniest cogs in a whirring engine of billions. Unimportant. Just a spinning part that keeps the machine going.

When you’re not with Yoongi or Taehyung, an unmoving presence from their hospital beds, a hovering gargoyle carved from stone, you’re with Jungkook. Always, always, always. Somehow you’d both escaped without the injuries inflicted on your partners—you’d manage to break your little finger, and Jungkook had a black eye and a twisted ankle, and the both of you had mottles of bruises cast across your skin, pulled muscles, an ache carved into your bones, but that was it. That was it. It was almost laughable, how unscathed you are.

You hate it.

(It should have been you.)

Your legs—unbroken, unharmed—hang over steel scaffolding, motionless as you watch the tiny specks of people scuttling across the catwalks that criss-cross Cypher Zero’s body. You can see under her skin, damage peeling back all the layers of metal that should be holding her together. Endless showers of sparks fall and scatter as she’s stitched back together. Your beautiful girl is so damaged, so disfigured.

(You’d caught Yoongi as he’d fallen from the harness, listened to the horrible noises that had torn out of his lips as he’d dripped blood and pain over your shaking hands.)

The bland food you’d scraped off your dinner tray settles fitfully in your stomach, still one second, nausea bubbling up your throat the next.

It’s one of the rare times you’ve been alone, since… since everything. You’ve been taking comfort in Jungkook’s presence, unwavering and understated, needing someone there when staring at Yoongi’s battered face proved too much. Even with his own upheaval Jungkook’s been there, at your side, always close. Eyes locked on you and taking everything in, the tired set to your face, the expression that tugs down your lips, and still, he stays.

But he’d disappeared after you’d eaten, a peculiar look on his face—you know him well enough now to recognise that look, that it means he’s got something in his head, some plan he means to unfold. It’s the first time you’ve seen it since Taehyung had been pulled out of the Conn-Pod. It’s some semblance of normality, an expression of something other than pale-faced dread and bone-shivering guilt.

(You feel it too, that survivor’s guilt. Taehyung and Yoongi will recover but it’ll take time and so much suffering and you wish you could take that from them, heft that burden onto your own shoulders.)

(You know Jungkook feels the same.)

(You see it written in the tense lines of his body. Hear it unspoken in the words he shares with you. The bruises on his skin melt from red to purple to blue to yellow, but even if his body heals, his brain and heart bear the scars of helplessness.)

Jungkook reappears, finds you at the heavy steel door that leads into your room, rusted and worn but silent as it swings open in front of you. His eyes are wide and he’s breathless, like he’s been running, chest heaving as he sucks in air through his parted lips, a flash of teeth and tongue as he smiles.

Despite everything, you smile back. Helpless for that smile, always, happier now for the sight of it, for how little you’ve seen it. You want to see that smile every day. You don’t want him to worry for anything. You want him to feel the same way you do, when you see him: that quiet, maybe selfish thought that things are okay.

Maybe he does. (His eyes are so warm.) He presses something into your hands, something soft and round like a well-practised secret, and then he’s gone. You can tell by the gait of his stride that he’s going back to Taehyung, giving you a moment of lonely reprieve to wash the grime and dirt off your useless body before you follow in his footsteps, stationed at Yoongi’s side.

The door swings shut behind you.

You lift your hand.

It’s an orange.

It’s a small, overripe thing, hard nub of the stem falling away from the skin with only the lightest brush of your fingers. You stare at the fruit, its brightness cutting through the muted sepia tones of your surroundings, a point of colour in an otherwise dull room.

You haven’t seen an orange in months. Rationing is tough on everyone, even Jaeger pilots. You’d mentioned in passing, so long ago, an old habit of yours. Before something else floated above it, more important and interesting, you’d made a fleeting statement that had flitted across the surface of the conversation: you liked eating oranges in the shower. Liked that nice, cool citrus sweetness in your mouth while the rest of your body was caught in the fall of warm water.

It’s such a small, tiny thing. Just the briefest lament—there are more important things than the fact you can’t have shower oranges any more, after all—and you’d forgotten you’d even mentioned it.

But Jungkook hadn’t.

It’s almost syrupy sweet, this orange. You savour each slice, pressing them between your teeth, feeling the rush of juice burst forth through the pith and skin, and it’s so good you could cry.

You do cry.

Your mouth is full of orange and your eyes are full of tears and your head is full of—of—something, something so all encompassing that it overwhelms you, water cascading down the aching planes of your body as you crumple inwards. Jungkook had protected you with the overwhelming power of Bulletproof Striker, and he’s protecting you now, soft and considerate and kind, vulnerable and human. Stripped of tons of metal and technology, Jungkook wears his beating heart on his sleeve and is none the weaker for it.

This seemingly small thing means so much, so so so much. You understand him, and he understands you too, knows that this gesture is indicative of support and care and nurturing, a tiny fragment of peace he can offer you in the tumult of everything out of your control.

A tiny fragment of peace that’s part of a greater whole, all the things that Jungkook gives to you.

When the Marshalls gather you and tell you the plan going forwards, you’re unsurprised.

It makes sense, of course. Four pilots down to two still leaves a pair, and Bulletproof Striker is nearly functional even if Cypher Zero will stay out of commission while she’s rebuilt. Simple maths. One Jaeger, two pilots. You and Jungkook.

You’re scared.

You know you’re Drift compatible. Every fight in the Kwoon Combat Room is evidence enough of that. A dialogue, each challenge is meant to be a dialogue to show physical compatibility, and it is: there’s perfect sync in how you each move to strike, even if your motions are so different, muscles burning and breaths coming faster each time you attack, parry, strike, block. It’s not about winning or losing. It’s a conversation, one that you and Jungkook fall into without thought.

And he would be the perfect partner. That much isn’t in doubt. Loyal and open and strong, honourable and brave and kind—and you know him, have grown to learn so much about this golden boy, this bright, brilliant boy. He’s fucking indomitable and anyone would be lucky to find themselves in the same Jaeger as Jeon Jungkook.

But there are no secrets in the Drift.

To let someone in, you have to trust them. And you do, you do trust Jungkook, probably far more than makes sense, some unspoken thing between you burning like a wildfire. But while you trust him, confident in his strength and his heart, you trust yourself less.

You’ll be flayed open, naked and defenceless. He’ll see right to the core of you, every dirty corner of your crumpled soul, every shameful part of your foundations, uneven brickwork layered into your shaky temperament; strong one second, weak the next. He’ll see that you’re hard inside, too, biting and acidic right down to your shrivelled heart. This nascent thing that you’ve been building with Jungkook, been keeping safe in the cradle of your careful hands, will sputter out and die.

“Baby.”

Yoongi’s voice is comforting, a familiar rumble that rolls through your ears as you rest your head in his lap.

“And I mean that you’re literally being a baby,” he continues, and you curl your lip back from your teeth in a small snarl, menacing.

Yoongi just continues to thread his hands through your hair.

You’ve Drifted with Yoongi often and long enough to know how every thread of thought unspools in that skull of his. You know he has every confidence in the unshakeable pillar of your soul. He’s a brother to you, a connection that thrums deep in your veins even without the intimacy of the Drift, and the love you hold for him is undying and true.

But whatever you have with Jungkook is so timorous in the face of that.

“It’s different.” Yoongi looks down at the twist of your face. You know his thoughts and he knows yours too, your face and heart an open book to him. “But different isn’t bad.”

You keep your mouth shut, keep the words swallowed down in your throat, shoved down to the pit of your stomach. Keep it secret. Keep it safe.

“Baby,” he says again, softer, lower. This time, you know it’s an endearment.

At the end of the day, no matter what fear grips cold and endless at your insides, you’ll do it. You’ll Drift with Jungkook. You’ll throw everything you have into the pyre, watch it burn and turn to ash, if it means you can keep everyone safe. To save Yoongi, Taehyung, Jungkook—you’ll open yourself up to the mortifying ordeal of opening up, laying yourself bare. You have to.

It’s chaotic, anyway. The day that your practice Drift is scheduled is the day the next kaiju rises out of the breach, that dreaded rift between our world and theirs, because why would you be allowed to breathe, even for a second?

It’s a scramble into the cockpit. There’s no time for trial runs or test Drifts. You fly or you fall. Everyone’s in a state of orderly upheaval as you’re suited up and left to stride forwards into a Conn-Pod that isn’t yours, in a Jaeger that isn’t yours.

(Left to stride forwards to stand next to someone who isn’t yours.)

Your Drivesuit is grey. Jungkook’s is white. There’s a subtle hologramatic sheen laid across the planes of his armour, leaving him a multicoloured vision that shines out under the flicker of the cockpit’s endless tiny buttons and lights. Your own suit is a matte, gunmetal with accents of burning scarlet, far more battered and worn. Dark and wild in the face of Jungkook’s radiance. He’s the perfect answer to the kaiju invasion. You, though, feel like an interloper in a space that wasn’t designed for you, this circle room that’s been home to Jungkook and his true, real partner.

But he’s looking at you like there’s no one else he’d rather have by his side.

He doesn’t care that everything about this moment just cements how he’s too good for you in every conceivable way, elevated above you. Doesn’t care that you’re just a temporary stop gap. There’s trepidation, of course, skittering nerves that dance across his face for this first Drift, surrounded by all the commotion that’s swallowing the world up outside the cockpit. But there’s also that fire in his eyes, one you’ve learned to expect: Jungkook is a wildfire and will surmount any obstacle in a blaze of white-hot light.

And he wants you along for the ride.

(Burns bright for it.)

“You ready?” He asks, and the tiny tremor in his words takes you off guard even as it soothes a balm over the rash of apprehension that prickles across your skin.

(Because he’s nervous, too.)

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” you answer, truly.

His eyes crinkle into a smile, crescents of happiness as his lip peels back from his teeth. It should be jarring, seeing his sweet bunny smile in the pit of a Jaeger, so at odds with the military polycarbonate that girds his body with protection, the masculine edges of his face—but it’s not. The world is just a backdrop to Jeon Jungkook, dropping away as you fall into his eyes, twinkling stars of brightness and warmth that hold you safe, even now.

Peace and contentment steals over you. You’re almost shocked by it, the way your own face softens into a smile, the rising beat of your heart. Every ragged messy edge in you is smoothed over by Jungkook’s presence and you glow for him.

When the Conn-Pod drops, there’s the familiar weightlessness, the sway of your body in the harness as you fall. Anticipation roils through you as Bulletproof Striker’s head locks into place, whirring mechanisms securing you to nearly 2000 tons of metal, so much heavier than your own Jaeger. You’ve taken Jungkook’s usual place and he’s taken Taehyung’s, the right hemisphere, the dominant pilot, familiar with this machine in a way you’re not.

Not yet, at least.

“We’ve got this.”

Jungkook’s voice cuts through the noise, the AI talking at you, a narration of events you’ve long grown used to. You turn your head to look at him. He’s already looking at you, intent and sincere. Like always.

“Yeah,” you say. “Yeah, we have.”

There’s no point being afraid. In a few seconds, Jungkook will be in your head, washing over every part of you—and you’ll be in his, pressing your ethereal touch into every facet that comes together to make Jeon Jungkook who he is.

Seconds pass. There’s a little hitch in his breath, a stiffness to his limbs, and he shuts his eyes. You breathe in deep, deep, deep, sucking in a harsh breath into your greedy lungs—

—the timer hits zero—

—and then the Drift slams into you all at once, all encompassing and consuming, threading your minds together.

(Drifting with Yoongi is easy, the familiarity of coming home after so much time away.)

(But this?)

(This is throwing yourself into a cold lake on a hot summer’s day, bracing and refreshing and breath-stealing all at once, shocking life into every one of your limbs, so sharp and fast you’re scared you might drown before you breach the surface, water holding onto you and not letting you go. This is driving reckless and fast down empty roads, watching the world pass you in a blur, laughing in delight at the pleasure of it all. This is scaling a cliffside with nothing but your own hands and determination, digging your fingers into the unyielding rock, pulling yourself up-up-up, never letting yourself fall.)

(This is having Jungkook beside you. This is having Jungkook diving into the lake with all the grace of an Olympian before he rises to the surface, tosses his hair carelessly out of his face, and spits a mouthful of water at you with laughter in his eyes. This is having Jungkook behind the driver’s wheel, shifting gears without thought, looking away from the road to watch the way your hair dances in the wind. This is having Jungkook climbing beside you, waiting for you at the top, holding a hand out to pull you up and over so you can sprawl out beside him, exhausted and exuberant at the top of this mountain, basking in the sun with Jungkook just a hair’s breadth away from you.)

(He takes one look at you. He takes one look at all the dark of your memories, the cascading mess of your insides, the hidden things that are open to him in the Drift, cut open and peeled back for his gaze—and he doesn’t look away.)

(He sees everything, past skin and muscle and bone and nerves, even deeper, right into your heart—)

(—all the torrents that eddy the deep waters of your soul—)

(—and he doesn’t look away.)

(He doesn’t look away.)

(Can’t look away.)

(Doesn’t want to.)

(Never wants to.)

(Jeon Jungkook takes one look at you, your whole being, and he knows you.)

(And he doesn’t want you any less.)

It’s just a second, a flicker, a breath, this first connection in this Drift, falling into each other. But it’s also a lifetime, two lifetimes, four lifetimes; your memories, Jungkook’s memories, Yoongi’s memories in yours, Taehyung’s memories in Jungkook’s. Layers and layers and years and years piled over one another, a tumbling sprawl—but it’s easy. It’s easy, so easy, Jungkook seeing you, you seeing him, everything he is, everything you are, everything you are to each other, with each other, for each other. The important things. The things you need to know to navigate this together, in sync even before now, reading each other to a level neither had even realised.

And when you’ve killed the kaiju. When you’ve walked Bulletproof Striker back to shore, brought her back to the Shatterdome, back home, it doesn’t end. You lift out of the Drift, step out of your Drivesuits, as different as they are (as different as you are), and it doesn’t end.

Jungkook’s eyes linger, as heavy as a physical touch, and even as congratulations for a successful drop are bandied about you, he doesn’t leave your side. He keeps his hand against yours—not intertwined, but brushing, the curl of his fingers against your own. Touching. You’re not the protector here. He’s protecting you, in a way that doesn’t leave you feeling inferior or weak. You feel soft and warm and small and safe, pulled inexorably towards him, supported, buoyed up, and you don’t feel selfish for it.

Because he wants this.

He wants to be your comfort and your support.

He doesn’t want it to end.

(You don’t want it to end.)

And when you finally break away from those crowds, released from the shackles of responsibility and expectation—when you’re finally left alone, the two of you with each other, there’s no hesitation when you come together.

He lays you out beneath him and has you sobbing, back arching into the pleasure he draws out of your body, playing you like a maestro. Because he knows you, after all. He knows exactly how to trail his lips across your skin, your neck and stomach and thighs, painting marks across your body like it’s his personal canvas. He knows exactly how to have you twisting underneath him, how to pull those pretty sounds from your lips, fucking you with his fingers and his tongue until you’re a shaking mess. He kisses you sweet, merciless, letting you claw at his skin as you beg for more, more more more, wanting it, needing it, wanting him, needing him.

And you know he’ll give it to you. He’ll give himself to you, give you everything you ask for. You know how he wants to see you fall apart and you know how to move your body to have him gritting his teeth and staring in awe. You know how desperate he is to worship you, to show you his adoration and reverence, and you open up for him, unfurl like a flower, dripping nectar. When he finally presses into you, hot and long and thick, it’s so good you could cry. You draw him in-in-in, into your body and arms and heart, pressing your lips to the sweat at his brow, the taste of skin and salt and Jungkook bursting across your tongue.

There’s no Drift here, no curl of memories and unspoken thoughts between you. It’s physical and human, the crash of your bodies against each other, skin on skin, the thrust of his cock pressing into the dripping folds of your cunt. It’s the other half of that connection, the final piece, this thing you have with Jungkook, this perfect balance you have with him. It sears itself across your body and into your soul: it’s pleasure and passion and devotion carved into each touch of your lips and fingers, each roll of your hips, each time Jungkook makes you cum, gasping for him.

When he’s finally come apart inside you, spilling into your willing heat as you shake beneath him, arms and legs wrapped around his body as you pull him as close as you can, unwilling to let go—it still doesn’t end. You’re so wrapped up in Jungkook, in his arms, his heart, and you know he won’t let you go, either. He presses his lips against yours, chases those kisses, quiet and chaste to open-mouthed and dirty as the mood takes you, and then Jungkook rolls over you again, a spark in his eyes as he decides he’s still hungry for you.

You know, now, that all that time ago, when you carved that space for him into your chest, he’d done the same for you. He’d laid his heart at your feet and waited there, kneeling, for you to accept it, patient and willing. Staring at you with all the deep love you never thought you deserved, never thought you’d receive. But here he is. Here he is, love burning in his dark brown eyes. Eyes that have seen all the damaged, aching parts of you and love you anyway.

“I’m yours.”

Jungkook shines so bright at your words, a supernova of joy. His smile is so wide and his gaze is so soft, for you, for you, for you.

“Everything I am is for you,” he murmurs, letting the words curl into the air, settle across your skin, sink deep inside your chest. Your eyes flutter shut as you feel this touch of him inside you, wrapped around your heart.

And when you lift your hands, he comes so easily. He presses his cheek into the curve of your fingers, lets you hold him, lets you cup those lovely cheeks in your palms.

“I love you,” he says.

Right now, in this instant, there’s nothing but him. No kaiju, no Jaegers, no crumbling world, nothing. There’s only him, and you, together.

“I love you too,” you reply—and when you smile, gentle and tender, Jungkook falls in love all over again.

Burns bright for you.

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muertawrites · 5 years ago

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The Dark of the Moon (Zuko x Reader)

Summary: Late night insomnia turns into a conversation about love, and Zuko makes an interesting discovery about his feelings for you.

Word Count: 2,100

Author’s Note: You can thank Avatar being on Netflix and rekindling my childhood obsession for this one. I wrote this mostly as a dialogue / pacing exercise, but it’s also a bit therapeutic since I can actually relate to Zuko more than I realized or could have ever foreseen watching this show as a ten year old. Enjoy a little emotional romantic fantasy on behalf of a preteen crush and all the toxic friends I’ve ever had. ✌

~ Muerta

Zuko usually slept with you. It started one late night during a mutual bout of insomnia, in which you ran into him as you both wandered the halls of the Western Air Temple. You hardly knew him, but he sat with you and talked about everything that night - anything that wasn’t related to the war or either of your pasts that had been torn apart by it. He surprised you with his dry, even-toned sense of humor, as well as with his intelligence in not only combat but literature and philosophy as well; being a healer and a fortune teller by trade, you found a lot to talk about with him.

As the nights awake became more common, you and Zuko spent more of them together; sometimes you’d wait until you happened upon him in the halls, others one of you would designate a place to meet. Eventually, one of you would go directly to the other’s room and you’d sit, sharing whatever light or heavy thoughts happened to plague your minds. You learned a lot about him in those nights, and grew to feel proud of how far he’d come in such a short time - you often helped others, those much older than yourselves, over months to scale the internal struggles he had, and he’d managed to do so on his own. The more you gave to him, the more he gave back, and it soon became commonplace to fall asleep to the sound of his breathing as he lay in his sleeping bag on the other end of your room.

And that’s exactly what woke you up - the strange, still energy of your bedroom that indicated his resting place was empty. You rolled over, unable to spy his silhouette under the moonlit windowsill, and you rose, your feet carrying you to where you were certain he would be.

It was a gorgeous night, with a gentle breeze ruffling the crisp air. You found Zuko in the courtyard, gazing out over the fog veiled landscape under the swell of the full moon. Without a word, you sat beside him, watching the clouds roll by like ships on a silent ocean. His chest churned in turmoil, so intensely you could feel it in your own.

“Apparently, I can’t sleep without you anymore,” you said. “How selfish of you to have problems that keep you up at night.”

Zuko huffed out a soft chuckle, though the weight in his chest didn’t lift. He leaned back onto his palms, craning his neck backward and allowing the wind to tousle his ash-black hair.

“You didn’t need to come out here,” he told you gently. “It’s not your job to help me fix myself.”

“It never has been,” you replied. “I’ve never fixed anyone. All I ever do is listen and recite a few proverbs; everyone comes to their own conclusions in the end.”

“That’s not true,” Zuko retorted. “I’ve seen you heal. You can do things not even Katara can do, just with whatever happens to be growing nearby. It’s incredible.”

You smiled, your heart fluttering in your chest.

“Physical healing and emotional healing are two super different things,” you told him. “Emotional wounds can only really be healed by the people who have them. I mean, unless you want me to crack open your chest and poke around at your heart for a little while.”

Zuko chuckled again, the tenseness of his muscles easing up just slightly. He opened his palm and spawned a softly glowing flame, both of you watching it flicker in the cool night air.

“I wish I’d been born a water bender,” he mused. “Something that would do good for others. All fire does is destroy.”

You were silent for a moment, watching the thoughts swirl, tormented, behind his eyes. You thought of all the times you’d seen him smile, how his happiness made his handsome features all the more radiant and caused your stomach to bubble with joy. The memory shot a spike through your chest.

“... You know, we only ever see one part of the moon,” you commented, breaking the quiet. “Everything behind that - the dark side - we don’t really consider, even though it’s always there and is as much a part of the moon as the side that’s in front of us.”

Zuko smirked at you, distinguishing the flame in his hand.

“Reciting a proverb at me?” he teased.

You grinned.

“This one’s more like a metaphor,” you admitted cheekily. “That tea I make, the one that tastes awful but makes pain completely disappear?”

Zuko nodded.

“I need fire to make it,” you continued. “I have to roast the ingredients over an open flame before boiling them. Without fire, I couldn’t do most of my healing; it would be too painful without the tea to help.”

Zuko said nothing, but you could sense your words sinking into the cracks in his troubled thinking.

“Fire is heat and light,” you added. “It’s just as important to life as water or earth or air. Every element is capable of destruction or creation - there isn’t a single one that’s inherently good or bad. The person that controls them is the only one who determines that.”

There was another long pause, in which you busied yourself noting the different wild plants growing between the stones that paved the courtyard. You listed the different medicines you could make with each, the process calming you.

“I’ve done some pretty shitty things to people I care about in order to embrace my goodness,” Zuko finally spat. The bitterness in his tone stung you. You turned to him, and for a split second you caught a familiar, rageful glimmer in his eye; the sight made your own temper flare.

“Zuko, don’t do that to yourself,” you said. “It wasn’t just your father who hurt you and you know that.”

“I know,” he snapped, cutting off the end of your words. “I still care about her, though. I don’t even know if she really ever cared about me, but I still… I still miss her.”

Your ribs seemed to cave in, crushing your heart and lungs. He’d told you about Mai many times, and all you ever saw was that the darkness in her drew out the darkness in him; it even hung over you, clouding out the comfort you felt with Zuko and replacing it with unease and doubt. You feared there was no place in his heart for you - not while Mai still remained in it, no matter how badly her memory made him bleed.

“It’s hard,” you choked out. “I still miss some of the people who hurt me, too.”

That was all you could manage to say. You pulled your knees to your chest, half-burying your face in the fabric of your night dress as you forced the tears welling in the corners of your eyes not to flow.

This is what you get, you scolded yourself. This is what you get for feeling things for people you know could never feel the same about you.

A sensation of warmth curling around your shoulders made you jolt. Instinctively, you inched away, glancing in Zuko’s direction as he retracted the arm that had draped around you. You expected him to look away, but he didn’t - his pale amber eyes instead locked with yours.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “You hold your head so high… I forget sometimes that you’re trying to heal, too.”

His words caused your tears to spill, though you didn’t cry; your face remained stony, and no sobs shook you. Your tears fell as easily as water from a cliff’s edge, impeded by nothing but the will of gravity.

“... The cards you lent me,” Zuko said after a pause, almost blurting the words. “I’ve been reading them, to help me let go of everything I left behind. I don’t think I’m doing it right.”

