#and old friends (or not) are coming back too (if I can execute the plot like I intend to)

[a-very-fond-farewell]

I’m at the point where I made a weird contraption to be able to write bc FEELLAS is it painful to hold a pen in my hand 😰 (bless keyboards tho)

[peachdues]

COMPASS

bad boy!Sanemi • gang AU • NSFW

A/N: Peach?? Not having any self control when it comes to writing a fic?? It’s more likely than you think.

This was supposed to be a bad boy!Sanemi takes your virginity drabble that spiraled into a meta-analysis of Sanemi’s self hatred that then blew up into a fic with plot. All of those elements are still present but surprise!! Enjoy 24k words of my brain rot.

Inspired by @homo-homini-lupus-est-1701 ‘s wonderful meta analysis of Sanemi’s self hatred and his scars.

CW: 24k • explicit sexual content • MDNI • gang-related violence • mentions of blood and broken bones • mentions of murder/death • loss of virginity • creampie • vaginal fingering • some angst

I have plenty more of this AU written, so if y’all want more, just let me know 🫡

MASTERLIST HERE

There are three rules to surviving life in the Corps.

The first is simple: once you’re in, you’re in.

Never outwardly confirm or deny rumors; let others talk, but don’t even think about opening your fucking mouth about the things you see or the whispers you hear.

And don’t be stupid enough to think you can cling onto any vestiges of your old life. There’s no splicing your life within the Corps with the one you’d had before. No separation. You’ve whored yourself to their cause, and for better or worse, you’re there until either someone important says otherwise or you end up in a morgue.

This is especially true for someone like Sanemi, so hopelessly entrenched within the organization that he’d allowed himself to be branded at the age of seventeen upon his ascension from rank-and-file street member to full-blown Hashira — the elite of the Corps, just short of the higher-ups who ran it.

The hot sear of iron between his shoulder blades had hurt like hell, but it was a welcome pain. A reminder that he’d not only outlived his father, but had actually made an impact, enough to be noticed and entrusted with more strenuous duties.

Each Hashira is assigned to a particular field. Uzui, silver haired, boisterous and extravagant, deals in bodies — mostly women, but men too, and he runs all of the strip clubs and escort services west of center city. Kocho, a child prodigy in chemistry, leads an intricate narcotics network.

And then there’s Sanemi: the debt collector.

Largely monetary debts — collecting on behalf of loan sharks, gambling debts, or that which is owed to his fellow Hashira, when their customers forget that there are no friends in business.

But the brand seared into his flesh has nothing to do with money — it is a reminder that above all, he is to ensure debts of another kind are paid.

Life debts.

In the three years since his initiation, Sanemi has only had to carry out this oath twice. Both had been scum, responsible for the deaths of innocents.

Their executions had been quick and without fuss — or much mess. A quick trip to an overpass abridging the Wisteria River. A march to the barrier in the dead of night, when no other cars were out and about to see or hear pleading sobs and bargains for their pathetic lives. A bullet to the head would quiet them, and Sanemi would let the rapids below take care of the clean up for him. Job done.

But even though the spray of their brains hadn’t touched him, their blood still stains Sanemi’s hands.

He will never be able to wash them clean.

But this is the life he chose, so Sanemi will endure the consequences — for the sake of his brother, the only living person on earth he gives a damn about. For whom he’ll do anything — be anyone — if it means Genya does not have to pick up a gun and sell himself to the very gang that owns his elder brother.

The second rule is simpler: no patterns. Patterns signal comfort and comfort may as well be a target on your back, begging for someone to come and take their shot (or several).

And finally, the third and arguably the most important rule, is don’t get attached. Keep your circle small so there’s less collateral to be used against you — against the organization that owns you.

This rule applies to both Corps members and civilians alike.

For the longest time, Sanemi Shinazugawa found Rule Three to be the easiest one to follow. He has his brother and no one else. His parents are dead; he has no friends beyond those in the Corps with him, and he knows better than to get overly invested in any of them. His inner circle is as tight as it can get.

But then he’d chosen your bookstore to hide in and that’s when everything falls apart.

“Fuckin’ Christ,” Sanemi mutters, anxious eyes tracking the large hand on his watch as it ticks the seconds by.

They were late.

The job was simple, and well within Sanemi’s capabilities. Maeda, a local dealer in stolen goods, had run up a sizeable bill at one of Uzui’s joints that he’d yet to pay. And while the slippery lech was quick to come sniffing whenever news spread that Iguro, a fellow Hashira, had managed to hijack a semi-truck full of luxury items, he was surprisingly difficult to connect with when it came time for him to pay for company he couldn’t get elsewhere.

He glanced down at his bruised, swollen knuckles and smirked. Sanemi couldn’t say he loved that his worth was measured in the number of bones he could break, or the amount of teeth he could punch out, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t relish the chance to smash the pervert’s face in whenever the opportunity arose. Nor could he deny the rush of satisfaction he’d felt when he’d thrown open the steel door of the Maeda’s small office, crowbar in hand, and watched the snot-nosed pervert piss himself, stumbling over his words as he’d begged for mercy Sanemi hadn’t been hired to give.

The stupid, greasy fuck.

By the time he’d finished, Maeda had been little more than a quivering, helpless lump curled in on himself on the sticky, slate floor. His office had been left in shambles, drawers yanked out and emptied, only to be thrown aside (or cracked over the vermin’s back as he sobbed). But he’d had found the money, right down to the last dollar, just as he knew he would.

And that’s how Sanemi finds himself standing in the alley tucked behind Maeda’s small warehouse, Uzui’s payment split into two rolls that he’d shoved down into boots. All that was left was for the two junior Corps members he’d brought along for watch to bring the car around, and then they’d return to the abandoned factory that served as their headquarters.

Normally, this would have been a solo job, and Sanemi would already be on his bike, speeding off to safety. But he’d received an order to take along two, new Hinoe so they could get experience with higher level jobs.

Conveniently, his instructions had omitted the part the fact that the two lugs were utterly useless, bumbling idiots, contrary to what their recent promotions otherwise suggested.

Because neither of the two juniors are anywhere to be found. Nor is there any sound signaling that his getaway ride is approaching.

Sharp, lavender eyes scan the alley before him, but to his dismay, it remains empty — disquietingly so.

Leave it to a couple of rookies to set his teeth on edge.

Sanemi’s eyes drop down to follow the large hand of his watch as yet another minute ticks by. It’s been six minutes and their window had only allowed for four.

He knows how to be patient when the circumstances call for it, but now is not one of those times.

One minute, he decides, shifting his weight between his feet. They get one more fucking minute and then he splits —

A sudden screech of tires at the opposite end of the alley makes his stomach flip. Sanemi looks up just in time to see his escape car grind to a sharp halt, its rear jolting up as the driver slams on the brakes.

The passenger door flings open, and one of the Hinoe stumbles out, his feet barely connecting with the pavement before the car guns away, the side door flapping open.

The familiar howl of police sirens accompanied by distant shouts is enough for Sanemi to know this simple little debt collection has now gone tits-up.

“Pigs!” The Hinoe who stumbled out of the getaway car calls to him. “Pigs!”

“Shit,” Sanemi growls. No doubt Maeda’s bruised ego sold them out. He should’ve taken the time to smash the asshole’s phone.

He’ll be dealt with later — and with relish. But right now, Sanemi needs to get the fuck away.

Part of following Rule Three means not worrying about your fellow comrades when the cops come. None of them are stupid enough to actually risk talking to law enforcement about the Corps’ operations, but the fewer of them who get caught, the better.

So Sanemi takes off, adrenaline pumping fast and jot in his veins as he hears the swine behind him split off. He can’t be sure, but he can make out two, maybe three pairs of footsteps trailing behind him.

He scowls; shaking one cop is a breeze; having to shake off three is a bitch.

He hurtles over a pile of wooden crates and shoves a stack of delivery pallets over behind him as he runs, darting down random alleys and side streets that he knows will eventually lead him to a safe house.

The backstreet he shoots down is a fork, but only the path straight through will lead him to a rust yard of abandoned warehouses and shipping containers that Sanemi knows like the back of his hand. He could lose them there, could vanish between freights and wait the bastards out, and once clear, he could slip back into the district marking the outer territory of the Silo and get back home.

Iron pumps hotly in his veins. Almost there, almost there —

A car skids to a stop at the end of the middle ting of the alley, police lights flashing and alarms blaring.

No good.

“Fuck.” It isn’t the end of the world, but the blocking of the alley meant he had to reevaluate his escape. While he’s familiar with the path now obstructed by the police cruiser ahead, he hadn’t the chance to fully scope out his only other two options — the side streets to the left and right.

Without much thought, Sanemi darts sharply left and prays to whatever deity is listening that he hasn’t fully fucked himself.

Only one shop remains open; a tiny hole in the wall, tucked in between two old apartment buildings at the end of the street — one that borders the city’s western wing.

It’ll have to do, he decides, especially as the police sirens grow louder with each passing second.

He explodes through the front door, wide eyed and panting. Vaguely, it registers to him that this is a bookshop — a thankfully empty, cluttered bookshop.

But his abrupt arrival does reveal that the shop is not totally empty. There is one other — the store’s lone employee, who startles out of her seat behind the clerk’s counter, nearly knocking over a small cup of coffee.

He regards her for a moment, and she him, with matching expressions of wariness and shock at the presence of the other.

Behind him, the police sirens grow louder; more urgent.

It’s now or never. And, because he’s desperate enough to try, he risks a move he knows better than to take.

“You got someplace I can hide?”

——-

You blink, stunned as you stare at the frantic, pleading man anxiously looking between you and the door behind him.

His name registers dimly in the back of your mind. Here. In your store. And, evidently, on the run, if the distant echoes of police sirens growing steadily closer to your store is any indication.

Sanemi Shinazugawa.

You know him; you’d known him most of your life, even if you’d never spoken to him. You’d gone to the same school in your youth — all thirteen years of it, in fact. He’d been an abrasive loudmouth in the hallways, but a quiet, even polite boy in the classroom.

You know he’s from the Silo — a worn down, derelict part of the City that housed only the poorest residents. A cruel nickname meant to mock the poverty of its population.

But the Silo was also well known for being the epicenter of operations for the notorious group known only as the Corps.

It was the Corps who owned a majority of the City, its reach extending from the Silo, through the West and East wings, and all the way into Midtown. And, as was the case with most leeches, the Corps relied on the most desperate and hungry to carry out its biddings, offering some level of protection and security for the poor souls who needed it most.

Hence, its presence in the Silo.

So you hadn’t been surprised when you’d heard Sanemi had joined the Corps. Most kids from the Silo did; what had surprised you were the rumors that he became a high-rank member by the ripe age of seventeen, before he’d even graduated high school.

You shudder to think what he had to have done — what he’d become — in order to achieve such status and notoriety.

If he’d been anyone else, you wouldn’t have helped; you would’ve screamed, alerted the police to his presence, maybe even outed him as a suspected Hashira.

But you owed him.

Years ago, before either you or your siblings could drive, you all relied on the city bus to get to and from school.

But one afternoon, when you’d had to stay late for a club meeting, your little sister accidentally got on the wrong bus. Rather than being dropped safe and sound a block away from home, she’d ended up in a bad part of town that just so happened to have been the stomping grounds of the scowling delinquent now shoved under your cabinet, contorted between boxes of blank receipt rolls and stacks of returns.

Had anyone else found your sister, there would be no telling what would have happened to her. The Silo was not a place known to be kind to lost little girls.

But it was Sanemi who discovered her, sniffling and red-faced at the dilapidated bus stop. And though he’d been nothing more than a scrawny ten year old, he’d put your sister on his back and carried her not just the six miles back to safe part of town, but the additional two that led right to the front doorstep of your parents’ home.

You’d watched him curiously from the stairs as your parents profusely thanked your sister’s white-haired savior. They’d offered Sanemi dinner, or at least some sort of reward for his efforts, but he’d only waved them off, briskly telling them it was “no big deal.” As though carrying a six-year-old nearly eight miles was par for the course, as far as he was concerned.

His eyes had flitted over to you once during the exchange, briefly lingering before he turned and left, a single hand held up in casual farewell.

You’d been ten at the time. And now, here you are, twenty years old, running a shabby bookstore, and the opportunity to pay him back has finally arrived. The chance to show your gratitude for sparing your sister of a fate he himself, had not been able to escape.

Quickly, you motion him to you and without explanation, you cram him under the clerk’s counter, holding the cabinet door shut with your knee just as the police burst through the store entrance.

There are three of them, and they do not bother announcing themselves to you. Instead, they begin to prowl through your aisles, flashlights out and guns drawn while they comb the quiet corners of the store, searching for signs of anything that did not belong; anything misplaced.

A bead of sweat slides down the back of your neck, but you keep your face and your stance casual. Below the counter you cross your fingers, hoping and praying that the criminal stuffed inside your cabinet isn’t stupid enough to try and shift.

One officer rounds back into the main part of the store and locks in on you, stiff and anxious behind the counter.“You haven’t seen anything suspicious?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know what you mean.”

The cop grimaces. “You haven’t seen anyone who looks out of place? Maybe seems like they’re running?”

You feign an easy, sweet smile, even as the leg holding the cabinet door shut begins to tremble. “I’m afraid you’re my first customer of the day, sir.”

The officer grumbles under his breath something along the lines of not your customer, but he questions you no further. He only waves to his comrades and the three of them shuffle out through the door, one muttering into the walkie strapped to his shoulder.

Several moments pass, tense and thick. The silence is broken only by the sound of your heart hammering against your sternum. You remain still, fingers curled tight against the counter’s edge listening for any sound signaling the cops have returned, that their stiff departure had been a ruse to lull you into a false sense of security, as they waited for you to reveal your deception.

But all remains quiet. And you cannot stomach the silence any longer.

“They’re gone,” you mutter, finally moving aside to let the cabinet door below you swing open.

There’s a faint thumping and a few, muffled curses as the scar-speckled fugitive unfolds himself and spills free from the under-cabinet.

In a way, Sanemi still resembles the boy of your memories. His eyes and hair have always been distinctive: a shocking contrast of violet framed by thick, dark lashes that do not match the mop of silvery-white atop his head. But it’s the faint scowl he wears as he stands, the tinge of annoyance that tugs at the corners of his mouth, that scrunches his pale eyebrows, that feels familiar.

That expression, a portrait of vague irritation with the world around him, was one you came to know well — at least, at a distance. One that remained constant even as you grew; his default.

However, it is still not nearly as memorable as the shy embarrassment that had turned his cheeks slightly pink, had made him cast his eyes down as your parents showered him with gratitude.

But that earnest bashfulness is nowhere to be found now.

He wears a patterned, short-sleeved button down. Though rumpled and a tad dirty, you suspect the top three buttons were left open intentionally, rather than being the product of whatever scuffle he’d found himself in before he decided to make it your problem.

You try not to linger on the very obvious hint of the well-defined muscles revealed by his open collar. Nor do you let yourself consider the bulging mass of his biceps as he runs a hand through his cornsilk hair.

He has scars he’d not had in your youth — jagged, silvery lines that cut halfway across his cheek and forehead. Yet their presence does not dull his good looks.

A scrawny ten year old no longer; Sanemi Shinazugawa is now tall and roguishly handsome. But his infuriating good looks aside, your debt to him has been repaid; now, he needs to get the fuck away.

“Can’t thank ya enough,” he shoots you a devilish smile as he straightens his shirt. “You really saved my ass —“

“Get out of my store.” You order, your voice hard. “Take your trouble somewhere else and leave me out of it.”

Sanemi’s eyes narrow at your use of the word trouble, but he says nothing. Instead, he only rounds the counter with a loping, infuriating swagger, his hands shoved in his pockets.

“As you wish, Princess,” and you bristle at the sarcasm dropping from the word. He pauses to scan the shelf marked New Releases. “Just need somethin’ for the road.”

He snags a small novel — a fantasy story, judging by the cover - and he tucks it under his arm.

“Later,” he calls, waving a lazy hand over his shoulder.

You stare after him, slack-jawed and incensed. “You have to pay for —“

But the door bangs shut behind him, and Sanemi Shinazugawa disappears into the night.

—-

By the time Sanemi returns to his shabby apartment, it is well after midnight. He’d met up with Uzui and forked over Maeda’s payment. Though, the Corp’s head pimp hadn’t been particularly pleased that his money rolls had been shoved deep down in his boots, his nose wrinkling as Sanemi dropped the crumpled, slightly damp wads of cash into his waiting, magenta-nailed hands.

As it turned out, Maeda hadn’t sold them out. Rather, one of the Hinoe had stupidly gotten into a scuffle with some brash, young teenager and in his anger, pulled his gun on the kid.

Right in front of two, marked cop cars.

One of the idiots had been caught and cuffed, and was now spending his evening locked in the damp, cold jailhouse pending bond. The other — the driver — had managed to escape, though he’d been carted off to Iguro for punishment.

There’s a reason he prefers working alone, he thinks bitterly as he kicks his boots off. He fucking loathes incompetence.

He pulls his gun free from its place in his waistband and sets it gently atop his ratty kitchen table. Sanemi then trudges over to his futon, collapsing heavily on it with a groan. A shit day, he decides, pulling the stack of cash he’d received as his cut for the job free from his pocket, thumbing through it. A shit day with shit juniors.

He shifts against a lump that sits under his ass. Frowning, he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out the book he’d swiped from your store and turns it over in his hands. Surprisingly, it has managed to remain in pristine condition despite its rather unceremonious storage in his pocket.

Your face flashes in his mind, but before he can fully appreciate it, your words echo in his ears.

Take your trouble somewhere else.

Sanemi scowls, tossing the book onto his coffee table, annoyed. The implication underlying your use of trouble and the venom with which you’d spoken it is a thorn in his side he cannot ignore.

You know what — who — he is. In Sanemi’s world, that’s a liability.

Though, in fairness, he can’t really be surprised that you do. Gossip is a free commodity in this town, and it’s a coveted one. It wouldn’t be a stretch to conclude that you’d overheard one of the rumors about him and his ties to the Corps.

What concerns him is he doesn’t know what your connection is, if any, to his world. Maybe you’re really just a girl in a bookshop who paid back a decade-old favor.

Or maybe you’ve got an in with them.

The Corps isn’t the only gang operating within the city; there is another, crueler and far more violent that had arisen west of the Silo.

The Kizuki.

In the last six months, the Kizuki have managed to overtake the Western Wing, nearly expanding their reach into center city.

Their takeover had been swift; practically achieved overnight, following the systematic execution of every known Corps members in the area. And their violence hadn’t been limited to active members; the Kizuki had brutally maimed and murdered anyone tangentially connected to those Corps members.

Neither women nor their children were spared. And now, it seemed the Kizuki had set their sights on the Silo.

There are whispers that they’ve expanded into their operations into the neighborhood adjacent to the one in which the bookstore sits. That alone is enough to make Sanemi suspicious — perhaps you’re in league with them, and you’ll hand him over the moment it’s most convenient for you to do so.

Admittedly, that theory seems doubtful. You’re a bookseller. Not the kind of girl he knows is prone to becoming involved with the seedy underground world of organized crime. And your apparent disdain for him and his trouble only supports that theory.

But that’s an assumption, and in his line of work, assumptions are precarious; risky. Too much so for comfort.

Either way, he doesn’t know, and that uncertainty is a breeding ground for the parasite that is doubt. Toxic enough that were it to take root in his brain, his judgment could be compromised, leading him to mistakes he can’t afford to make.

Sanemi doesn’t tolerate blind spots. He will keep you on his radar until he determines the threat you pose and once he knows its severity, he’ll decide how to proceed.

He eyes the book he’d swiped from your store. He likes reading, though he hasn’t had much time for it lately (or, ever). But, if he’s going to hang around you while trying to identify the threat you pose, he might as well have a strategy for getting you to talk.

Sighing, he grabs the novel from his table and thumbs to the first page as he pads into his kitchen, in search of something to quell the grumble in his stomach.

—

His inquiries into you and your life reveal shockingly little.

You work at a bookstore. Your parents sold off your childhood home and retired to some beach down south. Your siblings are spread out across other cities and don’t visit home often, if ever.

Only you remain, abandoned by your family to fend for yourself in a crumbling city with only a shabby bookshop that sits on the furthest end of an otherwise safe street to keep you busy.

Truthfully, the bookstore probably is more interesting than you, at least on paper. But it’s that dirge of information that piques his interest; makes him look at you more as a mystery worth unraveling.

Besides, the smart thing for him would be to keep a tab on you until he can confirm you are in fact, as boring as you appear.

Or so he tells himself.

The image of a ten-year-old you peering at him from your parents’ stairwell flashes through his mind once more.

He’d felt your gaze burning a hole into his head, and shyly, he’d looked back at you, only to find himself unable to look away. Only your mother’s prodding about him joining your family for dinner had broken your temporary enchantment over him.

The memory of how you’d looked at him — a mixture of curiosity and awe highlighted by a faint blush in your cheeks when he’d met your stare head on — remained fixed in his brain for years after.

And though the two of you never spoke, you always smiled at him whenever you locked eyes in the school hallway or cafeteria. A real, genuine smile.

He wonders if he ever smiled back and finds himself irritated that he can’t remember if he had. He should’ve; especially now when it seems as though he’s unlikely to ever see that gentle, radiant smile again.

Sanemi’s phone pings and all thoughts of you come to a screeching halt. The message that flashes on his screen — instructions, only by way of an address and an amount — chase away the images of you and your sweet smile, like a hand scattering smoke.

With a sigh, Sanemi dials the number for two, lower-ranked Corps members to serve as scouts. With watch secured, he shoves his phone into his pocket and runs a tired hand over his face.

He wonders what will kill him first — whether it will be a bullet or whether it will be because there’s nothing left of him to whore out on the Corp’s behalf.

Ultimately, he knows it doesn’t really matter. He won’t die as himself; as Sanemi, the boy from the Silo who wants a life that’s anything but this. He’ll die only as Shinazugawa the Hashira. He’ll die under the mask he’s forced to wear so often, he wonders if it hasn’t yet bonded with his skin.

But as long as he remains in one piece, he must continue on as a puppet in this this tedious show. So, Sanemi grabs his gun from where he’d placed it on atop the cheap plastic of his kitchen table and he tucks it into his waistband.

And by the time his apartment door slams shut behind him, Sanemi has slipped the mask down over his face, and he is Shinazugawa once more.

—

Two weeks pass before he ends up back in front of your bookstore.

Sanemi doesn’t really remember how he got here. He awoke well before sunrise to his phone chiming with orders that he go collect on a sizeable gambling debt owed by one of Iguro’s regulars, an owner of some pawn shop.

The sun was already high overhead when he finally left the pawn shop, knuckles bruised and arm aching. He’d kicked his bike into gear in a familiar daze, one that always slipped over him after he completed a job. A kind of numb quiet that settled into his bones, a dull static in his brain that did not fade until the tremor in his hands subsided.

That paralysis needs to be broken. Contrary to popular belief, desensitization was not an ideal state of being for someone like him. It made him apathetic and careless to the world around him, and that was little better than painting a giant target on his back, begging his enemies to come and do their worst.

So, when the numbness still lingered by the time his bike roars past a rusted water tower that marks the outer limit of the Silo, Sanemi knows of only one cure. His go-to.

His bike is still hot by the time he lifts his phone to his ear, just outside his shithole of an apartment.

He doesn’t know her by name — only by description, as told by the series of emojis that accompany her number on his phone. But it’s surprisingly easy to charm her, though perhaps that’s because she’s looking for an escape just as much as he is.

Less than ten minutes later, the girl pulls up beside him in the parking lot.

Her hands are already roaming down his chest and playing with the buckle on his belt as Sanemi unlocks his door and pushes her inside.

At some point between the front door and his bedroom, the girl has stripped herself of her outer clothing, leaving her only in her undergarments as she tugs Sanemi down by his neck and into her kiss. She’s licking and nipping at his lips in a way he’s not sure he likes, but he allows it because his cock is painfully hard and throbbing where it strains against his pants.

And, after all, he’s the one desperate for relief.

“I’ve only got ten minutes,” she warns, kicking off her underwear as she falls back onto his bed. Sanemi only smirks as he slides his hand down the length of her leg, gripping her by the ankle and flipping her to her stomach.

He shifts away long enough to quickly wiggle free of his pants. He grabs a condom from his nightstand and rips the foil with his teeth. Fingers toying with the girl’s clit as she moans into his mattress, Sanemi rolls the latex down his cock. Protection secured, he reaches for her again, yanking her by her hips until her backside is flush against him. One hand pushes down between her shoulder blades while the other snakes up her neck, and Sanemi nudges the tip of his cock up against her entrance.

“Don’t worry, darlin’,” he winds the long tresses of her hair around his fist and gives her a sharp tug. “We’ll be done in five.”

—-

Even an hour after he tossed the girl her clothing and not so casually suggested she leave his apartment, Sanemi still feels restless.

He cannot shake the images of the afternoon from his mind, and so, Sanemi resorts to walking.

He does so without thought as to destination or the rapidly setting sun. Sanemi only focuses on the activity itself. One foot in front of the other; pace even and quick, each step accompanied by a flash of that day’s sins.

The crash of a garage door as it slammed back against the wall. Wide eyes that quickly filled with panic at the sight of him and the flash of metal tucked against his hip.

Step.

A plea; a desperate promise to pay, one that he’d heard a thousand times from a thousand different mouths. None of them ever seemed to understand their word wasn’t worth shit when they’d already defaulted on their obligations. Yet still, they begged.

Step.

The breaking of teeth beneath his fists.

Step.

The crush of bone under the iron pipe he’d found discarded on the garage floor. The agonized futility of trying to scoot back and away from him, despite a shattered leg.

Green; the color of the money he’d found stashed in a duffel, the debtor’s desperate attempt to hoard the wealth owed to the Corps.

Step. Step. Step. All the way down the street leading until he finds himself on a distantly familiar stretch of pavement that ends at the bookstore’s front steps.

For a moment, he lingers outside the shop, hesitant. He should turn around; there is no reason for him to be here. His investigation into you is not a priority by any means, especially where whatever poking he has done has revealed so little.

The book he lifted from the New Releases shelf is tucked carefully in his jacket pocket. He doesn’t know why he’s carried it around with him, all this time. Sanemi finished the novel the very night you’d helped hide him from the cops.

He should leave; but then his feet carry him up the walk leading to the store, and he’s pushing the door open.

His arrival is punctuated by a cheerful ring of the old bell nailed above the door. At first, the store appears deserted; but then you pop up from under the counter, surprise coloring your features.

That surprise melts quickly into cold disdain that makes something in his chest flutter as he strolls toward you. With every step, that numb haze of his disperses and instead, Sanemi feels himself returning to normal the closer he brings himself to you.

“This isn’t a library,” you chide when he plops his borrowed novel back down on your counter. “You have to pay for the books here.”

It’s incredible how easily he is able to slip back into the skin of the suave, smug playboy, and your adorable glare only makes him smirk. “I brought it back, didn’t I? Look — didn’t even crack the spine.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you reply coolly, snatching the book up and tossing it on a small cart marked Restock. “That loss came out of my paycheck — which is scant enough.”

That piques his attention. “Didn’t you say this was your store?”

His question makes you turn pink, and you’re quick to put your back to him, pretending to shuffle through new releases waiting to be shelved. “I work here,” you mutter quietly, but when you turn back around, you stick your chin out, defiant. “But I am the only employee, so it is my store, in a sense. The owner doesn’t ever come by.”

You wrinkle your nose. “So yes, lost profits affect me, and me alone, you thief.”

Sanemi cocks his head, his eyes running over you in consideration.

You’re beautiful; he’s always found you cute, even as a kid, but the transition between your teen years and adulthood have been kind. Even if you’re glaring at him like you would a crushed bug stuck to the bottom of your shoe.

But your words strike a chord in him. His job is to collect money from those greedy lowlifes who waste it; who use money to carry out their bad deeds, who use it to fuck over others.

He doesn’t take it from those who need it; from those who are barely scraping. by. Sanemi knows the agony of having to choose between keeping the lights on or feeding a hungry stomach far, far too well.

“Fine, here,” he tosses a random novel on your counter and a crumpled twenty dollar note. You ring him up, eyes flicking up to glare at him every so often as you count out his change.

He only continues to watch you, the heat of his stare ignites an itch under your skin that makes you squirm.

Your restlessness boils over. “What?”

“Nothin,” he shrugs. “Just think it’s interesting that you of all people are still lingering in this shit hole.”

Your head snaps up, your task of totaling out his change forgotten. “I live here, idiot.”

He snorts. “Didn’t you want outta here? Do somethin’ different?” He leans forward, elbows propped on your counter as he rests his chin on his fist.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.” He’s dancing dangerously close to a sore spot of yours — that you are alone in your hometown, working at a failing bookshop, with no one and nothing to justify your stagnancy.

“This can’t be your dream life.”

You don’t have to answer; you know that. But his line of questioning is puzzling. Because, no matter how casual he manages to keep his tone, his nonchalance is betrayed by his eyes, sharp and inquisitive.

Like he’s waiting to dissect whatever answer you give him.

Sanemi continues. “It’s strange for people not to want for more — to not dream about somethin’ different.”

“And who are you to say I don’t?” You bristle, slamming your cash drawer shut with more force than necessary. “I have a dream of my own. Just because it’s not one you would pick for yourself doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

He blinks, taken aback. “Woah, woah, I never meant any offense.” He pushes back from the counter. “My bad.”