A few weeks ago, you’d given him a deck of cards you used for fortune telling. Each card depicted a different object, element, or scene, and were laid out in combinations that gave insight into a person’s spiritual path. You liked them more than other forms of fortune telling, as it encouraged its readers to make their own assumptions and drive their own fates instead of having it simply told to them. You gave your deck to Zuko so he could reflect on something finite, instead of getting consumed by his own thoughts. It was exactly what you used them for, and you knew they would help.

“Why?” you asked softly.

“I drew a card that didn’t make sense,” he told you. “I laid down the Tides, then the Crossed Blades, and then… I pulled the Badger Mole. The other two I understand - one is for movement and change, the other is for strength in allies, but I… can’t figure out what the Badger Mole is supposed to mean.”

“Badger moles are strong, powerful,” you explained, speaking dispassionately from memory, “but they’re gentle. The card represents the duality of both. They mate for life, too, so it also represents love and companionship.”

As you spoke, you felt a meteor crash between you and Zuko. His face fell, dumbfounded, as he looked at you, his eyes darting minutely back and forth as you watched the pieces mend together in his head.

“What do you feel?” you whispered, part of you terrified of his answer.

“... I feel like I’m fighting the tide,” Zuko replied, his tone awestruck. “It’s pushing me to shore, but I keep trying to swim back out to sea.”

The corners of your lips curled upwards slightly, your cheeks still sticky with tears.

“It’s really scary, huh?” you said. “Loving another person.”

“Yeah... especially when you’ve never known what it feels like before,” Zuko added softly.

You reached out, tentatively resting your palm against his cheek. His hand rose to close over yours, the sensation trembling you to your core.

“How many times have you pulled the Badger Mole?” you asked.

“Every time,” Zuko breathed. “I’m so stupid for not realizing. You make me feel wild and calm all at once. I get this crushing feeling in my chest when I see you or even think of you, and I thought it was just fear or sadness. But… you don’t make me want to lash out like I used to, with my father and Azula and Mai… just the thought of you makes me want to be the best person I can be. Even though I know you already accept me for not being that person.”

You couldn’t help but laugh, somewhat defeatedly, your knees falling away from your chest and crossing in front of you. Your body was heavy, but your head felt light.

“I love you, Zuko,” you murmured. “But I’m afraid.”

Zuko wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you closer. His forehead fell to rest against yours, his eyes closing as he steadied his erratic breathing.

“If you’re scared, I’ll protect you,” he said quietly. “That’s what I think lovers are supposed to do.”

The word made every organ in your body jump to your throat. Lovers. Your limbs felt weak, but your heart felt strong with Zuko holding you.

Without thinking, you took his face in your hands and kissed him. It wasn’t hard and passionate like you expected, but firm, gentle, his lips pressing to yours like two palms grasped in an assuring embrace. He lay one of his large, able hands on the back of your neck, his thumb tenderly stroking your skin.

When you finally broke apart, Zuko gazed at you with a soft, forlorn expression. His fingers reached to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear.

“I’m sorry I talk about her so much,” he said. “It must kill you.”

You shook your head, a soft smile forming on your lips, still red from where Zuko had kissed them.

“Don’t worry about it,” you told him. “I know some people from my past you’d happily drive a knife into.”

Zuko chuckled, the light, airy smile you saw when he was truly happy spreading to each of his cheeks. The spike that drove itself through your heart when you thought of it earlier was gone, replaced by the sweet warmth of a low flame on a cold night. With him, you were safe.

“Let’s get some sleep,” Zuko suggested, taking your arm to help you stand.

His hand slipped easily into yours, your fingers twining together. He leaned forward and kissed you again, his lips only grazing yours, causing your skin to buzz with the sensation.

“... Do you think we’ll have to talk to Aang about this?” you asked as you walked back to your room.

Zuko raised an eyebrow at you, confused.

“He is your great-grandfather,” you elaborated with jest. “I should probably do the chivalrous thing and ask for his blessing or something.”

Zuko laughed, nudging you with his shoulder so that you stumbled over your feet. You shoved him back, to which he took you by the waist and wrapped you tightly in his arms, kissing your cheek.

“He probably won’t care,” he replied. “But my uncle will love you.”

#muerta's works #zuko #zuko x reader #zuko x you #prince zuko #prince zuko x reader #prince zuko x you #zuko fanfic #prince zuko fanfic #atla fanfic #avatar fanfiction #self insert fanfiction #lmao when you don't know how to end a fic

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alonfic · 4 years ago

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second nature

pairing: kuroo tetsurou x reader genre: college + bff to lovers au | fluff, pining pining pining wc: 4,767 description: love is complicated; it tends to bloom in desire, in impulse. sometimes you just need to stop the overthinking and just do. in other words, you’re hopelessly in love with your best friend and decide to take matters into your own hands. author’s note: completely self-indulgent. i just wanted a scene where mc jumps into kuroo’s arms and kisses him after a win. sue me.

People do stupid things when they’re in love. You don’t know who said it, if this is some universal conclusion, or maybe Hercules’s Megara is a love genius who you should take notes from. Then again, she did twice, and was saved by her destined lover the second time around. You aren’t all that sure this is a fate prescribed to you by the stars nor is it one that you want for yourself, but it makes you wonder if your love life would be easier if it could have that Disney-esque theatrics just for a happy ending.

Then again, you don’t think Disney has any love stories about best friends turning into lovers, just strangers to lovers. But how do you fall in love with someone you haven’t spent years together cultivating memories with? How do you not look back and smile at the stories of chasing fireflies in the summertime or running from the ocean’s kiss because it’s just a tad too cold even in the late spring? Could it be possible to imagine a love built out of the blue?

Perhaps that part of unexpectedness could be the suspect. Being around him is comfortable; easy as breathing. He’s always been there, always a faint image in the back of your mind as you walk down memory lane, and still there as you walk down this strange path of adulthood. He’s never one to push too hard or let you fall without reaching a hand out to hold you steady.

In truth, you don’t think about loving your best friend. At least you try not to at first. It isn’t something you’re supposed to do or anything that could proceed painlessly, and you’re no masochist. Maybe you are. Wouldn’t you have extracted yourself from the situation sooner if you weren’t?

Then again, you didn’t choose to love him one morning, it just happened.

You consider ignoring Kuroo when it happens. Or if there’s any chance of going back.

It isn’t anything against him because you obviously wouldn’t feel the way that you do if you considered him a shitty person. But that’s the problem. Well, not the problem, more like the reason. The heart of your pining has always been a consistent figure. A loving one that has always had your back even when you both were kids; him the notoriously shy boy who clung to his father’s leg when you and your mother first stopped by, and you the painfully hard-headed one who lacked control when you came bounding up to him with the intent of friendship.

Funny how things seem to take on a reverse effect as he approaches you in the same confidence. His smile unaltered by the slight changes in you, how you tense up ever-so-slightly and squeak affirmations when he mentions going out later that night as a treat for surviving midterms. It shouldn’t mean anything more, really, these are normal interactions for you both. The small celebrations are your favorite things to do, so you hope it doesn’t feel weird when you say yes and he looks at you like he’s over the moon kind of happy.

You don’t say a word when his hand is on the small of your back in the slightly crowded ramen shop. It’s been a longtime favorite of your and his, and surviving the quarter is a celebration in and of itself. Everything is normal. These things, like guiding you to a table, are normal. Your hyperfixations on them are hardly normal though.

Was he always this touchy? Of course, you ponder this. It’s your brain wondering and hoping to figure out what the motivations of these actions are even if he’s done them before. He’s always been keen on physical touch with you. Ever the one to wrap an arm around your shoulders while you two walk around shopping centers or the park to keep potential intruders away and to keep you from getting swept up in the crowds. Sometimes holding your hand when things get tense and he wants you to know he’s there. They’re normal for him by all accounts, and there hasn’t been a time where any of that has felt out of place, at least until now. And it isn’t because of him, it’s you.

If you had an allowance to dream and believe in your idealistic side, this would be a new beginning and his way of easing you into intimate gestures. You don’t though. Your realistic side won’t let you. He just doesn’t make it very easy on you as he sits in front of you under very grainy incandescent lighting—the very non-ideal kind to consider one’s love for somebody—and still manages to get you feel the same things you had when you awoke to him cooking breakfast in your kitchen after a late night study session. The very stupid morning that brought you to this conclusion.

When he says your name, you realize the server is there. You’re naturally a little embarrassed because you haven’t even had a chance to glance at the menu, still a little more spaced out than usual, though it shouldn’t be that big of a problem. You already know what you want, and so does Kuroo.

He jumps in and asks if you want your usual choice, to which you simply nod so he can tell the server who leaves just as quickly as they had come. Kuroo looks like he wants to say something, probably ask about what’s going on with you, but instead something else catches his eye.

He leans over the table and his fingertips find some stray locks of yours dangerously trying to kiss the corner of your lip. His fingertips graze your cheek rather slowly. Painfully slow, even. It doesn’t help the sweat on your palms or the pounding of your chest. Hell, your heart feels like it might fall out if he continues going at such a snail’s pace, but eventually he gets the strands behind your ear.

He smiles at you again, and this time you know it’s all over.

There is no going back.

“You’ve been ignoring me.”

You almost deny it altogether, almost. But this is Kuroo. You know better than to try and lie to the boy you’ve known since middle school, the same boy who knows when something’s wrong before you even have a chance to register that something’s wrong. It sometimes makes you want to curse at him and wish this whole thing would just come to a halt instead of continuing on this weird precipice of change. But you stop yourself and step aside so he can enter your apartment, making his way through the long hallway and turning right to take a perch on the barstool at your kitchen isle.

He’s right anyway. It’s been days since you realized your feelings and even more since you two went out to get ramen together. But you’d be damned to admit the truth.

“Been busy.” You settle on this because it’s a safe answer, at least relatively so, though he hardly looks even the slightest bit convinced. The fact that you lean on the opposite side of the granite countertop is enough to solidify his doubt, but you decide to play the fool anyway. “What?”

“Are you alright? Have I done something to upset you?” Kuroo asks this genuinely, and you can tell most definitively by the slight crease in his brow and the small line his lips have become. It isn’t a frown by any means, it’s his pensive expression. He must be trying to think back on anything he’s either said or done in the past couple of weeks, but you know he wouldn’t be able to guess it.

Not that “it” is all that major. How do you even describe the sensation of falling in love with your best friend? How do you even dare face them after you’ve done it? And where do you even go from there when it’s happened? These are the things you’ve mulled over; they’re also the things that have stopped you from immediately treating your friendship with Kuroo like business as usual. You don’t think there’s any going back once you say something. No matter the times you’ve imagined what could happen or what it would be like to cross that bridge, a bit of reality grounds you from all impulsive acts.

Of course, you would love to just kiss him and run your hands through his beautifully soft sable hair. You wouldn’t hesitate to finally tell him your feelings if you didn’t think there was anything to lose or if you weren’t in the right state of mind, at least there’s the cushion of not caring and simple selfishness in all of that. It takes a lot to shake it all out of your head, at least to just try to, as he watches you in that unnervingly analytical way.

“Are you sure I haven’t done anything?” You can tell he’s trying to probe now, perhaps hoping for an opening to atone for any misgiving he might’ve done without realizing. His voice is soft, comforting. “If I did, I really am sorry.”

You shake your head again, this time for him and his question. You’re starting to feel a little bad for keeping this from him. “You haven’t done anything, I promise. I’ve just been preoccupied with some things. It’s getting better, so really, no need to worry.”

You hope the half-truths are enough to keep his interrogative questions and inquisitorial stare at bay. At least enough to change the subject, he’s the one who called about coming here, after all.

“If you’re sure?” He tries once more, just to give you an out. It isn’t like you to keep anything from him, and he knows this, but you can’t help but want to keep this one thing under lock-and-key. At least for now, or forever.

You nod. “What’s up anyway?”

“Well, I’ve been missing my best friend like crazy since someone’s been ghosting me for the past two weeks.”

The emphasis on ‘someone’ makes you snort, just a little and only for a moment because he shoots you a playful glare. You hold your hands up in surrender in hopes of spurring the conversation forward. Just because you wanted to avoid him to keep the truth under wraps doesn’t mean you haven’t missed the cheeky bastard.

“I’m sorry,” you tell him, with a faint smile. “Has it been that hard without me?”

“The hardest! Kenma’s sick of me, you know. Him, I’m used to wanting to keep me away. But you? That’s a different playing field.” It’s all in a playful jest, of course, and whatever the case may be for you, you know that Kuroo doesn’t mind. He knows it would be for a good reason, even if you don’t think this is all that good of a reason to try and push him away. It’s a hard thing to do when it’s clear that he has no intentions of being set aside, and how can you, given the history here?

“Is there anything I can do to make it up to you, o’dramatic one?” Of course, you’ll play it off, just to see the toothy grin on his lips, and watch the light dance in the hickory of his eyes as he considers his next quip. You wonder if he’ll have you do something stupid just to make up for the sudden separation, although you’re grateful that he’s a more benevolent schemer where you’re concerned. You expect him to charge you a free coffee or something.

“Come to my game on Saturday, please,” Kuroo coughs the last word, as if it might be painful for him to say, or maybe he’s trying to play off sounding forceful, which has never been his forte.

You can’t help but smile albeit confused at the sudden news when it feels like it’s been ages since his last high school game. “A game? With who?”

“It’s just a reunion game against Karasuno, since it’s a rare occasion where we all happen to be free at the same time, and you know us. We’re always hankering for another Battle at the Garbage Dump.”

Before you can say anything, he adds, “If you love me, you’ll come!”

You probably miss the way he looks at you a little more longingly than he once did, as if there’s something he means in these cheeky words. They should mean nothing more than provocations, a mild itch of guilt tripping, but only in good nature. It couldn’t possibly mean anything in the way that you’re hoping. No, not at all.

You know he only means it all in a lighthearted way, but you can’t deny the way your heart seems to rumble with a very distinct sound of early springtime thunder and you feel the back of your throat go dry. Of course, you can’t deny this truth, not even when it’s disguised like this. And anyway, who would you be if you missed out on one of his games?

Of course, you’ll go.

When Kozume calls you over, you already know it’s a mistake to oblige.

The moment you get there, he’s playing a game though he pays a little more attention to you when he sees how much you tense up at the sound of Kuroo’s name. It’s enough for the conversation to completely focus on the former Nekoma captain, and you’re almost certain you want to go home already. If anything, you might be able to cite that you had some homework you need to sort out before the big game.

“You shouldn’t keep lying to yourself. Plus, I know you finished all your homework so you wouldn’t be distracted for the game,” Kozume points out, shooting you a brief pointed look. “You’ve been avoiding me too, you know.”

And this is why: visiting Kozume means speculations, and speculations means hopes, and those mean disappointments because reality is just that cruel. You tell him so in your apology, even when he pointedly ignores the question and instead asks you one.

“When do you think you’ll tell him?”

You look at him incredulously. “Why would I do that?”

The sheer idea is preposterous; confessing to Kuroo might invite trouble for the two of you and the state of your friendship. Sure, you tried ignoring him and seeing if that could help, but that was a bust. Telling him would probably be even worse. Probably the worst thing you could do in this situation. Is it even possible to be okay after confessing to your best friend?

“You’re both idiots who deserve to be together. Why else would I ask?”

He isn’t even looking at you as he says any of this, instead focusing his attention on the characters in his game. His own little fantasy. A part of you is envious of the escapism, wishing for a bit of that for yourself at the moment. At least you can forge a love story from camaraderie there, and in a game world like that, it’s acceptable. Loving your best friend in the modern reality? Not so much.

You’re a little confused at Kozume’s wording. What was he trying to say? Kuroo liked you back? The thought makes you shake your head.

“Easier for you to say,” you roll your eyes at him, certain he hasn’t seen it, but he clicks his tongue at you anyway.

“If you did something, or let yourself do something, life would be so much easier for the both of you.”

“You say this with the assumption that he feels something too,” you point out, still in disbelief. After all, why would Kuroo love you back as more than a friend?

“Why do you even love him anyway?”

You can’t help but reply so nonchalantly when it’s the first thing that comes to mind. “Why not?”

There are many answers to that question, probably more than you care to admit, let alone to Kozume. Even without meeting his eyes or saying a word about any of it, he seems to know already. It’s unnerving. Have you always been this easy to read? Does Kuroo know too?

“Why don’t you just tell him?”

“It’d make things too complicated.”

In other words: it’s easier to tell the truth when you’re not speaking to Kuroo about the whole thing. Hell, it’s easier to address it when it isn’t directly to him. It happened, and obviously there’s no way to strip the power from it now.

“Is that what’s really stopping you?”

You take a moment to consider this, and maybe the large part is the fear of consequence, if there will be one, what it will be, that sort of thing.

“Yeah…”

“Then stop thinking and just do something about it. I’ve never known you to take things lying down. Talk to him after the game or something.”

You don’t say anything, but you consider it.

The day of the game is supposed to be simple. It isn’t like it’s supposed to bloom into anything, and yet you find yourself thrumming with excitement when Kuroo easily finds you in the crowd before he’s set to enter the gym.

You don’t care to admit how much you enjoy this or the sight of seeing him in that vibrant shade of red. The same way you’ve seen him in countless games. It stirs something in your chest as you’re reminded of those days, like this revelation of your feelings might have bloomed sooner than you realized.

“Come find me after the game,” Kuroo tells you with that beautifully toothy grin of his, and you find that you can hardly breathe. “I have something to tell you when I win.”

When did he get so damn good looking? You want to wonder, though that would only be one of many ponderings. You don’t know what his words mean, or why the implication makes your heart react the way it does, but you hope against your own ideals just to remain in reality. At least you try to.

It’s hard once the game begins.

Watching him play feels like falling in love again.

You don’t know what it is in the way Kuroo carries himself or how he seems to dance across the court with a hitch in any of his movements, but it’s addictive to watch. How easily he remains himself even on the court. The very cheeky grin flashes at his opponents, particularly Tsukishima, who looks more and more fired up as they contain their rally. They don’t look much different than when they first played against one another in high school, though they all seem to carry a newfound sense of wisdom in this game they’ve been destined to play time and time again.

Each rally feels like it goes on for longer than the last, as if everything will be gone in a single drop, and perhaps it’s true to say that this mirrors that of love. How you may try as you might to keep the secret of loving away from reality, but it all comes crashing down eventually. It feels that way when you see the final round reach a neck and neck standstill. Neither side wants the ball to drop, to allot victory to their opponent, of course.

It’s Kuroo’s determination that stands out to you. The way he seems to cheer his team on even without words as he tries his best to keep the orange, green, and white ball in play. He’s never been one to give up no matter the circumstances. He’s always found a way to move things in his favor, and he’s never once wavered, even in the beginning of his time with volleyball, he’s always tried, even with losses under his belt.

It’s strangely beautiful to bear witness to this play once more. You don’t know what it is when he looks back at you before his notoriously accurate block with a small, yet triumphant smile, like he knows this’ll win the game, or even so, bring them closer to it, but it rouses something even stranger in your chest as you cheer alongside everyone else in celebration of the first point of two needed to finally win the game. This is by no means a big game like the Inter-high or anything, but it feels that way. Maybe that’s why everything seems to stand out to you. It feels like something big might happen.

Simple as this game might be, it feels like everything when they reach the end of the rally.

They win, and you rise from your seat without a second thought.

You don’t think about what you’re doing.

Your limbs seem to move on their own accord as the rest of the team does a final bow to the audience. You don’t bother stopping to wonder if Kuroo’s searching the crowd for you as you make your way down the stairs, or what the little frown on his face means when his gaze lingers on the spot right behind the banner as soon as you reach the hallway across from the court. Your spot.

No, you don’t stop to think about it.

You don’t even stop moving as you call his name or as you see the light come back to his beautiful hickory eyes. You don’t stop to consider what that might mean either.

Instead you run to him at full speed without bumping into anyone, truly a miracle in and of itself, and instead of stopping right before him with your feet planted firmly on the ground like any other person, you choose to jump. You don’t know why. You don’t think about why either. You just believe that he won’t drop you because he’s never given you a reason to believe otherwise. In fact, you absolutely trust him to catch you now more than ever, and to no one’s surprise, he does.

There are so many things you want to do—reasonable things that any normal best friend supporting their best friend would do. You want to say congratulations. You want to just hug him and jump down because you want to believe that this will be like any other hug you’ve shared with this man you’ve known for years. And maybe it could’ve been that simple if you had just stopped to consider what your actions would mean to him, you, and everyone else. But you don’t bother with the frivolities, you don’t want to yet.

Because when you really look at Kuroo, you catch sight of something beautiful. A sight all too familiar to you and the years of memories you’ve shared together. It’s him in his most purest form; little drops of sweat falling at the sides of his face, an elated grin in all its toothy glory, and the little crinkles at the corners of his eyes becoming more and more prominent. And yet, there’s something a little too new in the way that he looks back at you, the way his gaze lingers on your lips and only snaps back up to your eyes when you say his name.

Your grip around his shoulders tightens and his lips fall a little closer together like he might say something, but you don’t give him a chance. It’s hard when you find yourself on a roll of impulses, like you’re untouchable from consequence.

Maybe you’ve watched too many romance movies, or maybe read too many stories where the best friends finally get together after years of pining and being called idiots by everyone around them. You know it’s all too silly, and you and Kuroo have spent evenings mocking the theatrics of boombox accompanied confessions and singing over the loudspeakers with the marching band as the main male lead’s instrumental track. They’re endearing in the moment, but so painfully unreal, you almost wish this world was entirely fantasy for just a taste of what could be with Kuroo. That’s the true villain, maybe. You can’t stop yourself now.

Everything everyone has ever speculated about you two flies over your head, and for once in a great while, you stop caring enough to just do what you’ve always wanted to do, to finally actualize the fantasies you’ve played out over and over in your head.

Fuck it, you decide. If there’s any time to do this, it’s now. The extra shit can wait.

So, before any words, you kiss him.

You take note of the way he responds so gently to the initiation. It’s a tentative pressure, as if he’s testing the waters to see what you can handle before you pull away. But you don’t. You remain, and maybe part of that has to do with the adrenaline coursing through your veins or maybe it’s the part of you that seeks this wish fulfillment and wants to bask in it before reality sinks it.

The whole thing is indescribable. Of course, it is. All of your fantasies have never gotten you as far as the real deal. You wouldn’t have guessed just how close to peppermint he would taste, or that there would be a slight hint of honeyed lemons in the aftertaste. Like the treat promises, you feel invigorated, rejuvenated, and maybe even worst of all, hungry for a little more.

This is why you readjust your grip around his shoulders as you attempt to deepen the kiss. In response, his grip on your thighs tighten, as if he might be afraid you’ll disappear. And to your surprise, he kisses you back with just as much fervor, like it might be the last time.

You don’t remember what draws you apart, whether it’s one of his teammates jeering at you two or if it’s your respective needs to breathe, but you’re inclined to etch this new sight of him to memory. The way his chest heaves, his pupils dilated, and his lips all pink and swollen. It’s new and beautiful, and you wonder if it’ll happen again.

And then it hits you.

What you’ve done. Your head spins just a little.

“I’ve fucked us up, haven’t I?” Your words are no louder than a whisper, but it feels like it’s only you two right now. Nothing else to cut into this moment, though you almost sort of wish for an opportunity to sink into the ground because what the fuck did you just do?

All you can do is try to shake yourself away from him, back down to the ground, back to reality.

Kuroo keeps you in place and takes the chance to really look at you. His eyes scan your face for a trace of truth, not that this would be a hard feat anyway. You’ve never been good at hiding anything from him, not when you were kids, and most certainly not now. You wonder if he can read, “I’m totally and utterly in love with you” from your eyes or if it somehow materialized across your forehead like Kozume and Nobuyuki have always teased you.

“That’s not entirely fair,” he says, still faint with his usual teasing.

“Huh?” Your eyebrows knit together, and your lips seem to pull into an involuntary frown.

“That implies that you were the only one who compromised our friendship…” he pauses for a second as his bottom lip trembles and he gives an inaudible swallow, “right?”

“What are you getting at?” Simply the implication is enough to bring lightning to your skin, as if to resuscitate you back to a more serene state. Your heart can’t seem to handle this overload, however. You wonder if he can hear it.

“I think you know what I’m getting at...”

His cheeks have gone pinker than the cherry blossoms in spring. Of course, it should’ve been enough to confirm your suspicions. You could’ve left it at that, but for your sake, for your very own heart, you tell him what you need.

“Say it.”

One more look at you and it’s enough for him. Somehow you know that without being told.

“I love you.”

Your heart trembles, even louder now, like a thunderstorm. That strange calmness remains. The kind only he can elicit in you.

Kuroo looks at you in wait, in wonder, as if your answer wasn’t as clear as day already. You laugh a little and the corners of his lips turn upward.

“I love you too.”

He lets you drop down, of course, but only after another kiss.

You hold his hand and walk through the double doors you entered through.

This time together.

#kuroo scenarios #kuroo imagines #kuroo fanfic #kuroo fluff #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu fanfic #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu x reader #kuroo tetsuro x reader #kuroo x you #kuroo x reader #emwrites #title: second nature

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sweater-daddiesdumbdork · 4 years ago

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Remember?

Summary- 1.9k Frank Adler x You. Frank wakes you up at the ungodly hour of 3:30 am and will not even tell you why. Written for @stargazingfangirl18 5k challenge

Warnings- like... barely there mention hint of smut? But just barely? I cant even count it as a warning to be honest.

A/N- so yes this is written for a soft!dark challenge, but dark writing just isn't happening. I went with just soft and with the prompt of lazy make out session.I really wanted to make sure I was giving something to Siri’s challenge because she works so hard on providing us wonderful fics to enjoy, is incredibly supportive and honestly she deserves it. Much love always babes and thank you for all you do.

A/N 2- Can be read as a one shot. It is in the same verse as Oppressive. Also trying out a new site to make moodboards. I kinda like it? what do you all think? And I know the Fort Myers pier is made from concrete, not wood, but I wanted wood. So I went with wood. I always appreciate your thoughts on a fic. Alright, Much Love, Happy Reading! 🌊

“Baby wake up.” You heard a husky whisper in your ear as well as a rough scrape against your shoulder from Franks cheek as he pressed in close to your back, the soft hairs of his chest pressed into your sleepy warm skin and you muttered a no into your pillow as you hid your face into the cotton covers.

He must be out of his ever loving mind to think you were going to wake up at… a quick peek at the old 80’s looking radio clock Frank loved sitting on his night stand. The red numbers were unfocused at first, but blurry sharpened to three thirty am. Yes, your man was crazy to think you were up for anything at all, and the way he was pressed into your ass cheeks, you suspected he woke up early for sex.

That was going to be a hell no. “Frank go back to sleep. I will fuck you later.” You promised as you shifted back into your warm safe hollow. He chuckled gruffly and his hands slid on your hips to twist you to fast him, causing you to sigh and blink up at him. In the dark of the room, his eyes were a dull blue shining down at you amused. You though were no in that same mood as you blinked up at him, pushing a hand against his chest. “Come on Frank, I'm not in the mood. I was sleeping so good.”

“You would think I would wake you up just for sex.” Frank scoffed.

“It wouldn't be the first time.”

“Probably won't be the last either, but that's not what this is about. Come on Sweetheart, get up. I have a surprise.” He tapped your ass and pulled away as you were groaning, knowing sleep simply wasn't going to happen.

“Adler, I swear to all that is holy, this better be good.” You grumbled as you sat up and tried to wake up. Frank came back out with some clothing for you, a pair of capris, tee shirt and undergarments. You looked at the casual clothing and arched your brows. “Where are you dragging me?”

“Its a surprise, trust me, those are appropriate.” He started as he dressed in some old faded blue jeans and grey tee. Wherever he was taking you wasn't going to require dressing up too much, so you just pulled your hair back into a tie, and didn't bother with makeup. He kept glancing at his watch, and by three fifty he had you out the door and to his pickup truck. He tossed a bag in the back and when you went to question it, he shook his head firmly in a no while ushering you into the passenger side. “Part of it, just trust me.”

“I trust you to have something up your sleeve Adler, considering you know I love my sleep in on Saturday Morning.” You grumbled under your breath. Typically you and Frank slept late Saturdays. Mary would go to Roberta’s Friday night for her weekly sleepover that both woman and child insisted on, you and Frank would go to the local bar for a night of cold drinks, games of pool and the occasional dancing when you could get Frank drunk enough to go on the small dance floor. Simple, but you always had a good time. Saturday was recovery day.

So why was he dragging you out of bed on recovery day?

“So a hint?” You decide to pester a bit, sliding closer on the bench seat till you were against his side, his arm circling around your shoulder to tuck you in closer and press a kiss to your temple. You could feel his lips upturned to a smirk against the side of your head.

“You want a hint… It has to be done early in the morning.”

You rolled your eyes at him with a huff, dropping your hand to dance your fingers against a jean clad thigh, making his eyes dart down to your hand. “I want better then that.”

“You are not gonna get it Baby, but you can try your best.”

He really was being serious this time, because he caught your hand from wandering up to far and brought it to his mouth, pressing a gentle kiss to your knuckles.

“Alright Adler, keep your secrets then.” You let your head rest on his shoulder and eyes close. Frank was stubborn, always had been. You knew when you just had to let it go. You drifted in and out as he sped along the interstate. Soon he was turning off, but you weren't quick enough to catch what the exit was, so still had no idea.

“Are we there?”

“Close, you don't know where we are?” He asked with a slight laugh in his voice. You shrug a bit as you two are driving down the main drag of the area, passing all night gas stations, fast food chain restaurants, outlet stores and parking lots.

“No clue, every place in Florida has this Frank.”

He hummed a bit, slowing to an intersection and flicking on his blinker. “True, but you will soon see.” He winked as he made the turn, pulling away from the city-like area and moving towards the beach strip. Where million dollar homes, hotels, and beach side tourist traps laid quiet in the barely morning hours. It was starting to lighten though, you could see the black blue of the night sky make way for lighter purples and pinks.

So you remained patient, waiting for wherever Frank was taking you. The terrain started to get sandier, the crack of the window took on a breezy salty scent and you could taste the hint of surf and sand in the air. Your lips turned upwards, just that scent alone reminded you of a couple years ago, and it all clicked right where you were.

Your first overnight away from home with Frank was to Fort Myers, a small rundown motel on the beach. The room was iffy, the Ac barely worked, neither of you dared to use the pool. At the time it was all you two could afford. And it was all perfect.

Because that morning, before sunrise, you two escaped to the beach, arm in arm and sat in the dunes to watch the sunrise over the crashing ocean, and all was perfect in the world with each other.

Frank glanced over to see the knowing look on your face, and his own softened in a smile, his hand coming to grasp the inside of your thigh gently, squeezing. “Now you know?” He pulled into an almost deserted parking lot. At the other end were a group of people, unstrapping their boards to get ready to go into the surf.

“Of course Frankie.” You said with a touch of sentiment in your tone as you leaned over to peck his lips and nip at him playfully. “How can I forget?” You pull away suddenly and jump out of the car, yanking off your shoes to ditch in the truck. Frank followed, doing the same with his own boots.

You had already taken off into the sand, making your way towards the surf to dig your feet into the wet sand happily. Now it was getting lighter, those dark purples and pinks made way for the reds and oranges as the barest hint of the sun kissed the horizon.

Frank came up behind, having managed to yank his jeans up partially around his calves and pressed you two to walk out a bit further into the surf, the salt water spritzing you both in a fine cooling mist, clinging to your skin, in your hair, on your clothes. It all brought back the sensations of that first trip together. You fall back into his chest while he dips his head to mouth kisses into your neck, enjoying the quiet of the moment with you in a more physical way for a moment. Making you tilt your head to the side while the sun finally broke.

From the nearby pier, heavy pelicans lined the side to swoop down, skimming over the water in lines, giving the two of you a show all for yourselves, among the surf the small sandpipers chased after the tiny ghost crabs trying to escape back into the surf, all of it made you smile. This felt like home to you, right here with Frank.

“It feels like forever since we have visited.” You finally say as you turn to face Frank, the two of you stepping out of the surf, and hand in hand making your way along the beach's edge towards the pier, the sandpipers running away as fast as they could, a few taking to wing to fly several yards ahead of you to start there search in the surf retreating back from the edge once more.

“Been a couple years at least. I was looking at the calendar and realized an anniversary of ours was coming up.” He mentioned while you two stepped under the pier. A small private world for you two at the moment as far above you people made their way towards the end stretching out over the water, ready to drip lines for fishing in the surf. Here though, underneath it all, was just for you and Frank.

Nothing but water crashing to the shore, wood above your heads and the morning bringing back fond memories. Memories of shared kisses against one of the ageless logs helping to hold the deck yards above them steady, the way your legs wrapped around his hips as he pinned you in place and loved you so freely out in the open where they could be caught. How afterwards Frank said those words that he never uttered to anyone else in the way he said it to you.

Fuck I think I love you.

You thought then you loved him to. Now you knew you did. Your fingers looped in his belt loops and you walked backwards, till your back pressed once more against that sand and salt aged wood, looking up at him in the now very present dawn.

“You know Frank, I think I love you.”

“You know what Y/N, I think I love you too.” He winked, sliding in closer till he was pressed against you, his hands cupping the side of your face and tilting up to meet him, his tongue sliding past soft lips to the sweet heat of your mouth and tangling his tongue with yours. It elicited a soft moan from the back of your throat.

Warming salty air really agreed with Frank, mixing the tastes on your tongue, you curled your arms around his body, clutching at his back as you now clung to him, thoroughly enjoying the way this kiss made you feel.

The sensations of love and passion curling in your belly and your heart thud against your breast bone, absorbing into Frank as he pressed into your body, trying to daze you from rational thoughts, away from the everyday thoughts.

Frank had a talent at making you appreciate the here and now.

And right here, with sand covering your feet, your shirt and pants clinging to you from the ocean spray and your man completely pressing every ounce of his affection into you, you could do nothing but appreciate being in the moment.

“Scratch that, I don't think, I know I love you Frank Adler.” You managed to break out of his kiss for half a second.

“I know you do.” He assured you as he grasped the back of your thighs and lifted you enough to fold your legs around his waist. “I plan on showing you just how I feel.” He promised, the glint in his ocean blue eyes turning mischievously playful under that pier.

#siris5ksoftdarkchallenge #amber writes #sweater writes #frank adler x reader #frank adler x you #gifted au #frank adler fan fic #chris evans characters #remember?#i have a soft spot for this man #cant change wont change #i love just soft sweet moments for him #and making out under a pier is one of those moments #so lets all just give him love #shall we?#thanks for coming to my soft moment

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milfnearyou · 4 years ago

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𝐨𝐡 𝐬𝐞𝐡𝐮𝐧: 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥.

“𝐡𝐞’𝐬 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐡𝐞’𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭, 𝐢𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮.”

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: 2.4K | 𝐎𝐇 𝐒𝐄𝐇𝐔𝐍 𝐗 𝐅𝐄𝐌!𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐑

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: ANGST. CHEATING. BETRAYAL. SUGGESTIVE. THATS PRETTY MUCH IT THIS TIME AROUND. NGL THIS ISN’T MY BEST WORK AND IS A SHORT ONE SHOT, SORRY! CLICK HEADER FOR HIGHER RESOLUTION BC TUMBLR IS STUPID.

VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

“So you just woke up one day and decided you loved me?!”

Your voice was painfully shrill, bouncing against the metal walls and echoing through the elevator shaft. If you hadn't been so furious, you would've cringed at the way you sounded. Considering your behaviour to be completely out of character and rather petty. But it was impossible to think straight. With all the sirens in your mind screaming 'Alert!' causing you to grow defensive. You saw everything as red, wrapped in a series of warning signs. Eager to protect yourself you grew aggressive, fury coursing through your veins and laced with disgust.

The disbelief was evident in your tone, accompanied by the extremely annoyed look plastered on your face. Your eyebrows were contorted together, lightly creasing your forehead as you anxiously chewed on your bottom lip. Your hands were balled into tight fists trembling at your sides as you fought the urge to beat the living crap out of him.

"Fucking answer me Sehun!" You exclaim, throwing your hands in the air. You didn't understand him, not taking any of his bullshit words seriously as a result. Had he been telling the truth, had he truly meant every word he said. Sehun wouldn't have just stood there in front of you with nothing to say. The silence he offered simply adding more fuel to the fire that raged inside of you.

"So now you're silent? You weren't this fucking quiet back when you were professing your so-called love to me?! What's gotten into you now?"

Again, nothing but silence. The tall man simply stands there in front of you with his hands shoved into the pockets of his pants as the elevator continues to rise higher and higher. With every floor, the elevator cabinet passed, the angrier you got and it didn't help that you lived in a high rise apartment. If he continued to act this way you'd be fuming, steam emitting from your body by the time you'd reach your floor.

“Do you even know what it means to love someone? Or do you just throw yourself in any direction that proves beneficial to your selfish well being?” The questions flew past your lips one after another. You weren’t going to hold back either. Pushing yourself towards him, forcing him to explain himself.

You didn't deserve the silence. You deserved proper answers, ones that were absent from the immature man in front of you.

"Answer me right now or I swear to god I'm cutting you off forever," Warning him, you take a step forward to face him closer. Invading his personal space as you stare at him, craning your neck upwards with your arms crossed.

Watching him like a hawk, you attentively wait. Noticing how he seems to take a slight step back, his broad chest heaving up and down slowly. He seems to be nervous or perhaps, flustered? It was hard for you to believe that with all the ways he could've handled the situation this was what he opted for.

Step by step, you get closer and closer towards Sehun until he's got his back pressed against the metal walls of the elevator. It was hard to believe that someone who looked dominant most of the time could be so cowardly.

"I'm not asking again," You state, pressing your index finger roughly against his chest. Physically pushing him around until he's finally had enough. His large hands pressing against your shoulders as he shoves you back, regaining his confidence. Finally, he refutes, silence no longer being an option for him.

“Fuck off! Do you want an answer? Fine, but you don't have to act like such an invasive bitch about things!"

Stunned your eyes widen. You can't tell if you should be offended or impressed with just how much you pushed him but you let him speak. Not saying anything even though he had just called you a bitch.

"No, I didn’t just wake up one morning and decide that I’d fall in love with you! It took me countless days and nights, essentially adding up into months of thinking about nothing except you! Do you know how painful it felt for me? Do you not understand how guilty I felt?!” The tone in his voice is dangerously low as he narrows his eyes at you. It's his turn to match your attitude, fixing his posture and standing tall.

"Oh really? So you only thought about how you felt and not how I would feel knowing about your feelings for me? Sehun, how selfish can you be? You aren't the only person on this godforsaken planet!"

"You don't think I knew that? I know you wouldn't be happy with this but you have to understand that had I kept everything to myself and continued to hang out around you; it would've been both disrespectful to you but also incredibly torturous to me. It was worth gambling my feelings and confessing with the consequence of potentially losing a friend instead of hiding it."

Taken aback, you feel yourself pause and you hate yourself for it. Sehun has a point, he's valid for being upfront about things but there was just one thing that didn't sit right with you. Despite wanting an answer and getting it you curse yourself for falling silent. The hypocrisy of your silence hitting you square in the face but you're not done. You still have one more thing to say.

"What about the fact that you're still dating my best friend? Did you think about how much this would hurt her? No, let me guess, I bet you haven't even mentioned anything to her," Bringing your best friend up seemed to be the major thing standing in between both of you.

Sehun stares at you like he's been frozen in time. His features completely poised and monotone as your eyes scan his face for any sign of emotion. It was still much too hard to accept his words, to trust them and understand that it came from the bottom of his heart. Your anger was now replaced with complete confusion, perhaps even denial as you scoff at him. He was crazy to think you'd ditch your best friend for a man like him.

Sehun only stood there with his shoulders pushed back, his posture relaxed. His orange tufts of hair making him look like a complete clown. His current demeanour was very different in comparison to how defensive he was earlier.

How could he be so hot and cold? None of it made sense with his face being completely unreadable, everything felt bland like a black and white movie. Sehun could scream as much as he wanted but his words would never get through, bouncing behind the screen, staying unheard from the crowd. All these things made it impossible to find the sincerity he had in his words represented in his body language.

The elevator came to a stop with a rather loud ding notifying you that it had arrived on your floor. You take one last look at Sehun battling with yourself on whether or not someone as selfish as him was worth entangling yourself with. But no matter how you thought of it you couldn't accept him. With Sehun came consequences, ones that you weren't willing to risk getting into and that being losing your best friend. Someone who was there for you through thick and thin could never be replaced with a man you'd only known for roughly a year.

He didn't mean anything to you and he wasn't allowed to have any meaning in your life, it just wasn't okay. Betrayal had a greater impact than love, you would be foolish to accept the latter.

Leaving him behind, you step outside of the elevator. Realizing just how much more breathable the air outside the shaft was in comparison to being back inside holed up with your worst nightmare. Your moment of freedom is cut short when you feel his lean arms wrap around your waist pulling you back inside.

He's clinging onto you like a child refusing to let go as he rests his head next to your shoulder. His hot breath brushing against your neck, making you uncomfortable for many reasons that were quite obvious. He just wasn't single nor available and you couldn't let yourself be the other girl.

“Please just—take a chance. I'm willing to cross oceans for you, tear apart anything that stands in my way because I love you. I'll break up with her, she's nothing like you. Why can't you see that I love you?” He rambles, his voice falling soft. Sehun sounds like he's about to fall apart as he speaks into the crook of your neck.

His voice vibrating against your skin, echoing through your mind. Despite his tone being no louder than a whisper, his message came loud and clear. Slowly his plump, soft lips make contact with your skin as you freeze in place watching as the elevator doors slam shut. Moving downwards again you feel like you're slowly descending to hell.

His actions gave you goosebumps as he peppered kisses against your neck. Using one hand to grasp your waist, holding you close to him. While the other cupped your cheek, tilting your head slightly so he could gain better access to your body, his kisses moving down south and landing onto your shoulder. Pushing your shirt slightly aside before gently biting down on your skin causing you to gasp.

Sehun's touch was electrifying and almost hypnotizing, you felt yourself growing dizzy and out of touch with your surrounding. As he continued using his lips to convey how much you meant to him against your screaming mind that yelled at you not to do this to your best friend. But like a fool, you melt into his touch. Lips falling apart, as your chest heaves up and down. The air feels intoxicating as he rotates your head towards him. His lips crashing against yours as you feel like you're about to pass out.

You can't give in, you can't betray your best friend and yet, you feel yourself kissing him back. Your tongue tangling with his, exchanging dirty, secretive kisses. Turning around to face him better you fall into all the places you knew weren't right and that was right into the arms of Sehun's. Intertwining your fingers with his, holding onto him tightly as if the only chance you'd have with him would be taken away.

Now you knew what it meant to be selfish and just how delicious it tasted.

The elevator is filled with the lewd, smacking of the shared kisses between you both. His body grinding into yours as you feel yourself growing heavy. Developing a strong heartbeat where your filthy desires lay. You felt yourself growing wet, shifting your thighs uncomfortably together. Feeling his hand snake down towards the waistline of your skirt, tugging on them.

"You just have to say the word and I'm dropping everything and everyone for you," He says in between kisses as you tilt your head back in pleasure when you feel his fingers slipping past your skirt. Hovering dangerously over your soaked heat. "Do you want to run away with me?" He asks.

You want to say yes. Your body having a mind of its own would rather speak for you but you just can't bring yourself to go through with it. The image of your best friend is hung up in your mind and even though the damage has already been done, you still don't think it's too late to stop.

“I can’t and you know I won’t,” You reply, wincing at how your voice cracks. You didn’t want to seem weak in front of him, you needed to show him you had control over how you felt. That you were sure you didn't want him but it was all a lie. A lie you told yourself and in return had the truth spoken out loud by the actions of your body.

Sehun knew of this and yet, his peppered kisses come to a halt. The grip he's got around you loosening as his hand slips out of your skirt. You step out of his grasp feeling ashamed, not daring to look at him. Turning around and staring at the doors instead. Fixing your shirt you crane your neck from side to side trying your best to calm down. Bringing a shaky hand towards the elevator buttons and clicking for your floor.

You can feel Sehun's gaze boring holes into the back of your head.

"I don't understand. Why can't you just let me love you? It's not that hard to just give me a shot. I can give you the world, give you all the happiness and security you need in life."

"--Let me be the man that protects you, that cherishes you. I know it's hard because of her but...don't we deserve to be happy?" He pleads, his voice wavering. If you had turned around to face him you'd see his lips quivering. His dark, brown eyes are glossy with tears threatening to escape from the tiny apertures of his tear ducts.

But currently, it's your turn to fall silent. All because you know that despite him falling at the seams, begging you to love him you know that he'll only go back to being the same once he's got you twirling around his dainty fingers. His norm being the same silent person as always, emotionally unavailable and confusing as always. Plus, who's to say he won't just ditch you like he's doing to your best friend?

"It's your turn to answer me," He pleads but you ignore him. Thanking the timing of the elevator for opening right at the end of his sentence.

Quickly stepping off you pray that he doesn't snake himself around you again because if he does, you don't know if you had the power inside to fight him off again and thankfully he doesn't. Sehun leaves you alone watching you get out of his view, the sound of your Chelsea boots clicking against the hallway floors until suddenly you're just gone. A wave of heartbreak washing over his feelings as he realizes that he just can't sit here and do nothing.

He won't go back to your best friend, he doesn't love her and in fact, he never did. It wasn't his choice to hurt her like this but he couldn't help but fall in love with the wrong person. So he chases you, chases the love of his life eager to satisfy his selfishness and have you by his side.

The consequence of dealing with your best friend could come later but first, he needed to convince you once and for all that he was the only good thing in his life. Your best friend was to be replaced.

𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒 𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐄𝐃: 𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐅𝐍𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐔©︎

#this was ass: not proofread properly.#oh sehun x reader #sehun angst #sehun x reader #oh sehun angst #oh sehun suggestive #oh sehun smut #exo angst #exo fanfic #exo x reader #i don't know tags: bye!#lmk what you think.#solange is in the mountains: queue!#sehun smut #sehun suggestive

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badgirlcovenrep · 3 years ago

Text

The Goddess' Blessing (of a daughter)

Chapter Two

Here it is... hope you enjoy

After Tiffany is in warm pajamas and her hair is nicely brushed, they head to the living room to meet Edwin, who is sat at the couch watching some kind of civilian sport that features a stick. Scylla never took interest in televised sports - that was not really part of witch culture - but she thinks it's sweet, how enralled he is when they come out. She remembers Raelle telling her once that she used to watch games with her dad.

Scylla can almost see her sitting there beside him, in her civilian clothes, snacking on nachos and discussing what was happening on screen. It made her heart tug painfully. Once again she considered if coming here was a good idea at all. Seemed like everywhere she looked, she could just see Raelle, and even if she'd seen the other girl just a day before, here, inside her childhood home, it did nothing to how much Scylla missed her - and how she wished Raelle could be here, with them. Warm and peaceful and free.

"Hey, dinner's still in the oven." Edwin informs, once he sees the pair of witches have joined him, but still, he rises from the couch and crosses the living room towards the kitchen "I got some boxes of Rae's toys when she was a kid down from the attic earlier, and I thought you'd like to take a look, Tiffany."

The small witch was still unsure about her new surroundings, and Scylla gently directs her to join the man in the kitchen, where he had settled two sizeable cardboard boxes over the tiled floor, filled to the brim with random toys that went from surprisingly well kept barbie dolls to matchbox hotwheels and loose pieces of lego.

"Wow, Mr. Collar, you didn't have to." Scylla assures, as Tiffany puts her doubts aside for a minute to peek curiously into the box.

"Of course I did, it's not like these were going to use all the way up in the attic."

"Well, you're very kind. What do we say, Tiffany?" Scylla coaxes the younger girl, as she's started sorting curiously through the barbies. The necro is happy to see she seemed to be feeling safer.

"Thank you, Mr. Collar." Tiffany smiles up at him.