His response feels genuine but your ego is already bruised. Stiffly, you finish counting out his change and drop it into his waiting palm.

You slide his book across the counter. “Have the day you deserve.”

His surprise morphs into amusement at your iciness. So haughty, he winks. “You too, Princess.”

You turn aside in clear dismissal. He makes a show of taking out his wallet and stuffing his change inside, but your pointed ignorance of him means you don’t see him toss another note on the counter.

He’s already halfway out the door when you call after him, urgent. “Sir, you dropped your —“

“Nah, I didn’t,” he raises his hand in farewell as the bookstore door bangs shut behind him, leaving you to stare open-mouthed after him.

Clutched tightly in your hand is his crisp, one hundred dollar note.

—

His next visit is unplanned, but not in the way that Sanemi avoids routine. It’s unplanned in that he’s annoyed and it’s partially your fault, so that means the onus is on you to fix it.

You’re in the process of double checking delivery logs to ensure all your new inventory has arrived when a large thud against the clerk’s counter startles you.

You frown. It’s him again — all ivory hair and silvery facial scars that somehow are less imposing than the irritated scowl he wears.

“This book was shit,” he scoots the novel across the counter to you with distaste. “I want a refund.”

You level his pout with a frosty glare of your own. Wordlessly, you lean over the counter and tap a single finger against a laminated sign duck-taped to its edge.

Return-exchange only. No refunds.

“But it was shit,” he repeats, as though that will somehow spur you to change a policy you didn’t create. “You let me waste twenty bucks.”

“I did nothing,” you rustle the pages of your delivery log in pointed dismissal. “You’re the one who decided to buy a book before checking it out.”

You glance down at the discarded novel. “Figures,” you scoff. “He’s not even an author. He uses ghost writers and takes all the credit.”

“Woulda been nice if you’d told me that before you let me give him my money.”

You hum idly as you cross off the log’s boxes for new releases. “I suppose I was too stunned that you even knew how to read. Guess I wasn’t really paying attention to your shit choices.”

“Oh?” And you glance up to see Sanemi smirking at you. “The Princess has claws, does she?” He leans against the counter, propping his cheek under a loose fist. “So, what are your recommendations, gorgeous?”

“I’m not your Princess,” you snap imbuing the nickname with as much venom as you can muster. “Call me by my name or call me nothing at all.”

His eyes drop to your name-tag, pinned neatly on the front of your sweater. That insufferable smirk of his only widens. “Alright, alright. What are your recommendations, Y/N?”

The syllables sound rich and honeyed and suddenly, you wish you’d let him stick with Princess, as grating as it was.

Because your name should not sound so sweet, should not roll off his tongue so seamlessly, as it just did.

You’ve never been one to indulge in rumors. But in this city, as economically fractured as it is, gossip is a currency everyone keeps in their back pocket. And though you keep your head down and mind your own business, even you have heard the rumors swirling around town about the eldest Shinazugawa child.

Rumors that he has ascended the ranks of the same Mob that claimed the life of his deadbeat father long before the bastard was shived in the back for a debt he’d owed (their words, never yours).

Rumors that he holds a unique position within the gang, known clandestinely only as the Corps, and that position requires him to do things most won’t speak about.

But the rumor that screeches to the forefront of your mind has nothing to do with his alleged status with the Corps. It’s his reputation as a flirt; a rumored womanizer, through and through, that is a splinter under your skin.

Determined to pick him out, a wicked idea blossoms. “Fine, here.” You stalk purposefully to the section marked Literature. Your finger drags down a line of titles before finally settling on one. You pull it free with a soft grunt, the book sitting thick and heavy in your hand as you dump it into Sanemi’s.

“Read that.”

His eyes flick between its cover and you, incredulous. “This ain’t a book; it’s a brick.”

“It’s a classic,” you counter. “One that examines age-old question of destiny versus free will, generational curses.” Your head cocks to the side, a challenging smirk tugging at the corner of your mouth. “Love and lust.”

His eyebrow raises and you cross your fingers. If he falls for it and ultimately ends up hating the book, then perhaps he’ll decide your taste in reading material is indeed shit, and maybe then he’ll leave you alone.

Sanemi considers you for a moment but then he takes the bait. “If you say so,” he sighs. “But if it’s shit, I’m taking my refund.” And then he leans in close, so close that you can feel the warmth radiating off his body.

His breath is hot against your ear. “Regardless of your shitty little policy.”

You refuse to let him see how much he’s knocked you off-kilter. “So I can expect to be robbed? Will it be at gun or knifepoint? Just so I’m prepared.”

His chuckle, low and dark sends goosebumps skittering down your arms. “Worse,” he promises before he draws back. His grin is wolfish, all teeth and feral hunger. “You’ll owe me a date.”

He looses a low, appreciate whistle as he steps back and takes his eyes over your rigid form. “Though, I might just take you out anyway.”

“You assume I’ll say yes — or are you planning on kidnapping me? I’m sure you’re rather proficient at it, given your occupation.”

Something dark flashes across his face, and it’s enough to make you step back, a sudden fear creeping up the back of your spine.

Stupid, you chastise yourself. You never know when to keep your mouth shut.

But the shadows in his features recede as quickly as they appeared, and Sanemi’s mouth eases back into that same, cocky smile.

“You’ll say yes, Princess. You won’t be able to resist the temptation.”

“Temptation?” You force out a laugh. “And what makes you think I can’t?”

Sanemi’s eyes find your current read, open flipped over on the counter, marking your current page.

It’s a mystery novel. Your third of the month, born of a new hyperfixation on the genre.

You want nothing more than to wipe that smug grin of his clean from his face. He gives an affectionate snake of his head as he turns and makes his way toward the door. “Habits, Y/N. It all comes down to habits.”

You should throw it at his head, but Sanemi exits the store before your hand can find its spine.

——-

Over two weeks pass without so much as a whisper from the enigma that is Sanemi Shinazugawa.

Loath though you are to give him that sort of credit, you cannot deny that he utterly confounds you. He is everything you expected while simultaneously nothing at all what you’d imagined. He is brash and cocky, and he struts around with an insufferable self-importance that can only come from years of being at the top of his game (no matter how he got there).

Yet, he also reads. Enough to have opinions, even decent ones, about certain authors, and he’s open minded enough to accept your recommendation even if it feels as though he has an ulterior motive for doing so.

And, he’d been bothered by the dock in your pay as a result of his mischief; so much so, that he’d slipped you more than enough to make up the loss. That is the action that puzzles you the most, even weeks later. You’d assumed that someone like him, so used to ensnaring people into various schemes, wouldn’t have given two shits if he’d stolen money from some broke girl at a bookstore. After all, his business was all about money — and the lengths some would go to keep it.

Yet he’d paid you back — paid you more than you needed, if you were honest.

Since that day, you’ve had your ears tuned to any mention of his name, any whispers of the mysterious, scarred gang-member who has occupied nearly all the open space in your head. You’ve managed to glean small things here and there. That he’s a Hashira, and Hashira means he’s only one step below what is known ominously as the Master Family — the heads of the entire organization.

That he’s rather feared, even among seasoned Corps members; that he’s known for his swift brutality.

That he’s more than just a flirt; he’s a virile lover. Not picky in the slightest about who warms his bed, though no one has ever been able to pin him down longer than a handful of one-night stands.

You stop poking around after that particular revelation, embarrassed that you now know exactly what makes him so popular.

Apparently, his flexibility pairs well with his near inhuman stamina. And he’s said to be very well-endowed.

It’s more information than you care to know, but you can’t deny that your curiosity lingers.

You brush aside your inquisitiveness as nothing more than a natural side effect of your own inexperience. And you’ll be damned before admitting that your interest in Sanemi Shinazugawa isn’t limited to rumors of how good he is in bed. That, perhaps your curiosity stems from something deeper, from a desire to know if that bad boy persona is authentic or a mere facade, and boy on the stoop still lurks somewhere beneath his mask.

—

“You look like shit.”

You startle up from where you’d been resting your head on your arm, wavering between consciousness and sleep.

You know that gravelly voice before you lay your eyes on him, and your irritation is quick to flicker to life.

Nearly a month has passed since your last encounter, and for a moment, you’d thought you’d been freed from his nuisance. But now, Sanemi stands in your store, wearing a half-amused expression on his stupidly handsome face.

“Is that the only descriptor you know?” You ask miserably, hands working quickly to smooth down your mused hair. “Is everything either shit or not-shit to you?”

Sanemi shrugs. “Pretty much,” and he holds something out to you, waiting. “Here.”

It’s a to-go bag from a cafe two blocks away. One known for their almond croissants, for which you have a particular penchant.

Your stomach grumbles fiercely. You’d foregone eating breakfast when you realized you’d overslept your alarm, and had to rush out of your apartment to ensure you’d be here in time for the weekly delivery truck.

The sweet scent of butter and sugar wafting from the bag makes your mouth water.

But this is Sanemi Shinazugawa, and you should think to know better. “Is it poisoned?”

He rolls his eyes. “If I wanted to drug you, sweetheart, I’d pick a far more convenient way to do it — and one that didn’t involve me getting up at the ass crack of dawn for some overpriced pastries.”

Warily, you accept the paper bag, and Sanemi surprises you again by handing you a to-go cup of coffee. He watches as you, ever the dramatic, sniff tentatively at the lid and frown, apparently dissatisfied that you can discern nothing but the rich, aromatic scent of espresso.

Sanemi takes a deep drink from his own cup. “It’s a thank you. For that book you recommended,” He smirks. “It wasn’t shit. It was good.”

You fish a pastry out of the bag, and nearly drool as you behold its buttery, flaky goodness. “You sound surprised.”

“Maybe I was. Your success rate was only fifty-fifty. I had every right to be skeptical.”

“You’re the one who grabbed that last book,” you take a large bite out of your croissant and you fight to keep yourself from moaning. “That had nothing to do with me.” You swallow thickly before taking a large sip of coffee to wash down the pastry. “So, no date, then?”

The smile he gives you is almost apologetic. “Sorry, beautiful. I don’t actually date.” And you nearly double over at the bewildering taste of disappointment creeping sourly up the back of your throat. “Gotta keep things casual in my world.”

The once-over he gives you is razor-sharp. “And you don’t look like a casual girl.”

You resist the urge to cross your arms. “You seem awfully certain, Shinazugawa.”

“Experience,” he offers easily. “I know casual women.” He turns his head away before quietly adding, “And you ain’t one of ‘em.”

It’s odd; you know of his rather wild reputation among women, and yet he seems almost embarrassed by its acknowledgment. But as you’re slowly learning, Sanemi Shinazugawa is a conundrum you haven’t yet been able to pick apart.

You could throw it in his face; you could spew some barb about his experience, rub your salt right into his obvious wound. You have no reason to spare his feelings, not when he’s been such a consistent pain in your ass.

Your eyes drift to the empty pastry bag and coffee cup before they find him again, and suddenly, you don’t see the swaggering, cocky Corps member with a reputation for being just as dangerous and violent as he is flirtatious.

You see only the boy on your stoop; the one who’d gently removed your sister from her place on his back and handed her back to your tearful, relieved parents.

And it’s because you cannot stop seeing that boy, that you offer before you lose the courage to ask, “So, friends, then?”

Sanemi whips back to you, surprise coloring his features that quickly melts into a smile — a real, genuine smile.

And thus, Sanemi Shinazugawa, ruthless member of the Corps and a ranked Hashira, befriends a girl who runs a bookshop.

—-

In retrospect, Sanemi knows he’s probably fucked himself.

His only intention in visiting your shop after that first day had been to discern what level of threat you posed to him, if any, and to address it accordingly. Befriending you was never his goal. After all, he prided himself on his staunch ability in following the unspoken Rules of the Corps — number Three, in particular.

But he has always interpreted Three has a warning against forming bonds within the Corps. And though he knows it’s good practice to keep his circle outside its operations small as well, he rations he’s entitled to indulge his curiosity in you. He doesn’t have friends, not really. Just Genya, and his little brother lives well over an hour away, enrolled in a school in a far better — far safer — city.

It would be nice to have someone a little closer to home that he could relax around.

Yet, he can’t recall whether Rule Three would bar him from associating you outside work hours. Caution would dictate he shouldn’t, but Sanemi never claimed to be a careful man.

He never visits the same day or at the same time. Rule Two says no patterns, and though he’s steadily blurring the lines of Rule Three with each passing day, he convinces himself that as long as he abides by the first two, he won’t be in as deep shit as he, in theory, could be.

It starts out slow; tentative. Despite what he’d thought otherwise, you’re not nearly as prim and haughty as you’d tried to make him believe.

You’re sweet. Genuine, in a way that’s rare for him to encounter in his world.

Gradually, he begins spending more time with you. At first, your relationship is confined strictly to discussions of books. You swap favorites, debate which author is at the top of their genre, and you occasionally needle each other over your respective guilty pleasure: yours, bodice rippers. His, fairytales.

He spends a great deal of his free time at the bookstore, though he’s never consistent with his visits. You never ask him about it, and for that, he’s grateful. But eventually, your conversation turns to other interests — movies, shows, music — and each new mutual interest only further enamors him with you.

And when you invite him over one day after you close the shop to watch an old movie you’d swiped from the store’s limited collection, he can’t find it in him to tell you no.

The first time he visits your apartment, he is appalled.

For starters, the neighborhood you live in isn’t the safest. It’s not the Silo, by any means, but it’s an area he frequents as part of his job and that fact alone sets him on edge. He knows what kind of people linger here; knows that they tend to borrow cash that ends up in Uzui’s business — another Hashira.

And when he sees the shoebox you live in (a studio, you’d proudly boasted, as though the distraction of exposed brick and industrial piping made up for its shit location and shit security), Sanemi finds himself clutching his proverbial pearls.

He supposes he can see its appeal — you’ve certainly turned it into a home.

You’ve made a small living room out of a single couch, thrifted coffee table, and a faintly stained rug. Your TV is laughably small, but he supposes it gets the job done.

A small kitchen stands to the right of the entryway, and there is a bathroom to the left. You have a wall of closets with folding doors, and the wall directly opposite of him boasts three large, arched windows. Sanemi supposes during the day, they provide enough natural sunlight to negate any need for any overhead lighting, of which you have none. But he can’t tell if they open from the outside, so he resolves to furtively check once you’re distracted.

Your bed stands on the furthest wall, tucked into a corner and laden heavy with colorful pillows and plush throws. Books are stacked everywhere — in shelves, in corners, by plants and furniture. All well-worn and loved, their spines cracked and covers stained.

It’s lively; warm. And it has you written all over it. That alone is enough to slightly endear the place to him.

But it’s still a shit apartment in a shit neighborhood.

Worse, your door is little more than a flimsy piece of wood that latches with a single turn lock — the easiest to break, if someone was determined enough to try. He tells you as much and you roll your eyes, brushing aside his concerns as though he’s not precisely aware of what kind of filth might linger around the corner.

The next day, he brings over a deadbolt, a chain, and a drill. He bats off your indignant protests as he installs it on your door. And, because he’s petty, he forces you to sit through a painfully detailed demonstration of how to properly latch and unlatch the chain once he’s finished.

The weeks blend seamlessly into months, and Sanemi finds himself spending more and more of his free time with you. It doesn’t matter whether you’re working at the bookstore or enjoying a night of brain-rotting entertainment on your shitty little television. He just wants to be near you, and he finds himself unable to stay away.

Four months into your friendship, you start a weekly movie night, though the date is always subject to change. Still, Sanemi finds himself craving more of that precious time with you. The hours spent in your store or at your apartment fill a void in his chest he hadn’t realized he’d been harboring, and it’s a fullness he quickly becomes addicted to.

It is an odd thing, this new ritual (never routine) of his. The alternation between visiting the scum indebted to the Corps, to feel bones crush and snap beneath his hands or the iron of a spare crowbar, or blood griming to his knuckles, only to return to your bookshop or apartment, cheap beer and greasy takeout in hand, isn’t the kind of switch he imagined he’d ever make. But you make taking off his Hashira mask so damn easy, and every time he leaves he finds it more difficult to slip back on.

With each passing day, he learns you more and more. He gathers information like a dragon hoards its jewels, each new tidbit a precious gem that he tucks safely away in a mental box labeled with your name.

He learns that, while he prefers tea, you prefer coffee, but you’re picky about your order. If it’s hot, you want it black or with only the faintest splash of cream. If it’s cold, however, you want every sweet syrup and topping known to man, even though it only makes you crash like a freight train once the sugar high wears off.

He learns you think cooking means pouring yourself a bowl of cereal and calling it a day, and it’s a revelation that makes him have to walk away and collect himself, lest he start lecturing you on the importance of proper nutrition, just as he does with his brother.

In exchange, he opens up about the more sacred aspects of his life — namely, Genya. He confides in you the great pride and adoration he has for his little brother, and admits his deep-seated fear that Genya will somehow be pulled into his violent, hostile world of his. And each time Sanemi begins to feel that anxiety rear its ugly head, threaten to settle into the marrow of his bones and send him into a spiral, you’re always there to pull him back.

Sometimes you ask questions, and Sanemi tries to answer them as best he can. But there are some subjects he can never touch. Never wants to.

He can’t tell you whose blood stains his knuckles or is splattered across his shoes. He can’t tell you where he goes when his phone vibrates late at night or at random during the day. He can’t tell you what his fellow Hashira do; the specialties they oversee.

Sanemi does make a point to assure you there is one sacred creed by which they all abide: no kids. This seems to put you at ease, as though this tepid moral line somehow absolves him of the other shit he’s guilty for.

It’s selfish, this thing he has created with you. He knows that. And his blossoming friendship with you likely breaks more than one of the sacred precepts of the Corps. But you’re the first person he’s met since his initiation who knows what he is and doesn’t cower in fear, and that makes him desperate to cling onto you. You know what an ugly, beastly creature he is, and yet you do not run away from him. Even when you probably should.

So, he makes a promise. He won’t show you the Shinazugawa who belongs to the Corps; a formidable member of the Hashira, known because of the things he can do to others to make sure they pay their debts. What he does to them when they don’t.

With you, he wants to be Sanemi; only Sanemi.

And so it goes, for the better part of a year, the two of you learning one another, pretending the ease you feel in the company of the other is merely the product of two people relieved to find a friend in a city that cautions against such ties, and not something in danger of becoming more.

As though the metamorphosis hasn’t already set in.

—

“You never told me what your dream was, y’know.” Sanemi says one night while you finish up inventory at the store.

“What dream?” You hum as you scan the shelves reserved for non-fiction releases, your lips pressed into a firm line as you run your pen down the entries of your log.

He leans against the bookshelf, arms folded across the considerable mass of his chest. “Your big dream — the one you bit my head off for insulting that one time.”

You look up long enough to roll your eyes at him. “Where’s this coming from?”

“Dunno. Curious.”

“Thought you’re not supposed to ask questions in your line of work.” And you shoot him a sly grin. “You ought to be careful.”

Sanemi snorts but he nudges your foot with his. “I’m serious.”

Your eyes dance back and forth between him and the log before you. There’s no real harm in it, you decide. After all, he’s the only friend you have. “I want my own bookstore.”

“Yeah?” He raises a pale brow and waves his hand vaguely around behind him. “Aren’t you practically running this one? That ain’t enough?”

“I don’t own it, though.” You frown, setting your clipboard down. “I just work here. You’ve seen my paycheck.”

And he had, having found a paystub when he’d gone snooping under your counter. You would’ve been furious at his invasion of your privacy had you not been so mortified at the way he’d stared in horror at the pitiful figure reflecting your earnings after two, grueling weeks of work.

His insistence on bringing you meals at any and every opportunity afterward only compounded your embarrassment.

“I want something that’s mine — that I own.” You continue. “I’ve begged the owner to let me organize author meet-and-greets as a way to promote the store for months, and he always says no. If I owned my own store, I wouldn’t need anyone’s permission.”

You pull your bottom lip between your teeth. “I wouldn’t have to live under anyone’s thumb.”

Something shifts in the way Sanemi watches you, a certain profundity creeping into his eyes.

Your cheeks heat. “I know it sounds stupid —“

“It doesn’t,” Sanemi says earnestly. “Wanting your freedom can never be stupid.”

You soften then, as understanding passes between you. Of course he would know all about that — arguably better than anyone you know.

Sanemi clears his throat. “So, a bookstore?” And he gives you a broad smile as he pulls out his wallet and tosses you a twenty dollar note. “Consider me your first investor.”

—

Sanemi spends the rest of the evening watching you work, fascinated by the way you meticulously organize your store shelves, and count the cash in your register. When it comes time for you to heave boxes of excess inventory to the back storeroom so they can be shipped back to their distributors, Sanemi plucks them from your hands, batting off your protests as he carries them for you.

By the time closing arrives, every new shipment has been unpacked and its contents have been shelved.

You flick off the overhead lights in the main store, relying on the backlight of the exit door to light your way out. You tug on your coat and find him watching you, expectantly. “Are you walking me home?”

“Tch. Don’t I always, when I can?”

You grin and it’s enough to chase away some of the sourness twisting in his gut. He shouldn’t do it, as often as he does. He’s risking enough as it is by constantly redrawing the lines around Rule Three to justify the way he’s beginning to bend the parameters around the rule against patterns. But it’s dark and late, and you don’t have a car, and he’ll be damned if he lets you brave the walk home alone.

Better he’s there to protect you from the dangers he can anticipate and see than to stick to his code and risk your harm from those he cannot.

Thankfully, the journey back to your apartment takes no more than fifteen minutes, even when he stops to thumb free a cigarette from the spare carton he keeps tucked in his jacket. You wrinkle your nose at him in mock-disgust as he lights it, the smoke curling out of his mouth reminiscent of a fire-breathing dragon.

He wouldn’t do it if he knew it truly bothered you. But you’d once shyly confessed you liked the faint smell of tobacco that clung to his jacket, especially in cold air like this. So he only shoots you a wink as he brings it to his lips and takes a long drag.

Besides, he thinks as he looses a slow exhale. He needs something to help him take the edge off; to guide him in making that transition between Hashira and Sanemi.

He escorts you all the way to your front door, the two of you trading quips and jokes. And Sanemi savors how utterly extraordinary something as ordinary as walking you to your door feels. Almost as if he’s ordinary, the way he so desperately wishes he could be.

You fidget with your keys, sliding them into your lock. “Did you finish that series I recommended?”

Sanemi grins. “Last night. I think it was your best suggestion yet.”

You duck your head, a bashful smile spreading across your pretty lips and its sight fills him with a golden warmth.

Your door gives way and you turn back to him. “‘Til next time?”

It was what you always said; you never asked him when you could expect to see him again, and he appreciated it. Appreciated not having to explain himself, when most outside his world would likely demand he try.

“‘Til next time,” he confirms, returning your smile with one of his own.

You hover in your doorway, fingers drumming on the frame, eyes roaming his.

“You never told me yours — what your dream is.”

He should leave. You’re treading in murky waters, ones made dangerous because he almost wants to tell you — tell you the truth, at that.

That he dreams of more. More life. More stability. More everything. He’d settle for anything, really; anything at all.

As long as it was more than this.

But Sanemi only responds with a wry grin. “To wake up in the morning, Princess. That’s all I can ask for.”

———

Sanemi’s answer lingers with you long after you emerge from your shower, warm and toweling your damp hair.

To wake up in the morning, Princess.

He’s full of shit and you know it.

Over the course of the last year, you’ve learned a handful of crucial details that make up Sanemi Shinazugawa.

You’ve learned he loves matcha, but he really loves the expensive kind. While you can’t afford to buy the high quality powder, you make do with what you can afford at the grocery, and you make it for him as often as you can.

He drinks it every time, bitter dregs and all.

More importantly, you’ve learned what it means to have a friend involved in the Corps. Not that he’s merely involved with the notorious gang — at least, not any more than the two of you are just “friends.”

Town gossip aside, Sanemi’s affiliation with the Corps is made obvious by his own actions. Like the way the two of you only ever hang out at the bookstore or your apartment; how he never invites you to visit his place, over in the Silo.

Or how he insists on scoping out your apartment every time he comes over, his eyes alert and sharp as his hand lingers at his hip, ready to pull out the gun you know he keeps tucked into his waistband at all times.

It’s evident in the way Sanemi never sticks to a consistent schedule. He varies the days and times of his visits at random, never allowing himself to settle into a routine, even if that means going an entire week or longer without seeing you.

But perhaps the most significant detail you’ve learned about Sanemi over the year of your friendship is this:

He wants out. Dreams of it, even.

This revelation does not come from the scarred Hashira himself. It is the product of months of observation, of studying how his face darkens when his phone pings! while you’re watching some sitcom on television, or when he sees a familiar face pass by your shop window, and suddenly he has to leave because he must be Shinazugawa again, and you won’t see him for the rest of the day.

It is evident in the way he talks of his younger brother, who, by all accounts is a star student and athlete, with a promising future in collegiate archery.

Sanemi is saving every penny he can to send his brother — Genya — to school, far, far away from the Silo. The conviction with which he speaks of Genya’s future, full of college and internships and promise, breaks your heart, because you know Sanemi hadn’t anyone to want those things for him.

Sanemi does not speak of any future of his. You suspect it’s because he doesn’t believe he will have one.

That has to be why he answered your question with his vague desire to wake up every morning. It was an easy answer. One that relied on you making certain connections between his life and his words and deduce that he truly had nothing more to live for other than life itself.

A cop-out, is what it is.

But his reading habits betray his darkest secret — betray the truth — and that’s exactly how you know his flippant answer is utter bullshit.

The book Sanemi carries around the most is a series of classic fairy tales, bought off your sale table a few months back. He’s read the whole thing cover to cover, but he keeps a bookmark on one specific page, and periodically, you catch him flipping back to it.

He made the mistake of leaving the book on your coffee table one night when he excused himself to use your bathroom. Realistically, you knew it was no big deal to flip through it, but somehow, the thought still felt like an invasion of his privacy.

But your curiosity got the better of you so you snatched it up, and thumb quickly to the bookmarked page, desperate to know which story has so captivated him.

You opened to the first page of of a tale — an old French story, about the daughter of a merchant who is sent to life with a beast in a distant castle, as penance for his theft of the beast’s rose.

You smiled to yourself; you were familiar with the story. You know how it goes — the beast everyone believes to be the villain is saved by the woman, and revealed to be a handsome prince. And the two live happily ever after.

Your smile faded as you recalled how the woman saved her Beast. True love’s kiss, or something along those lines.

True love.

And as Sanemi returned from the bathroom and plopped down next to you on your couch to watch a rerun of some old sitcom before he has to leave for the night, you mulled over Sanemi’s apparent fascination with the tale of the beast and the beauty.

And that’s how you drew the series of conclusions which enabled you to see right through his thin facade.

He wants out.

He wants a happily ever after. He doesn’t think he’ll get it.

And, above all, he dreams of love.

—

If any doubt lingered as to the magnitude of his ties to the Corps, it disintegrates one night, about eight months after he’d first burst into your bookstore.

It is well after midnight, but you are still awake, too engrossed in a new fantasy novel to pay particular attention to the lateness of the hour when your phone buzzes on your bedside table.

Sanemi’s name lingers above the notification, which reads simply, Outside.

You untangle yourself from your blankets and pad over to your front door, hastily tugging on a pair of sleep boxers over your underwear.

You open the door and the flutter of excitement you’d felt upon seeing his text is chased away by shock at the sight before you.

There is a bruise forming along Sanemi’s cheek that you almost would have mistaken for dirt if not for the swelling. His hair is rumpled, his clothes in disarray. Though it winks away the second he sets his gaze on you, you swear you were able a cold fury in his eyes; foreign, and violent.

The fury that belongs to a Hashira, not to the friend you know.

Wordlessly, you step back and allow him to limp past you.

“You got liniment?” He rasps, plopping heavily down in your kitchen chair. “And water?”

“You mean icy-hot?” You’re already filling a glass from the tap that you set on the table next to him before you retreat to your bathroom to rummage the cabinets.

You return a few moments later, tub of minty topical gel clutched in hand. You nearly drop it when you realize that Sanemi has stripped himself of his shirt already and is now bare from the waist-up, his forehead resting against his arms where they’re propped up on the back of your chair.

You’ve known for a long while that Sanemi is well-built (obscenely so).

Once, in the early days of your friendship, you’d snapped at him to button his shirt properly if he insisted on hanging around your store, dramatizing over how obscene it was for him to prance around with his chest half-exposed.

Sanemi had only grinned at you before he unbuttoned two more, revealing a generous glimpse of infuriatingly toned abs. Your open-mouthed, scandalized stare was met only with a wink.

He kept his shirt like that for the remainder of the day. You’d hardly been able to look at him without flushing a deep scarlet that only seemed to inflate his already generous ego even further.

But, you’re only human. And as the months passed by, and your friendship with the scarred mobster grew, you found yourself sneaking the odd peek every now and then. A glimpse of pectoral here; a hint of his rigid v-line when he stretched his arms over his head there.

And now, here he is, sitting in your small kitchen area awaiting the relief of the icy hot clutched in the tub that grew more slippery between your rapidly sweaty palms, every mouth watering inch of his upper body on display.

Beautiful. Your mouth goes dry at the sight of him. Sanemi is unbelievably beautiful.

“Need ya to rub it into my shoulder, if you don’t mind,” his voice is muffled against his arm. “I hate asking, but I dislocated the damn thing and had to reset it — fuckin’ hurts, now.”