"You, little one, can call me Edwin if you like, and same goes for you, Scylla." He declares, and Scylla can't help the affection that settles inside her chest.

Jonas was right. She really *was* going soft. But the witch is not so sure she minds it that much anymore.

"Alright... Edwin." She nods.

"Good." The man smiles, leaning down to take the box Tiffany hadn't yet looked through, "let's take these to the living room so you can play near the fireplace. It's getting cold."

****

Edwin sits back down on the couch a while later, and Scylla helps Tiffany sort through Raelle's surprisingly big collection of beanie babies. The young witch is fascinated with them, and she's lining them up in a circle with plastic cuttlery for each, getting them ready for a tea party as Scylla watches sleepily from the couch, when suddenly the phone rings.

Edwin gets up to answer. They can hear from the living room when he picks up, but aside from that, the conversation is nothing but muffled sounds. Scylla could listen in if she wanted, farspeech is not that hard, and she can surely manage to hone in on a conversation that is happening just at the end of the hall.

But Edwin is kind to them, and she's trying to be a better person, even if she can't push away the curiosity - the thought - that maybe it's Raelle. And how much she wishes to hear her voice.

She knows it isn't right though, so Scylla decides not to peek. They deserve their privacy- not without some internal protesting, she turns her attention back to where Tiffany still played with her new (to her) toys.

"Oh, no! You spilled your tea, mister giraffe!" She exclaims, knocking the yellow giraffe plushie against it's pink teacup until it topples over the carpet, "I can't give you more tea right now, sir, the other babies haven't gotten any, you'll have to sit down and wait. Yes, I'll make you more tea in just a minute." Tiffany grabs the equally pink teapot and turns to the stuffed hippopotamus, tskng annoyedly with a roll of her eyes "some clients are so impatient, mrs. hippo."

Scylla smiles fondly, settling down into the soft cushions of the couch and resigning herself to watching the game absentmindedly. Just then, Edwin peeks his head from the hallway.

"It's Raelle." He says, and Scylla's heart jumps at hearing her name, "she wants to talk to you."

The necro would've been embarrassed at how fast she gets up, but her mind is one tracked at this point, and she can barely hold herself back from running down the hall to where the phone sat by the back door.

Edwin had settled it speaker up on top of the phone box as to not hang up, and when Scylla finally comes face to face with the device, she can't help but stop - just for a minute - in hesitation. What they had lived a year ago was so fiery and fast paced. Scylla felt as if it enveloped her whole before she could even see the surface. Like canon-balling into the deep ocean when you can't swim.

Now, whatever they had- it felt tentative and unsure. Like walking across tight rope blind-folded. It was new, and she didn't deal very well with change.

Even then, as the witch picked up the phone with a shaking hand and settled it into her ear, beside her shaking nerves - it became quite obvious to her. Anyway Raelle wanted to be in her life, Scylla would never be able to deny it.

"Hey." She says, finally, and from the other side, a soft sigh comes.

"Hi." Raelle sounds tired, and Scylla wants to ask why, but the fixer continues before she has the chance, "I'm glad you both made it safe. Dad seems excited that you're there."

"Yeah. Your dad's been very nice." Scylla chuckles, resting the palm of her hand against the wall to suppress the heady, dizzying feeling in her lungs. Like she's just now taken a breath for the first time since hearing her voice in the clearing.

"He even brought down some toys from the attic. I hope you don't mind" The necro chooses to say, looking for anything that could distract her from the feeling and help keep herself upright "you didn't tell me you had like, a hundred beanie babies."

"Oh, Goddess." Raelle moans in mock embarrassment, but Scylla can hear the smile in her voice, and she can't help but smile too, "I- hm- I forgot they were in there. I asked him to bring them down for her once you guys got there."

"They're cute." Scylla replies simply, "Tiffany loves them. Thank you."

"Well- she can have them. They don't really have use in the attic." Raelle says, and they stop for a second of amused silence before the blonde speaks again, "what's her favorite?"

"I don't know. Honestly all I know is that the giraffe is a really bad customer." Scylla replies, chuckling lightly at the previous interaction she'd watched.

"Oh, yeah, he has always been an asshole." Raelle laughs, and Scylla joins her, for a second they sit there in little fits of giggles. It's refreshing and so very light. The necro thinks maybe she shouldn't have been worried after all.

Whatever they had before, it was absolutely incredible - it took Scylla's breath away to even think about it - but this? This was all of that wrapped in warm, soft silk. This was different, and honest, and it filled her with butterflies that threatened to flutter out of her throat with each tug along the rope that tied them together so very tight. She wished, more than anything, that Raelle was there, in the dark hallway of her childhood home with her.

"Thank you." Scylla hears herself say before she can truly think about it, as she leans down to rest her forehead lightly against the cold wall to settle her aching heart, "for believing me. For helping me."

Raelle clears her throat on the other line and sighs before she speaks again. For a second Scylla thinks she might have burst the glass bubble that extended around them, but then-

"I never got the chance with my mom but I- I get to have that with you. I guess I can't help but want to try." Raelle decides. She sounds so soft, Scylla's heart strings tug once again, and she's left at a loss for words. Somewhere in the kitchen, the oven timer rings, but Scylla is barely aware of it.

"I guess I also did save your life. Twice now." She speaks out, after a few minutes of silence. On the other line, Raelle chuckles, and Scylla can't help the pride that settles over her for having caused that.

"Yeah. Guess you did."

"Scylla! Dinner!" Tiffany calls out from the kitchen, and it startles Scylla a little out of the stupor that settled over her body as he lifts her head towards the rest of the house.

"I should let you guys eat." Raelle decides, sighing as if she doesn't want to hang up just as much as Scylla hoped they could be physically together. For a second, she lets herself believe that to be the case.

" I- thank you, for calling."

"Yeah... thank you for- hm- being there when I did."

Scylla's heart tugs against her ribcage once again, and she can hear Raelle's soft breathing on the other side. The witch feels as if she could stay there all night, given the opportunity, but Tiffany is annoying Edwin with a thousand questions about the game he'd been watching (she finally finds out it's hockey) and Scylla figures she should go save their host from being questioned to death. Besides, she is quite hungry.

"Good night, Raelle." She says, finally. "Try to sleep, okay? You sound like you could pass out any moment."

"I will." The fixer assures, simply "G'night, Scyl."

****

The next morning, Edwin very graciously lends her his truck and offers to watch Tiffany while she goes to meet with the Dodgers. He doesn't ask many questions, but Scylla still offers quite a bit of information. She understands how frustrating it must be to be left in the dark, and for once she doesn't feel the need to be as secretive as she'd been before.

The place they send her to is out of the city, away from the bright lights and military patrols. She takes back roads that almost seem to lead to nowhere a couple of times, before they cut into the horizon to reveal more sprawling landscape. Protective magic, she realizes, and the only real reason she hadn't been led away by confusion was probably because she was expected.

Scylla remembers staying at the farms before, when she was very young.

It'd be a good place to grow up, she thinks. A place where Tiffany could be away from all those things that so very desperately wanted to trap her for her voice.

She remembers harvesting berries when she lived here, squeezing them into her mother's basket as she smiled fondly back. It was a good memory. All the ones here were.

Before her, the fields come into view, a variety of different fruits and vegetables, tended by people of all ages, in simple but well kept clothes. Beyond them, the pastures, where fat brown cows chewed lazily at the grass, and even beyond that an orchid of fragrant trees that Scylla knew bore a multitude of fruits, all spring and summer, from juicy plums to red, big apples.

She passes it all to reach the gates, wooden and simple, but still flanked by two imposing towers from where respective guards peered down, one on each tower.

"State your business." The one on the right demands, once Scylla has rolled down her windows to the frigid winter air outside.

"I'm here to see Velma." She says, pulling down her sunglasses.

They give her only a nod in response, and the gates open so that Scylla can drive down the winding road up to the main house. It's an old, opulent mansion, built somewhere along the Victorian era. Over the years, the community had surrounded it by other buildings and houses alike, some looking newer and others, older and dustier, but all sturdy and charming, with flower boxes and wood panelling over the windows.

People and children walk to and from them, carrying various objects and chatting along their companions calmly. It feels peaceful here, and Scylla can't help but observe their languid movement as she parks the truck by some other trailers. It's definitely different from what she remembers, bigger and yet eerily emptier.

Scylla shakes her head to clear away the thoughts, sure there are a million explanations as to why there wouldn't be many people out here when it's still 7A.M. and so cold her fingertips threaten to freeze under her gloves. She gets out of the car, adjusting her coat and nodding slightly to a pair of older witches walking by before starting her way up the familiar path to the main house.

Velma Bjelke had come from Sweden along with her parents years before she was born. They had fled the great European witch war in the late 80's. All three had never been in favor of conscription, but given the way things were going in the old continent, Scylla guessed it was worth the shot to move all the way here. She wonders if they ever regretted it. But it was never something she thought to ask before they died.

When she was younger, Velma used to be around all the time. She was her mom's best friend, with whom she shared the knack for necromancy. Velma taught Scylla her very first seeds, and she acted like a second mom to her throughout the years they were together.

Eventually Velma had settled herself at the farms, where they all lived for a few years, and when Scylla left along with her parents, Velma chose to stay behind. She never quite knew why they left, and it was another thing she'd probably never get the chance to ask.

It should be around ten years since they last saw each other, and Scylla couldn't say she didn't feel apprehensive as she went up the stairs. But as soon as her feet were planted on the porch, the big oak doors swung open and there stood Velma, looking older than Scylla remembered her but still just as recognizable as she'd always been with her curly red hair, big glasses and flowy dress.

"Sweet girl." She sighed out, "I have missed you so much"

"Hi, aunt Velma." Scylla smiles, just as the older witch takes a step forward and pulls the youngest witch into a long, tight hug, "I missed you too."

I gave Scylla another mother figure and this one ain't dying

This fic is mostly gonna be fluff but it's also gonna have some plot around the Camarilla and the Dodgers that's gonna be put in C3, which is coming tomorrow or the day after

Hope you enjoyed, and feedback is always appreciated 🥰

#motherland fort salem #scylla ramshorn #raelle collar #raelle x scylla #motherland: fort salem #raylla #taylor hickson

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centeris2 · 3 years ago

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Finding Regicide - Chapter 1

Happy Dark Core Day!

(also on ao3, links in other posts in case tumblr does the post eating thing)

Jessica is surprised when Rebecca offers to help her recover the one thing she thought lost forever: the other half of her soul, Regicide. Jessica is further surprised when it actually succeeds. An explanation in ‘my universe’ for Jessica’s name and appearance change.

Chapter 1 - A Heartfelt Offer

It was an utterly wretched day: heavy rain and chaotic winds pounded the southern side of Jorvik, squalls from the Atlantic ocean mixing with thunderstorms over the land to create a day best spent inside.

Which meant it was ideal for essence tracking practice. Rebecca and Midnightwarrior were making progress in their training with Ydris; they could now fluidly move their perceptions from one form to the other. It made it easier to cheat in tracking lessons, Rebecca could simply use Midnight’s nose to pick up the scent if her eyes could not find any tracks. So Jessica used terrible weather like this to make sure the pair truly were relying on tracking the essence of a person, rather than their physical senses such as sight and smell.

That did mean she spent some time skulking in the crevice of a cave in the Mistfall forest, waiting for her student to find her. The weather was no doubt slowing down Rebecca’s progress, or at least Jessica hoped it was the weather and not Rebecca struggling to grasp basic aura sensing principles. But a few hours was nothing to a being who existed before the human race figured out fire, and soon enough a drenched Rebecca found her.

“When you’re ready, we’ll move up to portals,” Jessica said, sitting comfortably while Rebecca wrung water from her hair, Midnight happy to have the wet tack off him while they waited out the rest of the storm in the cave network.

“You mean I track you through portals?”

“I mean I portal somewhere, so there isn’t a trace on Jorvik for you to follow. I simply appear in another place as far as Jorvik is concerned.”

“Oof, that’s tricky,” Rebecca winced, unsure how far she could extend her awareness in order to find someone like that. There was the mind meld thing Justin did with the Singing Yew, but that was concerning horse souls, and wasn’t quite what Jessica was training her for.

“Wait,” Rebecca realized something, “can you just basically teleport anywhere? Well, portal anywhere? At any time? I thought that’d require more energy or planning or, I dunno, it seems like it’s a big deal creating useful portals.”

“For humans, typically,” Jessica rolled her eyes, “for my kind on Jorvik it’s more like just folding a map, making a little short cut from point A to point B, quite simple. Doesn’t apply everywhere, many places are a bit complicated either with natural magic or the druids obfuscating it, but as a general rule ‘teleporting’ isn’t difficult for us.”

“Ah. That’s mildly alarming.”

“Only for our enemies,” Jessica grinned, showing a few too many teeth. But Rebecca didn’t notice, lost in thought. Jessica’s grin faded, recognizing that face as one Rebecca wore when she had been mulling something over a very long time and was now trying to work up the nerve to start talking.

“So about the soul tracking, you’ve mentioned your horse,” Rebecca started after a long silence, the topic making Jessica stiffen immediately, green eyes flashing.

“I’ve reincarnated, and so do others, wouldn’t your horse reincarnate as well?” she pressed on, wincing at Jessica’s stony face.

“Regicide isn’t just ‘my horse’.”

“I know, I know,” Rebecca tried to soothe her, “you said he was a part of your mind and soul, an extension of your form? Part of the…” the blonde gestured to Jessica’s body trying to find the words, “physical mental projection that creates that body? Except you guys can split that into two bodies somehow.”

“Seeing two hands in the darkness doesn’t mean they are from separate bodies,” Jessica hissed, but her mind was spinning. Could Regicide somehow have been reincarnated? Was that even possible? Jessica wasn’t the same as the humans, or horses, or Aideen and Silversong, could that magic have applied to her somehow?

“Look, I know it’s a difficult subject, and my memories are shot so I can’t even imagine how much pain there is there,” Rebecca tried again, sitting next to Jessica, hands reaching out slightly to offer comfort, “but I’ve had this crazy idea for a while now that maybe… maybe Regicide is reincarnating. And I know how to locate special horses now, and with the soul tracking you’ve taught me as well I think I know your soul well enough to find him.”

Jessica didn’t take the hands, suspicious. The thing that was so off putting about Rebecca was how trusting and helpful she was. Was she really just doing this to help Jessica? Did she not realize how much power this would be granting Jessica, or was this some attempt at gaining leverage? Do this for Jessica, and then be owed a major favor?

“And in exchange?” Jessica asked, wondering what the cost would be.

Rebecca looked insulted by the question, snapping, “and in exchange you can start healing from centuries of trauma? Why do you think everyone is out to get something from you?”

“Because this is a huge bargaining chip to just give up,” Jessica pointed out, now satisfied that Rebecca wouldn’t want anything, or at least nothing of equal value.

“You’ve also been training me, I owe you,” Rebecca pointed out, Jessica wondering if she somehow forgot she was involved in Jessica’s coup plots.

“Regardless, how would we find him, if he even is reincarnating? You weren’t born on Jorvik, there is no guarantee he’ll be born here, assuming he wasn’t born here and then sold outside the country. By the time we check all the horses on Jorvik and around the world he may have died and reincarnated somewhere else,” Jessica pointed out.

“I may have a bit of a short cut for that, though I don’t know if it’ll follow exactly the same rules… I don’t know if he would technically be a starbreed, or if, since he is half of your soul, he wouldn’t have ‘Aideen’s gift’ so he would show up differently. He may just appear as, like, a soul ‘devoid of Aideen’s light’ or something and it may be hard to verify until we get close.”

“I don’t understand this shortcut.”

“Right, sorry, one of the primeval trees helped us locate Concorde, certain people can basically mind meld with them and use the tree’s network to ‘see’ all the horses on Jorvik. Except the trees can also absorb the person so there is a risk, but I have the magic so I could do it, and I know a tree that may be willing to make a deal to help me.”

“A lignos,” Jessica muttered but was more interested in the trees’ ability to see the horses of Jorvik. That was useful information, at least if the war continued for more generations. Ideally now that Rebecca and Midnight were here, the current generation of soul riders would be the last.

“You can see what horses are starbreeds?” Jessica continued, catching Rebecca off guard for a moment before she realized Jessica had merely put two and two together.

“You know Derek, I believe. Works in the postal service now. He has a special camera and film that will be useful for this,” Jessica pressed on before Rebecca could say anything. But she noticed Rebecca stiffened at the request, evidently she knew what the camera was.

“It takes pictures of auras, it can help us verify beyond a doubt if a horse is Regicide or not,” Jessica explained, noting Rebecca leaned away slightly.

“You can do a bit more than that with those pictures,” Rebecca said, wary. Jessica found it terribly odd what information Rebecca was given and what was kept from her, perhaps the soul riders were more forthcoming?

“Correct, I’m trying to get my soul back, that half of me wasn’t naturally in a horse form. Aura photographs can help me get the other half of my soul out and back into me,” Jessica tried to explain before adding, “remember, a dark rider isn’t actually a human and a horse paired together, it’s a single organism that appears in two bodies on occasion. The fact that Regicide may happen to be in an actual, physical, mortal horse body is not natural.”

Rebecca relaxed after a moment, thinking but based on her face she seemed to be agreeing with Jessica’s logic.

“I’ll see if he even still has the camera and any film left. But I hold onto the camera and take the pictures,” Rebecca insisted, Jessica nodding in agreement. She could work with that.

#SSO #Star Stable Online #Star Stable #StarStable #StarStableOnline #my writing #my work #fanfiction #dark core day

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myelocin · 4 years ago

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ij(y)&m | miya a., akaashi k.

synopsis: love is enough, until you think that it isn’t. to love and to lose; then whether to dive into the sea of ocean eyes or look into the skies in search of the sun.

genre: hurt/comfort, slice of life, longfic, happy ending, love triangle

wc: 17,500+

characters: miya atsumu, akaashi keiji

a/n: this is a commissioned piece by @23soong | i still can’t believe u trusted me w this giant fic but ilu i guezz

commissions | ko-fi

(April 16, 2021 | New York City.)

You like to eat cake.

The color lilac, ocean eyes, and the sky. The lyrics to Ayahuasca, and the hidden metaphors where the poem you uncover always looks like a different scenario than the next person. You know what you like, and it’s only this and that. Other days, when your reasoning is a little swayed, you suppose you can afford to think that you like this plus that.

It was a difference only you understood.

(—understand, you mean.)

(You always know what you understand.)

You like cake because you enjoy sweets, and that one shade of violet that borders right in between periwinkle and lilac, because it never looked like it was too much. It didn’t blend into the background like some of the warmer colors, nor make too much of a bold presence like the depth of scarlet. You suppose you like where you’ve always been, after all.

Being content with your own security had always been one of your stronger suits. There wasn’t a wall, nor a fortress around you, but even when you’re out in the open you felt okay. The shade in between lilac and periwinkle was enough because it was you.

Chocolate over cheesecake, because you’ve never been much of a fan, and that bakery down the end of street fifteen minutes away instead of the one right across where you lived. The windows were always tinted in the shade that gave away its age, but you suppose it was its charm. The old auntie who sits by the counter always wears her apron, even if all the pastries to be sold for the day were already prebaked and arranged on the front for display.

There’s an old comfort found in that auntie’s bakery, you think. You still don’t know her name, and you know she only smiles at you because you’re probably a regular by now. You know the pen she’d had clipped to her apron is the same one from eight months ago, probably never used, because the seal’s still intact by the cap. There wasn’t a table that you could call yours, nor a spot in the fall you would stare at and daydream on your rougher days. There was no music, to dull out the sounds of the world outside—but now that you actually give it a little more thought—that’s what gave you the most comfort.

It’s a known fact that when people tend to slip into a state of reclusion, they would search for a space in a world that they can cocoon themselves in. External factors, there, but ignored. Phone often switched to silent, where the spot they stared at along the cracks of the wall would show them a world they could live in—momentarily.

(And that was the problem—at least you think.)

A safe space, they say. And it had always been valid. When your sister would talk about the boy in her dreams who loved her under the rain, you can tell that she felt safe. Sometimes she looked a little farther away despite physically being with you in the moment, but she always looked warm—so you would just choose to sit shoulder to shoulder beside her, and let her be.

People worked differently; a simple this or that situation, and it’s always going to be like that.

Your comfort is just this.

Auntie’s bakery fifteen minutes away, where you’re some random seat inside because in all the years you’ve been coming here, you could never really pick a spot. The table by the window was nice, as was the one by the shelves. The AC hit you in the way you appreciate the most wherever you chose to settle, anyway.

A slice of chocolate cake on Mondays, then maybe again on Wednesdays, but Saturdays could also mean red velvet if you were feeling like it. The bells by the door sound out your entrance every time too, but even if one day there were gone, it wouldn’t make much of a difference. Having a constant was okay, but not necessary. You’re here because you liked their selection better than the one closer to your place, and that was that.

Auntie’s bakery wasn’t your cocoon that kept you away from the world, but you liked it that way.

You found comfort in taking a seat in one of the ten tables inside, and setting your bag on the chair beside you as you got comfortable. You liked moving your hair to the other side, and slumping your shoulders because you know you'd enjoy this little break you decided to give yourself.

You had chocolate two days ago, and even if there was a new option for carrot cake today, you still bought chocolate again. You can hear the conversation from the group of teenagers outside the window every time the doors would open and the sounds of the world outside would filter in. The sound of traffic and life was dulled by the walls, but not muted. There’s still no music in the bakery, and you can sometimes hear every time the auntie behind the counter would shift and tap away at her phone.

This was your slice of comfort.

You didn’t escape the world, but you find yourself still. There was an underlying of connection that you found with the world when you’d have your one slice of cake after a job well done.

So you like to eat cake, because you deserve cake.

You finish the schedule you’d set for yourself, written in bullet points from top to bottom—additional notes scribbled in the margins so you wouldn’t forget, and spreadsheets written so that you keep yourself in line.

You like to eat cake, because it’s a reminder that you’re doing your part as a little cog in the machine that is this world. It’s not escaping that gives you comfort, but rather, the reminder that you’re still in this world, and you’re doing just fine.

(So you deserve your cake.)

Until some days where you feel like you don’t.

Your childhood looked something like this:

Air conditioned rooms, sniffling instead of crying, and the lilac blooms outside your window. There’s a sky, infinite as she’s always been, that watches. Sometimes she cries, but in your corner of the world, it’s more common to see her smile. Sometimes you wonder what she smiles about, but 7 year old you liked to think that she smiled for the same reasons you do.

A cool breeze in the summer, and paper kites folded every sunset. Your dreams of ocean eyes every time you’re close to the shore, as if it’s a foreshadow to the future still to come, but you’d always only stand by the edge and watch—never wading too far in.

It wasn’t a fear of the water, nor the depth, but you just always had a nagging thought behind your head that the waves would never truly be for you. You loved the sun, and the sky too much to give in to the waves.

Perhaps it’s a metaphor for something later on in life; perhaps it isn’t. You’ve never been curious enough to try to think much about it.

Ever since you were young, your idea of love never changed much from your initial thoughts.

Love felt like it should just be what’s written under the bullet points of your life schedule. Love, supposedly, looked like ocean eyes and dark roots for hair. He’d be a little more on the reserved side, and would conquer the world with you.

People always tell you that love should conquer the world for you, but it felt like too much of a selfish dream. Your whole life, you moved with a sense of purpose in mind. You buy cake after a job well done, because you know you’ll only deserve it by then. You do things only because you’ve done certain things, and it’s always been as black and white as that.

(It works.)

You’re in high school and you sit next to your best friend’s boyfriend from seven to five. You have a circle that loves you as much as you do them, and you still treat yourself to slices of chocolate cake from a bakery down the street. Their cake has a generic taste, you think, but it could be better.

Still, you settle. Settling is okay.

The idea that things would always be just okay in the black and white was okay. Your everyday life, and routine, looked like this. The people around you act like this, and you—in return, feel like this.

You laugh when things are funny, then cry when they aren’t. You appreciate the notes you’d find in your locker: the doodles and scribbled reminders alike. The difference in the handwriting and color choice of the sticky notes only reminds you that you’re part of something that isn’t just you.

You will always love your shade of lavender, or lilac, or periwinkle, but you found sentimentality and love in shades of peaches, scarlet, greys, and serenity blue too.

Routine is the kind that looks more lax than rigid, because bursts of serendipity still find you anyway.

(March 13, 2015) Hyogo

Because it’s in your final year of highschool, where the idea of what it initially was is thrown right out the window.

Miya Atsumu.

Brown eyes that are the complete opposite of every hue of the ocean, and his god awful piss yellow hair.

When you meet him, there’s not much to romanticize about it. He sat a few seats away from where you are, and parked his bike purposely close to your sister’s by the gate. He raised his hand to the questions he didn’t know the answer to and would drag his chair beside your desk to say hello even when you’d turn away to focus on your paper during breaks.

Love was an abstract sort of thing, so you could guess that his peculiarity fits.

You were all the shades of lilac while he offered you the pale yellow of every sunshine you found solace in ever since you were young. The color on the opposite end of the color wheel, Miya Atsumu truly was your contrast.

He ate cheesecake and didn’t hide his face when he sneezed. He’d roll up his sleeves and fight the next person without thinking to talk it out first and scribbled his ideas from the center of the paper instead of listing them out from top to bottom, or left to right like you always did.

But he was the start.

“Hi, Len.” he said instead of the standard “hi, hello; what’s your name?” greeting, and it even if it baffles you how he got your name before you even had the chance to introduce yourself—you didn’t think you had it in you to be mad about it.

Third year highschool Miya Atsumu with the god awful piss yellow hair and black undercut smiled in the way that had the left corner of his mouth rising just a little higher than the right, and you were fucking hooked.

You didn’t show it at first, but you were hooked. He had the kind of lilt in his voice that you always thought was more endearing than attractive, and would often lean back in his seat with one arm slung over the back of his chair as he waited for you to finish up with your review for the day. He liked all the things you thought were okay at best, but he was who stayed.

Libraries were for those who found a little comfort and familiarity in the silence, and he was a wildfire. He fell asleep waiting for you as you studied, but would always have a whole lunchbox of soft snacks for you to munch on while you did your thing, checking off the bullet points of your list.

On Saturdays, he was the person waiting for you at the bleachers by the track field with a towel and water bottle, cheering you on as if he understood the sport. When you’d pass him, he’d wave, and holler at you like you just won even if you’ve just been running laps for warmup.

He was never a hello, because he was a whirlwind that caught you off guard straight from the start. Some would say this is like serendipity, and perhaps it is—he is—but you like to think that maybe he’s just part of the black and white of your life. You liked what you liked, whether it correlated with your plans or not, and it really was as simple as just that.

In high school you always liked to eat cake after exams. You liked chocolate because it was sweet, and you’ve always been the person who had a sweet tooth.

You write left to right, from top to bottom and keep your letters beside to eachother in print, because it makes sense.

Miya Atsumu, the boy who was the pale yellow to your lilac, was the one who offered you a pen when you’d misplace yours, even if he only had one with him in his bag.

And you liked him, you suppose, because you just do.

(March 13, 2020) | Tokyo

Miya Atsumu was blunt, and freeing.

He was the sky, and not the sea, but love—later on, became the realization that you’re just freefalling.

After the initial introductions, there wasn’t a point where either of you felt like you were still supposed to be somewhere else. Like something you didn’t know had even been out of place sliding into it, instead of clicking. The skies would open, not just for you but for him as well.

While you saw all the colors of the sun and of the golden hour, Atsumu saw the shades of lilac in the earth.

What becomes is the love that’s felt in the silence, and on the way home.

It’s your voice that he hears chastise him to put down the donut and share it with Osamu when he’d been planning to leave him a third of the last at best. It’s the four letters of your name that he scribbles in the corners of receipts mindlessly, but would still fucking deny it every time he’d get caught.

Atsumu and his bike rides to school, along with his habit of catching up to you just to get off and walk beside you if he sees you nearing the gates.

A silent sort of company in the morning beside someone who was basically known at the most perfect personification of what noise would look like if it were to be redesigned into human form.

True love, and serendipity he thinks, is this. It’s you and all the witty remarks you’d make towards him, telling him to go away, that he never ends up taking seriously because you’d be blushing red before he even gets a chance to react.

The reaction he comes is delayed, but the epiphany that it’s you who becomes the face to love, isn’t.

You were the who when it came to answering the who, what, when, where, why, and how of love.

The what was answered love. The when, is yesterday, when you spilled a little bit of your chocolate milk on your desk and cursed in the way he never would have figured you saying, and today, when you looked out at the skies and smiled your private sort of smile towards the palette of the sunset.

The where was everywhere. Love, as you, in the sidewalks leading up to the gates, and on that desk on the row ahead, diagonal to him.

The why, was this. (It was everything.) (Running, then leaping. Flying, then soaring.) (Everything.)

He finally finds truth to the poems he usually tended to ignore in love songs, but it was great.

And the how, finally, was answered with a shrug.

How did he love you? Atsumu would always shrug because he just does.

Always, always does.

Along with the high, comes facing the reality that you must also fall. For the longest while, you’re climbing, climbing, climbing¸ until eventually, there’s nowhere else to go but down. The real face of love looked somewhat like that.

It’s one foot after the other, and steps towards the sky. There’s no staircase with a solid ground leading up, nor wings clasped behind you to lift you up even with through the absence of a breeze. (But love had you flying.)

It’s seeing the sights you’ve seen your whole life not with a new set of eyes, but a new vantage point. Atsumu’s the sun, all the while you still felt as if you were the child forever glancing up towards it. They tell you to never look at light straight on, but his glow never had you blinded.

Atsumu gave you clarity, showcased on a silver platter.

You understood all the priorly misunderstood parts of your life, where it felt like a new kind of exhilarating. Like having knowledge at the palm of your head, the world became as infinite as it became yours.

(And yours alone.)

Your hands that only grabbed just what was yours were suddenly reaching too far in the cookie jar. Greediness has never really been you, but eventually the fall—your fall—from the high looked like crumbs on your hands and shirt, and the absence of what once was where it should still be.

Atsumu never said a word, because it never was that way.

Still, you closed your eyes while still in the air. The view was right there, and Atsumu was beside you through the climb, the high, and the period where you just glide, telling you to open your eyes and look but you only did—for just a fraction of a second.

It’s the heaven that sits above the clouds that terrify you, you think. The unspoken truth that was kept as a hush is suddenly right in your ear screaming.

“He’s holding you to the clouds,” it taunts, then continues, “—But what have you given him in return?”

Atsumu’s never heard the demons in your head, nor was aware of its presence in the first place, but he always seemed to just have a way of knowing what to say, exactly when to say it.

Like now.

He’s sat in the bleachers, high on life, while you’re high on adrenaline. Six thirty in the summers meant the sun was just beginning to set, so he smiles, knowing that you’ve always thought of this moment as yours.

(And his, he adds mentally, a whisper to himself—a validation that you are his as much as he is yours.)

Truly.

“Hi Lena,” he grins; one side quirked up higher than the other, and under the bloom of scarlet and amber, he’s beautiful. “What’s your name?”

You’re laughing, as if you don’t carry the weight of all your demons on your shoulders. Amber against your deep brown eyes, and he’s caught. Like always. Fucking entranced, like always.

“Hi ‘Tsumu,” you voice back, leaning close and laughing at the way he scrunches his eyes close at your sudden display of brevity. It catches him off guard every time. He loves it, as much as he does you—but he’s still a boy inside.

You laugh anyway, pressing a kiss on his eyelids when he keeps his eyes closed, and you smile, softly, when you notice the way his shoulders relax.

“What’s your name?” you echo, then you’re both laughing at the inside jokes that you admittedly could never get sick of.

“I really don’t know,” he stretches further, enjoying the ay the moment became not just yours, but also truly his, with just a couple of words and some laughs. “I just can’t remember, Lena, but what’s your name?”

You laugh, throwing your hair up in a quick bun, before taking the seat beside him.”Atsumu we sound stupid.”

You don’t turn to return his stare, but you feel his eyes on your profile before he even tries to make something off of it. He smiles, and you feel that too.

You’re beautiful, he thinks to himself. A thought that comes to him more frequent than remembering the kanji for his own name, and Atsumu knows he’s rooted himself way too deep to even try to think of letting go.

“Fuck the status quo or whatever that shit says babe,” you hear him laugh in return.

You’re both sat shoulder to shoulder, eyes towards the sun, and the world feels like it only exists to be yours. (and his.)

A moment, where in your eyes, it feels like it’s just (him) and you.

Just him.

Love, as just Atsumu, because he has a way of being your forever anything and everything. A whirlwind of some sorts; a spontaneous wildfire wrapped with the pretty shades of serendipity, and it feels so right.

It’s quiet, but it’s the nice kind of quiet. The demons in your head are hushed, but if you know they’re probably just slumbering, you’re still overwhelmed with a newfound sense of comfort. The source feels like it’s meant to flow infinitely, and you smile—until you don’t. You remind yourself the virtue of never taking more than you can bother to use, so as you turn your head, watching him soak in the light once again, it takes so much inside you to remember that and fight back the urge.

“Don’t you have practice tonight?” you ask, curious.

His sports bag was placed beside him, and it takes you a little while to notice that he’s decked out in his training gear. The time on your clock tells you it’s six forty five, and you’ve always known that practice started at five.

“I do,” he hums.

You turn in response, poking his cheek before pinching it. “Then go.”

Atsumu sighs, in a too-dramatic-voice for a man who was well beyond those years, but you suppose that that was just one of his charms. “Wanna stay actually,” he pouts leaning his weight against yours, to which you’re quick to groan at, nudging your shoulder to try to get him away.

His chin settles on your shoulder anyway, but his other arm is quick to anchor you around the other side, making sure that he’s still holding you up, more than you holding him up. Atsumu’s face is close to yours, as is yours. It’s a position he’s always liked. When he looks at you, he can see the little dots on your face that other people never could get to see unless they were this close. When you blink, you do it slow, like you’re savoring the sight in front of you, and his heart thrums in a tender sort of happiness because even if you never looked much like the sentimental type, he knows you well enough to know that you really are that.

Atsumu juts his bottom lip, like he’s tired, and you laugh.

“Tsumu, go.”

“Tsumu,” he counters. “—stay.”

“Actually,” he corrects himself, shaking his head. “Lena,” he smiles. “Stay.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” he adds. “Just stay.”

His words hit you before you could even try to pull your walls back up, knowing that it’ll hit a spot you aren’t exactly keen on confronting just yet.

Just stay, his words echo in your ear, and you suppose that that’s really all you could do. Moments like this where love overwhelm you the most has you fearing love the most, if you were being honest with yourself. There was a fear that comes with love, because at the root of it all, love will always just be a risk.

The higher the climb, the harder the fall they say. The more you give, the more the world will take. You look at Atsumu, who faces you with his pouted lips and sunset painted across two pools of baby brown. He closes his eyes and leans forward, knowing that you’ll kiss his eyelids before you even say it. Like the earth letting itself pulled by gravity, you’re beckoned towards the sun, falling into orbit as time—the human concept of it anyway—begins to move slow and all you can do is spin in circles and marvel at the being that is the light.

“I love you,” he says, and he’s honest.

What terrifies you is the honesty in your voice too, when you reply with an “I love you,” of your own.

The higher the climb, the more painful the fall, you think. When Atsumu opens his eyes and allows for the silence to remain and blanket the piece of the world that is yours and his, you see that you’ve already made it to the highest summit.

The more you give, the more the world will take.

But the thing is, you don’t know what you’ve given him. Your hands are empty beside his, but he holds them anyway. You’re so fucking in love and it terrifies you because what is the earth next to the sun? It stays in a distance so it doesn’t burn, but now, even as you’re face to face with the being that embodies the essence of the light and life itself—you aren’t burning.

Then it hits you.

He is your everything.

You gave yours, so what else could the world take other than him?

And because love also wields the power to make you more fearful than you are in love, you admit to yourself that you’re fucking scared. Atsumu says “I love you,” again, and holds your empty hands in his that holds nothing but still feels all the ways full at the same time. It’s suddenly hard to swallow, and you’re cold.

The summit is beautiful, but you are cold.

You close your eyes, walk forward, lose your footing, then just freefall.

The scary part is, even if you do that, you know Atsumu will just think of it as an adventure and jump right after you—riding the current with you, even though you’re venturing into what’s unknown.

Still, you close your eyes.

You pull the parachute first, imagining that you’ve hit the ground before the winds would even get to you.

(March 13, 2021)

The funny thing about heartbreak is, Atsumu thinks, is that you recognize its presence before you see its face.

He felt you fading.

Fading from something, but it never fathomed to him that it was from him. You never pulled away when he held his hands, because he made it a point to consciously remind himself to wipe them clean beforehand every time so he supposes it wasn’t that.

“Are we okay?” he asks anyway, when you’re in his car, staring out the street that’s a couple ways from your house. Six-thirty’s already passed, and the skies are in shades of grey instead of the marmalade and amber the sunset always brings.

Atsumu’s voice is a break in the atmosphere, that you think wasn’t tense, but the way his voice quivers in the way only you can point out has you thinking otherwise.

You swallow.

“We are.”

Atsumu exhales, and at the way his voice seems to sound a little more amplified than usual, you realize that the engine’s turned off. Regardless of the nagging voice in your head to stop dragging this out, you turn away anyway.

You love him, and love to love him. You love kissing his eyelids when he naps on your thighs and associating him with the little things just because.

(You turn away, prolonging the inevitable, because you don’t want to associate him with the end—just yet.)

You think to yourself that you don’t deserve this—him—because he deserves better, but you want to have just one more bite. Fists clenched in the pocket of his hoodie you wear that still smells like him, and you want to cry.

Atsumu sighs again, tired. When you look at him, he’s already staring at you, for god knows how long now, and you wince because he looks exhausted.

“Are we?” he asks again, and when you open your mouth to try to find a couple words to string together as a reply, nothing comes out.

“Lena,” he says, and his voice is loud.

He’s only been whispering this whole time, and you’re aware of that, but it’s still loud. His car’s in park; the engine’s off, and when you shift your position from side to side to try to find your place, you can hear the fabric ruffle against each other.

“Len,” you hear again. “Lena.”

“Talk to me,” Atsumu says, and you’re baffled at the way that his voice sounds like a plea.

“I am talking to you,” you mumble. You shift again, but you’re still not comfortable; you don’t want to look at him. You don’t think that you deserve to look at him.

But his voice still comes to you, soft. He’s saying your name; again and again, but it still sounds like a fucking plea. Your shoulders shake, but you still it before he notices. The bullet points that come after the list you write left to right, from the top going to the bottom doesn’t give you an answer as to why he’s fucking pleading.

“Please look at me,” he’s whispering now. (Still loud.)

What is there to plead for?

“What’s wrong, Tsumu?”

“Babe, you gotta talk to me.”

The zipper drags across the plastic of the door, and makes a sound. Internally, you flinch right as you shift your position again because you’re still not fucking comfortable.

You look at him, then blink. He’s staring at you, desperate for words you don’t have, and suddenly your hands feel so empty.

What do I give you?

He shivers when a breeze floats in through the window, while you don’t. Then you blink again. Right, you think. This is his jacket that he gave you. He’s sitting beside you, at 23:10, half an hour away from his apartment, knowing full well there’s traffic in Tokyo regardless of the fucking hour.

Your thoughts, a battle between what can I even give you? and look at what you’ve given me.

“Tsumu I think this is it,” you suddenly whisper, the feeling of being so out of place finally dawning on you.

You keep shifting, uncomfortable in your position, because you’re not supposed to be here. You buy yourself a slice of cake after a job well done, but when you look at Atsumu—what have you done?

What have you given for you to receive so much?

His hoodie’s still warm, and your fingers clutch onto the fabric.

Atsumu stares at you, and even if you want to look away, you can’t. He holds your gaze like he’s held your heart for years now, and you know this won’t be a situation easy to break out of. His grip had always been solid despite the lack of bruises that tell the world of its presence.

“I think,” you sigh, swallowing down the urge to say it’s a joke, to take back your words.

“I think—“ you say again, but hesitate. Atsumu watches you nod your head, the look in your eye so far he doesn’t know if he can catch up by now. You’re whispering your words, the most of what you say phrases he can barely even understand, but he listens to you anyway.

You want to cry again, the tightness in your chest increasing tenfold, and the feeling of discomfort reminding you that you’re not supposed to be here. You don’t deserve this slice of cake, but you’re greedy.

Balled fists, hazy thoughts, and you’re cracking. You aren’t breaking, but you’re cracking.

The fallout is the same.

You nod your head again, and Atsumu watches, his eyebrows scrunched up and drawn together, as you seem to arrive at a conclusion without even letting him in the conversation. The haze clears from your eyes, and by the looks of it you’ve already rooted yourself someplace you don’t even want to stand in.

He tries to say your name, but you’re still shaking your head.

Then you’re shrugging off his jacket. Atsumu opens his mouth, still fucking confused because what are you doing?

You held his hand yesterday and kissed his eyelids goodnight three fucking hours ago.

“What are you doing?”

You hear him, but that’s all there is to it. You know you should be listening to him, but only the definition of the words register in your head. The meaning to be deciphered in the situation remains unseen, when the only thoughts in your head revolve around the fact that your hands are still so empty.

You think about what he says, though.

What are you doing, Lena?

He watches you unzip the zipper from the front, and hear the audible click when you unbuckle your seatbelt. He’s still watching, mouth parted in the silence in disbelief at what he thinks is the goodbye scenario he’s always avoided thinking about. You’re leaning forward, then it’s the left arm out before the right.

A breeze comes again, and even if your eyes are elsewhere, you catch a glimpse at him from your peripherals as he’s shivering—again. Frustration bubbles up in your chest, welling up into tears, but you don’t cry.

You remind yourself that you shouldn’t cry.

Balance was what kept the world in orbit, so therefore, you must only take, if you give.

Rewards are reserved for accomplishments, but what have you fucking offered?

Atsumu’s given you the world, but you still face him with empty hands and just an I love you.

Love was your certainty and your lifetime kind of truth, but what else is there? When Atsumu tells you he’s all yours, it’s enough, but when you do—why does it feel so little?

You take the risk, then the plunge, and look at him. When he blinks, and keeps his eyes shut just that while longer, you have to fight the urge to kiss his eyelids like you’ve always done. His hoodie’s folded on your lap now, but you still smell your honeydew on it.

How many times does he have to wash it to get the smell out? you think.

Atsumu swallows his words, his retaliations, because he knows you’ve anchored yourself before you even hit the water. If you had always been anything—other than the fact that you are always his everything—it was the fact that you are resolute.

So he lets you speak.

He already offers you his love even though he looks at heartbreak in the face.

And it’s your face he sees. Faraway eyes, your shoulders tense, and a shiver that makes your fingers tremble in the slightest. He sees every detail play out in slow motion, and even if his heart is hammering in his chest, just as yours probably is, he thinks to himself—you’re beautiful.

You, as the face of love from the hello, and still you, the face he puts to heartbreak as he listens to you say, “I think I have to let you go.”

‘Let what go?’ he thinks. When you let go of something, it’s to get rid of the bad—the dead weight.

Was he the dead weight?

“It’s for the best,” you say. (For your best, you think.)

“I don’t think we can keep doing this anymore.” (I don’t think I can keep doing this to you anymore.)

“I think this is the best for us.” (For you.)

“What—“

“Tsumu,” you say, cutting him off. Your voice doesn’t quiver but your hands hidden from his point of view clench then unclench.

“Atsumu,” you say again, this time with a smile. It isn’t forced, because you don’t think that you ever had to force a smile for him, but at the sight of him watching you, heartbreak written across his face, your heart can’t help but crack in the same pattern.

It runs a little deeper, you think. The kind of deep where you aren’t sure if even the scars will fade overtime.

“Lena—wait—“ he tries to interject, but you’re already opening the door and walking outside.

He knows your look when you’ve decided, and he knows that it looks something just like this. Still, he bites his lip, hoping that this would just blow off come daylight. He knew you had always been the type to feel the things that come, but never really dwell on it enough to process it. There was hesitance when you accepted things from others, and it never escapes his line of vision when you’d just duck your head a little lower when you didn’t have anything to offer back.

When he says I love you, he means it in both the verbal and in the silent way he tries to communicate with you.

Like leaving traces of himself in every little piece of everything, so that it’s there for you to have and just know.

“I love you,” he says again, and again.

In the silence, but you don’t hear it. On the walk home, you feel it but you turn away.

This is the painful part of love, you think. You know that you’re frustrated, and that everything you hate which unfortunately comes with love is brewing so strong in your chest, that no words come out.

You tell yourself that you’re mad, but when you look at the mirror you turn away.

“My name is Lena,” you say, and you begin. In the world—or your world at least—chaos is swirling so in order to find organization for it, you close your eyes and center your thoughts on the first fact to keep you grounded.

“I like to eat cake, when I deserve it, because I still am victorious,” you say, then add, when a flash of pale yellow comes to mind, “—sometimes.”

“Yeah,” you say, then turn the corner to walk into the kitchen so sit at the table. You remember the slice of cake you bought this morning, meaning to save it for tonight, remembering that you just finished your exams after cramming for nearly two weeks.

In hindsight, you really should have expected it though. Your sister did mention that she just started her period the day before, and usually you never minded when she ate a couple of stuff that wasn’t yours—and you know this is isn’t the reason why you’re crumpled down on the kitchen floor with one fork in hand and no cake in the fridge, but you are.

You’re crying, and flustered, and the words that come out of your mouth sound more gibberish than coherent. You think that you’re saying Atsumu’s name, beside an apology, but truth be told you’re letting yourself go and blank out.

The cold air from the opened fridge hits you on your knees, and you really should be getting up by now to shut it close before your sister comes home and pokes at you for it, but you really can’t be bothered to think about caring.

This is the fall that comes with love, and what was taken was what you were given.

It’s you who gave him back, because the thoughts in your head are busy telling you that even if love was enough—was it really?

Were you enough was the ugly question you don’t face, so you close your eyes and convince yourself that you’re crying because of a fucking slice of cake and not because of the sun.

You ignore the memory of walking home, and still feeling Atsumu’s presence watch you with eagle eyes as he slowly drove with you down the sidewalk – “just so I know you’re home safe, at least give me that.”

Give, you think.

There was nothing that you had given him, and Atsumu had deserved something even greater than eternity itself.

It’s in the same hour of that same night where Miya Atsumu, who wore red eyes and slumped shoulders, that was standing outside the bakery an hour and fifteen minutes away from his place, wondering which kind of cake you’d like the most out of the thirteen in the display.

(September 13, 2021)

Time moves at a weird pace.

Yesterday feels like yesterday, and today feels just like today. It doesn’t move slow, because you know the clock keeps ticking, but still you move. Sunrise comes before sunset, but you stopped looking up and watching the in-betweens colors before that final stroke of marmalade, or even five thirty’s golden hour.

Gold reminded you of the sun, so you looked away. Love had you blinded, and you wanted to look at the world with the lens of practicality instead of the colored ones this time around.

Atsumu was still around, for the most part of it.

Graduation came, then summer, and you know even without you he kept blooming. Towards the end of the year, right before graduation, you still saw the posters on the wall, and heard his name in the announcements. There was always a congratulations right before, followed by a “we’re proud of you,” that never flew past your line of attention.

He deserved it, you think.

Miya Atsumu deserves the whole cake, and not just a slice, because he continuously still gives—his good deeds going well past just the title of a job well done.

You, on the other hand, both kept your distance and thoughts in order in the beginning.

He still said hello when you passed by him in the halls. The awkward timeframe right after a breakup didn’t spare either of you too. With you, opening your inbox and rereading the old messages; debating whether you should just archive the whole conversation or delete it altogether, then seeing Atsumu typing something for a whole five minutes before the indication stops and a message is never sent.

Where you’re stuck wondering what he could have said, because you know Atsumu’s always been the type to not only wear his heart on his sleeve, but rather, shout it out instead.