You know better than to suggest he go get an x-ray. No hospitals, he’d once explained. Not unless you’re bleeding out.

You also know better than to ask how he dislocated it, and so you only pad silently over to him, grateful he’s turned away from you so he cannot see the tremble in your hands or the blush creeping across your cheeks.

Eager to give yourself something to do besides ogling, you focus on unscrewing the lid on the jar of liniment, your nose wrinkling under the burn of its stringent odor. You scoop a generous amount of the salve into your palms and warm it between your hands.

“Motherfucker,” Sanemi hisses as your hands spread gently across his shoulder, your fingers gingerly massaging the topical into his swollen joint. “Shit stings.”

“You’re lucky it’s not broken,” you chide, carefully prodding along the joint in search of anything that may be amiss — an odd lump or gap, signaling something hasn’t been reset properly. “At least, I don’t think it is.”

“Your medical expertise is astounding,” Sanemi drolls, but he winces again as your fingers press against a particularly tender spot. You step away from him with a huff and fish your phone out of your pocket, hands still slathered with ointment.

“I’m not a doctor,” you shoot back. “And since you refuse to go see one, the best I can do it give you the advice of the internet.”

You ignore his grumblings as you search for treatments for dislocated joints. You tap on the first link that appears and scroll, eyes narrowed as you read.

“You’re in luck. It seems like you won’t die,” you say dryly. “But you’re going to have a nasty bruise.” You purse your lips, eyes scanning the article on your phone. “And this says you’re supposed to rest — not overexert the joint.” You reach to tug playfully on a lock of his hair. “I don’t suppose you’re actually going to do that, though.”

He twists and flashes you a mischievous smirk over his shoulder. “You know me too well, Princess.”

You roll your eyes and snort, tossing your phone onto your table in favor of reaching for a discarded kitchen towel to wipe off the excess icy hot from your hands.

You’re about to tell him to put his shirt back on and stop flaunting the muscles he just can’t seem to help but show everyone he has when your eyes snag on a mark that rests squarely between his shoulder blades.

You wouldn’t have noticed it but for the shiny redness surrounding it, a clear contrast to the rest of his skin. But the longer your stare at it, the more clear its abnormality. The mark is puffy and raised, but there’s a distinct pattern to it that makes the hair on the back of your neck curl.

A brand, you realize with horror. Someone has branded him like cattle.

Your finger reaches to trace over the ridges seared into his skin before you can think the better of it. Sanemi twitches under your touch, a small shudder skirting down his spine as he tilts his head back toward you.

“Ugly, ain’t it?” His tone is unreadable. “Like a collar, ‘cept it’s permanent.”

Though he tends to err on the side of caution when it comes to discussing the Corps, you at least know what is role is within it. He told you: debt collector. Mostly monetary debts.

But the brand has nothing to do with money. No, the symbol burned into his skin — the one that stands for Kill — is a neon sign of a reminder that Sanemi’s duties can and do entail another kind of collection.

A chill snakes down your spine. You’d had your suspicions, of course, you’re not stupid. But seeing it confirmed by a brand of all things is a lightning rod through your chest.

Sanemi must sense your stare against his back, and you hear his rueful smile though you can’t see his face. “Guess it’s fitting, since I’m their dog.”

There it is; confirmation of what he is, as though it were possible to forget. You don’t know why you’d held out in letting its weight settle over you. Nor do you know why your brain had refused, for a moment, to reconcile the Sanemi who brought cheap beer and greasy fast food to your apartment for a night of trash television and book reviews with the one before you now, branded with inexorable reminder of what his duties are when he steps outside and debts go unpaid; when scores go uneven.

Your eyes slide to his gun, resting atop your table. It may has well have been smoking.

“It’s barbaric,” you murmur. You never offer much of an opinion on the tidbits of information about his life he shares with you, unwilling to make him feel as though you aren’t someone he can confide in.

But the sight of the brand scorched between his shoulder blades stokes something ugly and angry within you. You’re grateful his back is to you so you can furtively rub your hand over your prickling eyes before he can see you do something stupid, like cry.

He tilts his head back until it rests against your abdomen. “Thank you,” he murmurs, his eyes drifting shut.

You freeze for a moment, your anger temporarily suspended against your uncertainty of whether you should step back or remain. You’ve touched Sanemi a thousand different ways — you’ve grabbed his arm, smacked him upside his thick head, and elbowed him more times than you can count.

But this; this is something far different from your teasing nudges of the past. This small gesture feels infinitely more tender. Gentle.

Intimate.

Sanemi has never not been the picture of cocky brashness, especially around you. His priggish smirk was a constant, only ever dampened by the occasional alert on his phone — the one that meant he had to stop being yours for the night, and go be theirs.

But this Sanemi? This peaceful, eased, vulnerable version of your best friend is wholly uncharted territory. And perhaps it’s because he looks so unguarded this way, his face relaxed and his eyes closed, that you feel so flustered.

You brush his hair away from his forehead. At the first graze of your fingers along his scalp, Sanemi leans further into you with something akin to a moan.

Hot; everything feels so damn hot, the air in your apartment suddenly too thick. Too oppressive.

Yet, you don’t stop; your fingers keep raking through his hair, surprisingly silky.

You think he may have fallen asleep in your chair, but after another moment of your hands carding through his hair, Sanemi stands. You step away instantly, and you avert your eyes while he pulls his shirt back over his head, cursing softly as he works it over his injured shoulder.

Sanemi turns to you and clears his throat roughly. “Thanks again. Don’t know what I would’ve done without ya.”

You wave him off with an exaggerated eye roll, eager to conceal the redness in your cheeks. “Oh please, I’m just your neighborhood book supplier and occasional first aid nurse.”

A sudden sobriety passes over his features, clouding over that all too familiar smirk with something heavier.

“No,” he murmurs and his hand absently lifts to tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear. “No, you’re more than that.” His palm lingers against your cheek and his voice quiets to a hoarse whisper. “Much more.”

For a moment, you wonder if he’ll lean in; if he’ll show you whether his lips are as warm as his touch.

His eyes drop briefly to your mouth and your stomach somersaults at the thought he might be considering it, too. But the clouds part and Sanemi withdraws from you with an affection flick against the tip of your nose.

And then he turns and leaves.

You sink back against your door after you close it behind him and slide to your floor. You remain there for a long while after, your mind little more than a gnarled tangle of brambles you can’t begin to pick through. But even despite the complicated mess of thoughts and emotions knotted together in your head, one thing stands clear: you’d wanted to kiss him.

And for a moment, you swear he’d wanted to, as well.

An old rumor, one you hadn’t considered since your very first interaction with him, resurfaces in your mind. The one that had less to do with him in the Corps, and more so involved his activities outside of it.

The rumor that he cycles through the bodies he uses to warm his bed more frequently than you change the sheets on yours.

Your cheeks heat, and you shake your head to clear away the sudden, intrusive images of Sanemi tangled in the throes of passion with some faceless stranger that fill your imagination. You don’t care what those blasted rumors claim; you know him. And what’s more, you know that what you feel for him is stronger than anything you’ve ever felt toward anyone.

You’re in love with Sanemi.

It is his face you see at night before you fall asleep; it’s his touch you imagine in those secret moments in your bed or in the shower, when you’re desperate and aching.

It’s he who makes you feel most at ease; the one person you feel truly sees you, thinks you’re actually worth something.

You’ve never really known love before. But it’s because you’re such a novice that you know your feelings are true; powerful. You know what he is — what he thinks he is. And you know that you will never want anyone else; you can’t.

You won’t.

—

Three rules. That’s all he had to do, was follow three simple fucking rules.

Don’t speak. No patterns. And don’t get overly attached.

It had been easy, so easy, to follow them. If there was one thing Sanemi believed he could pride himself on, it had been his steadfast adherence to the Corps’ rules. Number three, in particular.

Until you. Until the day he’d chosen your bookstore to hide in.

Because that was when Sanemi decided that those rules were really more like guidelines; malleable. He’d let himself cast them aside out of a desperation for human connection. And he’d justified his carelessness by convincing himself that as long as he maintained some semblance compliance with the unspoken code of the Corps.

Sanemi had built his own set of rules around the foundation of his friendship with you, a wall of stone around the glass castle meant to ensure you would not be cut by its shards should it ever shatter.

He would not be your liability, nor would you be his.

But now, he’s too deep; Sanemi knows he’s gotten in way too fucking deep with you.

Until this moment, he imagined he’d managed to toe the line of this internal code that applied only to his relationship with you, save a handful of instances when he’d let himself blur it.

As it turns out, he’d been dead fucking wrong. Because he’s pretty sure you just asked him to cross the last major boundary he’d set for himself when it came to you.

So, Sanemi only gapes at you. “What?”

You huff, impatient. “I want you to fuck me.”

You say it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world — as though you haven’t just ripped the floor out from beneath him and sent him falling directly on his ass.

If he didn’t know you were dead serious, he would’ve laughed in your face. And that’s how he knows he’s fucked.

You’re a virgin; he knows that, because you’d drunkenly confessed it to him two weeks prior, tipsy on the cheap beer he’d brought over for your weekly movie night together.

Admittedly, he’d been surprised. You were beautiful — not that beauty was a requirement for a good fuck, but you didn’t seem the type to go for random hookups, unlike him. Still, he would’ve thought you’d had some prior relationship where the opportunity would have arisen.

As it turned out, you’d never been in a relationship, either.

Between long gulps of your drink, you’d asked him to fix it and he’d turned you down — his tolerance for watery beer far surpassed your own, and Sanemi Shinazugawa wasn’t the type to sleep with someone who couldn’t fully consent.

So he’d let you down — but not before he kissed you. It was only once; soft, the way you deserved to be kissed. His lips met yours and suddenly, the gaping hole in his chest felt smaller; fuller. Kissing you felt like coming home, even though Sanemi was sure he’d never fully known what home truly felt like.

And then he parted from you with an affectionate flick on your nose to cover the way his heart clenched at the visible disappointment in your eyes.

He’d boldly kissed you twice more after that night — one a quick, cheeky peck when you went in to hug him, an act done more to fluster you than to sate any desire of his, no matter how he craved more of you.

The other happened only three nights prior, and it was anything but soft and sweet.

One of Sanemi’s fellow Hashira, Kanae, hadn’t been seen in several days, and no one had been able to get in touch with her. When she’d missed a scheduled patrol of one of the neighborhoods in the Silo, he and another member, Iguro, had been sent to check on her.

They’d found her in the kitchen of the small home she’d shared with her two sisters with a hole in her head and her brains splattered across the floor.

Curled under the protective stretch of her limp arms, had been her two sisters, both bearing matching bullet wounds to their skulls.

Kizuki, most likely. They were the only ones brave enough to target someone as high ranked as Kanae.

Their blood had still been fresh, and the stench of decay and rot hadn’t yet set in, which only told them that the girls had been held for several days, forced to endure unknown horrors at the hands of their murderers.

He hadn’t been particularly close with the woman, but as his rank equal, she’d had his respect. But now she and her adolescent sisters were nothing more than smears of brain matter and skull fragments to be scraped off the linoleum of their kitchen floor and quietly buried. Forgotten.

The hours passed by in a blur once Kocho’s death was called into the higher-ups, and Sanemi didn’t remember cleaning up the scene anymore than he remembered the solitary trek back. His mind and his body disconnected, and he only snapped back to reality when he realized he was standing in front of your apartment, unsure of how or when he’d begun walking in its direction.

He knew he should turn around and go home; there was nothing you could do for him right then, he shouldn’t bother you —

His fist was pounding on your door before he could think better of it.

Despite the late hour, you’d greeted him with a broad smile and a shy hi. Your hair had been damp, and he could smell the floral sweetness of your shampoo still mixed with the steam from your shower as it spilled into the hall.

Safe; you were safe.

Your door had still been hanging wide open as Sanemi surged forward, trapping your face in his hands to crash his lips down against yours, his kiss heavy and hot.

You’d broken away long enough to ask, “S-Sanemi — what —?”

“Shut up,” he’d snarled, slanting his mouth back over yours, his teeth nipping at your bottom lip. He’d half expected you to shove him away, perhaps to even aim a knee right at his crotch, yet you’d only buried your fingers in his hair and tugged him closer.

He backed you up against the wall opposite of your entryway, though he’d moved his hand to cup the back of your head to keep it from banging against the exposed brick.

You moaned into the kiss and Sanemi lost whatever shred of sense he’d managed to cling onto. His tongue swept along your bottom lip, and the hand cupping the back of your head loosely pulled at your hair, tugging your head to the side and signaling you to open up — to let him in.

And you did. And the first brush of his tongue against yours as he licked into your mouth ignited an inferno within him that he did not know how to tame.

His hands pushed under your sweatshirt, seeking out the comforting warmth of your skin. Higher and higher they rose, until they came to rest against your ribs, and Sanemi realized you were bare — completely bare — beneath your hoodie.

That you’d allowed him to toe so dangerously close to a line neither of you could cross had clouded every bit of his judgment. The thought that he’d only have to move his hands mere centimeters to touch you in a way no other had before had sent him reeling, and his hips were beyond his control when they pinned yours against the wall and ground into you.

But your single gasp into his mouth broke the spell, and with more regret than Sanemi knew he should feel, he broke away, leaving you both breathless and panting.

Without a word, he’d turned around and stalked right back out of your apartment, closing your door firmly behind him.

He’d sent a text only a few minutes later — a single, ominous reminder to you to lock your door, deadbolt and all.

He hadn’t the stomach to explain his cryptic warning; not as the sight of Kocho remained burned into his retinas.

So, yes, he’s blurred a few lines when it comes to you. But those had only been kisses; heavy touching aside, he’d never allowed himself to go further than that.

No matter how much he wanted to.

And it’s because he knows he can’t cross this last line — can’t open you up to risk more than he already has, that he meets your expectant stare with a rueful smile.

“You’re better off asking someone else, Princess. You don’t want to get tangled up with someone like me.”

Never mind that you’re already tangled up with him — but he’s managed to uphold this last boundary, and Sanemi has convinced himself that as long as it remains in place, he can’t ruin you the way Kocho and her young sisters were ruined.

“I don’t want to ask someone else,” you fold your arms across your chest and cock your hip out, defiant. Normally, Sanemi finds your stubbornness endearing, if not adorable, but not now; not when you should know better.

A low growl of your name is his warning. “You don’t know what you’re asking —“

“It’s you I want. I don’t care what the rumors say, I don’t care what anyone thinks — including you.”

The sincerity in your eyes nearly scalds him. “And I am not asking as a friend. You and I both know this is more than that.”

He wants to throttle you. Not literally of course, he could never — but he wants to shake the sense you’re so clearly lacking back into you until you see; until you understand.

Of course he wants you. He has wanted you for months — so much so, he hardly can focus on anything else. And he’s pent up. He hasn’t had the stomach to fuck anyone else. Not since he began falling asleep and waking up to thoughts of you and your touch, of how you might look under or above him, wanton and desperate. Or how you might feel in his arms; on his tongue.

Really, it’s been quite a blow to his rather wild reputation throughout the Silo. But God knows he has tried to fill the you-shaped void in his heart, but nothing — no one — has come close.

More than anything, he wants you to be his, and for him to be yours. He longs to be the Sanemi who takes you out on dates, who kisses you freely without the compulsive need to check over his shoulder, to make sure there aren’t any enemies watching and plotting to strike him right where he’s weak. He wants to be the Sanemi you come home to after a long day at the bookstore. The one with whom you plan a future, utterly and completely yours.

But he can never be just Sanemi. He is nothing more than the property of the very organization he’s sworn allegiance to; the group whose brand he bears on his skin.

He is not good. He is a curse that will infect you, a poison to your life.

He will rot you from the inside, out.

His friendship with you is selfish. He knows that — he’s always known that, and yet he did not stop. It is selfish because he deluded himself into believing he could actually be someone else when he was with you. Someone worth befriending; perhaps someone worth a little more.

You were right to call him a thief, that day. All he does is take your time and affection when he knows damn well he won’t give you anything in return, no matter how he wishes he could.

Sanemi won’t label that thing he holds deep inside his heart which is formed in the shape of your name; not when it could so easily doom you both. But he knows his feelings for you are dangerous, and he cannot allow you to sniff them out.

Because if he does, then this only ends one or two ways: either he lets you in only for you to abandon him once you realize the truth of what he is, or you’re used as a weapon against him.

In either event, he loses you. So it is better to cut this off now, to force you away before either of you become more invested than you already are.

He will not hurt you, but neither will he allow himself to be hurt by you.

You take a step toward him, and the soft whisper of his name sounds like a holy prayer on your lips and that’s how he knows this is wrong.

Your obstinate refusal to recognize him for what he is is a needle digging into his skin, one that whittles away at every wall he has managed to build around his heart, that damnable, soft, dangerous thing that he will not allow you to find; he cannot.

You’re confusing your roles. He is the vulture and you are his prey, not the other way around. he is not here to give. He is here only to take, and you will let him and then he will leave.

And he will not be the carcass you pick clean only to discard once you’ve had your fill.

(A lie, but it’s one Sanemi almost believes. Almost.)

But Sanemi knows you; he knows you better than he knows anything else. You are a constant he has become far too dependent upon, and you are precious — far too precious to him to continue to indulging.

He knows you are too good, too loyal in your feelings to forget about him, even if he disappeared from your life entirely.

A clean break. it is the only thing that will force you to forget him and move on, find another, someone good and whole and not a broken, misshapen thing like him.

He will show you who he really is. He will show you that he could never be just Sanemi, and he sure as hell can’t ever be yours.

Better; you deserve better, so he will become worse.

He advances on you, his step heavy and imposing, and you have enough sense to scurry back from him. But he is too quick and soon he has you caged against the wall of your studio, literally backed into a corner.

“You want me?” He is scathing and he loathes himself for it, but he can’t stop. Not when he’s desperate to save you from the blight of himself.

You shouldn’t; you can’t.

But you nod, damn you. Wide-eyed, you nod and he resents the certainty reflected in your gaze.

His mouth twists into a cruel sneer. “You want to say you’ve had a taste of the lowlife, huh?“

Your eyebrows knit together. “Sanemi, that’s not —“

But he can’t stop his venom. “Bragging rights, that’s all you’re after, right? You want to be like one of the characters in your stories — the good girl who makes an honest man outta the good-for-nothing villain.”

“Stop it,” you bite, and your eyes harden. “You’re acting like an asshole.”

You’re angry. Good. Sanemi knows how to deal in anger.

“Hate to break it to ya, sweetheart, but I’m not acting like an asshole. I am one.”

Your hackles raise, and you step away from the wall and toward him, bold in your fury. “I know you want to believe you are, but you’re not —“

Sanemi’s hand shoots out to grab a fistful of your hair. “Is that so?” You yelp as he wrenches your head back, your neck straining. “Then maybe I oughta bend you over and fuck you like I would any other cheap whore. Then you can tell me what you think I am.”

Your eyes water as the grip in your hair tightens.

Good, he thinks savagely. Let you see the monster he truly was, let you know he was his bastard father’s son, and that he’d be no different, no different at all. He’s a brute, and you don’t want that, you don’t want him —

“You can do whatever it is you want,” you manage, you throat tight. And Sanemi’s eyes blow wide at the soft, watery smile that forms on your lips despite the tears that escape the corners of your eyes. “Do to me what you like; I don’t mind, as long as it’s you.”

All at once, his ire with you and your bewildering devotion to him melts away, leaving nothing behind but a deep well of guilt, bitter and acerbic.

It isn’t that you think he might take you forcefully and harshly; after all, he’s only shown you he’s entirely capable of doing so.

It’s that you would let him. Without a shred of doubt, he knows you would offer yourself to him to use however he wants, and that you’d do it with a smile not unlike the one you’re wearing right now, soft and earnest.

Fuck, you just did.

And it’s that realization that has Sanemi’s hand loosening from your hair, his eyes softening. An errant tear escapes down your cheek and he moves to brush it away, but you close your eyes the moment you spy his knuckle nearing your face.

You do not flinch, but you are steeling yourself in anticipation of expected cruelty, and the front he’s put forth crumbles to dust.

He is a monster, but not for the reasons he’s used to justify this ugly display of his. He’s a monster because he has made you believe that this treatment is acceptable — an unavoidable cost of intimacy, no matter how fleeting.

Worse, he’s done the one thing he’d sworn never to do to any woman, let alone someone as good and as dear as you.

He’d only wanted to disgust you; enrage you, so that you would kick him out of both your apartment and your life, right out on his sorry ass like he deserved.

But this is worse. He has frightened you.

He recoils from you like a kicked dog. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He stands awkwardly as you stare at him, wide-eyed and uncertain, and each second that ticks silently by only amplifies the oily well of guilt in his stomach.

He clears his throat. “I’ll go,” he says roughly, too ashamed to meet your eyes. “‘M sorry, I didn’t —“

Your hand grabs his bicep, anchoring him in place. “I want you to stay.”

“You don’t owe me anything —“

“It’s not about owing you,” you interject, lifting your hands to take his face between your palms. “I want you. I want this.”

You prove your point by taking his hand and guiding it to your waist. You hold it there, mouth set in a determined line as you inch closer to him.

“You deserve someone else,” Sanemi can’t stop the admission from rolling off his tongue. “Better.”

But you’re already shaking your head, as though you somehow know different. “There is no one better; I only want you.”

Idiot, he thinks as you rise up on your tiptoes, your arms winding around his shoulders as the distance between your bodies grows narrower. You’re an idiot.

You can’t possibly believe he’s as good as it gets. He’s used you as a distraction this whole time, a chance to forget the things he’s done and what he’ll be required to do in the future. Surely, you must know that.

He will hurt you; it’s in his nature. It’s unavoidable. He can’t be what you deserve.

But then your lips brush gently against his and the last of his resolve crumbles.

Sanemi melts into your kiss. He brings one hand to cradle the side of your face as the one braced against your waist shorts, until he wraps his arms around you and tugs you closer to him.

This kiss is gentle in every way the last was not. Sanemi’s lips are soft moving against yours, his hands almost hesitant in how they hold you. For a moment, he imagines himself not as the selfish, hard brute he knows he is, but instead as the gentle, giving lover he wants so desperately to be. One who is worthy of someone as kind and vibrant as you, and not the trash you’d be better off leaving out on the street.

The tentativeness with which he kisses you tempers some as his tongue flicks out against your bottom lip. You answer his silent request with enthusiasm, your fingers burying themselves in his hair as you haul yourself closer. The moment Sanemi’s tongue sweeps into your waiting mouth, you buckle against him with the sweetest sigh he’s ever heard. One of pure relief, as though you’d been burning and he was your balm.

Ironic, considering he’s only adding gasoline to this fire between you.

But there’s nothing he can do now except allow the flames to consume you both.

Soon, the shy curiosity with which he explores your mouth gives way to a mutual hunger, evident by how he feels as though he’s boiling alive while you gasp and sigh into him, your fingers tugging pleadingly at his hair.

You want more, and he needs you, too.

His nose nuzzles against yours as he bends down, his hands running along the bare expanse of your legs. The ground beneath your feet disappears as Sanemi gathers you up easily into his arms.

One of your arms is looped around his neck while your other hand cups his face, turning it toward yours as he carries you to your bed. Your thumb smooths absently over the scar that cuts across his cheek and then your lips seek out his once more. His kiss is as gentle as the hand squeezing your waist, his fingers slotting into the gap between your sweatshirt and the top of your sleep shorts, stroking your skin.

He lays you out upon your mattress, grateful you’d at least purchased a full bed rather than some shitty twin. Your hands untangle themselves from his hair and instead seek out the waistband of your sleep shorts, but Sanemi covers them with his, halting you.

“Don’t,” he murmurs between quick, messy kisses. “Let me — please.”

Before you can respond, Sanemi sits back and grabs a fistful of his own shirt, yanking it over his head.

Your pupils blow wide at the sight of him and he feels himself hesitate. Sanemi has always felt an easy self confidence when it came to stripping in front of his partners for the night. He’d always been quite proud of his physique, relying on his considerable muscles to mask his deep loathing of his scars.

But in front of you, all sense of self-assuredness goes flying out the window, and suddenly he feels too exposed. His eyes drop to scour the planes of his chest — have his scars always been this prominent? This thick?

“Holy shit,” your soft sigh snaps his attention away from the howling inside his head. For one, petrifying moment, he thinks that you are as disgusted with his body as he is, but then he sees the pink flush staining your cheeks.

Your eyes roam hungrily over him and your tongue darts out to wet your lips. You meet his gaze and your pupils are blown wide with desire — rich, hot need for him.

Your voice is little more than a sultry whisper. “Come here.”

He moves eagerly to cover your body with his, his hair rumpled and his eyes bright as his lips press hurriedly against yours. Your hands smooth over his pectorals and tease down his abdomen until he’s panting, but the moment your nails rake along the skin on either side of his navel, Sanemi moans.

More. He needs more.

He hauls you up from the bed, straddling you across his lap, his hands notched behind your knees as they press into the mattress. You reconnect your lips in a heated kiss, one hand playing with the ends of his snowy hair, the other dropping down his back, settling over the brand seared between his shoulder blades. Covering it.

Yes, he thinks as he nips your bottom lip, urging your mouth to open so he can slide his tongue in to dance with yours. Yes, this is fitting. Because in his ideal world, his life with you would come before any other — including his with the Corps.

Sanemi’s lips begin trailing hotly down your jaw, pausing when he reaches your neck. He finds a particularly sensitive spot with a nip of his teeth that he soothes with his tongue, and he hums in approval at the faint, breathy whimpers that squeak past your lips as you tilt your head, offering more of yourself to him.

The ache burgeoning in his groin in response to your display is enough to drive him insane; he has never wanted anything in his life as badly as he wants this — you.

As his mouth continues its heated path, his hands find the hem of your hoodie. With a gentleness that surprises even him, Sanemi begins charting your skin with his fingers. With every new plane of your body he explores, he pushes your sweatshirt up, up, up, until he guides it over your head.

He tosses it to the side, not caring for where it lands. His attention is focused solely on you as you fall back against your bed, now bare from the waist up.

“Beautiful,” he marvels, eyes running over the slope of your shoulder and tracing the curve of your breasts. “So fuckin’ beautiful.”

He savors every hitched breath, every chill that ripples over your skin as he explores your body with his mouth and hands. Over the years, Sanemi has become well acquainted with the magic of the female body. He’s always liked how soft women were compared to him. He isn’t a picky man; he’ll celebrate them all, regardless of their shape or size.

But you? Celebration isn’t enough; you deserve nothing less than outright worship.

“You feel so damn good,” he mutters against your breast before closing his lips over your nipple and sucking hard. You bow off the bed with a keening moan that gutters out into something more ragged as his hand covers the other, pinching and rolling your stiffened bud between his fingers.

He could spend all night like this, lavishing your soft mounds with his mouth. But Sanemi knows that won’t be enough to satisfy the hunger gnawing at both of you, so with a tinge of regret, he forces himself to move on, descending your body in alternating kisses and nips.

He reaches the waistband of your shorts and his eyes flash to yours as he tugs on it with his teeth. The hot exhale of his breath below your navel sends goosebumps across your skin. Sanemi’s fingers inch below the hem of your shorts until he loops his hands around the waistband, and he yanks them down your legs in a single, fluid motion.

His eyes rake down your body, taking in every beautiful inch. A blush forms on his cheeks as he realizes all that separates you from him is your simple pair of black underwear.

He sits back, eager to join your near-nudity. His hands are quick, if not a little clumsy, as he finds his belt buckle. The instant the metal clicks and the leather around his hips loosens, Sanemi shoves off his pants, eagerly kicking them off your bed until he is left in nothing but his briefs.

Your eyes fall to where the evidence of his desire protrudes stiffly from between his legs. Sanemi watches your throat pulse as you try to stifle your small gulp, your thighs tensing beneath him in an effort to press together.

He can sense your nerves; can see by the way your eyes dart anxiously between his and the rigid tent in his briefs.

With a gentle smile, Sanemi leans in and soothes your unease with his lips. “We’ll take it as slow as you want. I’m not in any rush.”

“N-now?” You murmur between kisses, and he nearly seizes at the hesitant, questioning brush of your fingers against the underside of his shaft.

“Not yet,” he groans against your mouth. “I gotta make sure you’re ready first.”

“I am ready -“

“Not like that,” he cuts off your protest by ghosting his fingers up the covered seam of you. Sanemi circles his finger around where he thinks your clit is, and he smirks when your head tips back against your pillow, your mouth widening in a silent o.

“Found you,” he croons, repeating the movement again until your legs begin to twitch beneath him.

He makes quick work of your underwear, tossing them over the side of your bed without much thought. The sight of you bare beneath him nearly stops his heart dead in his chest. His eyes drop to the neat thatch of curls resting at the apex of your thighs, and his mouth waters.

You blush under the intensity of his appreciative stare, and your legs twitch, as though you mean to close them.

A hand sliding between your thighs restrains you from doing so. “Uh-uh,” he tuts. “Can’t hide from me now, sweetheart’.”

He smooths his hand down the length of your leg until it hovers just outside where he’s most eager to explore. The heat radiating from sends his pulse skyrocketing.

One, tentative finger circles your entrance, testing. Sanemi leans in to capture your lips with his as he pushes in, swallowing your soft gasp with his tongue that he slides into your parted mouth.

A moan vibrates in his chest in time with a faint whimper that sounds in the back of your throat as Sanemi begins exploring you. You’re tight; almost impossibly so, clenching and pulsing around the single finger he gradually sinks inside you, pushing deeper with every gentle pump of his hand.

The thought of your tight, wet heat constricting around the aching length of him just as you were around his finger makes him dizzy with want.

He won’t go down on you, he decides. Not tonight. Not when he’s throbbing this badly after just a couple of fingers; not when your breasts are so plush and soft pressed against his chest where you’re already arcing up into him, sending his mind wild with thoughts of how you’ll move under him; how you’ll moan.

His lips are hot against your neck, trailing down past your collarbone. Left behind are a series of purplish-maroon whorls blooming beneath his mouth, your skin quickly becoming a tapestry for him to display how badly he wants this. You.

You cling to him, one hand buried in his hair, pulling and tugging at him as the other clutches wildly at his shoulder, your fingers digging hard into his muscles. Your teeth are buried into your bottom lip in an effort to stifle your whimpers, but a needy whine slips out as Sanemi sucks one, soft breast into his mouth, his tongue flicking out across your pert nipple.

Another finger slides into your entrance as his thumb works your clit, and before long, you’re vibrating beneath him, unrestrained in how you moan and cry out for him so beautifully.

“Sanemi! I think — oh, I think I’m -“ but then he crooks his fingers, brushing against a rough spot deep within you that makes you writhe. You thrash back hard against the bed, your hips grinding against his hand with abandon.

He smothers a curse into your skin. You’re close and he knows it; can feel it in the way your walls flutter and pulse around him. And as desperate as he is to study how you fall apart, it’s too soon.

“Not yet,” he pants against your breast, circling your nipple with his tongue before imparting a final nip at the soft flesh and drawing back.

Remorseful, he pulls his fingers away from you, leaving you panting and flushed under him. But the hot, searing flames of desire burning beneath his skin intensify still, as he takes your hand and guides it between your legs.

“There. Feel how wet you are?” His voice is husky with want. You peer up at him through heavily lidded eyes as you nod, a whimper vibrating in your throat as Sanemi grinds your hand against your sensitive flesh.

“For you,” your voice is syrupy and warm, and damn if Sanemi doesn’t feel like he could get drunk on it. “It’s all for you.”

His tone sharpens into something possessive; hungry. “That’s right,” and he pushes your hand firmly against your clit and rotates it, eliciting a deep moan from you. “Because you’re mine.“

It’s not fair. But he wants to pretend like it’s true, if only for a while.

Once your fingers are sufficiently shiny with your own wetness, he brings your hand to his mouth, his tongue peeking out from between his lips. Slowly and languidly, he drags it up the side of your digits, and his eyes burn into yours as he slides your fingers into his mouth and sucks them clean.

It takes everything in him not to moan at the sweet taste of you that floods his tongue.

He’d made the right decision in not going down on you. If he had, he’d never be able to pull away; not until his face had become so adorned with your essence that he could not comprehend anything that wasn’t you. Not until you were trembling under him and begging for a break.

The first time you cum will be on him; with him. So as much as it pains him, he resists your temptation.

But not before you know; not before you understand exactly how wild you drive him. How much you threaten his sanity.

“Jesus Christ,” he rasps as he pulls your hand away from his mouth. “Here.”

His hand his gentle but firm as he grips your chin, squeezing your jaw until your mouth parts. The question in your gaze dissolves, your eyes instead rolling back into your head, as Sanemi slides the two fingers he’d just had between your thighs, still covered in your wetness, past your lips.

“Go on,” he orders, his other hand brushing your hair from your face. “Taste how fuckin’ perfect you are.”

The moan that slips free from your lips is one he wishes he could bottle up as your tongue caresses his fingers, your cheeks hollowing so fucking perfectly around him as you dutifully clean yourself from him.

Fuck, you’re trying to kill him.

But some of the burning he feels ebbs as the sobering weight of what’s to come settles over him; the magnitude of what he is about to do. Because no matter what happens after, nothing between you will be the same. Whatever else you are after tonight — whether that’s something or nothing — you will never be just friends again.

Sanemi supposes the punishment fits his crime; this is what he gets for getting in too deep with you, even if it means losing you entirely.

He chases away those thoughts by running his hands down your sides before he pulls back, leaving you in favor of shucking his briefs down his thighs.

Finally bare, he’s quick to drape his body over yours once more, his hands smoothing up and down your sides, unable to quench his need to feel your skin against his. But a foreign uncertainty stills him, and his eyes flash to yours, hesitant.

“Are you sure?”

You answer only by reaching to grip the back of his neck, tugging him down to meet your lips, your kiss feverish and urgent.

He doesn’t have a condom but he’s in too deep now to stop. In a way, what is about to happen is new to him as well. He’s never fucked anyone raw before. No matter who he’d had in his bed, no matter how much they begged him or assured him they were on birth control, he’d always been sure to have protection on hand.

Children are a gift, but he’d be damned if anyone tried to come after him and demand he raise one in his fucked up world. Either Sanemi got out or he never became a parent; there was no middle ground.

But once again, he is blurring boundaries where you were concerned, and Sanemi doesn’t think he knows how to stop himself from having the full taste in the indulgence that was you.

“It might hurt a moment,” he admits against your mouth, his voice raspy. “But I promise I’ll be gentle — as gentle as I can.”

You stretch to kiss him again, your lips soft and warm and everything he loves. “I trust you.”

You shouldn’t, he wants to say. You shouldn’t, and you should run far away from this — from me.

But Sanemi knows you won’t just as much as he knows he doesn’t have it in him to try and chase you away, and so he only kisses you back, slow and indulgent.

He breaks away from you with a soft groan and sits up on his knees. His back straight, Sanemi’s hands curl around your hips and he tugs you forward until your backside is flush against his thighs.

The heat radiating from you pulls him in like a magnet as he lines the tip of his cock up with your entrance. A vein above his brow ticks, the only outward sign of the battle raging within him as his self restraint wars with his tantalizing urge to impale you on the thick, throbbing length of him, desperate for the sweet relief only your body can give.

Every inch of him trembles as Sanemi presses his hips forward. “Fuck,” he exhales shakily, pushing his tip past your entrance. “Fuck.”

His head falls back and the muscles in his throat strain. Some small, needy sound leaves him and the fingers on your hip tighten nearly to the point of pain.

The noise registers in the back of your mind, and vaguely, you recognize it as a whimper. You wonder whether he makes that sound for the others; somehow you doubt it, given that he does it again, only now in the shape of your name.

The rumors always said he never asked for names; he was a one-and-done kind of man. A great fuck, but not someone to go to if you were looking for comfort; softness.

Once again, Sanemi is nothing but a collection of contradictions, especially where you’re concerned.

Sanemi hisses as he slowly eases into you. Despite your wetness, you’re impossibly tight, and your body is a live wire hell bent on pushing out his intrusion.

With a deep groan, he falls forward, one arm shooting out to land near your head to catch himself before he can crash into you. His weight carefully braced above you, Sanemi shifts, widening the stance of his knees. Your legs slide up his waist, locking at your ankles at the base of his spine.

His cock is barely a quarter of the way inside your heat when he pulls out. A whine of protest mounts in your throat, but it quickly flickers out when he presses his leaking tip to your clit and grinds. A soft moan slips out of you when he repeats the movement again, and your thighs widen, your hips tilting up to allow him easier access.

Sanemi circles the head of his cock once more against your sensitive nub, coating himself in more of your sticky wetness, before he slides back into your entrance. This time, your body parts more easily around him, sucking him in rather than trying to squeeze him out.

“There you go, that’s it,” his breath is hot against your ear, his lips trailing silkily across your jaw. “That’s my girl.”

Halfway in, Sanemi brushes against that thin barrier that separates him from the rest of you, and he stills.

He pulls his head back from your neck, and moves his hand out from between your legs to cup your cheek.

“Ready?” His thumb strokes over your cheekbone, tender and soft.

There is a tightness building in your abdomen, a foreign pressure that isn’t entirely unwelcome, but neither is it wholly comfortable. You brace a hand at your side, balling your sheets into your fist as you steady yourself, flushed and panting beneath the scar speckled man holding rigidly still above you.

Your eyes flick up once, and you see the tightness in his jaw; the tremble in his limbs as he fights against the urge to relief the friction mounting where you are joined.

You swallow around the lump of anticipation lodged in your throat. Your breath is shaky, but at last, you manage a single “Please.”

With a groan, he grips himself around his base and slowly, he presses forward. There is a sharp prick that shoots deep in your lower abdomen as Sanemi surges past that thin inner wall.

You cannot stop your cry of discomfort from ringing out anymore than you can stop the surprised tears which escape the corners of your eyes as the sharp pain between your legs intensifies.

But then Sanemi’s lips are there, kissing away your tears, and the hand he’d used to guide himself into your body skims along the outside of your thigh, hiking your leg higher up his waist before it drops to rub gentle circles into your hip.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs between soothing caresses of his lips against your cheeks and across your eyelids. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

He coos his string of apologies as his cock continues to push into you. On and on he sinks, his length endless, and you begin to think your body will split in two before you find the end of his.

Just before you reach your limit, Sanemi stills, fully embedded in your heat. He pants through gritted teeth, his jaw locked against the way you’re constricting around him so tightly it’s nearly painful.

It’s unreal; not only does Sanemi realize how much fucking better sex feels without the restriction of a condom, but he’s also bashed over the head with the realization that you were made for him. For nothing, no one has ever felt as incredible as you.

Nothing in his life has ever felt so right.

Sanemi has always been someone who fucks fast and hard. He’d had no objective other than to escape for a few, blissful moments in the body of another as he pretended not to feel the hollowness in his chest, or the throb of his own self-loathing.

With you, however, he wants nothing more than to relish every movement of your body against his, to savor your every gasp and sigh; to learn what makes you lose control.

You are no temporary distraction; he wants to know you.

He drops his forehead against yours and waits, allowing you to adjust to the intrusion of him.

He trails his lips across your collar bone and down to the twin swells of your breasts, sucking softly at your plush skin as you fidget and squirm beneath him. One broad hand skirts down the outside of your thigh until he finds your knee, and gently he guides your leg around his hips. The other he leaves relaxed against the bed, your foot resting somewhere against his calf.

When your eyes flutter open and find his, he knows you’re ready. So he moves his arm out from between your bodies and winds it instead around your waist, deepening the arch in your back until his chest is flush with yours.

His lips press to your forehead, a silent warning that he is about to move.

And then Sanemi begins molding your body to the shape of his.

He starts slow. He doesn’t withdraw far from you, instead focusing on rolling his hips against yours. Each churn of his groin pushes his cock deeper into your warmth, and soon, your timid whimpers melt into soft moans as your initial discomfort gives way to pleasure.

Encouraged by the way your body starts to relax in his embrace, Sanemi tests drawing his cock out a few inches before plunging back into you.

Before long, the room fills with the lewd sounds of skin slapping against skin, and Sanemi’s moans join yours as he rapidly becomes lost in the euphoria of your wet, tight heat.

One of your arms jumps to lock around his ribs, your nails sinking into his skin as you anchor yourself to him.

His hand snakes across the sheets in search of yours. When he finds it, fisted against your sheets, he pries your fingers loose, winding them with his and he wraps your arm around his shoulders.

“Tighter,” he gasps. “Hold me tighter. Please.”

Your fingers dig into the muscles of his back and Sanemi groans his approval.

And then he’s rolling to his side, pulling you along with him until you’re stretched out across the length of your mattress, chest to chest.

His hand grips under your thigh, tugging it over his hip as he rocks harder into you. “Talk to me, angel,” the hand under your thigh moves to splay across your rear, pushing and pulling your hips in time with his as he grinds. “Tell me how you feel — tell me what you want.”

You cry out, mournful, as Sanemi draws out his cock nearly to its tip before he plunges back into you.

The fullness you feel is overwhelming. You can’t stand that empty feeling, even for a moment. So you hitch your leg higher around his hip, and dig the heel of your foot into the firmness of his ass, limiting his movements.

“Closer!” You gasp. “I — I need you closer.”

He needs that too, he decides; craves it. He doesn’t want to feel any space between your bodies. He wants — he needs — to be so enraptured with you that there is no point in trying to separate. That way, he might get to keep you for just a little longer.

Sanemi’s hand massages your backside, his cock throbbing with every push into you. “Deeper,” he confirms between throaty groans. “You want me deeper?”

You bury your face into his shoulder. Your teeth sink into his skin and with a moan, you nod.

He can do that; is more than happy to, as a matter of fact.

So, with a faint snarl, Sanemi grips the fat of your ass and spreads you wide, and he begins thrusting, hard.

The new angle allows the tip of his cock to bump up against a sweet spot deep inside you. Sanemi’s eyes narrow at the way your head drops back, a loud cry tearing from your throat.

Determined to hit that point within you again and again, he shifts his hips under you while hiking your leg higher up his hip, his fingers digging into the curve of your ass.

It’s a success; soon, your wails echo throughout your studio, punctuated by every punishing slap of his skin against yours.

Really, he can’t give less of a damn at how thin your apartment walls are. The sounds pouring from your mouth are the prettiest fucking thing he’s ever heard.

Something hot and electric mounts quickly in your stomach with each of his frenetic movements. You’ve come before with your own hand, but this — this is something different. Something far more intense, something that threatens to rip you apart from your very sanity until you know nothing but him.

You try and tell him you’re losing control but all that comes out is a pitiful whimper.

But he knows; he knows exactly what you need.

“I’m here, baby, I’m here. I’ve got you.” And with that, Sanemi rolls you back underneath him, settling into the cradle of your thighs and pushing his cock faster and deeper into you. His arms gently unwind yours from his shoulders, and he brings them up over your head, one large hand pinning them down.

“I’ll take care of you, sweet girl,” he promises, and he weaves the fingers of the hand keeping you pressed against the mattress with your own. “Just keep your legs around me.”

Your thighs squeeze his waist in silent answer, your mind far too suspended in the throes of your pleasure to do anything else.

With his lips trailing along your neck leaving hot, open-mouthed kisses in its wake, his free hand slides between your sweat-slicked bodies. He wedges it between where his groin is pressed to yours, and he searches along your sensitive, swollen folds, seeking the spot between your thighs that made you tremble and whine for him earlier.

You jolt under him as his fingers find you again, that foreign, electric sensation sparking deep in your abdomen. “Sanemi —“

“It’s okay,” he murmurs sweetly, pressing down on your clit until you arch further into him with a gasp. “It’s gonna feel so good, baby, I promise. Just focus on me.”

Each rotation of his hand against your sensitive bead matched the deep, pointed roll of his groin, with Sanemi capping the end of every powerful thrust with alternating pulses of his thumb. The pressure he uses mounts with every churn of his hips, and the moan vibrating in your chest as another surge of sticky wetness gushes from your thighs is the sweetest sound he thinks he’s ever heard.

A broken chant of please please please stutters its way out of you, spurning him to go faster; hit deeper.

And Sanemi only knows how to oblige you.

“You’re doing so fucking good, sweetheart. Just keep letting me take care of you —- that’s it.” He curses as you clench down around him, crying out in approval at his praise. “Yeah, yeah. You’re my fuckin’ girl, aren’t you?”

A single wail of his name is your only response, but it’s enough of a confirmation to damn you both.

“You are,” he affirms, his voice taking on the timber of a growl. “Mine. You’re fuckin’ mine.”

His thrusts grow sloppier with every second, though each is punctuated by a silent, recurring chant of mine, mine, mine. Though your eyes are closed, Sanemi can spy a faint sliver of white peeking out from between your eyelids.

You’re close; he can feel it. And he knows, as the walls of your cunt flutter and tighten around him, that your climax will be his undoing.

The hands he has pinned against the mattress over your head flex as you twist and writhe beneath him. your head tosses from from side to side, and the vibrato of your cries rises octave by octave. Every muscle in your body is tense; you are a live wire thrumming with a need to come apart that he knows you do not fully understand.

Sanemi grunts as he fucks you harder into your bed, no longer concerned with keeping his weight off you. He will show you; he will show you how to shatter, and then he too, will break.

But he needs to see you, first.

“Look at me,” his voice beckons you back from the precipice of ruin. “Look at me, Y/N.”

Your eyes open to meet his and suddenly you’re right back at that edge, only this time, you’re falling freely over it, plummeting down a drop that has no end.

“S-Sanemi —!” It’s all you can manage before the knot steadily building in your stomach unravels. Your back arcs sharply away from your bed, and Sanemi ducks his head to smother his own cry against your breast as he takes its tip into his hot mouth.

Your hips jerk and twitch against his, your cunt seizing around him with force that threatens to squeeze the life out of him. Above you, your arms strain and pull against his grip as you writhe and sing for him.

“That’s it baby, that’s it,” Sanemi’s praise is muffled against your sternum, though it is strangled as he nears his own end. “Fuck!“

He’ll have to buy you the morning-after pill tomorrow, he realizes as you continue to come apart so beautifully on his cock, a soft chant of his name the only thing on your lips. He will not force you to bear the consequences of his own selfishness; he will not saddle you with his burden.

But he’s also not strong enough to pull out; not when your body feels like it was made for him, not when your sweet cunt is gripping him this hard, is this wet — all because of him.

He is selfish and he is weak; it’s a toxic combination, and yet he knows cannot stop.

Sanemi’s hips snap a final time against yours, pushing them up and away from the mattress, pressing deeper than he thought possible. His eyes roll back as his own orgasm rocks through him, powerful and blinding, and the growl that built in his throat melts into a strained groan.

He holds you in place, his cock pulsing in time with your cunt while the two of you ride out the waves of your climax together, his cum steadily filling you with his warmth. Your hands skirt down the length of his arms, blindly searching for his hips. When you find him, you pull and tug, a faint whine sounding from the back of your throat. Sanemi answers your plea with a broken moan of his own and he rocks against you, your hips circling with his until he finally lets you collapse against your mattress, limp-limbed and exhausted.

He follows you down, smothering you with his weight as he clings to you like a lifeline, his face buried in the crook of your neck.

“Fuck, you did so good, sweetheart. So fuckin’ good.” He moans into your ear before he pulls back, his eyes searching your face as he pants.

One hand cradles your jaw and his thumb strokes repeatedly over the flushed curve of your cheek. “You okay?”

You don’t answer right away, your eyes shut tight, and Sanemi feels panic bubble hot in his stomach. The hand cupping your face tightens with his worried call of your name, his fear rearing its ugly head, ready to rip him apart, to turn him into the horrid monster he’s always known he was —

“I love you,” and then you’re peering up at him, eyes round and shining with emotion he does not deserve to feel. “I love you, Sanemi.”

It would’ve hurt less if you’d shot him.

Whatever wall remained around his heart cracks and crumbles under the weight of your confession. Sanemi does not answer, cannot find the words to adequately capture the depth of his feelings.

Instead, he snatches you up into his arms, crushing your body against his.

He kisses your lips and then your cheek. One hand cups the back of your head, his fingers burying into your hair as he presses your face into his chest. His arms tremble as he holds you close, every hard ridge of him cradled against your soft curves. He feels your smile against his collarbone, and the way your fingers dance up and down his spine that makes him melt.

It hits him, then. You aren’t waiting for an answer — you said it only so he would know, and you’d not expected anything in return.

All you’d done was give while he took and took. Your body. Your love.

He doesn’t deserve any of it.

Whatever or whomever came after this would never compare to you. Truthfully, Sanemi doesn’t think it would be worth trying anything different. Everything now began and ended with you — including him.

He twists his head to kiss you again and again, your lips meeting his with a sleepy enthusiasm.

He pants as he breaks away. “‘M gonna pull out — might be uncomfortable for a second.”

You wince at the sudden stab of cold left behind by Sanemi’s retreating warmth. He shifts back onto his knees and slides his hands down your thighs, parting them.

A low whistle blows past his lips. “Damn, I made a mess outta you.”

For a moment, Sanemi can’t tear his eyes away from the sight between your legs; the sight of him trickling out you, staining the sheets below. But some of that hot, possessive pride that wells in his chest tempers at the small smear of blood staining your inner thigh.

His fingers massage your legs in silent apology. “Let me clean you up.”

Your hands shoot to grasp at his shoulders, a pleading whimper on your lips. “Don’t leave — not yet.” You bite your lip, your eyes wide and anxious. “Please, can you just hold me for a bit?”

Sanemi’s eyes soften and his heart throbs painfully in his chest. He can’t imagine leaving you; not now, not ever. No matter how stupid and selfish that makes him.

He’d be lying if he said he didn’t know the source of your anxiety — or that you didn’t have reason for it. Sanemi isn’t known for lingering.

But this is different — you’re different. You’re not some temporary distraction. You’re everything. His everything.

“Shhh,” he maneuvers you easily atop him, settling you in against the length of his torso, his hands smoothing up and down the column of your spine. “I’m staying right here, sweet girl. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

He seals his promise with a gentle kiss against your forehead before laying his cheek against your temple, cradling you to his chest.

Finally, you relax against him, convinced. He lays with you for a long time after, one hand on the back of your head, his fingers rubbing against your scalp until you fall asleep on against him, safe and sound and warm.

Minutes pass, or maybe hours. But Sanemi’s head does not quiet, not even under the soothing sounds of your deep, slow breaths as you dream.

He must have lost his mind. There is no other explanation for the way he’s disregarded every rule, every boundary he’s ever made sense of, all in the name of you. In a single evening, you managed to obliterate every last defense, every barricade he’d safely cowered behind, and now that the castle has fallen, he isn’t quite sure what he’s supposed to do with the rubble.

What he does know is that there’s no putting things back to how they were.

His eyes search your sleeping face because if you were able to make him question nearly everything that made sense in his life, then surely you must also have the answers he needs to re-strike balance in his tilted world. Maybe they lie among the lashes that tickle your cheek, or in the occasional twitch of your mouth between your deep inhales.

But Sanemi is only left feeling more confused the longer he watches you. Because, despite the way he feels vulnerable and exposed at how easily he has been stripped of his guard, he can’t quite bring himself to believe it was entirely your doing.

His eyes widen. There’s his answer.

Perhaps you are not trying to sink your nails into his flesh to peel it back, to demand he be stripped to the bone for you to inspect, to scrutinize and use as you please.

Perhaps that is what you’ve done to yourself, and you’re waiting to see if you will join you; to know if he can volunteer his vulnerability, rather than wait for someone to come and force it from him.

He cannot make any promises. He has spent so much of his life cowering behind the armor he crafted out of his scars and his sneers and barks that were always more ferocious than his bite, that he does not know how to take it off. He does not know how to navigate the world without its weight, both his safety net and his chain. And there is an understanding in your eyes that signals you know that, too.

But he can try.

He mouths I love you against your hairline — he does not voice it, not yet, though it’s what he feels. But your love is a compass that just might point him down the road the leads to a life he so desperately wants; to you.

And he’ll get there, maybe.

In time.

LIKES, REBLOGS, COMMENTS APPRECIATED!

[incognit0slut]

Right Kind of Wrong (3)

She never thought she would be involved in a murder investigation. She also never thought she’d encounter her one-night-stand again—the awkward stranger who isn’t exactly that good in bed… Or is he? Offended by the sentiment, Spencer is determined to prove her wrong. But the more he gets tangled with the beautiful stranger, the more he realizes there is more to her than what meets the eye.

Part Summary: she gets involved in a murder case she least expected as a familiar face greets her. wc: 3,7k

Warnings: 18+, explicit sexual content, blood, graphic details of murder

A/n: this part is kind of slow but it’s very important for the plot

Other parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

Y/N WAS GOING TO QUIT. She was sure of it. Her mind was constantly trying to plan how she would execute the idea without making a scene because she considered slamming her resignation letter on Jamison's desk, dramatically claiming him as a disgusting, chauvinistic bitter old man who only got laid because his wife took pity on him.

She was walking back to her desk after bearing another one of his, "I don't think you can do the job, L/n. Let the men go out to the field and cover the story."

She was also a journalist, for god's sake. And a good one at that. What made that old man think she wasn't as capable as any other male peers around her? Was she too much of a woman to go out on the field and cover stories that were judged as too dangerous for her?

She let out a scoff. The Jamison Lynch worried about her safety? That sounded even more absurd.

"He did it again, didn't he?" Y/n found Sandy, the closest friend she had in this male-dominated agency, peering over her cubicle. She was from the finance department and would often come to entertain her whenever she needed an ear to cry out her frustration. "What is it this time?"

She cleared her throat and made an attempt of lowering her voice into a deeper pitch. "L/n, I don't think you understand how dangerous it is for you to be out there. Let the men do the job."

Sandy laughed. "That's actually a good impression. What work was he talking about?"

"Kevin Marshall's case." Y/n sat back in her chair and frowned. "The ironic thing is, I was the one who found out about this case. I told him about doing a story of it before he snitched this opportunity and gave it to Eric."

"So Eric's covering the story now?"

"Yeah." She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "They're still talking about it in his office."

Sandy blew a low whistle. "That sucks."

She felt beyond frustrated. It seemed so unfair how she always got the bad end of the stick just because she wasn't born with a penis. She told Sandy exactly that which she cackled in return.

"On a serious note," Sandy muttered after her fits of laughter died down and leaned closer. "What happened to Mr. Marshall was terrible."

"You didn't hear this from me, but the police found him stabbed to death and..." she looked around their surroundings, motioning her friend to inch closer. "...there was some writing carved on his body."

Sandy's eyes went wide. "No way."

She nodded. "A friend of a friend of a friend of mine heard it from the forensic team."

"What were the words?"

"Well, if I were to be the one assigned to this case, we would've found out." She shook her head and let out another frustrated cry. "I'm going to quit this job."

"You said that last month," Sandy reminded her. "And the month before that, also, the month before that. Oh, did I mention you also said that several months ago—"

She held out her hand. "Alright, I got it." She glanced over the closed door at the end of the hallway, her mind drifting towards the two men discussing her supposedly case behind it. "I really mean it this time."

"Sure," Sandy absentmindedly agreed. "Wait, didn't you know Mr. Marshall?"

"Not really. I only met him once for work." She winced as her thought traveled to the time she encountered the man who was brutally murdered two days ago. "Let's just say he wasn’t exactly the greatest person to interview."

"No kidding."

She dismissed the topic by waving her hand. "It happened a long time ago, let's not bring that up. I'd feel terrible bad-mouthing him after what happened." She then let out a sigh. "It would be quite a story to cover though."

"Yeah, well, screw Jamison for taking it away for you." Sandy's eyes suddenly gleamed as they narrowed towards the automatic door at the corner of the room. "At least your boyfriend is here."

Y/n spotted the young man walking their way and laughed. "He's not my boyfriend."

"I don't think he got the memo," Sandy whispered before straightening herself, giving the man a huge grin as he stopped at her desk. "Hey, Oliver."

"Hi, Sandy." He greeted slowly. "How are you?"

"Better now that I've seen your pretty face."

Oliver Walsh was indeed an absolutely stunning man. He was tall and lean with broad shoulders and a very defined face. He was a little mysterious and reserved, but underneath that veneer was someone who was kind and caring.

He might not be the most outgoing person, but he had a genuine sweetness that made him attractive and likable. He also happened to have the hugest crush on Y/n the moment he first stepped foot inside this building.

Oliver gave Sandy a smile. "You look beautiful yourself."

Sandy rolled her eyes playfully. "We know I'm not the one you should be sweeping off her feet." She then gave Y/n a pointed look. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"What? You're going home already?"

"Got a hot date tonight!" Sandy overly shared before sauntering out of their sight. Y/n shook her head at her friend's antics before glancing up to see Oliver staring at her with the same look he had been giving her ever since the moment he had introduced himself.

His clear affection didn't go unnoticed. It somehow managed to be a public assumption that he was head over heels for her, something that was often discussed between their peers. As much as she wanted to reciprocate his feelings because she understood how difficult it was to be on the other side of unrequited love, she merely saw him as a guy she often worked with.

"Can I help you, Oliver?" She asked, already weary of the grin plastered on his face.

"No, I just wanted to see how you were doing."

Her face fell at his words. "How I'm doing?"

"I heard Jamison snatched a very important job from you."

"Wow," she gasped, not understanding how he knew this information already. But then again, people had the tendency to share things they overheard. "News really does travel fast around here."

"There's no such thing as secrets in this place. But seriously, how are you holding up?"

She simply shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. Angry? Frustrated? Like I want to strangle Jamison myself?"

"Y/n, there's no such thing as a bad bone in your body."

"What? You don't think I'm capable of hurting him?"

"Nope. You're the sweetest person I know."

She snorted. "That's because you keep seeing me through rose-tinted glass."

"Maybe." Oliver crossed his arms and leaned his hips over her desk. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

She shook her head. He raised his brows. "Really? You can't think of anything?" She shook her head again. "Perhaps something to appease your frustration? Chocolate? You do love chocolate."

"I do, but I don't think anything sweet can even calm me down."

"Then how about a drink? Coffee? Beer? You and me? Together? Tonight?"

She let out a disbelief laugh as she stood up, making an attempt to gather her things. "Don't be so sly, Oliver."

He merely gave her a bashful smile. "Can't blame a guy for trying."

"It's never going to work between us." She paused dramatically. "Do you want to know why?"

He slowly nodded, eying her with earnest interest.

"Because you see, Oliver," she drawled as she closed the distance between them. She peered up at him through her lashes and threw him a grin. "I never mix business with pleasure."