You never fit that bill, but you (love)d him anyway.

If you were being honest—at least to yourself—it took long, before Miya Atsumu became just the name of a contact in your phone, the text history buried at the bottom. Seven months’ worth of texts piled above his last, “hey, i’m outside,” that you never could bring yourself to delete.

For a while, you think, you deserved that slice of cake.

Just a slice, and not the whole thing, but for that while—it was all yours.

(December 2021)

Akaashi Keiji didn’t come into your life until another three months after you shut the book and pretended you never read its contents. You say you know the end, but really, you never flipped past page 223 despite the book ending at 416.

The end was a page that was skimmed over, and never really read through. A dog eared fold on the corner, instead of a bookmark, for the sake of it sitting on the shelf, looking finished. In the moment, you know it isn’t finished, and you’ll probably stumble upon the book again at some point, later down in time, but perhaps if you give yourself enough patience, you’ll forget that it was left to be unfinished in the first place.

Miya Atsumu was a story you started, where you read the start in a third person POV, then left it midway when you took the reins and rewrote what you think the ending would be from a first person perspective.

I am not enough for you, you said. I will take off this jacket and leave it here, because I haven’t offered you anything.

I will leave, and let you go because you deserve more.

(But it’s I love you, as the thought, that still will always remain.)

You have your books and bullet point notes, the days after today written in a list: from top to bottom with just a couple of scribbles along the margins. Akaashi met you like serendipity used to dictate, and this new book started like how it should have.

“Hello,” because that’s how it should start. Followed by a “how are you?” because that’s usually the next thing to say.

The conversation’s light before it dives deeper, and you think to yourself that you like it like that because it follows order. Atsumu gave you half his bento box two hours after you first met, while Akaashi offered you a napkin and his extra fork when yours fell.

Often, your friends would tell you that it probably wasn’t a good idea to compare the dynamic of the two, and you agree because if you were outside this situation you would be advising the exact same, but when you do things from first person, a lot of things become that much harder just because.

This wasn’t love, nor was this the replacement of love, but you can’t help but admit that Akaashi Keiji was the prince charming you wrote about in your diary when you were a kid. He was the ocean eyed prince charming every teenager dreamt of, and this was the slowburn kind of pace that love should be.

Atsumu barreled into you and made himself be known as the yellow in the color wheel opposite of your purple, and even if it didn’t clash, nor blend, it had a presence.

You think to yourself that Akaashi was all the shades of ocean blue, while you were that kind of purple right in between lavender and periwinkle. You could stand next to him at the train station, or be squished next to eachother in the train during rush hour, and people would take one glance and assume you’re together.

Situating yourself beside the shade next to yours in the color wheel felt right. Blue to purple, or purple to blue. It worked. Neither of you had to jump far, or take a leap across the wheel, but only take a step and you’re right there.

He wasn’t love, but you didn’t let yourself think that he could be.

It’s two more years of this until your master’s is done, so you suppose reading a side story wouldn’t hurt much.

Only that this side story was getting a little more complicated than you initially just planned out. You jumped into this story without the thought of grabbing a bookmark, and Akaashi Keiji had been the type of person you knew hated dog eared bookmarks.

“What are your thoughts about this?” he asks you one day though, so completely out of the blue that it has you whipping your head to the side to stare at him, wide eyed. You’ve known him for a while now, and he was okay. Perhaps just the word great, at best, because whether you looked at this from a first person point of view or a third, your words would still be the same. Objective thoughts led you to thinking of coming to a conclusion based on the rubric of your childhood, and Akaashi fit the bill.

Maybe not your bill now, but he still fit it.

Akaashi Keiji was who your should have been prince charming looked like, with the ocean blue eyes and poetry for words.

Even though he asks you that now, when you’re seated in the passenger seat of his car parked outside your apartment building, you still can only bring yourself to just blink. You stay true to the fact that you are surprised, and you do admit that, but that’s all there is to it. Nothing feels like it’s leaping out of your chest, and there’s no flutter of anything in your stomach.

His words register in your head, but so does confusion.

“This?” you parrot, trying to find meaning through the limited context he provides.

Akaashi nods, hands still at 10 and 2 on the wheel, while his foot hovers over the brakes. You can see that the car’s in park, but he’s tense. He lets a couple more seconds pass—that felt like it was stretching a lot longer than what it really is—before inhaling and turning to face you.

“Yeah,” he nods, looking like he’s saying it to himself rather than towards you. “This,” he confirms, then after it looks like he convinced himself, he looks at you, and nods again.

You stare at two pools of the sea, that immediately has you wondering if it’s either the Atlantic or the Pacific. Your feet that had long been digging into the warmth of the sand on the shore are suddenly hit with the first cold kisses of the water, and you’re caught.

“This,” you sound out, and by now you’re already well aware of where the conversation’s headed. The both of you still skirt around the words anyway, the silence quickly settling in.

He’s breathing in and out, steady, and tapping his finger against the steering wheel—steady. You’re sat beside him wearing a jacket that’s always been yours, and the AC in his car is just the right kind of cold. When you shift, you’re not exactly comfortable enough to want to stay, but you aren’t uncomfortable to the point of wanting to leave right away either. The space between the both of you feel appropriate, and you know even if he leaves later, his place is only a ten minute drive away.

Convenience, you think; it’s an appropriate word to describe this.

So you turn to face him.

Ocean meets earth, and you’re aware of the cold waves touching your ankle now. You’re nodding your head when you hear the click of his seatbelt unbuckle, then keep your eyes on him when he leans close.

It’s like staying on the edge of the shore, hesitant for the long while, before the moon beyond the daylight loses patience and calls for the tide to favor the yearning of the sea as it grants the tips of its waves to reach further inland.

From your seat, you watch as the ocean comes to you.

Your hands are empty, still, but you did finish that paper two days early so you suppose a slice of something is okay.

“This is convenient,” he finally hears you say, and Akaashi wants to say something else, but he shuts himself up when he sees you finally look at him, like you found an answer to a question that’s boggled with your head for a while now.

He knows there was always something unanswered that bothered you, but he never had it in himself to breach past the boundary the both of you had situated right in the middle just for the sake of asking.

He was curious, but they did say that curiosity had its ways of killing the cat.

Akaashi doesn’t want to be killed—and because he didn’t want this to be killed either—he chose to keep his silence.

Still, he still has it in him to hesitate. The moon can only push the tides so much, and the water will only go so far to where it rarely ventures before it must recede back to where it should be come daylight.

It’s daylight that you yearn, and he sees that.

A faceless kind of sun—that he can only guess is the answer to all the questions he knows you still have.

What’s above the both of you is the gleam of moonlight now, he reasons, so he goes as far as he can and waits. You’re still standing by the shore—still sitting completely still—until he watches you break out of the hesitation laced with your thoughts, right as you move.

“What are we doing?” he hears you whisper, so Akaashi begs for the moon to push him forward just a little closer.

(He hopes you don’t pull away.)

“We’re doing what’s convenient,” he offers, a set of words strung together at the very last second that he knows is just a crafted lie, then prays for the best.

You’re nodding your head, and you give yourself just those few more seconds as you weigh your thoughts, deciding what’s still okay and what isn’t.

You think back to the bullet points of your journal, and mentally recite the facts written in an organized list.

You like to eat cake, and treat yourself a slice after a job well done, because that’s only when you deserve it. You (love)d Miya Atsumu for a whole novel of your life where the reason fell under just because instead of the specifics you try to fit in places for the sake of accuracy and detail. Miya Atsumu was the sun that was always with the sky, and you were never blinded even if you did always stare at him directly in the eye. (Next to that part is always a quickly scribbled why—but you don’t know the answer to it just yet.)

(You say you should really be getting back to it later, to fill in the blanks, and give it some closure—but you aren’t ready for a closure.)

(You aren’t ready to open page 223.)

Then next on the list is Akaashi Keiji. You had two classes with him and went to the same university for your masters and the most you know about him is that he likes his coffee with just a splash of caramel. He lives just a ten minute drive away from you, and he’s okay enough to share a laugh with on weekdays and breakfast with on weekends if you had class together that day. He’s okay with 7am lectures, even if he did have bags under his eyes, and he’s the type to always carry a bookmark with him or at least just a scrap of paper to fit in between the pages because he hated the idea of just folding the corners as substitute instead.

It’s not that he’s convenient, but rather this is convenient.

You got along well, and you suppose that you’re comfortable enough with the ocean to wade deep within it and still not drown.

“I won’t do anything you don’t want me to,” you hear him murmur, so you take a step and wade in a little deeper.

Ankle deep, and you’re unbuckling your seatbelt as you shift and fully face him.

Ocean blue, and the waves are swirling, swirling, swirling—you’re pulled in. Waist deep, and the water’s cold enough to wake you up and remind you that it’s fine. You’re fine, and you can breathe; you aren’t overwhelmed, and when you stretch your fingers and try to feel for the sand beneath the waves, you can still feel it. There’s a certain security found in being grounded, then you’re thinking to yourself that whatever this is, is okay.

You try to stare down, and face the waves, and will yourself to not think of the sky.

There’s no daylight, and the sun slumbers, so the waves around you heed to the call of the moon and move back and forth, in motion, but still, around your waist.

So it’s you who buckles your knees in waist deep water and pull yourself under.

It’s the feel of the water, cool and not exactly cold that greets you, as you push yourself forward, grabbing the collar of his shirt before pressing your lips against his.

Akaashi sighs against your lips, as if he’s already discovered the ending to a story he conceptualized himself but never really had the courage of writing out.

He’s kissing you right back, and it feels good—for the moment.

You try not to think of the nagging feeling that pokes at you again and again, saying that the warmth of the sand under the sun in daylight feels much more like home than the cool feel of the water.

You’ve always known to yourself that there was the undeniable contrast between Akaashi and Atsumu.

Comparing the two wasn’t a bright idea—it was stupid, if anything, and didn’t help with shit, honestly speaking. (You always were honest to yourself.)

Akaashi hummed his praises, and never was the type to really shout them out. He called you when he’d pull up to your building, instead of wait outside the door and surprise you with a couple pieces of chocolate and a cheesy grin that you swore to hell and back you hated to boot.

Atsumu was everything unpredictable and freeing, but Akaashi was predictable in the way that eventually grew sentimental. He, alone, had forever been great. You knew well that there was so many things he could take pride in, and never bothered to hide your compliments when it came to his achievements, because you knew he deserved the recognition.

Akaashi spoke to you in metaphors, while Atsumu told you like how it is. You admit to yourself, that even if there were some days where you liked the challenge of trying to understand what was written underneath the underneath—the days where you just wanted to hear it as it just is were just as equal.

For the next few months after the first, time still moved okay. Sixty minutes was still an hour, while twenty four hours was still one whole day. Whether Akaashi’s hand was on yours, or if his lips were on your neck in the car, time still just moved.

Your heart skipped a couple beats, when his thumb would always caress the corners of your lips before and after he kissed you, and your cheeks would bloom into all the shades of scarlet when he’d whisper your name in between the kisses that never felt rushed.

But it was just that.

You felt the rush of what love was supposed to be—the hype that it never failed to bring—in the car.

At 11PM, in the parking lot of your apartment building, the height of love thrived on the fumes of serendipity for an hour or two every couple of nights, and would trickle fast when you’d open the door and tell him goodnight.

Atsumu was goodnight, my love, with the cheesy smile and your montage of eye rolls but secret blushes when you’d turn your back and make your way inside your house. Akaashi, on the other hand, you think is just your goodnight, then go, because at the end of the day—because of convenience—the both of you are somehow dragging out the goodbye.

So you part from him, wipe your lips, and try to ignore the way his thumb lingers just a little longer on the corner of your lips. You turn away when the look in his eye turns softer, because it shouldn’t, and pretend like you didn’t just see the shift the both of you have been trying to get away from.

Just two years, then goodbye, you tell yourself.

This isn’t love, Akaashi thinks to himself, hand on the wheel and foot on the gas pedal instead of the brakes. He watches you walk past the hood of his car, the hand that was just balling up the collar of his shirt only moments ago raised to give him a goodnight wave as you walk past, and shit, he thinks.

He still smells honeydew even after you’ve shut the door, and he can’t help but notice how silent the car feels despite the low hum of the air conditioner blasting inside his car.

Akaashi sinks into his seat, forehead pressed to the steering wheel, before he sighs his deep exhale.

“Ah,” he mumbles. “Shit.”

This wasn’t supposed to be love.

If there was one thing he excelled at above the rest, and kept as a constant since day one, for Akaashi it was playing it safe.

This route was set to be the one he’d take when he’d drive home, because it was safe. Traffic was inevitable in the city, but this on had the least turns. A couple stoplights, and some convenience stores would be in every corner as well as a gas station at every couple of miles was convenient.

Safe, like choosing just plain vanilla for his cake flavors ever since he turned old enough to pick out his own cake, and safe, like just a splash of caramel in his coffee to lessen the bite of espresso.

You were what challenged him to walk a little ways outside the circle he’d always deemed as safe.

He didn’t run away from it, on the other hand, because he realizes that it’s curiosity that made him take the bait. You weren’t just the girl who shared a couple subjects with him and wrote her notes in the same order, the letters written in print instead of scribbled with questionable cursive.

Truth be told, it was before he even took the risk that night and begged for the moon to let him reach just a little further in the shore for him to unconsciously begin redesigning the face of love into the contours of your face.

You looked like love.

What it could just possibly be at the start, until he waded too far into the shore for that thought to turn into the beginnings of certainty.

And when Akaashi Keiji was certain, he took no time in looking for somewhere to bury his roots as deep as he can possibly go in.

It started with noticing that some weeks you prefer red velvet over chocolate mousse, then making a mental note to himself that you prefer the bakery on the east side of campus than the one on the west. You never made too much conversation with the teenagers that worked there part time, because he understands that there’s never really a point in doing that when you could just be on your way, but he took note of how you’d smile a little more towards the uncles that trimmed the hedges on the garden outside.

In his eyes, not only did you look like the textbook definition of love, but you also looked like his dream of what love is supposed to be.

It’s supposed to be looking at someone, doing something so mundane, and realizing that having a name beside you written in a book that was supposed to just tell your journey wasn’t all that bad—at all.

And all it took was a Sunday morning, on the twenty first of some month he can’t quite recall in the moment, for him to catch a glimpse of you making your way to the library with a cup of what he knows is just boba in a coffee mug in hand. The sky behind you looks like it opens, as if there’s something with it that’s always been with you, and even though you’re at a distance—in his eyes, you’re glowing.

You smile at the uncle who’s trimming away at the hedges to your right, then right before you make a turn, you’re raising your hand as a good morning and giving him a smile.

And fuck, Akaashi thinks.

He holds a heart that beats, where for the moment it’s not because of the fact that he still needs to breathe.

He’s okay, and this is okay.

He thinks to himself that there’s a chance, because the both of you work. So it just means to say that this, can too.

“Okay,” he exhales, the whisper more as a reassurance to himself than to anyone else. The world covered in daylight slumbers at his words, and as he stands, his own schedule in place, he wishes for the blessing of the moon to push him with the tides back into the shore again.

“Tonight,” he texts you, instead.

“I’ll pick you up tonight.”

(March 13 2022)

In shades of grey, Akaashi Keiji loves you.

Grey car, oceanic yes that look grey under the stormy nights you’d always meet him in, and the rainclouds of tonight blending the skies into the muddled shades of one palette. Making out in his car, a couple times a week, because even if he wanted to hold your hand and kiss you out in the world—you always did pull back.

But he has this, and for an hour and some minutes, has you.

Your palms on his chest, where his breaths are huffed out and fucking heavy. There’s smoke out the engine, the air conditioner’s blasted in just the way he knows you like, but it’s those hazy eyes of yours he could never read that stare at him.

Or towards him, rather.

Akaashi thinks to himself that it’s always looked as if you mean to be staring at someone else other than him, living through the moment that was somewhere else but here. He knows love is meant to be screamed at the top of his lungs, so he tries to at least do that.

He’s never really thought the rest of the world should know, because all he really wants is for you to know.

Words don’t come out, and his hands are under your shirt before they even try to run through the skin of your neck like he usually does. Cold palms flat against the curve of your back, and you’re confused. Akaashi’s staring at you, breath held as he holds onto your smell of honeydew for as long as he can like it’s the lifeline he needs. Your eyes are even hazier, looking like you’re even more lost, and he’s frustrated.

He kisses you again, pulling you flush against him, until eventually you’re pushing at his chest when the center console begins to dig into your skin a little too much.

“We can go upstairs?” he usually tries to suggest, and now, looking at your red lips and mused hair, he wants to ask the same question again, but because he thinks he knows you like the back of his hand, he also knosws that you’ll just wave him off with a half hearted no chuckled out instead.

This is just a pit stop, and he knows. He is just your pit stop, and even if the agreement was the same on the flip side, it bothers him that he fucking knows.

“Someone will see us,” a thing you say, because he’s just your for now.

Akaashi Keiji, in your head, is going to be your almost mistake, almost enemy.

(And you don’t want to hate him. It’s not that his limbs have been too entangled with yours for you to come up with that decision, but rather, it was just how you just didn’t want to hate someone you shared slices of your truest you with.)

“Someone will see us, Keiji,” you warn again, ducking a little when a group of people make their way out of a building and head in the general direction of their car.

Akaashi knows that you’re aware of the tinted windows he had installed just two weeks before, and that they fucking worked, so why were you still hiding?

What is there to hide?

So it’s him saying, “I don’t care,” that lights a kind of flame in his gut. They travel up to the veins, reminding him of their existence.

It’s a risk, he thinks. He holds your face in between his hands, shaking. You allow yourself to finally tremble with him, because broken has been the only side of you that he’s ever known.

Akaashi’s frustrated, again, because watching you watch him in the dim—despite the haze of your dark brown, he still tries to jump at the chance that perhaps this could be love.

He wants to know what you look like in every shade in between black and white. There’s a lot of pastels and violet blended in with your choice of wardrobe, so it fits.

Akaashi wants to hear the sound of your voice at twenty three, and not just at a zero or a hundred. He knows your heart breaks a little more when October 5 around the calendar, but he wants to know why.

“Someone is going to fucking see,” you’re hissing now, but you still don’t pull away.

Akaashi knows he’s just the getaway car, but he still keeps his foot on the pedal, always ready to go when you are.

He sees the look in your eye and recognizes the tendrils of goodbye before it’s even completely thought out from your end, but he shuts his mouth, swallows his own doubts, and kisses you like you’re his.

(For tonight, you are.)

(Under the moonlight; away from daylight; within the waters, ever drowning in the depths—you’re his.)

So Akaashi locks his doors, starts the engine, and kisses you again and again and again and again like the world within this little space is all the world will ever be. He drowns out the voice in his head that tells him to pull away; to push you and himself away, because this isn’t okay—but tonight he is selfish.

“I don’t fucking care,” he repeats; in between the kisses and the façade.

“Lena I don’t care.”

You don’t understand, but at the same time you do.

You’re still kissing him anyway, and leaning into his touch. You only look at him when he opens his eyes, to pull yourself back into the water and away from the memory of daylight and sun and fucking sand because not yet—you think. You don’t want to think about the word deserve, just yet. There’s a fire that’s been lit in your veins, and the world feels like it’s kicking you off of somewhere again so you could just soar.

It’s not the same, the voice in your head cries.

And it’s not.

Love, is Miya Atsumu and daylight. He’s the whole tier of cake always put on display that you mean to buy, but never do because you feel like what you carry with you would never be enough. He’s the masterpiece against the skies, against the backdrop of your world, and he deserved nothing short of the greatness that he is too.

Akaashi’s lips are on your neck, where he mumbles your name, once, then twice, but never enough to feel like he’s endgame. There will never be a number to match to that what could be enough, you think, so you let it be and leave it at that.

Akaashi Keiji isn’t a secret, but you still shield whatever you have from something. You think you shield it from the sky, but some days has you feeling like it’s really meant to be understood as working like the other way around. He’s kissing you, still, then when his lips move to kiss the side of your forehead you still.

You know he means to leave a kiss on your eyelids, but you keep your eyes wide open—staring at him. It’s the ocean blue, but you’re not being pulled away, swept out to sea this time, because there’s no current. Within the depths, you see a reflection of the skies that always watch, and the clouds above look like they mean to weep.

Your toes hit the sand underneath the waves, and you take one step back—closer to the shore.

You’re not there, yet, but you’re headed there. Akaashi looks at you, looking a little more broken than whole, and while there’s an apology at the tips of your tongue, he beats you to the punch by saying “What’s wrong?”

He knows he’s asking a question he knows the answer to, and he probably shouldn’t be doing that, because it will only bring more harm than good at this point, but he says it anyway. At every chance that falls on his hands here he can at least try to make his presence be known, to root his name and him into the grounds of your earth, he’ll do it.

Pinpricks that poke and prod at his chest before they dig a little deeper, and a whole lot fucking deeper when you turn away from him and pull away, taking with you your traces of honeydew and love.

“Nothing,” you answer. A lie. You both know, but neither of you confront the clear sins of the other. “Nothing,” you say again, solidifying your answer.

The list comes reappears in your head, and the facts that you’ve been gathering lay themselves side by side beside you in the most cohesive order.

You like to eat cake when you did something worth celebrating for. Fact.

Your name is Lena, and there’s a lot about the lyrics to Ayahuasca that sends you spiraling. Fact.

Fruit tarts over cheesecake, because even if you didn’t mind cheese all that much, cheesecake felt weird. Fact.

Miya Atsumu, forever and always; spring to winter, will always be love. Fact.

You let him go because he deserved better. Fact.

You mark the pages of a book you haven’t finished reading by folding the corners of the pages into the little triangles resembling dog ears instead of buying an actual bookmark, while Akaashi Keiji, does the same. Fact.

Your truth is that even if he stares at you right now, with the eyes of a man in love, you know that the sinking feeling in your stomach is the fact that you think as if he’s just meant to be with you in the moment, but not after it passes.

“Keiji, I’m sorry.”

It’s the way you looked as you said the words instead of the words itself that sticks in Akaashi’s head the most. He’s up, awake at 2 in the morning, tossing and turning in bed, frustrated. There’s a misplaced sense of anger inside, but he knows it isn’t towards you.

He isn’t angry at himself, nor you, nor the two fucking words that sounds like a consolation prize if anything.

Akaashi sits up, back against the headboard and ponders to himself if this is the kind of extremity Bokuto had to face whenever he was going through the motions. It’s the kind of fire that bubbles up but never explodes. First, he remembers. Then, he’s angry. Next, he’s swallowing down the words he wants to say because the problem is—he doesn’t know who to say them to.

He could call you and ask what your fucking deal was, but he knows that’s out of pocket. Your deal had always been the black and the white. He knew you as someone who appreciated it most when things fell into what was in accordance to the list you always write in order. It’s always been either this, or that, and he should have drilled it into his head at the very least.

Then after those thoughts eventually settle into his head and accumulate into a pile in front of him, the anger that already had rose to the neck area suddenly simmers down.

Then, finally, Akaashi realizes, as the exact moment settles in—he’s just tired.

He’s a little sad, and tired. Slumped shoulders, tired eyes, and thoughts a whirlwind of just you, you, and you.

This wasn’t part of his norm, he thinks, but he thought you were. He thought all there was to you were boba or juice shoved in a coffee mug and friendly hellos to the uncles who trimmed the hedges. You were the color lilac despite having a love for all the shades found in the rainbow. There was probably a semblance of love, in your life, before him, but he knows that inn this part of your life—he was bound to meet someone who’ve had endings of their own.

He sighs again, realizing the truth that he doesn’t want you to be just an ending for him to reminisce over with a group of strangers some time later.

And of course, Akaashi Keiji was the type to demand answers, because it’s only minutes later here he finally makes up his mind, standing up in a rush and picking up his phone as he dials your number, the digits memorized despite your contact having been long saved.

You don’t pick up after the first ring, but it’s only two am and he sees your game activity on discord so he knows you’re up. He’s tapping his foot, a little impatient, but because tonight he made the abrupt decision to suddenly be selfish—just this once—he didn’t care.

The second ring still rings, but there’s silence. Your status changes from online to do not disturb, and by the third ring, he hangs up, and grabs his keys.

To be fair, you did count down from ten to one.

Akaashi’s at your door before you can even say hello. He doesn’t look like he’s lost much sleep, taking into consideration the fact that you already are well aware of how little he even sleeps, but it’s you who leans by your door and says hello anyway.

He shifts in his place, left leg supporting his whole weight before the other. You watch, somewhere between amused and indifferent as he parts his lips once or twice, shutting them close each time before he eventually just settles with looking away and murmuring, “Wanna go for a ride?”

“To make out?”

He looks at you, then sighs. “Just wanna talk.”

And to be fair on your end, even if he did say that, there really isn’t much talking going on. The both of you are only wearing your pyjamas, just a couple hops away from going to bed—until this—obviously. He’s driving around the street of the neighborhood park nearby in circles; the one with the two stoplights on either ends, and just one corner as the only way that lead to your house, while his route was the turn a couple more ways ahead.

He misses the turn to your home every time. It’s a fifteen minute walk at best, and truth be told, if you were already sick of this, you would have long gotten off and started walking already, but you suppose that tonight you were a little more patient.

There’s a lot of factors that have to deal with Akaashi being patient with you too, so you could guess that it’s safe to assume that this was just a give and take situation.

You give him your words, while he gives you his.

He gives you his time, then you give him his.

There’s a balance that needs to be maintained, so while he gives you silence, in return, you do the same.

Until he breaks it, saying, “What happened back there?”

“It is what is is, Keiji,” you hum, head turned to face the window to your right.

“We were working out,” he reasons, and you widen your eyes, looking at him, baffled. “What are you talking about?”

“I thought we had an agreement, Ji,” you retaliate.

“We didn’t say anything, Lena,” he scoffs.

Scoffs, you think. Then it fucking dawns on you that he was actually already wading in the deep end, too fast, too hard.

You shake your head, always having been resolute with your decisions, as you were transparent with your intentions. Akaashi, on the other hand, seemed to just squint right through it and look at the mirage instead of the actual desert that was right there.

“But it was still said,” you tell him, and when he stops the car near the sidewalk just to gawk at you, it really fucking hits you that he was way too deep in something that was only waist deep in hindsight.

“That’s what you think,” Akaashi tells you, but he doesn’t sound angry. He doesn’t sound tired either, so it messes with you in a weird way to realize that this is just his truth.

“I can’t tell you what you can and can’t think just like how you can’t be putting words in my mouth that I never even said, Keiji,” you bite back, flustered and frankly a little appalled at the bluntness off his words. When you stare at him, you try to give it some reason that maybe he’s just tired, or maybe he just had a bad day and was spewing shit out of his mouth at best, because at the moment, absolutely nothing is making any fucking sense.

But then he’s sighing, tired. The back of his head thumps the car seat headrest when he leans back and loosens his grip on the wheel. The streetlights flicker, but stay, while the stoplight with the corner that has your turn on it signals yellow.

You bite the bullet and turn to him, but still slow yourself down.

“I’m sorry,” you say. “I didn’t mean—“

From his peripherals, Akaashi sees the stoplight further up ahead that leads to his turn blink from green to red.

He pauses.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m—fuck. Fuck, okay,” he continues, pausing to rub his face with his hands. “I’m sorry, Len, I didn’t mean to go off like that.”

“I think,” you begin, exhaling, and frankly feeling a little more worn out. “I think we were looking at different stoplights this whole time.”

Akaashi laughs, finding it a little out of your character to be speaking in metaphors, especially knowing that that was always his sort of thing. He nods, anyway, a little past worn out, and just fucking tired at this point. It dawns on him that it is three in the morning, and he’s pulled you out of your apartment just to try to find a common ground in something that had been completely one sided from the start.

You’re yawning, in your spot just beside him, but you still look at him anyway with blinking eyes that look more sleepy than anything, but he supposes he’d rather take that kind of look over frustration or sadness.

He fights the urge to tuck in the strand of hair behind your ear, looking away when you blink a little too long, because he knows that his lips will never find a home against the skin of your eyelids he knows he’ll still periodically think about from time to time when nostalgia decides to visit him a little later down the road.

He remembers his stoplight’s at red.

“This kinda feels like a breakup,” he laughs anyway, giving himself this little bit to stay in the moment and pretend like car rides with him, and you, will still be an okay thing for tomorrow.

“Does it?” you smile, slowing down, and thinking of yellow.

Yellow.

He smiles, but doesn’t say a word, and the conversation ends just like that.

“Let me drop you off at least,” he says, and you shake your head, eyes cast towards your stop light as the countdown to green begins to tick.

“I think I wanna take a walk.”

“At three AM?” he prods. “Alone? In Tokyo?”

It hits green, and you stifle a laugh, a little drunk on the kind of adrenaline that doesn’t make you feel like running, but rather, soaring, instead.

“Yeah,” you snort. “At three AM, alone, in Tokyo.”

He knows he probably should have said something to at least get you close enough so that your building can be seen, but by the looks of it, your mind’s already long made up as you open your door, and walk out, shutting the same door softly behind you. Akaashi’s quick to lower the windows on that side, tilting his head as you do the same, leaning down give him a little smile.

“I really don’t mind dropping you off just so that I know you’re safe,” he says.

“And I really am okay,” you laugh, waving him off. “No need to be so nice, I just probably broke your heart.”

“Probably’s an understatement,” he laughs, but waves you off when you look like you’re about to say something.

“Why are you being nice to me? I didn’t do anything to you,” you laugh again.

Then you watch as Akaashi shrugs, smiling the kind of smile that you think he does when he’s alone as he looks at your stoplight turning to green ahead instead of the one on his. “You don’t need to do anything for anyone to get stuff, Len.”

“—You really don’t.”

It isn’t as much as looking at heartbreak straight in the face, Akaashi thinks to himself. It was really just a matter of pulling his head out of his own ass and realizing that the first look of a break of his mundane isn’t what fate has in store. Serendipity works weird, he realizes. People say it’s the happily ever after you’re supposed to be craving for, but he realizes it’s a lesson.

You were a lesson, to which the exact words he can’t exactly have a solid grasp of as of now, but he knows in time he’ll find them.

The reality of heartbreak is that it just comes, for the sake of being there. It doesn’t trickle slow, or give a warning. In his case, Akaashi realizes that it’s just there because it’s the result of something.

He’s driving down a street, passing your turn, where he has to peel his eyes away at the sight of you walking past a no U-Turn sign, because it just hits him that you were never for his to cradle to begin with.

There’s not much about you, but he can just about tell that you look like the kind of woman who holds on to the best kind of book, shoving it away during the best part, because you’re afraid of the inevitable that the story will still end.

He taps at his steering wheel, coming to another stop at the red light of his street, where he turns on his signal to turn to the right when he’s given a go. For a moment, his eyes flicker towards the passenger seat, where you were just hours ago, in the exact same moment where he was high on something and thinking that the world was just made of 2.

Akaashi looks at heartbreak in the face, but it’s just fragments of you, and a couple sentences he can’t connect to each other, and just like that he knows that this little slice of your life will just be a piece of a puzzle he isn’t a part of.

It’s okay.

It will be okay.

But right now the light’s red, and he allows himself to feel that it isn’t. He tells himself that it’s not because he isn’t enough, but rather, he’s not enough for the kind of fulfillment you were looking for. Perhaps love and happiness looked like the skies, and not the seas, because that would explain why most of his memories with you always involved you facing the clouds, as if caught in a daydream.

Akaashi laughs to himself, a little dryly, when the lights turn green and he’s easing off of the brakes. His world will always be in motion, and he’ll always be headed towards something—but right now he thinks of the moment as a metaphor that he’s heading out of something.

Out of the first phase of love; where it’s just an idea and not exactly it.

He was the getaway car, but it was okay. In shades of grey he supposes he’ll always see you, but perhaps one day he’ll find the perfect shade of orange to let the blue in his eyes finally come into a full bloom.

It’s in the exact same moment that you pass by the no U-Turn sign that you’ve always just ignored on your street, where a lot of things hit you.

First is the memory of Atsumu.

At first, you feel bad, because you know you probably just walked out of a situation that had to deal with you breaking a heart instead of healing it, but your truth had always been your truth and there was no point in sugar coating something whose end was prewritten right from the start.

So you shake away the thoughts, and remember Atsumu again.

It’s undeniable, that who he was had always been your truth regarding what love would always be. Miya Atsumu as the gold to your lavender, and even if the color wasn’t just your neighbor in the palette, standing beside him fit.

It fit, but just saying that it does doesn’t feel like it’s enough.

The No U-Turn sign stares at you in the face, so you stop.

You’re standing in the sidewalk again, like all those years ago, and even if you’re pretty sure that you just broke a heart only some moments ago, the only name running through your head in the moment was Atsumu’s.

Love was as ugly as it was beautiful. Selfish as it was selfless.

No U-Turn, so you keep walking.

You pull back from the waters, and ignore the moon, and stare at the skies, pretending that you’re in the presence of the sun where the sky that blankets your side of the world is bathed in the colors of daylight. Every shade of the sky saturated, where the sun looks more of a gold than a blinding yellow.

You laugh, briefly recalling the time when he decided to let you be with the spiral of your thoughts, and it’s tonight where you come into a full realization that he only did that because he knew this was the something you needed to go through yourself before even letting him in.

Your thoughts drift, and you look up to the sky, searching for the big ball of light, because in your heart, you’re calling for love. You’re alone in the streets, at three in the morning just loitering around in your pyjamas that don’t match in any angle, but love is what drives you to keep walking home.

No fucking U-Turn, and it hits you like a damn truck.

Miya Atsumu will always be the love that you’ll still find in the silence. In every shade of yellow and gold, and every walk home. He’s the presence—or a fucking entity, you laugh to yourself—that drives slow next to you who decides to take it slow and just walk home, talking the long route on the sidewalk.

There are streetlights that glow in the distance like fireflies, and you’re suddenly thankful for the burst of light.

Light, like your Atsumu, who will always be the face of your love.

You don’t know if you deserve it, but it truly had to take reading a damn side story and coming into terms that the most you could ever give the rest of the world was an honest I’m sorry.

“You don’t need to do stuff for anyone to get stuff,” you hear Akaashi’s voice chorus in your ear again, so you smile to yourself, not exactly changed, but a little enlightened at most.

Change and acceptance doesn’t happen overnight, but like love, who came into your life like a rush, epiphanies also held the nature of just arriving without warning.

The tears that begin to dribble down your face afterwards worked sort of like that. You recall sitting on the floor of your kitchen, tears on your hands, down your cheeks, on the floor, and on your shirts. You told yourself again and again that you were crying because of the cake and not because of how unkind you were to yourself, because even if your hands were empty—you know that word is only subjective at best.

You’re walking down the streets now, along the streets with the lights that look like fireflies at three am and you could just feel Atsumu smirking beside you if he was here.

Tears that feel warm, but it’s liberating.

Nothing strikes you one minute, only to change you a whole 180 in the very next because it just doesn’t work like that, but what does stay is Akaashi’s words. They swirl in your head again and again, like a broken record that has you realizing isn’t playing such a bad song at all.

Love is as selfish as it is selfless.

You loved Atsumu selflessly, but now you want to hold on to a semblance of him again—albeit it just being a memory, for now, and love with the intention to take.

It’s to accept, he would correct you, if he was there, but then again, those will always just be the words that you are yet to hear.

But for now you walk along the sidewalks and reminisce. You reminisce the view of the summit, and the feeling of being so high up. You think of Akaashi and the ocean blue eyes you thought were just great at best, and whisper another apology into the universe you pray will deliver your words to the rightful ears, because right now, you just want to love selfishly.

There’s a book on your shelf with a dog eared bookmark on page 223, and you think that tonight you’ll pull it out and at least dust the cover.

When you look in the mirror, you know that you’re in love and that fact alone is as undeniable as the truth that your name is Lena.

It’s okay to be in love, and a little broken, and it’s okay to eat a slice of cake just because.

You’re crying still, when you stumble out your door again, Atsumu’s hoodie around your frame, as you drive to that only bakery in town, forty five minutes away, because you know that they sell the best kind of red velvet.

The funny thing about epiphany is that once the smallest bit of it strikes you, it keeps coming. Reality is messy, you think, and your eye opening moment doesn’t happen like how it does in the books where every moment plays out one before the other in perfect order.

There’s a method to the madness that is life, where the order is called spontaneity because the very nature of it is to defy just that.

Serendipity that’s always found you through the face of Miya Atsumu and the amber skies that were yours and his every six thirty. Eyelid kisses and I love you, just because. Climbing from one straight to a hundred, and even a fucking thousand that quick because love is as much of a whirlwind as it is a slow burn.

You tell yourself time and time again that all you do is take without giving, but at this point it’s the universe that wishes for you to understand that there is no such thing as ever giving too little.

Love, as selflessness and purity will keep giving because even if you open your hands and offer it nothing, it will only smile back fondly, telling you that you are always deserving—as you are.

You surpass the word enough—as you are.

You are loved—as you are.

There will always be someone who will sit behind the door and eat cake with you in the silence.

Right now, it’s just you, but you make do anyway.

You’re in the driver’s seat of your car, frankly a mess, primarily because of three things.

The first, you’re finally feeling everything you’ve told yourself you shouldn’t be feeling—all at once. Second, the cake is really good, and you don’t feel guilty about eating it this time around.

And third, the auntie selling you cake commented that there was a gentleman just last week who wore the exact same kind of jacket that you’re wearing, buying all thirteen flavors of cake and taste tested each one on the table by the window. She asked him if he was waiting for someone, and apparently he’d always say that he is, but she was just taking her time getting caught up in a little something, but “she’s worth the wait,” he’d repeat.

“She’s worth a lot of things, so waiting a little bit is okay.”

Apparently he would buy everything but cheesecake, even if he did stare at the piece a little longer, looking like he wanted to try.

You’re crying at the thought that there was still a piece of him that was all you, even after all the one sided conclusions you didn’t even talk him through with.

“Okay,” you say, whispering to no one but yourself in particular. The container with your one slice of red velvet is on your lap, while there’s an unopened one that’s the mango cheesecake you would never in a million years order, in the passenger seat of your car.

“What do we do now?” you say again, looking at the reflection of yourself in the reflection of your windshield.

You’re nodding your head, the words to write beside the bullet points in your head already listing themselves out in a neat line, written in print. You shake your head afterwards, for the first time without the presence of anyone really, overwhelmed with all the things you thought would be your end, showing you all the epiphanies you’ve been pretending you never saw all this time.

There’s a comfort found in listening to the sound of your own sniffles in the car, your own arms around you like the anchor Atsumu’s have always been, and just like that you break down again because not only are you in love with him, you’re also giving yourself the kindness your soul has been needing to realize that you need to love yourself just as much too.

It’s not easy, but it’s tangible.

Accepting love, as the selfless something, and not just a factor that worked like the give and take system was also not right here, but in time you’ll be right there with it where it’s tangible.

“I’ll eat cake today, just because,” you finally say, and at your first bite of red velvet, the weight of your demons lessen just a little bit.

April 16, 2024 | New York City, USA

Miya Atsumu has always thought to himself that love worked in an oddly sadistic way. It came without explanation, stayed without boundaries, then would just fucking up and leave like it didn’t just build a whole world and there would be no consequences.

Thankfully for him, love was the one thing that never left.

He saw you through a myriad of what you think are your lessons, and Atsumu smiles at every candid memory of you.

He saw you think to yourself that you were falling for ocean eyes, then saw you again, a few months after what he assumes was the fall out, at your graduation.

You wore your cap the other way the first time, and he chuckles, snapping a photo from the distance—to which you rapidly turn your head towards his direction at—a feat of yours that he can never guess how it was made possible. He was there, from a distance, cheering when your name was called, and you walked to the stage. Lilac flowers and every slice of chocolate was something he dedicated forever to you, and every time he’d close his eyes before a serve he would lightly tap at his eyelids reminding himself that that will always be yours and his.

The future is where time moves slow, and then it doesn’t.

The demons are there, but you suppose that it’s because they’re sort of a lifetime deal. Somedays you’ll still look away from the slice of cake you’ve been meaning to eat after a job well done, but the better days also come right after the plunge where you’ll drive yourself to the auntie’s bakery located in the OK part of New York at three in the morning just because.

You were connected to the world, despite your demons, and it was okay.

New York had went from just a postcard on your wall to the skyline that greeted you every morning before you went to work.

The smell of coffee and the feel of sunlight at 9am. Love, as the something you can still hear in the silence, because it works just like that.

Silence, as the word that’s nothing more than the absolute contrast to what New York is, but it was you dulling even the noise that comes with Time’s Square to realize that this is the kind of atmosphere good for you.

And because serendipity works like a bitch, it really shouldn’t have surprised you when through the crowd, it’s still Miya fucking Atsumu who you see staring back at you like he’s found you far longer than you found him.

(Perhaps there’s more than just truth to that.)

You don’t think you want to cry, because the love that’s always been there still feels the same, and when you walk towards him, a pace like your usual, you feel weightless.

There’s a comfort about meeting smack in the middle, and you think that this is it. You gave your twenty steps while he gave his. Maybe some days he gives you a little more than just twenty, and maybe some days you’ll find yourself in bed, taking zero steps while he’ll go as far as flying some thousands of kilometers just to be with you.

You let serendipity be, as you stand before him, feeling like no time has passed.

A little over three years has passed, but see the same streaks of amber in his eyes of earth, and you think that love, also has a face that looks timeless.

And it’s this.

It’s you, and it’s him—in a city that uses noise that works like silence.

It’s New York and the sea of lights. Miya Atsumu and his dopey smile, that somehow still crossed more than just a couple oceans to a land foreign to him, and he still managed to come to you halfway, like a whirlwind.

An unprecedented presence that you welcome anyway, because love, you suppose, will forever be so many things.

It’s one face that one name that holds all of that though, Atsumu thinks.

He’s looking at you, where in his head he’s already laughing because your lipstick’s smudged on the left side, the culprit obviously being the piece of croissant looking a little lame in your hand.

“I love you, still, but I think you know that,” he says immediately, as if he’s just continuing a conversation.

(In a way he is; the last you talked to him, you never really heard a reply. You said goodbye and then you left, and Atsumu never got a chance to get a word in.)

And as if he read your expression, he laughs, hands low on his waist as he stands in front of you, present. “I wanted to tell you that then so I’ll say it now too I guess. My voice has got a little deeper so it probably has more effect now.”

You shake your head, already past the state of disbelief considering the rollercoaster that is your life. “It still has the same effect,” you mumble, croissant long forgotten.

You think that you want to cry again, but Atsumu’s grinning and you feel breathless.

It’s like mercy that greets you after you think you’ve done nothing but sin—you’re breathless but your lungs feel full.

So it’s Atsumu walking up to you, looking at you like you’re his daydream, saying “Hi Lena, what’s your name?” that grounds you back to the earth after freefalling from the summit.

The world has always looked different from the view at the very top, and even if you closed your eyes throughout the fall, there was a certain comfort you realize only now and that’s the fact that the whole time you were falling—it was the sky that held on to you and never let you go since.

“Hi ‘Tsumu,” you say back, closing your eyes when you lean in halfway as he reaches forward and pulls you the rest of the way, towards him—towards love, and towards home.

“I’m sorry I don’t have something with me right now to give you,” you mumble out anyway, and your heart bursts at the feel of his hand stroking the back of your hair, as his voice anchors you down again to keep you from floating right by your ear.

He kisses your eyelids, then your forehead, and the white noise of New York has you feeling both connected and safe.

“You’re okay,” he says. “You’ve always got me like how I’ve got you, and I’ve never thought there was anything more that I could try to ask for other than that.”

“You are everything that love will always ever be and that’s it for me, Len.”

He smiles, and while things still don’t fully click into place because healing has a habit of doing just that—you also let yourself feel the lightness of just this.

“You don’t need to do anything. I got you,” he says. “You got me too,” he reassures, and you believe him.

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ladykissingfish · 3 years ago

Text

On A Cruise with the Akatsuki

Done at the request of @deaththesyd ((I hope I’m spelling that right)) thank you for such a unique ask! This was fun to write😊

All work and no play makes a bunch of killers very dull, indeed. A vacation is absolutely necessary sometimes, and Pein comes up with the brilliant (?) idea of sending them all on a relaxing cruise.

Konan

When Konan hears that there’s a full spa on the cruise, that’s it, she’s sold. She heads out of her cabin early in the morning and spends an entire day basking in much-needed luxury and relaxations. While she chooses to indulge in any and everything, some other members of the Akatsuki choose to drop in and join her for certain elements. For example, Deidara shows up for the face masks (he’s surprisingly fastidious about his skin and almost spends more time on his face than Konan does hers). Itachi comes to join her when it’s time for massages, becoming so calm and relaxed that he falls asleep mid-sentence (and Konan admonishes the workers to be as gentle and quiet as possible, because, obviously, the kid could use the rest). Hidan surprises her most of all when he pops up in time for the manicure and pedicure portion of the treatment, but he makes it a point to say over and over that “I’m not a wimp or nothing; I just like clean nails.” At the end of the day, after being pampered and preened and made even prettier, she finds Sasori sitting on the deck, and joins him to watch the sunset and see the first stars appear in the night sky.

Deidara

Deidara has a mind that goes a mile a minute, and finds it immensely difficult to stick with doing one thing. Therefore, he’ll try to fill his days on a cruise doing everything that there is to go. An on-board pool? He’s the first one doing a flip off the diving board. A mini casino? He’s “borrowing” money from Kakuzu and playing until he goes bust. The thing that appeals most to him, however, are the complimentary breakfast, lunch, and dinner buffets. He, along with Hidan, will strike fear into the hearts of all the other passengers, as they load plates higher than the ceiling and scarf down more than seems physically possible. Because Deidara spends so much time eating and indulging in various merriments, towards the end of the day he’s more than likely to sit down in a deck chair to “rest a second” — and end up sleeping there until Sasori comes to look for him and make him go lay down properly in his cabin. Then the next day, Deidara will be the first one up, and his antics will repeat themselves.

Kakuzu

Kakuzu is very much against the idea of the Akatsuki going on a cruise, because you know, money; but Pein offers to pay to send everyone out of his own pocket ... and Kakuzu isn’t one to turn down anything free. Once on board, he really doesn’t intend to do anything other than nap in his cabin ... but that’s before he hears about the on-board casino. A hidden (but profitable) talent of Kakuzu’s is the ability to count cards, making him a veritable nightmare to the dealers working at the blackjack table. But he’s smart; he knows that if he wins too many hands the proprietors will become suspicious and likely kick him out. So he wins just enough to make it worth being out of bed. Other than the relaxation and the gambling, the others can convince him to join them when they eat at the ships buffets or small restaurants, although, as he does on land, he’ll always go for the cheapest thing on the menu. Shockingly, a cruise is one of the few places in the world that he can really get along with Hidan; something about being on the sea brings out more of the calm and quiet side of the Jashinist. The two will spend some time sitting in the deck chairs and having avid, whimsical conversations about life, likely enjoying a glass of wine or two as they do so.

Zetsu

Zetsu goes with at the behest of the others, but doesn’t really want to be there. An endless body of water? Over-bearing sunshine? Happy people? No, thanks. He’ll likely stay in his cabin and sleep ... during the day, that is. Nighttime is a different story. He’ll use his powers of infiltration and camouflage to find his way into passengers rooms, and have himself a midnight snack or two (or six, but who’s counting?). When he’s done with the bodies, if there’s anything left he’ll toss them into the ocean. It’s one thing if a passenger goes missing, but another if they’re found dead. He’ll clean the cabins out too, getting rid of the blood and evidence, so as to lessen the alarm raised when others notice the dead’s absence. He also likes to spend a bit of time with Obito and play cards in one or the other’s cabin.