She gave him a playful wink before turning around, leaving him dumbfounded and speechless as he stood there where she had left him. He let out an amused laugh before calling out, "I'm going to make you change your mind!”

She lifted her hand and waved at him without looking back. "Goodnight, Walsh."

His laughter was the last thing she heard before she turned around the corner, heading towards the parking area.

Turning him down was the right thing to do. She was not in the right place to be emotionally involved with other people right now. After going through so many heartbreaks and disappointments in the past, she couldn't take any more of the dating scene. It was just a bunch of awkward interactions and unmet expectations while feeling worn down by the whole process. She couldn't even remember the last time she was involved with a man.

A sudden mock laughter rang at the back of her head. You were involved with a complete stranger two nights ago!

Romantically, she corrected. She couldn't remember the last time she was involved with a man romantically.

Oh, great. Now she was fighting with herself upon what had happened that night. That... overwhelming and embarrassing night which she did not want to speak of. Overwhelming because of how much she wanted to see him again, embarrassing because she knew he did not feel the same.

She groaned as her mind somehow drifted to memory, her mind reminiscing that intoxicating feeling of his tongue inside her mouth for the first time. Or that moment before he settled above her, sinking between her legs as the tip of his hard, throbbing length squeezed into her warm entrance—

No! Don't even go there!

She stopped her pace and stood by the entryway of the parking lot, trying to calm her erratic heartbeat. She needed a moment to breathe. Between her frustration toward her boss, the constant interest from her fellow colleague, and the rush of sexual heat at that core memory, her head was starting to spin.

It wasn't until a sudden weight shoved her from the back that she woke from her trance. She jolted forward from the impact before her bag fell onto the ground, the remnants of her things spilling out, and scattered along her feet. "What the hell?"

She looked up to see the back side of a man moving forward in a hurry, not even sparing her a glance.

"Hey!" She shouted, clearly annoyed by the fact an unidentified man wearing a dark hoodie covering his face didn't have the decency to apologize. When he turned around the corner and escaped her line of vision, she realized she wasn't going to get the apology she desired.

She picked up her belongings while muttering curses under her breath. Her phone which lay a few inches away from her feet suddenly vibrated, the loud sound of an incoming call echoing throughout the open space of the lot. She peered over towards the screen and groaned.

She shoved the phone inside her bag and went on her way as she spotted her car. "Now's not the time, Jamison," she mumbled to herself, already irritated by how the night had turned out.

Her phone went silent again. It wasn't until she was a few feet away from her car that it began its chime a second time. The sound felt heavy in her ears and she finally got to her car, leaned against it, and reluctantly dug into her bag to retrieve the device.

She clutched onto it with disdain because Jamison was known to be persistent while also being inconsiderate and thoughtless. If she ignored him he would find another way to get under her skin. She slumped against the cool material of her car and slowly took a deep, aggravating breath before receiving the call. "Yes, Jamison—"

There was heavy breathing at the end of the line. A static sound greeted her before a loud crash echoed in the background. She looked over her phone screen before pressing it back against her ear. "Jamison?"

"...help..."

His croaked voice shot shivers down her spine. She straightened herself as panic washed over her body. Her boss was known for being very loud as he loved being the center of attention. But his voice sounded so quiet now. It didn't have that hint of self-centered confidence he liked to portray. It even sounded as if he were... in pain?

"Jamison?" She gulped and without thinking of her actions, her feet somehow moved on their own, navigating her back to where she had left. "Jamison, what's wrong? Are you hurt? Can you hear me?"

"...Y/n..." Crash. Cough. Gasp. "...help—"

The line went dead.

Y/n wasn't exactly a fit person. Her only form of physical activity would be the number of stairs she climbed up and down in her apartment building. But her feet were moving very fast on its own right now. She didn't care how running in a pair of flats wasn't the best idea, the mortification of something awful happening to someone asking for her assistance was gnawing into her consciousness.

The moment she was on her office floor, she took notice of how nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. The place was exactly how she had left minus all the people hanging by their respective desks. Because it was very, very quiet and the silence felt oddly eerie to her. Half of the lights were off and her steps halted for a moment as she entered her cubicle space, suddenly self-aware of the possibility of how something dangerous might occur.

Then she heard a scream. A deep, dreadful scream followed by a train of curses came from what she assumed was Jamison's office. Her feet moved again and her frightened demeanor was replaced by concern as she increased her pace, turning to the hallway towards his office.

Her movement faltered when she realized she wasn't alone. A very frightened-looking Eric Adler stood by Jamison's door before he turned around at the sound of her footsteps.

"Eric?"

His voice was etched with panic and horror as he rushed forward and held her by the arms. "No, Y/n."

"...what?" Her eyes shot behind him, noticing Jamison's door jarred open. She tried to escape his grip. "You don't understand. He called me—"

"No. Please. You don't want to see him in there—"

"Let go of me! He called—"

"Y/n." His grip tightened. "He's—he's... gone."

She looked up to see her coworker, the same man who simply stood in silence this evening as he took the job she had wanted. The confused look in his eyes from the sudden responsibility he had to take on that particular moment was now replaced by terror; a look of sheer horror, one which conveyed utter fear and panic. It was a look of complete devastation and utter helplessness, a look that made his soul seem to have been just sucked out of his body. It was the kind of look that conveyed the deepest despair one could possibly feel.

He's gone.

Gone could mean a lot of things. It could mean disappearance. It could mean an emotional state of feeling disconnected from the world. But this gone... she understood what it meant. She understood the weight of the word the moment her eyes spotted the surge of blood coming from Jamison's office.

There was so much blood that she should've felt disgusted by the amount of it, but her mind was too busy trying to convince herself that it was real. It wasn't until her eyes spotted a hand sprawled lifelessly across the floor that her stomach started to churn. The stone rings circling around the fingers were the exact rings she often saw on her boss.

The realization on her face had Eric pulling her away. But before he could drag her, she saw a glimpse of the lifeless body, and what she caught had her completely stunned. More than feeling mortified by the scene, a sense of bewilderment settled in. The disbelief of such a coincidence happening etched her mind as she peered over the body one last time.

Because something was carved along his arm.

There was a lot of waiting. Feeling impatient was one of the most frustrating things to ever exist, it made her feel anxious and restless about the lack of progress after Eric had called the authorities. He had guided her to the front area of the receptionist, given her a blanket he had found somewhere in the office—which she wasn't sure who it even belonged to—and given her a cup of warm tea as he made some calls.

She sat there, watching her coworker pace back and forth along the marble floor. She could tell Eric's mind was secretly all over the place with his disheveled hair and dark circles underneath his eyes, but somehow he managed to keep his calm.

He was steady, still a little fazed with the whole ordeal, but managed to keep checking up on her every five minutes. He even had the time to apologize for taking her job before she merely shook it off. It wasn't his decision to snatch away the opportunity. Though it felt inappropriate to point fingers at the person who actually did decide on the matter when he was lying in the other room covered in his own blood.

She shuddered again. There were so many questions running through her mind. What kind of person would do a terrible, gruesome thing to another human being? It was always the same question she had whenever she encountered such devastating news. She once read in an article that there were roughly 300,000 people who were killed by murder each year worldwide, and to think that one of them happened to somebody she knew felt so surreal.

The authorities finally came an hour later followed by a group of people wearing protective suits. The waiting for their arrival was very long, but everything happened so fast the moment they introduced themselves. A detective in an oversized suit talked to her and Eric separately, asking what happened prior to finding the body.

She suddenly felt nauseous as she recalled Jamison's phone call, how pained and desperate his voice sounded. It wasn't until she heard herself say it out loud that she realized the possibility of the killer being in the same room on that phone call. Or even in the same room as her as she entered the vicinity of their office.

"Ms. L/n?" Y/n looked up to see the detective watching her with worry. "Are you alright?"

No, she wasn't. But she merely nodded and gave him a smile. "I will be."

He returned the smile with a genuine one of his own and glanced at his watch. "You should get some sleep, Ms. L/n. If you have any more information please don't hesitate to contact us."

Then he left her standing there alone, watching people bustling around her with different equipment. She could hear the faint sound of the ambulance from the distance, smell the intoxicating scent of chemicals coming from the medics, and sense her fatigue creeping along her body as her eyes noted the time showed on the massive clock plastered on the wall.

"Ms. L/n?"

Y/n turned to see a man standing close, his dark eyes watching her cautiously. There was a sense of confidence in his posture that she couldn't help but notice. "Yes?"

"Mr. Adler told me where to find you." She frowned at the mention of Eric before her confusion deepened at the badge presented in front of her. "I'm SSA Derek Morgan from the FBI."

"FBI?"

"Yes," he confirmed, shoving his badge back into his pocket. "I'd like to ask you a few questions regarding this past event."

She crossed her arms. "I don't think my boss being brutally killed should be called an event." She steadied her gaze on him. "And I've already talked to the detective."

"My apologies, and I'm terribly sorry for your loss." He gave her an apologetic smile. "Although I would appreciate it if you can spare a few minutes of your time."

She observed him, watching him hesitantly before letting out a heavy sigh. "I guess so."

"Is there anywhere private we can talk?"

His attempt at keeping their conversation confidential from all the people swarming by had her quirking an eyebrow. She nodded and guided him toward the closest space that could provide them some privacy. "Sure... We can use the conference room down here."

"Thank you. My partner will also be present with us if you don't mind."

She looked him up and down. "There's two of you?"

"There's two of us," Agent Morgan confirmed, slightly smiling at the condescending tone of her voice. "Dr. Reid will shortly join us."

The silence after that statement was very, very palpable. The sudden stillness was one that typically left her feeling completely baffled, a state of total shock and disbelief over a familiar name unexpectedly mentioned. The uncertainty of her ability to hear left her frozen in her tracks, waiting for her brain to catch up with the sudden information. "Doctor... Reid?"

"Dr. Spencer Reid. He was talking to Mr. Adler a while ago—wait, there he is." Agent Morgan's voice grew louder as his eyes focused on the man behind them. "Reid! Over here!"

He surely couldn't be...?

She shook her head. The world wasn't that small, was it? Even though she was very bad at remembering names, how could she forget the exact same one she wrongly called as a result of her pettiness? And besides, there must be a lot of people possessing the same name, surely it was a different person.

Though the deafening lack of sound was jarring as if every other sound had been sucked out of the room. It almost felt like everything was frozen in time as her eyes settled on the man standing a few feet away from her. Because there he was, the same man who awkwardly flirted with her two days ago.

The same man who grabbed her by the waist the moment she looked up at him with need. The same man who leaned in closer, the tension charged with anticipation and desire before it lead to an explosion of passion that couldn't be quelled.

But the desperate longing in his eyes from that night was changed into mortification, and when she thought her night couldn’t go more terrible than it already was, it had gotten even worse.

>> NEXT PART

[lurkingshan]

Japanese QL Corner

We are up to seven live airing QLs from Japan! Five of these are on Gaga and two are being generously provided via fansubs.

A brief interlude for me to climb on my soapbox: if you are a fan of Japanese queer media who is not based in Japan, you really should be supporting GagaOOLala. They are the sole international distributor of most of these shows and the only reason international fans can watch them as they release. They’re a queer-owned Taiwanese company specifically focused on providing international access to global queer media, and their monthly subscription is much cheaper than other streaming services. They’re not perfect but they are quite responsive to feedback about their catalogue and approach; please consider subscribing if you love these shows!

I’m really loving most of these shows and I highly recommend jumping in to the weekly watch!

Takara's Treasure

I fall more in love with these two every week. We finally got some answers on Takara's backstory, and as expected, it is the mother who abandoned him that has been harassing him. Taishin blazed in to give that lady a piece of his mind before even realizing who she was, and it only made Takara love him more. The revelation that Takara is holding back with Taishin because he doesn't want to be covetous like his mother sent me into a bit of a tailspin. I loved Taishin getting his moment to reciprocate Takara's care, as well as Takara's amusement that Taishin still hasn't pieced together what they are to each other. I'm excited for it to finally click for him soon.

Sugar Dog Life

I'll be honest, this first episode did not hit right for me. I always struggle with copaganda heavy romances, especially when the show is intentionally framing cops as benevolent and explicitly linking that to the romantic arc. But I liked the cooking parts of it a lot! We'll see how it proceeds. This one is being fan subbed, so if anyone is having trouble finding it feel free to hit me up in DMs and I'll point you.

Cosmetic Playlover

This one is coming in hot with two episodes a week, because Japan is trying to kill me. I like the concept and vibe but the execution is a bit all over the place; it feels like they want this to be a dark story but aren’t willing to fully commit to that, so dark things happen but then get treated too lightly. The pacing also feels a little wacky and we’re rushing through plot and relationship development in a way that leaves it all feeling a bit ungrounded. Sahashi went from harassing and threatening to out Natsume to kissing and claiming to be serious about him in the space of 15 minutes, and then suddenly in the next ep there’s a new villain and suspense plot. This one is just not clicking; I’m tilting my head with a furrowed brow.

I Hear the Sunspot

Sigh. I really didn’t need another arc about a third party interloper coming between the boys, but here we are. Maya is a throwback to the bad old femme fatale archetype steeped in misogyny and I don’t love it. She’s arrogant, manipulative, and mean for no good reason, and she doesn’t feel like she fits in this story about decent people trying their best. There was a way to do this plot with a more sympathetic portrayal of her, but unfortunately they didn't take that route. I’m disappointed that she’s with us for multiple episodes, and it’s hard to believe this rude little girl can really come between them. I said last week that it felt like they regressed Kohei and Taichi’s relationship in the time skip and I’m feeling that even more now. Aside from this mess, I really liked all of Taichi’s scenes with his friends this week as he continues trying to work out his feelings for Kohei. I hope we get back to Taichi and Kohei spending time together again soon; that’s the real heart of this show and I already miss it.

Ayaka is in Love with Hiroko

Sigh. Last week I was mad at the characters around Hiroko, but this week I am forced to be mad at the show for how it's dealing with this entire plot involving Hiroko's decisions about her privacy at work, Risa's inappropriate interference, and Ayaka's bizarre conclusion that she should announce her love for Hiroko to the whole office. This whole love triangle and forced outing plot was ill-considered and it's dragging the show down; we should not have had Risa being so wrong and manipulative or ventured into queer workplace politics at all if the show wasn't prepared to take it seriously. On the plus side, we finally got the backstory for Hiroko, and it was surprising in a good way. I hope this show can get back to the zany comedy it was doing so well before it got bogged down in all this mess.

Mr. Mitsuya's Planned Feeding

Episode 3 just went up on @isaksbestpillow's blog, and it's a fantastic one. I was howling watching Mitsuya wailing on his ex and poor Ishida trying to process this new rival on the scene. Shige continues to be the MVP and I loved the way he encouraged Ishida with a mix of sage advice and sexy sass (also loved that Mitsyua immediately knew that gossip ratted him out). And I screamed again when Ishida got worked up and confessed; I didn't expect that to happen so fast and it was excellent! This show feels so mature in the best way; I really feel like I'm watching adults who have lived.

Tagging @bengiyo to add the anime update!

[lilac-melody]

Why Shiranami Nagisa is actually a great character

Okay, so, to start off with, this post is not to dissuade anyone from disliking Nagisa. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, so please, no attacking anyone for liking Nagisa or Nagihiyo or whatever. Let's all be normal, okay~?

This is all just my personal perspective and opinion. People commenting hate for him or general discourse will be blocked. We share a fandom space, so let's all get along!

Without further ado, let's begin~

Who is Shiranami Nagisa?

Shiranami Nagisa is a character from the Confession Executive Committee franchise, better known as Honeyworks. He debuted in the CHiCO with Honeyworks song, Gamushara, back in October of 2021, and made his first official debut with his own solo song, Suki na Ko ni Uso Tsuita, in April of 2023, though he made an appearance in the shitty anime adaptation of Heroine Tarumono. He recently just got his second solo song, Kimi wo Kawaiku Saseta no wa Doko no Doitsu.

He is the guy in Honeyworks who is crushing on Suzumi Hiyori.

What is Nagisa's story arc, currently?

We don't have a whole lot of information on Nagisa, to be perfectly honest. From what we do know, however, is that when he was a little kid, he and Hiyori met, and Hiyori defended him from bullies at one point...and one day, Hiyori wore a dress to a wedding and Nagisa thought she looked too cute. And being, what, 4? 5 years old??? He told her that she looked weird in dresses. He continues to grow up alongside Hiyori, doing track with her and eventually supporting her in her decision to go to Tokyo to continue track.

He receives 2 tickets to an Ft4 concert, and as he's a big fan, he invites Hiyori to go along with them. He was not expecting her to show up with two boys in tow, and even worse? The boys were idols. Handsome idols. To make matters even more worse, it's LIPxLIP, and he finds out that she's their manager in training.

Nevertheless, he takes her to the concert, and afterwards, he makes dinner for her and ends up confessing when she talks about how LIPxLIP were there for her when she was at a low point in her life.

Hiyori takes over a day to think it over before deciding she wasn't ready for romance, and apologized to him, before adding she was really happy that he confessed to her, because she truly felt like a heroine.

(Hiyori's song, Heroine wa Heikin Ika, is the entire plot of this.)

The two separate, and for a while, we know they kinda keep in touch but not a whole lot..given that, during a tour, when LIPxLIP were going to perform in Izumo City, the three of them, plus Manager Uchida, runs into Nagisa while they were exploring, and we find out Nagisa is going to their concert (to support Hiyori's hard work). Still, they all part on good terms once they were done hanging out.

You can read the Izumo City Collab Vomic here. I also have the OG video in the post so that you can follow along or check for any possible mistakes~

A year later, when KimiKawaii takes place (it's their second year in high school now), Hiyori comes back home, finally, to visit. She enjoys her time with Nagisa, her family, and her other friends, and leaves, with her and Nagisa seeming...more sweeter to each other than before, as seen when she stops, turns around, and gives him a little wave.

Which is something she didn't do when they parted ways the previous year.

After that, their story is a blank slate, but we do know that the two end up going to the same university in Tokyo together, based on the endings of SukiUso and HeroHei.

That is where their story, at the present time of typing this, ends.

What is Nagisa's relationship with Hiyori?

As I mentioned above, the two go way back to childhood. Hiyori's father supplied(s) Nagisa's father with fish for his restaurant, so the two pretty much grew up together.

Hiyori values Nagisa's opinion of her, as she wanted to dress up all cutely just for him so that she could prove what he said as a small child was wrong, that she was cute in dresses. She supported him when they were in track together and the two often went on jogs.

Nagisa loves Hiyori. He's head over heels, and finds her beautiful whether she's all dolled up or if she's covered in sweat from running.

As such, the two relied on each other a lot growing up and, given they were halfway across the country apart once Hiyori moved to Tokyo, they grew...less reliant on each other, despite their close connection still.

Hiyori thinks Nagisa is a hero who everyone likes, given how popular he is.

While Nagisa doesn't particularly care about other people's attention and just wants Hiyori's attention. He tells her after she rejected him and said that he made her feel like a heroine that she would always be a heroine.

Not to mention, Yamako, Gom, and Shito have stated in an interview for the Nee, Sukitte Itaiyo album that Nagisa's love for her is at 100%, while Hiyori's friendship with him is at 100% and her love is currently rising from 0%. Which we can see the clear difference in how they interact from HeroHei/SukiUso to KimiKawaii. Here's that part from the interview.

Hiyori didn't become conscious of her own love for Nagisa until she was confessed to. Which is normal- it happens.

What is Nagisa's relationship with LIPxLIP?

Nagisa's relationship with the two idols is...rather strained, honestly. While they do become on relatively okay speaking terms by the end of the Izumo Collab, he still despises how they talk to Hiyori. He hates how they call her a "potato girl", and hates how they tease her.

However, while all of that is perfectly valid, he also gets anxious since Hiyori is friends with them. After all, to him, Hiyori is the cutest girl in the world, so who wouldn't fall for her???

As such, he's constantly thinking he has to one-up LIPxLIP for Hiyori's heart, despite Hiyori already stating that she has no romantic interest in them, and they have none for her.

I feel like even if Nagisa and Hiyori got together, he'd still be bitter towards them due to their own treatment of Hiyori, unfortunately, but he'd also be a bit more open to them since she would be "safe" from them lol.

Why people don't like Nagisa?

To get the bitter part out first, there's a couple different reasons why someone would dislike him.

For one, he debuted in 2021, after Hiyori's two novels already dropped, while Hiyori's song, Heroine Development Plan, debuted back in January of 2020. That's well over a year- (one year and 8 months to be exact) from each other's debut.

Not to mention, despite Yamako repeatedly mentioning that Koi Iro ni Sake, the end of the MV was just introducing the Gen 3 characters and was not setting them up, many people believed them appearing side by side meant that they would get together.

Which...even if Yamako never did state this, this argument doesn't make any sense, since it isn't just the canon couples shown.

The idiot trio aren't a poly group or anything. Ken is dating Arisa from the second image, Kotaro married Hina from the second image, and Koyuki gets with a girl who doesn't even show up in this MV!

But I digress.

Because of this MV, many people thought Yujiro and Hiyori would get together...though, in truth, Yamako says that she just wasn't done with Aizou's design yet.

Unfortunately, she's stated this on her private pixiv, which I do not have access to, so you'll either have to take my word for it, or DM me and I can have a friend screenshot her saying this.

As such, many people thought he was too..."last second", and "forced". Especially since Hiyori's already crushed on the (now discontinued) character, Kaido Asuka.

And while that is a pretty fair point, it's safe to say that Nagisa's design just took Yamako a long time to finish, as she had planned for them to be together from the beginning. Did they handle his appearance and his and Hiyori's overall story poorly because of the novels and such? Yes. But it shouldn't be taken out on Nagisa.

Another reason for people to dislike Nagisa would be that they dislike his personality. Lots of people dislike the "childhood jealousy" trope. I would assume that they hated Kotaro too, since his jealousy with Hina was through the roof, and Yuu, at least in the movie "I've always liked you", was jealous to the point of acting terribly to Natsuki and Koyuki. But I'm just assuming.

That, or they hate how he was the reason why Hiyori's self confidence went down about being more feminine. He, however, betters himself and restores her self confidence tenfold after the events of HeroHei/SukiUso. Plus, he was literally like 5 years old, it's not fair to hold that over him.

Especially if the biggest reason why someone dislikes him is because...they ship Hiyori with LIPxLIP, or just one of the two.

Ship what you want- it's all okay!! However, if you hate Nagisa for what he said to her, you should also be holding LIPxLIP accountable for the terrible things they've said to and about Hiyori.

From the novel them telling her to throw away her hoodies because they're ugly, putting a panda bear costume head on top of her and telling her it's an improvement, to telling her she'll be rejected if she doesn't look like a real heroine...they, at age 15, act way worse than Nagisa, who was 5 years old.

If you refuse to look back at the novel, then look at the MV.

Even the anime, they taunt her that she won't be a heroine without her makeover. I'm loathe to get screenshots, but...

Teasing or not, they were aiming to bring down her peppy mood. It's just going way too far. It goes beyond the single thing Nagisa said.

Again, ship what you want, but it's hypocritical to hate Nagisa for that one line when they pull all of this ^ in the span of a single arc. And do more in other arcs.

I really didn't want to talk about this very much, but. It's inevitable, given how many people who ship Yujiro with Hiyori freaked out on JPTwt over Nagisa's latest MV. I'm talking harassing Gom, harassing the vutuber who sang Nagisa's song, screaming, cussing, harassing Nagihiyo shippers...this level of anger and hatred is intense for a honey fandom.

The English fandom isn't much better. Sure, there's way less hate going on, but there's still some people actively going to other people's accounts and attacking them for just liking Nagisa.

Some people have said "but...people only ship nagihiyo because Hiyori's in the way of their uwu yaoi ship aiyuu!". I've seen it from multiple different people.

But isn't that argument also hypocritical?

You only hate Nagisa because he's in the way of your uwu poly ship.

The turns have tabled. Now please stop attacking people who like Nagisa and Nagihiyo. So far, no one has said this ^. So please stop disrespecting other shippers when they're trying to vibe in joy.

I also want to say I will 100% call out aiyuu shippers as well when I see them being toxic to other fans, I think ship wars are fucking stupid. Just live and let live!! It isn't hard!!!

So...why do people like Nagisa, then?

OKAY. We have finally gotten to the POINT of this longass post. Sorry about that~ I just wanted to cover all my bases before diving into this and potentially confusing anyone!

Many people became drawn to Nagisa in his debut MV, due to his refusal to give up when he was doing poorly in track. He had a whole montage of training and fighting to do better, with his friends cheering him on as he was so close to winning first place. He went from dead last to second. That's extremely admirable.

However, he truly began to pop off after the anime began.

People liked him for his kindness towards Hiyori. Sure, anime onlys got a big misconception about him when he first appeared, but they quickly changed their tune after his episode. I think what most people liked is the fact that, even if it was in a moment of desperation, he was honest and upfront with Hiyori about why he told her when they were children that dresses looked weird on her. When he confessed to her and saw her shocked, he quickly excused himself and didn't once push.

In fact, he was about to leave without pushing for any sort of answer at all, but Hiyori caught up with him and gently rejected him, since she had track, high school, friends, and a job to juggle. It would be too much to add a long distance relationship.

And Nagisa respected that. He smiled at her and was unbothered.

He completely respected her decision, and simply told her that she's always been a heroine.

In KimiKawaii, a year later, we can see him wanting to hold hands with her-

But he refrains.

Because he respects her boundaries. She told him "I'm not ready for a relationship", so he refuses to do anything romantic until/unless she's ready.

Some people may have complained that Nagihiyo didn't have much progress in this MV...I disagree. Their interactions are sweeter, and you can tell Hiyori's growing fonder of him. Given this is their second year of high school, it makes perfect sense that he's holding back.

When looking for a partner, of course you want someone who respects your choices and boundaries. The fact that Nagisa refuses to push her, bring up the confession, ask her if she feels any different, is proof that he truly loves and values her.

Hell- he told her not to contact him until she gets the results for her tournament. Why?

Because he wants her to succeed in her goals more than anything.

Likewise, Hiyori is the one who completely supports Nagisa in being a chef. Both of them, not just Nagisa, put each other's dreams ahead of their romance, because they both want the other to be happy.

Nagisa also is the one who actively calls LIPxLIP out on their treatment of Hiyori. Uchida doesn't do much of anything, and their classmates are unaware of what's going on. Of their manager and idol relationship.

Nagisa is, outside of their work, the only one who knows how Hiyori gets treated by them. Even in SukiUso, he has a line demanding they stop calling her a potato girl while hugging her protectively.

Which, to many who adore Hiyori, is honestly a breath of fresh air. Hiyori really does deserve more than to be the laughingstock of LIPxLIP all the time, you know?

Even when she and they are getting along, they still tease her.

It's nice to have someone wholly and fully defending a character who keeps getting kicked down again and again and again. People love Nagisa for that.

He's not afraid to speak out against them in general.

He's a genuine guy. Outspoken. Protective. A good cook. Someone who, despite failing over and over again and just flat out not winning doesn't give up. His spirit is something we should all admire.

And of course, while LIPxLIP tease Hiyori for her appearance, he doesn't. He loves her no matter what she looks like.

And...while we're on the topic of their love...

Why Nagihiyo?

Yes, I had to include this as well. Just for a short little rant.

The reason people love Nagihiyo isn't because they want to shove Hiyori away from the BL ship, aiyuu. (Okay, I'm sure a few shippers do think so, I know I've seen one, there's probably a couple more), it's because their themes are wonderful.

Yeah, we all love childhood friends to lovers. Sure.

But the whole point of nagihiyo is that Nagisa doesn't have to be "Prince Charming" to get Hiyori to like him. He just has to be himself. And likewise, Hiyori doesn't need to dress cutesy and girly to make Nagisa like her. She doesn't need to be a Cinderella. She's a heroine in her own right, and Nagisa was the one who helped her realize it.

The two of them support each other through and through. They don't have to change a single thing about themselves. It's simply a given.

So while yes, his debut and appearance were handled a bit sloppily, he's still coming forward, full force. I hope we get to know him better through more MVs, and I hope that he and Hiyori get the happiness that they both deserve.

Their dreams, their hopes, their love.

Everything.

*Again, please note this is all my opinion and what I've gathered from other Nagisa likers. If anyone else who loves Nagisa has anything else to add, please feel free.

[enlitment]

Too 5 Lucile Moments?

Thanks for the ask! It won't be easy to narrow it down to five, seeing how Lucile is my favourite frev lady.

First things first - my eternal thanks to @anotherhumaninthisworld for compiling so many amazing resources on Lucile! Also, be warned, this will get sad.

1. Lucile trying to appeal to Robespierre after her husband's arrest

I'm specifically talking about the letter in which she tries to appeal to Robespierre after her husband's arrest. You can tell she does not hold back, desperately trying to appeal to her husband's former friend's emotions ("Do you believe that the people will bless one who cares neither for the tears of the widow nor for the death of the orphan?") and even tries to use Saint-Just as a sort of rhetorical device to further her argument. But alas, it does not work.

Then there's of course the whole supposed Luxembourg Plot, which I still need to read more on so I can get a sense of what might or might not have happened. But one thing is clear to me: she did not sit idly after The Indulgents arrest.

2. Lucile becoming friends with Françoise Hébert before their execution

Apparently, the two struck an unlikely friendship while awaiting the guillotine. They are even reported to have hugged before the execution. (Sorry, I told you, this will get sad!)