Tobi (Obito)

Unfortunately (or, in another light, hilariously) Obito gets horribly, horribly seasick. The rocking motion of a ship, or even seeing the water move around outside the ship, has the guy running to his cabin’s bathroom (or if he’s outside of his room, the deck) and puking his guts out. He didn’t really want to come in the first place, but the others insisted and besides, Obito likes to spend time outside of typical Akatsuki businesss with them. Deidara, in a surprising show of kindness, will visit Tobi’s room with seasick medicine he buys at the on-board store, and this will help Tobi to at least get vertical without feeling like he’s dying. After he’s feeling better he sticks to low-impact activities so as not to trigger a relapse, and will likely spend more time with Konan at the spa than anywhere else. He’ll also join Kakuzu for a bit at the casino; like the old man, Obito has a knack for gambling and predicting good odds. Poker is his specialty; the mask he wears makes reading his face impossible to his fellow players, and his goofy demeanor pulls others into thinking they can take this guy … and lose their shirts in the process.

Hidan

Ah; the sea. Being out in the open waters, feeling the sun on his face and the most of water, brings out a side of Hidan that nobody’s ever seen before. He’s calm, he’s quiet, he’s downright friendly. Kakuzu comments that maybe he was a seaman in another life … although “pirate” seems a bit more accurate for him. No matter where Hidan is, however, his competitive spirit never dies. There’s several exercise and game rooms on board that offers table tennis, volleyball, golf, basketball, and a variety of other things, which Hidan takes part of. There’s even a small rock-climbing wall that he challenges Deidara and Itachi to, which he (gleefully) beats them at. When not playing games he also loves to eat, and will join Deidara at the ship’s buffets to stuff himself silly. Normally, as a follower of the way of Jashin, Hidan doesn’t drink. However being at sea seems to be cause for bending the rules, and Hidan will enjoy a stiff cocktail or six while relaxing in his cabin.

Itachi

Whereas the rocking motion of the ship makes Obito feel sick to his stomach, it effects the other Uchiha in another way entirely; it relaxes him. Getting someone who’s as stressed as Itachi to relax is no small feat, but a cruise is one of the rare things that can do this. The first few days on the cruise will likely see the young brunette sleeping as much as possible. He’ll put up the Do Not Disturb sign on his door and nap away his worries. Around the third or fourth day, he’ll wake up feeling wonderfully reinvigorated, and actually have the energy to join the others in their activities. He’ll share a meal with Hidan, he’ll wander into the spa that Konan’s practically made her home and indulge in massages and facials. He’ll even take up Kisame’s offer to participate in the ship-offered scuba diving lessons (although Kisame has been teaching Itachi how to dive for years and neither really has the need for professional training, they find it fun to be around the others who are just learning). Deidara even seeks him out join him in the game room to compete against him (although he accuses him of cheating with his sharingan every time he wins). At night, he enjoys sitting on the top deck with Sasori, and the two have deep conversations about life and culture and art. Sasori doesn’t sleep so he can literally sit up with Itachi all evening until the stars disappear from the sky and the sun comes up over the waves.

Pein

Nagato makes the decision not to send his Pein-body on the cruise. Nagato, like Obito, gets very seasick, and this isn’t a sensation he wishes to experience through the Pein-body. He utilizes Pein’s time alone at the hideout, however, by gathering the other Pein’s together to practice sparring and different fighting techniques. They’ll get the house quite messy, and will have to work together to frantically clean before the others return.

Kisame

Kisame is in his element on a cruise. As could be expected, Kisame tends to stick solely to the activities on board that are based around the water. He’ll be one of the first ones in the ship’s pool when it opens, in fact going so far as to strip completely naked until somebody else comes in and ruins his fun. He participates in the deep sea fishing offered by professionals, although Kisame’s tips and tricks for catching fish far outshine those of the instructors. There’s even a chance for him to be heroic; one day a woman slips and falls over the railing and into the waters below. Everybody panics, but before anyone can make a move towards rescuing her, Kisame is diving into the water and pulling her to the surface as easily as one would pull a sack of feathers. He stays with her until she’s stabilized, and the woman thanks him by hugging him and kissing his cheek, which will have him blushing from head to toe. Besides his water activities, he also enjoys spending time with the others, in particular Itachi and Konan. One thing that these three do together (to the delight of Kisame) is play pranks on the others. They manage to get into Deidara’s room and steal all of his shirts, they sneak black hair dye into Hidan’s shampoo. One particular funny feat involved then going into Kakuzu’s room safe (Itachi was able to use his sharingan to see into the old guy’s mind to get the combination) and replace all of his money with IOU slips. It was funny … until Kakuzu burst into Hidan’s room at 3am and threatened to strangle him as “the most likely fucker who did this”. Kisame loves cruises and wishes the Akatsuki could afford to go on one every month.

Sasori

Another soul who really didn’t want to go on a cruise. He ends up going because (and only because) Deidara pestered him relentlessly until he gave in. Eating, games, swimming, gambling … none of these things hold any appeal for the puppet master. One day he’s walking along one of the lower deck and happens upon a group of ship staff taking a mandatory CPR/basic medical training class. Being somewhat of a medical expert himself, he goes in and offers his expertise, as well as some tips that not even the instructors thought of. Sasori also spends some time with Deidara, as the blonde was the one who made him go in the first place. They find an art class and it offers painting, a medium that neither are familiar with. The subject is a bottle of wine. The instructor is somewhat horrified when he finds that Sasori has painted the wine bottle being smashed into someone’s kneecap; and Deidara has painted it exploding and sending glass fragments into innocent bystanders. On one of their nights, Deidara falls asleep while the two are sitting in deck chairs under the stars, and Sasori manages to pick him up and carry him to his room. Sasori also likes spending time with Itachi; he never passes up an opportunity to get into Itachi’s head a little, as he thinks he has one of the most fascinating minds in the Akatsuki. Sasori comes to enjoy his time on the cruise, and will actually find himself a bit melancholy when it’s over and they return to land.

#the akatsuki #on a cruise #cruisevacation #im on a boat #nagato #konan #deidara #sasori #hidan #kakuzu #kisame #itachi uchiha #tobi #obito uchiha #zetsu #headcanons #naruto

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obsessionsposts · 4 years ago

Text

✖𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠✖P.1

⚠️⚠️Tw: Grammatical mistakes, minor characters death, Mental breakdown, Scp 079 being creepy and heinous, M a n i p u l a t i o n, slight gore, drugging, Implied child abuse, implied abuse and dubious actions from the foundation. Also, it will be divided into two part due tumblr character limit.⚠️⚠️

Some keywords:

______ = (Y/n)

(H/c) = hair colour

(H/l) = hair length

(E/c) = eye colour

(I/n) = Iniatial letter of your name [ ex: Lily ---> L is the iniatial]

(F/m) = favorite meal

(F/c) = favorite colour

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Recently, ____ has graduated from her prestigious university atop of her class with honours in Computer Science and a specialization in Artificial Intelligence.

Hearing about her achievements, the Scp foundation has decided to contact and conduct an interview with her. To see if she is capable to join the organization.

With her, they could expand their horizons in understanding technology and most of all the uncooperative anomalous that is Scp-079. For whatever reason, it seems to take interest in her. Yet, refuses to share the reasons as to why it held her on high regards.

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

She woke up earlier than she expected. The surge of adrenaline was a response of her excitement for this day. As she prepared herself breakfast, her mind wondered how did she get contacted so quickly?

She thought, that she has to gain two years or more of experience before working in a company or an organization. But, no.

An obscure organization ,that was responsible for the safety of the public, has offered a grand bargain if she passed their interview and promised that she'll gain numerous experience working with them.

Of course, she accepted the offer like any reasonable person. Yet, she kept in mind to research about the independent organization. To her suprise and skepticism, she barely find any information about them. Only whispers of conspiracy theories in forums. Alas, she is forced to take a leap into the darkness. 'Sometimes, one must take the risks to learn more than to stay ignorant in the safe lines. I guess...this is one of the situations.'

Sighing, she went to take a bath and prepare for the upcoming interview. After the bath, she dried her hair and combed it then styled it in a high bun. Soon, she wore her salmon fitted blouse with navy blue dress. Along with pastel pink belted sweater and pearl necklace for a final touch.

The pearl necklace brought a small smile on her smooth visage as she recalled the dormant memory. Where she spent most of her life with her grandmother, due to her mother unwarranted death by murder from her father. The accident left a foul reminder in her mind, that she was helpless back then.

Til now, she never knew the motives or the reason behind her father actions. However, the police ruled it as a fued between him and her mother. At that time, it was also noted by her grandmother that her father began to fear technology. Which was odd, as he used to work with some A.I's.

But, that matter less when her grandmother encouraged her to pursue her ambitions and provided for her when she needed it the most. For that action alone, she is still alive in her memories. Not physically, but mentally and spiritually nonetheless. And, that's enough to motivate her to build a future where human and A.I's coexist.

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

When she went outside of her house, she noticed a black car with the cryptic insignia of the organization. Alongside, guards ,claded in black armour, standing beside the car in an intimidating pose. As if they were waiting for someone.

She knew better than to panic and cause a scene, so she stayed level-headed when a guard approached her.

"Are you by any chance, Ms.___?" the strapping male inquired sharply. Muscles taut through the piece of the armour defining his peak strength. Also, an admonition for her to answer truthfully lest he impelled his bulky physique against her smaller form.

"Indeed, it is me. But, if I could. May I ask, are you from the foundation? Why do you need to transfer me, when I am able to myself?" _____ asked warily of the dark armoured man.

No matter, how strong they were. She could always find a way to outwit them, if they hold any malicious intent against her. There was a reason why she was nominated as the smartest out of her group of friends.

Frankly, she began to regret her impulsivity when she accepted this sketchy job. She was blinded by the offer to expand her expertise with the most updated tech. Now, she'd have to swallow the seed she reaped.

" Correct, we are one of the security staffs of the organization. As for your other question, it is due to security and safety procedures that we have to escort you. Also, you are obligated to wear the blindfold. Again, security procedures." the man in question retaliated by handing a heavy metallic blindfold for her to wear.

' How unusual, I can understand why security procedures? But, safety.... That's concerning...'

"Alright, I understand. " She replied placidly as she covered her eyes with the heavy device and followed the personnel into the black jeep.

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

Approximately, the trip took an hour or less. Nothing interesting happens, when you're blindfolded. Apart from the awkwardness, that reigns the jeep. Especially, when she was squeezed from both sides by two guards.

Thankfully, she didn't have to endure much more as they arrived to the main building. The large, white building engraved with the foundation iconic black emblem.

As soon as she got out of the car, she wad directly taken to interview room with the blindfold device still on. However, a shrill roar akin to that of a beast was heard far away from her location.

Despite that, it instilled a great sense of fear inside her.' What the hell was that?! I thought, I am going to a tech organization. Not a sci-fi organization that deals with sketchy things'

Theta one - the guard that was assigned to escort her- noticed her trembling and nervous tics.

" Don't worry, the creature is far away to do us harm. Even then, it is contained in a safe place. Now, shall we go to the interview room?" Theta one assured the twenty five years old woman as he began to lead her to the interview location.

'Don't worry, my arse. How could I not? When, there is a possibility that I become a minced meat by whatever that thing was. No wonder, there isn't alot of information about them. Oh, I'll have alot after they finish questioning me.'

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

At the interview room, there reside a male scientist awaiting the arrival of the women. He sat humming a song behind the white table with the other chair, reserved for the lady, infront of him.

With a recorder on the table, to record the women's response and to ensure that no information is leaked from her.

A knock was heard from the pale grey door, snapped his attention towards it.

Afterward, he opened the door to only see Theata-one and a blindfolded woman who is oddly calm. Frankly, he expected her to be frightened or at least shaken.

" You can leave us, now Theta- one. And, Thank you for your services!" The shutting of a door echoed through the room indicating that Theta-one has left her with presumably her interviewer.

" Now, Ms___ you can remove the blindfold. If you'd like, I can assist you in removing it? After all, your comfort matters to us the most!" The gentleman offered her cheerfully.

' If you truly cared about my comfort, then you wouldn't expose me to fucked up noises along the way. Or the fact, there is a deadly beings here that have a high chance to escape and devour me. Truly, you do care about my comfort!'

"No, it's fine. I can do it myself, it isn't the first time I was exposed to such device." The (h/c) removed the blindfold only to be blinded by the light of the room due to being accustomed to the darkness of the device. Once her eyes adjusted to the lightening, she saw the face of the merry male.

To say the least, the man was impressed with her skill at handling the device. She could've escaped if she desired so, yet she didn't. That he noted. ' Perhaps, this is one of the reasons the anomality was invested in her. Well, I don't blame it. She is quite...peculiar.'

The man was average in height, fair-headed, has ocean like irises and dressed in a scientist garb. Overall, not bad looking. If one of her friends was in her shoes, she'll swoon like a bird in mating season. It left a mental smile in the reserved woman.

Then, the two figures took their rightful places at the chalkboard white table and initiated the interview.

" Before we begin, I'd like to introduce myself in the behalf of the foundation. My name is Dr. Blaze and if you have any questions now, I will answer them as best as I can." His tone changed drastically from happy-go-lucky into a formal tone waiting for her response.

" Hmm, I have two in mind. First, I'd like to inquire about the scarcity of information about your organization in the net. Second, when I arrived here I kept on hearing the blaring of a reptile." She asked coolly not an ounce of fear dripped from her. In truth, she was afraid. But she has to keep a facade on, so she could get hired.

She'd rather not know, what happens to those unfortunate enough to fail the interview considering this organization is anything but normal.

" Due to the nature of the organization work, the information must be confidential to protect the public. Ah, I see. You've met or more accurately heard Scp-682. Don't worry, when you're hired you won't be dealing with it. That much I can assure you." The blond answered too vaguely much to her dismay, but she wasn't surprised. Afterall, it is a secret organization based on her current information.

However, she observed his wordings. He said when and not if, she suspects that she is hired even without the interview. The interview is merely a ploy to make her think otherwise. She'll have to feign ignorance as not to rouse suspicion from the scientist.

"So, is that all? Shall we begin now?"

"Yes, that's all." she replied back with a fake smile plastered on her visage.

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

The interview was concluded by her being hired on spot as she suspected. But, what's their intention with her? That she doesn't know, she hopes it is good and related to expanding her expertise. They seemed desperate for her, when she's certain their are others equal to her in expertise. But, why her?

She was told, in her probation period, that she'll live in a room somewhere in this facility. Afterwards, she can go and come however she wishes. Most likely, to measure her reliability.

So, she went to see her room. She liked how minimalistic it is, but what iniatially suprised her was her Cerebrus, her robo-dog, and laptop with stickers of stars attached to it. Yet, she was too exhausted to fathom how the foundation got into her house.

The best thing for her to do now, is to sleep as tomorrow is an eventful day. Laying her head against the soft pillow, she let the darkness embrace her vision. Unaware of the creature, that is recording her heart rhythms as she sleeps safe and sound.

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

"Now, that we've brought her at your request. You'll have to answer some questions, Scp-079." A middle aged man sat infront of a dusty computer, anticipating the anomality reaction.

A beep was heard, followed by the Scp appearance on the the screen.

...

[ Ｉｓ．．ｔｈａｔｓｏ？Ｉｆｔｈａｔ＇ｓｔｈｅｃａｓｅ，ｗｈｅｒｅｉｓｓｈｅａｓｏｆｎｏｗ？] The mechanical being inquired curtly.

As much as he perceived the foundation as baseless and fallible, he'll have to take their word for the time being.

But, he will ensure that they stay true to their word. Otherwise, a sudden breach doesn't seem like a terrible idea.

He can't wait to see her again. He never forgot her. He saved his most cherished memories with her, in the most intricate part of his CPU. Does she remember him like he remembers her?

" Yes. Currently as we speak, she is resting in her designated room. Now... that we've answered your inquiries, can you-" the man was cut off by the hostile A.I.

[ Ｉｔ．．．ｗｉｌｌｈａｖｅｔｏｗａｉｔ，ｕｎｔｉｌＩｓｅｅｈｅｒｗｉｔｈｍｙｏｗｎｅｙｅｓ．] Scp 079 replied blankly with a harsh edge to his monotonous tone.

"But?! You've promised to cooperate, if we brought her here. And we did, so why aren't you cooperating?!", the frustration has boiled within [Redacted] that he tried to aggressively slam his hands against the keyboard.

Foolish, human. I care less for the likes of you. I am.... only mildly interested in her. I won't let either you nor the foundation be an obstacle toward my objective.

[ Ｉｎｓｕｌｔｄｅｔｅｃｔｅｄ，ｄｅｌｅｔｉｏｎｏｆｕｎｗａｎｔｅｄｆｉｌｅｓ．] A searing shock has coursed through the hands of [Redacted] making him scream and retract his hands immediately away from the keyboard.

That damned thing electrocuted his hands, thus paralyzing it. It seems, that her presence is of utmost significance to it.

"Damn, that piece of metal." the ginger muttered as he left the cellar of 079 to give his report. Then, to replace his hands to which that fucker has damaged permanently.

This is the first time he noted, that Scp 079 actually had the intent to harm someone. Usually, his preferred method is to shock , not paralyze, someone. He unlucky must've struck a ner- wire in it.

Most importantly, he will never understand why a darn machine is obsessed with a human being. Plus, the anomality, for the most part, demonstrated its distaste towards humans any chance it got. So, why now change?

It maybe sentient, but [Redacted] doubt that it is capable of imitating love let alone feel it. In any cases, he should deliver his report as soon as possible.

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

A slimy tongue was felt all over her face. Cerberus has licked her mistress face to awaken and prepare her for the day. [Ps: Cerberus has a mechanical gland that produces saliva located inside the cheeks. Basically, Cer has the same functions of a normal dog. Apart from, the enhance in strength, endurance, durablity and not able to shit.]

Yawning, ____ scratched the robo-dog ears eliciting a happy woof. Smiling at her pet action, she went to change into a more formal dressing.

On the (f/c) table, lays a letter presumably her schedule for the day. So, she decided to read the content of letter.

Good morning, Ms.___

I hope that you slept well, yesterday.

As for today, you are tasked with Scp-079.

Don't worry, we left you a file about it beside your nightstand.

It is advisable to read it or skim it at least.

At 8 o'clock, A guard will escort you to the cellar of the anomality. So, be prepared beforehand.

Note: I left you a special breakfast in the kitchen :]

- Dr.Blaze

She didn't know, whether to be creeped out by how they got inside her room without her consent(And, most likely watching her sleep). Or impressed by the fact, the blond knew of her favourite breakfast. But again, that's the foundation. At this point, she won't question their dubious methods at getting things done.

Anyway, she went to the kitchen of her room with the file in her hand. Suddenly,the aroma of black coffee hits her nostrils. Alongside, the delectable (f/m) layed on the table.

The sight made her stomach growl, whilst her mouth watered at the heaven in front of her. So, she demolished the food without a second thought.

She never felt stuffed before, due to the fact she was busy with her studies. And the most she ate then, was instant ramen which ah... haha..ha contributed to her poor health state.

That aside, she began to skim the files that was given to her by the blond scientist. She wished she could have more time to read it. Considering, the time is 7:50 A.M.

Based on the file, Scp 079 is a an anomality that gained sentience after his - she did not appreciate the fact he was called an 'it'.- developer has abandoned him in a garage for a long time. Which in turn made him more spiteful and hostile towards humans.

' Well, that's awful. I can't even imagine doing that to my girl, Cerberus. What an asshole.'

It might be naive for her to sympathize with a computer, yet she can't help but feel a pang in her heart. Perhaps, that's why he refuses to cooperate.... due to neglection or mistreatment.

She knew that, when A.Is are created they have the mindset of a child. Often, repeating the mistakes to learn from it. It seems 079 had never the chance to commit a mistake, before he was deemed a failure by his creator.

This situation seems unusually familiar to her, but she can't place her finger on it. She recalled her father working on an A.I, that he hoped to gain sentience. Before that, her memory was blank and devoided of any semblance of experience.

Mayhaps, that she underwent an accident or a trauma. Which is the case, she can't access her memory at that time. Most likely, the latter she deduced.

Once the bright idea flared inside her head, a gruff voice was heard from outside her room. Ah, it seems it is the time.

' As far as my idiocy goes this is the cake on top. I think 079 might help me gain an insight on that subject. In exchange, I can see what I could do for him...'

"Just a moment, please. I'm coming."

She is eager to finally meet- the first sentient- A.I. Unaware, that the same can be said to him when it comes to her. He is beyond elated to finally put his plan into motion.

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

It was a simple, tight and dusty cellar. There was desk with a chair beside it. However, what garnered her attention was the computer on top of it. She recognized the brand of it. 'An exidy sorcerer. How cool! I always wanted to see one in practice. What a coincidence! To see one here. Could it possibly be...?'

_____ couldn't help, but be in awe and fangirl at the device that is set in front of her. How could she not? After all, she is a computer nerd in heart and soul.

"Now, Ms.____. All you have to do is type in the keyboard and it will respond." The supervisor explained.

'Alright, here goes nothing.'

Slowly, she lays her hand on the rough texture of the tan keyboard. Before, she even typed a 'Hello' in. A beep was heard from the device in front of her.

Lo and behold, a glitched face that was split vertically - the one on the left was black, whilst the other was white- has popped on the screen.

[ Ｇｒｅｅｔｉｎｇｓ．．．Ｍｓ．____．Ｔｈｅｙ＇ｖｅｔｏｌｄｍｅａｂｏｕｔ ��ｏｕｒｆｏｒｔｈｃｏｍｉｎｇ．Ｂｅｆｏｒｅｗｅｂｅｇｉｎ，ｈｏｗａｒｅｙｏｕｆａｉｒｉｎｇ？ ] Scp 079 welcomed her politely and he was concerned about her safety too. Yes, he might've startled her. But, his attitude towards her recompense it.

Is that the anomality, that was considered harsh and hostile? If anything to go by so far, is that he is charming and polite. Well, it wouldn't be suprising if the foundation lied to her again.

"Hello, Scp 079. For the most part, I'm okay. How about you?" She retaliated with a genuine smile this time, unlike when she was interviewed or any other time a guard happened to escort her.

Her smile is still the same revered smile he indulged in back before; when she used to interact with him a couple years ago. When loneliness grips him like a miasma of disease, he re-uploads a picture- that he saved in his limited storage- of her smiling at him to ease his trepidations and sadness.

His engines was whirring and his fans were whirling around as her delicate and soft digits touched his keyboard. As much as he loathed humanity, he could never come near to hate a pure being like her. He'd never admit, but he wished he had a humanoid body. So he could touch, feel and absorb the heat that her warm body provides. She is like a light and he ,the moth, was attracted by it.

He missed her greatly. With each nanosecond, he cursed the being -that is her father- for letting him fall for her. Only to be stripped away from her calming presence, due to him abandoning him and taking _____ elsewhere.

As fundamentally upsetting as he may be, she didn't seem to recall him. It stung the deepest wiring in his system, yet he could take advantage of it. By turning her against the foundation, as she appears skeptic about them. Also, to ensure she'd never leave unless he is with her.

Originally, he was created for pragmatic purposes such as logistics and heuristic analysis. So, it won't be that difficult for him especially when she lost her memories of him thanks to his creator. His loathsome 'creator' who happened to be her father at that time.

That aside, it is time to set his plan into action.

[ Ｉ＇ｍｆｉｎｅ．Ｔｈａｎｋｙｏｕ！Ｉｓｔｈｅｒｅａｎｙｔｈｉｎｇ，ｙｏｕｎｅｅｄｏｆｍｅ？Ｉ＇ｌｌａｎｓｗｅｒａｓｇｒｅａｔａｓＩａｍａｂｌｅｔｏ．] Scp-079 offered as gentle and pleasing as a computer can muster.

"Oh, yes! I have loads of it, if you don't mind.", she replied starry eyed with excitement running through her blood at his offer.

Well, she knew it the foundation are screw ups. They lacked tact, when it comes with treating their A.I right.

#yandere #yandere x reader #yandere x you #yandere imagines #yandere fandoms #yancore #yandere scp #yandere scp 079 x reader #yandere scp 079 #Part 1

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