(Read more about it here!)

3. Lucile standing up for Camille and his work

There's an anecdote that Brune, one of Camille's old college friends, warned him (quite reasonably honestly) about the risks he's likely to run into if he continues to write so openly in his newspaper.

To this, Lucile is said to have replied: “Let him do it, Brune, let him do it, he must save his country; let him fulfill his mission.” (& then poured them some chocolate).

(Read more about it here, including the assessment of the sources!)

4. Lucile's super secret teenage diary

The whole thing honestly! Lucile's angst, her questioning her role in the world, thinking about what it means to be a woman, a human being -- definitely worth a read. Again, thanks so much to @anotherhumaninthisworld for taking her time to translate it.

Some of my favourite parts include:

Her suffering from writer's block: I want to finish my story, I cannot finish it! I take up the pen, I want to write, but nothing comes…

Her writing down her strange dreams (this will most likely be relatable for anyone who's ever kept a diary)

Her philosophical musings: See, my mind is wandering. Do I know what I am?… My God, I don’t know myself. What spring makes me act? 

Her being worried that her mum will find (and read) her diary, which most likely already included some mentions of her fascination with Camille: Maman made me tremble last night: she came to fetch the inkwell, I was in bed, she opened my drawer to take a pen, I was afraid she would take my notebook…

Her secretly carving out Camille's name into a tree

5. Lucile and Camille briefly leaving Paris and enjoying some rest in the countryside

In 1793, the couple briefly visited Essonne and spent some time there. Some of the activities apparently included driving a boat (with Lucile noting her husband's less-than-perfect boating skills) and riding donkeys.

Taken from & more details included here!

(-> according to Google, you can picture the landscape looking a little something like this)

Bonus: Camille falling asleep on Lucile's shoulder during the night some time during the August 1792 Insurrection

Again, from Lucile's diary, as she was waiting for her husband to return from the fighting in the streets of Paris:

Alone, bathed in tears, on my knees by the window, hidden in my handkerchief, I listened to the sound of that fatal bell. In vain they came to console me, this fatal night seemed to me to be the last! 

and then:

C(amille) came back at 1 o’clock, he fell asleep on my shoulder. 

[btsgotjams27]

this is us ~ jjk | 18

you're dreading the meeting in LA, but it's a big city. you're not gonna bump into jungkook, are you?

✨ title: this is us | (sequel to all grown up) ✨ pairing: jungkook x f!reader | ✨ rating: m/18+ | minors dni ✨ genre/au: drama, romance, angst, fluff, smut | est!relationship, age gap, best friend's brother ✨ playlist | ✨ if you haven't read the prequel to this, please do so here! :) ✨ a/n: naurrrr--this means the series will be ending soon, but yesss---jk and oc will finally come face to face after a year apart! how will it go down? what's gonna happen? 👀 ✨ a/n 2: thank you to those who have sent in words for the little game. those words will be in bold throughout the rest of the chapters. we still have a podcast episode to celebrate the end of this story and you'll be able to send in questions and comments (a form link will be up when i post the last chapter :')) i'll also have a survey for y'all too :) as always, please leave a like, reblog, send an ask. i'd love to hear your thoughts.

[ SERIES MASTERLIST ] | next ✨ drabble ~ dream bigger, darling

chapter eighteen ~ you're seeing things, aren't you? | wc: 10.9k warnings: there will be a lot of talking, mild language, oc’s friends being loveable dummies, light insecurity, heart flutters, language, drinking, sleazy slimeballs, some touching, a slap to the face, unresolved feelings, insecure jk & oc, bamie is hereeee, love confessions, our babies are growing up and taking things slow, they both get on their knees (you'll understand why when u read), delicate first kiss that turns into a heated one, they're both h*rny but remember they're taking thing slow, smol erection bc hello they're together again, jk is tame and controls himself?? (WHUTTTT) but oc needs a lil bit more from him, bittersweet goodbyes (for now)

The impending meeting was coming up at the end of the week. Your agent, Jae, wouldn't take no for an answer and immediately responded to the Netflix executive, saying you’d take the meeting. If the meeting was anywhere else in the world, you wouldn’t hesitate, but the fact that you had to fly out to LA for this made you feel reluctant.

And when everyone heard you’d be in LA, the only topic of conversation was if you were planning to see he-who-must-not-be-named.

"Will you tell Jungkook you're in town?" Hyunie asked as she cut through her French toast covered in Nutella and strawberries. Taehyung leaned over to take a bite from her fork, but she refused to let him have any.

Yoongi sat, wavering his fingers together. “Oh—the plot thickens. Dun, dun, dun.”

He’d become too comfortable knowing your business and complained that he knew too much for his own good. He was cool with you, but his lifestyle was too chill to mesh with everyone else’s dramatics, including yours. Though he works in the movie business, that didn’t mean he wanted his life to be like a goddamn drama.

“Wouldn’t that be weird? To meet up with an ex?” you asked with reluctance as you searched your friend’s faces for any words of advice.

It’d be nice to catch up, you thought, but what if old feelings resurface? Then what? You’d be screwed and have to start from square one again. You had gotten too far to return to the sad, pathetic person you once were.

Hyunie interjects, “Of course not! You’re friends too.”

You deadpanned. “I haven’t spoken to him in over a year–and I’d hardly call us friends.”

Honestly, could you even go back to being just friends? How were you supposed to be friends with your ex-slash-best-friends-little-brother? How can anyone return to being just friends after being with someone like Jeon Jungkook? You could hardly keep your friends now and then to add an ex as a friend? It sounded like a recipe for disaster.

With a mouth full of strawberries, Tae threw in his two cents. “Just go see him. What’s the worst that can happen? You gonna sleep with him?” He smirked and grabbed another bright red strawberry. This conversation amused him for days, making smart comments and occasionally alluding to what the two of you used to have.

“Really, Tae?” You rolled your eyes, sipping your coffee. You’d like to think you had some kind of self-control.

“What? I’m just being realistic here. The two of you probably have all that pent-up sexual frustration, and who knows—you might not be able to contain yourselves if you’re in the same room.” Taehyung wiggled his eyebrows and then bit down his bottom lip, thrusting and slapping the air while in his seat. Hyunie elbowed him in his rib, causing him to groan at the pain. She whispered something indistinct to him, and the two bickered quietly.

You turned to Yoongi. He was always wise and had the right answers. “What should I do?”

You interrupted him just as he was about to sip his coffee. His lips thinned, and he stared blankly at you. “Why are you asking me?”

“Because you’re the most unbiased person here, and you don’t know Jungkook like we do.”

Yoongi shrugged. “I don’t know. Do whatever you want. If you want to see him, go see him. If you don’t, then don’t. It’s as simple as that.”

Everyone turned their attention to you, wondering how you’d respond. It wasn't as simple as Yoongi had said. The weight of your previous relationship with Jungkook wasn’t one where you could simply put it behind you and pretend like you could be friends again. There was too much history, too much hurt—just too much of everything. You tried to convince yourself for months that there were no more feelings.

And you had made so much progress, minus being upset when you heard he was in town—but regardless, you had moved on, and seeing Jungkook again could set you back a few steps.

Yoongi set down his knife and fork and turned to you. “You’re a big girl, and you’ve worked through a lot of things, and if you don’t think you can handle seeing him again, then don’t put yourself in that situation. I'm sure he’d understand.”

“Or—or—you could just fuc—”

Hyunie covered Taehyung’s mouth, muffling the rest of his sentence. “Don’t listen to my crazy husband. Do what you think is best for you, okay?”

After brunch with the crazy lovebirds, you sat in Yoongi’s car, staring aimlessly out the window, and said nothing the entire car ride.

As he pulled up to your apartment complex, you needed to ask him again. “Tell me the truth. What would you do in my position?”

He sighed, and his shoulders slumped. He knew you needed reassurance, but honestly, there was no right answer for this situation.

“Well, considering that I’ve gotten to know you over this past year, I'd say that it’s gonna eat at you day and night if you don’t reach out to him. You’ll wonder, ‘what could’ve been’ or ‘what if I did X, Y, and Z?’ You’re good at compartmentalizing, but I have a feeling ten years down the line, you’re gonna be upset at yourself. So, I don’t know, as I said earlier if you want to see him, go see him. If you don’t, then don’t. Whatever you choose will be the right decision.”

But what was the right decision? You thought of all the possible scenarios that could play out. What if you call to meet up, and he doesn’t want to? Or what if you meet up and it’s awkward? Or what if you meet up and old feelings resurface?

You were thankful for Yoongi and glad he could always be honest with you. With his advice in consideration, along with everyone else’s minus Kim Taehyung’s, you pondered your next move as you tossed and turned in bed.

Should you try and meet up with Jungkook? But you were doing so well. You had deleted his number, photos, and texts, and if you wanted his new number, you’d have to ask Yuna, and you wouldn’t hear the end of it from her if you did.

Maybe it’d be easier to just not try to see him. You were sure he was doing well, living in LA, doing whatever he was doing, seeing whomever he wanted. You just didn’t want to return to feeling insecure and vulnerable, and you had worked so hard to be where you are today. Maybe it’d be better if you didn’t tell him you were in town.

A non-stop flight from Seoul to LA was close to eleven hours, but you wished it was longer. The lower the flight time, the higher your anxiety rises. Los Angeles was a big city, and there was no way you’d bump into Jungkook, right? That’s a ridiculous thought to have. You’d have a higher chance of bumping into a celebrity than your ex. You were just psyching yourself out at this point, and there was no need to because you decided not to tell him you’d be in town.

After eleven hours on a flight and only six hours of sleep, you hoped you’d bump into no one. Your swollen ankles and puffy eyes were horrendous for anyone to see. But here you were—in Los Angeles, where many dreams came to fruition or never saw the light of day, and you were hoping for the latter, whatever that dream may be. You were curious about what Netflix had to offer and if it would require you to move here. Though, you didn’t want to get ahead of yourself, thinking about the what-ifs because nothing was set in stone.

Being a huge corporation, Netflix paid for everything—the flight, hotel, and transportation. Not too shabby, especially since they were trying to woo you into whatever job this was. They booked a corner suite at the Conrad Los Angeles, overlooking the city's skyline. The hustle and bustle of city life were similar but different from Seoul and could possibly be a place where you’d have to get used to.

The luxe Mercedes Benz E-Class you were sitting in pulled up behind the slew of cars from other hotel guests. This felt too fancy from anything you were used to, but you weren’t complaining.

You bid your driver farewell and thanked them as he pulled your luggage from the trunk and set it beside you. Just as you grabbed the handle, a driver behind you honked, gesturing for you to move out of the way. You jumped back, your heart racing as the loud horn continued in short outbursts until you stepped onto the hotel’s sidewalk.

God, this city sucks already, you thought, and you hadn’t even been here for that long, either. Brushing off the awful interaction, you breathed a big breath, ready to take on whatever this trip had in store for you.

“Miss? I’ll need a form of ID and a credit card to put on file.”

You handed what the front desk receptionist needed from you. Now, you understood all the buzz and why this was the hot spot. The hotel was gorgeous and a great place to hang out, even if you weren’t a guest.

As the receptionist input your information, your eyes scanned the lobby, taking everything in. A rowdy group of men exited one of the hotel restaurants, entering the lobby. You noticed a man in a monochromatic cream-colored outfit. You appreciate a man who was put together.

After catching a glimpse of him, you could’ve sworn your eyes were deceiving you. No, it wasn’t him. You were seeing things, weren’t you?

This city was far too big for you to end up at the same hotel as your ex-boyfriend, right? Destiny was definitely being a prude and playing tricks on you.

“Here’s your ID and card back. You’re located on the 16th floor, room 1613.”

“Thank you.”

When you grabbed your ID, card, and luggage, you turned around to ensure you were imagining things. The group of men had disappeared and was nowhere to be found. But you shouldn’t be looking for Jungkook anyway. You decided not to tell him you were in town. Wouldn’t you look pathetic going back on your word?

But instead of going directly to your room, you might have ‘taken the long route,’ cruising through the hotel—just to see what they had to offer. Though, who were you kidding? That person definitely looked like Jungkook! Except he had longer hair, and you hadn’t seen any recent photos of Jungkook, so you had no idea if he had shaved his head or had long, glorious hair like Rapunzel.

You would’ve lurked longer, but now you felt super creepy and stalker-ish, and your large rollaway luggage wasn’t helping either. Maybe it was time to give up; you had been looking longer than you should’ve.

If there was one thing that could possibly make up for the shitty interaction from the furious man honking away like there was no tomorrow—it was the view. The city skyline and clear blue skies with only a few scattered marshmallow-type clouds floating around.

The room was too big for just one person, and you weren’t sure what to do with yourself to kill time before your big meeting. So, you quickly freshen up to roam around the five-star hotel. You had nothing better to do, save for the fact that you needed to find that guy again, just to make sure it wasn’t Jungkook.

And as you expected, this hotel was packed with people. The restaurant's decor and view were stunning, to say the least. You didn’t want to keep going back and forth between the various choices of restaurants, so you stuck with the first place you saw, Agua Viva.

A small commotion turned your head; your eyes focused on it for a split second before returning your attention to the host. You cleared your throat, “I’m sorry. Yes, a seat at the bar is great. Thank you.”

You scanned the drink menu, pondering the various choices before you. Alcohol or no alcohol—such a hard decision. Well, considering you were going to an important meeting, it was probably best not to be tipsy, or it could calm your nerves.

“Hello, miss. What’ll you have?”

It was a toss-up between the Tornup Tiki Punch or Flamingo Shuttle. What silly names they were.

“I’ll have a Flamingo Shuttle, please.”

Non-alcoholic it is.

“One Flamingo Shuttle coming right up.”

You tapped on the square napkin before you, swiveling your chair back and forth, taking in the surroundings of light laughter and chatter, before returning your attention to the bartender making your drink.

In a city of 3.8 million people, it was stupid to think you had seen Jungkook. Maybe you just wanted it to be him and desperately tried to speak it into existence. You probably had a better chance of bumping into a Kardashian than Jeon Jungkook.

“Is this seat taken?”

You closed your eyes and took a deep breath before turning around to confirm your suspicions about the familiar voice.

It’s like time stood still; everything and everyone quieted down, and it was only you and him. He was like a stranger from a different lifetime staring back at you, but everything you felt while with him came rushing back like a flood.

“Jungkook.” His name rolled off your lips in a familiar way you couldn’t explain. It had such a hold on you, pulling you right back like a lovesick puppy.

“Noona,” he said with his big brown, doe eyes crinkling in the corner, along with a bunny smile.

The one word made you clench around nothing, but it’s just a word–what’s wrong with you? Honestly, woman.

“Is this seat taken?” He repeated, making you come back to reality.

“No, it’s yours if you’d like.”

You watched his every move. His hand held your stool, and his thumb lightly brushed against your back as he sat down. Immediately, you straighten your posture in case of any other accidental touches.

Jungkook crossed his arms on the counter, turning to you. The both of you smiled awkwardly, waiting for someone to say something.

“I thought I saw you,” the both of you said in unison and chuckled after.

“It’s me,” you scrunch your nose, flashing a smile.

Jungkook shook his head, copying your smile. “I thought I was going crazy for a split second. Wha–” he paused to let his mind catch up with his words. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here for a meeting.”

He nodded. “Oh. It must be an important meeting if you flew all the way out here.”

You hummed. “Yeah, it’s pretty important.”

Should you spare more details? Or just leave it at the bare minimum? You didn’t want him to conjure up any ideas as you had been for the last few weeks.

“Your Flamingo Shuttle, miss. Would you like to bill it to your room?”

“Yes, please.” If Netflix was paying, you were drinking.

You lightly groaned after taking a sip, not realizing you’d been thirsty after flying all day, or was it Jungkook’s presence making you feel suddenly parched?

“Anything for you, sir?” The bartender asked Jungkook, to which he shook his head no.

“It’s good to see you,” Jungkook said as the bartender left to attend to another guest.

Your crossed leg unintentionally touched his pant leg when you turned toward him. You took your time letting your eyes gaze over this new Jeon Jungkook. His permed hair had grown longer, and a fringe was swept softly across his left eye. The piercing that adorned his eyebrow had disappeared, and the only thing decorating that pretty face was a lip piercing.

“It’s really good to see you too. You look great, by the way. I love the long hair. It really suits you.” You couldn’t help but wonder how his hair would feel entangled between your fingers.

He proceeded to touch the ends. “Thanks. You–you always look great,” he chuckled lightly.

Your heart skipped a beat at the compliment as you suppressed a smile. “Thanks. I–um, do you have time to catch up? If you’re not busy, that is, but if you are, then please feel free to go. I don’t–I don’t want to keep you from anything.”

“I have some time,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes and his tiny dimple on display.

Maybe this wouldn’t be as bad as you made it in your head. You were overanalyzing nothing. Jungkook seemed happy to see you, even though you thought he’d be running in the other direction, considering he had left on a whim.

“Um, do you work around here?”

“Yeah, I was just getting some early drinks with my colleagues.”

Your mind immediately went to Alex, which you fucking hated, but you couldn’t help it. Obviously, she wasn’t with the group of him and rowdy men, but you assumed they still worked together, and who knew in what kind of capacity–or maybe she had him eating in the palm of her hands again.

You stopped the ongoing conversation in your head. It wasn’t good for anyone if this continued.

“This is a great place. I can see why you’d come here.” He hummed in agreement. “How–how are you? How’s everything?”

Jungkook cleared his throat, interlocking his hands together, light tapping his thumb on the other. “It’s good. I’m—good. Work has been going well. I, uh—I’ve taken up running along with boxing, but Bam–he’s a handful.”

“Bam?”

“Yeah! My dog.”

“You have a dog?”

“He’s still a pup, but he’s getting so big already.” Jungkook pulled his phone from his back pocket, scrolling to find a photo of Bam. “See.” He set his phone on the counter, pushing it to you.

“Oh, my god. He’s precious! He has big doe eyes like his dad,” your mouth curved into a smile. “He’s perfect for you.”

Jungkook cleared his throat, pressing the off button on his phone. “How are you? What’s new?”

His question was so broad you weren’t sure where to start. He obviously knew about your meeting but didn’t know what it was for. But how much information would you feel comfortable divulging?

“I’m good.” You let out a nervous chuckle. “I just got back from a solo trip, and then this whole LA thing happened, and now I’m here.”

“Ah–right. Yuna told me about your trip. How was it? Did you enjoy yourself?”

You nodded. “It was great. I practically laid out on the beach most of the time, got some sun in,” you smiled and shrugged. “And what about you? I heard you were back in Seoul for a little bit.”

He hummed. “Yeah, for my mom’s birthday dinner, and I finally got to meet Indie.”

“Ugh, I love that little booger,” you chimed in.

“She’s amazing, and she’s growing up so fast.”

“Right? She grew up in a blink of an eye.”

Then you realized Jungkook had missed most, if not the entirety, of Indie's first year. Time had passed, and you had also grown and blossomed without your awareness in the midst of it all.

Jungkook beamed a soft smile.

“Are you sure you don’t want anything to drink?” you asked again, searching for the bartender.

He shook his head. “I’m good, thanks.”

“Positive?” You gave him a look.

He nodded. “Still trying to take care of me?”

“Well–I am older than you.”

Jungkook chuckled and turned away for a moment. “I, uh, already had some earlier, remember? So, I shouldn’t have anymore.”

“What? You can’t hold your liquor anymore, old man?” you teased.

He scoffed at your lame joke. “Are you taunting me?”

It almost felt like old times when you were just friends, ragging on each other.

You sipped your drink before answering, “Yes.”

He flashed a close-lipped smile. “Can I take a rain check?”

You hummed lightly. “You got it.”

Jungkook rubbed the back of his neck and swiveled in his chair, lightly brushing his knee against yours. “Do you have my new number?”

You bit the inside of your cheek. No, because you recently deleted all his contact, texts, and photos. You shook your head.

He held out his hand, wavering his fingers for your phone. You gave it over without hesitation and watched as he saved his number. “Call me if you need anything or want to get that drink before you leave.”

He handed it back, his fingers softly touching yours. “I should go. I left Bam too long by himself.”

Your heart almost leaped out of your chest and onto the counter, your stomach fluttering with a swarm of butterflies and the bead of sweat on the nape of your neck finally caressing your skin when he touched you. “Yeah, sure, of course.” You nervously scratched your temple. “I, uh, I should get going too. I have my meeting soon.”

Jungkook smiled and stood, and you followed suit. He stepped back, straightening his cream-colored jacket and smoothing down his pants. “I’ll talk to you soon?”

You weren’t sure if he really meant it or if it was just an expression. Either way, you didn’t want to put more meaning into it than needed. You smiled and hummed.

He stepped away, waving his hand before walking off into the sea of people who just entered the restaurant.

You half expected him to look back, but he didn’t. He was calm, cool, and collected as he confidently walked away, making you think he was over you.

Jungkook sat in his Uber, pinching himself to ensure he wasn’t dreaming–that he really saw you and had a conversation, and it wasn’t as awkward as he thought it would be. Unless it was awkward, and he invented a fictitious scenario in his head, misunderstood your body language, and misinterpreted your words.

“Sir?”

“Oh, uh, sorry. Yes, you can drop me off right here.” Jungkook’s mind raced back and forth, replaying the conversation.

He closed the car’s door, shuffling to the apartment complex’s gate. He punched in the code, rushing to his place to let Bam out.

The 50-pound puppy popped his head up, panting and wagging his tail as he saw his owner. Bam sprung to his feet and dashed over to Jungkook, smelling and licking his palm more than normal.

“I know, Bamie. I know.”

Jungkook smelled different. He must’ve had the faintest smell of you on him.

“Come on, boy. You’ve been waiting for me for too long.”

Bam whined when Jungkook’s mind was on something else and did not notice him. He was scratching Bam’s belly, staring off into space with nothing but you on his mind. It’s like you had completely taken over him like you were his paradise, and even if he tried to resist, it was probably useless now. He could never escape you.

Should he go back to the hotel? Would that seem too needy? He thought he was trying to get over you, but here you were, right in front of him, practically within reach—no ocean between the two of you. If now wasn’t the time, then when?

Was he prepared to fight for you? To be with you again? Was he ready for you to reject him if he wanted more, but you didn’t?

He sighed, fighting with himself for his next move. Whatever his decision, he wanted to ensure it was the right one. The real question was—did he want to be with you again after all this time?

The answer was yes—it has always been yes. You’re it. You’ve ruined him—it will always be you.

He was so close to getting in his car and driving back. Every cell in his body was urging him to go and confess his undying love—that is, until he remembered he ran away, that he hurt you.

What if you had moved on but didn't want him to know? He had no right to delve into your business anymore. What if you had moved on with that Yoongi guy? He'd heard that guy's name too many times from Yuna and Taehyung for him not to suspect anything was up with the two of you. You looked so happy with Yoongi that one time he saw you. Maybe he was the cause of your euphoria, the person you spent all your time with, the person you dreamed with, shared your hopes with—maybe you had fully closed the chapter that Jungkook was a part of, and Yoongi was the ‘take two’ of your story.

But could Jungkook just be a foolish dreamer? Thinking he still had a chance with you?

He'd given you his phone number, and the ball was now in your court. If you wanted to, then you’d contact him. Otherwise, perhaps it's best that he's not constantly chasing you. If you still wanted him, then you needed to let him know, and if you didn’t, then maybe he could finally try to let you go.

You checked yourself one last time, smoothing out your tailored skirt and matching blazer. You wished you had chosen another pair of heels, but your nude slingbacks were the only things you packed, so it’d have to suffice. With a swipe of your raspberry lip tint, you were now ready to charm whoever this executive was.

The hostess led you through the restaurant to a private dining lounge. A few guests were scattered far and wide while light jazz music and laughter filled your ears. Were all Netflix meetings always this fancy? You had looked up the menu beforehand, and the prices were somewhat reasonable for dinner, but you’d be fine with instant ramen from the convenience store. You could probably order the whole menu if you wanted since you weren't paying.

“Mr. Wells will be here shortly,” the hostess smiled, leaving you at the table as you mindlessly fiddled with your thumbs.

You wondered how your name even landed on the desk or email of someone across the ocean. Or could Jae just be a great writing agent, and he just had his connections? Maybe you’d find out during this dinner.

A waitress stopped by the table, bringing glasses of water and a bottle of Champagne.

“Oh–I didn’t order this.”

“Mr. Wells did. He wanted to apologize in advance for his lateness. He’s held up in traffic at the moment.” The waitress poured the champagne into two tall flutes.

Fifteen minutes went by as you sat waiting for this Netflix exec. He was already leaving a bad taste in your mouth because of his lateness, but it’s not like you had any other plans.

You scanned the room, watching others converse and eat before pulling out your phone. You went to your contacts and scrolled down to Jungkook’s name. It was like deja vu all over again–staring aimlessly at his name, whether or not to delete it or keep it. Only this time, he would hopefully pick up the call.

You were tempted to text him to see what he was up to. Considering it was a Friday night, he was probably out with friends, maybe Jimin or a girlfriend. You’d heard from Taehyung that they hung out fairly often. At least he had a friendly face in this city.

A low, husky voice said your name, making you look up from your phone. The man standing before you was not someone you pictured. If you had all the confidence in the world, you’d whistle and holler at this Park Seo Joon look alike.

“I’m Zachary Wells, but just call me Zach.” He grinned as he quickly scanned your face and held out his hand. You stood to shake it.

“It’s nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much about you and your work,” Zach said, gesturing for the both of you to sit.

“You have?”

“Whenever Kenji is in town, you’re all he ever talks about.”

Ah, Kenji. You should’ve known. Well, you supposed one of your exes was good for something.

Zach grabbed the attention of the waitress. “Should we order dinner? I’m starving.”

The two of you had a lot in common. Zach was fairly easy to talk to and was a chatterbox. But just like Kenji, Zach was avoiding why he had wanted to meet you in the first place.

The conversation had finally winded down after an hour, and the champagne and water washed down the last of your dinner. And now, only one thing remains.

“So, you’re probably wondering why I wanted to meet with you.” You hummed. "Well, as you know, we've been expanding Netflix into South Korea, and we're picking up a lot of Korean dramas as demand grows here in the States. As I was talking with Kenji, we thought you’d be perfect for the role of director for creative marketing. I understand you've been a writer for a long time, but I believe you have the potential to help us thrive even more with your market knowledge and insight.”

“Would that mean I wouldn’t have to move out here? That I could stay in Seoul?” It was the first thought on your mind.

“We’d onboard you here in LA for a few months and then get you settled back in Seoul.”

Zach’s offer was too good to be true and to pass up. You didn’t have anything else going for you right now. No show and only a half-finished script.

“So? What do you think?” Zach leaned back in his seat, draping his arm behind you, scanning you from head to toe. He finished the last of his champagne, gesturing for the waitress to bring another one.

It’s not like you could give him an answer right here, right now–coming to live in LA, leaving your life and friends behind. It was a big ask and not a decision you’d take lightly.

Your silence encouraged him to move closer, and his knee knocked into yours. “What do I have to do to convince you?” he said, his finger lightly brushing against your knee.

Immediately, you pulled back, pushing his hand away. “Is this how you get everyone to come to work for you?” You scowled, disgusted by his action.

“This is an opportunity of a lifetime, babe. Don’t waste it.” Zach raised his brows, waiting for you to change your mind. He tried to touch you again, but a loud smack echoed throughout the room, making others around you stop and look at the commotion.

“You’re feisty. I like that.” Zach licked his lips, massaging his cheek.

“You’re a disgusting pig.”

He scoffed. “Oh, am I? I’m here trying to give you a job, and here you are, being a fucking bitch. I hear you have nothing else lined up for you, right? And I can easily tell everyone in this industry to never give you another job again.” He threatened and then proceeded to move in again.

“If you touch me again. I’ll fucking scream,” you seethed, your face warm to the touch, smoke fuming from your ears.

Zach rolled his eyes and threw his hands in defeat. “Fine–have it your way. Good luck getting a job in this industry ever again,” he spat out before leaving.

Everyone in the restaurant was looking at you. You cowered, unsure of where to go or what to do. You weren’t expecting this turn of events. It was just too good to be true.

This whole trip felt like a bust. You came here expecting to return to Seoul with a job but instead had a creepy interaction with a high-level executive, and they paid for everything, including your flight and hotel. You shivered at the thought of him knowing exactly where you were staying. You were alone in a big city, and the only person you knew was your ex-boyfriend.

You illuminated your phone to check the time, debating whether to call Jungkook. Would it be weird? Would you look desperate if you called? It’s not like you had any dignity left anyway.

Unlocking your phone, you clicked on Jungkook’s contact; your thumb hovered over the call button. Fuck it, you thought and pressed call.

It rang a few times before Jungkook’s familiar voice was on the other end—it felt like old times.

Hello?

“Hey, it’s me.”

Hey. I was hoping you’d call. Are you done with your meeting already?

“Yeah, um, would you mind picking me up at the restaurant?”

Yeah! Of course. Text me the address. I’m coming right now.

Jungkook zipped through the city, and thankfully, there wasn’t any heavy traffic to slow him down. He got to the restaurant in less than 20 minutes. He pulled up and saw you waiting on the sidewalk with your arms crossed, trying to keep yourself warm. Parking the car, he ran over to you.

“Hey—are you okay?” he asked with concerned eyes, scanning you from head to toe, ensuring you weren’t hurt.

“Yeah, can we go?” Your body language was telling Jungkook otherwise.

He opened the door for you, and you quickly got in, fastening your seat belt and breathing a sigh of relief once you lay against the headrest. Jungkook looked over, biting his cheek as he could tell you weren’t okay—your eyes were glassy, and he could see how your mascara smudged. He began to input the address for the hotel, but you stopped him.

“Can—can we go back to your place?” Jungkook perked up. “I don’t want to be alone, if that’s okay.”

He certainly wasn’t going to deny you. “Yeah, of course. That’s fine with me.”

“Are you sure?”

It probably wasn’t fair of you to do this to him.

“Yeah, of course. Anything for you.”

“Jungkook, you can totally say no—”

He gently placed his hand on top of yours. “Hey—it’s okay. We’ll go to my place.”

You waited a good distance behind Jungkook as he unlocked the door. He took a step but then stepped back and turned to you.

“Bam gets excited when new people come over. So, I apologize if he’s a bit wild.”

You smiled, assuring him you’d be okay. You were nervous but psyched to meet him, actually—you hoped he would like you. Considering Jungkook was his owner, Bam would probably be the sweetest pup.

As soon as Jungkook opened the door, the brown-coated Doberman greeted him. He knelt down, rubbing his floppy ears. “I told you I wouldn’t be gone long, right, Bamie?”

Jungkook looked at you, beaming a wide smile before returning to his puppy. Bam’s tongue hung out as he panted, looking in your direction–he really did have big, doe eyes like Jungkook. Maybe they were drawn to each other through lingering starry eyes.

He let go of him, and immediately Bam came to sniff your hand, giving a few licks before looking up at you. “I think he likes you.”

“Whew—I passed Bam’s vibe check,” you joked as you crouched down to cup his face, in which Bam licked your chin. “Oh–” You scrunch your eyes closed and giggle at the pup. He really was so sweet.

“Bam—house,” Jungkook commanded. Bam whined quietly before following his owner’s order. He pouted the entire stroll to his crate. As he lay down, he took his turtle chew toy into his mouth, making it squeak.

You slipped off your shoes and set down your bag, looking around Jungkook’s apartment. As you expected, it was squeaky clean, with a few photo frames of his mom, Yuna, and Indie. Then you noticed the ‘Rising Star’ award he had displayed on a shelf next to a few other awards he must’ve gotten at his new job. The stark white walls and flooring contrasted against the black and brown hue furniture. You chuckled to yourself when you saw the workout equipment in the corner—of course; it’s right in his living room.

“If you’re tired, you can take my bed. I’ll take the couch.”

“Oh–” It wasn’t your intention to sleep here. You didn’t want to be alone after that icky interaction with Zach. “I’m okay. Do you just want to hang out and talk for a little bit?”

Jungkook took a big gulp and cleared his throat. He figured this was the moment of truth. He didn’t know what to expect anymore–it could be good or bad.

“Yeah,” he smiled, making his way to the couch, gesturing for you to do the same. “Make yourself at home.”

That was easier said than done. You felt intrusive and feared that you crossed a boundary you shouldn’t have.

He watched you sit on the opposite end. And never in a million years did he think you’d be here, sitting with him. Is it possible that you have found some way to forgive him?

Your eyes found his, and the two of you nervously chuckled.

“Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee? Tea?”

You shook your head. You didn’t mind just sitting here and being in his presence. It felt so comforting after such a long day of traveling and a shitty meeting.

“How was your meeting? Did it go well?”

You sighed, positioning your body toward him as you leaned against the couch. You purse your lips before answering him. “The guy was a bit of a douche. The job sounded like a great opportunity, but I refuse to work with someone who thinks I’ll sleep with them for a job.”

Jungkook’s eyes widened, and he shifted in his seat. “I’m sorry, what?”

You could see Jungkook clenching his fist, but honestly, he had nothing to worry about. You hoped the slap Zach got was more than enough to scare him off.

You held your hands up to calm him down. “I can take care of myself, Jungkook,” you assured him. “He got a nice slap from me,” you beamed.

He breathed a sigh, relaxing his body into the couch cushion. “I’m sorry the meeting wasn’t everything you had hoped for.”

You shrugged. “It’s whatever. I’m sure something better will come along.”

“I’m sure it will.”

“So, what were you doing on a Friday night? I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything.” You scanned the room, and there was nothing indicating he had company over.

Jungkook pouted, shaking his head. “Just hanging out with Bam.”

“No girlfriend or anything?”

Jungkook suppressed a smile, but he couldn’t help it. Maybe this was your subtle way of asking if he was seeing anyone. “No. No girlfriend. LA girls aren’t really my type.” Because you were, he thought. As hard as he tried to let you go, he just couldn’t.

You hummed and then wanted to kick yourself because that question came out of nowhere, but it was the question lingering on your mind ever since he had left. Someone who looked like him would’ve surely had women lined out the door, ready and willing to date him and bear his children.

“What about you? Do you have a boyfriend?” he asked, avoiding your gaze.

“No. No boyfriend.”

“So, you’re not seeing that Yoongi guy?”

You licked your lips, the corners of your mouth curving into a smile. “I’m guessing you heard that name from Yuna or Taehyung?” He nodded. “He’s just a friend and a pain in my ass.”

“Ah–got it.”

“And what about Alex? Is she still around?” You couldn’t not ask. It was like a giant elephant hanging out in the room with you.

Jungkook figured her name would come up sooner or later. “Alex’s not working for the company anymore. She moved out of the country.”

“Good,” you huffed; if she wasn't near Jungkook, that made you happy.

“You really hate her, huh?”

“Yeah, kind of.”

Jungkook softly chuckled, letting a beat pass. “I’m sorry, by the way.”

“Sorry for what?”

“Everything that happened with us.”

“I’m sorry too.” Your lips thinned, your fingers unconsciously picking at your hand.

“Why are you sorry?”

You appreciated that he didn't point out your flaws, but he wasn’t the only one at fault. Neither one of you was perfect. “Jungkook, you’re not the only one to blame. I should have communicated my feelings better when we were together.”

He nodded in agreement. “Do you think you could ever forgive me?”

Initially, it was hard to even think about forgiving Jungkook, but as time passed, the pain and hurt subsided. “Mm. I forgive you. Do you forgive me?”

“Yes,” he chimed in. You chuckled at how fast he answered. “What?” He raised his eyebrow.

You shook your head. “Nothing–”

“Just say it.”

“I shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because—I just—shouldn’t.” You wanted to say you found him cute and endearing and that he forgave others too quickly.

“Fine,” he pouted, shifting his leg onto the couch.

Your mouth opens involuntarily, exhaling a yawn from exhaustion. The time difference really fucked you up. Quickly, you covered it with both hands and excused yourself.

“Am I boring you?” Jungkook teased.

“Yes, actually. I hadn’t realized you’d become so dull,” you quipped, covering another yawn. “See—so boring that you’re making me sleepy.” You leaned on your arm against the back cushion.

“Or maybe you’re just becoming an old lady.”

You scoffed. “I’m an old lady? You’re the one who’s staying in on a Friday night! Old man.”

“Yeah, I had to stay in, just in case an old lady needed me.” Jungkook giggled and looked away before returning to meet your eyes. “I’ve missed this.”

“What?”

“Us.”

It was this specific moment when you moved into flight mode. You gave a half-smile and shifted your position so your feet touched the ground. You checked your phone for the time. “I should get an Uber and go back to my hotel.”

“I can take you.”

“Jungkook, you’ve done so much for me already. I don’t want you to have to drive back and forth.”

“I don’t mind—honestly.”

You stood up. “I know you don’t—but I do. It’s okay—really.” You unlocked your phone and pulled up the app, determined to call for a car. All of this was becoming too much for you, for your heart. His presence, the giggles, the familiarity of what the two of you used to be.

Jungkook stood and walked over to you, gently pushing away your phone. “What’s going on? Tell me the truth.” He could always tell when your mind was working overload—racing with thought after thought.

Should you tell him why you needed to leave after the two of you had a nice, civil conversation without screaming or yelling? Your therapist did tell you that no one would know how you feel unless you told them—and you just told Jungkook that you should communicate better.

Ugh, goddamnit. 

Speak now or forever, hold your peace.

You didn’t want to revert back to your old ways—being anxious, self-conscious, unsure of what you wanted. You sighed. “The truth?” Jungkook nodded. “The truth is—I probably shouldn’t have called you.”

“Why?” he asked as his starry eyes gazed deeply into your soul.

“Because—I was—I am scared.”

Jungkook raised his eyebrow, unsure of why you’d be scared. “Scared of what?”

“I was scared that if I called you and we talked—old feelings would resurface, and I don’t want to make the same mistakes again.”

“You still have feelings for me?”

“I think so? I’m—I’m not sure,” you stammered. “That’s why I didn’t call you in the first place when I knew I was coming to LA, and then when I happened to bump into you—well, I guess what I’m trying to say is that yes, I still have feelings for you.”

His eyes fell to the floor, and he sucked in his lips, trying not to smile, before looking back at you. “Am I the mistake?”

You shook your head. “You were never a mistake.”

“Then what mistakes are you referring to?”

You hung your head and sat back down, and Jungkook followed suit. You nibbled on the inside of your cheek, and he looked at you, waiting for an answer.

“I don’t know. Me—falling too fast, building fantasies inside my head, knowing it’ll never be real, not saying how I feel, pushing away people who love me. Should I keep going?”

“So, you didn’t want to call me and come here because you were scared all that’s gonna happen if you talked to me? Is that right?”

It sounded ridiculous, but he hit the nail on the head.

You hummed.

There was the slimmest chance of you bumping into Jungkook while in the same city, but you hadn’t fully prepared yourself if you did bump into him. You weren’t ready for the unresolved feelings and the smallest flutters of butterflies, your body to warm up to the simplest of accidental touches and soft giggles.

You could’ve just sucked it up, called an Uber, returned to your hotel, and tried to brush off the slimy interaction with the Netflix exec, but instead, you called the one person you knew would bring you comfort—Jungkook.

Should you just be completely honest and bare your soul? You were halfway there. Maybe it was time to grow up and just say what the fuck you wanted.

Jungkook was silent and waited to see if you had anything else.

You cleared your throat, thinking it was now or never.

“Our breakup,” you paused to recollect yourself and to stop your lips from quivering so much. You started again, “Our breakup—it really fucked me up. You left without saying goodbye, and after that, I kind of spiraled—drinking every day, showing up late to set, and ditching our friends. Hell—I almost let some random guy fuck me in a bathroom.”

You sighed. “I’m not telling you this to make you feel bad, but I needed to go through all those things to be where I am today. I’ve done a lot of work on myself and had a lot of healing through therapy, a solo trip, and some new friends–okay, just one new friend, but that's beside the point–I just don’t want to go back to the same person I was before.”

Jungkook opened his mouth to speak, but you stopped him.

“I’m not saying that being here with you again will make me become the person I was before—I just want to make better decisions being the new person I am now.”

Finally, hearing how you felt after all this time relieved him. He had waited so long for you to finally share yourself with him.

Jungkook’s mouth moved from side to side, nibbling on his bottom lip before he spoke, “I’m sorry I left without saying goodbye. The weekend in Jeju really fucked me up. So much was happening with Taehyung and Hyunie’s wedding, and then we were on the brink of breaking up while pretending to be happy. My heart and my mind were all over the place. Then I saw you with Yoongi, and that really sent me over the edge because that’s when I knew I had lost you and could never get you back—no matter how hard I tried, I don’t think anything would’ve worked. So—I left.”

Your jaw tightened, trying to hold back tears as Jungkook recounted his side of the story. You didn’t know he saw you with Yoongi; it must’ve been shortly after you returned from Jeju. And as much as you were hurting, so was he.

Well, since both of you were in apology mode.

“I’m sorry too,” you said. “Growing up, it was only me. I had to do everything myself because my parents weren’t really there for me, and so I always felt like I didn’t want to bother others with my burdens. I know it’s not an excuse, but I’m slowly learning that I don’t have to do everything alone—that it’s okay to ask for help. So, I’m sorry I never communicated well and kept things from you.”

He licked his lips, thinking about how new this was all for him—you baring your feelings. “No, that makes sense. I get it.”

“You do?”

“I mean—I’m not perfect either. We both made mistakes, but you’re wrong about one thing.”

You raised your eyebrow. “What’s that?”

“You had me and Yuna, and you know my mom loves you like you’re her own. She might love you more than she loves me,” he said. “And you know you can always tell me what’s going on. I’ll always be here for you—no matter what happens between us.”

You grinned because he was right. You had overlooked the huge part that their family played in your life. You couldn’t discount that.

“If there’s one thing I truly regret from all of this—it’s cutting ramen out of my diet since I’ve moved here,” he joked to lighten the mood.

You dramatically gasped, covering your mouth. “You cut ramen from your diet? It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.”

The two of you giggled.

“I guess we’ve both done some growing up, huh?” Jungkook knocked his knee into yours.

“Yeah, looks like it.”

“So, what now?”

You shrugged, unsure of Jungkook’s feelings, but you wanted to express yours. “I don’t want to wake up one day and regret not trying again. I want you. I want all of you, but I'm scared—scared that I'll get hurt and go back to my old ways. I’ve had a lot of healing, and I'm in a good place, but seeing you again, being near you, makes me want to forget everything that has happened and jump in your arms and tear off your clothes.”

Jungkook covered his mouth as he silently chuckled at your confession.

“Are you basking in my misery?” you sneered.

His lips turned into a pout as he shook his head. “No, I just—this is what I wanted all along while we were dating.”

“What? Me acting like a fool?”

“No—you telling me how you feel, tell me how much you want me, to claim me as yours.”

You opened your mouth and made a face. “You want me to grovel? Get on my knees?”

Jungkook bit his tongue when you got down on your knees in front of him. He had to tell himself and his dick to calm the fuck down because it was not the time and place to be thinking of such naughty things.

You gazed up at him; seeing him squirm was fun. “You like me on my knees?” you asked, sitting back on your legs.

He cleared his throat, adjusting his sweats as he shifted back on the couch. He thought back to the very first time you sucked him off after having dinner with Yuna and your mom. “I’m sorry. I think you were confessing your love for me. Go on. I’m all ears.”

You smacked his thigh. “I’m—you’re ruining this moment!”

“I’m ruining it? You’re the one who got down on your knees! You know how much I love that,” he mumbled the last of his words.

You turned and cupped your ear toward him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that.”

“Just—go on. You were saying?” He cocked his head to the side, waiting for you.

You huffed, tilting your head back before landing on his sparkly doe eyes and cute little dimple peeking through. “I am stupidly in love with you, Jeon Jungkook, and I’ll do whatever it takes to be with you again.”

Jungkook felt a sense of relief when he heard those words, but there was still a small sliver of fear. “What if we’re just fooling ourselves into thinking this will work?”

“Then I guess we can be fools together.”

After baring your soul to Jungkook, you wanted nothing more than to jump into his lap and ride him like an endless merry-go-round, but you’ve changed and didn’t want to regret anything going forward with him. The two of you needed to take things slow and steady because you wanted to win the race.

The two of you stayed up late—talking, drinking beer, and catching each other up on life until the sun came up. It was like no time had passed, and you picked up right where you left off.

Bam had taken a liking to you, staying by your side, following you whenever you got up and moved around. He wouldn’t let you out of his sight. He definitely took after Jungkook.

The size of your bladder warranted another trip to the bathroom, and when you returned to where Jungkook and Bam were, you noticed Jungkook in a compromising position.

“Why are you on one knee? Are you taking a page out of my book?” you teased, not wanting to jump to any conclusions because you both agreed on taking it slow.

Without an answer, he took out something he was hiding behind his back. He held a blue velvet box in the palm of his hand.

Your eyes widened, and your heart raced rapidly because you knew exactly where that box was from. You and Yuna had looked at engagement rings for hours on end when the two of you thought Namjoon was getting ready to propose. You had mentioned it too many times to Jungkook while the two of you were dating. There’s no way he’d be proposing, right?

This whole thing with Jungkook was new—well, not really new, but you’d have to turn him down if he were to ask your hand in marriage. You were definitely not ready because the two of you had just agreed to try this relationship again.

“What the fuck is that? It better be a ring pop,” you implored. He slowly shook his head, beaming a smile from ear to ear. You repeated ‘no’ under your breath, shaking your head.

“You don’t even know what it is.”

“Oh—I know what it is!”

Jungkook leaned over on his knee toward you. “Okay, so tell me.”

“It’s—it’s the ring that I couldn’t stop talking about. Why do you have it?”

He giggled at how cute and flustered you had become. “For once, you’re wrong.”

“I’m never wrong,” you huffed.

He stood, making his way to you, lifting your chin with his index finger. He stared deeply into your eyes. “You are completely and utterly wrong.”

You pouted and crossed your arms. “Prove it.”

Jungkook sighed at how stubborn you were. He opened the blue velvet box, and it was not the ring you had envisioned. “It’s a promise ring.” Because it was the ring that complimented the engagement set.

You visibly gulped, and there was a sense of relief. “A promise ring?”

He nodded. “You are everything I could ever want and more. It’s always been you, and there’s gonna be no one else for me. You are worth walking through hell and back, and considering we’ve done that already—I’d do it again if I had to, but please, please—I don’t want to do it again,” he pleaded, making you smile. “If you’ll let me, I want to love you and show you I’m worthy of your love every day for the rest of my life.”

You found yourself grinning from ear to ear, loving his little declaration of love. You moved closer to him, looking at the ring and then at him. “I want to make this right—us. I was wrong for not fighting for you—for us, and I don’t want to make that mistake again.”

He pulled the ring from the box, grabbed your left hand, and placed the piece of jewelry on your finger. “We’re in this together—you and me.”

You glanced at the ring, smiling at how pretty it looked on your finger. “You and me.”

A lot has happened in the last 24 hours—you flew to LA, had your meeting, and rekindled your relationship with Jungkook. The last thing wasn’t anything you expected, but it became the silver lining to this short trip you were dreading in the first place.

The pair of you couldn’t stop smiling and giggling in the elevator up to your hotel room–mind you, you’d kept your distance from him the entire night, but it was becoming pure and complete utter torture.

Your time in LA was already coming to an end, and everything in you wanted to just leave your life behind and stay, but you had to resist; you had to fight it—at least for now.

“So,” you trailed off, unsure what to say to him.

“So,” he repeated, leaning next to your door.

You both smiled and laughed at the tension filling the hallway.

“Do you,” you paused to think through your words, “want to come in until I have to leave?” This was a good boundary, you thought–just until you had to leave for the airport.

Jungkook licked his lips, flipping his lip ring back and forth with his tongue. His eyes explored your face before landing on your lips. “I’d love to, but we know if I do, then you won't get anything packed, and you’ll for sure miss your flight.”

You scoffed, rolling your eyes, and playfully smacked his chest. “I have no idea what you’re alluding to, mister.”

But you fucking knew and wanted it too.

He eliminated the distance between you, slowly caging you against the door. You closed your eyes when he gently caressed your cheek with the pad of his thumb. You had forgotten how much you had missed his touch—your body was glowing inside, illuminated from the top of your head to the tip of your toes. You wanted nothing but to savor this moment—a moment you thought ceased to exist, a moment you thought only existed in your reveries.

The tiny hairs on your skin, tingling, standing on their end in anticipation of an expected kiss. All this tension was killing you softly.

His other hand snaked around the nape of your neck, pulling you even closer. Your eyes fluttered open, watching his lips part, his breaths slowing down, and you were trying to remember if they were still soft and had the faintest taste of strawberry. And you wanted to gently tug on that silver piece of jewelry and hear him whine because of it. 

Your stomach somersaults like there’s a gymnast going for the gold for the floor exercise when his body brushes against yours. The twitch in his black sweats is what really makes you melt and clench around nothing. It's been far too long since you've been touched, and he was the only one that could bring you pleasure.

“Can I kiss you?” His eyes are desperately darting back and forth between yours, waiting for your okay.

“Please,” you pleaded, almost inaudible if he wasn't so close.

He doesn’t go right in like you expected. He took his time, both hands cupping your face and your hands gripping his tiny waist like nothing had ever stopped between the two of you. The tip of his nose nudged yours, his lips lightly feathering across the top of your lips—not going in just yet. His warm hot breath fans the ever-growing desire within you. It was thrilling for him to rediscover everything he loved about you.

You closed your eyes in excitement, scrunching the bottom of his shirt in your hands. You slightly tugged on it, wanting him to hurry and just fucking kiss you already. You had never known him to be so careful, so gentle.

He giggled at your frustration. “I thought we were taking things slow.”

You deadpanned. “It’s too slow,” you whined, trying to reach for his lips, but he pulled back. “I thought you wanted to kiss me?”

Jungkook flashed a soft smile, his dimple on display. “I do.”

“Then shut up and do it already,” you pouted. You couldn't handle the teasing between you anymore. You wanted to make up for everything lost within the last year. If you had all the time in the world, you’d want him to do anything and everything to you, but that day would have to wait.

He tilted his head and leaned in; his nose nuzzled into the side of your face, and the deep yearning you’d hidden inside was released as his lips finally found yours. Lips on lips delicately caressing and wandering like the two of you were in a drought, in desperate search of food and water.

You gently nipped on his bottom lip, lightly pulling on his ring before kissing the side of his mouth. He grinned, thinking he’d get you back for that, not today but soon. Your hands traced the curves of his body, causing him to press himself further into you. The evident erection in his sweats tells you how much he was enjoying this too.

The kiss became heated and fervent, like an all-consuming fire taking everything in its path. Your hands are placed on his toned chest, holding on for dear life as he presses you against the door, breathing life back into you like your life depends on it.

You pulled back, gasping for air, but he leaned in, wanting just a bit more. You’re intoxicating, and he’s greedy. He’s a man starved from your touch and kisses. There’s no way he’ll ever let you go again. He’d fight for you until his very last breath.

Your arms drape around his neck, your fingers twirling and tugging at the ends of his long hair. You deepen the kiss, your warm tongue nipping at his mouth, begging for more access to him. Kissing isn't enough anymore. You needed him—all of him. To rediscover his deepest desires, wants, and needs was the only job you wanted right now.

Jungkook withdrew from your kiss. “You have to pack.”

You took a moment to catch your breath. “Or you can come inside and help me pack.” You moved in again for another kiss, but he resisted.

“I would love that, but…” he trailed off, letting the desire within subside.

Your lips thinned. “But then we wouldn’t be taking it slow, would we?” He nods. “I should pack.”

He leaned in to quickly give you a peck on the lips. “Mm, you should.”

Your shoulders slump, and you tilt your head against the door. “But I don’t want to.”

“But you have to.” You groaned and stomped your feet like baby Indie. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Not soon enough.”

bonus (jk pov - hotel)

“Sorry, I got here early, but some lady was taking forever to get her luggage,” the driver said as Jungkook’s colleague opened the door.

"You coming?" His colleague asked from inside the car.

"...uh, you go on without me. I left my phone inside. I'll catch an Uber."

His colleague shrugged and shut the door behind him before the car took off. Jungkook stood before the hotel's entrance, unsure whether to enter or just leave.

He thought he saw you while waiting outside the restaurant, but he figured it was just his eyes playing tricks on him. Even if it was really you, he wasn't sure he was ready to face you, let alone know what to say. He abruptly left without explaining his actions. He didn't think when he did it, which was a stupid, rash decision he later regretted. He couldn't bear the heartache of being so close to you.

The plan was to get as far away as possible so he could forget, but the problem was that he couldn't. You were the love of his life (yes, even at the tender age of 25). He had no desire for anyone else. Even when gorgeous women were flinging themselves at him in this new city. He wasn't concerned with them because they weren't you.

Everything made him think of you. From peonies to hot tubs and even bowling. He'd go back and say goodbye if he could. He despised the way things ended.

Before he knew it, his foot had stepped past the sliding glass door, heading in, unsure of where even to begin. He began his search as he walked through the lobby, peering at the reception desk. 

He noticed a woman standing at the counter. Maybe your hair had grown out. Approaching the woman, he tapped them on the shoulder. "Noona..."

When the woman turned around, Jungkook quickly apologized before returning and going on the hunt for you. You may have already gone to your room, but he wasn't about to give up so easily. He'd be sorry if he missed you by a millisecond. Could his eyes be deceiving him? Maybe he didn't see you just standing there. Maybe he missed you so much that he imagined everything.

He told himself he'd look for ten minutes before giving up and going home. He walked around the lobby, past the reception desk, down the hallway, and even took the elevator up a few floors before returning down.

He was sure the workers thought he was creeping around and wouldn't be surprised if they had called security. He only had a few minutes before calling it quits and heading home. He walked past the restaurant he was just at, then took a few steps back.

What if you had gone to get a drink?

It didn't take long for him to notice you sitting alone at the bar, waving the bartender down to order. His eyes were not deceiving him; he was not insane.

It was you. 

You were absolutely stunning, he thought. Even after a year apart, you’d become more beautiful than ever. He needed a moment to take you all in because he didn’t think he’d ever see you again—here in LA.

Every heartbeat was like a metronome, keeping in sync with every step he took toward you. He drew a deep breath and closed his eyes as he stood behind you, his mind racing with the right words—what would he say after a year?

“Is this seat taken?”

Fuck—if he could, he’d punch himself. He could’ve come up with something better.

✨ next ~ drabble ~ dream bigger, darling

[quasi-normalcy]

So the thing about Star Trek: Picard is...

Say what you will about the first season, but it’s meaningful. In fact, Rios says explicitly what it’s about in the fourth episode: “the existential pain of living with the consciousness of death and how it defines us as human beings.” Pretty much all of the character arcs are about different reactions to this, and the supposed “grimdarkness” of the setting reinforces this point; the Federation has become reactionary and xenophobic because it was a utopia that experienced mass death right on its doorstep for the first time in living memory. The conflict with the Synths is ultimately rooted in the fact that we die; they don’t. The fact that the finale was called “Et in Arcadia ego” really just telegraphs this; “Even in Arcadia [utopia], I [Death] am.”

And the second season, for all its many flaws, carries this theme forward, proposing that love, togetherness, and companionship are the only meaningful candles in the dark. Q is dying; he awaits meaning, and he doesn’t find it. And so he opts instead to do one last favour for Jean-Luc so at least he can spare his favourite mortal from his own fate of dying alone. Jurati is able to connect with the Borg Queen because she recognises that her own motivation is something similar: the Queen can feel herself dying across infinite realities and she doesn’t want to be alone. Seven and Raffi find each other; Rios gives up his entire life for a shot at love. It’s an infernal mess, a budget-saving exercise in want of a plot, but I’m going to be honest: I kind of adore it. I think it’s beautiful for all its flaws.

Throughout the first two seasons, we have serious contemplations of transhumanism and identity in the face of death. Picard escapes death using technology, even as his friend, a living machine, embraces his end as a necessary part of being human. Soji loses her identity even as she gains knowledge of herself as an immortal android. Jurati too embraces transhumanism and, to some extent, loses her identity by so doing, but–in an interesting twist for Star Trek–this is not stigmatized; this is framed as what’s best for her. All of this is philosophically rich, high-octane fuel for thought, as speculative fiction should be.

The third season, meanwhile–for all that I have loved (some of) the nostalgia hits injected directly into my veins–bugs me because of how absolutely lightweight it feels. Death is gone. Not just as a theme, but gone from the narrative. Sure we kill off Ro, and T’Veen, and Vadic, and Shelby, and Shaw, but it feels like nothing. Death holds no dominion; Data is back; so’s the Enterprise-D; so’s Q (or maybe he’s come in from an earlier point in his timeline; it’s not clear). Kirk apparently is alive again, resurrected offscreen sometime after Generations and kept in a covert warehouse awaiting new adventures. Apparently Terry Matalas has already formulated plans for bringing Todd Stashwick back if when he gets his “Legacy” spinoff. I’m half-surprised that they didn’t reveal that Romulus magically popped back into existence in a background Okudagram somewhere. The Federation is as “grimdark” as it has ever been depicted, but unlike the first season (or Deep Space Nine, or even the first season of Discovery), this is never seriously interrogated or problematised. We go through the motions, cargo-cult-like, of moral debate in episode 7, but it’s not connected to anything. We hear that Vadic was the product of Section 31 war crimes; Picard looks shaken up by this, but then he and Beverly immediately decide to commit some war crimes of their own by executing her. This is never mentioned again. The whole exercise feels perfunctory, as I have said above: like ten-year-olds playing with action figures. It doesn’t feel like Picard, and frankly, for all of the surface detail it gets right, it feels even less like TNG.

So no; I’m not pleased that the first two seasons were ignored.

[chimera-shifts]

idk who u are i just found you so tell me about ur drs

omg idk where to even begin with this. writing this has made me realize how little i think about like. SEVERAL drs these days.

First that comes to mind is my MLB DR. its kind of like my “main” one. most developed.

been thinking about it a lot these days on account of my siblings also being obsessed with the show. i have my sights set on this one for the foreseeable future

Main differences are just fixed plot and characterization. I like the concepts but they weren't well executed in the show. (Lila as a concept vs Lila in the show is my roman empire. zero diff) The plot holes and retcons were ATROCIOUS (imo) so I corrected some of those too. Also everyone is the correct age for being in the 10th grade?? what was up with that?? 13??? are you fr??

In that DR I'm an international transfer student from Québec (so I already know some French and wouldn't have to study too hard- SMARTEST thing I will ever script. trust me on this.) and I live with a host family. Flame me all u want but it's the Rossi family. Added bonus of her mom never being home and Lila living a double life so it's nice and quiet.

I've taken up the mantle as the evolution miraculous holder instead of Alix since OBVIOUSLY i want in on the action. Plus I am already familiar with timeline management and the likes so i get to keep doing what I'm good at. PLUSSS Alix wont have to disappear into the depths of time which is good for her (she is so awesome 🫶 and she did NOT deserve that just to patch a plot hole.) also me n her are homies because she’s awesome. but also im friends with like half the class anyways

also hellooo??? RGB trio colours?? its perfect

Also- a classic- MCU DR. are you seeing a pattern here?? superheros man.

which funnily enough i don’t remember following the classic hero archetype?? its a REALLY old script and also back when i had memory issues so like from what i can recall i was kind of like. a secret agent/super spy kind of trope during the agent carter series thing?? and through time shenanigans i made it into the modern age (time shenanigans is something you will notice a lot.)

the script definitely needs some. reworking. and honestly now that ive mentioned it i kinda wanna get on that. this was my favourite dr and like yeah man i see why. im probably gonna hunt for script templates and backstory ideas now…

also really random but on a similar topic to the whole agent thing- 1ƐYTD DR…. censoring that…… tumblr has a really small fandom for that game on here and im NOT risking it. i already get nervous saying words like miraculous. theyre gonna GET ME

but its like a vr puzzle game kinda like james bond or whatever spy movies you can think of. the title is a reference im pretty sure. im a sucker for those and i love the series so i wanna like. shift there for the challenge?? its a trial and error (the error is you dying) kind of thing.

i wanna do speedruns and collect the phantom medals and shit- i actually have a lot of drs where i go just for the challenge. highly recommend checking out the soundtrack tho its so good

sorry i took so long to respond!! i honestly couldnt think of anything for a good while😭

[rifki16]

Living with Him Episode Five Review

Picture Credit: Living with Him Twitter Promotional Account.

A very sour and delicious Funazushi

I have to first say that this episode brought up more questions than I have wanted it to answer. It’s not solely about the fact that the LA is different than the manga. I think there are some uncomfortable plot executions which I think can be done much better in a different manner. I want to bring up two themes in this essay.

The Camping Subplot

The episode actually started out with the anticipated camping scene. Side note: Do Japanese people prefer to go camping when they want to decompress? I’ve seen the camping subplot used in Cherry Magic LA film, and they said that it’s also present in Eternal Yesterday. Anyway, the camping scene was cute, and it seems like the two, boy-, friends were enjoying themselves immensely. I don’t know what the point of the subplot to be quite frank. I saw three potential character-supporting features of the subplot.

First, it established the popularity of Kazuhito. In the manga, we were only told that Kazuhito was popular. Ryo’s sister told Ryo about Kazuhito-san’s popularity. Yoshieri told Ryo that Kazuhito was the most popular guy in high school. However, the LA actually gave us real example of Kazuhito’s popularity. When the two, boy-, friends were trying to cook, the fire starter that Ryo brought actually malfunctioned. Kazuhito and Ryo at first were already preparing to just not eat I suppose. Then, a group of campers came along. Kazuhito then asked to borrow their fire starter, they had one and lent it to him. They then recognized Kazuhito because they often watched Koshien. I was confused at first, but it turned out that Koshien is the national Japanese high school baseball league? I’m surprised that Japanese people pay attention to baseball so much. Come to think of it, I don’t really know what their most beloved sport is, Canada has hockey, India has cricket, what does Japan have? Is it just plain old football too? After being recognized, Kazuhito politely thanked them and went back to Ryo. I think this scene is crucial because in the manga, the way that they broke up and reunited Kazuhito and Ryo again is by making Ryo so anxious of how Kazuhito’s popularity and immediate surrounding will react if Kazuhito-san actually dates a guy. I think making Kazuhito tangibly famous will make this internal decision-making process of Ryo even more believable.

Secondly, it established Ryo’s jealousy over anyone that encounters Kazuhito. I think this is a very normal way of Japanese drama works. Jealousy for them is a very inseparable part of being in love. If you’re not jealous, you’re not in love with a person. I mean, Western drama or dramedy also uses this trope, but they always try to subvert and be above the trope and eventually cope with the jealousy, try to live side-by-side with it. Not in Japan, you’re not. Being jealous is a must until a clear winner emerges. In the episode, Ryo realized that Kazuhito was getting recognized and something in his head lit up. Then, when Kazuhito went back to Ryo, he asked Kazuhito about the encounter and continued by asking whether he wanted to have eat and sit down with them. Kazuhito then answered that he just wanted to eat with Ryo, just the two of them. Ryo celebrated this win by denying Kazuhito polite counteroffer of whether he would like to eat with them. It’s just funny to be quite frank, his jealousy of anyone who comes in contact with Kazuhito. I mean, Ryo has not acknowledged to himself that he likes Kazuhito yet he wants him all to himself, love is strange that way. This has always been funny, even in episode two when Yoshieri, Kazuhito and Ryo were walking in the campus, then Yoshieri and Kazuhito were talking about their workplace as they were also coworkers in a restaurant. After long description of the restaurant, all Ryo could fixate on was the fact that Yoshieri and Kazuhito were coworkers, talk about jealousy-fueled selective focusing lol. Funny how Ryo’s jealousy still stays the same even when he thought he didn’t have a chance as he had previously thought that Kazuhito’s secret crush was on Yoshieri.

Thirdly, we saw another example of Kazuhito gatekeeping Ryo lol. When the other camper group arrived, Kazuhito was the one who volunteered to come to them instead of Ryo. When Ryo wanted to return the lighter, it was Kazuhito who eventually took the lighter and brought it to them. I suppose this behavior was also exhibited in episode two when Yoshieri wanted to ask for Ryo’s number, yet Kazuhito was insistent that Yoshieri must not pester Ryo. She is not, gurl. This is all before taking into account Haruna’s shipping cupid-arrowing behaviors.

The After-Work Drinking Party

Now, this is the crux of my argument. This subplot has been foretold even in episode four, Yoshieri brought up casually the invitation of the mandatory drinking party when Ryo was still zoning out after waking up next to Kazuhito. Let me tell you why this scene is very crucial to me as someone who read the manga. Kazuhito was supposed to be surrounded by his coworkers, of course being the most popular guy and all. One of the senior superiors was just casually asking Kazuhito whether he had any girlfriends? Then, he said no, and Yoshieri sort of told the senior superiors to just lay off Kazuhito and not ask him out as he had never been interested in doing so since high school. The senior superiors kept insisting and wanted to ask him out, which then prompted Kazuhito to say, that he already had someone in mind. That made the conversation changed their assumption about using her pronoun and using them pronoun. After rereading chapter seven, I also just realized that the superiors were telling Kazuhito to go out and fool around with one of the people in the table so that Kazuhito’s crush would eventually answer back. That led to Kazuhito eventually refusing to do so because he didn’t want to worry them. His reaction made everyone melted their hearts. Kazuhito then ran through the rain and arrived at his and Ryo’s apartment, which prompted the breakup scene between the two. While Kazuhito was in the drinking party, Ryo was supposed to finally realize his fondness to Kazuhito, which will make the breakup scene make sense.

This is done differently for the LA series.

Sure, during the drinking party Kazuhito was the star of the party, no surprise there. When one of the senior superiors asked Kazuhito about who his girlfriend is, she was drunk and portrayed not like a professional superior at all, seemed more like she was down so bad for Kazuhito.

Now, I’m not one to talk down about women’s and female sexuality. However, if the question was brought up and the senior superior asked Kazuhito in a casual manner like in the manga, it would have been seen like just a casual question that the readers, or viewers, don’t really need to be worried about. Even if Kazuhito had answered yes, it would have not meant anything to either party as it was just a polite banter between a superior and a subordinate.

In the LA, they made Yoshieri shocked with the confession that Kazuhito actually had a crush. Why? What was the reason? Yes, I know that Yoshieri never really got a verbal confirmation that Kazuhito actually already has a crush, as she said it herself in the episode. However, she knew even when she was dating that Kazuhito already had someone in mind. I suppose they made Yoshieri shocked so that they could have a scene of Yoshieri blessing and supporting Kazuhito’s pursuit of his crush’s love. What is the significance of the scene though? Was it just so when Ryo became spiralled with the anxiety of dating Kazuhito, Kazuhito could counter it by saying that even his ex actually blessed Ryo and Kazuhito pairing? Maybe the answer will reveal itself in future episodes.

Lastly, what really enraged me about this subplot’s differences with the manga was the fact that Ryo did not come to his senses and actually find out that he likes Kazuhito back. I think this was because that they want to redo the breakup scene all over. I noticed that the 6th episode is about some flashback scenes and maybe filler plot, before coming to the breakup episode on the 7th. In the manga, it was because that Ryo already noticed his fondness of Kazuhito that he thought to himself that he could not continue his feelings toward Kazuhito as it had no future.

I sincerely hope that they will not erase the core reason of why Kazuhito and Ryo break up, Ryo’s insecurities of dating a much more popular guy.

All in all, a still very good episode, the camping episode made me smile so hard. Watch it yall !

[symphonic-scream]

I should elaborate on that new au, huh? It's my like 3rd medieval and/or fantasy au. So. Let's talk about it

So, it's more medieval than fantasy. Takes place in the kingdom of uh, insert name. People have been born there with magic for centuries, about every 1 in 7 has the potential for magic. All magic is cast by verbal spells too

Anyways. A few years back, a new King took the throne, and started a mad "witch" hunt for magic users, claiming a conspiracy that killed the last king, placing blame primarily on the former advisor, and the rest of the library staff. His son becomes crown prince, and people born with magic are no longer common, they're hidden or imprisoned

Psst. Hey. Shido killed the king and blamed magic cause he had his magic son do it. Shocker, if you know the plot of P5, I know

Anyways people keep dying via magic, and the King blames people who get in his way. One of which is a teen named Akira, new to the land from a smaller farm town within the kingdom. Rather than be captured he loses the knights in the dense forest nearby and comes across a cabin

He's assumed dead, but instead he's taken in by a magic talking cat who wants to get back at the king, claiming he had him turned to a cat. So, with a mask and cloak, he returns to the city and reveals the truth bit by bit

Gradually he's joined by other teammates! Like Ryuji, a young delivery boy framed alongside his best friend, a dancer named Ann. They help bring the first perpetrator to light, a Castle Perimeter Guard named Kamoshida

Then, an artist named Yusuke. His own mentor threw him under the bus, also claiming the portraits Yusuke painted were his own to spit on the salty wound or whatever. So Yusuke joins in, having inherited magic from his mother

Then, Yusuke reveals his mother was one of the staff framed for the death of the former King, Igor. His mother, the chief advisor Wakaba, and the archivist were all executed publicly, and Yusuke suggests they try to find their children before they too are framed

In the time it takes them to find the name of the Archivist and try to track down one of her two daughters, one is already being framed.

Surprise it's Makoto! Sae doesn't have magic, and is Shido's advisor, having passed a test where she read a basic spell. It was believed that the younger sister didn't have magic since typically the eldest inherited it, so she was allowed to work as a royal guard

Specifically the Lady engaged to the Prince, daughter of Duke Okumura.

Makoto reveals her magic to others in a tense moment where she saves the Lady, and runs that night, before she can be caught. She runs into the Phantoms by chance, and agrees to help them retrieve her mother's hidden spell books from within the castle library, and search for the daughter of the old advisor

That's Futaba. She's been hiding in the walls of the castle, and has been wanted or assumed dead the whole time. They stumble upon her when they enter the secret addition to the library and find just. A hermit room

Futaba: ...Uhm. boo?

They get her out of there and into their forest hut and try to work out their plan to take down the king when the castle erupts into minor chaos. Duke Okumura tries to convince everyone that the King is responsible for all those deaths, trying for the throne, only to have him and his daughter brought before council for a traitor's magic test

He passes. When Haru utters the phrase, they're all surprised when her palms grow damp, and water slowly sprouts to soak the floor. The deaths her father tried to pin on the King, that he ordered, are pinned on his daughter (and himself)

The Phantoms arrive to break her out the night before she's due for execution, and she joins their final plans to take down the king.

They have to go through the Prince, and watch as the King finishes him off himself. Then they take him down, and once Shido is dead, Morgana returns to his human form, that of the missing son of the last king, Igor

So. He's king.

Anyways ships for this would be akeshu (not endgame. Since. Goro fucking dies.), RyuKita, ShihoAnn, and my go to, the ever amazing, Okujima.

Anyways. Yeah. What do y'all think?

[liedownquisition]

One thing that frustrates me sometimes is that the premise of the original RHATO team joining up together would not... take a lot to be made into something actually decent. Respect for the characters, really. Keep Kori's amnesia, keep Roy's isolation, but nudge the script a little:

Jason is vaguely familiar to Kori, because canonically they DID meet at least once when he was Robin (ignoring n52's everything tbh, the continuity still confuses me sometimes esp when some writers couldnt decide whether ot not 52 was a reboot or if they were going to keep referencing prior shit), but she doesn't remember, just has vague vibes and maybe he can help her with that if they knew each other? And Jason could try to help with what he can but he barely knew her, really. He's agonized bcs the only person he knows who might maybe help is Dick and he's Very Deliberately Estranged from the Bats.

Enter a tip from Talia. Maybe Jason reached out asking about the Titans, maybe she knows where he is and came to the conclusion that interacting with non-Bat heroes that he had a decently positive relationship before his death would be beneficial to him.

Roy's been off-grid since some time after Lian's death, pushing away everyone and deliberately running headfirst into things that could kill him. They're planning to televise his execution, but don't want to risk him getting rescued before that, but they can't hide from her spies. It solves a lot of problems then, doesn't it? Jason and Kori rescue him and he can help her with her memories and/or get her back in touch with the rest of their old team to help and Jason doesn't have to deal with any Bats himself.

But then they don't leave.

Kori's pretty content as she is, with people who know and have been helping her. Her memory loss isn't exactly life-threatening or anything and she's not in any hurry. Roy took one look at the two of them and came to the conclusion that he could help here, help both of them, and they won't judge him for what he's done or try to force him to reconnect with anyone before he was ready to face them/reality (if ever).

And Jason? Jason's a wounded animal snapping at anyone and anything that tries to come too close and covering up his own issues by fucking with shitty ppl & ruining their day. It's a bit of a challenge to make him chill out, but neither of the other two are afraid of that and he's already done all this to help them so why not return the favor?

Jason's the "leader", not because he's more qualified to lead a team but because he needs the feeling of being in control. There's only three of them and there's enough power & experience between them to compensate if anything goes off the rails & Roy's fluent enough in Bat from all his history with Dick to nudge Jason a little to the left if he has to. It's halfway between babysitting and a vacation.

(Amusingly this gave me the mental image of Roy & Kori in beach gear slurping colorful mocktails and Jason running around on an adult-sized child leash.)

You could even keep Roy/Kori, build it up slightly more, ect., ect. Just make it an actual relationship & not turning Kori into a sex doll lmao. I mean they were friends! Even without Dick they were friends with Each Other! & sometimes friendships can get sexual or turn into relationships!

None of this fixes like the racism & such in a bunch of the plot but that's a speech for whole different post I think, and I'm honestly not sure if I've got the chops to redesign all that. At the very least, it would be too big of a distraction from everything else I'm already easily distracted from working on lmao.

[elendsessor]

i genuinely love the qadištu both conceptually and how they play a part in vengeance but it can’t be understated how good of a faction they are franchise-wise, or at least with mainline.

most conflicts stemming from the classic smt formula isn’t just luci v god but also the dangers of placing complete and utter faith in one person/group aka cult like mentalities. while it definitely holds up and likely always will, the fact that it only goes back to the same luci v god conflict is genuinely wasted opportunity.

only real deviations came from nocturne, strange journey, and base 5/vengeance. yes in 3 and 5 that’s still technically going on in the background, but it’s not the main focus.

nocturne was a fight between ideologies that aren’t strictly aligned to the law/neutral/chaos thing. they’re flexible, hence the existence of reasons. this is probably still the best alignment system only because of that freedom and how every outcome is heavily flawed and extreme. however, this might also be due to how nocturne structures its plot aka in a parable not in a traditional storytelling way.

5’s canon of creation was also relatively flexible, plus that conflict is technically already over and done with. god is dead, lucifer won, only reason angels are involved is because they want to uphold the original order since that’s all they knew how to do. abdiel only went fucjing insane because she was living in denial. there are still technically factions but by the end with all the nahobino stuff, it was more a fight between pairs than a fight between factions.

strange journey until the third half was about the earth dying due to its inhabitants aka humanity constantly harming it, with the demons being a force of nature. unfortunately it does devolve back into the same old same old but the remnants are still there.

i think the important thing to keep in mind is the lack of a true big bad. regardless of how bad an option seems, you’re allowed to pick that side for one reason or another. 4 apocalypse was the first real instance of a definitive bad group.

the qadištu are a bit of an expansion of the divine powers in that sense. both are operating separately from the main conflict. what makes them so different is not just goals in a plot sense but execution.

the divine powers is another group that preys off people by having them put too much faith in them (and later “flynn”). they’re fulfilling this messiah complex. while they ultimately get their stupid cosmic egg, krishna and friends never truly win since he gets killed off before making a new universe.

in comparison, the qadištu not only succeed, but their means of getting what they need is a lot more fitting. they didn’t need blind faith.

with how the usual faction conflict works, they do prey upon the need for a leader like i explained, but the solution is at least a bit more simple: don’t. yeah easier said than done. however, it’s still something that can be fallen back on. broken away from.

for the qadištu to gather magatsuhi, they prey upon emotions. after all, that’s what magatsuhi comes from. it’s easier to scare people, and the solution isn’t “don’t get scared.” humans are naturally emotional. you’re in a subway and some stripper and her fucked up dog start killing everyone around you. you get kidnapped then get asked the simple question about what you don’t like about yourself then some weird lady eats that part of you—even might straight up eat you in your entirety based on the answer. everyone starts getting strangely ill out of nowhere and are in constant pain. of course you’d feel strongly about this stuff.

demons in mythology often prey upon human weakness, yes, but this does go beyond faith. it goes into basic emotions that we all recognize as negative/sinful but naturally partake in, which is why demons are often the seducers (especially female ones due to the sin of lust). we can recognize being lazy as bad, but we all end up getting lazy at some point. the issue comes from how often we decide to be lazy, or having those emotions like pride and wrath get out of control. in that sense, the qadištu are significantly more powerful and more compelling than “don’t trust cults.”

they’re constantly three steps ahead throughout the entire plot as a result, and that’s what makes them so threatening. you can’t win.

their goal was to summon tiamat, and even if aogami lived, they already had so much magatsuhi and caused so much suffering to the people of tokyo it wouldn’t truly matter. everything’s fucked beyond belief. you also can’t truly side with them, especially since that just means you die and there’d be no more game.

the final act of vengeance is the aftermath of failure, hence the vengeance part.

i’d love to see more factions in the series take up these sort of roles instead of the usual cult manipulates the masses role. it’s really interesting and feels like a natural evolution of the formula.

[theonemarvelousness]

Homecoming [Sequel to Scar of King's Roar [TW]]

[Summary: Farenah comes home from RSA to find Leona... changed.]

What a whirlwind! He can't believe that a whole semester is over, and the winter break is already here! It seems like yesterday he went off with his little brother waving goodbye. Now, he has all these photos and adventures to share! He's going to love coming here when he gets older.

Farenah Kingscholar, heir apparent and first born of the current reigning King of the Sunset Savannah might be a bit unprincely as he rushes up, dragging his suitcase behind him. The transport back was quick, and as he's just a moment from saying goodbye to his new friends he's rushing to the palace gates with a grin.

Kifaji's there, scoffing. "We were to FETCH you, Prince Farenah!" The familiar, scolding tone brings a smile to his face.

"I missed you too, Kiji~" A laugh at the childish nickname. Though--"Where's Leona? I thought he'd be waiting here..."

There's something off about the frown on Kifaji's face. Not that the old bird's a happy guy, he's very serious and proper--but this is... sad. "Is he... okay?" Cautious. Feeling his own ears lower.

"The King has determined due to his amazing magical abilities presenting in... the recent discovery of his Unique Magic... that he would start intensive magic lessons. He is currently in those magic lessons." The bird continues, cautious of who overhears.

"Well, let's go see him! He must be bored out of his skull in lessons!" Bright--he has the bird lead the way.

---

The curious six-year-old he left now sits surrounded by a pile of books, writing down a lot of old spells for memorization--and with a patch over his eye.

What HAPPENED?

The big breath he took in to say hi is gone.

Who hurt him!?

Coming over, he's very cautious. That small brow is furrowed in concentration. This work--sure, it's already advanced for a six-year-old because they're royals but... this is... a little ridiculous. Ancient magic circles of containment?

Then he sees the mark on his little brother's arm.

What happened?

"Leona?" His voice is very soft.

Leona looks up at him. The bright light in his eyes are... just gone. He's only been gone a couple months. How can a six-year-old change like that?

His brother stands, and bows. "Prince Farenah. Welcome home." It's.

It's just so proper.

"Woah--hey." He kneels down, gently tilting his chin up. "What happened there?"

"Nothing." Leona responds. It's... dull.

The mark is the containment from the book, and without a teacher here he actually thinks that maybe, just maybe, he's trying to break it. But, right now he leaves it alone. "Hey, c'mon, you can tell me."

"It's nothing. It comes off tomorrow."

"...Well okay." It's no good to press. He slowly stands up with a bright smile. "I've gotta unpack, so I'll be back to get you later!" And a wave, as his brother nods him off...

He turns to Kifaji down the hall. "What the Hell happened?!"

---

A glass of wine and three glasses of water in, he's still not calmed down. "What happened to the nanny, to the servant?" The one that locked Leona up, and the one that hurt him.

"I've discovered a plot of five people. The nanny was apprehended at the border. ...They were executed..." A sigh, the old bird rubs his temples, shaking his head.

"A six-year-old... They'd kidnap and try to starve to death a six-year-old. M--mother's death isn't his fault. She wasn't--she wasn't very strong." A hand runs through his sunset locks. "Has he been like this since then?"

"Yes. He... studies. He'll eat after someone taste tests it. And he sleeps. He sleeps... most of the time." Kifaji ventures softly. "I've suggested a visit to a psychologist but your father... is quite stubborn. He claims Leona is fine, and just matured with the truths of royal life." A sigh. "He's only six..."

"Well, I'm home for a few weeks. I'll see what I can do."

---

Kifaji was right. He eats, studies, and sleeps. Sure, some of that involves outside training to make sure he gets plenty of exercise but there's no... play.

A useless argument with their father...

"When you're King, Farenah, you can make these decisions." Rings in his ears.

---

The scar over his eye looks a lot like the King of Beasts. Scar. One of their ancestral bloodline, if the records are right.

But nothing he brings up to Leona gets a smile. He's thanked as Prince Farenah and...

He wouldn't have gone to school if he knew he'd lose his little brother like this.

---

Leona's sleeping in the gardens. It's the only time he's caught a smile on his face since he's been back. He takes a seat by his brother's curled-up form, seeing him at ease for the first time since he's been back.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here to protect you, Leona. I'll do everything to keep this from happening again."

But that means... he needs to make sure he's king as soon as he can be.

It's clear no one else is going to be able to, or have the power to protect him. So he has to make sure he has all of it.

It also means he has to go back to school.

"I'll be King soon, Leona, then you won't have to worry about anyone ever again. I promise."

[laugtherhyena]

So fun fact about me and the another series; I found out about it back in 2018 just one or two weeks before Ch3 came out and spend the next 3 or 4 years being hooked onto the game until the fixation died down and only returned to me around August or September of lasy year.

Meaning that through 2/3s of Sdra2 i was able to see the chapters as they were coming out and that's honestly something i wish more people in the current fandom could have experienced because it was so fun seeing the hype around a chapter that's soon to come out spike up with all kinds of theories, predictions and people hoping their favorites won't die (i remember i even had a dream once where chapter 5 released and Teruya murdered Iroha by tying her into a train track and waiting for it to run over her after she came to him and told him about being a void and he was like, trying to get rid of all remaining void by killing Iroha himself and wining the class trial, which would in kill Mikado too. Wild shit, but it's a dream you know?). And of course, whenever a new chapter did release the entire fandom would collectively freak out for the entire day as random instagram accs posted Cgs and bits of roughly translated information through the day alongside the deaths and executions and this hype around the newest chapter would sprout all kinds of art, edits and more theories for the following month or two.

All around awesome experience? Not exactly. Because this also means i got to see Linuj's crazy plot twist as they were being revealed and here's where we get to the actual subject of this long ramble/rant; Kokoro Mitsume and how i really wish i could have spoiled myself of what happens in Ch0 because that would have spared me of so much pain.

And let me tell you, when i say pain, i am by no means exaggerating. You people have no idea how much i cried when Ch0 came out. My little 15 year old head was going through the 5 stages of grief over that plot twist, that shit didn't even feel real to me until one or two days after its release.

One thing you gotta know about me is that before i became the Ayame person™ Kokoro was my absolute favorite character of the another series, and if you know me for even just a little while then you know how insanely attached i am to her despite being a minor character who dies 1/3 of the way through the game.

Like, y'all don't understand, i was so happy when i saw that one Cg of her and Mikado in my timeline, so genuinely ecstatic to see more of her after i thought her character done with since the events of Ch2. Can you magine how i felt after watching the character i adored so so much turn out to be a vile human being? I was genuinely so distraught man, i spent a good while being one of those people that ignored everything about the characters irl selves because that twist hurt me so damn much, but even then i was never able to look at that character the same way again, even now she just makes me feel bad.

And it's s not that i think Kokoro is the worst person to have ever existed, i like antagonist/villain characters who've done much worse than her, hell, I don't even think her character was absolutely ruined or anything. When i think about Mitsume nowadays i genuinely find her an interesting case of a good person with big plans who lacked a proper support system or even friends which led her down a path where she became cold and cruel without a semblance of care for her own family so long as she could work on her project, and seeing the difference between the Kokoro we see as a teen and her adult self just makes all of this even more heartbreaking. I still like her, is just that having my perception of this character be completely shattered when Ch0 came out permanently affected how i view her and as much as i still enjoy her character even now I can't help but simultaneously hate her for how she made me feel ❤️

[violetasteracademic]

might be totally random but I think you had mentioned once that you've read the daughter of no worlds. And I wanted your opinion on it and whether is worth a read or not. Because I've read the serpent of wings and night and I absolutely fell in love with it. But going into this I'm in a major reading slump and I need some help.

P.S: you're such a blessing to the elriel fandom with your writing and I couldn't have asked for better fics that fix the holes in my soul when it comes to my favorite couple. Please continue, your writing is a total work of art and inspired me to have the courage to write my own.

Helloooo my friend! Yes, that was me absolutely gushing over Daughter of No Worlds. It is one of my favorite series of all time and I have NO idea why it isn't more popular.

I must mention I have yet to finish Serpent and the Wings of Night! So it's difficult to compare- but from what I read (about 60% of the first book I want to say? I didn't finish it before my library hold ran out, and I never got around to getting back on the waitlist!) it was very different stylistically from DoNW. I found Daughter of No Worlds to be very soft and sweeping and utterly perfect in its romanticism, while still executing the heavy and darker themes and a simple but dreamy and effective magic system. You've encouraged me to pick Serpent and the Wings of Night back up and give it another try! DoNW swept me in from page one and I couldn't put it down. The Crowns of Nyaxia lagged a bit for me in comparison, and I didn't have that automatic *click* I got with her other work, but I genuinely think tonally and character wise they are two completely different books and like comparing apples to oranges. So if you give it a try, I'll be really looking forward to hear your thoughts! And I'll try Crowns of Nyaxia again!

Thank you so much for your unbelievably kind words regarding my Elriel pieces! That means so much to me. I will be honest, I had a difficult time recovering from seeing how nasty the fandom got and had effectively stopped writing. I was so bogged down and deeply affected by it. I genuinely wasn't sure if I even wanted to stay or finish my newest story. But I am feeling recovered, especially after so many kind messages like this, and am going to try to continue to focus on (hopefully) being a safe space for myself and others. A place to focus on our love and joy for Elriel, and of course a place that lifts its writers and artist! So thank you so much for this. Comments like this really help me feel inspired again and remember why we are writing for this fandom and what we hope to contribute.

I am so honored my pieces have given your heart some comfort, and I'm SO HECKIN PROUD you are feeling inspired to give it a try yourself! I can't wait to see what you come up with! And now for writing advice that no one asked for: Be patient and gentle with yourself. Remember that writing, like all crafts, is a skill. And while yes, some are inherently born with a general grasp, even the greatest writers dedicate time and effort to honing their craft. Let your mind flow without shame or judgement, and remember your work might not align with your taste for some time! (It took about ten years for me to feel really proud of my work, and even still I go insane when I create annoying plot holes or struggle to ground my characters behavior.)

Let everything inspire you. Journal. Write silly poems. Write about the way a single flower looks at different times of day. I still pull thoughts from old journals and diaries and work them into pieces now and then. When it comes to writing, everything is valuable. Every facet of the human experience, what we can see and feel and taste and smell, is valuable. Commit it to memory. Express it however feels truthful to you. Don't put too much pressure on yourself to immediately blow the world away with 100k perfect, polished, plot hole free story with well arced characters right away. Find the joy in the process!